. ”
“The first of the mysteries . . . the man in the hooded robe . . . the stranger.”
Chapter 9
THE STRANGER
I RETURNED TO the mountaintop and found the Oracle. It seemed as if he was waiting for me.”
“In my vision the man with the hooded robe who journeyed the world . . . who was he?”
“In ancient times,” he said, “the land of Israel was described as flowing with milk and honey, a fertile and fruitful land. But when the Jewish people were driven into exile, the land withered away. Its forests disappeared. Its fields of grain and fruits became desert. Its hallowed cities stood as ghosts of their former glory or else lay in ruins. The Promised Land was now a barren, lifeless, parched, desolate horror of a land. And do you know who first prophesied of the land’s desolation?”
“Moses?”
“Yes, in that same farewell address. He prophesied the future of the Jewish people and also of the land . . . and more than that. He spoke of a specific sign that would appear in the land. He said this:
. . . the stranger that shall come from a far land, shall say, when they see the plagues of that land, and the sicknesses which the LORD has laid on it: “The whole land is brimstone, salt, and burning; it is not sown, nor does it bear, nor does any grass grow there, like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah.” 1
“This,” said the Oracle, “is the mystery of the stranger.”
“The mystery of the stranger?”
“That one day there will come a stranger, one who will journey from a faraway land. And when he enters the land, he will bear witness of its barrenness, its devastation, and its desolation.”
“Is it speaking of one specific person or all who will come?”
“Both. As with many Scriptures, it has more than one level. In a general sense it speaks of all who would come and be stunned by the land’s utter desolateness. On the other hand, it speaks of one. The original word used in the prophecy to speak of a stranger, an alien, or a foreigner, the Hebrew word nakri, is singular.”
“The man I saw in the vision, he was the stranger. He bore witness of the land’s desolation.”
“Yes. Now when would the stranger come, soon after the Jewish people were exiled from their land or at a later time?”
“A later time,” I replied, “because it would take time for a land that was once fertile to turn into a total wasteland.”
“Yes,” said the Oracle. “And the prophecy itself specifies the time. It begins by saying that these things will take place in a generation or age that is ‘akharone.’ The word akharone can speak of a coming generation or time, but it specifically means latter or last. So it would refer to the latter days, the end times, the last days.”
“So the stranger will come to the land in the end times?”
“The stranger will come before a specific end-time event takes place. And that event is foretold in the same Scripture passage:
The LORD your God will bring you back from captivity, and have compassion on you, and gather you again from all the nations where the LORD your God has scattered you. 2
“So the prophecy of the stranger leads into the prophecy of the regathering of the Jewish people. The stranger’s coming will be the sign that the exile of the Jewish people is about to end and the scattered children of Israel are to return from the ends of the earth.”
“So did the prophecy come true?”
“It did and just when the land’s devastation was at its most extreme . . . the nineteenth century. He would come, as was prophesied, ‘from a far land.’”
“From where?”
“He would come from America, from San Francisco, from the ends of the earth. It would be from there that he would begin his journey. And since the prophecy required someone to bring forth words of testimony, so he would be a man of words, a writer.”
“Have I heard of him?”
“He is considered by many to be the father of American literature.”
“Who was the stranger?”
“The stranger was Mark Twain.”
“Mark Twain? The one who wrote Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn? I read his books in school. He’s part of the mystery?”
“He would become part. Twain was a skeptic and so the most powerful of witnesses, those who bear witness despite themselves. He was working as a journalist on the West Coast when he heard of a journey