The Harbinger
ISBN: 978-1616386108
Eeking out another book review before the end of the year is easy if your book happens to be The Harbinger by Johnathan Cahn. It’s easy as the clarity of the book is immediately apparent. Cahn has adopted a narrative format in the guise of a mystery so that he can go about interpreting the events of 9-11 in light of a prophecy that occurs in Isaiah whereby God proclaims that He intends to ‘cut down the Sycamores’ concerning Israel which is a type of metaphorical and actual phrase that means He intends to cut off the prosperity and security of the nation.
Cahn, for his part, sees this kind of judgment as a pattern and advances his case for it being so. In other words, what Cahn has here is more like a thesis on judgment cycles and how that thesis is being applied to the nation of America. This thesis is solidly argued and the evidence is quite clear. The only thing I think Cahn might be missing is that he asserts that those who echo the words of this prophecy who are in charge of the nation are doing so ‘not really knowing what they are doing’ and are more like puppets in the will of God. A more disturbing interpretation is that they know exactly what they are doing and what Cahn sees as a subconscious ballet is an outright defiance of God and a mocking of this prophecy.
Of course, if Cahn said that, the absolute rage that would follow is probably predictable and he would be branded an even more extreme pastor/rabbi than he all ready is considered to be. However, it does not do to let traitors off the hook so easily as to suggest they are unwitting mouthpieces of God if in fact they are choosing to allow the nation to fail.
Cahn gets close to understanding or stating this realization when he determines the Lehman Brothers collapse to be an echo of the Twin Tower attack. He remarks that Congress ‘decided not to pass a bill to allow Lehman Brothers and the economy to collapse’. If this is indeed the “second iteration” of the first ordeal, then it is the second iteration that, and this is key, was allowed to take place by those who had power to do otherwise.
As for the rest of the book, the format is ingenious by having a mysterious stranger explain the prophecy with a series of seals that Nouriel, (a name of a Clinton era economist by chance called Dr. Doom) our main protagonist, must decipher. The mystery level of the stranger is, perhaps, a little too high as we never even learn his name, but the fact that he always shows up just when needed while certainly being a trope, works in the parameters of this novel.
It can be rather hard to explain to those not familiar with literary symbolism and Biblical imagery how a prophecy is being fulfilled since the language is at once poetic and exact. It is not an archetype, as we usually think of archetypes, because an archetype is usually not the thing itself but is the thing itself showing up in multiple guises. In prophecy, a literal Sycamore tree will typically fall ALONG WITH all the symbolism it entails. It is not just a symbol. It is the symbol and the fulfillment of the symbolism.
Therefore, having the seals as a type of background mystery is an ingenious method to explain how God works. At the end, Cahn even gives the reader a little wink as the conversation with the would-be publisher is had concerning how to write the material he has been given. He is told perhaps a narrative format would be best but there Cahn cautions and says, “But if I write it as fiction, then people will simply think it is fiction.” This leaves us wondering how much of Cahn’s narrative is imagined and how much of it he, in one way or another, has experienced.
This book occurred before the previous review on this site of The Paradigm and whereas The Paradigm is a lot more straight Biblical interpretation into modern times or at least efforts are made to indicate this is so, The Harbinger is more of a story that happens to also relate to 9-11. The difference is that The Paradigm can not really stand as a story on its own in the sense of there being a narrative. The Harbinger by contrast, can.
If you are a fast reader, this is not an especially difficult read but it is fascinating to see the connections that Cahn highlights. One should not be deceived by the simplicity of the read as there are many, many parallels and further mysteries hinted at that this book begins to explicate. Cahn is, as far as The Book Light is concerned, two-for-two in terms of Biblical scholarship even if, surprisingly, he took a little time to also try to make it entertaining.
