IN LUKE CHAPTER 21, THE DISCIPLES HAVE ASKED YAHSHUA about the signs of the coming destruction of Jerusalem and the temple. Yahshua’s reply is long and gives many signs. The Romans relate some of the signs to the siege of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. The answer to their question included signs of the end of this age and of Yahshua’s second coming. Luke 21:25 is an obscure and difficult text, made more obscure by amazingly poor translation. It tells about one of the signs of the end of the age, the sea and the waves roaring.
This has puzzled many students of the Bible. Did Yahshua really say that a storm at sea was to be one of the signs for them to watch for? Many storms at sea, some of them of fearful intensity, have occurred every year since Yahshua spoke those words. How could a storm, even a very great storm, be a recognizable sign? This doesn’t seem to make sense; it is time to look into this a bit deeper.
Is this a matter of mistranslation? Most of this verse is badly garbled in the King James Bible. However this one part, the sea and the waves roaring, is confirmed as correct by good translations. If the wording is correct, and does not mean much when taken literally, we know it must be symbolic. We may be sure that Yahshua never bothered to speak trifles, so there is some symbolism, which is worth our further study.