That eartliquakes were among the extraordinary phenomena of Palestine in ancient times is sliown in their being an element in the poetical imagery of the ]lel>re\vs, and a source of religious admonition and devout emotion. An earthquake, when great, over- turns and clianges the surfiice of the earth, subverting mountains, hills, and rocks, sinking some parts, eleva- ting others, altering the course of rivers, making ponds and lakes on drj' lands, and drying up those that al- ready existed ; and is tlierefore a proper symbol of great revolutions or changes in the government or po- litical world (Hel). xii, 26). See Wemyss, Symbolical Diet. s. V. In Psalm xviii, 7, we read, " Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations also of the hills moved and were shaken, because he was wroth" (comp. Hab. iii, G; Nah. i, 5; Isa. v, 25). It was not an unnatural transition that any signal display of the will, sovereigntj', or goodness of Providence should be foretold in connection with, and accompanied as by other signs in the heavens above' or on the earth be- low, so by earthquakes and their fearful concomitants (see Joel ii, 28 ; Matt, xxiv, 7, 29). Earthquakes are not iinfrequently attended with fissures of the earth's surface ; instances of this are recorded in connection with the destruction of Korah and his companj'' (Num. xvi, 32 ; comp. Josephus, A7it. iv, 3, 3), and at the time of our Lord's doatii (^latt. xxvii, 51) ; the former may be paralleled b}' a similar occurrence at Oppido, in Ca- labria, A.D. 1783, where the earth opened to the ex- tent of 500 and a depth of more than 200 feet, and again by the sinking of the bed of the Tagus at Lis- bon, in wliich tlie quay was swallowed up (PfafF, Schdpfnngsgesch. jj. 115). These depressions are some- times on a very large scale ; the subsidence of the val- leys of Siddim, at the southern extremity of the Dead Sea, may be attributed to an earthquake. Similar de- pressions have occurred in many districts, the most re- markable l)eingthe submersion and subsequent re-ele- vation of the temple of Serapis at Puteoli. The fre- quency of earthcjuakes about the Dead Sea is testified in the name Bela (Gen. xiv, 2; comp. Jerome ad Isa. xv). See Sodom. The awe which an earthquake never fails to inspire, "conveying the idea of some universal and unlimited danger" (Humboldt's Kosmos, i, 212), rendered it a fitting token of the presence of Jehovah (1 Kings xix, 11) ; hence it is frequently no- ticed in connection with his appearance (Judg. v, 4 ; 2 Sam. xxii,8; Psa. Ixxvii, 18 ; xcvii,-!; civ, 32 ; Amos viii, 8 ; Hab. iii, 10). Earthquakes, together with thun- der, lightning, and other fearful phenomena of nature, form no small portion of the stock of materials which the interpreters of the German rationalistic school em- ploy with no less liberality than confidence in order to explain after their manner events recorded in the Scriptures which have been commonly referred to the immediate agency of God. Hezel, Paulus, and other miracle -exploders would, but for this resource, find their ''occupation gone." But, if there is reason for the statement that truth is sometimes stranger than fiction, it may with equal propriety I>e observed that their " natural" causes are most unnatural, unlikely, and insufficient. See Miracles.
The first visitation of the kind recorded as having happened to Palestine was in the reign of Ahab (about B.C. 905), when Elijah (1 Kings xix, 11, 12) was di- rected to go forth and stand upon the mountain before Jehovah : "And bcliold Jehovah passed by, and a great and strong wind rent tlie mountains, and brake in pieces the roclcs before Jehovah ; but Jehovah was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthnuake; but
Jehovah was not in the earthquake : and after the eartliquake a fire ; but Jehovali was not in the fire : and after the fire a still small voice." A terrible earthquake took place " in the days of Uzziah, king of Judali" (B.C. 7Sl), which Josepluis {Ant. ix, 10, 4) says " shook the ground, and a rent was made in the Temple, so that the raj'S of the sun shone througli it, which, falling upon the king's face, struck him with the leprosj'," a punishment which the historian as- scribes to the wrath of God consequent on Uzziah's us.urpation of the priest's office. That this earthquake was of an awful character may be learned from the fact that Zechariah (xiv, 5) thus speaks respecting it : " Ye shall flee as ye fled from before tlie earthquake in the daj'B of Uzziah, king of Judah:" and it likewise appears from Amos (i, 1) that the event was so strik- ing, and left such deep impressions on men's minds, as to become a sort of epoch from which to date and reckon; the prophet's words are, "two years before the earthquake." See Uzziah. From Zech. xiv, 4 we are led to infer that a great convulsion took place at this time in the Mount of Olives, the mountain be- ing split so as to leave a valle}' between its summits. Josephus records something of the sort, but his account is by no means clear, for his words (jov upovi: awop- payijvai to i'uuav too Kara ti]v ovaii') can hardly mean the u-estern half of the mountain, as Whiston seems to think, but the half of the uestern mountain, i. e. of the Mount of Evil Counsel, thougii it is not clear whj' this height particularly should I)e termed the u-estern mountain. We cannot but think that the two accounts have the same foundation, and that the Mount of Olives was really affected bj' the earthquake. Hit- zig (Comm. in Zech.) suggests that the name IHTI'iIjPj ^'' corruption,^'' may have originated at this time, the rolling down of the side of the hill, as described l)y Jo- sephus, entitling it to be described as the desti'oijing mountain, in the sense in which the term occurs in Jer. li, 25. Sec AzAL.