Thunder
I have marvelled at many a storm—the flashes of lightning can be exciting and beautiful in their way, and the thunder can be frightening and sobering. Some of the best I saw were in the Midwest and in the Mid-Atlantic States region of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. On the East Coast I saw dark and purple-black clouds roll in low overhead, accompanied by thunder and lightning. What an awesome sight, and the sound was practically deafening! Job also took note of the meaning of thunder and lightning—much more than mere accidental light and sound:
He thunders with His majestic voice, and He does not restrain the lightnings when His voice is heard. God thunders with His voice wondrously, doing great things which we cannot comprehend. For to the snow He says, “Fall on the earth,” and to the downpour and the rain, “Be strong.” He seals the hand of every man, that all men may know His work. Then the beast goes into its lair and remains in its den. Out of the south comes the storm, and out of the north the cold. From the breath of God ice is made, and the expanse of the waters is frozen. Also with moisture He loads the thick cloud; He disperses the cloud of His lightning. It changes direction, turning around by His guidance, that it may do whatever He commands it on the face of the inhabited earth. (Job 37:4b-12, NASB)
In the King James Version, this passage goes on to say that “He causeth it to come, whether for correction, or for his land, or for mercy.” (Job 37:13) This means that God commands the clouds to change direction according to His guidance, giving soft rain and good crops for mercy where He will; giving hard rain and floods for correction where He will; and giving no clouds and famine for correction where He will. Shifting clouds and correction and mercy: The story in the sky and in the moisture-laden clouds is not just a passive panorama suggesting ever so gently that we might consider God and His ways if we have the time and inclination; but rather the story in the sky and in the moisture-laden clouds is as an extension of God’s creative hand, an active reminder that we are small and indeed part of God’s creation, that just as He sent sent a pillar of fire to save the Israelites from the pursuing Egyptian pharoah, so too He can move His clouds and storms around to chasten or to delight His created people.
The LORD can bring His thunder right down on top of people as part of a punishment, beyond correction. For instance, in 1 Samuel 2:10 we read that “The adversaries of the LORD shall be broken to pieces; out of heaven shall he thunder upon them: the LORD shall judge the ends of the earth; and he shall give strength unto his king, and exalt the horn of the anointed.” (KJV) Punishing thunders will be a part of the end-time turmoil surrounding the battle of Armageddon:
And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon. And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done. And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great. And the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell: and great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give unt her the cuip of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath. And every iisland fled away, and the mountains were not found. And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven every stone about the weight of a talent: and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail; for the plague thereof was exceeding great. (Revelation 16:16-21, KJV)
Indeed, the great whore of Babylon will be judged amidst voices from heaven, thunders and lightnings, and an earthquake so massive that it seems to defy description—this for her fornication with the kings of the earth; for her making earth’s inhabitants drunk on the wine of her fornication; for her getting drunk, as it were, on the blood of the saints and on the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. This great whore of Babylon is that great city that reigns over the kings of the earth. (Revelation 17)