Will the world see another nuclear bomb?

Does Zechariah 14 predict a nuclear holocaust?


The graphic descriptions in this ancient prophesy seems increasingly possible


By Jimmy Evans

Aug 27, 2020

The residents of Hiroshima, Japan, were just beginning their morning routine when the world’s first atomic bomb flattened the sprawling city. The immediate explosion killed 70,000 people instantly. By December, the casualties had doubled due to radiation.


August 6, 2020, marked the seventy-fifth anniversary of this event, now referred to as “the dawn of the atomic age.” At a ceremony reflecting on the bombing, Hiroshima mayor Kazumi Matsui urged the rest of the world to take seriously the need for nuclear disarmament. Unfortunately, his warnings have fallen on deaf ears.


In the decades since Hiroshima and Nagasaki were leveled, enough nuclear weapons have been developed to annihilate the planet many times over. If all 15,000 of the world’s warheads were to detonate simultaneously, hundreds of millions (if not billions) would die within the first hour. This would be followed by a nuclear winter, shrouding the earth in darkness for perhaps hundreds of years, endangering all of human existence.


Together, America and Russia together possess 92 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons. Other nuclear countries—China, France, the UK, Pakistan, India, and Israel—also have enough of these weapons to devastate the planet. I’ve written before about Iran’s continued pursuit of nuclear weapons.


Does Zechariah 14 predict a nuclear holocaust?
The world’s nuclear capacity could have tremendous relevance for the way our present age comes to an end. Consider, for instance, this passage in Zechariah 14. Pay special attention to verse 12.


Behold, the day of the Lord is coming,
And your spoil will be divided in your midst.
2 For I will gather all the nations to battle against Jerusalem;
The city shall be taken,
The houses rifled,
And the women ravished.
Half of the city shall go into captivity,
But the remnant of the people shall not be cut off from the city.


3 Then the Lord will go forth
And fight against those nations,
As He fights in the day of battle.
4 And in that day His feet will stand on 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 very large valley;
Half of the mountain shall move toward the north
And half of it toward the south.


5 Then you shall flee through My mountain valley,
For the mountain valley shall reach to Azal.
Yes, you shall flee
As you fled from the earthquake
In the days of Uzziah king of Judah.


Thus the Lord my God will come,
And all the saints with You.


6 It shall come to pass in that day
That there will be no light;
The lights will diminish.
7 It shall be one day
Which is known to the Lord—
Neither day nor night.
But at evening time it shall happen
That it will be light.


8 And in that day it shall be
That living waters shall flow from Jerusalem,
Half of them toward the eastern sea
And half of them toward the western sea;
In both summer and winter it shall occur.
9 And the Lord shall be King over all the earth.
In that day it shall be—
“The Lord is one,”
And His name one.


10 All the land shall be turned into a plain from Geba to Rimmon south of Jerusalem. Jerusalem shall be raised up and inhabited in her place from Benjamin’s Gate to the place of the First Gate and the Corner Gate, and from the Tower of Hananel to the king’s winepresses.


11 The people shall dwell in it;
And no longer shall there be utter destruction,
But Jerusalem shall be safely inhabited.


12 And this shall be the plague with which the Lord will strike all the people who fought against Jerusalem:


Their flesh shall dissolve while they stand on their feet,
Their eyes shall dissolve in their sockets,
And their tongues shall dissolve in their mouths.


13 It shall come to pass in that day
That a great panic from the Lord will be among them.
Everyone will seize the hand of his neighbor,
And raise his hand against his neighbor’s hand;
14 Judah also will fight at Jerusalem.
And the wealth of all the surrounding nations
Shall be gathered together:
Gold, silver, and apparel in great abundance.


15 Such also shall be the plague
On the horse and the mule,
On the camel and the donkey,
And on all the cattle that will be in those camps.
So shall this plague be.


16 And it shall come to pass that everyone who is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. 17 And it shall be that whichever of the families of the earth do not come up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, on them there will be no rain. 18 If the family of Egypt will not come up and enter in, they shall have no rain; they shall receive the plague with which the Lord strikes the nations who do not come up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. 19 This shall be the punishment of Egypt and the punishment of all the nations that do not come up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles.


20 In that day “HOLINESS TO THE LORD” shall be engraved on the bells of the horses. The pots in the Lord’s house shall be like the bowls before the altar. 21 Yes, every pot in Jerusalem and Judah shall be holiness to the Lord of hosts. Everyone who sacrifices shall come and take them and cook in them. In that day there shall no longer be a Canaanite in the house of the Lord of hosts.


In this passage, the phrase, “in that day,” is used seven times—a number which, throughout Scripture, represents God’s number of completion. Each refers back to “the day of the Lord” in verse 1. In its entirety, this passage details the coming of Jesus to rescue the Jewish saints who’ve endured the Great Tribulation (Zechariah 14:4-5), to judge the enemies of Israel (14:1, 3, 12-15), and to establish His Millennial kingdom on the earth (14:7-11, 16-21).


The Day of the Lord
The chapter moves back-and-forth between these three realities—rescue, judgment, establishment—but I’d like to zero-in on the second one: judgment.


When the Old Testament prophets talk about the Day of the Lord, one of their most prominent themes involves the nations gathering for battle against Israel. The vivid scene in this passage portrays troops from all over the world coming up against Jerusalem, probably through the Plain of Jezreel. (This is also known as the Valley of Megiddo. Our modern word armageddon comes from that name).


These soldiers commit atrocities—raping the women and enslaving others (14:2). But just at the moment when all hope is lost, Jesus is “revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire, taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and who do not obey the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Thessalonians 1:7-8, Zechariah 14:4).


The Book of Revelation depicts these enemies as perishing “by the sword that came from the mouth of Him who was sitting on the [white] horse…” (Revelation 19:21). This seems like an odd image, but the sword in Jesus’s mouth at the Second Coming represents judgment by the Word of God that testifies against them.


Zechariah 14:12 offers us a different image, however. It’s even more graphic:


“And this shall be the plague with which the Lord will strike all the people who fought against Jerusalem:


Their flesh shall dissolve while they stand on their feet,
Their eyes shall dissolve in their sockets,
And their tongues shall dissolve in their mouths.”


While it’s entirely possible that the return of Jesus will accomplish this “plague” without any human hand, it is also hard to ignore the possibility that Zechariah is describing some form of nuclear judgment. After all, “Judah also will fight at Jerusalem” when the Lord returns (Zechariah 14:14).


Designed to destroy life
Despite coming from the perspective and language of an ancient prophet, the image of dissolving flesh, eyes, and tongue seem to predict the effects of neutron bomb radiation. Neutron bombs are a “third-generation” nuclear warhead, designed “to maximize lethal neutron radiation in the immediate vicinity of the blast while minimizing the physical power of the blast itself.”


In other words, neutron bombs are designed to destroy life, not buildings.


This is exactly what we see in Zechariah 14. After God’s people flee the city (14:4-5), a plague destroys all human life with maximum firepower (14:12).


And it’s not just human life that’s destroyed:


Such also shall be the plague
On the horse and the mule,
On the camel and the donkey,
And on all the cattle that will be in those camps.
So shall this plague be.—Zechariah 14:15


So, humans and animals are destroyed by the blast, but somehow the physical city of Jerusalem thrives immediately afterward, like never before (Zechariah 14:16-21).


Realistically, nobody wants to destroy the physical city of Jerusalem because the Temple Mount is sacred to both Muslims and Jews. A neutron bomb that destroys all living things, while leaving the city intact, would align perfectly with Zechariah’s prophesy.


I am not saying that I necessarily believe it will happen like this. I’m simply saying that the ancient biblical description fits with this potential scenario.


The dawn of the atomic age could very well spell the end of our present age. But that’s no reason to fear. Because the end of this age means the dawn of a new one—a golden age for the people of God during the Millennial Reign of Jesus Christ:


8 And in that day it shall be
That living waters shall flow from Jerusalem,
Half of them toward the eastern sea
And half of them toward the western sea;
In both summer and winter it shall occur.
9 And the Lord shall be King over all the earth.
In that day it shall be—
“The Lord is one,”
And His name one.—Zechariah 14:8-9


It’s fascinating to see the way events foretold thousands of years ago are becoming distinct possibilities in our generation.