The earth shall mourn; and even the fishes of the sea.

by Alejandro Roque Glez.

“For the Lord Yahweh has a controversy with the inhabitants of the earth…  Therefore shall the earth mourn… the fishes of the sea also shall be taken away.”

(Hosea 4:1-3)

This is a prophecy that looks to the End of Time, before the Advent of Jesus, when the earth is suffering afflictions like never before (Mt 24:21).

The prophets of God, in all ages, went back into the events to occur in later centuries, so in one way or another they foretold about that Final Judgment which would one day come upon all inhabitants of the earth. In such a Day we will have to give accounts to the Son of God on our deeds and contempt or love for the work of God, the supreme expression of which is the redemptive work of Jesus Christ on the cross at Golgotha (Mt 25:31-46).

When we look and see that these men of God have written in different centuries and times, and all them agreed––inspired by the Holy Spirit––in relation to the coming events, and not just related to the history of the Jewish nation in particular, but the intertwined ones with what would happen to Empires and all mankind as a whole; already this should move us to take them seriously.

A fact is that man is composed of soul, spirit and physical matter; it reveals that we are part––spiritual––of a world that cannot be seen, but yet we know that exists because we are living (otherwise we were as a piece of wood: physical), and God has conclusively shown about the soul is not something that can be destroyed using conventional means; thus physical death would not end the fates and consequences that produce our decisions––conscious or unconscious––in regarding our entry into eternity. God should have been revealed to man somehow, not just mysteriously to a privileged group, but viewed in front of humanity, showing his character and Verb.

That Verb made flesh and who dwelt among us, sharing our ups and downs and everyday routines (Jn 1:1-18) declared man the way and meaning of our existence and the opportunities that exist to link the physical and spiritual life, in a core reinstated through the resurrection, and by reaching this way eternal happiness; on pain of avoiding perpetual damnation.

In the Temple of Jerusalem the tribe of Levi––the priests––stood guard at different night shifts. The priest in charge of ensuring that each of the Levites honorably occupied their vigilant post, inspected and checked all of them in a  systematized overnight round. If while on your post you were caught sleeping, the chief priest had the power to kindle your garments (clothes), and so the fire will wake you up and surely come back to task not infringing again on the important matter of ensuring the things related to God.

Sometimes we do not understand the Holy Scriptures because such customs existed at different epochs, but it is due to this reason that is revealed in Revelation the admonition about that “which have not defiled their garments” (Rev 3:2-5), “… snatch others from the fire and save them; to others show mercy, mixed with fear—hating even the clothing…” (Jude 23); that is to say, the garments, clothes, were a sign that you had fulfilled your honorably duty as a watchman of God (during the temple guard in this case). If your clothes were pinned under fire, not only you would have to go through the shame as everybody making fun of you, but possibly you could also be defrocked, expelled from the priesthood.

Here the prophet Hosea definitely warns us about in that day: “Yahweh has a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land. By swearing, and lying, and killing,and stealing, and committing adultery, they break out, and blood touches blood. Therefore shall the earth mourn, and every one that dwells therein shall languish” (v.1-3).

(If interested you can read the author's book entitled: 'Revelation of Saint John. Interpretation of the Book.' Also the literary novel: 'The Great Peacemaker from Hell,' which recreates in a narrative form the final events, now very close)

[These and other Old Testament prophecies are explicatively compiled in the author's book entitled: 'Minor Prophets of the Old Testament;' in print and digital editions]

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