in Jerusalem of Judah. And so it shall be done.’”
“I continued following the ram through the desert and up to the walled city. It entered the city’s gate and walked through its streets, squares, and alleys until finally departing through another gate. As it emerged, I noticed that the engravings were gone from its body. It was then that I realized what had happened; the entire city was now covered with engravings. The wedge-shaped letters now covered the walls, buildings, towers, streets, and squares. And just as they had been moving on the ram, they were now moving across the city and rolling up and down its buildings and walls. The ram turned back to watch it all from a nearby mountain. Then he resumed his journey and disappeared over the mountain into the wilderness. And the vision ended.”
Chapter 44
THE YEAR OF THE BIRAH
THE VISION HAD taken place at night. I had expected to find the boy waiting outside my tent the next morning. But there was no sign of him. At midday I went to draw water from one of the desert wells. That’s when he appeared. And when I say appeared, I mean his head popped up from the other side of the well, smiling, playful, and as mysterious as ever. At times I wished I could speak his language so we could better communicate, but perhaps that was part of the mystery.
“He motioned for me to follow him. So I did. He led me through several valleys until we came to our destination, a mountain, which we ascended. When we reached the top, I saw what looked like the ruins of an ancient Greek or Roman building or temple with pedestals, pillars, and steps and a few odd structures I couldn’t identify, everything of white marble. The building had no roof and not enough walls to prevent me from seeing the vast desert landscape that formed the background against which it stood.
“There, sitting on the steps in between two of its massive pillars, was the Oracle. He motioned for me to join him. So I did. I told him the vision.”
“The ram,” he said, “of course represents the Jubilee. As each Jubilee sets in motion the events of the next era, so did the Jubilee of 1967. The Six-Day War altered the dynamics of the Middle East. The failure of Arab nationalism in that war opened the door for the ascent of radical Islam. It ushered in an era of terrorism, al Qaeda, Hamas, Osama Bin Laden, and 9/11. It gave birth to a new US-Israeli alliance and caused the United States to become the chief arbiter in the Middle East.
“As for the Soviet Union, the defeat of its Arab allies in the Six-Day War caused alarm among its European allies and satellite nations and the weakening of the communist bloc. The Jubilee of 1967 transformed not just the nation of Israel and the Middle East but ultimately the world. Some observers even commented that ever since 1967 the world had been living in the seventh day of the Six-Day War. 1
“As for Israel, it was now overseeing a land mass several times larger than what it had possessed before the Six-Day War. As for Jerusalem, the city prospered and grew. The Jewish quarter was rebuilt and inhabited. And the words of the prophet Zechariah were fulfilled:
Old men and old women shall again sit in the streets of Jerusalem. . . .The streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in its streets.2
“The years after 1967 saw more Jewish people coming back to the land than ever before. At the same time, it was in this period more than any other that Jerusalem became the focal point of global controversy. Israel would declare Jerusalem as its capital. And Jerusalem would become the only national capital the world refused to recognize. The symbol you saw on the ram and the door was the letter beit, the Hebrew b. It stood for the word birah. Birah means capital.”
“What about the ram?” I asked.
“Did it look something like this?” asked the Oracle, pointing to the ruins of the white marble building.
“Yes, like an ancient building. What was this place originally?”
“A house of government and law.”
“Is that a clue to the next Jubilee . . . that it would be connected to government and law?”
“It would be. And what else would this next Jubilee be connected to?”
“How could I know?”
“What are all the Jubilees connected to?” he