The Harbinger, page 18
“‘Do you need a ride?’ I shouted back.
“‘To where?’ he replied.
“‘I don’t know . . . maybe to the place of our next meeting.’
“‘But then we wouldn’t be able to meet there,’ he replied.
“I reached the car and turned back again. He was still there. I began driving away. I looked back one more time . . . it had only been a few seconds into the drive . . . and he was gone.”
“So you really didn’t have much to go on this time.”
“No, the slightest of clues and a seal I had already been given twice before. And I wasn’t thinking about either, at first. I was still caught up in the mystery that had just been shown, trying to digest it all. It was about an hour into the drive before I began pondering the next one and the meaning of the seal.
“But I don’t understand,” she said. “How could you find anything more? It was already revealed to you twice. What else could it mean? And how were you supposed to figure it out?”
“That was the hard part. The seal was of the Ninth Harbinger, the scroll representing the Prophecy . . . the vow . . . as proclaimed from Capitol Hill. The second time it was given, it still had to do with the vow, but now the repercussions of that vow, the Isaiah 9:10 Effect.”
“So what would it mean given a third time?” she asked.
“Apart from the seal itself, I only had one clue.”
“The third witness.”
“Yes . . . but that’s all I needed.”
“How?”
“The first two witnesses had already been revealed.”
“And that was enough for you to know where to go?”
“The seal was linked to a place. Where did each witness recite the vow?”
“In the capital.”
“Exactly . . . and just when it hit me, I passed a sign.”
“For Washington?”
“Yes.”
“And you took the sign . . . as a sign?”
“How could I not take the sign as a sign?”
“Now you’re sounding like the prophet.”
“My journey changed. I took the exit and headed to Washington, and, specifically, to Capitol Hill. It was a couple of hours drive. When I arrived, it was late afternoon, early evening. I made my way to the Capitol Building, to the same steps on which the prophet revealed the Ninth Harbinger.”
“And what happened?”
“What happened? What happened is he was there! He was already there!”
“But when you drove away, he was still in the field.”
“Yes, and there was no vehicle in sight, apart from my car, yet he was there before me . . . waiting.”
“Did you ever ask him how he did it?” she asked.
“No. It was enough for me to try to figure out the mysteries. To try to figure out the prophet on top of that would have been too much. So he was standing there on the terrace in the middle of the steps overlooking the mall. The sun had either just set or was just about to. The wind was as strong as it had been earlier that day. I made my way up the steps and joined him on the terrace.”
• • •
“You did well to get here so fast,” he said, as I approached.
“But you were still here before me.”
“Do you remember when we first came here?”
“Of course,” I replied. “It was when you told me of the Ninth Harbinger.”
“The Ninth Harbinger—Isaiah 9:10 in the form of prophecy. Here the prophecy was proclaimed on the day after 9/11. Here the nation vowed the vow to emerge stronger than before. Seven years later the vow would be undone.”
“With the collapse of the economy.”
“Yes,” he said. “And what event, more than any other, would bring about that collapse?”
“The fall of Lehman Brothers.”
“And what decision was most critical in bringing about that fall?”
“The decision of the American government to let Lehman Brothers fall.”
“And when was that decision announced?”
“I don’t know.”
“It happened on the first day of emergency meetings in New York City as the Treasury Secretary informed the leaders of Wall Street that the government had decided not to save the ailing firm. It would let Lehman Brothers fall. It was the most fateful of all decisions in triggering the collapse of the American and global economy. The decision was announced and sealed on the Friday before the collapse . . . September 12.”
“September 12,” I said. “That was the same day that . . . ”
“The same day the prophecy was proclaimed on this hill. It was seven years from the proclamation of the vow to the announcement of the decision that would cause the collapse of its economy—to the day.”
“So the economic collapse was triggered on the seventh anniversary of the proclaiming of the ancient vow.”
“Just as in ancient times the same vow would ultimately lead to the collapse of ancient Israel.”
“A very dangerous vow.”
“Nouriel, do you remember the biblical requirement of witnesses?” he asked.
“For a truth to be established,” I replied, “or a judgment pronounced, there must be two witnesses.”
“Yes, but another number is also mentioned in Scripture:
“By the mouth of two or three witnesses the matter shall be established.1
“By the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall be established.2
“So too in the matter of a nation’s judgment. The first witness appears on the day after the calamity to proclaim the ancient prophecy from this hill. The second witness appears three years later to deliver a speech centered entirely around the same ancient prophecy. Each would connect 9/11 to Isaiah 9:10, America to ancient Israel. And each would vow: ‘We will rebuild.’
“Each unwittingly pronounces judgment on America. So two witnesses had spoken.”
“But the Scriptures speak of a third . . . .”
“So could there be a third witness . . . a third witness to confirm the connecting of the ancient prophecy to 9/11 . . . but now also to the economic collapse . . . a third witness as a sign that the underlying course of judgment had not stopped but had progressed to a further stage? Could there be a third witness to speak from an even higher level and on an even greater scale?”
“Higher than the Senate majority leader?” I asked.
“Do you know where we are?”
“Capitol Hill.”
“No, right here . . . on this terrace.”
“No,” I answered.
“This is the place where presidents are sworn into office.
“This is the place of the inauguration?”
“The inauguration—an event filled with hope and expectancy. But in the case of a nation in departure from God and heading to judgment, hope can only come in repentance. Without a change of course, the end must remain the same, and all other hopes must fail.”
“The third witness is . . . ”
“The third witness is the president of the United States.”
“How?” I asked.
“It’s evening,” he said. “February 24, 2009, the new president comes to this hill one month after his inauguration. He enters the chamber of the House of Representatives, makes his way down the aisle to the podium, and is greeted with thunderous applause. The nation’s economy is still in a state of free fall, and a tangible sense of foreboding hangs over the future. Even before he utters his first word, the speech is being hailed as the most important address of his early presidency. It will be the first time he stands as president to address a joint session of Congress and the nation . . . and his moment to give America an answer to its greatest crisis since 9/11. The chamber quiets . . . he begins:
“Madame Speaker, Mr. Vice President, Members of Congress, and the First Lady of the United States: I’ve come here tonight not only to address the distinguished men and women in this great chamber, but to speak frankly and directly to the men and women who sent us here. I know that for many Americans watching right now, the state of our economy is a concern that rises above all others.3
“After setting the stage and framing the magnitude of the crisis, the speech turns:
“But while our economy may be weakened and our confidence shaken; though we are living through difficult and uncertain times, tonight I want every American to know this—WE WILL REBUILD.”4
“It’s the vow,” I said. “It’s Isaiah 9:10!”
“And note the strangeness of it, Nouriel, the peculiarity of its appearance in such a context. We will rebuild was what was declared in the wake of 9/11. But in the midst of an economic crisis, it’s hardly the most natural or the most fitting thing to say—except that it all fits into the deeper mystery . . . in which the two calamities are being joined together.”
“And the president had no idea he was voicing the central declaration of Isaiah 9:10?”
“Did the first and second witnesses have any idea what they were saying?”
“No,” I said, “but they knew they were quoting from Scripture.”
“Still, they had no idea what it meant. In the case of the president, he had no idea he was quoting from anything. And he wasn’t . . . he was seeking to inspire the nation. Nevertheless, out of his mouth came the central declaration of the ancient vow. That he proclaimed the same words without even having a quote to quote from is all the more striking.”
“It just happened to happen,” I replied, “just like everything else.”
“It happened because it had to . . . one way or the other. The words had to manifest, one more link in the mystery, bearing witness that what started with 9/11 had not ended but was still in effect . . . and progressing.”
It was now dark as we spoke on the terrace. The monuments of the Washington Mall were aglow with white, yellow, and orange light, as was the Capitol building itself.
The prophet continued, “The words ‘we will rebuild’ had also manifested in the speech that launched the War on Terror, the speech given by the former president. But in that case the phrase was qualified and specific to the rebuilding of New York. But now the words would come forth with nothing to qualify or limit them—simply ‘WE WILL REBUILD.’ Now, an American president would proclaim the central declaration of Israel’s fateful vow as the central declaration of his entire address.”
“But with nothing to qualify it,” I asked, “how specifically could three words be linked to Isaiah 9:10?”
“Good question,” he replied. “Imagine this experiment: Before the president’s speech, you type in those three words into almost any major search engine on the Internet . . . We will rebuild . . . just those three words, and nothing else. What would happen? The search engine would take you to the ancient prophecy. That specific verse would, more than likely, appear in the first pages of results, if not on the very first page. That’s how specifically the three words are joined to the ancient prophecy. But now it’s the night of the speech. You repeat the experiment and type in the same three words, but now, instead of taking you to the ancient vow, it takes you to the words of the American president. As the night advances, you repeat the experiment. Each time you do it, you witness the president’s vow progressively pushing the ancient vow farther and farther away from the top of the list, or, to put it another way, the vow of the American president now takes the place of the ancient vow.”
“So the mystery was now playing out on the World Wide Web.”
“Before a global audience; through television, radio, print, and the Internet; through the president of the United States in the hearing of the nation and much of the world. And just as it was with the first two witnesses, the vow would once more manifest as the climax and pinnacle of the speech in which it appeared.”
“How,” I asked, “without coming at the end of the speech?”
“Where it appeared in the speech was irrelevant. The president’s address was picked up by news services around the world. Each had to choose a phrase to serve as a summation and headline. From the thousands of words contained in that speech, the words most often chosen to encapsulate and represent it were those of the ancient vow:
“CBS News:
Obama: ‘We Will Rebuild.’
“CNN:
Obama: ‘We Will Rebuild.’
“MSNBC:
Obama tonight: ‘We Will Rebuild.’
“The Guardian:
Obama: ‘We will rebuild.’
“National Public Radio:
Obama Pledges: ‘We Will Rebuild.’
“Times Online:
Obama tells America: ‘We will rebuild.’
“Fox News:
Obama Says ‘Country Will Rebuild.’
“Al Jazeera:
Obama pledges U.S. ‘will rebuild.’
“Drudge Report:
Obama Says ‘USA Will Rebuild.’
“Associated Press:
Obama: ‘We will rebuild.’
“New York Times:
Obama Vows, ‘We Will Rebuild.’
“Isaiah 9:10:
‘We will rebuild.’”
“From the New York Times to Al Jazeera,” I said, “they all chose the central declaration of Isaiah 9:10 . . . with no one having any idea.”
“No more than the one who proclaimed it had any idea. The same principle that caused the Harbingers to manifest in the first place was now operating through the global media. And notice something else, Nouriel. The president didn’t just say, ‘We will rebuild.’ He prefaced it with this:
I want every American to know this: We will rebuild.5
“Does it sound familiar?”
“It’s the prophetic address, that which comes before a prophetic utterance, to identify the person or people to whom it’s being sent. So the word was now being sent to every American.”
“Correct,” he answered. “The ancient prophecy was addressed to the people of Israel:
“ . . . and all the people will know it.6
“So now, the president of the United States is readdressing it. It is now given for every American to know. And as with the other witnesses, he too clearly identifies who the ‘we’ is of we will rebuild. The president is reciting the vow on behalf of every American.”
“And by doing that, the president is, in effect, identifying America as a nation estranged from God, in defiance of His will, and heading toward judgment.”
“Yes,” said the prophet, “just as did the first two witnesses. In order for a truth or a judgment to be established, there must be two or three witnesses, and their testimony of each must be consistent with that of the others. To that end, the president added a second line to his vow:
“We will rebuild, we will recover.”7
“Why does it sound familiar?” I asked.
“On the day after 9/11, when the ancient vow was first proclaimed from Capitol Hill, the Senate majority leader sealed the vow and his address with these words:
“We will rebuild and we will recover.”8
“So the president was repeating the words spoken on Capitol Hill,” I said, “the day after 9/11. But he couldn’t have done it purposely.”
“No,” said the prophet, “not purposely . . . but unknowingly, as with everything else. And notice . . . when the Senate majority leader proclaimed those two declarations, the words were not only being joined to the attack but clearly to Isaiah 9:10. And now the president utters the same words but now to speak of the economic collapse. So, the same declaration spoken over the first shaking is now spoken over the second. The two events are again joined together, and it’s all joined together by Isaiah 9:10.”
“And they both made their proclamations in the same place.”
“Yes,” he said, “the witnesses are joined together not only by their testimony but also by the place in which they give their testimony. Each of the three witnesses proclaims the vow in the capital city. The first and third witness proclaim the vow not only in the same city but also on the exact same hill.”
“In the exact same building.”
“And a building divided in two . . . into two wings . . . two chambers . . . the Senate and the House, the nation’s two highest legislative assemblies . . . each of which must confirm a law or proclamation in order for it to be passed . . . as with two witnesses. And so the ancient vow is proclaimed, first from the floor of the Senate on the day after 9/11, and then from the floor of the House of Representatives . . . first from the northern wing and then from the southern, once in each wing . . . once in each chamber . . . two witnesses.”
“And did the president say anything else that linked up with Isaiah 9:10?”
“Yes, with Isaiah 9:10 and with the commentaries. When the leaders of ancient Israel declared, ‘The bricks have fallen, but we will rebuild,’ what were they saying?”
“Tell me.”
“They were saying that fallen bricks would not decide their future, the crisis would not determine their nation’s destiny—they themselves would. From the commentaries:
“The arrogant response demonstrates how stubborn and overconfident the people of Israel were. They thought they could determine their own destiny.9
“So after declaring, ‘We will rebuild,’ the president gave voice to another declaration:
“The weight of this crisis will not determine the destiny of this nation.10
“It’s the bricks have fallen, but we will rebuild, translated into modern political terminology.”
“And what did he say would determine the nation’s destiny?” I asked.
“America would be its own answer:
“The answers to our problems don’t lie beyond our reach. They exist in our laboratories and universities; in our fields and our factories; in the imagination of our entrepreneurs and the pride of the hardest-working people on Earth.11
“In other words, ‘We will emerge from this crisis by relying on the greatness of our powers and resources . . . ’”
“We will rebuild . . . with quarried stones,” I said, “and cedar trees.”
“Exactly,” he replied. “We will determine our own destiny. And yet the ancient vow boasted of more than that . . . more than rebuilding and more than recovering.”
