“A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall”
Oh, what’ll you do now, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, what’ll you do now, my darling young one?
I’m a-goin’ back out ‘fore the rain starts a-fallin’
I’ll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest
Where the people are many and their hands are all empty
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters
Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison
Where the executioner’s face is always well hidden
Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten
Where black is the color, where none is the number
And I’ll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it
And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it
Then I’ll stand on the ocean until I start singin’
And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.
The story is that Bob Dylan wrote "A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall" during the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis of October-November, 1962. I remember the event fairly well. A military confrontation between the United States, the Soviet Union, and Cuba loomed because Nikita Kruschev had ordered the USSR’s military to place surface-to-air and surface-to-surface missiles in Cuba, supposedly for defensive reasons. Specifically, I remember the night that President John F. Kennedy spoke to the nation, October 22. My parents, sister, brothers, and I sat in front of the black and white television and heard the President announce that should any missiles be launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere, our country would view it as an attack by the Soviet Union and that there would be swift retaliatory action. Seldom did I go to bed feeling afraid, but that night it did, despite my mother leading our family in prayer. I believe those events are the closest the world ever came to nuclear war.
Supposedly Dylan quickly wrote out the lyrics because he did not know if the world was going to come to an end. Clearly "a hard rain’s a-gonna fall" was a symbol, a reference to nuclear missiles dropping from the skies. If you read all five verses of the song, the images from weather abound: "a white ladder all covered with water . . . the sound of the thunder, it roared out a warnin’ . . . heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world . . . "
Many know that my favorite television channel is the Weather Channel. (I know that sounds pitiful, but it really isn’t! And it is not true that I ask my wife to record the channel when I am out of town so I can watch what I missed!)
Dylan was not the first poet-prophet to use weather to describe horrible scenarios. Before him was John the apostle, the receiver of the Revelation, and before him were the prophets of the Old Testament:
From the throne came flashes of lightning, rumblings and peals of thunder… (Rev. 4:5)
Then there came flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder and a severe earthquake. No earthquake like it has ever occurred since man has been on earth, so tremendous was the quake. . . . From the sky huge hailstones of about a hundred pounds each fell upon men. And they cursed God on account of the plague of hail, because the plague was so terrible. (Rev. 16:18, 21)
The clouds poured down water, the skies resounded with thunder; your arrows flashed back and forth. Your thunder was heard in the whirlwind, your lightning lit up the world; the earth trembled and quaked… (Ps. 77:17-18)
Therefore, at this time tomorrow I will send the worst hailstorm that has ever fallen on Egypt, from the day it was founded till now. …Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Stretch out your hand toward the Sky so that h ail will fall all over Egypt–on men and animals and on Everything growing in the fields of Egypt.’ When Moses stretched out His staff toward the sky, the Lord sent thunder and hail, and lightning Flashed down to the ground. So the Lord rained hail on the land of Egypt; hail fell and lightning flashed back and forth. (Exod 9:18, 22-24)
As they fled before Israel on the road down from Beth Horon to Azekah, the Lord hurled large hailstones down on them from the sky, and more of them died from the hailstones than were killed by the swords of the Israelites. (Joshua 10:11)
Weather is often a powerful actor in the Bible. The images associated with weather remind us of the power of God. Awesome, terror-inducing power are associated with thunder and lightning (see Jer. 10:13; 51:16); Ps. 18:14; 29:3-4). God’s ability to create and orchestrate weather is a sure sign of his power (Ps. 135:7; Nahum 1:3). And, of course, weather not only reminds us of the providence of God (Ps. 147:18), weather symbolizes divine judgment (Gen. 7:11-12; 8:2; 9:12-15).
Revelation does indeed remind us that someday a hard rain’s a-gonna fall. Are you ready?
Tags: bob dylan, hard rain, revelation, war
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