This was reiterated by the Book of Luke, the word "Gentiles" replaced with the word "Nations." You will be trampled under foot until the time of the Nations be fulfilled. This clearly prophesied that the Jews would be persecuted throughout history, and then the persecution would stop. But what was the time of the Nations? The time when the persecution would end?

Turning to his interpretive texts, Thorn found evidence of God's wrath. It was an historical log of persecution that began with the Jews being driven from Israel by King Solomon, then slaughtered by the Crusaders as they fled. In the year 1000 it had been documented that twelve thousand Jews were murdered, then in the year 1200 all who had sought refuge in England were expelled or hanged. In the year 1298 one hundred thousand Jews were slaughtered in Franconia, Bavaria, and Austria; in September, 1306, another one hundred thousand were expelled from France under threat of death. In 1348 the Jews were accused of having caused a worldwide epidemic of Black Plague, and more than a million of them were sought out and killed across the globe. In August, 1492, the very time that

Columbus was gaining glory for his country by discovering the New World, the Spanish Inquisition drove out half a million Jews and put another half million to death. The grim log continued, to the time of Hitler who annihilated over six million Jews, leaving only eleven million, homeless and poverty-stricken, across the entire face of the globe. Was it any wonder, the zeal with which they now fought for their refuge, for a country they could call their own? And was it any wonder that they waged each offensive as though it were their last?

I will make of thee a great Nation, God had promised: And I will bless thee and I will make thy name great; so be thou a blessing ... and all the families of the earth blessed in Thee.

Thorn turned again to his interpretive texts and found that in God's promise to Abraham were three separate and equally important factors. The gift of a country, Israel. The assurance that Abraham and his descendants would become a great nation. And finally, above all, the "blessing"; the coming of the Saviour. The Jews' return to Zion was linked to the second coming of Christ, and if that were true, the time was now at hand. There was no evidence as to how or when this coming would occur; the prophecies were shrouded in legend and religious symbols. Could Christ already be on earth? Was he again born of woman, and walking among us now?