WND EXCLUSIVE~
Isaiah
9:10 linked with 9/11 – in 1985!
WASHINGTON
– The links between the 9/11 attacks and the Bible verse Isaiah
9:10 are so striking they helped make Jonathan Cahn’s “The
Harbinger” the bestselling Christian book of the last three years.
The
book was spun off into a
documentary, “The Isaiah 9:10 Judgment,” which became the
bestselling Christian movie of 2012 and 2013.
And
now, with the 13th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks nearing, Cahn
is following up his uber-successful “The Harbinger” with a
sequel, “The Mystery of the Shemitah.”
But
in the mean time he has found Isaiah 9:10 has another remarkable link
to 9/11.
Long
before Cahn penned “The Harbinger” or gave his first teaching on
the connections he found between Sept. 11 and Isaiah 9:10, the
editors of “The One-Year Bible,” which has 365 days of Scripture
readings, decided to include that verse in the Sept. 11 reading.
Isaiah
9:10 is included that day in every version for the 16 years prior to
9/11 and the 13 years since.
“This
has been the case since 1985,” said Cahn. “It’s been there for
years. Millions of Americans have been reading this verse on Sept. 11
for 16 years before 2001.”
“It’s
a remarkable coincidence,” said Joseph Farah, producer
of “The Isaiah 9:10 Judgment.” “Unless
it’s not coincidence at all. That would make it even more
remarkable.”
In
1985, “The One-Year Bible” was published using the text of many
different Bible translations around the world – from the Living
Bible to the Catholic Bible to the New King James version to the New
American Standard and the English Standard Bible.
A
reader who turns to the date of Sept. 11 – no matter the year –
sees Isaiah 9:10: “The bricks are fallen down, but we will build
with hewn stones: the sycomores are cut down, but we will change them
into cedars.” (KJV)
It’s
just the another striking example of dozens and dozens of sometimes
eerie links between the attack of 9/11 in America and the attack on
ancient Israel described in Isaiah 9:10, revealed in both the book
and the movie. Cahn says the harbingers for America – messages he
believes are from God – continue to mount.
For
those who have read “The
Harbinger” or seen “The Isaiah 9:10 Judgment,” the
words of Isaiah 9:10 have special meaning. It was a message heard
often from U.S., state and city leaders in the wake of the 9/11
attack: “We will rebuild. We will come back stronger.”
The words mimicked – sometimes with precision – those of ancient Israel in Isaiah 9:10.
And
that’s the pattern that has been revealed in Cahn’s bestseller
and the movie that has been the No. 1 faith film in America for the
last 35 weeks.
“A
number of years ago, as I was standing at the edge of Ground Zero in
New York City, I came across the first puzzle piece of an ancient
biblical mystery and a prophetic message known as ‘The Harbinger’
that concerns the future of America,” explains
Cahn, who helped write and narrate the two-hour documentary “The
Isaiah 9:10 Judgment.”
In
completing his first book, Cahn says he found nine harbingers that
tie the problems America has experienced beginning Sept. 11, 2001,
with parallels that led to the destruction of ancient Israel.
“Before
God judges a nation, He sends warning,” explains Cahn. “He sent
warning to ancient Israel. He even allowed its enemies to breach its
borders in a devastating strike that would traumatize the nation. It
was a wake-up call, the call to return to God. But the nation
responded with defiance. God then gave nine harbingers of judgment,
nine prophetic signs, alarms and foreshadows of what was to come. Now
America is the nation in rapid departure from God’s will. And God
likewise allowed an enemy to breach its borders in a devastating
strike – the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. It was, likewise,
a wake-up call. But America, like Israel, has not responded with
repentance, but with defiance. And now the nine harbingers of
judgment have reappeared and have done so on American soil.”
In
Isaiah 9:10, Israel’s national leaders utter a vow of defiance
following an attack by Assyria. The leaders declared that the nation
would not repent before God but would defy Him instead. Cahn reveals
in “The Harbinger” – and in even more dramatic fashion in the
movie – that beginning the day after Sept. 11, 2001, American
leaders began repeating that 2,500-year-old vow, word for word.
“Having
no idea what he was doing, the majority leader of the U.S. Senate
(Tom Daschle) was declaring America as under the judgment of God,”
Cahn says. “It was the reenactment of an ancient mystery – and
bore the most grave of consequences.”
He
continues: “According to the ancient mystery revealed in the Book
of Isaiah, if after that first calamity and warning, the nation
doesn’t return to God but responds in defiance, it will end up
triggering a second calamity. It was because of this ancient key,
that, seven years after 9/11, the American economy collapsed. In the
days after 9/11, the Federal Reserve slashed the base interest rate
in an attempt to defy the consequences of the attacks. That action
put us on the path leading to the collapse of the American economy
seven years later. In 2008, the government made a second fatal
mistake, another ill-fated financial decision that would trigger the
collapse of the American economy. Amazingly, it took place on the
seventh anniversary of the uttering of the ancient vow on Capitol
Hill.”
Cahn
also reveals in “The
Harbinger” and “The Isaiah 9:10 Judgment” something
that readers and viewers universally find astonishing – that New
York’s Ground Zero actually represents more than the former
financial center of the country. It represents the exact place at
which America was first consecrated to God in prayer by the country’s
new leaders.
“When
judgment came to Israel, the calamity returned the people’s
attention to the place where the nation had been consecrated to God –
the Temple Mount,” says Cahn. “God was calling the nation back to
Himself. What about 9/11? Could there be, in the American calamity,
as well, a mystery of return? Could there be a prophetic message
hidden in the place where it happened? There is a place where America
was consecrated to God in prayer. It is also a place linked to a
prophetic warning given on that same day – uttered by the nation’s
first president – now coming to pass.”
In
1789, newly inaugurated President George Washington gave a prophetic
warning at Federal Hall in New York City. He declared that America’s
prosperity and protection were dependent upon its adherence to God.
Later, the political leaders of the young nation gathered at St.
Paul’s Chapel to commit the nation’s future to God’s purposes.
That chapel is located at Ground Zero and miraculously survived 9/11
virtually unscathed.
Cahn,
the pastor of the Jerusalem Center-Beth Israel Congregation in Wayne,
New Jersey, says America is uncannily re-enacting ancient Israel’s
behavior prior to its judgment and eventual fall.
He
found a sympathetic ear for his message in WND founder Farah, who
produced “The
Isaiah 9:10 Judgment,” as a follow-up to “The Harbinger.”
The
key to decoding the harbingers, Cahn says, is found in understanding
the seemingly innocuous words of Isaiah 9:10, what it meant to Israel
and how the history seems to be repeating itself in America today.
These
words were first uttered by leaders in Israel and in response to a
limited strike by Assyria on the lands of Zebulun and Naphtali – an
attack the prophet makes clear is actually part of a limited judgment
by God against apostasy. It wasn’t meant to destroy the nation, but
to awaken it, according to most commentaries.
But,
says Cahn, Israel didn’t take the cue. Instead, the response from
the people in Isaiah 9:10 is one of defiance. The brick buildings
were toppled, but they vowed to build bigger and better. The little
sycamore trees may have been uprooted, but they vowed to plant bigger
and better cedars in their place.
God,
speaking through Isaiah, explains what will happen as a result of
their pride and arrogance and failure to heed the harbinger: Bigger
and more potent attacks will follow. Because neither the northern
kingdom of Israel nor the southern kingdom of Judah truly repents,
the first is eventually swept away by Assyrian invaders and the
latter is carried off into captivity by the Babylonians for 70 years.
But
what does this have to do with the United States of America –
particularly what the U.S. experienced on 9/11 and since? Cahn has
found some eerie parallels.
“In
the aftermath of the attack, the nation was stunned,” said Cahn.
“Everyone was trying to make sense of what had happened – this
unprecedented attack on America. The very next day, Sept. 12, then
Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle presented America’s response to
the world. And what did he say?”
Daschle
said: “America will emerge from this tragedy as we have emerged
from all adversity – united and strong. Nothing … nothing can
replace the losses of those who have suffered. I know there is only
the smallest measure of inspiration that can be taken from this
devastation. But there is a passage in the Bible from Isaiah that
speaks to all of us at times like this.”
He
then went on to read Isaiah 9:10.
“Daschle
has no idea what he is doing here,” explains Cahn. “He thinks
he’s offering comforting words to a grief-stricken people, but he
is actually embracing the spiritually defiant and arrogant words of
the children of Israel, proclaiming the ancient and ominous vow of
the leaders of that nation. He doesn’t realize it, but he is
actually inviting more judgment on the nation.”
It
might be of some significance that Daschle, one of the most powerful
men in the nation when he spoke those words, later fell into disgrace
– to the point where he couldn’t even serve in Barack Obama’s
Cabinet.
That
might have been the end of the story – if no other top leader in
the nation uttered those strange and obscure words after 9/11. But
that’s not the case.
On
the third anniversary of the attack, Sept. 11, 2004, another powerful
U.S. senator running for vice president that year and who would
famously run for the presidency four years later, gave a speech to
the Congressional Black Caucus.
This
time, John Edwards’ entire speech was built on a foundation of
Isaiah 9:10:
“Today,
on this day of remembrance and mourning, we have the Lord’s Word to
get us through,” he said. He then read Isaiah 9:10. He went on to
talk about how America was doing just that – rebuilding with hewn
stone and planting cedars.
Later,
in his first State of the Union Address in 2009, Barack Obama
hearkens back to the same theme.
In
“The Isaiah 9:10 Judgment,” viewers get to see these remarkable,
largely forgotten or overlooked speeches, which
directly link the events of 9/11 and the events referred to in Isaiah
9:10.
But
aside from such statements, which could be chalked up to political
talk and coincidences, is there anything else linking Isaiah 9:10 to
9/11 and the shockwaves that followed, including two economic
crashes?
The
video documentary, like the book, is full of shocking
parallels. There
was actually a very famous sycamore tree felled in the attack on the
World Trade Center. It was replaced by trees in the same genus as the
cedar. There have been many plans made to rebuild the twin towers
bigger and better and a large “hewn stone” was actually quarried
out of the Adirondack Mountains in New York and brought to Ground
Zero as a cornerstone.
“The
parallels are truly stunning,” says Farah, founder of WND, who
produced the documentary for WND Films. “In fact, they are
overwhelming in their number and their exactitude. I am persuaded God
is trying to tell America something and Rabbi Cahn has found the key
to unlocking the message.”