What is the context?
The seventh angel pours the bowl into the air. A voice from the throne in the temple announces completion. Lightning, rumblings, thunder and an earthquake follow. John describes the earthquake as greater than any since human beings were on the earth.
The great city splits into three parts, and the cities of the nations collapse. Babylon is remembered before God and receives the cup of His fierce wrath. Remembered here leads directly to action: the judgment already announced against Babylon is being carried forward.
Islands flee and mountains cannot be found. Enormous hailstones fall, described in the BSB as weighing almost a hundred pounds each. The scene depicts upheaval reaching beyond a single city. Yet the human response at the end of the chapter is still to curse God.
The bowls have reached their climax, but the story has more to disclose. The next chapters explain Babylon’s character and downfall in greater detail. The chapter ends with judgment underway and resistance still exposed.
How is this passage commonly understood?
The great city is a point of disagreement. Wesley identifies the divided city as Jerusalem, distinguished from Babylon. The USCCB notes understand it as Rome and its empire. Gill understands the wider domain of Roman religious power rather than the city alone. The phrase should therefore not be treated as an agreed code for one location in every passage.
Walvoord discusses both Jerusalem and Babylon in explaining the divided city, while expecting a future physical judgment. He does not claim that the wording removes every uncertainty about the geography. All these readings recognize Babylon as a particular object of the judgment.
The earthquake, disappearing mountains and great hail are read with different degrees of physical and symbolic detail. The central point is the overthrow of powers and places that seemed secure. The passage does not supply the geological mechanism or a complete map of the changed world.
Where does this fit in God's plan?
The hail recalls Exodus 9:22–26, another judgment confronting a ruler who resists God. The repeated language of thunder, lightning and earthquake also connects this bowl with the earlier heavenly scenes in Revelation 8:5 and 11:19. The final bowl belongs to the same unfolding account of divine authority.
Hebrews 12:26–29 gives a related biblical theme: what can be shaken is removed, while God’s kingdom cannot be shaken. That is a parallel, not an exact identification of the earthquake’s physical effects. It directs attention toward what endures when earthly power and security fail, and toward worship marked by reverence for God.
What is our position?
We don't have a position on this passage yet. When our study reaches a conclusion the text supports, it will appear here.