The Mystery of the Shemitah (22 page)

A tower rises.

The Shemitah is about letting. . . fall.

A tower may embody a nation’s rise to power.

The Shemitah in the form of judgment is linked to the fall of such a nation.

A tower represents a building up.

The Shemitah brings about the wiping away of what has been built up.

A tower manifests the pursuit of height, the goal of rising higher and higher away from the foundation.

The Shemitah manifests a return to the foundation.

When the judgment of God fell on the land of Israel, that which the nation built up was wiped away, and its buildings were leveled.

When the Shemitah comes, that which the nation has built up in its financial and economic realms is wiped away. It
levels accounts and brings back to ground level all that has been built up in the years before its coming.

A fall of a tower may come in the form of a crash or collapse.

The impact of the Shemitah on the financial realm brings about that which, in effect, constitutes a fall, a collapse, and a crash.

The Shamat

The word
shemitah
comes from the Hebrew root word
shamat. Shamat
can be translated as “to release” and “to remit,” as in the release or remission of debts in the Year of the Shemitah. It can also mean “to let alone,” as in no longer watching over or maintaining that which had been watched over and maintained. It can signify the releasing of one’s grip to allow the natural course of things to progress and the natural consequences to fall. It can also mean “to detach” and “to pull away.” It can also mean “to loosen.” And it can mean “to shake,” “to overthrow,” “to cast down,” “to discontinue,” “to let fall,” or “collapse.”

All these things can be applied to the ordinance of the Shemitah. The people were to release and let go of their claims of ownership, to let fall their accounts of credit and debts, and to detach from their land and leave it to its natural course.

But when the Shemitah manifests in the form of judgment, all these things take on new meaning and new manifestations. In 586 BC the Shemitah manifested in the form of judgment. God “released His grip” on the nation; He “pulled away” and withdrew His protection. The armies of Babylon then overran its borders. The nation was shaken to its foundation. It was allowed to fall. It was overthrown, cast down. The kingdom collapsed. It was discontinued. This was the Shemitah, or the
shamat
, in the form of judgment.

“Upon Every High Tower”

It is striking that one of the biblical signs of judgment is the striking down of that which is lifted up and the casting down of that which is high and lofty:

For the day of the LORD of hosts shall come upon everything proud and lofty, upon everything lifted up—and it shall be brought low . . .
upon every high tower
. . .

—
I
SAIAH
2:12–15,
emphasis added

From ancient times to the modern world, that which is most “lifted up” and that which is most “proud and lofty” is the tower. Therefore one of the clearest biblical signs of a nation under judgment is the casting down of its “high towers.”

The Days of Glory’s End

We have seen the ancient connection between towers and greatness, and between the first high tower of the modern age and the rising of America as a world power. The year in which the two converged, 1870, was the beginning of a new era. The highest towers on the earth continued to rise on American soil just as America itself continued to rise on the world stage. From 1870 and through most of the twentieth century, every building holding the title of being the tallest in the world had been erected on American soil. The majority of these had risen in the nation’s Empire City: New York.

But as the twentieth century drew to its close, a change took place; the age of America as the land of the highest towers on the earth came to an end. The world’s tallest buildings were now being built on other lands. In 1998 the Petronas Towers in Malaysia surpassed the height of the highest American tower to become the tallest building on earth. In 2003 the Taipei World Financial Center in China surpassed the Petronas Towers to become the world’s highest tower. And in 2010 the Burj Khalifa in the United Arab Emirates surpassed the Taipei World Financial Center to become the tallest building on earth. The age when America’s towers soared above every other was over. What had begun in the nineteenth century was now over. The tallest buildings of the new millennium were now ascending on Asian soil.

What about the ancient link of towers and greatness? If the rise of the world’s first skyscraper marked America’s rise, if the continuous ascent of the world’s tallest buildings on American land marked America’s continuous rise to unprecedented heights of world power—then what did it now mean that America’s highest towers were now being eclipsed by those of other lands and nations? What did it portend?

The above citing of the world’s tallest buildings is based on the height of the highest architectural element in each building. If one uses a different criterion, that of the height of the building’s tip, including its antenna, then the World Trade Center remained the tallest building in America to the end of the century. In fact, it remained the tallest building in the world. Its reign then only ended in the year 2000. It was a significant year in which to end. For 2000 was the year in which began the Shemitah.

The Mystery of the Shemitah and the Fall of the Towers

To the nation that has driven the God it had once known out of its life, rejected His ways, defied His will, and hardened itself to His calling, the Shemitah manifests in the form of judgment. As it entered the third millennium, America was such a nation. The Shemitah began in September 2000 and reached its climactic conclusion in September of 2001. If the Shemitah were to manifest in America as a sign of judgment, how would that sign of judgment manifest in September of 2001?

In view of what Shemitah can mean, what if, in the Year of the Shemitah 2001, God “let alone” the nation that had so driven Him out of its life, out of its culture, and out of its public squares? What if God “released His grip” on the United States, if He “pulled away” His protection from that nation, even for a moment? What if He allowed a nation, which had so hardened and deafened itself to the calling of His voice, to now be “shaken”?

The September Mysteries

The events of September 11, 2001, took place in the last climactic week of the Shemitah. In that week it all came together, the mystery of the towers and the mystery of the Shemitah. The twin towers would collapse as the Shemitah moved to its climatic end. What happens when the two mysteries converge? We have the tower, that which stands as a symbol of a nation’s greatness and the embodiment of its pride. And we have the Shemitah, that which humbles the pride of a nation and that which reminds a nation that without God, all its blessings and powers must fail. The tower speaks of rising. The Shemitah speaks of falling and wiping away that which has been built up. The tower rises far from its foundation. The Shemitah brings all things back to the foundation. According to the ancient mystery and the words of the prophets, on the Day of Judgment, that which is “proud and lofty” is humbled, that which is “lifted up” is brought low, and that which is “exalted” is cast down. The day of calamity specifically comes against “the high towers” of the land. On that day of a nation’s judgment its high towers fall. On September 11, 2001, in the days of the Shemitah’s climax, America’s high towers were cast down.

In September of 2001 the effect of the Shemitah, as revealed in its root word,
shamat
, was manifested. It was America’s day of shaking. It was the day when that which had been built up was wiped away. On September 11, 2001, America’s high towers were “allowed to fall.” The World Trade Center was “cast down.” Its soaring twin towers “collapsed” into dust.

It all took place within days of the seventh year’s end when the Shemitah’s impact strikes the financial realm—the Day of Remission, when financial accounts are wiped clean. That would come the following Monday with the greatest stock market point collapse in Wall Street history.

The Shemitah’s Two Collapses

When the Bible speaks of Elul 29, the Day of Remission, the word used is
shamat.
That word also describes what happened to the financial realm on Elul 29, 2001. A great “pulling away” took place on Wall Street. The world’s financial markets were shaken. Fortunes were “cast down.” Wall Street was “allowed to fall.” And the world’s financial realm “collapsed.”

The Two Crashes

If one looks at a graph of the New York Stock Exchange in the years of the last two Shemitahs, one will find two great peaks. The picture resembles mountaintops or something of a skyline of pointed skyscrapers.

The Wiping Away of Heights

Judgment involves the casting down of that which has been lifted. The Shemitah involves the wiping away of that which has been built up. As the Shemitah begins, the peaks of Wall Street begin to descend, to be brought low. And as the Shemitah reaches its last climactic day, the lines dramatically plummet.

On 9/11 Wall Street was shut down. It reopened on September 17, the Shemitah’s climactic last day. Thus it was the first day that Wall Street bore the financial impact of 9/11. The greatest stock market point crash in history was the reflection of 9/11 in the financial realm. The two events were bound.

Even visually the crashing of the towers are mirrored in the plummeting of the graph down the side of a once colossal financial peak. The Shemitah wipes away what has been built up, whether the wealth of a nation’s financial and economic realm or the physical towers that embody those realms.

So at the climax of the 2001 Shemitah came two falls—the most colossal stock market collapse in Wall Street history and the most colossal physical collapse in American history as the two towers came crumbling down to earth—the imploding and crashing of the financial realm, and the imploding and crashing in the physical realm, joined together in the “letting fall” of the Shemitah.

The Fall of Symbols

What had once stood on the pavement of Ground Zero were not only towers but colossal symbols of economic and financial power. The twin towers were, explicitly or implicitly, the most glaring and soaring icons of America’s financial and economic prosperity, preeminence, and sovereignty. They epitomized the American-led global economic order that had prevailed since the end of the Second World War. On 9/11 that symbol came crashing down. If the World Trade Center was a symbol of America’s economic and financial preeminence, then what would its collapse symbolize? Or can the fall of a symbol also be the symbol of a fall?

And what about the prophetic warning given to America at its inception and its connection to the nation’s highest towers? The towers had boasted of the nation’s blessings and glory. But the warning reminded the nation that all its blessings and glory came from God. The towers epitomized the ascent and how far it had risen from its foundation. But the message warned that if America ever turned away from its foundation, its glory would not endure and the blessings of heaven would be removed from the land. In the fall of the soaring towers that had once epitomized the nation’s blessings and glory, the words of the warning given in the days of its foundation now cried out from the ruins.

The Fall of Temples

In 586 BC the Shemitah fell upon the kingdom of Judah in the form of judgment. Second Chronicles records the most dramatic moment of that judgment:

Then they burned the house of God, broke down the wall of Jerusalem, burned all its palaces with fire, and destroyed all its precious possessions.

—2 C
HRONICLES
36:19

The judgment involved an enemy attack. The enemy made a point of specifically attacking the nation’s most prominent and majestic buildings. The chief of these was the nation’s Temple, the edifice that represented the worship of its God. The buildings were set on fire and destroyed. The nation’s holy ground was reduced to ruins.

When the Shemitah manifested in the form of judgment in September 2001, it too involved the attack of an enemy, an enemy who made a point of specifically focusing on America’s most majestic buildings. The most prominent of these were the twin towers of the World Trade Center, two edifices symbolizing a god that the nation increasingly worshipped. The towers were set on fire and destroyed.

The Meaning of the Fall

We began the mystery of the towers with a solitary and unique edifice, a tower unlike any that had risen before it and that, in the year 1870, appeared on American soil. We saw the ancient link that joins together a nation’s towers and its greatness, its magnitude, its rising, and its powers. We saw how the appearance of the tower of 1870 was joined to America’s rise to world power. We now close the mystery in the smoldering ruins of two other towers. In their fall begins yet another mystery, that of the harbingers of judgment that appeared in the last days of ancient Israel, warning of judgment. With the fall of the towers they now appear to America bearing the same warning of coming judgment.