The Watchman
Moses gave a prophecy in Deuteronomy 29:21-28 about the children of Israel, the land and the curses.
These Scriptures explain why the children of Israel went into Babylonian exile. In A.D. 70, Titus, a Roman military commander who later became emperor, led a campaign that captured and destroyed Jerusalem and the temple of God.
Later, the Ottoman Empire, historically also known as the Turkish Empire, did more damage to the land. They cut trees and salted the soil to stop it from producing crops.
The land was desolate, setting the stage for the stranger mentioned in Deuteronomy 29:22-23. I will give my opinion. You may disagree, and that’s OK, but I will support my opinion with some data.
Let’s look at Moses’ prophecy in verse 22: “So that the generation to come of your children shall rise up after you, and the stranger that shall come from a far land shall say, when they see the plagues of the land and the sicknesses which the Lord hath laid upon it.”
Verse 23 continues: “And that the whole land thereof is brimstone, and salt, and burning, that it is not sown, nor beareth, nor any grass groweth therein, like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboim, which the Lord overthrew in his anger and in his wrath.”
In ancient times, the land of Israel was described as flowing with milk and honey — a fertile and fruitful land. But when the Jewish people were driven into exile, the land withered away.
Its forests disappeared, and its former glory lay in ruins. The Promised Land was now a barren, lifeless, parched and desolate horror.
Do you know who first prophesied the land’s desolation? Moses.
Moses prophesied that a stranger would come from a faraway land. He said that when the stranger saw the plagues and sicknesses the Lord had laid upon the land, he would describe it as brimstone, salt and burning. It would not be sown, bear crops or grow grass. When the stranger entered the land, he would bear witness to its barrenness, devastation and desolation.
Is the passage speaking of one specific person, or does it refer to everyone who would come at such a time? I believe it has more than one level. In a general sense, it speaks of all who would come and be stunned by the land’s utter desolation.
The stranger would come to the land in the end times, before a specific end-time event took place. That event is foretold in the same passage of Scripture.
The Lord God would bring his people back from captivity, have compassion on them and gather them again from all the nations where they had been scattered. The prophecy of the stranger leads into the prophecy of the regathering of the Jewish people.
The stranger’s arrival would be a sign that the exile of the Jewish people was about to end and that the scattered children of Israel would return from the ends of the earth.
Did the prophecy come true? I believe it did — just as the land’s devastation was at its most extreme during the 19th century.
The stranger would come, as prophesied, from a faraway land. From where? He would come from America, from the ends of the earth. From there, he would begin his journey. Because the prophecy required someone to offer words of testimony, he would be a man of words — a writer.
You have probably heard of him.
In my opinion, the stranger was Mark Twain, whom many consider the father of American literature. Let’s look at the data.
Twain was working as a journalist on the West Coast when he was given an opportunity to travel by steamship to Europe, the Middle East, the land of Israel and the city of Jerusalem. He kept a notebook throughout the journey to record his observations.
According to the prophecy in Deuteronomy, the stranger was to bear witness to the plagues of the land and all its sickness. Listen to the words Mark Twain wrote concerning the plagues of the land: “Rags, wretchedness, poverty, and dirt,” along with lepers, cripples and the blind. He wrote of the “maimed, malformed, and diseased humanity” that crowded the holy places.
According to Moses’ prophecy, the stranger would describe the land as desolate. Twain wrote that all was “desolate and unpeopled.” He described “miles of desolate country,” “far-reaching desolation,” and “the waste of a limitless desolation.”
“It is a scorching, roasting heat,” Twain wrote. “Such dismal desolation cannot surely exist anywhere on earth.”
He also wrote, “Nowhere in all the waste around was there a foot of shade, and we were scorching to death.”
The land was unsown. Twain said one might ride 10 miles thereabout and not see 10 human beings. He said there was not a solitary village throughout the entire area, not for 30 miles in either direction.
According to Moses, the stranger would bear witness to the land’s inability to produce life. Twain described the valleys as “unsightly deserts fringed with feeble vegetation” and wrote of “a desert paved with loose stones, void of vegetation.”
In the fierce sun, no grass grew. Not even a sprig of grass was visible.
Read Deuteronomy 29:22-25 and compare what Moses said with what Mark Twain wrote. You may gain an understanding of why I believe Twain was the witness.
Because of Israel’s unfaithfulness toward God, the anger of the Lord burned against the land, bringing upon it every curse written in the Book of Deuteronomy, as described in verses 25-28.
Twain wrote, “Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes. Over it broods the spell of a curse.”
He also wrote, “Palestine is desolate and unlovely. And why should it be otherwise? Can the curse of the Deity beautify a land?”
At the time, the land was called Palestine. The curse had removed the Jewish people for a season — but only for a season.
The year of Twain’s visit was 1867. That was a 50-year Jubilee cycle, which I believe is very important. We will look at the Jubilee cycle in the next article.
Twain sent his words back to his native land, where they appeared in articles across America and beyond. But the stranger’s witness would go even further.
Shortly after returning from his journey, a publisher approached Twain about turning his travel reports into a book. The book was released in 1869 as “The Innocents Abroad.”
I believe that book helped fulfill the ancient prophecy. It became a best seller.
I have more to say in the coming articles, if it is the Lord’s will. If God did this to Israel, America is living on borrowed time.
Stay tuned.
