The Mystery of the Shemitah (23 page)

The question must now be asked: If the
rise
of a tower foreshadowed the rise of America in world history, what does the
fall
of a tower foreshadow?

We now move to another realm to uncover one more dimension to the mystery of the Shemitah—one that concerns the rise and fall of nations.

Chapter 20
The RISING

The Shemitah of Kingdoms

T
HE SHEMITAH, BY
nature, alters the scales. It changes the balance of accounts. Even on the smallest of scales it alters the balance of power. In its most far-reaching and prophetic manifestation the Shemitah’s consequences are not limited to the financial and economic realms but extend into almost every realm of human existence and history. It can alter the landscape of nations, involve the rise and fall of great powers, and determine the fate of empires.

This can again be clearly seen in the events of 586 BC when the Shemitah, in the form of judgment, descends on the kingdom of Judah. It involves the political and military realms, the destruction of cities, the disappearance of a kingdom, and, on a larger scale, the rise and fall of empires.

Could the mystery of the Shemitah be at work affecting the rise and fall of nations in modern times?

The Time of Collapse

It is the Shemitah of September 1916 to September 1917. Did anything significant happen that year? We have already seen what happened in the financial realm. It would be known as the “Crisis of 1916–1917.” It would rank as one of the top ten long-term collapses in stock market history, wiping out 40 percent of the market’s value.

But what if we now go beyond the financial and economic realms? We have seen that behind the word
shemitah
is the verb “to shake.” Was there any significant shaking at the time of that Shemitah?

There was—and it was perhaps the greatest shaking of nations in world history up to that moment. It was the time of the First World War. In it more than seventy million people served as military personnel. And more than fifteen million people died. It was unprecedented in scale, scope, and nature. The world had never seen anything like it.

The word
shemitah
is linked to the verb for “to let fall,” “to cast down,” and “to collapse.” Was there a falling or collapse in the world at this time in world history, or associated with this war? Yes, but not just one. During the Shemitah there were, in process, four massive collapses of major world powers.

The Collapse of the German Empire

The German Empire, or Second Reich, was founded in 1871. In the time from its founding until the outbreak of the First World War, Germany had become one of the greatest powers on the world stage. It had boasted the world’s most powerful army, the world’s second most powerful navy, and the world’s fastest-growing industrial base. But as a result of the First World War, the German Empire, the Second Reich, would collapse.

The Collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire

The Austro-Hungarian Empire was formed in 1867. It was one of the great powers on the world stage of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. But it was weakened by the fact that many of its different ethnic groups were seeking to have their own nation. As a result of the First World War the Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed. Out of its ruins rose the nations of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.

The Collapse of the Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman Empire had been a major player in world history for over six centuries. At its geographical high point, it controlled much of Western Asia, North Africa, Southeast Europe, the Horn of Africa, and the Caucasus. But as the armies of the Allied Powers advanced through the Middle East in the latter part of the First World War, the centuries-old empire began to collapse. Its collapse would bring about the creation of the Middle East as we now know it, including the emergence of the modern nation-states of Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Israel, to name but a few.

The Collapse of the Russian Empire

The rule of the Russian czars had begun centuries before the First World War. The Russian Empire had been one of the largest empires in world history. In the nineteenth century its dominion reached from the Baltic Sea on the west to the Pacific Ocean on the east, and from the Black Sea on the south to the Arctic Ocean on the north. Only the British and Mongol empires had more land, and only China and the British Empire had more people.

But Russia’s entrance into the First World War had resulted in severe military setbacks and economic disintegration. Discontent among soldiers and civilians alike reached crisis levels, and in the spring of 1917 revolution broke out in the city of Petrograd. Czar Nicholas abdicated the throne and the Russian Empire collapsed. In the autumn of 1917 the Bolsheviks, under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin, began the “October Revolution” and overthrew the Provisional Government. It was a watershed of history, the beginning of the first communist state, the birth of what would be called the “Soviet Union.”

Each collapse was caused by the war, either by its process or its outcome. But for most of the war’s duration, the outcome—and thus the majority of these collapses—was far from certain. What changed that? What proved to be the turning point?

1917: The Turning Point

From its earliest days as a nation America had sought to avoid entanglement in the affairs of other nations. With regard to global affairs, the nation had largely pursued a policy of nonintervention. It sought to maintain this policy in the face of the First World War. But in the spring of 1917, after a series of German submarine attacks on US merchant ships, America declared war on Germany.

The year 1917 is considered a turning point not only of the First World War but of world history. America’s entrance into the war changed the balance of power and virtually ensured the defeat of the Central Powers and thus the collapse of empires.

The Shemitah year had begun on September 28, 1916, and concluded September 16, 1917. America entered World War I on April 6, 1917. Thus this pivotal event in American history and world history took place as part of the Shemitah. It would help bring about the collapse of three empires. The only collapse not affected by America’s entrance was that of the Russian Empire. But the Russian Empire had collapsed in the same pivotal year, 1917, in the spring—and thus was part of the Shemitah year. In fact, these two pivotal events, the Russian Revolution and America’s entrance into the First World War, not only both happened during the Shemitah, but they also happened within three weeks of each other.

The Nullification of Four Empires

Each one of the four collapses would dramatically alter the course of modern history. The collapse of the German and Austrian Empires would set the stage for the rise of Nazism and the Second World War. The collapse of the Ottoman Empire would set the stage for the conflicts of the Middle East. And the collapse of the Russian Empire would set the stage for the global spread of Communism and the Cold War. Each one of the four collapses was either brought about or ensured by the events of the Shemitah of 1917, or was itself one of those events.

The impact of the Shemitah is to bring nullification and the wiping away of that which has been built up. In its most global application this wiping away extends not only to economic and financial structures, but to physical structures and powers as well. By the end of the First World War the European landscape was filled with the ruins. From the Western Front to the Eastern Front, from the Balkans to the Middle East, that which had been built up was wiped away. And on a larger scale, two empires that had taken decades to build up, and two others that had taken centuries, had now, likewise, been wiped away.

The Beginning of Sunset

But there was yet another collapse connected to the First World War and to the pivotal events of 1917. The greatest of all colonial powers was the British Empire. It had begun in the late sixteenth century. At its height, it had controlled almost one quarter of the world’s land area, and one out of every five people on the planet lived under its dominion. Immediately after the war the empire reached its greatest geographical extent. It had been called “the empire on which the sun never sets.” But the sun was about to set.

We have already seen the first sign of this decline at the time America built its first high tower and the title of “world’s greatest economy” departs from the British Empire and moves to the New World. But as far as the decline of the empire itself, it is dated to the First World War. Going into the war, Britain had been the world’s greatest creditor nation. But the war had decimated the British economy and consumed its national credit. The world’s greatest creditor nation was now in debt. The financial disintegration would reach its peak in the war’s latter part, when the empire approached near bankruptcy. When did that take place? It happened in 1917, the Year of the Shemitah. After the war Britain would find itself increasingly unable to maintain its empire. The decline, at first, would be subtle, but by the century’s midpoint it would turn into a full and ultimately total collapse.

The Rising Power

We have seen several falls linked to the Year of the Shemitah. But was there a rise? There was. While kingdoms and empires were falling, one was rising.

The First World War had drained the British Empire of financial and economic power, but it had the reverse effect on the United States. When the war broke out, America was a debtor nation. But when the war was over, America had not only ceased to be a debtor nation but had become the greatest creditor nation in the world. The British Empire, along with other world powers, was now heavily indebted to America.