This is a verbatim cut and paste from an interesting Blog called Last day Signs. Along with the usual end of the world proclamations, comes a historical riddle. This makes for a superb read, especially in light of the coming “Great Comet of 2013” expected to be brighter than the moon!

Comet Ison will light up the skies by November 2013. Looking closely at the Bible, could the ancient Middle East experienced their great floods and earthquakes due to solar activity? Lets explore this theme.

The question hangs, and begs for answers Could a comet or asteroid actually strike the earth,causing major harm to humanity? The Bible itself speaks of such events. The Scriptures record in a matter of fact way the terrible destruction caused to all life on earth due to a global flood – commonly referred to as ‘Noah’s Flood” (Genesis 6-8). What caused such a tremendous cataclysm? Of course, God Himself intervened, we are told, because of the mounting SINS of mankind. “The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. So God looked upon the earth, and indeed it was corrupt” (Gen.6:11-12).The Bible states that God saved only Noah and his family, and creatures of every species, aboard the Ark which He commanded Noah to build. This occurred 2348 B.C.

The next great cataclysm occurred 2247 B.C., when the Tower of Babel was destroyed in a heavenly blast (Gen.11:1-9). Ancient history records that when the tower was destroyed, there were great seismic changes in the earth, and the continents themselves were divided – driven apart by great geological forces – perhaps due to an encounter with a massive heavenly object and its gravitational pull. A man of that time was named “Peleg,” which means “division,” because “in his days the earth [itself] was divided” (Gen.10:25).

A third tremendous cataclysm which affected the entire planet occurred in 1491 B.C., when God sent ten devastating plagues upon ancient Egypt, and then led His people through the towering columns of the Red Sea in a mighty deliverance (Exodus 7-15). What great forces would cause an entire sea to rise up in towering walls of water, preparing a dry walkway for the children of Israel from shore to shore?

Forty years later, another tremendous interstellar event occurred. As Joshua fought the Canaanites in a final climactic battle, we read:

“And it happened, as they fled before Israel, and were on the descent of Beth
Horon, that the LORD cast down LARGE HAILSTONES FROM HEAVEN
On them as far as Akezah, and they died. There were more who died from the
HAILSTONES than the children of Israel killed with the sword” (Joshua 10:11).

It was at this time that Joshua stood before the Lord, and commanded the sun to stand still, and the moon, till the people had revenge on their enemies. The Word of God relates:

“So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and did not hasten to go down for
about a whole day. And there has been no day like it, before it or after it, that the
LORD heeded the voice of a man; for the LORD fought for Israel” (v.13-14).

These pulse-pounding events HAPPENED! They are not figments of mere human imagination or make-believe stories invented by ancient myth-makers or story tellers. God intervened for His people, Israel! The heavens themselves fought for Israel! Huge bolides, meteorites, and chunks of rock and debris from outer space smashed into their enemies, pulverizing them. The earth itself stopped in its diurnal rotation, and shuddered to a halt, causing the sun to appear to stand still in the sky, and the moon also.

What great force caused such events? Could the Most High God have used a huge comet, or a planet on a strange trajectory through the solar system, to cause the earth’s rotation to be interrupted for the space of a day? Could that huge body – perhaps a planet-sized object on a long elliptical orbit around the sun have come so close to the earth that electrical discharges and gravitational pulls and magnetic forces interacted, producing these awesome effects? Was that huge body accompanied by thousands of chunks of interstellar debris – rocks and chunks of ice from outer space – which then fell on the enemies of Israel?

The Comet of the Exodus

Immanuel Velikovsky, in his history-making, epochal book Worlds in Collision, written in 1950, gives the historical evidence that a giant comet appeared in the sky during the time of the Exodus. The ancients feared this blood-red apparition. Wrote Velikovsky:

“One of the places of the heavenly combat between elementary forces of nature as narrated by Apollodorus and Strabo – was on the way from Egypt to Syria. According to Herodotus, the final act of the fight between Zeus and Typhon took place at Lake Serbon on the coastal route from Egypt to Palestine. On the way from Egypt to Palestine the Israelites, after a night of terror and strong east wind, witnessed the upheaval of the day of the Passage. . . . [T]he spell-bound Israelites saw the upheaval of nature: darkness, hurricane, mountains of water, fire and smoke, recorded in the Greek legend as the circumstances in which the battle of Zeus with the dragon Typhon was fought. In the same pit of the sea lie the pharaoh and his hosts. Up to now I have identified Rahab-Typhon as a comet. But if Typhon lies on the bottom of the sea, is he not the pharaoh? This would mean that in the legend of Typhon two elements were welded together: the pharaoh, who perished in the catastrophe, and the outrageous rebel against Zeus, the lord of the sky.

“that Typhon brought in his train, and that therefore ‘the flight of Typhon is the Exodus of Moses from Egypt.’ In this he actually follows the passage transmittedby Plutarch. But since Typhon, according to Pliny and others, was a comet,Samuel Bochart was close to the conclusions at which we arrive, traveling along another route.”

What happened when this powerful comet came near the earth? Says Velikovsky:

“A phenomenon of great significance took place. The head of the comet did not
crash into the earth, but exchanged major electrical discharges with it. A tremendous spark sprang forth at the moment of the nearest approach of the comet, when the waters were heaped at their highest above the surface of the earth and before they fell down, followed by a rain of debris torn from the very body and tail of the comet” (Worlds in Collision,Immanuel Velikovsky, 1950, pages 81-85).
Velikovsky’s enormous research proves beyond doubt that the events surrounding the Exodus of the children of Israel out of Egypt were colossal in nature, stupendous in scope, and truly a miraculous deliverance. That incredible event – the rescuing of some 3-5 million people from abject servitude – was accompanied by strange phenomena in the heavens, including the appearance of a massive comet, a “doomsday star.” Very likely, as Velikovsky shows in Worlds in Collision, this star or comet or rogue planet, was involved in the incredible destruction which befell the greatest country in the world at that time.
Reversal of the Sun

An ancient Egyptian papyrus, the Papyrus Ipuwer, bears striking testimony confirming the “plagues” which befell Egypt at that time (A. H. Gardiner, Admonitions of an Egyptian Sage from a hieratic papyrus in Leiden, 1909). It states, “The river is blood” (compare with Exodus 7:20), confirming that the waters of the Nile became as blood. “Plague is throughout the land, blood is everywhere,” Ipuwer wrote. He also declared, “Trees are destroyed,” “No fruit, no herbs are found,” “Grain has perished on every side.” The land of Egypt was turned into a wasteland (compare Exo.9:25).
In the papyrus Ipuwer it also states, “the land turns round as does a potter’s wheel,” and, “The earth turned upside down.” In the Ermitage papyrus (Leningrad, 116b recto) it refers to a cataclysm that turns the “land upside down; happens that which never (yet) had happened.”
Similarly, the papyrus Harris speaks of a colossal upheaval when “the south becomes north, and the earth turns over” (Worlds in Collision, p.107). These are not mere figurative statements, but declarations of a great catastrophe which befell the world in the middle of the second millennium before Christ!
Egyptian records speak of the western sun, called Harakhte, which “riseth in the west” (Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt, III, sec. 18). Putting the evidence together, apparently the earth’s poles changed, north became south, and consequently the sun rose in the “west” for a time.
Could such a thing have occurred? Even Plato wrote of the prodigy! He declared, “I mean the change in the rising and setting of the sun and the other heavenly bodies, how in those times they used to set in the quarter where they now rise, and used to rise where they now set” Plato, The Statesman, p.49, 53).
The reversal of the sun was discussed by many ancient Greek authors, including a historical drama by Sophocles — “Zeus . . . changed the course of the sun, causing it to rise in the east and not in the west.” Euripides wrote, “the sun . . . turned backward” due to the wrath of Zeus (World’s in Collision, p.110).
Seneca described what the feeling of people was when these awesome events occurred. He wrote in Thyestes, of people seeing such events, and asking fearfully, “Have we of all mankind been deemed deserving that heaven, its poles uptorn, should overwhelm us? In our time, has the last day come?”
There are numerous references to the reversal of the sun’s movement from east to west to west to east in ancient sources, including China, Mexico, Syria, and the Eskimos in Greenland who told missionaries that the earth turned over. Bellamy, in Moons, Myths and Man, asserts, “The Chinese say that it is only since a new order of things has come about that the stars move from east to west.” A poem found in the Ugarit was found dedicated to the goddess Anat who “massacred the population of the Levant” and “exchanged the two dawns and the position of the stars” (C. Virolleaud, Mission de Ras Shamra, quoted by Velikovsky, op cit, page 112).
The ancient Indians of Mexico called the sun that moved eastward Teotl Lixco. They symbolized the changing direction of the sun’s travel as a celestial ball game accompanied by earthquakes and upheavals on the earth. The flip-flopping of the earth, north becoming south, would also explain the star chart in the ancient Egyptian tomb of Senmut, which pictures the stellar constellations of the northern sky as being in the southern sky. This may be what early Mexican Indians described as “driving away of the four hundred southern stars” (Seler, Gesammelte Abhandlungen, quoted in Worlds in Collision, p.113). Seler was perplexed by the ancient Mexican statement that the sun moved from west to east, but wrote that it “must be understood literally”!
Tractate Sanhedrin of the Talmud also speaks of this epochal event. We read in the Gemara, regarding Genesis 7:10 – “And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth” – that this was a very eventful period. Says the Gemara, “After seven – during the period of the flood, the Holy One, blessed be He, changed the natural order that had been established during the seven days of creation, so that the sun rose in the west, and set in the east” (Tractate Sanhedrin 108b).
Writes Velikovsky, “The Talmud and other ancient rabbinical sources tell of great disturbances in the solar movement at the time of the Exodus and the Passage of the Sea and the Lawgiving. In old Midrashim it is repeatedly narrated that four times the sun was forced out of its course in the few weeks between the day of the Exodus and the day of the Lawgiving” (p.116).
According to Egyptian annals, the sun rose in the west, then in the east, once again in the west, and again in the east, where it rises today.
Is another reversal coming in our time? Will the earth once again “turn over,” have its poles reversed, and undergo massive tectonic upheavals and paroxysms in our “end of days,” before or at the return of the Messiah? When the Messiah returns, He will “restore all things” as they were in the beginning (Acts 3:19-21).

Biblical Prophecy Enters the Picture

Immanuel Velikovsky’s trail-blazing research into ancient history has proven that there was a great comet associated with the Exodus of Israel out of Egypt. The heavenly visitor may have played a cosmic game of “ping pong” with the planets of the inner solar system. Orbits may have been interrupted, altered, awesome events and prodigies took place. Many of these events were recorded in Scripture – mountains leaping like lambs, and little hills like rams, volcanoes flowing lava at the presence of the “Lord.”

Will such events happen once again – in OUR lifetime?

Bible prophecy replies with an astounding “CERTAINLY SO!”

Scientists and astronomers cannot predict the future, or tell us when a “visitor” from outer space like a massive comet will once again bring havoc and ruin to the earth, and play a part in the end-time deliverance of the people of God. Despite the guessing game of scientists, however, we have “a more sure word of prophecy” which tells us that within the next 10 years the chances of the earth being “nailed” by a cosmic encounter with a comet or asteroid is virtually 100 per cent!

The apostle Peter writes, “We have also a more sure [certain] word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed” (II Pet.1:19). The prophet Amos also wrote, “Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets” (Amos 3:7). The Jewish Tanakh has this verse, “Indeed, my Lord GOD does nothing without having revealed His purpose to His servants the prophets.”

Peter writes about the dangerous heavens. He wrote, “But beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing [one thing which millions and billions of people are ignorant of, today!], that ONE DAY is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as ONE DAY” (II Pet.3:8). This same truth is alluded to in the Old Testament Scriptures. We read in the Psalms, “For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night” (Psalm 90:4).

“SIGNS in the Sun, Moon, and Stars”

During the time just preceding His return, and the Armageddon holocaust, Jesus Christ foretold: “But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened [dust in the atmosphere blotting out the light from the sun], and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars [asteroids, meteorites, comets — heavenly bodies from among the “stars”] shall fall, and the powers of the heaven shall be shaken” (Mark 13:24-25). Jesus said these conditions would occur just before His return, before the END of man’s rule of planet earth were expired (see Matt.24:1-3).

The apostle Luke adds, quoting Christ as saying, “And there shall be SIGNS in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity [confusion, madness]; the sea and the waves roaring [tremendous weather upsets, as we have already begun to experience these past few years!]; men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken” (Luke 21:25-26).

The prophet Haggai was inspired of God to write, “For thus saith the LORD of hosts; Yet once, it is a little while, and I will SHAKE THE HEAVENS, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land: And I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations [the much-awaited Messiah!] shall come: and I will fill this house [the end-time Temple of God, which the Jews are even now prepared to rebuild in Jerusalem!] with glory, saith the LORD of hosts” (Haggai 2:6-7).

Speaking of the orogenies and upheavals and massive maelstroms which are prophesied in the Scriptures to occur during the “last days,” the prophet Isaiah wrote:

“For the windows from on high are open, and the foundations of the earth are shaken.
The earth is violently broken, the earth is split open, the earth is shaken exceedingly,
the earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and shall totter like a hut; its transgression shall be heavy upon it, and it will fall and not rise again” (Isaiah 24:18-20).

What could cause even the earth to wobble and shake and reel and change its orbit, at least temporarily? A cosmic encounter with another celestial body – such as a huge comet, planet, or asteroid of huge proportions!

The prophet Amos predicted that in the ‘end time” a strange event would occur:

“And it shall come to pass in that day, says the Lord GOD, that I will make the SUN
GO DOWN AT NOON, and I will darken the earth in broad daylight” (Amos 8:9).

Joel also predicted strange anomalies in the heavens:

“And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth: Blood and fire and pillars
of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before
the coming of the great and awesome day of the LORD” (Joel 2:30-31).

Nahum also declares:

“The LORD has His way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of His feet. He rebukes the sea and makes it dry, and dries up all the rivers
. . . The mountains quake before Him, the hills melt, and the earth HEAVES [or, burns] at His presence, yes, the world and all who dwell in it” (Nahum 1:3-5).

Habakkuk points out that even the incredible prodigy of Joshua’s “Long Day” will once again be repeated in similar fashion:

“The mountains saw You and trembled; the overflowing of the water passed by. The
deep uttered its voice, and lifted its hands on high. The sun and moon stood still in
their habitation; at the light of Your arrows they went, at the shining of Your glittering
spear” (Habakkuk 3:10-11).

Food for thought.My take? Comet ISON will perplex us all.By Thanksgiving, it will meet with the sun,and survive perihelion, but only for a day, then shatter. I know this puts me in a camp of one, since some believe it will be bigger than 15 moons, and others believe it will not even get to perihelion.I expect this year will see many meteors and more are coming.Greece, Mexico, etc……Thomas