The Oracle Read online

  THE MAN IN THE PURPLE ROBE

  “I looked again and saw a bearded man in a purple robe sitting on the shore, turned away from the sea. Around him were broken branches of all different kinds and sizes. He was wearing a crown. He was a king. As I approached him, he spoke. ‘I built a house,’ he said, ‘but the waves destroyed it. And I have no one to help me rebuild it.’ Just then another man appeared and approached him. ‘I am the bearer of burdens,’ he said. ‘I will help you to rebuild it.’ So the two began piecing together the branches until a structure emerged, a shelter or house of branches. The moment it was completed, five white flowers sprung up from the sand in front of its entrance. And the vision ended.”

  THE FOUR JEWELED KEYS

  “In the last of the visions I saw a man in a dark-brown cloak. In his hand was a large ring, from which hung four keys. But they were unlike any keys I had ever seen. At one end of each key was a precious stone of different colors. At the other end, the part that was to be inserted into a keyhole, were shapes or symbols. One resembled an X; another, something of a Y; another had three prongs; and another I couldn’t liken to anything I had ever seen before. I watched as the man wandered across the earth and through the ages, searching for the doors his keys would open. He journeyed to ancient temples, medieval cathedrals, and the buildings of modern cities. But no door would open. Finally I saw him standing on the shore, overlooking a modern-looking city. He approached one of its buildings and inserted one of the four keys—the door opened. He walked inside and came to a second door, inserted a second key, and the door opened. He did the same with a third door and finally a fourth. When the fourth door opened, it revealed a room filled with people gathered for what appeared to be an official event. A man with white hair was speaking. On seeing the man in the dark-brown cloak enter the room, he said to him, ‘And so it is as it has been written; by these keys you shall return.’ And the vision ended.”

  “The ram continued its journey until it reached a city by the shore. It was the same city I had just seen in the vision of the man in the brown robe. The ram’s appearance had now returned to what it had been at the beginning, on the mountaintop, white with black spots. It turned away from the sea and headed toward the city, where it disappeared. And the vision ended.”

  Chapter 25

  HERZL’S COUNTDOWN

  I SAW THE vision at night. The next morning, he appeared at my tent . . . the boy. He smiled at me, then motioned for me to follow. He led me on a path along the side of a small mountain chain, gradually ascending until we came to a cave. He then urged me to go inside, ahead of him. So I did. I looked back, and he was gone.

  “Slowly I made my way through the darkness until coming to a chamber illuminated by the reddish-golden light of ancient-looking oil lamps. There, sitting by the wall, was the Oracle. I joined him.”

  “I hope you don’t mind caves,” he said.

  “No.”

  “It will be here that we will open the next of the mysteries, those of the third door. Now tell me your vision.”

  So I did.

  “Did you notice that it was different? When you saw the ram in the other visions, it was Moses who sent it down the mountain, and the mountain was in the desert. But now it happened on a very different landscape and with a different person.”

  “I did notice. Why was it different?”

  “Because this vision would reveal a Jubilee unique from the others.”

  “Not connected to them?”

  “Very much connected but of a different nature and of a different cycle and timetable.”

  “Not based on a fifty-year cycle?”

  “Very much based on a fifty-year cycle but on its own. It would be a Jubilee of the political realm and of the domain of nation-states.”

  “A political Jubilee?”

  “In a sense. Did you recognize the man on the mountain?”

  “Herzl, the founder of Zionism. Why was he dressed that way?”

  “Because that was the clothing of the First Zionist Congress, the gathering he convened in Basel, Switzerland, to begin the political movement that would lead to the creation of a Jewish state. It was an unlikely movement, based on faith as much as anything else.”

  “Switzerland . . . That would explain the landscape.”

  “Herzl sent the ram down the mountain because he was the one who set the movement in motion. He would spend the remaining seven years of his life laboring for that cause, dying exhausted at the age of forty-four.” The Oracle paused before continuing. “There was a boy who had a dream in which the Messiah lifted him into the clouds, where they encountered Moses. The Messiah said to Moses, ‘It is for this child that I have prayed!’ Then he turned to the boy and said, ‘Go and declare to the Jews that I shall come soon and perform great wonders and great deeds for my people and for the whole world!’” 1

  “Why did you share that?” I asked.

  “Because the boy was Theodor Herzl. He had the dream when he was twelve years old, long before the idea of Zionism would enter his mind. In biblical prophecy the regathering of the Jewish people to the land of Israel is ultimately linked to the coming of the Messiah.

  “At the time of Herzl’s death the idea of a reborn Jewish nation was still just a dream. You saw the ram walking through the battlefield . . . the First World War, the Jubilee of 1917, the Balfour Declaration, and the liberation of Jerusalem and the land.”

  “And then I followed it through a city of burning buildings, smashed windows, chaos, and violence.”

  “That represented what took place in the 1930s,” said the Oracle. “That was Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, when the Nazi fury against the Jewish people exploded in Germany and before the world. The satanic forces that Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party embodied had now overtaken a nation and would soon overtake a continent. The Jewish people were now in danger of annihilation. They needed a refuge. And so it was just before that darkness began to rise in Europe that a homeland was given to them, a refuge, the land of Israel. It all happened at the same time.”

  “As if it was known in advance that these things would take place.”

  “It was known,” he replied. “Thousands of years before these things took place, as far back as Moses, it was prophesied. The people of Israel would be scattered to the ends of the earth and persecuted. But it was also prophesied that God would gather them back. And it would all be fulfilled, just as it was foretold, on the stage of modern history.

  “In the Book of Jeremiah a prophecy was given as to how it would come about. First would come the fishers, and then the hunters. What are fishers?” he asked. “Those who draw in. The Zionists were fishers. They were the ones who called the Jewish people to come back to the land before calamity would overtake them. They fished for them. Then came the hunters. Hunters pursue; they drive away. The Nazis were hunters. They hunted them. They came second. And it was that very persecution that caused thousands upon thousands of Jewish people to return to their homeland in the largest waves of return up to that moment. Even in a modern and secular age, all things, both good and evil, are worked together to fulfill the ancient prophecies.”

  “And when the ram walked behind the barbed wire and to the harbor . . . ”

  “The Holocaust,” said the Oracle, “and the survivors on their journey back to the Promised Land.”

  “Herzl never could have imagined how it would all come about . . . through two world wars and the shaking of the world.”

  “No, but he could prophesy it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Herzl founded Zionism at the First Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland. A few days after the congress had ended, he penned in his journal a prophecy. He wrote:

  At Basel, I founded the Jewish State. If I said this out loud today, I would be answered by universal laughter. Perhaps in five years, certainly in fifty, everyone will know it. 2

  “He gave a deadline to his prophecy—fifty years, the time period of the Jubile
e. So Zionism was birthed with a Jubilean prophecy, just as it was a Jubilean movement—the return to the ancestral land.”

  “So when was the First Zionist Congress?”

  “It happened in 1897 . . . So if we add the fifty years of Herzl’s prophecy, the fifty years of the Jubilee, it takes us to the year . . . ”

  “1947 . . . So did anything happen that year linked to the mystery?”

  “In the years following the Second World War, the British government turned the issue of Palestine over to the newly formed United Nations. This would lead to the fulfillment of prophecy. It all converged on the year 1947, the fiftieth year, the year of Herzl’s prophecy.

  “So the United Nations set up a committee to address the matter: the UN Special Committee on Palestine. The committee worked on the problem for several months. Finally it came up with a solution. The solution would be known as the Partition Plan. It would alter the course of modern history. According to the plan, the British occupation would come to an end and the land would be divided in two—a Jewish state and an Arab state. If approved, it would mean that there would be a Jewish nation in the land of Israel for the first time in two thousand years.

  “The plan then took the form of a resolution to be put to a vote before the United Nations General Assembly. It required that those occupying the land, the British, relinquish it, and those to whom the land belonged return to it.”

  “It was a Jubilean resolution,” I said.

  “It was the fulfillment of the First Zionist Congress. The day on which that congress concluded was August 31, 1897. So what happens if we add fifty years, to the exact day? When would the exact day of its Jubilee fall?”

  “August 31, 1947.”

  “So could the mystery be pointing us to that day? Was there anything significant about that day connected to Israel’s restoration?”

  “Tell me.”

  “The Partition Plan, which would give the land back to the Jewish people and bring Israel into existence, was completed on August 31, 1947.”

  “Fifty years to the exact day!”

  “Yes, the Jubilean document was born on the exact day of the Jubilee. In fact it was on that very same day, August 31, 1947, that a special event was taking place in Basel, Switzerland.”

  “The place where the First Zionist Congress convened.”

  “It was the commemoration of the event that began Zionism. They called the Jubilee . . . the Jubilee of the First Zionist Congress. One of the leaders attending the event was Chaim Weizmann. As he addressed the gathering, Weizmann actually made reference to what he believed was taking place that same day on the other side of the world—the completion of the plan. He even stated that the event could signal the beginning of the redemption.3 So on the same day that the Jubilee was being celebrated in the place where Zionism began, the plan that would fulfill the ancient prophecies of redemption and the dream that was birthed fifty years earlier was completed—fifty years to the exact day.”

  “Amazing.”

  “After its completion the plan was officially received and recorded by the United Nations General Assembly. That took place on September 3, 1947.”

  “Was that significant?”

  “The day that Herzl penned his prophecy was September 3, 1897.”

  “Fifty years to the exact date!”

  “The prophecy foretold that within fifty years everyone would know it. Fifty years later brings us to the exact day that the rebirth of Israel would become known to the representatives of the United Nations. Herzl recorded his prophecy in writing and marked it with the date September 3. The United Nations General Assembly recorded the plan that would fulfill Herzl’s prophecy fifty years later and would mark its opening page with the exact same date, September 3. 4

  “The representatives of the United Nations had no idea that they were all part of the fulfillment of prophecy and the outworking of an ancient mystery:

  And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year. . . . It shall be a Jubilee for you; and each of you shall return to his possession . . . ” 5

  “The Oracle would next reveal to me the mystery that lay behind one of the most critical events of the modern world, a realm of two brothers, an ancient word, a mystery name, and an angel.”

  “And how was it revealed?”

  “Through two men in an arena.”

  Chapter 26

  THE RETURN OF JACOB

  I FOUND THE Oracle in the cave, in the same chamber as before.”

  “The two men in the arena,” I said, “who were they?”

  “In the beginning of the twentieth century,” he said, “the Ottoman Empire stood against the restoration of the Jewish people to the land and so, against the prophecies. Therefore, it collapsed. The British Empire stood in favor of that restoration and of the establishment of a Jewish homeland. Therefore, it was lifted to the apogee of its power and would replace the Ottoman Empire as possessor of the Holy Land.

  “But in the years in between the two world wars, the British Empire would change its policy and turn against the return it had once championed. The empire would block ships carrying Jewish refugees from the Holocaust to the land of Israel. It was now warring against the return, the prophecies and the mystery. Therefore, in a short time the largest empire the world had ever seen would collapse into near nothingness. And it would be forced to relinquish the Promised Land. Another power would then stand in favor of Israel’s restoration and the return of the Jewish people—America. Therefore, it was at that moment that America was raised up to a position of power, expanse, and influence unparalleled in world history.

  “It was during this transition of power that the British government turned over the issue of Palestine to the United Nations. The resulting Partition Plan could only go into effect if approved in the General Assembly. The vote took place on November 29, 1947, the very end of the fiftieth year from the birth of Zionism. In order to pass, the plan needed to be approved by a two-thirds majority. The outcome was in doubt up to the last days before the vote. But again the history and powers of the world would conform to the purposes of the ancient mystery.

  “The Soviet Union, the world’s chief atheistic power, was certainly not in favor of fulfilling biblical prophecy. It would soon become Israel’s archenemy. But in 1947 an unlikely set of factors came together. The Soviet leader Joseph Stalin saw the birth of Israel as a way to weaken and roll back the British Empire while increasing Soviet influence in the Middle East. The solidification of Soviet control over Eastern Europe in the summer of 1947 ensured that the nations of eastern Europe would vote in favor of the resolution. 1

  “The American State Department had positioned itself against the resolution. But the American president was in favor of it. In this was another case of world history coalescing around the ancient purposes. Had the former president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, been in power in that window of time, it is questionable whether he would have sanctioned Israel’s rebirth. But in his last campaign for the presidency he would choose a new running mate—Harry Truman. Truman was sworn in to office as vice president on January 20, 1945. Less than three months later Roosevelt died. Truman, a man with deep sympathy for the sufferings of the Jewish people, was suddenly catapulted to the most powerful position on earth—at the precise moment of world history most critical for Israel’s rebirth. He would support and work for the passage of the resolution that would bring about Israel’s resurrection.

  “On November 29, 1947, in Lake Success, New York, the United Nations General Assembly took up the vote. The final count was thirty-three votes in favor, thirteen votes against, and ten abstentions. The resolution passed. Israel would again become a nation.”

  “I see the connection to the Jubilee,” I said, “but not to my vision.”

  “You saw two men in an arena wrestling. The first was Jacob, patriarch of the Jewish nation. The Jewish people are so identified with him that the entire nation is often referred to simply by the name Jacob. Jacob was also called Israel. And
, as would his descendants, Jacob would spend a good part of his life in exile from his homeland. But then God called him to return. On his return he encountered a man who wrestled with him through the night and to the break of day.”

  “And who was his opponent with the red hair?”

  “The word for red in Hebrew is adom or edom. Edom was another name for Jacob’s brother, Esau. For a good part of their lives the two brothers were in conflict. But the man in your vision only looked like Esau. In the biblical account the man who wrestled with Jacob was an angel. When neither of the two prevailed, the angel touched Jacob’s hip and crippled him. But Jacob didn’t give up. Finally the angel gave him a blessing. Jacob then returned home. In your vision Jacob represented the Jewish people. So what you saw concerned the return to the land of Jacob’s children, the Jewish people.”

  “But in my vision it happened in an arena before an audience.”

  “So the return of Israel happened before the world . . . and before the United Nations, those men in suits and ties. The majority of them stood up, but the minority stayed seated.”

  “So they were voting on the return of Israel?”

  “Yes . . . but there’s more to the mystery. You see, when the nations of the world gathered to vote on the rebirth of Israel, it was a Saturday . . . the Sabbath. So there was a Scripture appointed for that day.”

  “What was it?”

  “It was the return of Jacob to the land.”

  “And Jacob is another name for Israel. So on the day the United Nations voted for the return of Israel to the land, the appointed Scripture was the return of Israel to the land.”

  “Yes,” said the Oracle. “And that appointed portion of Scripture contains a command:

  Return to your native land. . . 2

  “Behind the words native land are two Hebrew words. One is eretz, or land. The other is moledet. Moledet refers to the place or land of your birth. So the word is also translated as ‘ancestral land,’ ‘birthplace,’ or ‘homeland.’ The land of Israel is the place where the Jewish nation was birthed. It is their moledet. Thus the Scripture long appointed to be read on the day the United Nations would vote Israel back into existence could be rendered,