“How did it happen?”
“How it happened,” he said, “was a manifestation of how the mystery works through all events and powers. One of those powers was the Soviet Union, the atheistic, anti-God, and anti-Israel Soviet Union.
“In May 1967, on the eve of Israel’s anniversary, an official of the Soviet Union sent word to Gamal Abdel Nasser, president of Egypt, that Israel was intending to launch an invasion. It was a false report.”
“Why did they do it?”
“Perhaps to stir up trouble in the region. Regardless of the motive, the superpower that had declared war on the Bible was about to cause biblical prophecy to come to fulfillment.
“Nasser responded by sending Egyptian troops into the Sinai Peninsula toward Israel’s borders. On May 16 Egypt demanded the immediate withdrawal of United Nations peacekeeping troops from the Sinai. The UN complied. The buffer zone between Egypt and Israel was now gone. Tens of thousands of Egyptian troops were now lining Israel’s borders. On May 22 Nasser announced the closure of the Straits of Tiran, cutting off Israel’s only shipping route through the Red Sea, an act of war. On May 30 Egypt entered into a military pact with Jordan, and an Egyptian general was placed in charge of Jordanian forces. By June well over two hundred thousand enemy troops were massed along Israel’s borders.
“Israel was outnumbered on every count. The Arabs had been armed by the Soviet Union with more than twice as many tanks and planes and four times as many antiaircraft guns. Nasser declared, ‘Our basic objective will be the destruction of Israel.’ 3 His threats of total annihilation were echoed in radio broadcasts and public declarations throughout the Arab world. 4 A sense of doom fell upon the Jewish nation. The government began stockpiling coffins. Public parks were consecrated by rabbis to serve as cemeteries. Many feared it would be a second holocaust and the end of the Jewish state.”
“It was the darkening in my vision and the rumbling of war. So what happened?”
“On June 3, 1967, a meeting took place between the Israeli prime minister and the nation’s chief political and military leaders to decide what to do. Though it would be brought to an official cabinet vote the following day, it was at that meeting that it was determined that the nation could not afford to wait for its enemies to launch a war of annihilation but had to act as quickly as possible. The decision was made to go to war. One of those involved in that meeting and that decision was Yigael Yadin, the man who uncovered Masada. Yadin had taken part in the nation’s return to Masada. So now he would take part in its return to Jerusalem.
“The government would call for a full mobilization of all Israeli men up to fifty years of age.”
“Fifty years . . . the time of the Jubilee.”
“Yes. It was of course natural to have an age limit on the mobilization. But since the year was 1967, it meant that the cut-off year was . . . ”
“1917 . . . the year of the other Jubilee . . . So everyone who fought in that war had to be born in the year of Jubilee or in the years in between the two Jubilees.”
“The emergency meeting and the decision to go to war took place on Saturday night, the sealing of the Sabbath day.”
“That means there was a Scripture appointed for that Sabbath.”
“Yes. It was from the Book of Numbers.”
“Was it significant?”
“It was the instructions given to Israel to prepare for war.”
“So the Scripture about Israel preparing to go to war was appointed for the day that Israel would decide to go to war.”
“Yes. In that appointed Scripture the words appear—go to war.”
“So as Israel was preparing for war, the ancient Scripture being recited and chanted and proclaimed all over the world was speaking of Israel preparing for war.”
“Yes.”
“What did the Scripture tell Israel to do?”
“To number all the adult males who would then be mobilized for war . . . the very thing Israel was doing at that very moment. And the Scripture appointed to be read at the end of the Six-Day War concerned another kind of conscription, that which applied to the tribe of Levi. Yet it is striking that it was here that an age limit is given—fifty years of age.”
“The same age limit used in the mobilization for the Six-Day War.”
“Two days after that emergency meeting the Six-Day War began. On June 5, 1967, the Israeli air force in a sudden lightning strike destroyed the air force of the surrounding Arab nations.”
“Lightning,” I said, “like the lightning I saw in the vision, coming from the ram.”
“So Israel battled the Egyptian army in the South and the Syrian army in the North. But it was Jordan that occupied Jerusalem. The Israeli government pleaded with Jordan to stay out of the war. Israel was fighting for its life, not for Jerusalem. Had Jordan stayed out of the war, the Holy City would have stayed in Jordanian hands. But it was the year of Jubilee and the mystery decreed that events would have to converge on the ancient city. Therefore, Jordan entered the war.
“The initial focus of the battle with Jordan wasn’t Jerusalem. In fact the Israeli soldiers were ordered to stay away from the ancient city. Rather, the fighting centered on a mountain overlooking Jerusalem, Mount Scopus. It was Israel’s sole enclave east of the city. On Mount Scopus were Israeli army personnel, an Israeli university, and an Israeli hospital. The soldiers were ordered to rescue the enclave. But even that was part of the mystery.”
“How so?”
“The destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 was connected to one place above all others: Mount Scopus. Mount Scopus was the headquarters of the Roman General Titus. It was from Mount Scopus that the siege of Jerusalem was commanded and from Mount Scopus that Jerusalem was destroyed. It was the base of the Roman legions that destroyed Jerusalem. And as Mount Scopus played a central part in Jerusalem’s destruction, so now it would play a central part in Jerusalem’s restoration. And as the leaders of the Roman army stood on that mountain, planning the city’s destruction, so in the Six-Day War the leaders of the Israeli army, Moshe Dayan, its minister of defense, and other high Israeli officials, now stood on that same mountain after it was secured to speak of the city’s liberation.
“Finally the word was given to Colonel Motta Gur, commander of the 55th Paratroopers Brigade, to take the Old City. He led his men to the sealed-up gate on Jerusalem’s eastern wall. Gur broke through the gate and entered the Old City. For the first time in two thousand years Israeli soldiers were standing on the streets of Jerusalem.”
“The Israeli soldiers left Jerusalem in AD 70,” I said. “So now they returned . . . each to his own possession.”
“Yes, and just as Jerusalem was lost when Roman soldiers swept down from the North into the Temple Mount, so now the soldiers of Israel swept down from the North into the Temple Mount. It was at that moment Gur radioed the words that would be heard all over the nation: ‘The Temple Mount is in our hands.’ 5
“The soldiers then made their way down to the Western Wall, where some wept, some prayed, some cheered, and some just stood in silent awe, too overcome to speak. And as the Roman soldiers of Titus had sealed the destruction of Jerusalem with the display of the Roman standard, so now Jewish soldiers sealed the city’s restoration with the display of the Israeli flag hung by the stones of the Western Wall.
“It was June 7, 1967, the day that the nation’s two-thousand-year-old exile from its Holy City came to an end . . . in the year of Jubilee. And as the Jubilee is the year appointed for return, so the proclamations of Israel’s leader would echo that word. Gur would tell his men, ‘You have been given the great privilege . . . of returning to the nation its capital and its holy center . . . ’ 6 Moshe Dayan would declare, ‘We have returned to all that is holy in our land. We have returned, never to be parted from it again.’ 7 And the rabbi who accompanied the soldiers to the Temple Mount and the Western Wall would pray, ‘ . . . We have not forgotten you, Jerusalem, our Holy City, home of our glory. . . . To Zion and the rem
nant of our Holy Temple we declare: “Your sons have returned to their borders.”’” 8
“What about the song?” I asked. “It was the song of two thousand years of lamentation, but three weeks after it was first sung, everything changed.”
“When the soldiers that liberated Jerusalem found themselves on the Temple Mount, they spontaneously began singing the song they had just learned weeks before. And when Naomi Shemer heard of Jerusalem’s liberation, she knew she had to add to the song another set of verses. So she wrote of the children of Israel returning to their ancient city. They had returned, she wrote, to the water cisterns and the market squares. They had returned to the Temple Mount. And the sound of the shofar, she wrote, the ram’s horn, could now be heard from the holy place. And all around the city, in the caves she had just described as howling with the wind of desolation, now a thousand suns were shining.” 9
“So it turned into a song of rejoicing.”
“In the prophets,” said the Oracle, “it was written that in the days of destruction the nation’s songs would be turned into mourning and lamentations.”
“And that’s what the psalm was about . . . the Jewish people could no longer sing their songs of Jerusalem but hung up their harps and wept. The sound of rejoicing was replaced by lamentation.”
“Yes, and ‘Jerusalem of Gold’ continued where the ancient psalm left off. But in the Jubilee everything is turned around—even that.”
“So if the songs of joy turn into lamentation, then in the Jubilee the songs of lamentation will be turned into a song of joy.”
“Yes. And the prophets foretold that as well—that the Lord would bring the Jewish people back to the land and would turn their mourning into joy.”
“So in the year of Jubilee ‘Jerusalem of Gold’ turned into a song of joy.”
“Yes, the nation’s song of lamentation and mourning was turned into a song of rejoicing. And two thousand years of mourning were thus turned into joy. God is like that,” said the Oracle.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s His will . . . His heart.”
“What is?”
“To turn mourning into joy.”
The Oracle was silent for a moment.
“Do you remember,” he said, “when I asked you to tell me what would take place that year, before you knew what actually did take place that year, when you had nothing to go on beyond the Jubilean mystery?”
“Yes.”
“You said that 1967 would be the year of a prophetic event that would involve a return. And so it was. You said that this event would involve a restoration, the return of something lost, the regaining of an inheritance by the one to whom it belonged. And so it did. You said it would involve the coming home of those who had been separated to their ancestral possession. And it did. And according to the mystery, 1967 would be the year of Jerusalem. And so it was. Those who had left the gates of Jerusalem at the beginning of the age now returned to reenter its gates in the year of Jubilee . . . and the separation was over.”
“I guess I did.”
“Yes,” said the Oracle, “it would seem you’re becoming something of a prophet.”
“The next revelation would involve the secret things that take place in the shadow of world events and of which the world has no idea.”
“And what did it involve?”
“The kohanim.”
“The kohanim?”
“The people of the cloud.”
Chapter 37
THE DAY OF THE PRIESTS
I RETURNED TO the garden and joined the Oracle by the tree under which he was sitting.”
“It’s an almond tree,” he said, “a symbol of resurrection, the first of trees to put forth blossoms.”
“The men in white robes in the desert procession . . . with the cloud . . . who were they?”
“They were the kohanim,” he replied, “the priests of Israel, the ministers of God, the keepers of His sanctuary. And the tent you saw, that was called the tabernacle. It was in that tent that priests ministered in the days of Israel’s journey to the Promised Land. Later on it would become the temple. And the cloud above the tent was the glory of God that led the Israelites through the wilderness.”
“They were journeying from the wilderness to the gate. Why?”
“The gate led to the mountain. The mountain was Jerusalem and the place on which God’s sanctuary was to rest.”
“What’s the connection to the mystery?”
“No people were so connected to Jerusalem as were the priests. Unlike the Israelites from other tribes, the priests had no inheritance in the land. Their inheritance was the ministry. And Jerusalem was the city of the ministry. It was there that they officiated over the nation’s holy days and festivals and there in His Temple that they performed the sacred rites. Jerusalem was the city of the priests.”
“So it was something as the ancestral possession of the priests.”
“And if the priests are especially connected to Jerusalem, and Jerusalem is especially connected to the Jubilean mysteries, then the priests would likewise be especially connected to the Jubilean mysteries. Beyond that the priests were the keepers of the Jubilee. They oversaw the Jubilean transactions, the relinquishing of the land, and its restoration. In fact several of the Jubilean ordinances specifically required the priests’ ministering. And it was the priests who marked, heralded, and proclaimed the Jubilean year to the rest of the nation.
“The priests were the Jubilean ministers. So if the priests were especially linked to both the Jubilee and Jerusalem, and if the Jubilee of 1967 centered on the return of Jerusalem, then could the return of Jerusalem also involve the return of the priests?
“It was June 7, 1967, the moment of Jerusalem’s liberation. Among the first Israelis to enter the walled city was Shlomo Goren, the chief chaplain of the Israeli army, the same rabbi who accompanied the soldiers onto the Temple Mount and then at the Western Wall, and who spoke the first blessings of the first prayer service there.
“As he stood on the ancient holy sites, his mind turned to a relative, his father-in-law. His father-in-law was also a rabbi and was known throughout the nation for his piety and deep yearning for Jerusalem’s restoration. And now it had happened. Goren believed that it was right that his father-in-law should be there in the Holy City to witness the moment of its liberation. So he sent his assistant to bring him there. With the road from Jerusalem to the rabbi’s house still under enemy fire, Goren’s assistant borrowed a military jeep with a recoilless rifle and set out to find the rabbi.
“Upon arriving at the rabbi’s home, Goren’s assistant told him he had come to bring him to the Holy City. The rabbi was so overcome with emotion that he left his house without putting his shoes on. The assistant then drove with the rabbi to the home of another revered rabbi, also known for his zeal for the redemption of Jerusalem. They found him deep in prayer. They beckoned him to come to the liberated city. The rabbi seemed dazed, as if not comprehending the moment, but went along anyway. Goren’s assistant now headed out with the two rabbis in his jeep to bring them inside the walls of the Old City. 1 Now what is it,” asked the Oracle, “that must take place in the year of Jubilee?”
“Each must return to his possession.”
“And Jerusalem was the city of the priests. Therefore, could the year of Jubilee involve the priests returning to Jerusalem?”
“It couldn’t have happened before?”
“1967 was the first Jubilee in which Israel returned to Jerusalem as its own possession. So it was the first time the priests could return in kind. And June 7 was the first day of that return. The man who drove the jeep that day was seeking only to carry out the command of his superior to bless two revered rabbis. But without knowing it, he was taking part in an ancient mystery. Rabbi Goren’s father-in-law was Rabbi David HaCohen. Cohen comes from the Hebrew word kohanim. It means priest. He was a descendant of Aaron, the brother of Moses, a priest of Israel. So in the year of Jubilee, wh
en each is to return to his possession, and on the day of Jerusalem’s restoration the priest returned to Jerusalem.
“But then there was the other passenger. He was Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook. Three weeks before the Six-Day War, on the anniversary of Israel’s birth, he gave a speech that shocked its hearers. He cried out in pained longing for the restoration of the nation’s ancestral possessions, the holy places and cities from which the nation was now separated.” 2
“As in the singing of the song ‘Jerusalem of Gold.’”
“Yes. Both prophetic messages went forth at the time of Israel’s anniversary, within a day of each other. And less than thirty days after the rabbi spoke, the Six-Day War broke out, and Israeli soldiers would be standing on the very same places of which he had spoken that night. In fact, on the very night on which he spoke those words, Egyptian military forces were mobilized for the first time for the war that would bring it all about.
“But Rabbi Kook was also known as Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda HaCohen Kook. He was also a descendant of Aaron. He was also a priest.”
“And the priest was to herald the coming of the Jubilee. So in giving that prophetic word, he was heralding the Jubilee.”
“Yes,” said the Oracle, “and now in a jeep heading to the Holy City, he was witnessing its fulfillment. It was the third day of the Six-Day War. People were hiding in their houses. Gunfire was still in the air. And in the midst of all that one jeep filled with ammunition and a rifle brought back two descendants of Israel’s ancient priesthood to their ancestral possession.
“Two thousand years earlier, in the wake of the Roman destruction, the priests of Jerusalem fled the city, were taken captive, or were killed. For two thousand years they lived in exile from their inheritance. But in the year of Jubilee the separation is undone. At the beginning of the age the priests of Israel were taken away from Jerusalem. But in the year of Jubilee, 1967, they returned.
The Oracle Page 17
