Last week, there were surprising headlines in UK media which spoke of corroborating biblical facts, with the Daily Mail writing of the “Evidence of a 2,800-year-old biblical earthquake” being found in Israel¹. Even the Sun wrote of the archaeology that “helped to substantiate the Biblical account.”²

Multiple news agencies in Israel also had picked up the recent discovery of evidence corroborating biblical history from the 8th century BC on the eastern slope of the ancient city of Jerusalem. The remains of several houses dating from that period had been under investigation. Joe Uziel and Ortal Chalaf, excavation directors on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, said “When we excavated the structure and uncovered an 8th century BCE layer of destruction, we were very surprised, because we know that Jerusalem continued to exist in succession until the Babylonian destruction, which occurred about 200 years later”.³ In a forthcoming research paper, they reported that in one particular house the destruction layer did not show signs of fire, yet other factors suggested the building had been damaged in a traumatic event, apparently an earthquake. “This was most notable on the earliest floor of the southernmost room,” they write, “In this room, a row of smashed vessels was uncovered along its northern wall, above which fallen stones had been found. It appears that these stones were the upper part of the walls of the room, which had collapsed, destroying the vessels which had been set along the wall.”⁴ The vessels ranged from small jugs to large storage jars. There seems to have been little hesitation in the experts themselves attributing the damage to the earthquake foretold in Amos and recalled in Zechariah 14:5.Some of the in-situ smashed pottery (Photo credit: Eliyah Yannai, IAA, endnote 2)

Building upon other evidence

Though this is the first time that such evidence has been found in the ancient city of Jerusalem, evidence of the ‘Amos’ earthquake had been building for some time. Originally predicted two years in advance (Amos 1:1) in the eighth verse of chapter 8, “Shall not the land tremble for this, and everyone mourn who dwells in it? All of it shall swell like the river, heave and subside like the River of Egypt”, its actual occurrence appears in Josephus’ much later description of the events surrounding King Uzziah’s usurping of the priestly burning of incense recorded in 2 Chronicles 26: “… a great earthquake shook the ground, and a rent was made in the temple, and the bright rays of the sun shone through it, and fell upon the king's face, insomuch that the leprosy seized upon him immediately; and before the city, at a place called Eroge [En Rogel], half the mountain broke off from the rest on the west, and rolled itself four furlongs, and stood still at the east mountain, till the roads, as well as the king's garden, were spoiled by the obstruction.”⁵ This dates the earthquake’s effects at about 750 BC in Biblical chronology, the point at which Jotham had to assume the monarchy, following his father’s isolation due to leprosy.

Biblical description fits modern understanding

Ruins at En HazevaRemarkably, the second part of the predictive verse from Amos 8 accurately fits our modern understanding of earthquakes: seismic waves, “also called ground roll, are surface waves that travel as ripples with motions that are similar to those of waves on the surface of water”.⁶ Furthermore, early in the 20th century, the geographer Sir George Adam Smith identified landslip debris on the south-western slope of the Mount of Olives, corresponding to the location in Zechariah 14, which was confirmed as earthquake debris by Israeli geologists in 1984.⁷ Elsewhere in Israel, since 1955 archaeologists have been finding evidence of tilted walls, leaning pillars and fractured masonry associated with mid-8th-century ruins, from Hazor in the North, through Gezer in the centre, to En Hazeva in the South. Estimates of the quake’s magnitude range from 7.8 to 8.2 on the Richter scale, with its epicentre located northwest of Damascus.⁸

Additionally, a sediment core from the Dead Sea has revealed seismically-disturbed layers dated to 750 BC,10 confirming not only the archaeological dating, but also the Biblical chronology.

Evidence for future earthquake at Jesus’ return

Zechariah’s 14th-chapter reference to the ‘Amos’ earthquake is in the context of a further prophecy, as yet unfulfilled. That earthquake is used in verse 5 as an illustration of a larger one that is still to come. In verses 3 to 5 the Lord reveals that at a time when all nations are gathered to fight against Jerusalem, “His feet shall stand upon the Mount of Olives, which faces Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives shall be split in two, from east to west, making a large valley; half of the mountain shall move toward the north and half of it toward the south”. Significantly, during excavations for the then Jordanian government in 1964 to prepare for a new hotel to be built on the Mount of Olives, an east-west geological fault-line was discovered, as shown below, resulting in the planned hotel’s relocation (now the ‘Seven Arches Hotel).Zechariah 14:4 map of fault line As an offset from the main north/south Rift Valley boundary between the African and Arabian Plates, this fault is under northward strain, as the Arabian Plate (east of the Rift) moves north at an estimated rate of about 4.5 millimetres per year, relative to the African Plate.¹¹ This makes it likely that eventually northward displacement will occur, followed by a lesser southward rebound as the accumulated strain is released. As the major strain zone lies to the east of the Mount of Olives, even the prophetic detail of splitting “from east to west” is striking.

Christians have long seen this passage as referring to the promised return of the Lord Jesus to the very site from which he ascended, as promised by the angels: “This same Jesus … will so come in like manner as you saw him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11, NKJV). As we see more signs of the approaching end of days, let us be assured of the security of that promise, linked as it is with the prophecies given to Amos and to Zechariah, one fulfilled and the other yet to be. And as we prayerfully watch, let us cry with the Apostles Paul and John, “Maranatha”, Come, Lord Jesus! Let’s also heed the injunctions of Hebrews 10:23 to 25: “… hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering … consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together … exhorting one another, as so much the more as you see the day approaching”.

Notes

¹Evidence of a 2,800-year-old biblical earthquake is found in Jerusalem | Daily Mail Online, 4th August 2021
²Biblical earthquake that rocked Jerusalem 2,800 years ago DID happen as experts uncover 'layer of destruction' in ruins | The Sun, 5 August 2021
³Evidence of biblical earthquake from days of King Uzziah found in Jerusalem for first time | All Israel News, 05 Aug 2021
⁴Archaeologists unearth 1st Jerusalem evidence of quake from Bible's Book of Amos | The Times of Israel, 04 Aug 2021
⁵Antiquities of the Jews, 9:10:4
⁶https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seismic_wave#Surface_waves accessed 9 Nov 2019
⁷Daniel Wachs & Dov Levitte (1984), Earthquakes in Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives Landslide. Israel – Land and Nature 9/3: 118-121
⁸The Scientific and Scriptural Impact of Amos' Earthquake | The Institute for Creation Research (icr.org) 01 Feb 2010
⁹Photo credit: Dan Maclerran Amos’s Earthquake: A Mountain of Evidence - Watch Jerusalem
¹⁰ Austin, S.A., G. W. Franz, and E. G. Frost. 2000. Amos's Earthquake: An extraordinary Middle East seismic event of 750 B.C. International Geology Review. 42 (7): 657-671.
¹¹Dead Sea Transform – Wikipedia based on: Paolo Galli, JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, 1999: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1029; accessed 30 Jan 2021