Attos' Magazine

Volume #88, January/2010

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Immanuel Velikovsky

Worlds In Collision

By Immanuel Velikovsky

The Spark

A phenomenon of great significance took place. The bead of the comet did not crash into the earth, but exchanged major electrical discharges with it. A tremendous spark sprang forth at the moment of the nearest approach of the comet, when the waters were heaped at their highest above the surface of the earth and before they fell down, followed by a rain of debris torn from the very body and tail of the comet.

“And the Angel of God, which went before the camp of Israel, removed and went behind them; and the pillar of the cloud went from before their face, and stood behind them . . . and it was a cloud and darkness but it gave light by night.” An exceedingly strong wind and lightnings rent the cloud. In the morning the waters rose as a wall and moved away. “And the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea upon the dry ground: and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left. And the Egyptians pursued. . . And it came to pass, that in the morning watch the Lord looked unto the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, and troubled the host of the Egyptians, and took off their chariot wheels . . . and the waters returned, and covered the chariots, and the horsemen, and all the host of Pharaoh that came into the sea after them; there remained not so much as one of them.”

The immense tides were caused by the presence of a celestial body close by; they fell when a discharge occurred between the earth and the other body.

Artapanus, the author of the no longer extant De Judaeis, apparently knew that the words, “The Lord looked unto the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud,” refer to a great lightning. Eusebius quotes Artapanus: “But when the Egyptians. . . were pursuing them, a fire, it is said, shone out upon them from the front, and the sea overflowed the path again, and the Egyptians were all destroyed by the fire and the flood.”

The great discharges of interplanetary force are commemorated in the traditions, legends, and mythology of all the peoples of the world. The god—Zeus of the Creeks, Odin of the Icelanders, Ukko of the Finns, Perun of the Russian pagans, Wotan (Woden) of the Germans, Mazda of the Persians, Marduk of the Babylonians, Shiva of the Hindus—is pictured with lightning in his hand and described as the god who threw his thunderbolt at the world overwhelmed with water and fire.

Similarly, many psalms of the Scriptures commemorate the great discharges. “Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations also of the hills moved and were shaken. . . He bowed the heavens also, and came down . . . he did fly upon the wings of the wind. . . .At the brightness that was before him his thick clouds passed, hail stones and coals of fire. The Lord also thundered in the heavens, and the Highest gave his voice; hail stones and coals of fire . . . and he shot out lightnings. . . . Then the channels of waters were seen, and the foundations of the world were discovered.” “The voice of the Lord is powerful. . . . The voice of the Lord breaketh the cedars. . . . The voice of the Lord divideth the flames of fire. The voice of the Lord shaketh the wilderness; the Lord shaketh the wilderness of Kadesh.” “The kingdoms were moved; he uttered his voice, the earth melted.” “The waters saw thee; they were afraid: the depths also were troubled . . . the skies sent out a sound: thine arrows also went abroad. The voice of thy thunder was in the heaven; the lightnings lightened the universe: the earth trembled and shook.” “Clouds and darkness are round about him . . . a fire goeth before him and burneth up his enemies round about. . . . His lightnings enlightened the world: the earth saw, and trembled.”

Nothing is easier than to add to the number of such quotations from other parts of the Scriptures—Job, the Song of Deborah, the Prophets.

With the fall of the double wall of water, the Egyptian host was swept away. The force of the impact threw the pharaoh’s army into the air. “Come and see the works of God: he is terrible in his doing toward the children of men. He turned the sea into dry land: they went through the flood on foot. . . . Thou hast caused men to ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water.”

This tossing of the Egyptian host into the air by an avalanche of water is referred to also in the Egyptian source I quoted before: on the shrine found in el-Arish the story is told of a hurricane and of a prolonged darkness when nobody could leave the palace, and of the pursuit by the pharaoh Taoui-Thom of the fleeing slaves whom he followed to Pi-khiroti, which is the biblical Pi-ha-khiroth. “His Majesty leapt into the place of the whirlpool.” Then it is said that he was “lifted by a great force.”

Although the larger part of the Israelite fugitives were already out of the reach of the falling tidal waves, a great number of them perished in this disaster, as in the previous ones of fire and hurricane of cinders. That Israelites perished at the Sea of Passage is implied in Psalm 68 where mention is made of “my people” that remained in “the depths of the sea.”

These tidal waves also overwhelmed entire tribes who inhabited Tehama, the thousand-mile-long coastal region of the Red Sea.

“God sent against the Djorhomites swift clouds, ants, and other signs of his rage, and many of them perished. . . . in the land of Djohainah an impetuous torrent carried off all of them in a night. The scene of this catastrophe is known by the name of Idam (fury).” The author of this passage, Masudi, an Arab author of the tenth century, quotes an earlier author, Omeyah, son of Abu-Salt: “In days of yore the Djorhomites settled in Tehama, and a violent flood carried all of them away.”

Likewise the tradition related in Kitab Alaghani is familiar with the plague of insects (ants of the smallest variety) that forced the tribe to migrate from Hedjaz to their native land, where they were destroyed by “Toufan”—a deluge. In my reconstruction of ancient history, I endeavor to establish the synchronism of these events and the Exodus.

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