The Harbinger (17 page)

“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?”

“It was the third year after 9/11. The pieces of the ancient puzzle were falling into place. In late November of 2003, the Erez Tree was lowered into the earth to replace the fallen Sycamore. On the following Fourth of July, 2004, the Gazit Stone was, in turn, lowered to the floor of Ground Zero to replace the fallen Bricks. So by the summer of 2004, every object mentioned in the ancient prophecy had manifested, and each at Ground Zero. Less than three months later would come the manifestation of the Eighth Harbinger.”

“But not at Ground Zero.”

“No, in the nation’s capital where the nation’s leaders reside. According to the mystery, it would have to involve at least one leader, one who could speak on behalf of the nation…a figure of national prominence. He would have to utter words paralleling the ancient vow.”

“And all this would have to take place publicly.”

“Yes. In the autumn of 2004, the nation was in the final stage of a presidential election. The candidate campaigning on the Democratic ticket for the office of vice presidency, a member of the Senate, was, at that time, among the most prominent of the nation’s leaders. It was September 11, 2004. The vice presidential candidate had been invited to speak at a gathering of a congressional caucus in the nation’s capital on the anniversary of the calamity. It would be an eloquent address, designed to inspire its hearers.
It would also be a sign
. What would proceed out of his mouth would be even more precise and more eerie than that which had been spoken over the stone at Ground Zero. September 11, 2004, the third anniversary of the calamity, these are the exact words spoken that day in Washington DC, the nation’s capital city:

“My God!” I said. “That’s too…”

“It is,” said the prophet. “Nevertheless, it happened.”

“I can’t believe…”

“But it happened.”

“He said those exact words?”

“Those…exact…words.”

“But it’s a prophecy of judgment! What was he doing proclaiming…”

“That’s the point.”

“He proclaimed Isaiah 9:10…”

“The code to the Harbingers.”

“It’s too much…”

“But it’s real.”

Ana had been silent up to this point, just trying to take it all in. But she could no longer contain her reaction. “It’s totally unbelievable…” she said. “It’s like something out of a…”

“I know,” he replied, “but it’s all real.”

“When the prophet told you all these things, did you check them out to verify them, to make sure they actually happened?” she asked.

“Yes,” he replied.

“And they all checked out?”

“Yes, they all checked out.”

“It’s so hard to believe it. Now it’s the vice presidential candidate saying it outright…this ancient mystery. It’s beyond real.”

“I know. I told him that. But it’s all true.”

“But why would anyone proclaim that vow?” she asked.

“I asked the same thing of the prophet.”

“And what was his answer?”

“His answer was that it happened for the same reason everything else happened. It wasn’t about the motive or the intention of the one doing it, but the fact that it was done…that it happened. It happened because it
had
to happen. It was another replaying of the ancient mystery. What the speaker intended to say was irrelevant. The words came out because those were the words that had to be spoken. The vow
had
to be proclaimed, the words of the ancient leaders over the ancient calamity
had
to be proclaimed by an American leader over 9/11. And by doing so, the two nations, the ancient and the modern, were bound together. The utterance would join the Assyrian invasion to 9/11 and America’s post-9/11 defiance to Israel’s defiance in the face of God’s judgment.”

“But how,” she asked, “did it happen that the vice presidential candidate could end up saying those words?”

“That’s the same thing I wanted to know. I asked the prophet how many verses there were in the Bible.”

“Over thirty thousand,” he told me.

“So,” I replied, “out of over thirty thousand verses…that’s the one he chose? And you said it was obscure…that even people who read the Bible every day would probably have no idea it existed.”

“That is correct,” he replied.

“So how on earth did he end up choosing that particular verse?”

“How was the Sycamore cut down?” he asked. “Through a series of twists and quirks. But now the twists and quirks take place in the realm of speech writing, in the searching through quotations deemed most appropriate for such occasions, in the borrowing of passages and quotes from other proclamations and speeches. It doesn’t matter how it happened; the point is
it happened
. One of the most prominent of American leaders had now proclaimed the ancient vow—one of the most obscure verses in the Bible and one of the most ominous.”

“And he too had no idea what he was doing…or saying?” I asked.

“If he had, he never would have done it.”

“It’s
stunning…”

“Yes,” he said. “It’s stunning enough for Isaiah 9:10 to appear in a speech centered on 9/11. But that wasn’t the end of it. It wasn’t only that the ancient prophecy
appeared
in the speech…”

“What else was it?”

“It was that
the entire speech
actually emanated out of the ancient prophecy and revolved around it.”

“The whole speech revolved around Isaiah 9:10?” I asked.

“It was the cornerstone on which the speech was built.”

“So an American leader built an entire speech on an ancient vow spoken in defiance of God by the rebellious leaders of a doomed nation?”

“And lest the connection be missed, he proceeded to join the ancient words of judgment to America.”

“How?”

“He said this:

“And again:

“And yet again:

“He’s actually linking the fallen bricks of Ground Zero to the fallen bricks of Israel’s judgment!”

“Yes, Nouriel. That’s exactly what he’s doing. But he doesn’t stop there. He speaks as well of fallen sycamores and rising stones…”

“The Gazit Stone.”

“Yes, and rising cedars.”

“The Erez Tree.”

“And all referring to America’s campaign to defy the calamity of 9/11, as he links it all to the judgment of ancient Israel. And then he crowns the address with a dramatic conclusion in the form of a final vow:

“And he never realized it?” I asked. “He had absolutely no idea what he was doing?”

“His only intention was to deliver an inspiring speech, a word to encourage a nation. But instead…”

“But instead, he was pronouncing judgment on a nation.”

“Yes,” said the prophet. “Without realizing the ramifications of his words, he was pronouncing judgment on America.”

“Amazing!”

“But so it was in the ancient case as well. Without realizing what they were doing, the leaders of ancient Israel were pronouncing judgment on
their
nation.”

“But now it’s two and half thousand years later,” I said. “Now there’s a context—the Book of Isaiah. It’s clearly not a word of encouragement. So it means nobody took the time to look even two verses back or ahead to see that it was actually a proclamation of judgment?”

“No, because it
had
to be proclaimed. And yet notice, Nouriel, the senator made a subtle change. The original vow speaks in the future tense—’We
will
rebuild.’ ‘We
will
plant cedars.’ But in the speech, it becomes, ‘We
are
building.’ ‘We
are
making those cedars rise.’ Only at the end does it go back to the future tense, ‘The cedars
will
rise.’ ‘The stones
will
go up.’ Why do you think that is?”

“When he speaks in the future tense, he’s vowing…it’s the vow. But when he speaks in the present tense, he’s bearing witness to the fact that the vow is being carried out.”

“Exactly. He’s bearing witness that the vow is being carried out. And to do that, he takes hewn stones and cedars, the symbols of Israel’s defiance in Isaiah 9:10, and transforms them into the symbols of America’s campaign to rebuild itself after 9/11.”

“Just as the actual physical harbingers were literally transformed into the symbols of American resurgence.”

“Correct.”

“Did he know it was happening?”

“Did he know
what
was happening?”

“Did he know that what he was declaring, figuratively and symbolically, was actually taking place
in reality
? He spoke of the falling of the sycamore as a symbol of 9/11. Did he know that it had actually happened, that a sycamore had actually been struck down on 9/11? And when he spoke of Americans putting up stones and cedars, did he realize that too had actually taken place? Did he know about the Gazit Stone or the Erez Tree?”

“He was only speaking poetically. He had no idea. And even if someone was to report it to him, he still would have had no idea what it all meant, no more idea of what he was doing than those who actually replaced the fallen Sycamore with the Erez Tree, and bricks with stone. Everyone was unknowingly performing their part of the mystery. And his part was to take the ancient vow and transform it. In his address, it ceased to be a quote. It was no longer Israel boasting in its cedars. It was now America. It was thus now America’s vow. Everything was being transposed—the Bricks, the Quarried Stone, the Sycamore, the Cedar, and now an American leader was publicly proclaiming the exact words of the vow and bearing witness of its fulfillment, a Harbinger to seal the other Harbingers, and to reveal America as a nation under the shadow of judgment.”