Kaplan continues his story, telling Goren that he studied the seal of the first harbinger for months, but he could only see a V shape on the seal and other characters he did not understand. Goren cancels all her calls for the day to hear the rest of Kaplan’s story. Kaplan goes back to the park to find the prophet, but it takes multiple attempts to find him. When he does find the prophet, Kaplan reveals that he has not been able to decipher the seal, and the prophet explains the meaning of the seal to him.

The V shape that Kaplan found, according to the prophet, is a breach in a wall, showing that an enemy has broken through the defenses. He claims that it represents the 732 BCE invasion into Israel by the Assyrian Empire, and he notes that the invasion was allowed by God to show the Israelites that they needed to turn back to God. The invasion itself was the “calamity” the prophet references, but Israel returned to a state of complacency following the attack. The prophet says that the Israelites viewed the invasion as a matter of national security, and they did not realize that only God could protect them from another attack.