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Following on from my article on ‘The Shemitah Year’ (published on 27 January), I would like to consider the economic implications of a Shemitah year (or a Sabbath year) and see how all of this might tie in with the fall of ‘Mystery Babylon’.

A Year of Recession

In the land of Israel, every seventh year was ordained to be a Sabbath year of rest for the land (Lev 25:1-7). There was to be no sowing of seed, no pruning of vines and no harvesting of crops for sale. Therefore, it was a year during which the predominantly agrarian economy of Israel experienced a very slack time – which today we might call a recession (albeit planned).

On the final day of the Sabbath year, the last day of Elul, the economy suffered its greatest technical collapse when all outstanding debts were nullified (Deut 15:1-2). So, a year of recession concluded with a day when debts were cancelled and the slate was wiped clean.

On the final day of the Sabbath year, the last day of Elul, the economy suffered its greatest technical collapse when all outstanding debts were nullified (Deut 15:1-2).

Wider Implications

In his thought-provoking book, ‘The Mystery of the Shemitah’, American Messianic Jew, Jonathan Cahn notes that a striking number of financial crashes in (US) stock market history have occurred according to the timing of the Shemitah. Although observance of the Shemitah is only required of the children of Israel, and only in the land of Israel, Cahn observes that the influence of the Shemitah appears to extend much further afield. If financial crashes were truly random, and since a Shemitah year is just one year in seven, then we would expect a financial crash to occur during a Shemitah year on average around one seventh of the time (about 14 per cent). However, Cahn writes: “The connection is not minimal. Rather, the average overlap of the Shemitah to the collapse of the stock market is 85 per cent.”¹ Whilst Cahn is primarily looking at Wall Street, it is often said that ‘when America sneezes, the world catches a cold.’

Things get even more interesting when we look at the final day of the Sabbath year, the 29th of Elul, the ‘Day of Nullification’, when all debts are cancelled. In the Shemitah years of 2000-01 and 2007-08, the financial crashes were concentrated around the end of Elul. So, in 2001, the events of 9/11 dictated an immediate shutdown of the New York Stock Exchange for almost a week – then, when the stock exchange reopened on Monday 17th September, Wall Street collapsed with the market plunging 684 points in one session. September 17th 2001 was also 29th Elul, the ‘Day of Nullification’. So, the big crash occurred precisely on the final day of Elul, when financial accounts are transformed and wiped clean.

Likewise, in the following Shemitah year of 2007-08, the global financial crash reached its peak on the 29th Elul, the exact ‘Day of Nullification’. Were these two financial crashes, both of which peaked on 29th Elul, just remarkable coincidences – or were they ‘God-incidences’? Since the probability of a random event occurring on one specific day in a year is less than one third of one per cent (given that the event only occurs once in the year), and since these ‘Shemitah crashes’ peaked on the ‘Day of Nullification’ at the end of two consecutive Sabbath years, we have to wonder if God was trying to send someone a message.

It is true that in 2014-15 there was no great financial crash on 29th Elul (or did I miss it?), but it has still been estimated that the Shemitah of 2014-15 wiped out a total of around seven trillion dollars from global markets.²

The Current Shemitah Year

I guess it is pretty obvious that the current Shemitah year of 2021-22 is fast becoming a year of severe global recession. A combination of factors, including poor harvests due to extreme weather events, the detrimental effects of Covid19 and the actions taken to combat it on the economy, and the economic effects of sanctions and general disruption due to the war in Ukraine, all seem to be conspiring together to cause shortages of food and fuel, rampant inflation and global recession.

It is pretty obvious that the current Shemitah year of 2021-22 is fast becoming a year of severe global recession.

Since the current Shemitah year appears to be conforming very strongly to the pattern of a year of economic downturn or recession, we might wonder whether the final day of the Shemitah will also conform to the pattern by hosting the peak of a financial crash. This year, 29th Elul falls on 25th September, which is a Sunday – when stock markets will be closed. No great financial crash can actually be recorded on that day, then, although it is possible that something significant could still happen any time from Friday 23rd to Monday 26th September. But what might that be?

The Final Prophesied Financial Crash

Please feel free to disagree with me, but I believe that the final great financial crash, as prophesied in the Bible, is the massive economic crash that is associated with the fall of ‘Mystery Babylon’.

Revelation 18:8-11 states: “Therefore her [Babylon’s] plagues will come in one day – death and mourning and famine. And she will be utterly burned with fire, for strong is the Lord God who judges her. The kings of the earth, who committed fornication and lived luxuriously with her, will weep and lament for her, when they see the smoke of her burning, standing at a distance for fear of her torment, saying, ‘Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! For in one hour your judgment has come.’ And the merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her, for no one buys their merchandise anymore.” 

We note that the fall of “that great city Babylon” is a cause for the merchants of the whole world to “weep and mourn” because their business has suddenly been wiped out (v.11). A similar picture of the great distress of merchants, traders and shipmasters is also included in verses 15 to 19. This is a picture of a massive economic crash.

The sequencing of events in the Book of Revelation suggests to me that the fall of ‘Mystery Babylon’ (and the associated great financial crash) occurs shortly before the ‘rapture of the saints’. The rejoicing in heaven at the fall of ‘Babylon’ is recorded in Revelation 19:1-4, and this seems to be followed almost immediately by the rejoicing in heaven at the coming of the marriage of the Lamb in Revelation 19:5-9. A similar sequencing, although perhaps not quite as obvious, can be found in Revelation 14. An angel proclaims the fall of ‘Babylon’ in verse 8, and shortly afterwards verses 14-16 appear to describe the harvest of souls.

Since the autumn ‘feasts’ relate to the second coming of Messiah, with the ‘rapture’ presumed by many (myself included) to occur at the Feast of Trumpets (this year on 25-27 September), when ‘the last trump’ is eventually sounded (1 Cor 15:51-52) on 2nd Tishri, then it seems very possible (even probable) that the fall of ‘Babylon’ would occur just before this at the end of Elul. The precise timing is not stated in the Bible, but I think there is a valid case that the fall of ‘Babylon’ might well occur on or very close to 29th Elul, the financial ‘Day of Nullification’.

A Personal Interpretation

The big issue, of course, is the identity of ‘Mystery Babylon’.

Revelation 17 commences with a description of “the great harlot” who sits on (or controls) many “waters”, representing “people, multitudes, nations and tongues” (Rev 17:15). Many scholars, myself included, perceive the great harlot to be a false religion – or a succession of harlot religions, whose final manifestation is so closely associated with an actual city (‘Mystery Babylon’) that it is practically impossible to separate the harlot religion from the city that serves as its epicentre.

In his very thorough analytical book, ‘Mystery Babylon’, the author Joel Richardson considers all the realistically possible interpretations of ‘Mystery Babylon’ and concludes that the actual city is Mecca, towards which all Muslims face when they pray, although ‘greater Babylon’ could be the whole kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Broadly speaking, I accept Richardson’s conclusion, although I would probably tend to allow ‘greater Babylon’ to include other territories that have also been subjugated by the Wahhabi-influenced brand of radical Islam, which additionally provides the ideology for almost every radical Islamist jihadi organisation in the world.

When I picture ‘Babylon’ being totally burned with fire (Rev 18:8), not only do I see the destruction of Mecca (which is also part of Islamic eschatology) but also I see many oil wells on fire (possibly including oil wells in adjacent Gulf states like the UAE). Remembering the massive pall of smoke from burning oil wells in Kuwait during the first Gulf War, which enveloped a swathe of territory right down the Gulf, it is easy to imagine how burning oil-fields across Arabia would cause “every shipmaster, all who travel by ship, sailors, and as many as trade on the sea” to keep well away and stand “at a distance” (Rev 18:17).

How likely is an attack on Saudi Arabia? Well, the Houthi rebels in Yemen have been firing Iranian-sourced missiles at Saudi oil installations for some time now. Less well known, perhaps, is the fact that Iranian-sponsored militias in Iraq have also been firing missiles at oilfields owned by the UAE. 3 How long will it be before the Iranians fire missiles at Saudi and UAE oilfields themselves, rather than via proxy forces? I don’t know, but the way that Russian President Putin has been cosying up to the Iranians must be a concern. Putin would clearly love the Saudi and UAE producers of oil and gas to be put out of business, and then he really would have the upper hand in his cold war with the West over Ukraine. Just a thought!

All we can do at the moment, perhaps, is to watch and pray – just as Jesus told us to do. If we see tensions rising in the Middle East as the end of Elul draws near, let us watch and see if anything happens in relation to Saudi Arabia. I am not making any forecasts here, but I am certainly keen to see if anything happens on or close to the ‘Day of Nullification’ on 29th Elul. (And, if not this year, then maybe sometime soon …).

Notes
1 ‘The Mystery of the Shemitah’ p.87 (Front Line pub. First edition 2014).
2 From Charisma News.
3 See article on Behold Israel News.