The Harbinger II

by Jonathan Cahn

  “Like the colored light spilling out from the broken vessel?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what was the colored light?”

  “The breaking of the vessel on that day in June caused celebrations throughout the nation and around the world. The celebrations were marked by a sign . . . a sign of many colors.”

  “The rainbow.”

  “It appeared on flags and banners, on signs, on people.”

  “The colored light represented the rainbow.”

  “And what is the rainbow?”

  “The sign of a movement.”

  “No,” said the prophet, “the rainbow doesn’t belong to man—the rainbow belongs to God. It is the sign that He Himself gave and consecrated. Like marriage and like existence, the rainbow is a sacred vessel. And so on that day in June, the sign given by God, the rainbow, was likewise taken from its sacred purpose and became a vessel lifted against the sacred and against the purposes of heaven.”

  “That would make it another act of desecration,” I said. “The first desecration celebrated by a second . . . a day of desecrations.”

  “The breaking of the sacred vessel,” he said.

  “All these things centered on the Supreme Court,” I said, “but we’re standing here at the White House. This is where the mystery led me and where you chose to meet me. Why here?”

  “When a nation falls away from God and seeks to change its values and standards, who is it that we said sanctions that metamorphosis?”

  “Its priests,” I said.

  “Yes,” said the prophet, “and also its king. And so it was not only the Supreme Court that sanctioned the change; it was the king . . . the president. The day belonged to the priests of the high court, but the night belonged to the king. It was the night of that day that the king joined in the celebration and issued his own sanction and blessing on what had been done.

  “On the day when God’s vessels were desecrated in Babylon, a sign appeared on the walls of the king’s palace. And on the day that the vessel of God was desecrated in America, a sign would appear on the wall of the king’s palace.”

  “The king’s palace being the White House.”

  “Yes.”

  “So a sign appeared on the wall of the White House?”

  “Yes, with the president’s blessing.”

  “And the sign was?”

  “The walls of the White House were illuminated with the colors of the rainbow.”

  “The wall in my dream stood for the wall of the White House.”

  “The highest house of the land, a representation of America itself, now covered in the colors of desecration. And so the White House itself became a vessel of desecration . . . and defiance against the ways of God. And the whole nation saw it. The whole world saw it.”

  “The symbol of America . . . a sign of desecration.”

  “And do you know what else the rainbow is connected to?”

  “No.”

  “The throne of God. The Book of Ezekiel speaks of the glory of God appearing in the likeness of the rainbow. The Book of Revelation speaks of a rainbow surrounding God’s throne.2 And now, the same sign, the sign of God’s throne, His sovereignty, and authority, was used against the authority of God . . . and on the walls of the king’s palace . . . the throne of man at war with the throne of God.”

  “The same king who inscribed the words of defiance on the top of the tower now sanctioned the colors of defiance on the walls of the White House.”

  “And do you know what else the rainbow is connected to, Nouriel?”

  “What?”

  “Judgment. The rainbow was born in judgment. It was a sign from the days of Noah of God’s mercy in the wake of judgment.”

  “Then it’s a good sign.”

  “Yes,” said the prophet, “but what happens if you take the sign of God’s mercy, the sign of His desire to hold back the coming of judgment . . . and use it against Him? What happens if you turn the sign of His mercy against its purpose, if you break it? Then what is left? Only judgment. When the handwriting on the wall appeared in Babylon, it was a sign that the judgment had been sealed. The enemy would enter the gates of Babylon, and the kingdom would be brought to an end. The act of desecration brings judgment.”

  “And the day that the sign appeared in America was also the ninth of Tammuz, the day that marked the sealing of Israel’s judgment.”

  “And do you know what happened after that day?”

  “No.”

  “Less than forty days after the White House was illuminated with the colors of the rainbow, another building was illuminated with the colors of a different light. It was right after the illumination of the White House that the Empire State Building was illuminated and the image of the god of death and destruction appeared over the skyline of New York City.”

  “So the sign on the wall of the White House was a harbinger.”

  “Before the entire nation.”

  “The harbinger was the White House itself.”

  “Yes. The White House itself became the harbinger, and the handwriting appeared on its wall in the colors of the rainbow.”

  He gave me some time, as he often did, to contemplate what I had been shown, which I did as I gazed at the White House.

  Finally, he spoke. “I think we better go now,” he said. “The security is beginning to wonder who we are.”

  So we turned around and began walking away from the White House through Lafayette Square and to the sidewalk at its end. It was there that I gave him the seal and he handed me another.

  “And what was the next mystery?”

  “An ancient holy day, a leader who changed the Word of God, the return of a harbinger, a sign in the heavens, and a fall on the earth.”

  Chapter 24

  The Judgment Tree

  SO WHAT WAS on the seal?”

  “A tree,” said Nouriel. “A circle, inside of which was a tree. The tree had no leaves, and its branches were indistinguishable from its roots. So you couldn’t tell which part of the seal was the top and which was the bottom.”

  “And what did you make of it?”

  “It seemed pretty plain to me . . . a tree inside of a circle. But its significance eluded me.”

  “And you had a dream . . .”

  “Yes. I was sitting in a boat, a small, thin boat. It was nighttime. In front of me was the boatman. I assumed he was guiding it, but I didn’t notice any oars. ‘Look,’ he said, pointing upward. ‘It’s a new moon. That means it’s the first day of the month.’ As we continued moving across the water, which I believed was a river, I noticed the night was brightening, the moonlight was growing more intense.

  “The boat came ashore. I followed the boatman inland until we came upon a massive object, the bottom of a colossal tree. The moonlight now became noticeably brighter. I looked upward. The colossal object was the Statue of Liberty, but in the form of a tree, or a tree in the form of the Statue of Liberty. Its robe, its tablet, the base of its torch, its arms, fingers, and face were all made of bark. But its hair and the flame of its torch were green, as if made of leaves, but not leaves; they were needles, as in the needles of a pine tree.

  “As the moonlight continued to brighten, I began noticing abnormalities in the bark. It was peeling off, and there was fungus and mildew and deep holes and cracks. It was diseased. The boatman now pointed again to the sky. The moon was now full. ‘It’s time,’ he said. At that, a strong wind began blowing against the statue or tree. Then I heard a creaking sound, and the statue began to sway back and forth, a little at first, then more and more and more until its massive roots began tearing up from the soil. And then it came crashing down to the earth with what sounded like a loud explosion.

  “Soon after that, the sun rose. I walked among the ruins. The statue had broken in half, the torch was devoid of its flame, and the crown had been removed from its head. ‘And now,’ said the boatman, ‘where will its hope be found?’ And the dream ended.”

 
“So where did that lead you?” asked Ana.

  “In two directions, and I wasn’t sure which one to go in. But I had already gone looking for trees with the other seal, so I decided to take a boat ride to the Statue of Liberty.”

  “Had you ever gone there before?”

  “Never,” he said. “It’s one of the things you do when you live in the metropolitan area.”

  “Which is what?”

  “Never go to any of the sites. So I headed down to Battery Park to take the ferry to Liberty Island. As I made my way to the harbor, I passed a man sitting on a park bench to my left. I was hardly aware of him as I walked. But then I heard a voice.”

  “You won’t find it there.”

  I turned around. And there he was, the prophet, sitting on a bench with a bag of peanuts in his hand.

  “So how do I find it?” I asked, not even fully knowing what the it was that I was supposed to find.

  “Perhaps I can help you,” he said.

  I sat down beside him and told him the dream, though I was sure he already knew it. Otherwise he wouldn’t have been waiting there on that bench.

  “The ancient vow leads to two objects, the building that rises in place of the fallen bricks and the erez tree planted in place of the fallen sycamore. Each is a sign of the nation’s defiance in the face of God’s call. And so after 9/11, America began building its tower on the ground where the bricks had fallen . . . and planted the erez tree on the soil where the sycamore had fallen.”

  “The Tree of Hope.”

  “We’ve already seen what happened with the tower. But what about the other, the erez tree?”

  “It began to wither,” I replied.

  At that, the prophet rose from the bench. “Come,” he said as he began to walk. I got up and joined him. We walked away from the harbor and toward the streets of Lower Manhattan.

  “There is a symbol,” he said, “given in Scripture that represents the judgment of nations. It’s used over and over again.”

  “What symbol?”

  “An image, a metaphor, an event. The prophet Isaiah used it to prophesy the destruction of Ethiopia:

  He will . . . take away and cut down the branches.1

  “The prophet Ezekiel foretold the fall of Egypt this way:

  Its branches have fallen . . . its boughs lie broken.2

  “And the prophet Jeremiah foretold the judgment and fall of his own nation with the words

  He has kindled fire on it, and its branches are broken.3

  “What image are they all using?”

  “The breaking of a branch.”

  “Yes, the breaking of the branch is a sign of national judgment.”

  “And this has to do with the image on the seal?”

  “This has to do with the harbinger, the erez tree, the tree that was planted in place of the fallen sycamore, the symbol of a nation’s hope. The scripture says that when the ‘boughs are withered, they will be broken off.’4 And so the boughs of the Tree of Hope, the harbinger, withered away… and then they were cut off. The Tree of Hope was dismembered. It stood there at the corner of Ground Zero with its branches cut off, a shadow of what it had been when it was dedicated and given its name. The tree planted to symbolize national resurgence turned instead into a different sign, that of a nation’s fall.

  “But it wasn’t only the transformation of the tree that was significant—it was also the one who came to visit.”

  “Who?”

  “The president.”

  “Obama?”

  “Yes. On the anniversary of the calamity, he came to visit Ground Zero. And there he read from a scripture, Psalm 46. The psalm speaks of the Lord bringing peace on earth and destroying the weapons of war. It says this:

  He breaks the bow and cuts the spear in two.5

  “The bow is the weapon used by archers in warfare, as in the bow and arrow. So the verse spoke of blessing, the ending of war, peace. But the president altered the scripture. He, no doubt, had no idea what he was doing, but nevertheless, he did it. Instead of saying, ‘He breaks the bow,’ the president changed the word to say,

  He breaks the bough.6

  “In English, the sound of the two words is similar, but their meaning, in the context of the scripture, could not be more different. The breaking of the bow is a blessing. But the breaking of the bough is a biblical sign of a nation’s judgment. So the president changed the word of national blessing into a word of national judgment. And when the White House posted the psalm on its website, it likewise altered the words in accordance with what the president had done. It changed, in writing, the word bow into the word bough. It changed the scripture.

  “And as the president spoke of the Lord breaking the bough, a stone’s throw away from the ground on which he spoke it stood a tree, withering away and from which the boughs would be broken off.”

  “Were the boughs broken off when he said it?”

  “No. He said it, and then it happened. And yet there is another sign of national judgment even greater than the first. It concerns not only the tree’s branches but the tree—its fall and destruction.”

  “Like the fall of the sycamore?”

  “Yes, and even stronger than that. A sign specifically connected to another tree—the erez tree. The prophet Ezekiel spoke of the judgment and destruction of Assyria in this way:

  Assyria was an erez tree. . . of high stature . . . the most terrible of the nations . . . have cut it down.7

  “So the prophet Jeremiah spoke of the judgment that would destroy his nation with these words:

  I will ordain destroyers against you, each with his weapon, and they will cut down your best erez trees and throw them into the fire.8

  “And the prophet Zechariah foretold the destruction of Jerusalem this way:

  Open, O Lebanon, your doors that fire may consume your erez trees.”9

  “And why is it so significant that it’s talking about the erez tree?” I asked.

  “The answer is in the name. Do you remember what erez means?”

  “Strong.”

  “Because the tree was known for its strength. That’s the reason it was invoked in the ancient vow:

  The sycamores have been cut down, but we will plant erez trees in their place.

  “That’s why it’s so significant. They were vowing to come back as strong as the erez tree. That’s why the erez tree became the symbol of their defiance. It was much stronger than the sycamore. So while the sycamore could be easily struck down, the erez tree, they believed, could not. Thus they believed themselves immune to any future judgment. As one commentary put it, they would . . .

  . . . exchange its feeble sycamores that are cut down for strong cedars [erez trees] which the wildest gales will spare.”10

  “And so when America performed the same act,” I said, “when it replaced the sycamore with the erez tree and called it the Tree of Hope, it not only spoke of defiance in the face of judgment but of immunity.”

  “Not that this was the intent of those who performed the act,” he said, “but this was its biblical meaning. Would you like to see it?” he asked.

  “The erez tree?”

  “Yes.”

  With the exception of the prophet taking me to the top of the tower, I had avoided going to Ground Zero. But we were now heading in that direction, and there was something he wanted me to see. So he led me to Ground Zero and to the dark wrought iron fence that surrounded the soil on which the sycamore had fallen and the erez tree planted in its place.

  “Look, Nouriel,” said the prophet. “Tell me what you see.”

  I gazed through the fence looking for the Tree of Hope.

  “I’m not seeing it. Am I looking in the right place?”

  “The place is right,” he said. “The reason you’re not seeing it is because it’s not there, it’s gone.”

  “Gone?”

  “You’re not seeing it because the ancient sign was manifested on this ground.”

  “The sign of?”


  “National judgment.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “The words of the prophets—‘The erez tree has fallen’11—the sign of national judgment.”

  “How?”

  “It was struck down.”

  “By what?”

  “By those in charge of keeping it alive.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it withered away and no matter what they did, they couldn’t save it. . . . So they destroyed it.”

  “They destroyed the sign of their resurgence.”

  “They destroyed the harbinger—and by so doing, created another, the fall of the erez tree.”

  “I had no idea.”

  “Really?” said the prophet, “Do you not read your own books, Nouriel?”

  “I barely have time to write them. Why?”

  “You should read them. It was all there in your first book. You wrote it before it happened.”

  “You’ve read my books?”

  “This is what you wrote concerning the cedar or erez tree, the Tree of Hope at Ground Zero:

  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.12

  “You wrote that years before it happened.”

  “It sounds more like your words than mine.”

  “I may have said it, but you wrote it down for others to see.”

  “When did it fall? When did they cut it down?”

  “They destroyed the Tree of Hope on a Hebrew holy day.”

  “Which holy day?”

  “The one that commemorates the judgment of a nation—Passover, the day that the plague came on a nation that warred against God.”13

  “Two signs of national judgment,” I said, “in a single day.”

  “And there are other signs of judgment that appear not on earth but in the heavens.”