The Oracle Page 4

  THE MAN IN THE WHITE TURBAN

  “In the last vision I saw a man on horseback with a long, drooping mustache in a red cloak and a white turban. He held a red flag in one hand and a curved sword in the other. Behind him was a vast army of similarly dressed soldiers. They swept through the land until arriving on a mountain. On top of the mountain was a city. The man in the white turban dismounted his horse and walked through the city gate. Inside the gate he came to a stone platform, into which he drove the pole with the red flag. The platform began turning red, and then streets around it, and then the city, and then the entire land.”

  “That was the last of the visions within the vision.”

  “So you were back in the original vision, with the ram.”

  “I never really left it. The ram resumed its journey. Finally it arrived at a walled city of golden stone set on a mountain, similar to the city I had just seen in the last vision. The ram entered its gate. I entered behind it. As it walked through the cobblestone streets, the bag on its back began leaking. Seeds were pouring out into the cracks between the cobblestones and in the city walls and buildings. The ram then left the city through a gate on the side of the city opposite the gate through which it had entered. Not long after that I noticed the seeds coming into fruition, sprouting plants, blossoms, and flowers everywhere. And then I heard the sound of a faint rumbling, stones shifting against stones. It was subtle. Few noticed it. But a shifting had begun. And then the vision ended.”

  “And what did it all mean?”

  “I had no idea. But I wrote everything down so I wouldn’t forget. I would ask the Oracle.”

  Chapter 8

  THE YEAR OF THE ZERAH

  THE NEXT DAY I returned to the mountaintop to find the Oracle. He was standing by a ledge, gazing out into the vast desert landscape. We sat down. I shared the vision.”

  “In my vision what was the meaning of the ram?” I asked.

  “The Jubilee,” he said. “The ram’s horn is what ushers it in. As Moses sent the ram down the desert mountain, so the Jubilean mysteries begin on a desert mountain with Moses . . . on Mount Sinai where the law of Jubilees was given.”

  “So the ram represents all Jubilees?”

  “No, just one Jubilee, one year of Jubilee, and the mysteries thereof.”

  “And the symbol on the ram’s neck and on the first door?”

  The Oracle took out the piece of paper I had given him with the seven symbols I had seen in my first vision, the vision of seven doors.

  “This is the first symbol you wrote down. Is this what you saw on the first door and on the ram?”

  “Yes,” I replied.

  “It’s the Hebrew letter zayin. Zayin begins the word zerah. Zerah means seed. You saw the Jubilee of seeds, of origins, beginnings, the sowing of purposes. It’s the key to everything else you saw, all the other mysteries of the first door.”

  “And what was the city?”

  “Jerusalem.”

  “At the end of the vision the seeds came to fruition, and there was a rumbling in the city, and the stones began to shift. What did that signify?”

  “It signified that what had been planted in the Jubilee of seeds would in time shake the city . . . and in time the entire earth.”

  “Did the Oracle tell you the meaning of the other things you saw, the man with the measuring line, the woman in the vineyard . . . ”

  “Not then. But he would. Each mystery would be revealed in its time.”

  “Starting with . . . ”

  “The first of the mysteries . . . the man in the hooded robe . . . the stranger.”

  Chapter 9

  THE STRANGER

  I RETURNED TO the mountaintop and found the Oracle. It seemed as if he was waiting for me.”

  “In my vision the man with the hooded robe who journeyed the world . . . who was he?”

  “In ancient times,” he said, “the land of Israel was described as flowing with milk and honey, a fertile and fruitful land. But when the Jewish people were driven into exile, the land withered away. Its forests disappeared. Its fields of grain and fruits became desert. Its hallowed cities stood as ghosts of their former glory or else lay in ruins. The Promised Land was now a barren, lifeless, parched, desolate horror of a land. And do you know who first prophesied of the land’s desolation?”

  “Moses?”

  “Yes, in that same farewell address. He prophesied the future of the Jewish people and also of the land . . . and more than that. He spoke of a specific sign that would appear in the land. He said this:

  . . . the stranger that shall come from a far land, shall say, when they see the plagues of that land, and the sicknesses which the LORD has laid on it: “The whole land is brimstone, salt, and burning; it is not sown, nor does it bear, nor does any grass grow there, like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah.” 1

  “This,” said the Oracle, “is the mystery of the stranger.”

  “The mystery of the stranger?”

  “That one day there will come a stranger, one who will journey from a faraway land. And when he enters the land, he will bear witness of its barrenness, its devastation, and its desolation.”

  “Is it speaking of one specific person or all who will come?”

  “Both. As with many Scriptures, it has more than one level. In a general sense it speaks of all who would come and be stunned by the land’s utter desolateness. On the other hand, it speaks of one. The original word used in the prophecy to speak of a stranger, an alien, or a foreigner, the Hebrew word nakri, is singular.”

  “The man I saw in the vision, he was the stranger. He bore witness of the land’s desolation.”

  “Yes. Now when would the stranger come, soon after the Jewish people were exiled from their land or at a later time?”

  “A later time,” I replied, “because it would take time for a land that was once fertile to turn into a total wasteland.”

  “Yes,” said the Oracle. “And the prophecy itself specifies the time. It begins by saying that these things will take place in a generation or age that is ‘akharone.’ The word akharone can speak of a coming generation or time, but it specifically means latter or last. So it would refer to the latter days, the end times, the last days.”

  “So the stranger will come to the land in the end times?”

  “The stranger will come before a specific end-time event takes place. And that event is foretold in the same Scripture passage:

  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. 2

  “So the prophecy of the stranger leads into the prophecy of the regathering of the Jewish people. The stranger’s coming will be the sign that the exile of the Jewish people is about to end and the scattered children of Israel are to return from the ends of the earth.”

  “So did the prophecy come true?”

  “It did and just when the land’s devastation was at its most extreme . . . the nineteenth century. He would come, as was prophesied, ‘from a far land.’”

  “From where?”

  “He would come from America, from San Francisco, from the ends of the earth. It would be from there that he would begin his journey. And since the prophecy required someone to bring forth words of testimony, so he would be a man of words, a writer.”

  “Have I heard of him?”

  “He is considered by many to be the father of American literature.”

  “Who was the stranger?”

  “The stranger was Mark Twain.”

  “Mark Twain? The one who wrote Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn? I read his books in school. He’s part of the mystery?”

  “He would become part. Twain was a skeptic and so the most powerful of witnesses, those who bear witness despite themselves. He was working as a journalist on the West Coast when he heard of a journey across the world on a steamship called the Quaker City. It would be among the first ships to undertake such a v
oyage. It would take months, bringing Twain to Europe, the Middle East, and finally to his ultimate destination, the land of Israel . . . the city of Jerusalem. And as the one appointed to bear witness, he would keep a notebook throughout the journey to record his observations.”

  “The pen and pad in my vision.”

  “Yes. According to the prophecy in Deuteronomy, he was to bear witness of ‘the plagues of that land’ and all its ‘sicknesses.’ 3 Now listen to the words that Mark Twain would write concerning ‘the plagues of that land’:

  Rags, wretchedness, poverty and dirt. . . . Lepers, cripples, the blind. . . . To see the numbers of maimed, malformed and diseased humanity that throng the holy places . . . 4

  “According to Moses’ prophecy, the stranger would describe the land as a desolation. He would say,

  The whole land is brimstone, salt . . . 5

  “So Twain would bear witness:

  . . . all desolate and unpeopled . . . 6

  . . . miles of desolate country . . . 7

  . . . the far-reaching desolation. . . . the waste of a limitless desolation. . . 8

  “According to ancient prophecy, the stranger will say,

  All its land is . . . a burning waste. 9

  “Or in another translation,

  Your land has become a scorching desert. 10

  “So Twain would write:

  It is a scorching, arid, repulsive solitude. 11

  Such roasting heat, such oppressive solitude, and such dismal desolation cannot surely exist elsewhere on earth. 12

  Nowhere in all the waste around was there a foot of shade, and we were scorching to death. 13

  “The prophecy of Deuteronomy foretells that the stranger will bear witness of the land as devoid of anyone to sow it:

  All its land is . . . unsown. 14

  “So Twain would bear witness of the land’s absence of people:

  One may ride ten miles, hereabouts, and not see ten human beings. 15

  . . . these unpeopled deserts, these rusty mounds of barrenness, that never, never, never do shake the glare from their harsh outlines . . . 16

  There is not a solitary village throughout its whole extent—not for thirty miles in either direction. 17

  “According to Moses, the stranger will bear witness of the land’s inability to produce life:

  . . . nor does it bear . . . 18

  “The prophecy’s use of the word tzamach specifically refers to sprouting. So the stranger will bear witness of the land’s incapacity to sprout vegetation. So Twain would specifically bear witness of this phenomenon:

  The valleys are unsightly deserts fringed with a feeble vegetation. 19

  . . . a desert, paved with loose stones, void of vegetation, glaring in the fierce sun. 20

  . . . this blistering, naked, treeless land. 21

  “Even more specifically, the stranger, according to the ancient prophecy, will speak specifically of grass, or the absence of it. He will say,

  . . . no grass grows in it. 22

  “Another translation renders it,

  . . . not even a blade of grass. 23

  “So Twain would specifically speak of the grass, the ancient virtually word for word:

  No sprig of grass is visible.” 24

  “The words of Moses are coming out of the mouth of Mark Twain . . . As in my vision, they each wrote down the same word.”

  “Yes,” said the Oracle, “the words of Moses from the mouth of Mark Twain . . . or the words of Mark Twain from the mouth of Moses in the form of prophecy. And yet there are words in that prophecy one might never expect the stranger to utter.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The Scripture foretells that in that day it will be said,

  The anger of the LORD burned against that land, to bring upon it every curse which is written in this book. 25

  “So according to the prophecy, it will be said that a curse rests upon the land, the curse of God. One would not expect Mark Twain, a cynic, to speak of the curse of God. And yet this would be among the final words of his witness:

  Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes. Over it broods the spell of a curse. 26

  “His witness of the land would be summed up with one final question:

  Palestine is desolate and unlovely. And why should it be otherwise? Can the curse of the Deity beautify a land? 27

  “The stranger was to bear witness to that generation. So Mark Twain would send his words back to his native land. They would appear in articles across America and beyond. He would bear witness to multitudes of his generation and thus fulfill the prophecy.”

  “So he accomplished what he was appointed to do.”

  “What he was born to do,” said the Oracle. “The stranger must come before the return of the Jewish people and when the land lies in desolation and utter hopelessness.”

  “Why utter hopelessness?”

  “It is hopelessness that sets the stage for the moving of God’s hand and the impossible that sets the stage for a miracle.”

  “So the stranger would mark the ending of the land’s devastation and lead into the beginning of its redemption and the return of its exiles. So did he?”

  “He did.”

  “When did Mark Twain come to the Holy Land?”

  “In the year 1867.”

  “And was that significant?”

  “We shall see,” said the Oracle. “But that would be another mystery.”

  “He would reveal it in time. But there was another mystery to be opened.”

  “From the vision?”

  “Yes.”

  “Which mystery?”

  “The man with the measuring line.”

  Chapter 10

  THE MAN WITH THE

  MEASURING LINE

  I RETURNED TO the mountain and found the Oracle sitting on the same rock on which he sat when I first saw him. I sat down, as before, on the rock facing him.”

  “The man in my vision with the white robe and the measuring line . . . what was that about?”

  “The prophet Zechariah saw something very similar:

  Then I raised my eyes and looked, and behold, a man with a measuring line in his hand. So I said, “Where are you going?”

  And he said to me, “To measure Jerusalem, to see what is its width and what is its length.” 1

  “The man with the measuring line,” said the Oracle, “was an angel.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “The man with the measuring line appeared to Zechariah in the days when the people of Israel had returned from their exile in Babylon to the land but hadn’t yet seen the fullness of God’s promised restoration.”

  “But why a measuring line?”

  “When,” he asked, “does a builder use a measuring line? When he’s about to build. So the man with the measuring line is a sign of God’s future purposes, in this case that He was about to rebuild Jerusalem.

  “In the Jubilee the original owner returns to his land. What happens when you return to a land? What has to be produced in order to take possession of it? A title, a deed, a survey. The land must be defined or redefined, its length, its breadth, its borders, its parameters. And if there’s no existing survey, then a survey must be made. The land must be defined, mapped out . . . measured—and so the measuring line. So in the days of Zechariah, when the Jewish people were returning to the land, the man with the measuring line comes to the city in a vision. And his appearance is a sign of what is yet to take place. It happened in the ancient world. So too it would happen again in the modern. The ancient sign would again manifest in the world . . . in modern times. The man with the measuring line would again come to Jerusalem. And his appearance would be a sign of what was yet to come.

  “The man you saw in your vision dressed in a red military uniform. His name was Charles Warren. He was a British officer, a member of the Royal Engineers. He was sent to the land of Israel on a mission to survey and map out Jerusalem, to measure the Holy City—as a man with the m
easuring line.

  “But his mission was not just to survey Jerusalem as it was then but as it once was: to measure its ancient parameters, the boundaries of ancient Jerusalem, the biblical city, to locate its ancient walls and borders, to uncover its foundations. In order to do that, he had to dig through centuries of ruins and earth to get to the city’s biblical foundations. But the British weren’t in control of the land; the Ottoman Turks were. And they were suspicious of his activities. He was always being watched. So he had to tread lightly and often work in secret.

  “Warren’s work would constitute the first extensive excavation of biblical Jerusalem, the first extensive measuring of the biblical foundations of the Temple Mount and of the city itself. It would usher in a new age of biblical archaeology. Remember what I told you about the Jubilee—the focus returns to what was lost and must be restored, the ancestral possession. Jerusalem is the ancestral possession of the Jewish people. So the focus must return to the ancient city. And so its dimensions, its borders, and its parameters must be measured out.”

  “But it was only Jerusalem,” I said. “The ancestral possession is the entire Promised Land, the land of Israel.”