“Even the land itself was resurrected. Forests were planted and sprung up where ancient forests had once stood. Vineyards, olive groves, and fields of grain rose up where vineyards, olive groves, and fields of grain had once flourished but died. It had been ages since the land had seen Israeli farmers, sowers, and reapers. But a resurrected land needed to be tended. So there came another resurrection. After two thousand years resurrected Israeli farmers and vineyard keepers appeared in the land to farm and tend its resurrected fruits.
“The last Israeli soldiers died in battle against the Roman Empire, then vanished from the earth. So another resurrection began. After two thousand years the Israeli soldiers reappeared on the earth to protect the nation that had likewise died and reappeared on the earth.”
“Has anything like this ever happened before?”
“The total resurrection of a nation? Never has a nation been so completely destroyed and so come back to life . . . or vanished from world history for thousands of years, only to reappear in modern times. And never have any people been so driven from their homeland, then gathered back together from every corner of the earth.
“Nations exist,” he said, “and then are spoken of. But the Israel that was to rise from death was spoken of, prophesied of, and dreamed about for thousands of years before it existed. Such things have no precedent. Nor has any such thing ever been foretold thousands of years before it happened. But from ancient times it was prophesied, ‘I will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall possess it.’” 4
“When I next saw the Oracle, he would reveal the ancient mystery that lay behind an American president.”
“A modern American president?”
“A twentieth-century American president.”
“And it went back to ancient times?”
“It went back to an ancient king.”
Chapter 29
THE PERSIAN
TO FIND THE Oracle this time, I had to walk through several of the cave’s chambers. Without the light of the oil lamps it would have been impossible. I found him sitting in a chamber of stone artifacts, what you might imagine finding in the storage room of some archaeological museum. He lifted up a cylinder of hardened clay.”
“That was in the vision,” I said, “that exact object.”
“The cylinder is an edict of King Cyrus,” he said. “It’s a replica, but everything’s the same. Cyrus issued it soon after he conquered Babylon and assumed the throne of a world empire. He was the king you saw in your vision of the White House. It was Cyrus who allowed the Jews to return from their exile to rebuild their nation and their Holy City. There would only be two exiles in Jewish history and two returns, the first in ancient times, the second in modern times. Critical to the first return was the existence of an ancient world leader to support and sanction it, Cyrus. Likewise critical to the second return was the existence of a modern world leader to support and sanction it.”
“Who?” I asked.
“The president of the United States,” he replied, “Harry S. Truman. Thus the question: Could the two world leaders be linked, joined together in a mystery? Could the return of the Jewish people in modern times under Harry Truman have followed the pattern of the return in ancient times under Cyrus? And is it possible that behind a modern American president is the mystery of an ancient Persian king?”
“Is that what the vision was revealing? The man in the Oval Office was King Cyrus? And the man he became, the man in the light suit and hat, was President Truman?”
“The rise of Harry Truman to the most powerful position on earth was one of the many quirks of converging events required by the mystery. He was the most unlikely of men. It was only after failing in business that he ended up in the political realm. And remember what I told you about how he was catapulted to the presidency.”
“He was made vice president just before the former president died.”
“Less than three months before he died. And Truman was a student of the Bible, having read it several times through by the age of fourteen. He knew well the connection of the Jewish people to the land. And he held a deep sympathy for the plight of the Jewish people and realized their need for a safe refuge. Just as Cyrus was thrust to the pinnacle of world power to sanction the return of the Jewish people to their homeland and the nation’s rebirth, so too was Truman thrust to the pinnacle of world power at the exact moment that the second return of Israel into the world was about to take place.
“Without Cyrus’ support and sanction the rebirth of the Jewish nation would never have taken place. In modern times it was Truman’s support and sanction that would be critical for the rebirth of the Jewish nation. And it would come through much struggle. Truman’s backing of the future Jewish state was fiercely opposed by his own State Department, which appeared resolved to thwart his will on the matter at every turn. Despite this he persevered and would be pivotal in the passage of the UN resolution that would bring Israel back into existence. And then, at the moment of Israel’s resurrection, it was because of Truman that America would become the first nation to grant recognition.
“And yet there are other connections between the American president and the Persian king. Cyrus began governing around the year 560 BC. He continued to reign until his death in 530 BC. So his time in government spanned . . . ”
“Thirty years.”
“Truman entered his first governmental office in January 1923. His time in government would come to an end with the end of his presidency in January 1953. Thus Truman’s time in government spanned . . . ”
“Thirty years . . . the same as Cyrus’.”
“The seminal moment in Cyrus’ rise to power came in the autumn of 539 BC. It was then that he defeated Nabonidus, the last king of the Babylonian Empire. With that the age of Babylon came to an end and the Persian age began. Cyrus was now the ruler of the largest empire ever established up to that time, the ‘king of the four corners of the earth.'1 Most scholars place Cyrus’ birth between 600 and 599 BC. That would mean that when he ascended to the pinnacle of world power, he would have been around sixty years of age.
“The seminal moment in Truman’s rise to world power came in the spring of 1945 when he assumed the office of the presidency. It happened at the same moment that America was assuming the mantle of world superpower. Truman was now the leader of the strongest military, political, cultural, and economic power on earth. When he came to that position of world power, he was . . . sixty years old. So Cyrus, at the age of sixty, ruled at the dawn of the Persian age and empire, and Truman, at the age of sixty, ruled at the dawn of the American age and superpower.
“The return of the Jewish people in ancient times took place in the aftermath of war. So too the return of the Jewish people in modern times took place in the aftermath of war, World War II. It was after emerging victorious in his war against Babylon that Cyrus issued the decree for the Jewish people to return to their land. So too it was after America emerged victorious from the Second World War that Truman began taking action that would lead to the return of the Jewish people to their land and the nation’s resurrection.”
“In my vision the president gave the cylinder to the eagle, which then flew away with it. What did that represent?”
“The golden eagle was a symbol of the Persian Empire and of Cyrus himself. It was Cyrus who issued the decree that opened the doors for the Jewish people to return home and rebuild their nation. In the modern world Truman would do the same.
“After Cyrus conquered Babylon, he declared the right of those who had been exiled and displaced from their lands to return home. That’s what’s written on this cylinder. It’s been called the world’s first charter of universal human rights. There exists one other document known by such words, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Do you know who a key champion of that declaration was? Harry Truman.
“The document specifically proclaims the right of everyone to ‘return to his country.’ 2 Thus in
all of world history there are two leaders associated with a declaration of universal human rights and specifically the right to return to one’s homeland: King Cyrus and President Truman. The date of the ancient declaration was 539 BC, the same year that Cyrus gave his sanction for the return and restoration of Israel. The date of the modern declaration was 1948, the same year that Truman gave his sanction for the return and restoration of Israel.
“Cyrus issued his decree to allow the rebuilding of Israel at the end of a critical seventy-year period of Jewish history. Is it possible that President Truman was also connected to a critical seventy-year period of Jewish history connected to Israel’s rebirth? The restoration of the modern nation of Israel began in the late 1870s with the establishment of the first Jewish settlements in the land. It marked the beginning of the land’s revival and the return of its people. What happens if you add seventy years to the late 1870s?”
“It takes you to the late 1940s.”
“Which is the time of Truman’s presidency.”
“Do we know the exact year those first settlements were established?”
“Yes. It all began in the year 1878. Now add the seventy years . . . ”
“1948!” I replied. “The year of Israel’s rebirth. So Cyrus issued his decree sanctioning Israel’s return at the end of seventy years, and Truman issued his decree sanctioning Israel’s return at the end of seventy years.”
“And yet,” said the Oracle, “the mystery goes even deeper. Cyrus not only recognized and supported the rebirth of the Jewish nation; he specifically issued a decree to release the Jewish exiles from captivity and allow them to come home. And that all took place in his first year of world power. So is it possible that Truman followed the mystery of Cyrus in this as well? Could there be a parallel to Cyrus’ word to release the Jewish exiles, and could it have taken place in the first year of Truman’s presidency?
“Less than thirty days after Truman became president, the Second World War ended in Europe. The continent was now filled with those displaced by the war. Foremost among them were Jewish refugees, many of them held in camps behind barbed wire and armed guards. The British refused to let them return to their homeland.
“In the summer of 1945 the US State Department commissioned Earl Harrison to investigate the conditions of the camps and issue a report. The result, the Harrison Report, was a scathing document that likened the treatment of the Jewish refugees in the detainment camps to the treatment given them by the Nazis. 3 The report was sent to Truman in late August. One week later Truman wrote to British Prime Minister Clement Attlee citing the findings of the report with the urgent request to release one hundred thousand Jewish refugees and allow them to return to their homeland. 4
“Attlee responded with resistance and warning. Truman in turn responded by releasing the results of the report publicly. Soon after that he authorized the release of the letter he had sent to the British prime minister. The resulting pressure forced the British Empire to begin the release of Jewish exiles to return to the land. Thousands of Jewish exiles, survivors of the Holocaust, would return to the shores of their ancient homeland. In all of history only two world leaders have issued such a word to bring about the mass return of Jewish exiles to the land: King Cyrus and President Truman. And both Cyrus and Truman would issue that word in their first year of world power.
“Truman’s letter would have another consequence. The pressure of the return of the Jewish exiles to the land would ultimately lead the British Empire to end its occupation of the land, which would in turn lead to the nation’s rebirth. Cyrus had brought about the end of a seventy-year exile; Truman would ultimately bring about the end of a two-thousand-year-old exile. It was that letter that set it all in motion.”
“When did he send it?” I asked.
“He sent it on August 31, 1945. It was a Friday.”
“When the Sabbath begins. So there would have been an appointed Scripture sealing that day. Was it significant?”
“I would say so,” the Oracle replied. “The word appointed for August 31, 1945, the day that Truman sent word to release the exiles to return to their homeland, was this:
The LORD your God will bring you back from captivity, and have compassion on you, and gather you again from all the nations where the LORD your God has scattered you. If any of you are driven out to the farthest parts under heaven, from there the LORD your God will gather you, and from there He will bring you. Then the LORD your God will bring you to the land which your fathers possessed, and you shall possess it. 5
“It’s the prophecy of Moses,” said the Oracle, “the very first prophecy to foretell Israel’s regathering, the first word in Scripture to speak of the return of the exiles from captivity to the land God had given them.”
“So then,” I said, “on that Friday as the president sent forth the call for the exiles to return to their land, the ancient prophecy foretelling the return of the exiles to their land was being read and chanted throughout the earth.”
“Yes, and Truman’s letter to the British prime minister was at that time confidential. The nations had no idea it existed, but all over the world the ancient prophecy foretelling the release and return of the exiles was being proclaimed.”
“Was that prophecy from the end of Deuteronomy,” I asked, “from Moses’ last words to Israel?”
“Yes,” said the Oracle. “And do you remember what comes just before that first prophecy of the return to the land?”
“The prophecy of the stranger coming from a faraway land.”
“The stranger . . . he would also have a part in Israel’s rebirth.”
“Mark Twain? But he had to have been long gone by then.”
“Yes, but the mystery is not limited by death. When Truman was wrestling over whether to support the rebirth of the Jewish nation, it was the words of a quote he had kept in his office in the White House that sealed his decision.”
“What was it?”
“It was ‘Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.’ 6 Truman would later recount that it was those words that were pivotal in his decision.” 7
“And . . . ”
“They were the words of the stranger, Mark Twain. So years after his death, the stranger was still playing a part in the mystery. It was the prophecy of the stranger that led to the prophecy of Israel’s return, and so it would be the stranger’s own words that would lead to the prophecy’s fulfillment.”
“So it all had to be just as it was,” I said. “Truman, the one who would follow the template of Cyrus, had to become president at that exact time, at the moment of Israel’s resurrection, at the Cyrus moment. So then the Jubilean mysteries determined who would become the president of the United States.”
“Yes,” said the Oracle, “as they do everything else.”
“In my vision the king didn’t seem to realize who he was or how he was used for the purposes of God until the end. Did Truman ever realize the role he played in the mystery?”
“In the spring of 1949, a year after Israel’s birth, Israel’s first chief rabbi, Isaac Herzog, came to America to visit the president.”
“Would he have looked like an Orthodox Jew?”
“He would have.”
“Was he the man in the vision who entered the White House?”
“Yes. The rabbi told the president that when he was still in his mother’s womb, the Lord had called him to be the instrument to bring about the rebirth of Israel after two thousand years. He told him that the Lord had given him the mission of helping the Jewish people at a time of despair and bringing about the fulfillment of the promise and prophecy of their return to the Promised Land. 8 But the rabbi would become even more specific. He told Truman that in ancient times a similar mission had once been given to the leader of another great nation . . . Cyrus. The rabbi told Truman that Cyrus had also been given the mission of helping to redeem the Jewish people from their exile and restore them to their ancestral land. And then he
read to the president the words of the ancient Persian king:
The Lord God of heaven hath . . . charged me to build Him an house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. 9
“The president asked the rabbi if the hand of the Almighty was in his actions toward the Jewish people. The rabbi responded that Truman had been given the task once fulfilled by King Cyrus and that he, like Cyrus, would hold a place of honor in the history of the Jewish people.
“The president was so overcome with emotion at the rabbi’s words that tears began welling up in his eyes and streaming down his cheeks. 10
“King Cyrus began several of his inscriptions with the words ‘I am Cyrus.’ The words would be engraved on his tomb. Years after his encounter with the rabbi, Truman was attending a gathering in New York City. It was then that he would utter the words that would sum up the mystery of his life and his part in the Jubilean mysteries.”
“What did he say?”
“He said . . .
I am Cyrus.” 11
“When I next saw the Oracle, he would open the mystery of another reappearance.”
“What do you mean?”
“Cyrus wasn’t the only ancient figure to ‘reappear’ on the modern world stage. There would be another mystery and another person.”
“Who?”
“One just as fascinating. One who was, who was not, and who would be again.”
“And how was it revealed to you?”
“Through the boy I met on the seashore, the boy of the arch.”
Chapter 30
THE MAN WHO WAS
I RETURNED TO the cave. The Oracle was sitting by its entrance. I joined him there.”
“The arch on the shore . . . what was that?” I asked.
The Oracle Page 13