The Harbinger, page 10
“It’s mind-boggling,” I said, “and another replaying of the mystery. They were all stepping into the ancient footsteps—and they thought it was their own.”
“It was their own,” he said, “but in the ancient footsteps.”
“Another piece of an ancient puzzle falling into place, another reenactment of an ancient drama . . . of judgment. It still seems like a movie. It’s still hard to believe that it’s all real, that it actually happened.”
“It all happened . . . and is happening.”
“And what’s the message of the Erez Tree?”
“The same message it carried to ancient Israel. The Ground Zero Tree of Hope was a sign, as it was proclaimed to be, but not of the hope they proclaimed. Instead, it was the sign of a nation’s defiant rejection of God’s call to return.”
“And concerning the future . . . what does it mean?”
“When you see the Erez Tree planted in the place of the fallen Sycamore, it’s an omen, a warning. What does it mean for the future? One commentary on Isaiah 9:10 puts it this way:
“‘If the enemy cut down the sycamores, we will plant cedars in the room of them. We will make a hand of God’s judgments, gain by them, and so outbrave them.’ Note, those are ripening apace for ruin whose hearts are unhumbled under humbling providences.”5
“Ripening apace for ruin. Then there’s no hope?” I asked.
“There is hope,” said the prophet, “but when a nation such as this places its hope in its own powers to save itself, then its hope is false. Its true hope is found only in returning to God. Without that, its Tree of Hope is a harbinger of the day when its strong cedars come crashing down to the earth.”
• • •
He stopped walking. “And now, Nouriel, we approach the last Harbingers . . . the last two . . . each as closely joined to the other as the Erez Tree is to the Sycamore.”
He handed me the next seal, the seal of the Eighth Harbinger, which I promptly examined. It’s image was of some kind of platform . . . some kind of wide, low platform. I couldn’t make anything of it beyond that.
“You’re puzzled,” he said as he saw my reaction.
“Yes,” I replied. “This one doesn’t look too promising.”
“What else do you have to go on?”
“The words of the vow. But the vow ends with the planting of the Erez Tree, the cedar. There’s nothing more.”
“And what other clues do you have?”
“I don’t know.”
“You forgot the other clues? There are only two left. It’s a simple process of deduction. One is of stone . . . ”
“The Gazit Stone,” I replied.”
“The other is fallen . . . ”
“The bricks . . . The bricks are fallen.”
“One ascends . . . ”
“It has to be the Tower.”
“One is alive . . . ”
“The Erez Tree.”
“And the other one was . . . ”
“The Sycamore.”
“There are only two left,” he said.
“Tell me again,” I replied.
“One speaks of what is, and the other of what would be.”
“One speaks of what is, and the other of what would be. Very mystical . . . and vague.”
“The last two Harbingers are not like the others,” he said, “and yet like all of them.”
“Not like the others and yet like all of them. I have to suppose you believe you’re helping me.”
“I am,” he replied.
“I need something more.”
“You’re right. The last two are harder than the rest.”
“That’s the clue?” I asked.
“And not here, but far away.”
“Far away . . . Far away like the mountain?”
“Yes.”
“As far?” I asked.
“About as far,” he replied.
“That doesn’t narrow it down much.”
“The prophecy will reveal it.”
“Where it is?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t see how.”
“Until then,” he said, and then left me there at the edge of the park.
I shouted after him, “You could at least say, ‘Good luck, you’ll be needing it.’”
“But I don’t believe in luck, Nouriel,” he replied without turning back. He began crossing the street in a crowd of other pedestrians. I made my way to the start of the crossing but went no farther.
“But if I don’t know what I’m looking for,” I shouted, “how will I know it when I see it?”
“You won’t,” he answered.
“I won’t know it?”
“No, you won’t see it.”
“And why not?”
He reached the other side of the street, stopped, and turned around to face me.
“Why won’t you see it?” he shouted across the street.
“Yes,” I shouted.
“Because you can’t see it . . . It’s invisible, of course.”
He then turned around, resumed his walking, and disappeared into the crowd.
Chapter 12 The Eighth Harbinger: The Utterance
So,” she said with a slight smile of amusement, “you were now on a journey to find an invisible harbinger.”
“Exactly,” he answered, “an invisible harbinger based on an unidentifiable image.”
“An unidentifiable image on the seal . . . ”
“Yes.”
“What about the other clues?”
“Like one speaks of what is . . . and the other of what would be?”
“Yes.”
“What could I do with that? What was it revealing?”
“He gave you other clues though.”
“He told me that the last two Harbingers were unlike the others . . . and yet like all of them.”
“And was that a help?”
“Does it sound like a help?”
“Not a lot of help . . . no.”
“The most I could get out of it was that each of the Harbingers had to do with one piece of the mystery, but the last two wouldn’t be about one piece but about the mystery as a whole—not like any of the others and yet like all of them.”
“Sounds plausible enough.”
“Yes, but still leading me nowhere.”
“What about the vow? Up to that point, everything was following the vow. Everything was taking place in order.”
“There was nothing left. You had the Bricks, the Tower, the Gazit Stone, the Sycamore, and the Erez Tree. It ended with, But we will plant cedars in their place. There was nothing else in the verse to give any clues.”
“What about it being far away?”
“That was the one clue that actually gave me something to go on.”
“How?”
“I asked him if it was as far away as the mountain. He answered that it was just about as far.”
“Pretty general.”
“Still, it was something to go on. The mountain was about four hours away from the city. So the same distance would be . . . ”
“But about as far,” she said, “isn’t equivalent to saying it’s the same distance.”
“Still,” he replied, “it could be the same distance. In any case, to be safe, I allowed a distance of three to five hours from the city. That’s a few hundred miles. Then I drew a circle around it.”
“With New York City in the center?”
“Yes, to a radius of a few hundred miles, to see what it would include.”
“There had to have been a lot of places.”
“There were—New York State, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Maryland, Delaware . . . ”
“But how could that possibly lead you to find the Eighth Harbinger? It would be a needle in a haystack.”
“It couldn’t lead me . . . not without something else. But the prophet gave me one more clue. He said, ‘The prophecy will reveal it.’ So I looked again at the prophecy for something that could give me a clue to the place.”
“And . . . ?”
“The only thing that I hadn’t considered was the introduction:
“The LORD sent a word against Jacob,
And it has fallen on Israel.
All the people will know—
Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria—
Who say in pride and arrogance of heart:
‘The bricks have fallen down . . . ’”1
“How could you find a clue in that?” she asked.
The names,” he replied. “Ephraim, Jacob, Samaria—they were all linked to Israel.”
“So the Eighth Harbinger was in Israel?”
“No. Israel isn’t exactly four hours away. I searched the commentaries to see what they had to say . . . if they could lead me to the missing key.”
“And did they?”
“Yes.”
“So what was it?”
“It was Samaria.”
“Samaria? Isn’t that almost the same as saying Israel?”
“It depends. Samaria wasn’t just another name for the kingdom of Israel. It was also the name of a city. The prophecy is directed at those who dwell in Samaria. Was it Samaria the kingdom or Samaria the city . . . or both?”
“I have no idea,” she replied. “But why would that be important?”
“The vow could’ve been spoken anywhere in the land and by anyone. It could have become a rallying cry or an anthem among the people. But it would only be significant if it represented the response of the entire nation. And who can speak for an entire nation?”
“The leaders?”
“Exactly. So Samaria was the nation’s capital city, the seat of its government, the city of its kings and officials. For the vow to matter, it had to be spoken by the leaders; it had to be the nation’s official response. So it had to be proclaimed in the capital city. And then I discovered a clue in one of the commentaries on Isaiah 9:10 that linked the vow to the nation’s capital:
“National pride is usually most arrogant in a capital city.2
“It’s the key. The vow has to be proclaimed in the capital city. That’s what I was looking for—the capital city.” He paused, waiting for her to get it.
“Washington DC?” she said.
“What were the two targets of 9/11?” he asked.
“New York City and Washington.”
“It was already connected.”
“What about the distance?” she asked. “Did it fall inside the radius?”
“Washington is just a little over four hours from New York City—the same distance as to the mountain. So if I was right, there would be some connection between Washington DC and the words of the vow. If I was right, then somewhere in the capital city was the Eighth Harbinger. So that’s where I had to go.”
“But how would you know where to go once you got there?” she asked.
“I wouldn’t . . . anymore than I knew where to go the other times. I just went on what I knew . . . or what I thought I knew.”
“So where did you go?”
“First to the Pentagon, the place with the most direct connection to 9/11. But my access was limited, of course, and nothing seemed to connect. The following day I went to the White House. But again, no connection. After that I went to the Lincoln Memorial.”
“What was it about the Lincoln Memorial that you thought would connect?”
“Nothing,” he replied. “But I always wanted to see it. And since I was in the neighborhood, I figured if I kept searching, I would end up in the place I was supposed to end up in, one way or another. So it was as good a place as any.”
“And . . . ?”
I’d never been there before. It was impressive up close—massive marble columns like some Greek temple and, of course, the statue, larger than life . . . noble . . . powerful. I was staring at his face when I heard it . . . from behind.”
• • •
“Considered the greatest of American presidents,” said the voice.
I turned around. It was the prophet. Before I could acknowledge his presence, he spoke again.
“And perhaps the most sorrowful,” he said. “Even in stone, it comes through.”
“So I’m here,” I said. “I made it.”
“You did, Nouriel. I’m impressed. But I knew you would.” He led me over the side to look at the words engraved on the wall. “Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address,” he said, and then began to read the words out loud:
“The Almighty has His own purposes. . . . Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, that the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”3
He paused and turned to see my reaction. “Do you understand what it’s saying, Nouriel?”
“That behind the war that was devastating the nation . . . ”
“Was judgment . . . a national judgment for the sin of slavery: ‘Until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword.’”
“And so his sadness,” I said quietly.
“But lying behind the judgment were the purposes of redemption, that slavery would be removed from the land.”
“The Almighty has His own purposes.”
“Yes, the Almighty has His own purposes.” He began walking toward the entrance but stopped just short of the steps where he stood silhouetted against the sunlight outside the memorial, framed between two colossal marble columns. He was waiting for me to join him. And I did. So we both stood there between the columns, looking out toward the reflecting pool, the mall, and the obelisk of the Washington Monument in the distance.
“So, tell me, Nouriel, how did you know? How did you know it was Washington?”
“It was Samaria,” I said, “the capital city. The vow had to be spoken in the capital city.”
“And why would that be?”
“Because the capital city is the seat of the government, the place from which the nation is led. The vow only matters if it represents the will or voice of the nation, if it’s the nation’s response to God. And only the leaders can speak for the nation as a whole.”
“Well done, Nouriel. So what would we expect to find in Washington DC?”
“Some link between this city and the ancient vow,” I said. “Somehow Isaiah 9:10 has to be connected to Washington DC.”
“Correct. In the days of Isaiah the vow would undoubtedly have been spoken or repeated throughout the land. But the vow is proclaimed with authority and on behalf of the entire nation. It sums up the nation’s response and sets forth its future course. Whatever else it may have been, the vow had to have been a public declaration of the nation’s leaders. It had to be proclaimed somehow in the capital city.”
“And so the Eighth Harbinger is what exactly?” I asked.
“What’s left in Isaiah 9:10 that hasn’t yet been revealed as one of the Nine Harbingers?”
“Nothing. It ends with the planting of the Erez Tree.”
“Nothing?” he said. “Then everything.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I told you that the last Harbingers are unlike the others and yet like all of them. What did you make of that?”
“That they wouldn’t be so much about the individual pieces of the puzzle but about the whole.”
“Correct again. And what else did I tell you?”
“That I wouldn’t see them . . . that they were invisible.”
“So put the clues together.”
“It’s about the whole.”
“The whole of what?” he asked.
“The whole of the mystery.”
“And more specifically . . . ?”
“The whole of Isaiah 9:10 . . . the whole of the vow.”
“So what then is the Eighth Harbinger?”
“Isaiah 9:10?”
“And when is Isaiah 9:10 invisible?”
“When it’s spoken?”
“Correct.”
“So the Eighth Harbinger is Isaiah 9:10 in spoken form?”
“The Eighth Harbinger is the vow itself proclaimed by the nation’s leaders in the capital city—the spirit of defiance given voice, the pronouncement of judgment.”
“The nation’s leaders pronouncing judgment on their nation?”
“Unwittingly . . . by publicly proclaiming the vow, they seal the nation’s course, and by so doing pronounce judgment on the land. I assume you brought the seal with you?”
I took it out of my pocket and handed it to him.
“Were you able to figure out the image?” he asked.
“No.”
“It’s a platform,” he said, “a speaker’s platform . . . from which, in ancient times, leaders and orators would address their audiences.”
Then he lifted the seal in his right hand and began revealing its meaning. “The Eighth Harbinger: In the aftermath of the calamity, the nation’s leaders respond with public proclamations of defiance. They boast of the nation’s resolve and power. They speak of its fallen bricks and quarried stones, its uprooted trees and their replanting. They speak of a nation defiant and resolved to emerge stronger than before. The words take the form of a vow. The vow gives voice to a national spirit and seals the nation’s course. It all takes place in the capital city. The Eighth Harbinger: the Utterance.”
The prophet stepped out from between the columns and descended a few of the marble stairs . . . then sat down. I followed and sat down beside him.
“It was the third year after the calamity,” he said.
“Israel’s calamity,” I asked, “or America’s?”
