These seven bowls of God’s wrath were poured on the land, sea, and air. This bowl, affecting the air and was accompanied by a great voice coming from the temple that said, “IT IS DONE.” Jesus finished his cries from the cross with, “It is finished” (Jn. 19:30). He had come into the world for this hour (Jn. 7:6, 8, 30; 8:20; 12:27). He sacrificed His life once for all (Heb. 10:10-11). But, prior to his death, He promised to return to destroy Jerusalem (Matt. 23:37-24:34). Now, this work of vengeance was also completed with the pouring out of the seventh bowl.
There were lightning, sounds, thunder, and a great earthquake that was unlike anything before in power. These originated in the temple but are now seen and heard by mortals on earth. Jesus had predicted earthquakes in various places prior to the destruction of Jerusalem. A great earthquake occurred in A.D. 63. This was not a part of the day of God’s wrath because Paul tells us that day would not come unto after the “apostasia” (revolt) in A.D. 67 (cf. 2 Thess. 2:3). The earthquake was a prelude to the great and terrible day of the Lord and coincided with the selection of the high priesthood of Ananus, the seventh ethnarch of the House of Annas. The area of destruction covered from Pompeii to Asia Minor and from Asia Minor to Palestine, following the path of the Alpenine Belt. Ironically, Seutonius tell us that the earthquake occurred at the moment Nero was making his singing debut at Naples, singing the entire song without stopping. Seneca writes that Asia lost twelve cities, Laodicea being one. John would have written before this earthquake in A.D. 63, not afterward as Irenaeus testifies.
The great city of Jerusalem was divided into three parts, and the cities of the natio8ns fell: and Babylon the great was remembered in the sight of God.