‘Shemitah’ Google Searches on The Rise Following Stock Market Turmoil
It’s Supernatural! TV show host Sid Roth says the seven-year biblical cycle may bring both a “shaking” and a “great awakening.”
“Here is my spin,” Roth told Charisma on Tuesday. “Absolutely, God works on patterns. I mean that’s seen throughout the Bible. However, it’s my belief that there will be a ‘shaking’ as a result of the Shemitah year, but it will not be as disastrous as people think. Also, I see a great awakening that has already started. I believe God is going to give us an awakening before the book of Revelation stuff starts happening.”
Roth’s remarks followed the release of an article in The Times of India noting that “Shemitah” was among the top trending terms on Google.
“On August 24 and August 25, on Google Trends search for ‘Shemitah’ had a score of 100, meaning 10 percent or more of all the searches from that region was for this particular word. A Youtube video on the topic that was uploaded about two months ago and deals with an impending financial collapse, has already been seen 1.1 million times,” the article reports.
The biblical term has garnered widespread interest since the release of Rabbi Jonathan Cahn’s New York Times best-selling book The Mystery of the Shemitah. In the book, Cahn unveiled a seven-year biblical pattern that has marked the greatest stock market crashes in history, the collapse of economies, the rise and fall of nations, world wars and great cataclysms.
“I’m the first to be amazed how wide the impact of The Mystery of the Shemitah has been,” Cahn says. “At this point, it seems to be spreading exponentially.”
The Shemitah, or Sabbath year, has drawn particular interest amid global stock market turmoil in recent weeks. In the final days of August, the stock market faced its worst trading week in years. On Tuesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down nearly 1,900 points from its peak of 18,312 set on May 19.
In his first book, The Harbinger, Cahn introduced readers to the Shemitah and how it related to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the financial downturns the United States experienced in 2001 and 2008.
The Shemitah is the seventh year of the seven-year agricultural cycle mandated by the Torah for the land of Israel. The current cycle ends Sunday.
However, what Cahn describes as the “Super Shemitah”—the Year of Jubilee that comes at the end of seven cycles of the seven-year Shemitah—begins Sept. 23 and runs through September 2016. Cahn believes a “great shaking” is coming to America and the world, and yet he’s stressed repeatedly that it doesn’t have to occur in the “time parameter of the Shemitah or the year following.”
“Everyone is looking at the last day of the Shemitah for when the stock market will crash,” says Roth, who interviewed Cahn on his show last week. “That’s not what (Cahn) said. That’s what they think. What he said is that there is something called the ‘wake of the Shemitah’ and the judgments of the Shemitah year start very small and then end large.
“That’s what he said, which I don’t think anyone has heard. They have it locked in their minds that if something doesn’t happen on that date, they are going to toss the whole thing out.”
Roth, who believes the world is on the verge of a massive end-time revival, says he believes God is using Cahn’s warnings and those of other faith leaders and prophecy experts to awaken America and the world to its dire condition.
“I believe a shaking will occur,” Roth says. “I’m not saying we are going to get out of this without anything happening, but what I’m saying is I believe God is not through with America, and I believe an awakening is coming to turn things around. I think God is going to have mercy and let everyone have one more chance.”
Pastor Mark Biltz, founder of El Shaddai Ministries and author of Blood Moons: Decoding the Imminent Heavenly Signs, says he believes the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is trying to get the “attention of the entire world, and His people in particular, of the need to get on His calendar cycle. The Muslims, Hindus, Chinese, Christians … all have created their own calendar system, but God is putting the world on notice that His is the one that really matters.”
Biltz, who began researching the blood moons phenomenon in 2008, says God is giving signs in the heavens through blood moons and solar eclipses that fall on significant biblical dates to “grab the world’s attention.”
“The religious leaders in Yeshua’s (Jesus’) day were rebuked for not understanding the signs of the times,” Biltz says. “God is again using the signs in the heavens to get our attention that we need to get connected to the Shemitah cycle to properly understand prophecy.”
The prophet Daniel’s “70 weeks” prophecy was based on the Shemitah cycle, Biltz says.
“The one week left, that Christians refer to as the Tribulation, is a Shemitah week! Therefore the Tribulation week has to begin at the beginning of a Shemitah cycle. The seven-year Tribulation cannot begin just anywhere. It will not begin in just a random year on our pagan calendar. It will begin where it left off in the first year of a Shemitah week. This Rosh Hashanah begins a new seven-year cycle.
“If the Tribulation does not start this fall, then it cannot start for (at least) seven more years. May the Lord give us at least one more Shemitah week or seven more years for the body of believers worldwide to come into this understanding of participating in the feasts that they may be ready.”
Jonathan Bernis, the president and CEO of Jewish Voice Ministries, International, says he believes a financial collapse is inevitable.
“Whether a financial collapse does, in fact, hit us in the next few weeks or not, I believe financial upheaval is imminent. Whether it comes in two weeks, two months or two years from now, I believe it will come,” Bernis says. “God is warning us to a multitude of ways to prepare for what is ahead.”
Editor’s Note: Editors did research Google trends to discover “Shemitah” did hit a 100 in the search terms on Sept. 3, but were unable to confirm The Times of India figures.
