https://youtu.be/Idhmflud3P4?si=9xc4svrHXslDUwvz
So David Schafer a member of the Teaching Commitee and a helper to the Governing body has come out yesterday with a new video that goes through the king of the North, the hailstones message and other things in the wake of the possibility of a WW3 and especially now that tensions are escalating with Russia so he is making quite a few End Time arguments and I will be expanding on those one by one but today let's see what he has about the hailstones message of the End(video)
So this is the paragraph in question, paragraph 14 from Article 20 of the Watchtower 2020 Study Edition:
"Sometime after the start of the great tribulation, “the kings of the entire inhabited earth” will form a coalition of nations. (Rev. 16:13, 14; 19:19) That coalition becomes what the Scriptures call “Gog of the land of Magog.” (Ezek. 38:2) That coalition of nations will make one final all-out assault on God’s people. What will provoke the attack? Speaking of this time, the apostle John saw a storm of unusually large hailstones raining down on God’s enemies. That symbolic hailstorm may take the form of a hard-hitting judgment message delivered by Jehovah’s people. It could be that this message provokes Gog of Magog into attacking God’s people with the intention of wiping them off the earth.—Rev. 16:21."
The vision of Revelation 16:21 is nothing short of apocalyptic: “And great hailstones, each about the weight of a talent, came down from heaven on the people, and they blasphemed God for the plague of the hail, because the plague was unusually great.” While this vivid description clearly depicts a dramatic, literal event, some have insisted these hailstones are nothing more than a symbolic “hard-hitting judgment message” delivered by Jehovah’s Witnesses. Let’s pause here—are we really talking about the same Jehovah’s Witnesses who quietly stand next to literature carts while scrolling on their phones or sipping cappuccinos? Yes, apparently, these same individuals are destined to unleash a message so powerful it’ll provoke a coalition of nations into outright war. Forgive me if I remain skeptical.
First, let’s address the context of Revelation 16. This chapter is packed with literal, physical disasters. We read of painful sores, water turning to blood, and scorching heat from the sun. For example, Revelation 16:3 states: “The second one poured out his bowl into the sea, and it became blood like that of a dead man, and every living creature in the sea died.” Later, Revelation 16:8-9 describes: “The fourth one poured out his bowl on the sun, and it was permitted to scorch people with fire. And the people were scorched with great heat, but they blasphemed the name of God, who has authority over these plagues.” Clearly, these are not abstract metaphors but very real, terrifying phenomena. Why, then, would the seventh plague suddenly veer off into the realm of metaphorical messaging? Did John just decide, mid-vision, to switch to poetry?
And let’s not forget the detail about the weight of the hailstones. Revelation 16:21 specifies that each hailstone weighs “about a talent,” which is roughly 75 to 100 pounds. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never heard of a metaphor that comes with a precise weight measurement. Are we supposed to believe these 100-pound “symbolic” hailstones represent a spiritual truth? If so, what exactly is the takeaway here? “Prepare for heavy judgment, spiritually speaking, of course”? No, the mention of their weight is deliberate, emphasizing the sheer physicality and devastating impact of this plague. These are literal hailstones, not some nebulous idea scribbled in a Watchtower article.
Biblical precedent only reinforces this point. God has used literal hailstones in the past to punish the wicked. In Exodus 9:22-25, during the seventh plague on Egypt, Jehovah tells Moses: “‘Stretch out your hand toward the heavens so that hail may fall on all the land of Egypt, on people and animals and all the plants of the field in the land of Egypt.’ So Moses stretched out his rod toward the heavens, and Jehovah sent thunder and hail, and fire flared down to the earth, and Jehovah kept making it rain down hail on the land of Egypt. Thus there was hail, and fire flashing in among the hail. It was so severe that there had never been anything like it in all the land of Egypt since it had become a nation.” The devastation was real, not symbolic. Similarly, in Joshua 10:11, we read: “While they were fleeing from Israel and were on the descent of Beth-horon, Jehovah hurled great hailstones from the heavens on them as far as Azekah, and they perished. In fact, more died from the hailstones than from the sword of the Israelites.” If you’re keeping track, that’s yet another case of real hailstones, not symbolic fire-and-brimstone sermons.
But now we come to the real comedy: the idea that Jehovah’s Witnesses will deliver this so-called “hard-hitting” message. While Christians around the world endure actual persecution for their preachingJehovah’s Witnesses. I'm from Britain and the past few years I've seen attacks from mobs on street preachers or Christians been arrested outside abortion clinics for praying for the victims by actual police force while the Witnesses appear to be doing just fine. Their ministry largely involves standing silently next to literature carts, often glued to their phones or enjoying their local café’s finest cappuccinos. This isn’t exactly the stuff of bold, prophetic confrontation. How this passive approach could ever escalate into a message capable of provoking the wrath of global governments is beyond comprehension. Are they planning to swap their cappuccinos for megaphones? The sheer leap from cart-standing to world-shaking judgment proclamation is nothing short of laughable.
And then there’s the historical context. This whole “symbolic hailstones” idea didn’t just pop out of nowhere; it has roots in the colorful imagination of Judge Rutherford, the second president of the Watch Tower Society. Rutherford had an uncanny ability to find himself in the Bible, no matter the passage. In his mind, every talk he gave was the fulfillment of some grand prophecy. Take the 1922 Cedar Point Convention, where Rutherford declared, “The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdom of our Lord.” He genuinely believed this event fulfilled Revelation 11:15. Spoiler alert: it didn’t. Yet, that didn’t stop him from making increasingly outlandish claims about his role in biblical prophecy. It’s no surprise, then, that Rutherford and early Watchtower publications entertained the idea of symbolic hailstones, framing their publications and talks as divine judgment. The sheer audacity of it all is almost impressive.
In conclusion, the hailstones of Revelation 16:21 are literal, not symbolic. The context, the weight of the stones, and biblical precedent all point to a physical interpretation. Attempts to reimagine them as symbolic “messages” are not only unsupported by scripture but also comically inconsistent with the realities of Jehovah’s Witnesses’ ministry. Unless, of course, their cappuccino-fueled cart ministry undergoes a miraculous transformation. Until then, we’ll have to take Revelation at its word: the hailstones are 100 pounds of divine judgment, not a spiritual metaphor.