It may be a bit soon for the Bidens to be measurring for new drapes and ordering a fresh set of presidential china for a stay at the White House.  Maybe it’s not a good idea to be picking cabinet members and formulating executive orders before being certified for the office.  It also seems a little cheeky to be gathering international allies in support of the proposed great reset of the entire world order.

History shows that it would not be the first or last time a celebration of ascension to head of state proved premature. The number of pretenders to the thrones of nations and empires is voluminous. France, Britain, Russia, Japan, China and even Hawaii have seen imposters who sought to overthrow the existing order and seize power.  In all cases, the imposters sought to bypass the laws of succession and established institutions in order to steer the nation or empire in the direction they wished it to go.  The hope always was to seize the resources of the conquered entity and to expand their power.

For Jews and Christians, two of the most famous and important upsets in history are chronicled in the biblical record. The message of both stories is that the affairs of states are not always in the hands of pretenders or the presumptuous, but in the hands of Jehovah, God, who loves his people.

The book of Daniel records that Belshazzar, who, though in the line of succession, was an arrogant and pretentious ruler who was over confident in the dizzying power handed down to him by his father, King Nabonidus of Babylon.  He held a huge banquet in honor of himself.  Part of the celebration included making sure the diasporic Jews within the kingdom were completely humiliated. To that end, Belshazzar ordered that the golden vessels seized from the temple of defeated Jerusalem were brought out in order that his courtiers, wives and concubines drink from them.  It was a crude symbolic gesture that the god Bel, after whom Belshazzar was named, was seen as the god who ruled over the God of the Jews. 

At the height of the festivities, a hand appeared and wrote a message on the wall of the banquet hall. Terror seized the king and he called for the Jewish prophet Daniel, who read the handwriting on the wall: “Mene, mene, tekel parsin.”  He told the king the meaning of the mysterious words. Belshazzar’s kingdom had been weighed and found wanting and the city would be destroyed.

Belshazzar’s Feast, by Rembrandt (public domain)

True to Daniel’s prophetic word, Babylon fell on October 12, 539 to the Persian general Gobyras. Belshazzar died and Cyrus entered the city 17 days later to assume command.  Daniel the Jew was spared and retained a high position in the Persian empire during the reign of Cyrus and then Darius the Great. Cyrus proved to be a friend of the Jews, aiding them to return to Jerusalem to rebuild their temple.

There is another bible story, which is about the near extinction of the Jews, who were considered by a palace pretender named Haman to be a pestilential group of deplorables who had to be gotten rid of.  

The king at that time was Ahasuerus, who was the Jeffrey Epstein of his day.  His network of procurers sought out girls to satisfy his insatiable appetite for young virgins.  Among those young women was the Jew Esther, who found favor with the king and became his wife—but she kept her Jewish identity secret.

Haman’s hatred of Esther’s protector Mordecai, who was also a Jew, burned so hotly he decided to destroy all the Jews in the kingdom in order to ensure his rise to the top.  He compiled a list of accusations against the deplorables, who were blamed for not assimilating into the gods’ new world order.  They insisted on keeping their customary ways of worshipping their God rather than obeying the king and his laws.  Haman made ready his plans to hang high Mordecai and the resistors.

But events took a peculiar and sudden turn when Ahasuerus was told of the plot by Queen Esther.  The result was that the Jews fought back against those who sought to destroy them and the pretender to power was hanged from his own gibbet along with his sons, who were doubtless co-conspirators.

Historically, pretenders to thrones all follow the same pattern. Denying the legitimacy of the order in which they have failed to succeed by merit, they lie, cheat, manipulate in every way, gathering co-conspirators and making secret alliances in order to steal authority; to get power the easy way.  If they succeed, they then use the power for personal gain, and for distributing wealth to their friends and to the allies who will help finish off the previous order they despised and hijacked. Meanwhile, they attempt a great reset, much as the Bolsheviks reset tsarist Russia, turning it into the communist Soviet Union.

A royal lineage is proposed -- perhaps the House of Biden?  Favors already received from friendly international organizations and entities increase, and are handed out to co-conspirators, family members and friends. 

History is changed, with the story of the defeated order going down the memory hole.  The means of communication are seized, and the new story line is blared from every access.

A new reality is created, and the demise of the old order accomplished by targeting resisters and gutting the previous foundations. New constitutions are written, new judiciaries are formed and a plethora of new laws and regulations are issued in order that the pretender retain power.  Lists of enemies are drawn up and punishments ordered.

But not every pretender succeeds.  In fact, the failures are probably greater than the successes. Miraculous turnarounds often happen.

It may well be that the American people will not accept the latest pretender, but will instead rise up in protest.  After all, Biden and his allies have made their odious intentions clear from the days of the Obama regime.  They have vowed to go after the pro-life movement, destroy the energy industries, shut down the economy because of Covid-19 and persecute Jewish synagogues and Christian churches.

Ominously, along with the like-minded anti-Semite Bill de Blasio of New York City, the Obama/Biden alliance has made its hostility toward Israel and the Jews apparent.  The House of Obama and Biden do not consider Jews to be particularly favored by God.

From the beginning of Trump’s presidency, the Left has claimed he is the pretender and that he has to go.  The attacks against him have been unceasing; and at least some of those attacks have been because he has favored Israel.

But there is the hope the judiciary, state legislatures and other mechanisms of the republic will deny the pretender who seeks to take the throne via vote fraud. He and his allies may find themselves in the position of Belshazzar and Haman, left standing alone like a flagstaff on a hill without supporting troops. 

May that be the case, and let us hope and pray the American republic and her institutions stand.

Fay Voshell holds a M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary, which awarded her the prize for excellence in systematic theology. Her essays have appeared in many online magazines.  She has been a regular contributor to American Thinker for almost a decade.  She may be reached at fvoshell@yahoo.com