A Walk Through Revelation 8 (Part Two): Verses 7

 

By Robert E. Cruickshank, Jr. (August 10, 2026)

[5-Minute Read Time]

 

This series of articles is adapted from my 2026 Berean Conference messages on Revelation 8, which can be found here and here, and follows my  previous article on verses 1-6.

 

“The first sounded, and there was hail and fire mixed with blood, and it was hurled to the earth; and a third of the earth was burned up, and a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up” (Revelation 8:7).

 

Verse 7 opens with a threefold divine  judgment at the blast of the first trumpet: hail, fire, and blood.

 

Hail

The hail imagery figured prominently into Jerusalem’s destruction the first time, as Ezekiel portrayed the “invasion of the Chaldean army” in terms of a hailstorm (Ezek. 13:10-13).[1] If Ezekiel describes the Babylonian invasion in terms of a hailstorm, it makes sense for John to describe the Roman invasion in terms of a hailstorm as well.

 

Beyond mere metaphor, the symbolic imagery mixed with the historical realities as severe hailstorms affected the entire region during the Roman-Jewish War. As Phillip Kayser comments:

“Both Rome and Israel were devastated by raging fires and by fierce hailstorms. Fredric Farrar points out that the vineyards of Lombardy (for example) were destroyed by hail in a few hours. That is an entire industry wiped out in one region.”^[2]

 

Just as Ezekiel portrayed Babylon’s invasion as a hailstorm of judgment, John uses the same imagery to describe Rome’s assault on Judea, with the language also coinciding with the severe weather events that accompanied the turmoil of the Roman-Jewish War.

 

Fire

The next element in the first trumpet’s judgmental triplet is fire. This echoes the reference to “fire from the altar” in verse 5, and Jesus said, “But I have come to cast fire upon the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled” (Luke. 12:49).  Fire is a familiar symbolic theme in the Bible in terms of God’s judgment (Ps. 58:9–10; Isa. 9:5; Jer. 51:30–35; Lam. 4:11–14; Ezek. 21:32; 38:22; Joel 2:30; Zeph. 1:17–19),[3] but the symbol once again takes on a historical component in the first century.  According to the Roman historian Tacitus:

 

“Contending armies were seen circling the skies, their arms flashed, and suddenly the temple was illumined with fire from the clouds. Of a sudden the doors of the shrine opened and a superhuman voice cried: ‘The gods are departing’: at the same moment the mighty stir of their going was heard” (Tacitus Histories, Book V, Verse 13).^[4]

 

The fire of the first trumpet recalls the Bible’s theme of divine judgment and was accompanied by extraordinary events surrounding Jerusalem’s fall – like fire from the clouds.

 

Blood

Completing the triune judgment of the first trumpet is the element of blood raining down, along with the hail and the fire. Historically, the ancient world experienced blood rain – just as we do in our modern world today.[5]  For example, readers might recall the recent blood rain  weather phenomenon that swept across southern Europe in March 2026.[6]

According to Bible Hub,  “Records dating back centuries, such as medieval chronicles in Europe, speak of blood-red rain that alarmed communities. Modern meteorological reports confirm that winds can carry red dust long distances, lending a bloody tinge to falling rain or snow.”^[7]

As Ian Boxall comments, “No doubt tradition has also been mixed with the memory of particular natural phenomena (Roloff 1993: 110 equates the first trumpet-plague with ‘the mysterious red rain, which occurs occasionally in Mediterranean regions with the infiltration of dust from the Sahara’) and concrete historical events.”[8]

A recorded blood rain did in fact occur in the first century during the time of the Roman-Jewish War. Just before Nero’s death in 68, Cassius Dio reports that “In the Alban territory [which would be central Italy], it rained so much blood that rivers of it flowed over the land” (Cassius Dio Roman History 63.26).^[9]

For ancient readers, like John’s original audience, the idea of the sky raining down blood meant judgment was coming.^[10] For those same readers, there would have been no doubt regarding what this judgment was for. At His trial, Jesus’s crucifiers said: “His blood be upon us and upon our children” (Matthew 27:24-25).  As Daniel Morais comments, “In Revelation 8:7 Christ appears to remember what His killers said and he honors their request…by raining blood on that wicked generation.”^[11]

For John’s original audience, blood falling from heaven would have signaled impending judgment and gave a tangible expression to a symbol that pointed to the consequences of crucifying the Lord of Glory.

 

Scorched Earth

Next, John says that a third of the earth was burned up, along with a third of the trees and all the green grass.

This speaks to what historians call the Romans’ “scorched-earth” method of conquest.^[12] In his book, The Roman Art of War, C.M. Gilliver states, “The Roman siege stripped the countryside of its timber for a 10-mile (16 km) radius around Jerusalem,” which “left a lasting scar on the Judean landscape.”^[13]

Josephus laments the environmental damage caused by the Romans. He speaks of the Romans “burning the places in the plain…so that Galilee was all over filled with fire and blood…” (Wars, 3.4.1).^[14]

Speaking of Jericho, which was once full of beautiful trees, and an abundance of fruit and honey, and what he calls “the most excellent gardens,” Josephus says, “Now this country [Jericho] is so sadly burnt up that nobody cares to come to it…” (Wars, 4.8.3).

Closing in on Jerusalem itself, when Titus makes “his assault upon the monument of John the high priest” and takes aim at Jerusalem’s “third wall,” Josephus says, He [Titus] also at the same time gave his soldiers leave to set the suburbs on fire, and ordered that they should bring timber together, and raise banks against the city…So the trees were now cut down immediately, and the suburbs left naked” (Wars, 5.6.2)

Regarding the devastation throughout the entire region, Josephus laments:  “For those places which were before adorned with trees, and pleasant gardens, were now become a desolate country every way; and its trees were all cut down. Nor could any foreigner that had formerly seen Judea, and the most beautiful suburbs of the city, and now saw it, as a desert; but lament and mourn sadly at so great a change. For the war had laid all the signs of beauty quite waste” (Wars, 6.1.1). ^[15]

As David Chilton comments, “Literally, the vegetation of Judea, and especially of Jerusalem, would be destroyed in the Roman scorched-earth methods of warfare.”^[16]  Daniel Morais echoes Chilton, writing: “These verses are literally fulfilled in Israel, the earth, during the Jewish War as a result of the Roman army’s scorched earth policy.”^[17]

John’s description of burned land, trees, and grass parallels the devastating impact of Rome’s scorched-earth campaign – as the war transformed once-fertile regions into  wastelands, providing a striking historical backdrop to the first trumpet.

 

Verse 7 Recap

Revelation 8:7 combines symbolic judgment imagery with historical realities surrounding the Roman-Jewish War. The hail, fire, and blood echo the language of Old Testament judgments while also corresponding to documented first-century events, including severe storms, reports of blood rain, and signs associated with Jerusalem’s downfall. The destruction of a third of the land, trees, and grass reflects the Romans’ scorched-earth campaign throughout Judea, vividly described by Josephus. Taken together, the first trumpet announces God’s judgment upon the generation that rejected Christ, and the earthly instruments through which that judgment would be carried out.

Our next installment will pick up with verse 8, as the second trumpet sounds.

 

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[1] See the comments by John Gill and Matthew Henry here: Ezekiel 13:13 Commentaries I Bible Hub https://bit.ly/47f2umU .

[2] Phillip G. Kayser – First Trumpet |  Biblical Blueprints https://bit.ly/4gh4CgP

[3] NT passages which use the words “fire,” “fiery,” or flame (and its derivatives) – Matt. 3:10-12; 5:22; 7:19; 13:40, 42, 50; 17:15; 18:8-9; 22:7; 25:41; Mark 9:22, 43-44, 46, 48-49; 14:54; Luke 3:9, 16-17; 9:54; 12:49; 16:24; 17:29; 22:55-56; John 15:6; 18:18; 21:9; Acts 2:3, 19; 7:30; 28:2-3, 5; 1 Cor. 3:13, 15; Eph. 6:16; 2 Th. 1:7; Heb. 1:7; 10:27; 11:34; 12:18, 29; James 3:5-6; 5:3; 1 Pet. 1:7; 4:12; 2 Pet. 3:7; Jude 1:7, 23; Rev. 1:14; 2:18; 3:18; 4:5; 8:5, 7-8; 9:17-18; 10:1; 11:5; 13:13; 14:10, 18; 15:2; 16:8; 17:16; 18:8; 19:12, 20; 20:9-10, 14-15; 21:8 (Tip of the hat to my good friend, Edward E. Stevens, for compiling this list).

[4] Tacitus Histories – Book V https://bit.ly/41Fzjqc

[5] In July of 2001,India experienced a blood rain that continued to fall into September of that same year. Another famous blood rain hit Sir Lanka in 2012. In 2103, the beaches of Australia were unswimmable because of a massive blood rain. See: P. McCafferty, “Bloody rain again! Red rain and meteors

in history and myth” (International Journal of Astrobiology 7 [1] : 9–15 [2008]).

[6] Blood rain spreads across Europe this week  | Fox Weather https://bit.ly/4g49CG3

[7] In Revelation 8:7, how is hail and fire mixed with blood possible, and has anything like this been documented in history or science? https://bit.ly/47V80vW

[8] Ian Boxall, The Revelation of St. John, (London: A & C Black Publishers 2006), 136

[9] Phillip G. Kayser – First Trumpet |  Biblical Blueprints https://bit.ly/4gh4CgP  ; cf. Cassius Dio Roman History 63 https://bit.ly/3IUVTEZ ; see also: Daniel Morais, Revelation Revolution – Revelation 8: A Preterist Commentary https://bit.ly/3KdGmQY, note 16.

[10] Phillip G. Kayser – First Trumpet |  Biblical Blueprints https://bit.ly/4gh4CgP

[11] Revelation Revolution – Revelation 8: A Preterist Commentary https://bit.ly/3KdGmQY

[12] Richard A. Horsely speaks of “the severe Roman practices of scorched-earth slaughter and devastation,” from which “people fled to any place that seemed  more secure” (“Power vacuum and power

struggle in 66–7 C.E,” in Aundrea M. Berlin and J. Andrew Overman, eds., The First Jewish Revolt: Archeology, History, and Ideology (London, Routledge, 2002), 87.

[13] C.M. Gilliver, The Roman Art of War (Charleston, SC: Tempus, 2001), 149.

[14] The “places of the plain” most likely refers to Galilee southern boundary, see: Galilee – International Standard Bible Encyclopedia https://bit.ly/3ITHNnl

[15] Wars, 6.1.1 https://bit.ly/48LN0bf

[16] David Chilton, The Days of Vengeance: An Exposition of the Book of Revelation (Tyler, TX: Dominion Press, 1987), 237.

[17] Revelation Revolution – Revelation 8: A Preterist Commentary https://bit.ly/3KdGmQY