57 pages 1 hour read

Jonathan Cahn

The Harbinger: The Ancient Mystery that Holds the Secret of America's Future

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2011

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Chapters 17-19Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 17 Summary: “The Mystery of the Shemitah”

Kaplan meets the prophet in a wheat field several weeks after their last meeting. Kaplan relates to the prophet his guess that the seven stalks of wheat on the seventh seal indicate the seven days of the week, with the one missing stalk representing the sabbath. The prophet says that this is incorrect, but it is close to the correct meaning, telling Kaplan the practice of shemitah. Shemitah is a practice of six years of work and one year of letting the land rest, and it includes a mass forgiving of debt at the end of the seventh year. The prophet reveals that ancient Israel had not practiced the shemitah for an extended time, and that God enforced a shemitah that lasted 70 years to make up for 70 missed shemitah years.

The prophet then connects the practice of shemitah to America, noting that the initial market crash in 2001 occurred on September 17, 2001, which is the 29th of Elul in the Hebrew calendar, the same day on which shemitah is meant to begin and end. The next financial collapse occurred on September 29, 2008, which is also the 29th of Elul in the Hebrew calendar, seven years later.