PESTILENCE
Any rapidly spreading infectious disease capable of attaining epidemic proportions and of causing death. In numerous texts pestilence is related to the execution of divine judgment, as regards both God’s name people and their opposers.—Ex. 9:15; Num. 14:12; Ezek. 38:2, 14-16, 22, 23; Amos 4:10.
BROUGHT BY ABANDONMENT OF GOD’S LAW
The nation of Israel was warned that refusal to keep God’s covenant with them would result in his ‘sending pestilence into their midst.’ (Lev. 26:14-16, 23-25; Deut. 28:15, 21, 22) Throughout the Scriptures, health, either in a physical or in a spiritual sense, is associated with God’s blessing (Deut. 7:12, 15; Ps. 103:1-3; Prov. 3:1, 2, 7, 8; 4:21, 22; Rev. 21:1-4), whereas disease is associated with sin and imperfection. (Ex. 15:26; Deut. 28:58-61; Isa. 53:4, 5; Matt. 9:2-6, 12; John 5:14) So, while it is true that in certain cases Jehovah God directly and instantaneously brought some affliction on persons, as the leprosy of Miriam, of Uzziah, and of Gehazi (Num. 12:10; 2 Chron. 26:16-21; 2 Ki. 5:25-27), it appears that in many cases the diseases and pestilence that came were the natural and inexorable results of the sinful course followed by persons or nations. They simply reaped what they had sown, their fleshly bodies suffering the effects of their wrong ways. (Gal. 6:7, 8) Concerning those who turned to obscene sexual immorality, the apostle states that God “gave them up to uncleanness, that their bodies might be dishonored among them . . . receiving in themselves the full recompense, which was due for their error.”—Rom. 1:24-27.
Israel affected
Thus, God’s warning to Israel in effect told them of the many ailments that a course of disobedience to his will would inevitably produce among them. His Law given to them served as a deterrent to and a protection against disease, because of its high moral and hygienic standards (see DISEASES AND TREATMENT [Accuracy of Scriptural Concepts]), also because of its healthful effect on their mental and emotional state. (Ps. 19:7-11; 119:102, 103, 111, 112, 165) Not an occasional infraction of that Law but outright abandonment and rejection of its standards is what Leviticus 26:14-16 describes, and this would certainly make the nation vulnerable to all manner of disease and contagion. History, both past and present, bears testimony to the truthfulness of this.
The nation of Israel fell into gross apostasy, and Ezekiel’s prophecy shows the people as coming to speak of themselves as “rotting away” due to their revolts and sins. (Ezek. 33:10, 11; compare 24:23.) As foretold, the nation experienced “the sword and the famine and the pestilence,” this reaching a climax at the time of the Babylonian invasion. (Jer. 32:16, 24) The frequent association of pestilence with sword and famine (Jer. 21:9; 27:13; Ezek. 7:15) is in harmony with known facts. Pestilence usually accompanies, or follows in the wake of, war and its associated food shortages. When an enemy force invades a land, agricultural activities are curtailed, crops are often confiscated or burned. Cities under siege are cut off from outside resources, and famine develops among the populace forced to live amid overcrowded and unsanitary conditions. Under such circumstances, resistance to disease drops and the way is open for the deadly assault of pestilence.
AT THE “CONCLUSION OF THE SYSTEM OF THINGS”
Jesus, when foretelling Jerusalem’s destruction and the “conclusion of the system of things,” showed that pestilence would be a notable feature among the generation within whose life-span the “great tribulation” would come. (Matt. 24:3, 21; Luke 21:10, 11, 31, 32) Written after Jerusalem’s destruction (which was accompanied by grave famine and disease), Revelation 6:1-8 pointed to a future time of sword, famine and “deadly plague.” These would follow the appearance of the crowned rider on a white horse who goes forth to conquer, a figure precisely paralleling that of Revelation 19:11-16, which clearly applies to the reigning Christ Jesus.
JEHOVAH’S PROTECTION
King Solomon prayed that, when menaced by pestilence, Jehovah’s people might pray to Him for relief, spreading out their palms toward the temple, and receive favorable hearing. (1 Ki. 8:37-40; 2 Chron. 6:28-31) Jehovah’s ability to protect his faithful servant against harm, including that of “the pestilence that walks in the gloom,” is comfortingly expressed in Psalm 91.