Thursday night brought end to the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. It officially made former president Donald Trump the Republican nominee for the upcoming presidential election in November. He was there, wearing a large, white bandage over his damaged right ear. It was the result of an assassination attempt on his life the previous Saturday at an outdoor political rally in Pennsylvania.
The television coverage that Saturday night showed a truly horrific sight as Trump was giving a speech. As the bullet whizzed by, he grabbed his right ear and then crouched down low, behind the podium, by then realizing it had been a bullet and trying to protect himself from further injury. He soon rose up with Secret Service members protecting him. The right side of his face was very bloodied. He was shouting, “Fight, fight, fight,” while pumping his right arm and being directed off-stage.
This shooting of Mr. Trump was at least an amazing coincidence. But some of his political supporters are claiming much more, that it was a “miracle” and/or that God had protecting him. How so? Just a mere few seconds before the bullet stuck him, Trump had turned his face from a 90 degree angle to the right to about a 45 degree angle. By then he was facing the 20-year old assassin, armed with a AR-15 assault rifle on the roof of a building 125 yards away. Had Trump not turned his face, the bullet likely would have stuck his skull in the area of his right eye and instantly killed him.
Thursday night, Mr. Trump gave an acceptance speech while wearing a large, white bandage over his right ear. Many people thought the recent assassination attempt on his life would cause him to tone down his usual rhetoric. And that’s the way it seemed in the early minutes of his speech when he called for national “unity.” But he soon reportedly went off script and returned to his usual, false complaint about a stolen election and other lies. The speech lasted the longest in the history of the Republican National Convention—92 minutes. So, Trump returned to his usual rhetoric. Despite his recent, near-death injury, his words can rightly be scrutinized.
I wrote a book about Donald Trump entitled Bible Predicts Trump Fall. Early during Trump’s first political campaign for the U.S. presidency, in 2016, I began thinking he was the biggest liar I have ever seen, unfit to be president, and a danger to democracy. Yet in this book, I state in its conclusion, “I wish no ill toward Donald J. Trump, but only what the apostle Peter says of God—”not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3.9). Yet I believe in justice.”
In this book, I often cite the Bible and apply it to Donald Trump. The following are some biblical texts, written by wise King Solomon, that can be applied to his lengthy acceptance speech Thursday night, which reportedly consisted of 12,219 words:
“Let your words be few” (Ecclesiastes 5.2 NRSV).
“The more the words, the more vanity” (Ecclesiastes 6.11).
“Fools talk on and on” (Ecclesiastes 10.14).
King Solomon concludes his book of Ecclesiastes by saying: “Fear God, and keep his commandments” [and the Ten Commandments include, “You shall not bear false witness] for that is the whole duty of everyone. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every secret thing, whether good or evil” (Ecclesiastes 12.13-14).
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