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Today I stood on the ruins of Pompeii.

In 70 CE, Jerusalem fell to the evil hand of men. The Romans chose it. They came with fire and sword. Deliberate.

Nine years later, in 79 CE, Vesuvius erupted.

The Psalm says it plainly:

וַתִּגְעַשׁ וַתִּרְעַשׁ הָאָרֶץ

And the earth shook and trembled.

Pompeii was not conquered. It was not chosen as a target. The city was buried by the shaking itself—the ground speaking, the mountain speaking. What the Psalm calls it: the voice of God. Not chosen by men. Not deliberate. But absolute.

I read it when I was ten—Bulwer-Lytton’s account of those last hours. All of it stayed. The city before the ash. The people who did not know what was coming. The way the ground trembled and no one understood yet that the mountain itself was speaking.

So we have two destructions, nine years apart. One: the work of human hands, human hatred, human choice to destroy. The other: the earth shaking, the ground rising up. Not a comfort. Not a balance. But a distinction the tradition holds.

The evil hand of men is one thing. The earth shaking is another.

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