An earthquake measuring 3.6 on the Richter scale was recorded by the Geological Survey of Israel (GSI) in northern Israel on Sunday, less than 24 hours after an earthquake measuring 3.8 shook the area on Saturday.
A magnitude 2.9 tremor was also recorded by the GSI on Saturday. The Euro-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) recorded the Saturday quake as a magnitude 4.1 and the Sunday quake as a magnitude 3.9. The epicenters of both quakes were located slightly south of the Kinneret. According to residents’ reports, the second earthquake was felt in Tiberias, Kiryat Shmona, Beit She’an, and Haifa.
As terrifying as earthquakes can be, there may be a silver lining to an increase in regional seismic activity. In a 2007 article in the J-Post, Dr. Shmuel Marco, Head of the School of the Environment and Earth Sciences at Tel Aviv University, noted that prophets became active a certain number of years after major earthquakes. Major earthquakes were recorded in the Jordan Valley in the years 31 BCE, 363 CE, 749 CE, and 1033 CE.
“So roughly,” wrote Marco, “we are talking about an interval of every 400 years. If we follow the patterns of nature, a major quake should be expected at any time because almost a whole millennium has passed since the last strong earthquake.” Dr. Marco went so far as to attribute Joshua’s victory at Jericho to divinely directed seismic interference.
“The destruction of the walls of the city and the damming of the river, as described in Joshua 6:1-16, is generally agreed by most archeologists to be the result of an earthquake, possibly on the Jericho Fault,” Dr.Marco wrote. Dr. Marco’s theory is certainly consistent with the Prophets Amos and Zechariah whose periods of prophecy were expressly oriented around a major earthquake.
