priests of Israel were taken away from Jerusalem. But in the year of Jubilee, 1967, they returned.
“In ancient times, when Israel returned to the land, the priests were there. When the nation entered the Promised Land under Joshua, the first Israelites to cross the Jordan River and lead the nation in were the priests. When the Jewish people returned to Jerusalem from exile in Babylon, the priests were there, central in that return and leading in the nation’s restoration. And so on June 7, 1967, when Israel returned to Jerusalem after its two-thousand-year-old exile, the priests were again present at the moment of return.”
“And they would have been the first to return . . . with the soldiers.”
“As in ancient times. The two were connected. It was the priests who sounded the trumpets that summoned the nation to war. And the soldier who drove the jeep that brought the two priests to the Holy City, he was also carrying another mystery. His name was Menachem HaCohen. He too was one of the kohanim, a son of Aaron, a priest of Israel.”
“It was the day of the priests!” I said.
“So the three priests arrived at the ancient wall of the Temple Mount, where their ancestors had ministered to God in ancient times. It was only after a time that the full weight of what was happening fell on Rabbi Tzvi Kook. He began to weep. As for Rabbi David HaCohen, he approached the wall, leaned against its ancient stones, and stood there frozen for hours, praying and reciting the psalms. The Lord had brought comfort to the priests. And as for their driver, the translation of his name, Menachem HaCohen, forms a phrase: ‘the comfort of the priest.’
“And so on June 7, 1967, when Israel returned to Jerusalem, the Jubilean ministers came home. Each had returned to his own possession.”
“The next mystery would reveal why it all had to happen when it did. And the secret would go all the way back to the days of Babylon.”
“And how was it revealed?”
“Through the man in the chariot.”
Chapter 38
THE BABYLONIAN CODE
I RETURNED TO the garden to find the Oracle sitting in a vineyard filled with trees, vines, clusters of purple grapes, and an ancient-looking stone press.”
“The man in the chariot who took me to Jerusalem . . . who was he?”
“A very ancient man,” he replied. “What happened in the Jubilee of 1967 was the undoing and redemption of the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. But is it possible that what took place was connected as well to a mystery even more ancient?
“When the Assyrian Empire collapsed at the end of the seventh century BC, two powers were left to battle for supremacy, Egypt, under Pharaoh Necho, and the newly ascendant kingdom of Babylon, under King Nabopolassar. With Nabopolassar in ill health, his son, the crown prince, led the Babylonian army to the city of Carchemish. His name was Nebuchadnezzar. In Carchemish he dealt a decisive blow to the Egyptian army. Babylon was now the undisputed supreme power of the Middle East. Nebuchadnezzar and his army now swept southward and eastward, bringing the peoples, lands, and cities of Syria and Israel into subjection and incorporating them into the newly established Babylonian Empire.
“One of the cities brought into subjection was Jerusalem. In the face of the Babylonian onslaught, the Judean king, Jehoiakim, surrendered and became Nebuchadnezzar’s vassal. The Scriptures record that Nebuchadnezzar received tribute from the next Judean king, Jehoiachin, treasures from the Temple, and captives from Jerusalem’s upper classes and royal families. Babylonian chronicles likewise bear witness to Nebuchadnezzar’s taking of Jewish captives back to Babylon. The city of Jerusalem was now under Babylonian sovereignty, and with it the entire nation.”
“Was Babylon near two rivers?”
“Yes, the Tigris and the Euphrates.”
“The rider in my vision said he was from the ‘land of two rivers.’ Was he Nebuchadnezzar?”
“He was. So Jerusalem was now a vassal city, and Israel, a territory of the Babylonian Empire. Soon after subduing the city and the land, Nebuchadnezzar received word that his father had died. He left his army and the business of transporting the captives in the hands of others and rushed back to Babylon to take the throne. Many view this moment as the beginning of the ‘times of the Gentiles,’ the age when Jerusalem would lie in subjugation to the Gentile kingdoms and empires. It would also mark the beginning of the end.”
“The end?”
“Years later, when the Judean king Zedekiah rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar’s rule, the