The Mystery of the Shemitah (26 page)

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  In the Shemitah of 1945 a new world order based on American economic and financial power was inaugurated. On the fourth Shemitah, twenty-eight years later in 1973, that order would suffer collapse. Twenty-eight years after that, on the fourth Shemitah, in 2001, the symbol of the American-led global economy would also collapse.

The same Shemitah that brings collapse to one power, nation, or kingdom may bring the rise of another. As far as America is concerned, for much of its history and over the long-term, it had appeared to be largely on the rising side of this equation. But in recent times it has appeared to be much more on the falling side—paralleling its moral and spiritual fall from God.

What lies ahead? What does the future hold for America and the nations? And what might the mystery of the Shemitah reveal about that future? To these questions we now turn.

Chapter 23
The LAST TOWER

The Other Tower

T
HE DESTRUCTION OF
the twin towers was not the end in the mystery of the towers. There would be another. It would rise up from the site on which the twin towers had been stuck down—Ground Zero. It would become a symbol of the rebuilding of America in the wake of 9/11. American leaders would speak of it even before it came into existence and then, as it rose, hail its rising as a symbol of the nation’s pride and resilience. The tower would stand as the embodiment of America itself.

And yet behind its rising lay an ancient mystery.

The Defiant Ascent

In the face of the enemy attack that involved the destruction of buildings and the first warning of national judgment—the people of Israel responded with defiance. They issued their fateful vow:

The bricks have fallen down, but we will rebuild with hewn stones . . .

—I
SAIAH
9:10

They would defy the warning given them. They would rebuild that which had collapsed into ruins on the day of terror. The rebuilding would be an act of defiance. They would rebuild their fallen buildings bigger, stronger, better, and higher than before. It wasn’t the rebuilding that was wrong, but the intent behind it. They would not listen to God’s warning but would defy it. And that which they would erect would stand as a monument, not of their resurgence, but of their defiance—a defiance that would ultimately lead to their destruction.

The Defiant Rising Revisited

In the wake of 9/11, America’s leaders responded, as did those of ancient Israel—not with repentance, but with defiance. Soon after the attack they began vowing to rebuild what had been struck down and to build it bigger and stronger than before. More than one spoke of the rebuilding of Ground Zero as an act of defiance. The nation would not be humbled or repent, but it would vow to rise again stronger than before.

The Hebrew Tower

But where does a tower come in? The ancient vow in Isaiah makes no mention of what exactly is to be rebuilt. The vow does speak of rebuilding what had fallen. This must have involved buildings and, in view of ancient warfare, would have involved towers. But we have another clue. The Hebrew behind Isaiah’s prophecy, as we have seen, carries deeper meaning than the English translation conveys. We have seen this in the verse that introduces the ancient vow:

Who say in pride and arrogance of heart:
“The bricks have fallen down, but we will rebuild with hewn stones . . . ”

—I
SAIAH
9:9–10,
emphasis added

The vow is spoken in pride and arrogance. The Hebrew word for “arrogance,” as we have seen, is
gadal
, which is linked to the word for “tower.” So we have a Hebrew word meaning “rebuild” and another linked to the word
tower.
The rebuilding would embody the nation’s defiant pride—and no structure better embodies pride than a tower.

The Greek Tower

The earliest translation ever made of the Bible is called the
Septuagint.
The Septuagint is the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek. It is this translation that is extensively quoted in the New Testament. When the Septuagint comes to Isaiah 9:10, something striking happens:

The bricks are fallen down, but come . . . and let us build for ourselves a
tower
.”

The ancient translation specifically speaks of the building of a tower. In other words, after the attack, on the same ground on which the bricks had fallen, there would rise a tower.

And that is exactly what happened in America. At Ground Zero, where the nation had been attacked, where the bricks had fallen, a tower began to rise.

The Tower of Defiance

Even before the tower existed, it had been spoken of by American leaders. One of the nine prophetic signs of judgment recorded in
The Harbinger
is called “The Prophecy.” It manifested on the day after 9/11 when the United States Congress gathered on Capitol Hill to issue America’s response to the calamity. There, from the floor of the House of Representatives, the vow of defiance that brought judgment and destruction to ancient Israel was now proclaimed in America.

In that prophetic moment an American leader vowed that the nation would rebuild that which had fallen. Implicit in those words was the rebuilding of the World Trade Center. This was the first official proclamation of the rebuilding. Thus the tower at Ground Zero was actually
brought into existence
with the ancient words of Israel’s judgment, through
the ancient words of Isaiah 9:10.

This would be followed by more declarations issued by other American leaders, each one echoing another aspect of the ancient vow. One declared that the tower had to be built to show the world that America was defiant. Another charged that the tower had to be built higher than the towers it replaced—bigger, taller, and greater.

The tower would be more than a building; it would be the most colossal American symbol ever constructed. At a planned height of 1,776 feet, a number chosen to mirror America’s year of independence, it was clear that the tower was a representation of the nation itself, rising up from the ruins, proud, unbowed, and defiant. But as much as it was an embodiment of America, it was also an embodiment of the ancient vow of judgment in Isaiah 9:10.

The Spirit of Babel

From where did the ancient Jewish scholars of the Septuagint get the phrase “Come . . . let us build for ourselves a tower” to use as the translation of Isaiah 9:10? They got it from Genesis 11, from the account of the Tower of Babel.

And they said, “
Come, let us build ourselves
a city, and
a tower
whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves . . . ”

—G
ENESIS
11:4,
emphasis added

Why did the translators use the words of Babel to translate Isaiah 9:10 in the first place? It was because they saw a direct connection between the building project of Genesis 11 and that of Isaiah 9:10. Both were based on pride and arrogance. Both were executed in defiance of God.

So, now, America too embarked on the building of a tower at Ground Zero. It would first be known as the “Freedom Tower” and then “One World Trade Center.” The tower was conceived and executed in the spirit of pride and defiance. It had even been planned from the outset that the new tower would become the tallest building on the earth. But before it could be completed, other towers had ascended to greater heights. But the spirit of Babel infused the project from the beginning.

The Shemitah and the Last Tower

We have earlier seen that the mystery of the Shemitah and the mystery of the towers converge. What about the rising tower at Ground Zero? Is there anything linking it to the mystery of the Shemitah? There is.

First is its origin. It replaced the World Trade Center, which, as we have seen, was conceived, started, finished, and destroyed in the Year of the Shemitah. That building, in turn, had replaced, as the world’s tallest building, the Empire State Building, which, in turn, had been completed in the Year of the Shemitah.

When and where was the tower of Ground Zero conceived? The tower was publicly conceived the day after 9/11 on Capitol Hill, when the ancient vow was spoken and it was proclaimed that America would rebuild that which had been destroyed. The proclamation took place on September 12, 2001, in the last days of the Shemitah. Thus, even by a matter of days, the tower of defiance was conceived in the Year of the Shemitah.

The construction of the new tower would be mired in controversy, obstructions, and setbacks. It would take years before the building actually began. At the end of 2006 the ground was cleared to begin the foundation. In 2007 came the preparing of the foundation. At the beginning of 2008 the building’s core began rising, ultimately to reach street level. The Shemitah was 2007–2008. Though the foundation and preparatory work began earlier, the rising of the tower began in the Year of the Shemitah.

Omens

In the spring of 2012 the tower had finally surpassed the height of the Empire State Building to become the tallest building in the New York skyline. The date on which it happened had already appeared in
The Harbinger
four months before it occurred. It was the date linked to the mystery of Ground Zero.

In the summer of 2012, six months after
The Harbinger
’s release, the president of the United States made a visit to Ground Zero. There he took part in a ceremony that comprised an ominous prophetic act in accordance with the mystery. It was one of the continuing manifestations of
The Harbinger
mentioned earlier. He would unwittingly seal the connection between the tower and the ancient vow, a connection foretelling the coming of judgment.

At the president’s second inauguration in January 2013, the chosen poet laureate recited a poem to the thousands gathered and the millions watching by television. In it he spoke of giving thanks, not to God, but to “the work of our hands.”
¹
Then as part of “the work of our hands,” he spoke of the future completion of the tower at Ground Zero:

. . . the last floor on the Freedom Tower
Jutting into a sky
That yields to our resilience . . .
²

It is nearly impossible not to hear in those words the echoing of the ancient vow of Isaiah 9:10—a nation praising its own powers, placing its trust in the works of its hands, its building of an edifice to defiantly jut into the sky, a tower to make the heavens yield in the face of its collective resilience. It was hard as well not to hear the echo of Babel.