Chapter 21
The REIGNING
The Fourth Shemitah and the Global Cataclysm
FOUR IS THE number given in Scripture connected to world kingdoms and empires. From the year America began its rise to superpower in the First World War to the coming of the Second World War, three Shemitahs had gone by. The fourth Shemitah was approaching. The world was again engaged in another cataclysm. It would be the deadliest war in human history. By the time it was over, more than fifty million lives would be lost.
The New World Order
The Year of the Shemitah would begin at summer’s end 1944. In its approach American and Allied forces would launch the invasion of Europe, “Operation Overlord” on “D-Day.” But in that same summer another event would take place, much more quietly, almost unnoticeably. And yet it would bear massive ramifications for the world. It would happen in the quiet village of Bretton Woods, New Hampshire.
The Shemitah brings about the transformation of the economic and financial realms. What took place at Bretton Woods would bring about the transformation of the global economic and financial order. It would establish such institutions as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. But most dramatically it would set up a new world economic and financial order in which world currencies would be tied to the US dollar.
The wiping away of debt and the ending of the Shemitah would bring about a new financial and economic beginning. Bretton Woods would bring about a new financial and economic beginning and order for the world. America would now be the global base on which the world’s economic and financial order would rest. It was planned out in the summer of 1944, in the Shemitah’s approach. It would be ratified by the American Congress in the Shemitah’s midst, in summer of 1945. And it would begin taking effect after the war’s end, in the Shemitah’s wake.
But as the Shemitah also brings about collapse, so too Bretton Woods would do likewise. It heralded the end of the era of the British sterling’s reign in world trade and the collapse of the British Empire. A senior official of the Bank of England described it as “the greatest blow to Britain next to the war.”1
The Collapse of a Continent
The Shemitah began in September 1944 and lasted until September 1945. This period witnessed the war’s most intense and climactic phase. The Year of the Shemitah had again brought the collapse of powers. As American and Allied forces marched across Europe from the west and the Red Army moved in from the east, the result was one of the most sweeping collapses of power in history. The totalitarian rule that had held an entire continent in an iron grip was overthrown. The Third Reich, which sought to destroy the children of Israel, had fallen in the Hebrew year of “the casting down.”
Again the Shemitah changed the balance of nations. Again it ushered in a mass transference of power. Again it altered the landscape of history. And again there was a wiping away of what had been built up—a wiping away of governments, ideologies, armies, powers, buildings, states, cities, and sovereignties.
The Shemitah of World War II
World War II began when England and France declared war on Germany for invading Poland on September 1, 1939. But Hitler’s seizure of Europe began a year earlier with the annexation of Austria in the spring of 1938, followed by the taking of the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia in the autumn of 1938. Thus Hitler’s takeover of nations began in 1938, the Year of the Shemitah. It would end with his suicide and the fall of the Third Reich in the spring of 1945, the following Year of the Shemitah. It had all taken place within the seven-year cycle, from Shemitah to Shemitah.
The Shemitah of the Holocaust
One can give a number of dates to mark the beginning of the Holocaust. But what is known as “The Fateful Year” was 1938. It was that year that the Nazi persecution of the Jews became an official and radicalized policy of the German state. On October 5, 1938, Jewish passports were invalidated. On October 27 came the brutal first mass deportation of Jewish people out of Germany. Two weeks later came Kristallnacht, “The Night of Broken Glass,” when over fourteen hundred synagogues were set on fire, countless Jewish-owned shops and businesses were destroyed, and thirty thousand Jewish people were arrested and sent to concentration camps.
These events are commonly cited as the beginning of the Holocaust. It started in the month of Tishri, 1938, in the autumn wake of the Shemitah. The Holocaust would only end with the collapse of the Nazi state and the liberation of the death camps. Both would take place in the spring of 1945—in the Year of the Shemitah. It had all taken place in the seven-year cycle from Shemitah to Shemitah.
The Collapse of the Colonial Empires
In 1945 one-third of the world lived in a territory under the dominion of or dependent on a colonial power. The same year marks the beginning of the fall of the great colonial empires. The war had devastated the European powers, the conquered and the conqueror alike. From the ruins of the Second World War began the collapse of the colonial empires. The rise of the two superpowers, America and the Soviet Union, would further accelerate that collapse. The fall of the European empires would affect every continent and give rise to multitudes of new nations. The Shemitah had now brought about one of the greatest series of collapses in history. Again, it had wiped away that which had been built up. And, again, it had altered the balance of powers and transformed the landscape of nations.
The Shemitah’s End and the Atomic Age
The war in Europe had ended in the spring of 1945, but the war against the Japanese Empire continued. It was still raging in the summer of 1945. As the Shemitah neared its climactic end, so did the Second World War. With one month left to the “end of the seventh year” and the time of nullification, the greatest destructive force ever devised by man was unleashed on the Japanese city of Hiroshima with the dropping of the atomic bomb. In a blinding flash the city was wiped away. Three days later another blinding flash would wipe away the city of Nagasaki.
At 12:00 noon, Japan standard time, August 15, the Emperor Hirohito announced the nation’s surrender. The fall of the Japanese Empire would continue through the month of September with the surrender of troops from Burma to Hong Kong, from Korea to the islands of Miyako and Ishigaki. Thus the Empire’s collapse and that of the war continued through the Hebrew month of Tishri in the Shemitah’s autumn wake.
But the official end of the Second World War would come on September 2, 1945, aboard the USS Missouri, as the Japanese Empire issued its formal surrender to the Allies. The Second World War ended just as the Shemitah approached its end. In fact, the war would end in the Shemitah’s last week, within days of Elul 29. The proximity of the end of the global conflict to the end of the ancient seven-year cycle was 99.99 percent. And at that same moment, at the Shemitah’s peak, a new age would begin with America as the head of nations.
The Victor’s Procession
The celebration of triumph at the end of war with a victorious procession of the prevailing army goes back to ancient times. At the end of the greatest war in world history there would be several such processions. In June of 1945 a Soviet victory parade was held by the Red Army in Moscow. In July the British forces held a victory parade in Berlin.
But few processions would involve all four of the Allied armies. And there would only be one that would mark the end of the Second World War at the actual time of the war’s end. The procession took place in Berlin, the city in which the Third Reich fell and the war ended in Europe. It happened just days after the Japanese surrendered on the battleship USS Missouri, marking the end of the Second World War. Overseeing the victory parade was Marshal Georgy Zhukov, representing the Soviet Union; General George S. Patton, representing the United States; General Brian Robertson, representing the United Kingdom; and General Marie-Pierre Koenig, representing France.
It happened on September 7, 1945. But on the Hebrew calendar it was Elul 29, the day marking the end of the Shemitah—the very last day of the biblical cycle of seven years. The cycle had begun in 1938, the year in whi
ch Hitler’s takeover of neighboring lands had begun and the fateful year that marked the beginning of the Holocaust. It had now ended seven years later on the last day of the Shemitah with the march of the victors through the streets of the conquered city. The procession marking the end of the greatest war in history took place on the very day appointed from ancient times to mark the end of the biblical cycle of seven years, on the Day of Remission, collapse, and release.
The Cold War Shemitah
But Elul 29 not only ends one cycle—but also its end begins another. The end of the war would mark the beginning of a new age, a new world, and a new conflict to be known as the Cold War.
From the same city in which the procession of Elul 29 took place, and from the same key players who took part in that procession, the Cold War would begin. Berlin would become the symbolic center of that conflict and that era, and of the division of that world between the two superpowers.
It has been noted by more than one commentator that what happened on that Day of the Shemitah in 1945 would become a point of contention between the two superpowers, a portent of the conflict that would become the Cold War. With the absence of General Eisenhower from the procession and the West’s subsequent downplaying of the event, the day has been seen as the beginning of the end of the wartime coalition, one of the earliest signs of the ensuing global conflict, and a precursor of the Cold War—on the Day of the Shemitah.
The American Empire
Emerging from the ruins of the Second World War, America stood at a high pinnacle of world history. It was the greatest financial power, the greatest industrial power, the greatest commercial power, the greatest political power, the greatest military power, the greatest economic power, and the greatest cultural power on earth. The world’s financial order, economic order, and political order were now led or driven by the American superpower. Its economy drove the world economy, its industry filled the world’s markets, its culture filled the world’s consciousness, and its military stood watch over the world’s nations.
Some called it the “American Empire”; others, the “American Century”; and others, the “Pax Americana.” Its rise had begun with the Shemitah of one world war and had now been sealed in the Shemitah of another. And it was just then, in the same year that had birthed the American superpower, that the idea of a World Trade Center was born.
But the Shemitah has two edges. To a nation that by and large upholds the ways of God, it comes as a blessing. But to a nation that has once known the ways of God but now rejects and defies them, the Shemitah comes not as a blessing but a judgment—and brings not a rising but a fall.
What happens if, from the pinnacle of 1945, we move forward the same span of time, another twenty-eight years, to the fourth Shemitah? Where will it bring us?
Chapter 22
The FALLING
The Fall
MOVING FORWARD THE same length of time as before, four periods of Shemitahs, twenty-eight years from America’s zenith of power in 1945, we are brought to the year 1973. It is, of course, another Shemitah year. Unlike the first two cases, it wasn’t marked by a world war. But was it significant? Very much so.
In the midst of its blessing, ancient Israel had begun driving God out of its government, out of its public squares, out of its culture, out of the instruction of its children. America had done likewise—beginning in the early 1960s as America banned prayer and the reading of Scripture from its public schools. The rulings were symptomatic of a larger removal of God from American culture. What followed was a decade of tumult and chaos. The nation was moving—slowly at first, and then with increasing speed—away from God and the ways of God.
The Blood of the Innocent
But 1973 would be a watershed in America’s spiritual and moral descent. It was at the beginning of that year that the nation’s highest court legalized the killing of unborn children. In the case of ancient Israel it was the killing of the nation’s most innocent, its little children, that would ultimately lead to national judgment and destruction:
And they rejected His statutes and His covenant that He had made with their fathers, and His testimonies which He had testified against them; they followed idols. . . . So they left all the commandments of the LORD their God. . . . And they caused their sons and daughters to pass through the fire . . .
—2 KINGS 17:15–17
If the comparison seems severe, we must consider this: Israel killed thousands of its children; America has killed millions. At the time of this writing, the number of unborn children killed is estimated at over fifty million. If this was a cause for judgment concerning ancient Israel, a nation that had once known the ways of God but had now turned against them, then how could it be any less a cause for judgment concerning America, a nation that had likewise once known the ways of God but had now turned against them?
The Long Decline
The Shemitah had begun in September 1972 and would continue until September 1973. The Supreme Court decision was issued in the midst of the Shemitah on January 22, 1973. The Shemitah can be linked to a nation’s rise—or to its fall. The last two Shemitahs of this cycle—that of 1917 and 1945—were turning points concerning America’s rising. But the Shemitah of 1973 was a turning point concerning its fall. It was the year America ruled it legal to kill its unborn children.
Only eleven days before that decision the stock market had reached its peak. In that same month it would change momentum and begin a long decline that would last into the autumn of 1974, having 48 percent of its worth wiped away. The collapse would then combine with a severe and crippling economic recession. It is worthy of note that the connection between the Year of the Shemitah and the collapses in America’s financial and economic realms appears to grow more intense and consistent in the cycles immediately following the critical year of 1973 than in those preceding it.
The Collapse of Bretton Woods
The Bretton Woods system, established at the end of World War II in 1945, was based on tying the world’s major currencies to the US dollar and the US dollar being tied to the gold standard. But by the 1960s America did not have enough gold to back up its dollars. The dollar had weakened. In August 1971 President Nixon removed the US dollar from the gold standard. And in the spring of 1973 the bonds tying the world’s currencies to the dollar were irrevocably severed. Bretton Woods, which, at the end of the Second World War, had epitomized America’s hegemony over the world’s financial and economic order, had collapsed.
Bretton Woods was joined to the Shemitah in its beginning. So it would be joined to the Shemitah in its end. Again, the Shemitah had brought about a collapse. And again, it had touched the world’s economic and financial realms.
“Before Your Enemies”
As America turned from God, over the long term its position relative to the rest of the world continued to deteriorate. The Bible cites several signs of God’s favor on a nation. One of these is economic prosperity. Another is military power and victory. At the end of the Second World War America stood at the pinnacle of both economic and military power. But now its “almighty dollar” was weakening, and a series of crises was causing a deterioration in its economic power. What about its military power?
As the nation began driving God out of its life in the 1960s, its military fortunes began to change. The change had a name: Vietnam. For the first time in over a century and a half—some would say for the first time ever—America had lost a war. What year did America lose its first war in modern times? It happened in 1973, the Year of the Shemitah. America’s greatest military victory had taken place in the Year of the Shemitah. So too now did its most traumatic military defeat.
Four Shemitahs, twenty-eight years, earlier America had won the Second World War, its greatest military victory. That day was August 15, 1945. So America’s first military defeat in modern history took place on the anniversary of its greatest military victory—a sign concerning the removal of God’s blessing—and yet another manifestation of collapse in the
Year of the Shemitah.
The Cycles of the Fourth Shemitah
Behind the rising and falling of America is a mystery of Shemitahs. The key turning points of that rise and fall were each connected to the Shemitah year. Each of these turning points took place during the fourth Shemitah from the last turning point—intervals of twenty-eight years.
• The cycle of superpower—America’s rise to world power begins in the Year of the Shemitah 1917 with its entrance into the First World War. Moving forward twenty-eight years, we come to the fourth Shemitah in the year 1945. In 1945 America’s rise to world superpower is completed.
• The cycle of Bretton Woods—At its pinnacle of power America becomes the center of a new world financial and economic order, the Bretton Woods system, at the time of the Shemitah 1945. Moving forward twenty-eight years, we come to the fourth Shemitah in the year 1973—the year that the Bretton Woods system undergoes its final collapse. It begins and ends with the Shemitah.
• The cycle of war—On April 15, 1945, the empire of Japan surrenders. The Second World War is over. Having won its greatest military victory in history, America stands at the pinnacle of military power. Moving forward twenty-eight years, we come to the fourth Shemitah, in the year 1973—the year America loses its first war in modern history. The war is over on April 15, twenty-eight years after its greatest victory—to the day.
The Cycle of the Tower
But there was one more connection in the mystery. At America’s apex of global power an idea was born that would parallel that apex. America, the now undisputed center of world trade, would build a World Trade Center. The building would embody the new American-led financial and economic world order. After many delays and obstacles the vision of 1945 would finally become a reality. The year was 1973. It had been conceived in the Shemitah, and in the Shemitah it would be finished. From the conception to the completion was, again, twenty-eight years, and, again, it was the fourth Shemitah.
The Mystery of the Shemitah: The 3,000-Year-Old Mystery That Holds the Secret of America's Future, the World's Future, and Your Future! Page 14
