Psalm 147:17

Psalm 147:17

Who can withstand His icy blast?

In Exodus 9:13-35 we read of the plague of hail that brought severe damage across Egypt. “Throughout Egypt hail struck everything growing in the fields and stripped every tree. The only place it did not hail was the land of Goshen, where the Israelites were.” V25-26. Notice that the destruction in Egypt was total, but this hailstorm was selective and Goshen, which is in eastern Egypt, was unaffected because the Israelites lived there. 

Is it wrong to surmise that some of the worst so-called natural disasters, hit those places that are not God-fearing but avoid other places that are? If this is so, these things cannot be blamed on the vagaries of the world’s climate. In Egypt’s case the storm was targeted. Psalm 78 describes this same scenario; “He destroyed their vines with hail and their sycamore-figs with sleet. He gave over their cattle to the hail, their livestock to bolts of lightning. He unleashed against them His hot anger, His wrath, indignation and hostility – a band of destroying angels. He prepared a path for His anger; He did not spare them from death but gave them over to the plague.” Psalm 78:47-50.

It would be wrong to point fingers or to make speculative judgements of others, but these verses do point out the possibility that there are bands of destroying angels that trouble certain places and influence the weather patterns. In which case we can forget about climate change and ask ourselves if what we see going on in our world in these days has far more serious origins!