Sir E. A. Wallis Budge, in Babylonian Life and History, says:

The demons and devils that made the Babylonian’s life a misery to him were many, but the forms of most of them and their evil powers were well known. Most of all he feared the Seven Evil Spirits, who were the creators of all evil. . . . As there were triads of gods, so there were triads of devils, for example, Labartu, Labasu and Akhkhazu. The first harmed little children, the second caused the quaking sickness, and the third turned the face of a man yellow and black. Another triad comprised Lîlû, Lîlîtu and Ardat Lîlī. . . . The Babylonians . . . went to the priest, who often assumed the character of a god, and who exorcised the devils by reciting incantations, . . .—Pages 146, 147 (1925 edition). See also The International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia, edition of 1955, Volume 1, page 373

The Watchtower Announcing Jehovah’s Kingdom.  June 15, 1964 p. 374

 

Babylonian Life and History 1891 edition

Egg-size hailstones killed 25 people and injured 200 others in central Henan Province, China, in July 2002. Regarding a hailstorm in 1545, Italian sculptor Benvenuto Cellini wrote: “We were one day distant from Lyons . . . when the heavens began to thunder with sharp rattling claps. . . . After the thunder the heavens made a noise so great and horrible that I thought the last day had come; so I reined in for a moment, while a shower of hail began to fall without a drop of water. . . . The hail now grew to the size of big lemons. . . . The storm raged for some while, but at last it stopped . . . We showed our scratches and bruises to each other; but about a mile farther on we came upon a scene of devastation which surpassed what we had suffered, and defies description. All the trees were stripped of their leaves and shattered; the beasts in the field lay dead; many of the herdsmen had also been killed; we observed large quantities of hailstones which could not have been grasped with two hands.”—Autobiography (Book II, 50), Harvard Classics, Volume 31, pages 352-3.

 

The Watchtower Announcing Jehovah’s Kingdom.  November 15, 2005 p. 14

 

Autobiography (Book II, 50), Harvard Classics

The Critical and Exegetical Hand-book to the Gospel of John, of 1884, by H. A. W. Meyer, Th.D., page 183, says on John 5:24:

“Verse 24. . . . The [making alive] is accomplished in him, he has eternal life (3:15), that is, the highest spiritual life, which, upon his entrance into the Messiah’s kingdom, reaches its consummation in glorious Messianic [life]. He has, in that he is become a believer, passed from spiritual death . . . into eternal life (the life par excellence), and cometh not into (condemnatory, compare 3:18) judgment, because he has already attained unto that life. The result of this is: [death he will by no means see], 8:51. On the perfect [he has passed over] see 3:18; 1 John 3:14.”

The Watchtower Announcing Jehovah’s Kingdom.  December 1, 1964.  p. 715

 

Critical and Exegetical Hand-book to the Gospel of John