Just in case it's not clear enough here's another sketch of the uncanny correspondences between Isaiah 9:10 and 9/11/01

I've outlined the "harbingers" of Jonathan Cahn's study here already, but maybe it could use some more spelling out. I'm not comfortable with his system or the focus on "harbingers" really, just not the way my mind works I guess, so if I spell it out I come at it differently, less systematically perhaps.

So here's the story: This rabbi/preacher Jonathan Cahn discovered that there is a verse in the book of Isaiah in the Bible that relates to what happened on 9/11, to the attitude people had about the attack, but it not only corresponds to 9/11 in that general way, but specific things mentioned in that verse became literal realities on 9/11 as well. These are literal physical harbingers and it is truly uncannily amazing that there should be such a literal correspondence between an ancient Bible verse (732 BC) and a modern event. God certainly speaks to us today through his scripture but this is the only instance I'm aware of in which the actual facts of the scripture have been manifested literally and physically in the present.

Here's the verse and this time I'm going to include the context which shows the consequences God says will follow:

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.

Isaiah 9:11-14 Therefore the LORD shall set up the adversaries of Rezin against him, and join his enemies together; The Syrians before, and the Philistines behind; and they shall devour Israel with open mouth. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand [is] stretched out still. For the people turneth not unto him that smiteth them, neither do they seek the LORD of hosts. Therefore the LORD will cut off from Israel head and tail, branch and rush, in one day.

So the first correspondence is that the people of Israel had the same attitude when they were attacked by the nation of Assyria, as America had when attacked by terrorists. They do not attribute the attack to God, do not see it as His judgment, and instead of seeing that they need to repent and turn back to Him they defiantly vow to rebuild bigger and better than before.

As a consequence of that attitude, right after that God says they will be attacked again. And as a matter of historical fact, Israel, the northern kingdom, was completely wiped out in another attack by Assyria some ten years later. The ten tribes completely disappeared, absorbed into the surrounding nations, and their former kingdom became known as Samaria. This was God's judgment against them for all their disobedience of his commandments, particularly for following foreign gods and for sacrificing their children to those gods.

Afterward, Samaria kept a distorted semblance of the Law given by Moses but as Jesus said of them when He spoke to the Samaritan woman He met at the well:

John 4:22 Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews.

Judah, the southern kingdom made up of the two remaining tribes, was also warned of judgment to come, and also did come under judgment but later on, through attacks by the Babylonians. In 586 BC they went into captivity in Babylon for seventy years.

Judah's judgment came later because they had fewer sins, more obedient kings, and God had also promised that He was going to bring the Messiah Savior from them so He wouldn't completely destroy them, and it was from the tribe of Judah that Jesus was born 700 years after the events of Isaiah 9:10.

When the nation of Israel was originally formed under Moses after the Exodus from Egypt (around 1500 BC), God had given them commandments that they'd all agreed to obey and he'd also told them what would happen if they didn't obey. He promised protection and prosperity if they obeyed, but attacks by enemies, economic disaster and so on if they didn't obey. All this is spelled out in the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy written by Moses, and to show this I'm going to copy out the first 25 verses of the 68 verses of Deuteronomy 28 at the bottom of this post.*

The attitude of the Israelites in Isaiah 9:10 is clearly the same attitude America had after 9/11, which anyone ought to be able to remember. Hardly anybody thought of it as God's judgment and the few who did were criticized. I immediately knew it was God's judgment and I don't know why so many other Christians didn't. They kept saying God wouldn't do that sort of thing, but the Bible ought to make it clear that nothing happens without Him. Also, it was clearly only a warning. 9/11 was bad but it could have been a lot worse, which means God isn't yet judging us as harshly as He could and He's giving us time to recognize Him and change things. It was a warning, but it's been over ten years and there's no sign of repentance from any quarter that I'm aware of, we've already had economic disasters and there's still more to come.

Even without all the uncanny harbingers the attitude expressed by Israel in Isaiah 9:10 is the same as America's after 9/11, but the uncanny harbingers did happen and what might have been merely an instructive example from scripture has become an official statement of America's defiance of God. Tom Daschle who was Senate Majority leader at the time actually QUOTED Isaiah 9:10 on the Senate floor the day after 9/11, thinking it was just a nice promise to rebuild that would make everybody feel better, not realizing it's a harbinger of judgment that states the defiance of America against God just as it stated the defiance of Israel against God. Better not quote the Bible at all than quote a passage like that.

Then three years later at a prayer breakfast also on 9/11 John Edwards quoted the same verse with the same misunderstanding of it.

In case anybody thinks they didn't misunderstand it, you can go read the commentaries at Blue Letter Bible on that verse, which all make it very clear that this is a statement of defiance against God. Both Edwards and Daschle did completely misunderstand it, and by pronouncing it in a public official way they committed America to defiance of God rather than to the repentance that verse ought to call for. Former American leaders knew better. Lincoln knew better for instance. But in our time only a very few -- who were vilified for it -- were calling it judgment and calling for repentance, everybody else was crying, "God bless America" as if God COULD bless this miserably apostate nation.

Those who don't believe in God might still think what's the big deal, but that's only possible if they aren't really thinking about it. Why did Dasche and Edwards quote that specific verse from the Bible that's ABOUT defying God and misunderstand it so completely? They could have quoted lots of verses from the Bible that really are comforting but they chose that one.

But that's just the beginning of the harbingers. Israel said they'd rebuild with hewn stone to replace their fallen bricks, refusing to recognize that it was God who had knocked down the bricks of their buildings. We brought in a huge stone weighing tons that was cut out of the New York mountains, a "hewn stone" to be the cornerstone of the proposed Freedom Tower to replace the WTC. It was just a gesture. The building wouldn't be built out of hewn stone but that hewn stone became a symbol for the rebuilding, and it's uncanny that they did it that way since that's what Isaiah 9:10 says Israel planned to do. The governor of New York made a speech over it too, also promising to rebuild what had been knocked down.

A symbolic hewn cornerstone of the defiant vow to rebuild isn't uncanny enough? Well, even more uncanny is that a sycamore tree was destroyed on 9/11, by a piece of the falling tower. It lay uprooted in the graveyard beside a little church at the corner of Ground Zero. Another symbol. The sycamores had been cut down by the Assyrian attack on Israel so a sycamore was also cut down on 9/11. It's not the same tree that's found in the Middle East but it WAS named after that tree.

And people made a big deal out of that fallen sycamore too. It appears that the church itself might have been destroyed but the sycamore protected it. They put its roots on display and a sculptor was commissioned to make a replica of those roots in bronze to commemorate the tree. That replica now stands next to the main church of which that small chapel is a part. There it stands, not recognized as the sign of judgment to come against America that it is.

AND, just as the Israelites said they’d replace their fallen sycamores, which the Assyrian army had cut down during the attack, with cedars, our fallen sycamore was also replaced by the same kind of tree, a conifer of the same family as the cedar. It was installed where the sycamore had stood, and officially named the Tree of Hope, although, again, it so clearly reflects the verse in Isaiah which is about defying God that it should really be called the Tree of Doom.

Can it be denied that all this is an uncanny playing out of the specifics of Isaiah 9:10? Every detail of it actually manifested on 9/11, the defiant attitude made official in quotes by American leaders, the fallen bricks replaced by a symbolic quarried stone, the fallen sycamore replaced by a conifer.

THEN, just to make sure that this is all God’s judgment on the nation of America, it turns out that the chapel where the sycamore had stood and where the conifer now stands was where the first government of America under George Washington met to pray for the new nation. The capital of America at that time was not Washington D.C. but New York City. Washington had just been sworn into office a few blocks away and he and his whole government walked to the chapel to spend two hours praying for the nation, essentially consecrating the nation into God's hands.

The uprooted sycamore now stands for God’s judgment that the nation has come to an end unless we turn back to Him.

Also, Ground Zero is property that was owned by that church. The attack on the WTC was therefore an attack on the original ground where America was originally consecrated to God, another sign that God is withdrawing His protection from the nation that was prayed for by Washington and his government.

Another uncanny bit of fact is that the church has a Wall Street address. The bronze sycamore root stands right next to it. It is known as Trinity Wall Street Church. God’s judgment on the American economy has already begun with stock market crashes.

And there's more: The New York Stock Exchange which is only a block from the church was originally formed from an agreement known as the Buttonwood Agreement because it was signed by the members under a buttonwood tree that grew on Wall Street. Buttonwood is another name for sycamore. (Wikipedia verifies all this). The uprooted sycamore specifically points to judgment against the American economy which is already well underway.

Cahn goes into all of this in his talk and in more detail in his book. I don't see how anyone could recognize all this and deny that there is a God who did it all, a God who is talking to America through all these events and through these amazingly manifested symbols that echo His word to ancient Israel when they too had gone astray and come under judgment.

So there's my sketch of Cahn's revelation of the "Harbingers." He actually goes into more in the book, involving the timing of our economic collapse in terms of other parts of the Law of Moses, so if this isn't already uncanniness overload I recommend reading about that too.

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*And here's part of Deuteronomy 28 about God's promises to Israel if they obeyed and warnings of what would come if they didn't:

Deu 28:1 And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe [and] to do all his commandments which I command thee this day, that the LORD thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth: [Surely we can say that God did bless America in this way in the 20th century]. And all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God. Blessed [shalt] thou [be] in the city, and blessed [shalt] thou [be] in the field. Blessed [shall be] the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy ground, and the fruit of thy cattle, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep. Blessed [shall be] thy basket and thy store. Blessed [shalt] thou [be] when thou comest in, and blessed [shalt] thou [be] when thou goest out.

Deu 28:7 The LORD shall cause thine enemies that rise up against thee to be smitten before thy face: they shall come out against thee one way, and flee before thee seven ways. The LORD shall command the blessing upon thee in thy storehouses, and in all that thou settest thine hand unto; and he shall bless thee in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee. The LORD shall establish thee an holy people unto himself, as he hath sworn unto thee, if thou shalt keep the commandments of the LORD thy God, and walk in his ways. And all people of the earth shall see that thou art called by the name of the LORD; and they shall be afraid of thee. And the LORD shall make thee plenteous in goods, in the fruit of thy body, and in the fruit of thy cattle, and in the fruit of thy ground, in the land which the LORD sware unto thy fathers to give thee. The LORD shall open unto thee his good treasure, the heaven to give the rain unto thy land in his season, and to bless all the work of thine hand: and thou shalt lend unto many nations, and thou shalt not borrow. And the LORD shall make thee the head, and not the tail; and thou shalt be above only, and thou shalt not be beneath; if that thou hearken unto the commandments of the LORD thy God, which I command thee this day, to observe and to do [them]:

Deu 28:14 And thou shalt not go aside from any of the words which I command thee this day, [to] the right hand, or [to] the left, to go after other gods to serve them. Deu 28:15 But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee: Cursed [shalt] thou [be] in the city, and cursed [shalt] thou [be] in the field. Cursed [shall be] thy basket and thy store. Cursed [shall be] the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy land, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep. Cursed [shalt] thou [be] when thou comest in, and cursed [shalt] thou [be] when thou goest out.

Deu 28:20 The LORD shall send upon thee cursing, vexation, and rebuke, in all that thou settest thine hand unto for to do, until thou be destroyed, and until thou perish quickly; because of the wickedness of thy doings, whereby thou hast forsaken me. Deu 28:21 The LORD shall make the pestilence cleave unto thee, until he have consumed thee from off the land, whither thou goest to possess it. Deu 28:22 The LORD shall smite thee with a consumption, and with a fever, and with an inflammation, and with an extreme burning, and with the sword, and with blasting, and with mildew; and they shall pursue thee until thou perish. Deu 28:23 And thy heaven that [is] over thy head shall be brass, and the earth that is under thee [shall be] iron.

Deu 28:24 The LORD shall make the rain of thy land powder and dust: from heaven shall it come down upon thee, until thou be destroyed. Deu 28:25 The LORD shall cause thee to be smitten before thine enemies: thou shalt go out one way against them, and flee seven ways before them: and shalt be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth.