On Friday morning, 10:23 AM local time, a 5.0 earthquake shook Natanz city in the central Iranian province of Isfahan.
The earthquake occurred at a depth of 10 kilometers, Director General of Crisis Management Department of Isfahan Governor Office Mansour Glass Shisheforoush said. “The earthquake caused buildings in central Natanz County to shake, and people took to the streets and open spaces,” he added, noting that ten search and rescue teams were dispatched to the epicenter. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
Six aftershocks followed the earthquake.
The Isfahan Nuclear Technology Center “is Iran’s largest nuclear research complex and employs approximately 3,000 scientists,” according to the Washington-based Nuclear Threat Initiative.
Rabbi Eyal Riess, founder and director of Tzfat Kabbalah Center, noted that the timing was most significant.
“In Hebrew, the word for ‘beepers’ (ביפרים) is almost exactly the word for ‘in Purim’,” Rabbi Riess noted. “We are seeing the continuation of the holiday. On Purim, the Jews had to stand up and fight Amalek, seemingly without Divine aid. But later, in Pesach, the Jews don’t have to lift a finger. God wiped out the Egyptians without us lifting a finger.”
“That is the way this war began. It started with Israel performing what looked like miracles with the beepers, but then we had to fight. But Syria fell without Israel having to fire a single shot.”
“God does this to remind us that the lower worlds were also created as His dwelling place, even though he is less evident. The function of the Jews is to remind the nations of this. Sometimes, it is a harsh lesson.”
Iran is one of the most seismically active countries in the world, being crossed by several major faults that cover at least 90% of the country. As a result, earthquakes in Iran occur often and are destructive. Iran is well known for its long history of disastrous earthquake activity.
Since 1900, at least 126,000 fatalities have resulted from earthquakes in Iran. The two most deadly were the Tabas-e-Golshan earthquake of 16 September 1978 and the Rudbar-Tarom earthquake of June 1990. They were the most catastrophic earthquakes to have occurred in Persia to date in the 20th century.
The 1978 earthquake destroyed or severely damaged about ninety villages, slightly damaged another fifty villages in the region, and completely demolished the oasis town of Tabas-e-Golshan, where 85 percent of the inhabitants (11,000 out of 13,000) perished. Total fatalities were more than 20,000 with thousands injured. It affected an area of 1,130,000 square kilometers and destroyed over 15,000 housing units.
That deadly catastrophe coincided with the height of the Iranian revolution that brought down the Pahlavi Dynasty, the last Persian royal dynasty, ending more than 1,500 years of uninterrupted rule by a Persian monarchy.
Earthquakes in Iran seem to target its nuclear program. The Rudbar-Tarom earthquake, the largest in this century to affect an urban area in the region, killed over 40,000 people, injured 60,000, and left more than 500,000 homeless. Though this earthquake predated the nuclear deal brokered by President Obama, it did mark a milestone in the Iranian nuclear program. It was in 1990 that Iran signed a ten-year nuclear cooperation agreement with China. This allowed them to rebuild the damaged Bushehr nuclear power plant. Work had been stopped in 1978 due to the Iranian Revolution, and the site had been targeted and damaged during the Iran-Iraq War. The plant began operations in 2011 but has been shaken many times by earthquakes.
In April 2021, a magnitude 5.9 earthquake hit Bushehr, where a major nuclear power plant is located. Iranian authorities claimed the nuclear power plant was undamaged, but it was shut down for unspecified repairs.
In April 2016, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Bahram Qasemi told reporters in a weekly meeting in Tehran that Israel was doomed. Two days later, which happened to be Israel’s Independence Day, the Iranian nuclear reactor was hit by an earthquake.
In November, a magnitude 4.4 earthquake struck Aradan County in Semnan Province, Northern Iran, last month, just a few days after Iran launched its second attack against Israel. This led some to speculate that the seismic activity was part of the war between Iran and Israel.
While it is doubtful that Friday’s earthquake resulted from an Iranian thermonuclear device, it may be attributable to an end-of-day process. The prophets explicitly mention earthquakes and volcanoes as playing a role in the end of days, preparing the world by burning away impurities, as a crucible is used in metallurgy to purify metal.
But Hashem God is the true God, He is the living God, and the everlasting King; at His wrath the earth trembleth, and the nations are not able to abide His indignation. Jeremiah 10:10
The Prophet Ezekiel described earthquakes as preceding the pre-messiah multinational War of Gog and Magog.
Mountains shall be overthrown, cliffs shall topple, and every wall shall crumble to the ground. Ezekiel 38:2
Some rabbis have attributed this pre-Magog shake-up to God entering into the fray, using the forces of nature as his weapons of choice. Iran is considered a probable participant in the pre-Messiah War of Gog and Magog. The Zohar Chadash (Ruth 59) claims that earthquakes transpire when God gazes down at that specific part of the earth.
Rabbi Yosef Berger, the rabbi of King David’s Tomb on Mount Zion in Jerusalem, noted that natural manifestations of divine intervention serve a specific purpose in connection to Israel.
“It is the function of Israel to show the world that God is still active in the world,” Rabbi Berger told Israel365 News.“Many people believe in God and even believe that God created the world. But most of them don’t believe that God acts directly in the world in relation to our actions.”
“The prophets describe a new reality that will be evident in the time of the geula (redemption),” Rabbi Berger said. “Of course, nothing happens in the world without God’s intervention. But in the end-of-days, this connection between natural events and God’s purpose will be so clear as to be undeniable.”
Rabbi Pinchas Winston, an end-of-day expert, believes that as times go on, such events indicating divine intervention in mundane events will become more prevalent.
“In the later stages of the geula (redemption) the mixture of miracle and nature will increase to the point where it will become so clear it will be undeniable,” Rabbi Winston said. “You can’t conclusively say anything is hashgacha pratit (divine intervention). But the people who are prepared to look at the big picture will be able to connect the dots in a way that makes more sense than trying to explain everything in strictly natural terms.”
Rabbi Yosef Berger, the rabbi of King David’s Tomb on Mount Zion in Jerusalem, noted that natural manifestations of divine intervention serve a specific purpose in connection to Israel.
“It is the function of Israel to show the world that God is still active in the world,” Rabbi Berger told Israel365 News.“Many people believe in God and even believe that God created the world. But most of them don’t believe that God acts directly in the world in relation to our actions.”
“The prophets describe a new reality that will be evident in the time of the geula (redemption),” Rabbi Berger said. “Of course, nothing happens in the world without God’s intervention. But in the end-of-days, this connection between natural events and God’s purpose will be so clear as to be undeniable.”
Rabbi Pinchas Winston, an end-of-day expert, believes that as times go on, such events indicating divine intervention in mundane events will become more prevalent.
“In the later stages of the geula (redemption) the mixture of miracle and nature will increase to the point where it will become so clear it will be undeniable,” Rabbi Winston said. “You can’t conclusively say anything is hashgacha pratit (divine intervention). But the people who are prepared to look at the big picture will be able to connect the dots in a way that makes more sense than trying to explain everything in strictly natural terms.”
