Seven days of fasting. Then, in the dead of night, Ezra dreamed.
A wind rose from the sea and churned all its waves. And from the heart of the sea — not its surface, not its shallows, but its very heart — something emerged. A figure like a man. He flew with the clouds of heaven. Wherever he turned his face, everything under his gaze trembled. Whenever his voice issued from his mouth, all who heard it melted like wax before fire.
Then an innumerable multitude gathered from the four winds of heaven. They came to make war against him. He carved out a great mountain and flew up upon it. Ezra tried to see where the mountain came from — he could not.
The armies rushed forward. The figure did not lift his hand. He held no spear, no weapon of war. Instead, from his mouth poured a stream of fire. From his lips, a flaming breath. From his tongue, a storm of sparks. Fire and breath and storm mingled together and fell on the attacking multitude, burning them all to nothing — until there was only dust and ashes and the smell of smoke.
Then the figure came down from the mountain and called to himself a different multitude. A peaceable one. Some were joyful, some sorrowful. Some were bound, and some brought others as offerings.
Ezra awoke in terror and begged the Most High for the interpretation.
The answer revealed a messianic vision of extraordinary power. The figure from the sea was the one whom God had been keeping for many ages — the one who would deliver creation itself. No one on earth could see him or those with him except in the appointed time.
When that time came, bewilderment would seize the world. Nations would plan war against one another — city against city, kingdom against kingdom. Then God's chosen one would be revealed, standing on the top of Mount Zion. And Zion itself would come and be made manifest to all people, prepared and built — the mountain carved out without hands.
The storm from his mouth was reproof. The flames were reproach. The fire was the Torah itself, destroying wickedness without effort.
And the peaceable multitude he gathered? Those were the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel — carried into captivity in the days of King Hoshea by Shalmaneser king of Assyria, taken across the river into another land. But they had made a plan: to leave the nations and travel to a distant region where no human had ever lived, so they could finally keep the statutes they had failed to keep in their own land. They traveled through the narrow passages of the Euphrates, where God stopped the river's channels to let them cross. A journey of a year and a half, to a country called Arzareth.
They had dwelt there ever since, hidden, waiting. And in the last days, God would stop the river again so they could return.
"Those who are left of your people, who are found within my holy borders, shall be saved," the angel declared. "And then he will show them very many wonders."
Ezra asked one more question. Why did the figure come up from the heart of the sea?
The answer was as deep as the image itself: "Just as no one can explore or know what is in the depths of the sea, so no one on earth can see my chosen one or those who are with him, except in the time of his day."
Ezra rose and walked in the field, giving glory and praise to the Most High. The vision had shown him something hidden since before the world began — a deliverer rising from unfathomable depths, armed with nothing but the fire of God's word, gathering the scattered children of Israel from the ends of the earth.