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

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2011

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-3

Chapters 4-7

Chapters 8-10

Chapters 11-13

Chapters 14-16

Chapters 17-19

Chapters 20-22

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

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Discussion Questions

Chapters 14-16Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 14 Summary: “The Comes a Second”

Kaplan asks the prophet what will happen now that all nine harbingers have been established, and Kaplan proposes that the nation can still turn to God to avoid whatever judgment may be coming. The prophet says that this redemption is possible, but he says that there will be a second warning, as with 9/11. The prophet walks away from Kaplan, and he stops Kaplan from following him, telling Kaplan that their time together is done. The prophet tells Kaplan to go home and watch for signs of a second warning.

Goren is disappointed that this may be the end of Kaplan’s story, and she asks him what he has discovered since that time. Kaplan explains that he researched Isaiah 9:10, and he found several commentaries that echoed the prophet’s claim that there will be a second warning, including one that uses the phrasing “there comes a second” (128). Kaplan speculates that the 2007-08 housing market crash, the Great Recession, which was a period of economic decline that developed between 2007 and 2009, and the US war in Iraq are all part of this second warning, but Goren is not convinced without the prophet’s influence. Kaplan reveals that he did meet with the prophet again, and, on this new meeting, Kaplan and the prophet discuss the second part of the mystery.

Chapter 15 Summary: “The Isaiah 9:10 Effect”

Goren insists on hearing the second part of the mystery, and she suggests that she and Kaplan go for a walk. They walk all night, and Kaplan tells Goren about his next meeting with the prophet. Kaplan and the prophet meet in front of the New York Stock Exchange, and the prophet asks Kaplan to return the ninth seal. The prophet points to a shadow behind the image of a document on the seal, telling Kaplan that this indicates a second prophecy. The prophet tells Kaplan a metaphor of a gardener trying to get rid of weeds by cutting off the leaves of the weeds. The weeds grow back, and the prophet says that ancient Israel and modern America also need to address the root problem of their countries. The prophet claims that this problem is a spiritual rejection of God, and he tells Kaplan another warning is needed to show America that they need to turn to God.

The prophet then states that there are four mysteries in the second part of the message. Though not explicitly stated, it is implied that the first of these four mysteries is the Great Recession, which the prophet links to 9/11. The prophet details how the Federal Reserve, which controls the flow of money in the United States, lowered interest rates in response to the economic struggle immediately following 9/11. These low interest rates persisted for years, and they were imitated by central banks in other countries around the world. The prophet then links these low interest rates to the risky loans and mortgages that people obtained during this time, which would later lead to the housing crash in 2007-08. The prophet claims that the lowering of interest rates is linked to the ancient Israelites building up their walls to defend themselves against another attack from the Assyrians, and he hints that the Israelites would later make a show of force that would encourage a second attack from the Assyrians. Throughout the chapter, the prophet refers to this pattern as the Isaiah 9:10 effect, in which a nation’s response to a calamity brings about a repetition of that calamity, which he claims happened in ancient Israel and America. At the end of the chapter, the prophet takes the ninth seal and gives Kaplan the sixth, which is the sycamore tree.

Chapter 16 Summary: “The Uprooted”

The prophet calls Kaplan’s attention to the image on the sixth seal, where Kaplan notes a wall in the background of the image of the sycamore tree. The prophet then shares a series of prophecies, specifically the prophets Ezekiel and Jeremiah from the Bible, which Kaplan relates to Isaiah 9:10. The prophet shares how America became a global economic center through arrangements and agreements in New York City, specifically on Wall Street, which used to be the external wall of the city under Dutch rule. The New York Stock Exchange was founded as the Buttonwood Association in 1792 by merchants and brokers on the street, named after the kind of tree they commonly met under. The prophet points out that a buttonwood is another name for a sycamore, connecting the New York Stock Exchange to Isaiah 9:10 and the seal that Kaplan is holding. A key term in this chapter is “foundation,” as the prophet discusses how the Stock Exchange is the foundation of American economic power, as well as how the prophecies discuss the destruction of foundations and the uprooting of plants, which serves to both highlight the foundational nature of Wall Street and the significance of the sycamore. Giving Kaplan the seventh seal again, he points out the seven stalks of wheat in the background of the seal, six of which are visible and one of which is not.

Chapters 14-16 Analysis

Following the revelation of the nine harbingers, Kaplan is eager to see the prophet again and find out what is coming next. The cryptic language of “there comes a second,” as is the title of Chapter 14, signals to Kaplan that there is more to the story. Fitting with this narrative, though, the “second” has not happened yet, and Kaplan skips “several years” to the next time he sees the prophet. This time skip is necessary as the “second” warning had not happened at the end of Kaplan and the prophet’s last meeting to discuss the ninth harbinger. The inclusion of “several years” of interim time allows Cahn to build in the necessary predictive nature of a prophecy. As the prophet predicted, in the years that Kaplan has not seen him, a new warning has occurred, and this time, instead of nine harbingers, it contains four mysteries. By repeating the paradigm of numbered signs, first using nine harbinger and then four mysteries, the prophet is building a consistent method of approaching prophecy, as is Cahn continuing a similar style into the second half of the novel.

As in the first half, Goren, and the reader, can expect to see Kaplan meeting with the prophet and revealing each individual mystery of the new warning. Goren continues to cement her interest in these chapters, as she continues speaking with Kaplan into the night, only interjecting with points of interest and agreement. As with the first warning, these four mysteries will show that America is still on the path toward calamity because it has turned away from God despite the first warning. From a narrative standpoint, this consistency in approach to the prophecy indicates that the prophet is thorough and well-researched, as he is not just finding a similarity between an ancient story and the modern day but a series of similarities that form a pattern. Further maintaining this consistency, the new mysteries are still linked to 9/11 and the Assyrian invasion of 732 BCE, allowing a sense of continuity despite the years between Kaplan and the prophet’s meetings.

Much of the content of these chapters falls in line with the harbingers, as the prophet reveals information about both the ancient world and modern America to connect the prophecy across both time periods. These chapters are more America-focused, though, as the new topic of discussion is predominantly focused on the second warning that America has received. For ancient Israel, the prophet identifies their foundation as the covenant with God, and, on this foundation, the Israelites built walls. The prophet seems to imply that America’s foundation is also a covenant with God, as mentioned earlier in the novel, and the “walls” are the businesses of Wall Street. Both the “walls” and the plants the prophet mentions in the prophecy, with the walls being destroyed down to the foundation and plants being plucked, are contained within Wall Street as a representation of America’s economy. The link between the Buttonwood Association as the original name of the New York Stock Exchange, as well as the link between the literal name Wall Street and the wall that predates it, seem to indicate that the economic collapse of 2007-08 is both the destruction and plucking of American success by God.

The key description in these chapters is the prophet’s comparison of Israel building up walls and America lowering interest rates to a gardener weeding their garden. The prophet notes that cutting a weed’s leaves or stem will not kill the weed, allowing more weeds to grow in its place in the garden. If the gardener wants to get rid of all the weeds, they need to remove the roots. This process is then compared to America and ancient Israel, in which walls and interest rates are the leaves and stems of their problems, but spiritual rejection of God forms the root of the problems. As such, the prophet is reaffirming his message that America needs to turn to God to avoid calamity, as he says Israel should have in the past. This argument rests on the assumption that religious fervor alone can resolve political, economic, and military issues on a global scale, but it serves the prophets and Cahn’s purposes in a proselytizing sense. To divert the coming disaster, all Americans, and all readers, need to convert to the prophet and Cahn’s religious perspective, which appears to be the goal of the work as a whole.