The Harbinger (15 page)

“It’s the act of
khalaf
,” he said.

“
Khalaf
?”

“It’s the Hebrew word used in the verse. It means
to exchange, to replace, to plant one thing in the place of another
.”

“And what about the word
cedar
?” I asked. “
Cedar
is English. What’s the original word used in the prophecy? What was the tree called in Hebrew?”

“
Erez
. It was called the
erez
. ‘The sycamores have fallen, but we will plant
erez trees
in their place.’”

“So
erez
means
cedar
?” I asked.

“Yes and no,” he replied. “
Cedar
is the word most often used to translate
erez
, as in the cedars of Lebanon. But
erez
means much more than the English
cedar
. Come.” With that, he left the path and led me over to a tree. “How would you describe it, Nouriel?”

“It’s an evergreen.”

“And what else?”

“It has cones, and its leaves are needlelike.”

“It’s a coniferous tree, a conifer. The classic botanical word known as
Hierobotanicon
defines the Hebrew
erez
as a conifer or coniferous tree. The word
erez
also appears in several different ancient texts where it refers to an evergreen conifer.”

“So an Erez Tree is a coniferous evergreen.”

“Yes,” he replied, “but not every coniferous evergreen is necessarily an Erez Tree.”

“So what exactly is it?” I asked.

“Most specifically it’s a
particular kind
of cone-bearing evergreen. One commentator more narrowly pinpoints it:

“And that means what…exactly?” “The Erez Tree would fall under the botanical classification of
pinacea
.”

“
Pinacea
. And what,” I asked, “does
pinacea
refer to specifically?”

“The cedar, the spruce, the pine, and the fir.”

“So the most accurate identification of the Hebrew word
erez
would be
pinacea tree
.”

“Yes. The most botanically precise translation of the vow would be, ‘But we will plant
pinacea trees
in their place.’”

“And the pinacea includes the cedar, but more than the cedar.”

“Correct. So they plant the stronger tree in place of the weaker, as they vow a stronger nation to replace a weaker one. The Erez Tree becomes another symbol of the nation and its defiance—a living symbol of their confidence in their national resurgence, their tree of hope.”

“A tree of hope, but not a good hope.”

“No,” he replied, “a prideful, self-centered, and godless hope. What they saw as a tree of hope was, in reality, a harbinger of judgment.”

He asked me for the seal. So, of course, I gave it to him, and, lifting it up in his right hand, as he had done with the others, he began to reveal its mystery.

“The Seventh Harbinger: The warning of the fallen sycamore goes unheeded. Its uprooted remains are removed. Another tree is brought to the place of its fall, a Hebrew erez, a conifer, an evergreen, the biblical cedar—the pinacea tree. The Erez Tree is planted in the same spot where the fallen Sycamore had once stood. The planting is vested with symbolic meaning. The second tree becomes a symbol of national resurgence, confidence, and hope. But like the quarried stone, in reality, it embodies the nation’s defiance. It will stand as a witness of a nation’s false hope and a living omen of its rejection of the warning given…the Seventh Harbinger—the Erez Tree.”

“So the sign is the appearance of the Erez Tree.”

“Yes.”

“Its planting.”

“Yes, its planting, and in the place of the fallen Sycamore.”

“If that happens, the Seventh Harbinger is manifested.”

“Yes.”

At that point, we resumed our walking.

“And has the Seventh Harbinger manifested?” I asked.

“It has.”

“How?”

“It began with the removing of the Sycamore.”

“The Sycamore of Ground Zero.”

“Yes. It was taken from the place of its fall and put on public display as a symbol of the calamity. Even its root system would be carefully removed and transferred to another site.”

“But for the ancient mystery to play out,” I said, “another tree would have to be brought to the same plot of land and planted in the same place where the Sycamore had stood.”

“In late November of 2003, two years after the fall of the Sycamore, a strange sight appeared at the corner of Ground Zero—in the sky…a tree. It was being transported by crane over a courtyard of soil and grass. Those in charge of the operation carefully guided it down to the appointed spot. The new tree was set into position to stand on the same spot where once had stood the Sycamore of Ground Zero.”

“What was it? What kind of tree?”

“The most natural thing to have done would have been to replace the one Sycamore with another. But the prophecy required that the fallen Sycamore be replaced with a tree of an entirely different nature. So the tree that replaced the Sycamore of Ground Zero was likewise
not
a sycamore. According to the prophecy, the Sycamore must be replaced by the biblical
erez
. So it must be replaced by a conifer tree.”

“And the tree that replaced the Sycamore of Ground Zero…?”

“The tree that replaced the Sycamore was a conifer tree.”

“An evergreen?”

“Yes…with needlelike leaves and cones.

“They replaced the fallen Sycamore with the Erez Tree!”

“The sign of a nation’s false hope and defiance before God.”

“It’s like something out of a movie…it’s surreal!”

“Except that it’s real.”

“Who was behind the decision to do that?” I asked.

“No one,” he answered. “No one in the sense of any one person making it all happen or trying to fulfill the prophecy.”

“No one had any idea what they were doing?”

“No one.”

“Then where did it come from?”

“The tree was a gift donated from an outside party, just as was the Gazit Stone that replaced the fallen bricks.”

“But you narrowed the word
erez
down more specifically to one particular kind of conifer.”

“The pinacea tree.”

“And the tree that was lowered into the ground…?”

“Its Latin name was
picea albies
.”

“And…”

“The tree that replaced the Sycamore was a pinacea tree.”

“A pinacea tree! The same tree of the ancient prophecy…the same tree that
had
to replace the fallen sycamore…Unbelievable!”

“And the sister tree to the Cedar of Lebanon.”

“And it all took place at the corner of Ground Zero?”

“Yes.”

“And the replacing of the bricks with the Gazit Stone happened at Ground Zero.”

“Yes.”

“So both parts of the ancient prophecy were fulfilled in the same place…at Ground Zero.”

“And not only in the same place,” he said, “but in the same way.”

“What do you mean?”

“They didn’t just place a Gazit Stone on Ground Zero. They made it into a public event, a public gathering completely centered around the Harbinger. So it was with the replacing of the Sycamore by the Erez Tree. The act became a public event, a gathering completely centered on the Harbinger.”

“And who led the event?”

“A local spiritual leader.”

“So the planting of the Erez Tree was made into a ceremony?”

“A ceremony centered on the act of replacement, as the laying down of the Gazit Stone was an act of replacement. Each event centered on one of the Harbingers. Neither had anything to do with repentance; instead, each exalted the human spirit and its defiance of calamity. It was another echo of the ancient vow. Two and half thousand years earlier, the people of Israel responded to their calamity by planting the Erez Tree as a sign of their defiant, self-confident hope. Now, in the aftermath of 9/11 and against the backdrop of Ground Zero, the assembled New Yorkers repeated the ancient act with their new Erez Tree. They too transformed it into a sign. During that ceremony, the officiant bestowed on the tree a name. He proclaimed:

“A tree of hope,” said the prophet. “And
a sign
.” “Yes, of the indomitable nature.
Indomitable
…meaning
unconquerable
.”

“The spirit of the vow.”

“And in the vow, what word was used for this act?”

“You just told me…
khalaf
.”

“Which means?”

“To exchange, to replace, to plant something in the place of another.”

“So that’s exactly what has to be fulfilled. It’s not just that one tree is fallen and a new one planted—but the new tree has to be planted in the
same place
. The Erez Tree must be planted in the
same place
where the fallen Sycamore had once stood. Now listen to the words they proclaimed that day as they gathered around the Erez Tree:

“And nobody realized that what they were doing was matching up with the prophecy?” I asked. “There was no one putting it all together?”

“No one,” he answered.

“It’s an exact, precise fulfillment of the ancient vow. It’s exact, and as if they’re highlighting it so you can’t miss it.”

“That’s the nature of the Harbingers, Nouriel. They have to be made manifest.”

“They couldn’t have matched it any more precisely than if they had recited Isaiah 9:10 word for word. And nobody was trying to make it happen. They all just happened to do it?”

“Think about it, Nouriel. Who could have put it all together? The tower fell because of the terrorists. It happened to fall exactly as it did in order to strike down that one particular tree. The tree just happened to be a sycamore, which just happened to be growing at the corner of Ground Zero. The tree that would replace it just happened to be given as a gift from outsiders who had nothing to do with anything else, but who just happened to feel led to give it. Their gift just happened to be the fulfillment of the biblical Erez Tree, which just happened to be the same tree spoken of in the ancient vow—the tree that must replace the Sycamore. They just happened to lower it into the same soil in that the fallen Sycamore had once stood—exactly as in the Hebrew of the ancient vow. And the man who led the ceremony around the tree just happened to bring it all together without knowing that he was bringing anything together. No one knew what they were doing. It wasn’t a matter of intent. It was the manifestation of the Harbingers.”

“It’s mind-boggling,” I said, “and another replaying of the mystery. They were all stepping into the ancient footsteps—and they thought it was their own.”

“It
was
their own,” he said, “but in the ancient footsteps.”

“Another piece of an ancient puzzle falling into place, another reenactment of an ancient drama…of judgment. It still seems like a movie. It’s still hard to believe that it’s all real, that it actually happened.”

“It all happened…and is happening.”

“And what’s the message of the Erez Tree?”

“The same message it carried to ancient Israel. The Ground Zero Tree of Hope was a sign, as it was proclaimed to be, but not of the hope they proclaimed. Instead, it was the sign of a nation’s defiant rejection of God’s call to return.”

“And concerning the future…what does it mean?”

“When you see the Erez Tree planted in the place of the fallen Sycamore, it’s an omen, a warning. What does it mean for the future? One commentary on Isaiah 9:10 puts it this way:

“
Ripening apace for ruin
. Then there’s no hope?” I asked.

“There
is
hope,” said the prophet, “but when a nation such as this places its hope in its own powers to save itself, then its hope is false. Its true hope is found only in returning to God. Without that, its Tree of Hope is a harbinger of the day when its strong cedars come crashing down to the earth.”

He stopped walking. “And now, Nouriel, we approach the last Harbingers…the last two…each as closely joined to the other as the Erez Tree is to the Sycamore.”

He handed me the next seal, the seal of the Eighth Harbinger, which I promptly examined. It’s image was of some kind of platform…some kind of wide, low platform. I couldn’t make anything of it beyond that.

“You’re puzzled,” he said as he saw my reaction.

“Yes,” I replied. “This one doesn’t look too promising.”

“What else do you have to go on?”

“The words of the vow. But the vow
ends
with the planting of the Erez Tree, the cedar. There’s nothing more.”