Jonathan Cahn - The Harbinger Companion with Study Guide

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Chapter 5

The HARBINGERS:

The SYCAMORE to the PROPHECY

The Second Stream

T HE HARBINGER S CONTINUE to manifest according to the ancient vow and Scripture. The manifestations take on increasingly and eerily precise forms. In prior chapters we’ve shown how America’s rise and spiritual fall paralleled the rise and apostasy of ancient Israel. We revealed how the ancient patterns and dynamics of Israel’s rise and plunge have manifested themselves through Nine Harbingers.

We introduced and discussed five of these harbingers: the Breach, the Terrorist, the Bricks, the Tower, and the Gazit Stone. The Breach and the Terrorist provided the context for all subsequent harbingers. They represent God’s response to a nation’s continued rebellion by allowing His protective hedge to be breached through a sudden invasion by a terrorist adversary. This was a serious wake-up call to a people who had rejected every earlier call to repentance and return.

The Bricks, the Tower, and the Gazit Stone emerge from the opening sentence of Isaiah 9:10: “The bricks have fallen down, but we will rebuild with hewn stones.” Together they represent Israel’s response to the breach and the invasion, a response of rebellion and defiance rather than repentance, with a vow to rebuild bigger and better than before. Like the Breach and the Terrorist, we saw how these harbingers reappeared in America during and after the 9/11 attacks.

In this study we will explore the sign of the falling tree, the Sycamore, the act of khalaf , its replacement with the Erez Tree, the actual manifestations of the ancient vow of judgment by America’s leaders, and the ominous meaning therein.

The Sixth Harbinger:

The Sycamore

The sycamore of ancient Israel

The bricks have fallen down, but we will rebuild with hewn [quarried] stones. The sycamores have been cut down, but we will plant cedars in their place.

—ISAIAH 9:10

The Sixth Harbinger is seen in the opening words of the second sentence of Isaiah 9:10. As in the case of the bricks falling, Israel is acknowledging that an invasion has happened and damage has occurred.

The Assyrians not only attacked and destroyed buildings but also destroyed the trees of the land, particularly the sycamores. The destruction of the sycamores is mentioned even in the account of Egypt’s plagues. It’s a sign of national judgment, a warning of national uprooting. The fallen bricks are a sign of destruction; the fallen sycamore is a sign of uprooting and death.

The American sycamore

The Hebrew word shakam, or fig-mulberry tree, is that from which the word sycamore comes. In Greek, fig is sukos and mulberry is moros, thus sukomoros or sycamore. The Hebrew version of the sycamore naturally grows in the Middle East but not in cooler climates like that of the American Northeast. But just as the Hebrew sycamore was endemic to Israel, so there is a western sycamore endemic to America. On 9/11 it was this tree that just happened to be growing at the corner of Ground Zero. The striking down of Israel’s sycamore trees was a sign of national judgment. In a strange series of events, in the last moments of 9/11 a shock wave and a steel beam went forth from the falling north tower and struck down the tree. The tree became a symbol known as the “Sycamore of Ground Zero.” The sycamore had fallen—the Sixth Harbinger.

The Seventh Harbinger:

The Erez Tree

The erez tree of ancient Israel

The sycamores have been cut down, but we will plant cedars in their place.

—ISAIAH 9:10, AUTHOR’S TRANSLATION

As in the case of the fallen bricks, Israel’s noting the cutting down of the sycamore is followed not by a turning to God, but by a defiant, unrepentant vow to replace it with something larger or stronger. As the bricks were replaced by quarried stone, so was the sycamore replaced by a bigger and stronger cedar.

The Hebrew word in Isaiah 9:10 that’s translated cedar is erez . It is actually a conifer or coniferous tree. In a number of ancient texts it refers to a particular kind of cone-bearing evergreen. The erez tree would fall under the botanical classification of pinacea , which refers to the spruce, the cedar, the pine, and the fir.

Thus the most accurate translation would be, “But we will plant pinacea trees in their place.”

The erez tree is the Seventh Harbinger.

The American erez tree

Has this sign of the erez tree been manifested in America? When the lone sycamore tree of Ground Zero fell, it was removed, including its root system, and put elsewhere on display. In November 2003, two years later, a ceremonial act took place at the corner of Ground Zero. A tree was lowered by crane into a specific spot of earth—the ground in which the Sycamore of Ground Zero had stood.

It was not another sycamore tree.

It was an evergreen conifer tree, literally a pinacea tree; it was a biblical “erez” tree, as referred to in the ancient vow of defiance.

And as with the case of the quarried stone or Gazit Stone replacing the bricks at Ground Zero, the erez tree replacing the sycamore was a public event, symbolizing national defiance instead of humility in response to an attack. The highly publicized new tree was even given a name: “The Ground Zero Tree of Hope.”

The Eighth Harbinger:

The Utterance

The utterance in Samaria

The Lord sent a word against Jacob,

And it has fallen on Israel.

All the people will know—

Ephraim and the inhabitant of Samaria—

Who say in pride and arrogance of heart:

The bricks have fallen down . . .

—ISAIAH 9:8–10

We’ve seen how one scripture, Isaiah 9:10, explicitly contains the harbingers that tell ancient Israel’s story, revealing patterns of defiance to God’s will that are repeated in modern America. Containing the two previous verses of the chapter, the above passage, with its mention of Ephraim, confirms that the nation being mentioned is the northern kingdom of Israel. Its mention of Samaria, the kingdom’s capital city, suggested that Israel’s defiant vow was made there.

This points us to the Eighth Harbinger, the utterance of the vow—the whole of Isaiah 9:10—in the rebellious nation’s capital city.

Simply stated, following a calamity caused by God lifting His hedge of protection on a backslidden nation, a nation’s leaders respond with public defiance. They boast of their country’s resolve and power. They speak of its fallen bricks and quarried stones, its uprooting trees and their replanting. They speak of a nation defiant and determined to emerge stronger than ever. The words become a vow. The vow gives voice to a national spirit and seals the nation’s course. It all takes place in its capital city.

The American utterance

Has this harbinger, the Utterance, like the previous harbingers, been manifested in America? Yes.

It happened the late summer of 2004 during a presidential election campaign. By that time, the Erez Tree had replaced the sycamore and the Gazit Stone the fallen bricks. In other words, every object mentioned in Isaiah 9:10’s ancient prophecy had manifested at Ground Zero.

The date was September 11, 2004. The event was the third anniversary of the 9/11 breach. The speaker was the senator and vice president candidate John Edwards. The place was America’s capital city of Washington.