EVIDENCE 
 
 OF THE 
 
 TRUTH OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION, 
 
 DERIVED FROM THE LITERAL FULFILMENT OF 
 
 PROPHECY; 
 
 PARTICULARLY AS ILLUSTRATED BY THE HISTORY OF THE JEWS, AND BY 
 THE DISCOVERIES OF RECENT TRAVELLERS. 
 
 BY 
 
 ALEXANDER KEITH, D.D., 
 
 AUTHOR OF THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES, AND DEMONSTRATION OF THE 
 TRUTH OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION, ETC. 
 
 ®f)trtg*«txtl) U&ftion, mttrt) enlarge. 
 
 WITH EIGHTEEN DAGUERREOTYPE VIEWS AND OTHER ENGRAVINGS. 
 
 Opinionum commenta dies delet, Naturae judicia confirmat. — Ct'c. De. Nat. Deo. 
 
 EDINBURGH: 
 WILLIAM WHYTE AND CO., 
 
 BOOKSELLERS TO THE QUE EN DOWAGER. 
 
 LONDON'. LONGMAN, BROWN, AND CO. j AND J. NISBET AND CO. 
 DUBLIN: W. CURRY AND CO. 
 
 MDCCCXLVIII. 
 
EDINBURGH: 
 ANDREW JACK, PRINTER, 
 NIDDRY STREET. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 TO 
 
 THE THIRTY-SIXTH EDITION. 
 
 In searching for facts alone, in illustration of prophe- 
 cies, it has uniformly been the Author's endeavour to ad- 
 duce the most unexceptionable and conclusive evidence ; 
 and hence unbelievers, condemned out of their own mouths, 
 have in general been the leading witnesses. As soon as 
 photography began to take its place among the wonderful 
 arts or inventions of the present day, he anticipated a 
 mode of demonstration that could neither be questioned 
 nor surpassed; as, without the need of any testimony, or 
 the aid of either pen or pencil, the rays of the sun would 
 thus depict what the prophets saw. With this intent, on 
 his first visit to the East, he took with him some calotype 
 paper, &c, the mode of preparing which was then secret; 
 but on reaching Syria it was wholly useless. Then en- 
 gaged in another object, he passed within an hour of Ash- 
 kelon and another of Tyre, without seeing either. A 
 second visit to Syria, accompanied by one of his sons, 
 DrG. S. Keith, Edinburgh, by whom the daguerreotype 
 views were taken, enables him now to adduce such proof; 
 and has led besides to such an enlargement of the evi- 
 dence from manifold additional facts, as he fain hopes 
 may impart that lesson to others with which his own mind 
 
i v PEEP ACE. 
 
 has been impressed,— a still deeper conviction of the de- 
 fined precision of the sure word of prophecy. 
 
 Predictions accomplished to the prescribed degree are 
 not the less credentials of inspiration, because, as signs to 
 believers as well as sights for sceptics, they are the index 
 to other prophecies, which, in the day of their realization, 
 shall be felt as well as seen. 
 
 Other topics might have been added as coming now with- 
 in the province of evidence, on which the writer could not 
 have touched in any of the earliest editions of this Essay. 
 Twenty years ago, no man could have drawn on his ima- 
 gination for any interpretation of the predicted marks or 
 actual characteristics of the time when the book shall be 
 opened, as every man now sees that many run to and 
 fro and knowledge is increased. The opening of the 
 book of the Lord discloses other things to view than the 
 world has ever witnessed. And it is only in the latter 
 days, for example, that men shall consider perfectly what 
 shall befall the once chosen people of the Lord. Down 
 to this day the prophecies concerning the Jews, their own 
 land, and the lands of their enemies, are perfect verities: 
 and as other events follow in their appointed time, the 
 changing scene developes new illustrations of the immu- 
 tability of the purpose and of the word of the Eternal. 
 
 December 1847. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 Chap. I. Introduction ... \ 
 Chap. II. Prophecies concerning Christ and the Christian 
 
 Religion . . . \q 
 
 Chap. III. The Destruction of Jerusalem. . . 53 
 
 Chap. IV. The Jews ... 73 
 
 Chap. V. Judea . . . .100 
 
 Samaria and Jerusalem . . 244 
 
 Chap. VI. Ammon. . . . 262 
 
 Chap. VII. Moab . . 278 
 
 Chap. VIII. Idumea . . . 291 
 
 Chap. IX. Philistia . . . 3 GO 
 
 Gaza . . , 373 
 
 Summary of the Prophecies concerning Judea, &C.381 
 Chap. X. Nineveh . , . 3gg 
 
 Chap. XI. Babylon . . . .396 
 
 The Land of Chaldea . . 443 
 
 Fallen Babylon . . , 4.QQ 
 
 Chap. XII. Tyre . . . , 492 
 
 Chap. XIII. Egypt .... 502 
 Chap. XIV. The Arabs . . 51 6 
 
 Chap. XV. Slavery of the Africans— European Colonies in 
 
 Asia ... . 520 
 
 Chap. XVI. The Seven Churches of Asia . 525 
 
 Conclusion . , , § 542 
 
 Appendix . . , _ 559 
 
LIST OF ENGBAVINGS. 
 
 
 Page 
 
 TV X 1 f~J • 
 
 Mount Zion, 
 
 Frontispiece. 
 
 Wall of Csesarea 
 
 . to face 124 
 
 Jerash .... 
 
 135 
 
 Jerash ...... 
 
 ib. 
 
 Temple at Jerash 
 
 136 
 
 Athlite ...... 
 
 144 
 
 Tower at Csesarea 
 
 148 
 
 Sychar . 
 
 216 
 
 Bay of Beyrout 
 
 227 
 
 Hebron .... 
 
 
 Cedars of Lebanon 
 
 242 
 
 Samaria . . 
 
 249 
 
 Jerusalem — Mosque of Omar 
 
 260 
 
 General View of Petra from the north-east 
 
 om 
 Zvi 
 
 Tomb m Petra, Khasne . 
 
 304 
 
 Corinthian. Columns in Petra . 
 
 ib. 
 
 Plan of the Ruins in Petra 
 
 309 
 
 View of an Isolated Column . 
 
 314 
 
 Palace of Petra 
 
 317 
 
 Corinthian Tomb, Petra 
 
 323 
 
 ElDeir . 
 
 327 
 
 View from El Nakb 
 
 329 
 
 Ashkelon .... 
 
 37X) 
 
 Ashdod .... 
 
 379 
 
 Babylon 
 
 463 
 
 Birs Nimrood 
 
 473 
 
 Ditto, Northern Face, 
 
 ib. 
 
 Views of the Mujelibe 
 
 478 
 
 Tyre . . . . 
 
 497 
 
 Ruins of the Cathedral and Wall of Seir 
 
 501 
 
 Bedouin Arabs 
 
 517 
 
 Sardis .... 
 
 529 
 
EVIDENCE 
 
 OF 
 
 PROPHECY. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 No subject can be of greater importance, either to the 
 unbeliever or to the Christian, than an investigation of the 
 evidence of Christianity. The former, if his mind be not 
 fettered by the strongest prejudice, and if he be actuated 
 in the least by a spirit of free and fair inquiry, cannot 
 disavow his obligation to examine its claim to a divine 
 origin. He cannot rest secure in his unbelief, to the 
 satisfaction of his own mind, without manifest danger of 
 the most fatal error, till he has impartially weighed all the 
 reasons that may be urged on its behalf. The proof of 
 a negative is acknowledged and felt to be difficult ; and 
 it can never, in any case, be attained, till all direct and 
 positive evidence to the contrary be completely destroy- 
 ed. And this, at least, must be done before it can be 
 proved that Christianity is not true. Without this 
 careful and candid examination, all gratuitous assump- 
 tions and fanciful speculations, all hypothetical reasonings, 
 or analogical inferences, that seem to militate against 
 the truth of religion, may be totally erroneous; and though 
 
2 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 they may tend to excite a transient doubt, they cannot 
 justify a settled unbelief. Being exclusively regarded, or 
 being united to a misapprehension of the real nature of 
 the Christian religion, the understanding may embrace 
 them as convincing; but such conviction is neither rational 
 nor consistent, it is only a misapplication of the name of 
 freethinking. For, as Christianity appeals to reason and 
 submits its credentials, — as it courts and commands the 
 most trying scrutiny, that scrutiny the unbeliever is bound, 
 upon his own principles, to engage in. If he be fearless 
 of wavering in his unbelief, he will not shrink from the 
 inquiry; or, if truth be his object, he will not resist the 
 only means of its attainment, that he may either disprove 
 what he could only doubt of before, or yield to the con- 
 viction of positive evidence and undoubted truth. This 
 unhesitating challenge religion gives; and that man is 
 neither a champion of infidelity, nor a lover of wisdom or 
 of truth, who will disown or decline it. 
 
 To the believer such a subject is equally important and 
 interesting. The apathy of nominal Christians, in the 
 present day, is often contrasted with the zeal of those who 
 first became obedient to the faith. The moral influence 
 of the Christian religion is not what it has been, or what 
 it ought to be. The difference in the character of its 
 professors may be greatly attributed to a fainter impression 
 and less confident assurance of its truth. Those early 
 converts who witnessed the miracles of our Lord and of 
 his apostles, and heard their divine doctrine, and they 
 who received the immediate tradition of those who both 
 saw and heard them, and who could themselves compare 
 the moral darkness from which they had emerged, with 
 the marvellous light of the gospel, founded their faith 
 upon evidence; possessed the firmest conviction of the 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 3 
 
 truth; were distinguished by their virtues, as well as by 
 their profession, according to the testimony even of their 
 enemies; 1 cherished the consolations, and were inspired 
 by the hopes of religion; and lived and died, actuated by 
 the hope of immortality and the certainty of a future 
 state. The contrast, unhappily, needs no elucidation. 
 The lives of professing Christians, in general, cease to 
 add a confirmation to the truth of Christianity, while they 
 have often been the plea of infidels against it. Yet reli- 
 gion and human nature are still the same as they were 
 when men were first called Christians, and when the be- 
 lievers in Jesus dishonoured not his name. But they 
 sought more than a passive and unexamining belief. They 
 knew in whom they believed; they felt the power of every 
 truth which they professed. And the same cause in 
 active operation, would be productive of the same effects. 
 The same strong and unwavering faith established on 
 reason and conscious conviction, would be creative of the 
 same peace and joy in believing, and of all their accom- 
 panying fruits. And as a mean of destroying the dis- 
 tinction, wherever it exists, between the profession and 
 the reality of faith, it is ever the prescribed duty of all, 
 who profess to believe in the gospel, to search and to 
 try, "to prove all things, and hold fast that which is 
 good;" and to "be ready always to give an answer to 
 every man that asketh them a reason of the hope that is 
 in them." 2 
 
 To the sincere Christian it must ever be an object of 
 the highest interest to search into the reason of his hope. 
 The farther that he searches, the firmer will be his belief. 
 
 1 Plinii Epist. lib. x. ep. 97. Tertul. Ap. c. 2. Gibbon, c. 15. 
 vol. ii. p. 315, 317, edit. Lond. 1815. 
 
 2 1 Thess. v. 21. 1 Peter iii. 15. 
 
4 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Knowledge is the fruit of mental labour, the food and the 
 feast of the mind. In the pursuit of knowledge, the 
 greater the excellence of the subject of inquiry, the deeper 
 ought to be the interest, the more ardent the investiga- 
 tion, and the dearer to the mind the acquisition of the 
 truth. And that knowledge which immediately affects 
 the soul, which tends to exalt the moral nature and 
 enlarge the religious capacities of man, which pertains to 
 eternity, which leads not merely to the contemplation of 
 the works of the great Architect of the universe, but 
 seeks also to discover an accredited revelation of his will 
 and a way to his favour, and which rests not in its pro- 
 gress till it find assurance of faith or complete conviction, 
 a witness without as well as a witness within, is surely, 
 " like unto a treasure which a man found hid in a field, 
 and sold all that he had and bought it." 1 And it is 
 delightful to have every doubt removed by the positive 
 proof of the truth of Christianity,— to feel that convic- 
 tion of its certainty, which infidelity can never impart to 
 her votaries, — and to receive that assurance of the faith, 
 which is as superior in the hope which it communicates 
 as in the certainty on which it rests, to the cheerless and 
 disquieting doubts of the unbelieving mind. Instead of 
 being a mere prejudice of education, which may be easily 
 shaken, belief, thus founded on reason, becomes fixed 
 and immoveable; and all the scoffings of the scorner, 
 and speculations of the infidel, lie as lightly on the mind, 
 or pass as imperceptibly over it, and make as little im- 
 pression there, as the spray upon a rock. 
 
 In premising a few remarks, introductory to a sketch 
 of the prophecies, little can be said on the general and 
 comprehensive evidence of Christianity. The selection 
 1 Matt. xiii. 44-46. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 5 
 
 of a part implies no disparagement to the whole. Ample 
 means for the confirmation of our faith are within our 
 reach. Newton, Bacon, and Locke, whose names stand 
 pre-eminent in human science, to which they opened a 
 path not penetrated before, found proof sufficient for the 
 complete satisfaction of their minds. The internal evi- 
 dence could not be stronger than it is. There are mani- 
 fold instances of undesigned coincidences in the Acts 
 and Epistles of the apostles, which give intrinsic proof 
 that they are genuine and authentic. No better pre- 
 cepts, no stronger motives, than the gospel contains, have 
 ever been inculcated. No system of religion has ever 
 existed in the world at all to be compared to it; and 
 none can be conceived more completely adapted to the 
 necessities and nature of a sinful being like man, endowed 
 with the faculty of reason and with capacities of religion. 
 And the miracles were of such a nature as excluded the 
 idea of artifice or delusion ; — they were wrought openly 
 in the presence of multitudes ; they testified the benevo- 
 lence of a Saviour, as well as the power of the Son of 
 God. The disciples of Christ could not be deceived re- 
 specting them ; for they were themselves endowed with 
 the gift of tongues and of prophesying, and with the 
 power of working miracles; they devoted their lives to 
 the propagation of the gospel, in opposition to every 
 human interest, and amidst continual sufferings. The 
 Christian religion was speedily propagated throughout 
 the whole extent of the Eoman empire, and even beyond 
 its bounds. The written testimony remains of many who 
 became converts to the truth, and martyrs to its cause : 
 and the most zealous and active enemies of our faith 
 acknowledged the truth of the miracles, and attributed 
 them to the agency of evil spirits. Yet all this accumu- 
 
6 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 ktion of evidence is disregarded, and every testimony is 
 rejected unheard, because ages have since intervened, and 
 because it bears witness to works that are miraculous. 
 Though these general objections against the truth of 
 Christianity have been ably answered and exposed, yet 
 they may fairly be adduced as confirmatory of the proof 
 which results from the fulfilment of prophecy, and as 
 binding infidels to its investigation. For it supplies that 
 evidence which the enemies of religion, or those who are 
 weak in the faith, would require, which applies to the pre- 
 sent time, and which stands not in need of any testimony, 
 which is always attainable by the researches of the in- 
 quisitive, and often obvious to the notice of all,— and 
 which past, present, and coming events alike unite in 
 verifying ; — it affords an increasing evidence, and receives 
 additional attestations in each succeeding age. 
 
 But, while some subterfuge has been sought for evad- 
 ing the force of the internal evidence, and the conviction 
 which a belief in the miracles would infallibly produce, and 
 while every collateral proof is neglected, the prophecies 
 also are set aside without investigation, as of too vague 
 and indefinite a nature to be applied, with certainty, to 
 the history either of past ages or of the present. A very 
 faint view of the prophecies of the Old and New Testa- 
 ment will suffice to rectify this equally easy and erroneous 
 conclusion. Although some of the prophecies, separately 
 considered, may appear ambiguous and obscure, yet a 
 general view of them all — of the harmony which prevails 
 throughout the prophecies, and of their adaptation to the 
 facts they predict — must strike the mind of the most care- 
 less inquirer with an apprehension that they are the dic- 
 tates of Omniscience. But many of the prophecies are as 
 explicit and direct as it is possible that they could have 
 
INTKODUCTION. 
 
 7 
 
 been ; and, as history confirms their truth, so they some- 
 times tend to its illustration, of which our future inquiry 
 will furnish us with examples. And if the prophetical 
 part of Scripture, which refers to the rise and fall of 
 kingdoms, had been more explicit than it is, it would 
 have been a communication of the foreknowledge of events 
 winch men would have grossly abused and perverted to 
 other purposes rather than to the establishment of the 
 truth; and, instead of being a stronger evidence of 
 Christianity, it would have been considered as the cause 
 of the accomplishment of the events predicted, by the 
 unity and combination it would have excited among 
 Christians ; and thus have afforded to the unbeliever a 
 more reasonable objection against the evidence of prophecy 
 than any that can be now alleged. It is in cases wherein 
 they could not be abused, or wherein the agents instru- 
 mental in their fulfilment were utterly ignorant of their 
 existence, that the prophecies are as descriptive as history 
 itself. But whenever the knowledge of fixture events 
 would have proved prejudicial to the peace and happiness 
 of the world, they are couched in allegory, which their 
 accomplishment alone can expound; and drawn with that 
 degree of light and shade that the faithfulness of the pic- 
 ture may best be seen from the proper point of observa- 
 tion, the period of their completion. Prophecy must 
 thus, in many instances, have that darkness which is im- 
 penetrable at first, as well as that fight which shall be 
 able to dispel every doubt at last ; and, as it cannot be 
 an evidence of Christianity until the event demonstrate 
 its own truth, it may remain obscure till history become 
 its interpreter, and not be perfectly obvious till the ful- 
 filment of the whole series with which it is connected. 
 But the general and often sole objection against the evi- 
 
8 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 dence from the prophecies, that they are all vague and 
 ambiguous, may best he answered and set aside by a 
 simple exhibition of those numerous and distinct predic- 
 tions which have heen literally accomplished ; and there- 
 fore to this limited view of them the Mowing pages shall 
 chiefly be confined. 
 
 Little need be said on the nature of proof from pro- 
 phecy. That it is the effect of divine interposition can- 
 not be disputed. It is equivalent to any miracle, and is 
 of . itself evidently miraculous. The foreknowledge of the 
 actions of intelligent and moral agents is one of the most 
 incomprehensible attributes of the Deity, and is exclu- 
 sively a divine perfection. The past, the present, and 
 the future, are alike open to his view, and to his alone ; 
 and there can be no stronger proof of the interposition of 
 the Most High, than that which prophecy affords. Of 
 all the attributes of the God of the Universe, his pre- 
 science has hewildered, and baffled the most, ah the 
 powers of human perception ; and an evidence of the exer- 
 cise of this perfection in the revelation of what the infi- 
 nite mind alone could make known, is the seal of God, 
 which can never be counterfeited, affixed to the truth 
 which it attests. Whether that evidence has been afford- 
 ed, is a matter of investigation ; but if it has unquestion- 
 ably been given, the effect of superhuman agency is ap- 
 parent, and the truth of what it was given to prove, does 
 not admit of a doubt. If the prophecies of the Scriptures 
 can be proved to be genuine ; if they be of such a nature 
 as no foresight of man could possibly have predicted ; if 
 the events foretold in them were described hundreds or 
 even thousands of years before those events became parts 
 of the history of man ; and if the history itself correspond 
 with the prediction ; then the evidence which the prophe- 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 9 
 
 cies impart is a sign and a wonder to every age ; no clearer 
 testimony or greater assurance of the truth can he given ; 
 and if men do not believe Moses and the prophets, neither 
 would they he persuaded though one arose from the dead. 1 
 Even if one were to rise from the dead, evidence of the 
 fact must precede conviction ; and if the mind be satis- 
 fied of the truth of prophecy, the result, in either case, 
 is the same. The voice of Omnipotence alone could call 
 the dead from the tomb ; the voice of Omniscience alone 
 could tell all that lay hid in dark futurity, which to man 
 is as impenetrable as the mansions of the dead; and both 
 are alike the voice of God. 
 
 Of the antiquity of the Scriptures there is the amplest 
 proof. The books of the Old Testament were not, like 
 other writings, detached and unconnected efforts of genius 
 and research, or mere subjects of amusement or instruc- 
 tion. They were essential to the constitution of the J ew- 
 ish state ; the possession of them was a great cause of the 
 peculiarities of that people ; and they contain their moral 
 and their civil law, and their history, as well as the pro- 
 phecies, of which they were the records and the guardians. 
 They were received by the Jews as of divine authority; 
 and as such they were published and preserved. They 
 were proved to be ancient eighteen hundred years ago. 2 
 And in express reference to the prophecies concerning 
 the Messiah, contained in them, they were denominated 
 by Tacitus, the ancient writings of the priests. Instead 
 of being secluded from observation, they were translated 
 into Greek above two hundred and fifty years before the 
 Christian era; and they were read in the synagogues every 
 Sabbath-day. The most ancient part of them was re- 
 
 1 Luke xvi. 31. 
 
 2 Josephus c. Apion. 
 
■> v 
 
 10 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 ceived, as divinely inspired, and was preserved in their 
 own language, by the Samaritans, who were at enmity 
 with the Jews. They have ever been sacredly kept un- 
 altered, in a more remarkable degree, and with a more 
 scrupulous care, than any other compositions whatever. 1 
 And the antiquity and authenticity of them rest so little 
 on Christian testimony alone, that it is from the records 
 of our enemies that they are confirmed, and from which 
 is derived the evidence of our faith. Even the very lan- 
 guage in which the Old Testament Scriptures were ori- 
 ginally written, had ceased to be spoken before the com- 
 ing of Christ. No stronger evidence of their antiquity 
 could be alleged, than what is indisputably true ; and if 
 it were to be questioned, every other truth of ancient 
 history must first be set aside. 
 
 That the prediction was prior to the event, many facts 
 in the present state of the world abundantly testify; and 
 many prophecies remain even yet to be fulfilled. But, 
 independently of external testimony, the prophecies them- 
 selves bear intrinsic marks of their antiquity, and of their 
 truth. Predictions concerning the same events are some- 
 times delivered by a succession of prophets. Sometimes 
 the same prophecy concerning any city or nation gradu- 
 ally meets its fulfilment during a long protracted period, 
 where the truth of the prediction must be unfolded by 
 
 1 There are not wanting proofs of the most scrupulous care of 
 the Hebrew text on the part of the Jews : they have counted the 
 large and small sections, the verses, the words, and even the let- 
 ters in some of the books. They have likewise reckoned which 
 is the middle letter of the Pentateuch, which is the middle clause 
 of each book, and how many times each letter of the alphabet 
 occurs in all the Hebrew Scriptures. This, at least, shews that 
 the Jews were religiously careful to preserve the literal sense of 
 Scripture. — (Allen's Modern Judaism. Simon, Crit. Hist. 6, 26.) 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 11 
 
 degrees. They are in general, so interwoven with the 
 history of the Jews ; so casually introduced in their ap- 
 plication to the surrounding nations ; so frequently con- 
 cealed in their purport, even from the honoured hut un- 
 conscious organs of their communication, and preserving 
 throughout so entire a consistency; so different in the 
 modes of their narration, and each part preserving its 
 own particular character; so delivered without form or 
 system; so shadowed sometimes under symbols; so com- 
 plete when compared and combined; so apparently un- 
 connected when disjoined, and revealed in such a variety 
 of modes and expressions, that the very manner of their 
 conveyance forbids the idea of artifice : or if they were 
 false, nothing could admit of more easy detection; if true, 
 nothing could be more impossible to have been conceived 
 by man. And they must either be a number of incohe- 
 rent and detached pretensions to inspiration, that can 
 bear no scrutiny, and that have no reference to futurity 
 but what deceivers might have devised; or else, as the 
 only alternative, they give such a comprehensive, yet 
 minute representation of future events — so various, yet 
 so distinct — so distant, yet so true — that none but He 
 who knoweth all things could have revealed them to man, 
 and none but those who have hardened their hearts and 
 closed their eyes, can forbear from feeling and from per- 
 ceiving them to be credentials of the truth, clear as light 
 from heaven. To justify their pretensions to their con- 
 temporaries, the prophets referred, on particular occa- 
 sions, to some approaching circumstance as a proof of 
 their prophetic spirit, and as a symbol or representation of 
 a more distant and important event. They could thus be 
 distinguished in their own age from false prophets, if their 
 predictions were then true : and they ventured to raise, 
 
12 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 from the succeeding ages of the world, that veil which no 
 uninspired mortal could touch. They spoke of a deliverer 
 of the human race ; they described the desolation of cities 
 and of nations, whose greatness was then unshaken, and 
 whose splendour has ever since been unrivalled ; and their 
 predictions were of such a character, that time would in- 
 fallibly refute or realize them. 
 
 Keligion deserves a candid examination, and it de- 
 mands nothing more. The fulfilment of prophecy forms 
 part of the evidence of Christianity. And are the pro- 
 phecies false, or are they true? Is their fallacy exposed, 
 or their truth ratified by the event? And whether are 
 they thus proved to be the delusions of impostors, or the 
 dictates of inspiration? To the solution of these ques- 
 tions a patient and impartial inquiry alone is requisite; 
 reason alone is appealed to, and no other faith is here 
 necessary but that which arises as the natural and spon- 
 taneous fruit of rational conviction. The man who with- 
 holds this inquiry, and who will not be impartially guid- 
 ed by its result, is not only reckless of his fate, but devoid 
 of that on which he prides himself the most, — even of all 
 true liberality of sentiment : he is the bigot of infidelity, 
 who will not believe the truth because it is the truth. It 
 is incontestible, that, in a variety of ways, a marvellous 
 change has taken place in the religious and political state 
 of the world since the prophecies were delivered. A 
 system of religion, widely different from any that then 
 existed, has emanated from the land of Judea, and has 
 spread over the civilized world. Many remarkable cir- 
 cumstances attended its origin and its progress. The 
 history of the life and character of its Founder, as it was 
 written at the time, and acknowledged as authentic by 
 those who believed on him, is so completely without a par- 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 13 
 
 allel, that it has often attracted the admiration, and ex- 
 cited the astonishment of infidels ; and one of them even 
 asks, if it he possible that the sacred Personage, whose 
 history the Scripture contains, should be himself a mere 
 man; and acknowledges that the fiction of such a cha- 
 racter is more inconceivable than the reality. 1 He pos- 
 sessed no temporal power, — he inculcated every virtue, 
 his life was spotless and perfect as his doctrine, — he was 
 put to death as a criminal. His religion was rapidly 
 propagafed, — his followers were persecuted, but their 
 cause prevailed. The purity of his doctrine was main- 
 tained for a time, but it was afterwards corrupted. Yet 
 Christianity has effected a great change. Since its estab- 
 lishment, the worship of heathen deities has ceased ; all 
 sacrifices have been abolished, even where human victims 
 were immolated before ; and slavery, which prevailed in 
 every state, is now unknown in every Christian country 
 throughout Europe ; — knowledge has been increased, and 
 many nations have been civilized. The Christian religion 
 has been extended over a great part of the world, and it 
 is still enlarging its boundary; and the Jews, though it 
 originated among them, yet continue to reject it. In re- 
 gard to the political changes or revolutions of states, since 
 the prophecies concerning them were delivered, — Jerusa- 
 lem was destroyed and laid waste by the Eomans: the 
 land of Palestine, and the surrounding countries, are 
 now thinly inhabited, and, in comparison of their for- 
 mer fertility, have been almost converted into deserts: 
 the Jews have been scattered among the nations, and 
 remain to this day a dispersed and yet a distinct people: 
 Egypt, one of the first and most powerful of nations, long 
 
 1 Rousseau's Emilius, vol. ii. p. 215, quoted in Brewster's Testi- 
 monies, p. 133. 
 
14 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 ceased to be a kingdom : Nineveh is no more : Babylon is 
 now a ruin: the Persian empire succeeded to the Baby- 
 lonian: the Grecian empire succeeded to the Persian, and 
 the Eoman to the Grecian: the old Eoman empire has 
 been divided into several kingdoms: Borne itself became 
 the seat of a government of a different nature from any 
 other that ever existed in the world: the doctrine of the 
 gospel was transformed into a system of spiritual tyranny 
 and of temporal power: the authority of the pope was held 
 supreme in Europe for many ages: the Saracens obtained 
 a sudden and mighty power ; overran great part of Asia 
 and of Europe ; and many parts of Christendom suffered 
 much from their incursions: the Arabs maintain their 
 warlike character, and retain possession of their own land : 
 the Africans are a humble race, and are still treated as 
 slaves: colonies have been spread from Europe and Asia, 
 and are enlarging there: the Turkish empire attained to 
 great power ; it continued to rise for the space of several 
 centimes, but it paused in its progress, has since decayed, 
 and now evidently verges to its fall. These form some 
 of the most prominent and remarkable facts of the history 
 of the world from the ages of the prophets to the present 
 time ; and if to each and all of them, from the first to the 
 last, an index is to be found in the prophecies, we may 
 warrantably conclude that they could only have been re- 
 vealed by the Buler among the nations, and that they 
 afford more than human testimony of the truth of Chris- 
 tianity. 
 
 In the following treatise an attempt is made to give a 
 general and concise sketch of such of the prophecies as 
 have been distinctly foretold and clearly fulfilled, and as 
 may be deemed sufficient to illustrate the truth of Chris- 
 tianity. And, if one unbeliever be led the first step to 
 
INTKODUCTION. 
 
 15 
 
 a full and candid investigation of the truth, — if one 
 doubting mind he convinced, — if one Christian be con- 
 firmed more strongly in his belief, — if one ray of the 
 hope of better things to come arise from hence, to enliven 
 a single sorrowing heart, — if one atom be added to the 
 mass of evidence, the author of these pages will neither 
 have lost his reward, nor spent his labour in vain. 
 
16 
 
 OF THE COMING 
 
 OHAPTEE II. 
 
 PEOPHECIES CONCEENING CHEIST AND THE CHRISTIAN 
 EELIGION. 
 
 It is one of the remarkable peculiarities of the Jewish 
 religion, that, while it claimed superiority over every other 
 and was distinguished from them all, as alone inculcating 
 the worship of the only living and true God, and while it 
 was perfectly suited to the purpose for which it was de- 
 signed, it acknowledged that it was itself only preparatory 
 to a future, a better, and perfect revelation. It was pro- 
 fessedly adapted and limited to one particular people; — . 
 it was confined, in many of its institutions, to the land of 
 Judea ; its morality was incomplete ; its ritual observances 
 were numerous, oppressive, and devoid of any inherent 
 merit; 1 and being partial, imperfect, and temporary, and 
 full of promises of better things to come, for which it was 
 only the means of preparing the way, it was evidently in- 
 tended to be the presage of another. It was not even 
 calculated of itself to fulfil the promise which it records 
 as given unto Abraham, that in him all the families of 
 the earth should be blessed; though its original institution 
 
 1 " Because they had not executed my judgments, but had 
 despised my statutes, and had polluted my sabbaths, and their 
 eyes were after their fathers' idols; wherefore I gave them also 
 statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they should 
 not live." (Ezek. xx. 24, 25. Acts xv. 10.) 
 
OF A SAVIOUR. 
 
 17 
 
 was founded upon this promise, and although the accom- 
 plishment of it was the great end to be promoted, by the 
 distinction and separation of his descendants from all the 
 nations of the earth. But it was subservient to this end, 
 though it could not directly accomplish it ; for the coming 
 of a Saviour was the great theme of prophecy, and 
 the universal belief of the Jews. From the commence- 
 ment to the conclusion of the Scriptures of the Old Tes- 
 tament, it is predicted or prefigured. They represent 
 the first act of divine justice, which was exercised on the 
 primogenitors of the human race, as mingled with divine 
 mercy. Before their exclusion from paradise, a gleam of 
 hope was seen to shine around them, in the promise of a 
 suffering but triumphant Deliverer. To Abraham the 
 same promise was conveyed in a more definite form. 
 Jacob spoke distinctly of the coming of a Saviour. 
 Moses, the legislator and leader of the Hebrews, prophe- 
 sied of another lawgiver that God was to raise up in a 
 future age. 1 And while these early and general predic- 
 tions occur in the historical part of Scripture, which 
 sufficiently mark the purposed design of the Mosaic dis- 
 pensation, the books that are avowedly prophetic are 
 clearly descriptive, as a minuter search will attest, of the 
 advent of a Saviour, and of every thing pertaining to the 
 kingdom he was to establish. Many things, apparently 
 contradictory and irreconcileable, are foretold as referring 
 to a great Deliverer, whose dignity, whose character, and 
 whose office were altogether peculiar, and in whom the 
 fate of human nature is represented as involved. Many 
 passages that can bear no other application, clearly tes- 
 tify of him: Thy king cometh — thy salvation cometh— 
 the Eedeemer shall come to Zion — the Lord cometh — 
 1 Deut. xviii. 15, 18. 
 
 C 
 
18 
 
 THE COMING 
 
 the Messenger of the covenant, he shall come — blessed 
 is he that cometh in the name of the Lord, 1 are expres- 
 sions that occur throughout the prophecies. These un- 
 equivocally speak of the coming of a Saviour. But were 
 every other proof wanting, the prophecy of Daniel is 
 sufficient incontrovertihly to establish the fact, which we 
 affirm in the very words, — that the coming of the Messiah 
 is foretold in the Old Testament. The same fact is con- 
 firmed by the belief of the Jews in every age. It has 
 been so deeply and indelibly impressed on their minds, 
 that notwithstanding the dispersion of their race through- 
 out the world, and the disappointment of their hopes for 
 eighteen hundred years after the prescribed period of his 
 coining, the expectation of the Messiah has hitherto form- 
 ed a bond of union which no distance could dissolve, and 
 which no earthly power could destroy. 
 
 As the Old Testament does contain prophecies of a 
 Saviour that was to appear in the world, the only ques- 
 tion to be resolved is, whether all that it testifies of him 
 be fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ? On a subject 
 so interesting, so extensive and important, which has 
 been so amply discussed by many able divines, the reader 
 is referred to the works of Barrow, of Pearson, and of 
 Clarke. A summary view must be very imperfect and 
 incomplete ; but it is here given, as it may serve, to the 
 general reader, to exhibit the connexion between the Old 
 and the New Testament, and as of itself it may be deem- 
 ed conclusive of the argument in favour of Christianity. 
 
 A few of the leading features of the prophecies con- 
 cerning Christ, and their fulfilment, shall be traced ; as 
 they mark the time of his appearance, the place of his 
 
 x Zech. ix. 9. Isa. lxii. 11. Isa. lix. 20. Isa. xxxv. 4. Mai. iii. 1. 
 Psal. cxviii. 26. Dan. ix. 25, 26. 
 
OF A SAVIOUR. 
 
 19 
 
 birth, and the family out of which he was to arise ; his 
 life and character, his miracles, his sufferings, and his 
 death; the nature of his doctrine, the design and the 
 effect of his coming, and the extent of his kingdom. 
 
 The time of the Messiah's appearance in the world, as 
 predicted in the Old Testament, is defined by a number 
 of concurring circumstances, that fix it to the very date 
 of the advent of Christ. The last blessing of Jacob to 
 his sons, when he commanded them to gather themselves 
 together that he might tell them what should befall them 
 in the last days, contains this prediction concerning 
 Judah : " The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor 
 a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come." 1 
 The date fixed by this prophecy for the coming of Shiloh, 
 or the Saviour, was not to exceed the time that the de- 
 scendants of Judah were to continue a united people, that 
 should be governed by their own laws, and that their 
 judges were to be from among their brethren. The pro- 
 phecy of Malachi adds another standard for measuring 
 the time ; " Behold, I will send my messenger, and he 
 shall prepare the way before me; and the Lord, whom ye 
 seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the mes- 
 senger of the covenant, whom ye delight in; behold, he 
 shall come, saith the Lord of hosts." 2 No words can be 
 more expressive of the coming of the promised Messiah; 
 and they as clearly imply his appearance in the temple 
 before it should be destroyed. But it may also be here 
 remarked that Malachi was the last of the prophets : with 
 his predictions the vision and the prophecy were sealed 
 up, or the canon of the Old Testament was completed. 
 Though many prophets immediately preceded him, after 
 his time there was no prophet in Israel ; but all the Jews, 
 1 Gen. xlix. 10. 2 Mai. iii. 1. 
 
20 
 
 THE TIME OF THE 
 
 whether of ancient or modern times, look for a messen- 
 ger to prepare the way of the Lord, immediately hefore 
 his coming. The long succession of prophets had drawn 
 to a close ; and the concluding words of the Old Testa- 
 ment, subjoined to an admonition to remember the law of 
 Moses, import that the next prophet would be the har- 
 binger of the Messiah. Another criterion of the time is 
 thus imparted. In regard to the advent of the Messiah, 
 before the destruction of the second temple, the words of 
 Haggai are remarkably explicit : " The Desire of all na- 
 tions shall come; and I will fill this house with glory, 
 saith the Lord of hosts. — The glory of this latter house 
 shall be greater than of the former." 1 The contrast 
 which the prophet had just drawn between the glory of 
 Solomon's temple and that which had been erected in its 
 stead, to which he declares it was, in comparison, as no- 
 thing ; the excellency of the latter house excelling that of 
 gold and silver ; the expression so characteristic of the 
 Messiah, the " desire of all nations ;" all denote that He 
 alone is spoken of, who was the hope of Israel, and of 
 whom all the prophets did testify, and that his presence 
 would give to that temple a greater glory than that of the 
 former. The Saviour was thus to appear, according to 
 the prophecies of the Old Testament, during the time of 
 the continuance of the kingdom of J udah, previous to the 
 demolition of the temple, and immediately subsequent to 
 the next prophet. But the time is rendered yet more 
 definite. In the prophecies of Daniel, the kingdom of 
 the Messiah is not only foretold as commencing in the 
 time of the fourth monarchy, or Eoman empire ; but the 
 express number of years, that were to precede his com- 
 ing, are plainly intimated : " Seventy weeks are deter- 
 1 Hag. ii. 7, 9. 
 
BIRTH OF CHRIST. 
 
 21 
 
 mined upon thy people, and upon thy holy city, to finish 
 the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to 
 make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting 
 righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and 
 to anoint the Most Holy. Know, therefore, and under- 
 stand, that from the going forth of the commandment to re- 
 store and to build J erusalem, unto the Messiah the Prince, 
 shall be seven weeks and threescore and two weeks." 1 
 Computation by weeks of years was common among the 
 J ews, and every seventh was the sabbatical year ; seventy 
 weeks thus amounted to four hundred and ninety years. 
 In these words the prophet marks the very time, and uses 
 the very name of Messiah the Prince ; and so entirely is 
 all ambiguity done away, that the destruction of the city 
 and the sanctuary, the ceasing of the sacrifice and the 
 oblation, and the commencement of the long- continued 
 desolation that has ever since ensued, are all definitely 
 marked as consequent on the cutting off of Messiah : — 
 " And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be 
 cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince 
 that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary j 
 and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end 
 of the war desolations are determined. And he shall con- 
 firm the covenant with many for one week : and in the 
 midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the obla- 
 tion to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations 
 he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, 
 and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate." 2 
 The plainest inference may be drawn from these pro- 
 phecies. All of them, while, in every respect, they pre- 
 suppose the most perfect knowledge of futurity — while 
 they were unquestionably delivered and publicly known 
 
 1 Dan. ii. 24, 25. * Dan. ix. 26, 27. 
 
22 THE TIME OE THE 
 
 for ages previous to the time to which they referred — 
 while there is the testimony, from great authorities among 
 the Jews, of their application to the time of the Mes- 
 siah 1 — and while they refer to different contingent and 
 unconnected events, utterly undeterminable and incon- 
 ceivable by all human sagacity ; — accord in perfect unison 
 to a single precise period where all their different lines 
 terminate at once — the very fulness of time when Jesus 
 appeared. A king then reigned over the Jews in their 
 own land ; they were governed by their own laws ; and 
 the council of their nation exercised its authority and 
 power. Before that period, the other tribes were led in- 
 to captivity, from which they never returned; and the 
 Israelites were outcasts for ages, before the Jews were 
 dispersed among the nations. As an unbroken and un- 
 expatriated tribe, Judah alone remained, and the last 
 sceptre in Israel had not then departed from it. Every 
 stone of the temple was then unmoved : it was the admir- 
 ation of the Eomans, and might have stood for ages. 
 The city was not then destroyed; but it was the flourish- 
 ing and populous capital of their own land, which was 
 then peopled by four millions of Jews. The sacrifice 
 and oblation were then offered up in Jerusalem, the place 
 appointed for them, and thither from all the land multi- 
 tudes for that purpose still continued to resort year by 
 year continually. But in a short space, all these con- 
 curring testimonies to the time of the advent of the Mes- 
 siah passed away. About the very time when Christ, 
 in the twelfth year of his age, first publicly appeared in 
 the temple about his Father's business, Archelaus the 
 king was dethroned and banished. Coponius was appoint- 
 
 1 Grotius de Verit. 1. v. c. xiv. Opera, torn. iv. p. 80, et Lond. 
 1679. Pearson on the Creed. Art. ii. 
 
BIRTH OF CHEIST. 
 
 23 
 
 ed procurator, and the kingdom of Judea, the last rem- 
 nant of the greatness of Israel, was debased into a part 
 of the province of Syria. 1 The sceptre was smitten from 
 the hands of the tribe of Judah ; their crown fell from their 
 heads; their glory departed; and, soon after the death of 
 Christ, of their temple one stone was not left upon an- 
 other ; their commonwealth itself became as complete a 
 ruin, and was broken in pieces ; and they have -ever since 
 been scattered throughout the world, a name but not a 
 nation. Every mark that denoted the time of the coming 
 of the Messiah in the flesh, was erased soon after the cru- 
 cifixion of Christ, and could never afterwards be renewed. 2 
 
 1 Joseph. Antiq. lib. xvii. c. 15, (al. 13.) xviii. 1. 
 
 2 " When the angel says to Daniel, Seventy weeks are determined 
 upon thy people, &c; Was this written after the event? Or can 
 it reasonably be ascribed to chance, that from the seventh year 
 of Artaxerxes the king, (when Ezra went up from Babylon unto 
 Jerusalem with a commission to restore the government of the 
 Jews,) to the death of Christ, from ann. Nahon. 290, to ann, 
 Nabon. 780,) should be precisely 490 (seventy weeks of) years? 
 When the angel tells Daniel, that in threescore and two weeks 
 the street (of Jerusalem) should be built again, and the wall, even 
 in troublous times; (but this, in troublous times not like those 
 that should be under Messiah the Prince when he should come to 
 reign ;) Was this written after the event? Or can it reasonably 
 be ascribed to chance, that from the 28th year of Artaxerxes ) 
 when the walls were finished, to the birth of Christ, (from ann. 
 Nabon. 311 to 745,) should be precisely 434 (62 weeks of years?) 
 When Daniel farther says, And he shall confirm (or, nevertheless 
 he shall confirm) the covenant with many for one week ; Was 
 this written after the event? Or can it reasonably be ascribed to 
 chance, that from the death of Christ, {ann. Bom. 33,) to the com- 
 mand first given to Peter to preach to Cornelius and the Gentiles 
 (ann. Bom. 40,) should be exactly seven (one week of) years? 
 When he still adds, And in the midst of the week, (and in half a 
 week) he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for 
 the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate: Was 
 
24 
 
 THE TIME OP THE 
 
 That the time at which the promised Messiah was to 
 appear is clearly defined in these prophecies; that the 
 expectation of the coming of a great king or deliverer, 
 was then prevalent, not only among the J ews, but among 
 all the eastern nations, in consequence of these prophe- 
 cies ; that it afterAvards excited that people to revolt, and 
 proved the cause of their greater destruction, — the im- 
 partial and unsuspected evidence of heathen authors is 
 combined, with the reluctant and ample testimony of the 
 Jews themselves, to attest. 
 
 Tacitus, Suetonius, Josephus, and Philo, agree in tes- 
 tifying the antiquity of the prophecies, and their acknow- 
 ledged reference to that period. 1 Even the Jews, to 
 this day, own that the time when their Messiah ought 
 to have appeared, according to their prophecies, is long 
 since past, and they attribute the delay of his coming 
 to the sinfulness of their nation. And thus, from the 
 distinct prophecies themselves, from the testimony of pro- 
 fane historians, and from the concessions of the Jews, 
 
 this written after the event 1 Or can it with any reason be 
 ascribed to chance, that from Vespasian's march into Judea in the 
 spring ann. Bom. 67, to the taking of Jerusalem by Titus in the 
 autumn ann. Bom. 70, should be half a septenary of years, or three 
 years and a half." — Clarke s Works, fol. edit. vol. ii. p. 721.) 
 
 1 " Pluribus persuasio inerat, antiquis sacerdotum Uteris conti- 
 neri, eo ipso tempore fore, ut valesceret Oriens, profectique Judwa 
 rerum potirentur. Quae ambages Vespasianum et Titum praedix- 
 erant. Sed vulgus (Judaeorum,) more humanae cupidinis, sibi ian- 
 tam fatorum magnitudinem interpretati, ne adversis quidem ad 
 vera mutabantur." — (Tacit. Hist. lib. v. cap. xiii.) " Percrebuerat 
 Oriente toto vetus et constans opinio, esse in fatis, ut eo temjjore 
 Judaea profecti rerum potirentur. Id de imperio Romano, quan- 
 tum postea eventu patuit, praedictum Judaei ad se trahentes, rebel- 
 larunt." Suet, in Vesp. lib. viii. c. iv. Julius Marathus, quoted 
 by Suetonius, lib. ii. c. xciv. Joseph, de Bello, lib. vi. c. xxxi. 
 (al. e. 5. § 4.) Philo de Praam, et Pen. pp. 923-4. Clarke, &c. &c. 
 
BIRTH OF CHRIST. 
 
 25 
 
 every requisite proof is afforded that Christ appeared 
 when all the concurring circumstances of the time denot- 
 ed the prophesied period of his advent. 
 
 The predictions contained in the Old Testament re- 
 specting both the family out of which the Messiah was to 
 arise, and the place of his birth, are almost as circum- 
 stantial, and are equally applicable to Christ, as those 
 which refer to the time of his appearance. He was to 
 be an Israelite, of the tribe of Judah, of the family of 
 David, and of the town of Bethlehem. The two former 
 of these particulars are implied in the promise made to 
 Abraham — in the prediction of Moses — in the prophetic 
 benediction of J acob to Judah — and in the reason assign- 
 ed for the superiority of that tribe, because out of it the 
 chief ruler should arise. And the two last, that the Mes- 
 siah was to be a descendant of David and a native of 
 Bethlehem, are expressly affirmed. There shall come 
 forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall 
 grow out of his roots; and the Spirit of the Lord shall 
 rest upon him. 1 That this prophecy refers to the deli- 
 verer of the human race, is evident from the whole of the 
 succeeding chapter, which is descriptive of the kingdom 
 of the Messiah, of the calling of the Gentiles, and of the 
 restoration of Israel. The same fact is predicted in many 
 passages of the prophecies ; — " Thine house and thy king- 
 dom shall be established for ever before thee. — I have 
 made a covenant with my chosen, I have sworn unto 
 David my servant. Thy seed will I establish for ever, 
 and build up thy throne to all generations. Behold, the 
 days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David 
 a righteous branch, and a king shall reign and prosper, 
 and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. — 
 
 1 Isaiah xi. 1. 
 
26 
 
 THE PLACE OP 
 
 This is his name whereby he shall be called, the Lokd 
 OUK eighte ousne s s . " 1 The place of the birth of the 
 Messiah is thus clearly foretold : — " Thou Bethlehem 
 Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of 
 Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth, unto me/' or, 
 as the Hebrew word implies, 2 shall he be born, ef that is 
 to be ruler in Israel ; whose goings forth have been from 
 of old, from everlasting." 3 — That all these predictions 
 were fulfilled in Jesus Christ ; that he was of that coun- 
 try, tribe, and family, of the house and lineage of David, 
 and born in Bethlehem, — we have the fullest evidence 
 in the testimony of all the evangelists; in two distinct 
 accounts of the genealogies, (by natural and legal succes- 
 sion,) which, according to the custom of the Jews, were 
 carefully preserved ; in the acquiescence of the enemies 
 of Christ to the truth of the fact, against which there is 
 not a single surmise in history; and in the appeal made 
 by some of the earliest of the Christian writers to the re- 
 cords of the census, taken at the very time of our Saviour's 
 birth by order of Csesar. 4 Here, indeed, it is impossible 
 not to be struck with the exact fulfilment of prophecies 
 which are apparently contradictory and irreconcileable, and 
 with the manner in which they were providentially accom- 
 plished. The spot of Christ's nativity was distant from 
 the place of the abode of his parents, and the region in 
 which he began his ministry was remote from the place 
 of his birth ; and another prophecy respecting him was 
 in this manner verified : — " The land of Zebulun and the 
 
 1 2 Sam. vii. 16. Psal. lxxxix. 3, 4. Jer. xxiii. 5, 6. 
 
 2 Gen. x. 14; xvii. 6. 2 Sam. vii. 12, &c. 
 
 3 Micah v. 2. 
 
 4 Justin Mart. Ap. i. p. 55, ed. Thirl. Tert. in Mar. iv. 19. 
 p. 713, ed. Paris. Barrow. 
 
Christ's nativity. 
 
 27 
 
 land of Naphtali, — by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, 
 in Galilee of the nations — the people that walked in dark- 
 ness have seen a great light ; they that dwell in the land 
 of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined." 1 
 Thus, the time at which the predicted Messiah was to 
 appear, the nation, the tribe, and the family from which 
 he was to be descended — and the place of his birth — no 
 populous city — but of itself an inconsiderable place, were 
 all clearly foretold ; and as clearly refer to Jesus Christ, 
 and all meet their completion hi him. 
 
 But the facts of his life, and the features of his cha- 
 racter, are also drawn with a precision that cannot be 
 misunderstood. The obscurity, the meanness, and po- 
 verty of his external condition are thus represented : — " He 
 shall grow up before the Lord as a tender plant, and as 
 a root out of a dry ground ; he hath no form nor comeli- 
 ness ; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that 
 we should desire him. Thus saith the Lord, — to him 
 whom man despiseth, to him whom the nation abhorreth, 
 to a servant of rulers, kings shall see and arise, princes 
 also shall worship." 2 That such was the condition in 
 which Christ appeared, the whole history of his life abun- 
 dantly testifies. And the J ews, looking in the pride of 
 their hearts for an earthly king, disregarded these pro- 
 phecies concerning him, were deceived by their traditions, 
 and found only a stone of stumbling, where, if they had 
 searched the Scriptures aright, they would have discover- 
 ed an evidence of the Messiah. " Is not this the car- 
 penter's son ; is not this the son of Mary? said they, and 
 they were offended at him." His riding in humble 
 triumph into Jerusalem; his being betrayed for thirty 
 
 1 Isaiah ix. 1, 2. Matt. iv. 15, 16. 2 Isaiah liii.j xlix. 7. 
 
28 
 
 THE LIFE AND 
 
 pieces of silver, and scourged, and buffeted, and spit upon ; 
 the piercing of his hands and of his feet ; the last offered 
 draught of vinegar and gall ; the parting of his raiment, 
 and casting lots upon his vesture; the manner of his 
 death and of his burial, and his rising again without seeing 
 corruption, 1 — were all expressly predicted, and all these 
 predictions were literally fulfilled. If all these prophecies 
 admit of any application to the events of the life of any 
 individual, it can only be to that of the author of Chris- 
 tianity. And what other religion can produce a single 
 fact which was actually foretold of its founder ? 
 
 Though the personal appearance or mortal condition of 
 the Messiah was represented by the Jewish prophets, such 
 as to bespeak no grandeur, his personal character is de- 
 scribed as of a higher order than that of the sons of men. 
 Thou art fairer than the children of men : grace is poured 
 into thy lips. 2 He hath done no violence, neither was 
 there any deceit in his lips. 3 The Spirit of the Lord 
 shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understand- 
 ing, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of know- 
 ledge and of the fear of the Lord. 4 The Lord God hath 
 given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know 
 how to speak a word in season to him that is weary. 5 He 
 shall feed his flock like a shepherd ; he shall gather the 
 lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom. 6 A 
 bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax 
 shall he not quench. 7 Behold, thy king cometh unto 
 thee ; he is just, and having salvation ; lowly, and riding 
 upon an ass. 8 He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause 
 
 1 Zech. ix. 9; xi. 12. Isaiah 1. 6. Psalm xxii. 16; Ixix. 21. 
 xxii. 18. Isaiah liii. 9. Psalm xvi. 10. 
 
 2 Psalm xlv. 2. 3 liii. 9. 4 xi. 2. 5 j 4 
 6 Isaiah xl. 11. 7 xlii. 3. « z e ch. ix. 9. 
 
CHARACTEK OF CHRIST. 
 
 29 
 
 his voice to be heard in the street. 1 He was oppressed 
 and afflicted, yet he opened not his month ; he was brought 
 as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her 
 shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth. 2 I gave 
 my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that 
 plucked off the hair ; I hid not my face from shame and 
 spitting. 3 The Lord God hath opened mine ear, and I was 
 not rebellious, neither turned away back. The Lord God 
 will help me, therefore shall I not be confounded ; therefore 
 have I set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall 
 not be ashamed." 4 How many virtues are thus repre- 
 sented in the prophecies, as characteristic of the Messiah ; 
 and how applicable are they all to Christ alone, and how 
 clearly embodied in his character! His wisdom and 
 knowledge — his speaking as never man spake — the gene- 
 ral meekness of his manner and mildness of his conversa- 
 tion — his perfect candour and unsullied purity — his right- 
 eousness — his kindness and compassion — his genuine 
 humility — his peaceable disposition — his unrepining pa- 
 tience — his invincible courage — his more than heroic 
 resolution, and more than human forbearance — his un- 
 faltering trust in God, and complete resignation to his 
 will, are all portrayed in the liveliest, the most affect- 
 ing, and expressive terms; and among all who ever 
 breathed the breath of life, they can be applied to Christ 
 alone. 5 
 
 Mahomet pretended to receive a divine warrant to sanc- 
 tion his past impurities, and to license his future crimes. 
 How different is the appeal of Jesus to earth and to heaven : 
 " If I do not the works of my Father believe me not. — 
 Search the Scriptures, for these are they which testify of 
 
 1 Isaiah xlii. 2. 2 liii. 7. 3 1. 6. 4 1. 5, 7. 
 
 5 See Barrow on the Creed, p. 19. 
 
30 
 
 NATURE OF THE 
 
 me." They did testify of the coming of a Messiah, and 
 of the superhuman excellence of his moral character. 
 And if the life of Jesus was wonderful and unparalleled of 
 itself, how miraculous does it appear, when all his actions 
 develope the predicted character of the promised Saviour ! 
 The internal and external evidences are here comhined at 
 once ; and while the life of Christ proved that he was a 
 righteous person, it proved also, as testified of by the 
 prophets, that he was the Son of God. 
 
 In describing the blessings of the reign of the Messiah, 
 the prophet Isaiah foretold the greatness and the benignity 
 of his miracles : — " The eyes of the blind shall be opened, 
 and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped : then shall 
 the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the 
 dumb sing." 1 The history of Jesus shows how such acts 
 of mercy formed the frequent exercise of his power : at his 
 word the blind received their sight, the lame walked, the 
 deaf heard, and the dumb spake. 2 
 
 The death of Christ was as unparalleled as his life : and 
 the prophecies are as minutely descriptive of his sufferings 
 as of his virtues. Not only did the paschal lamb which 
 was to be killed every year in all the families of Israel — 
 which was to be taken out of the flock, to be without 
 blemish — to be eaten with bitter herbs — to have its blood 
 sprinkled, and to be kept whole that not a bone of it 
 should be broken ; not only did the offering up of Isaac, 
 and the liftiDg up of the brazen serpent in the wilderness, 
 by looking upon which the people were healed, — and 
 many ritual observances of the Jews, — prefigure the man- 
 ner of Christ's death, and the sacrifice which was to be 
 made for sin; but many express declarations abound in 
 the prophecies, that Christ was indeed to suffer. Exclu- 
 1 Isaiah xxxv. 5, 6. 2 Matt. ix. 33; xi. 5. 
 
DEATH OF CHEIST. 
 
 31 
 
 sive of the repeated declarations in the Psalms/ of afflic- 
 tions which apply literally to him, and are interwoven with 
 allusions to the Messiah's kingdom, the prophet Daniel, 2 
 in limiting the time of his coming, directly affirms that 
 the Messiah was to he cut off ; and in the same manifest 
 allusion, Zechariah uses these emphatic words : " Awake, 
 0 sword, against my Shepherd, and against the man that 
 is my fellow, saith the Lord of Hosts : smite the Shep- 
 herd, and the sheep shall be scattered. I will pom upon 
 the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusa- 
 lem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication ; and they shall 
 look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall 
 mourn for him." 3 
 
 But Isaiah, who describes with eloquence worthy of a 
 prophet, the glories of the kingdom that was to come, cha- 
 racterizes, with the accuracy of a historian, the humiliation, 
 the trials, and the agonies which were to precede the triumphs 
 of the Eedeemer of a world ; and the history of Christ forms, 
 to the very letter, the commentary and the completion of 
 his every prediction. In a single passage, 4 — the connex- 
 ion of which is uninterrupted, its antiquity indisputable, 
 and its application obvious, — the sufferings of the servant 
 of God (who, under the same denomination, is previously 
 described as he who was to be the light of the Gentiles, 
 the salvation of God to the ends of the earth, and the 
 elect of God in whom his soul delighted,) 5 are so minutely 
 foretold that no illustration is requisite to show that they 
 testify of J esus. Of the multitude of parallel passages in 
 
 1 Psal. ii. xxii. 1, 0, 7, 16, 18; xxxv. 7, 11, 12; lxix. 20, 21; 
 cix. 2, 3, 5, 25; cxviii. 12. 
 
 2 Dan. ix. 26. 3 Zech. xiii. 7; xii. 10. 
 
 4 Isaiah lii. 13 — 15, and chap. liii. 5 Isaiah xlii. 1; xlix. 6. 
 
32 
 
 NATURE OF THE 
 
 the New Testament a few of the most obvious may be 
 here subjoined to the prophecy. 
 
 He is despised and rejected of men. " He came unto 
 his own, and his own received him not ; he had not where 
 to lay his head; they derided him." A man of sorrows, 
 and acquainted with grief Jesus wept at the grave of 
 Lazarus ; he mourned over Jerusalem ; he felt the ingra- 
 titude and the cruelty of men ; he bore the contradiction 
 of sinners against himself : and these are expressions of 
 sorrow which were peculiarly his own, " Father, if it be 
 possible let this cup pass from me ; but for this end came 
 I into the world. My God ! my God ! why hast thou 
 forsaken me?" We hid, as it were, our faces from him, 
 he was despised, and we esteemed him not. " All his 
 disciples forsook him and fled. Not this man but Barab- 
 bas ; now Barabbas was a robber. The soldiers mocked 
 him, and bowed the knee before him in derision." The 
 catalogue of his sufferings is continued in the words of the 
 prophecy : We did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, 
 and afflicted. He luas wounded, he was oppressed, he 
 was afflicted, he was brought as a lamb to the slaughter. 
 He was taken away by distress and by judgment. And 
 to this general description is united the detail of minuter 
 incidents, which fixes the fact of their application to Jesus. 
 He was cut off out of the land of the living. He was cru- 
 cified in the flower of his age. He made his grave (or 
 his grave was appointed) with the wicked, and with the 
 rich in his death. His grave was doubtless appointed 
 with the wicked, or the two thieves with whom he was 
 crucified, but Joseph of Arimathea, a rich man, went and 
 begged the body of Jesus, and laid it in his own new 
 tomb. He was numbered with the transgressors. Barab- 
 
DEATH OE CHRIST. 
 
 33 
 
 has was preferred before him. He was crucified between 
 two thieves ; and the Jews said unto Pilate, " If he were 
 not a malefactor, we would not have delivered him up 
 unto thee." His visage was so marred, more than any 
 man, and his form more than the sons of men, — without 
 any direct allusion made to it, but in literal fulfilment of 
 the prophecy — the bloody sweat, the traces of the crown 
 of thorns, his having been spitted on, and smitten on the 
 head, disfigured the face; — while the scourge, the nails 
 in his hands and in his feet, and the spear that pierced 
 his side, marred the form of Jesus more than that of 
 the sons of men. 
 
 That this circumstantial and continuous description of 
 the Messiah's sufferings might not admit of any ambiguity, 
 the dignity of his person, the incredulity of the J ews, the 
 innocence of the sufferer, the cause of his sufferings, and 
 his consequent exaltation, are all particularly marked, and 
 are equally applicable to the doctrine of the gospel. lie 
 shall he exalted and extolled, and be very high. Who 
 hath believed our report ? and to whom is the arm of the 
 Lord revealed ? For he shall grow up as a tender plant, 
 &c. The mean external condition of Christ is here as- 
 signed as the reason of the unbelief of the J ews, and it 
 was the very reason which they themselves assigned. 
 The prediction points out the procuring cause of his suf- 
 fering. He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sor- 
 rows. "Christ was once offered to bear the sins of 
 many." He was wounded for our transgressions, he was 
 bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace 
 was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. " His 
 own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that 
 we, being dead unto sin, should live unto righteousness ; 
 by whose stripes we are healed." All we, like sheep, have 
 
34: 
 
 NATURE OP THE 
 
 gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way ; 
 and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. 
 " All flesh have sinned ; ye were as sheep going astray, 
 hut ye are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop 
 of your souls." He hath done no violence; neither was 
 there any deceit in his mouth; Thou shalt make his soul 
 an offering for sin. " God made him to be sin for us, 
 who knew no sin." 
 
 The whole of this prophecy thus refers taf the Messiah. 
 It describes both his debasement and his dignity — his re- 
 jection by the Jews — his humility, his affliction, and his 
 agony — his magnanimity and his charity — how his words 
 were disbelieved — how his state was lowly — how his sor- 
 row was severe — how he opened not his mouth but to 
 make intercession for the transgressors. In diametrical 
 opposition to every dispensation of Providence which is 
 registered in the records of the J ews, it represents spot- 
 less innocence suffering by the appointment of Heaven, 
 death as the issue of perfect obedience, his righteous ser- 
 vant as forsaken of God, and one who was perfectly im- 
 maculate, bearing the chastisement of many guilty, — 
 sprinkling many nations from their iniquity, by virtue of 
 his sacrifice, — -justifying many by his knowledge, and 
 dividing a portion with the great, and the spoil with the 
 strong, because he hath poured out his soul in death. 
 This prophecy, therefore, simply as a prediction prior to 
 the event, renders the very unbelief of the Jews an 
 evidence against them, converts the scandal of the cross 
 into an argument in favour of Christianity, and presents 
 us with an epitome of the truth, a miniature of the gospel 
 in some of its most striking features. The simple expo- 
 sition of it sufficed at once for the conversion of the eunuch 
 of Ethiopia ; and, without the aid of an apostle, it can boast, 
 
DEATH OF CHKIST. 
 
 35 
 
 in more modern times, of a nobler trophy of its truth, in 
 a victory which it was mainly instrumental in obtaining 
 and securing, over the strongly-riveted prejudices and 
 long- tried infidelity of a man of genius and of rank, who 
 was one of the most abandoned, insidious, and successful 
 of the advocates of impurity, and of the enemies of the 
 Christian faith. 
 
 Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, 
 according to the Scriptures ; and thus the apostle testifies : 
 " Those things which God had showed by the mouth of 
 all the prophets, that Christ should suffer, he hath so 
 fulfilled." 
 
 That the Jews still retain these prophecies, and are 
 the means of preserving them, and communicating them 
 throughout the world, while they bear so strongly against 
 themselves, and testify so clearly of a Saviour that was first 
 to suffer, and then to be exalted, — are facts as indubit- 
 able as they are unaccountable, and give a confirmation 
 to the truth of Christianity, than which it is difficult to 
 conceive any stronger. The prophecies, as we have seen, 
 by a simple enumeration of a few of them that testify of 
 the sufferings of the Messiah, need no forced interpreta- 
 tion, but apply, in the plainest, simplest, and most literal 
 manner, to the history of the sufferings and of the death 
 of Christ. In the testimony of the Jews to the existence 
 of these prophecies long prior to the Christian era ; in 
 their remaining unaltered to this hour ; in the accounts 
 given by the evangelists, of the life and death of Christ ; 
 in the testimony of heathen authors, 2 which has been fre- 
 
 1 Burnet's Life of the Earl of Rochester, pp. 70, 71. 
 
 2 " Auctor nominis ejus Christus, Tiberio imperitante, per pro- 
 curatorem Pontium Pilatum supplicio adfectus erat." — Tacit. s 
 Annal. lib. xv. cap. xliv. 
 
36 
 
 THE MANNER OF 
 
 quently quoted but never refuted ; and in the arguments 
 of the first opposers of Christianity, from the mean con- 
 dition of its author, and the manner of his death ; we have 
 now greater evidence of the fulfilment of all these pro- 
 phecies, than could have been conceived possible at so 
 great a distance of time. 
 
 But the prophecies further present us with the charac- 
 ter of the gospel as well as of its Author, and with a 
 description of the extent of his kingdom as well as of his 
 sufferings. It was prophesied that the Messiah was to 
 reveal the will of God to man, and establish a new and 
 perfect religion: — "I will raise them up a prophet, — 
 and will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak 
 unto them all that I shall command him ; and it shall 
 come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my 
 words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it 
 of him. — Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; 
 and the government shah be upon his shoulder; and his 
 name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty 
 God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. Of 
 the increase of his government and peace there shall be 
 no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his king- 
 dom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and 
 with justice from henceforth, even for ever. The zeal of 
 the Lord of hosts will perform this. — There shall come 
 forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse ; — he shall not judge 
 after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hear- 
 ing of his ears ; but with righteousness shall he judge the 
 poor, and reprove with equity. — I the Lord have called 
 thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will 
 keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for 
 a light of the Gentiles, to open the blind eyes. — Incline 
 your ear and come unto me; hear, and your soul shall 
 
cueist's death. 
 
 37 
 
 live ; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, 
 even the sure mercies of David. Behold, I have given 
 him for a Avitness to the people, a leader and commander 
 to the people. — I will set up one shepherd over them, 
 and he shah feed them; and I will make with them a 
 covenant of peace, and it shall be an everlasting cove- 
 nant ; and I will set my sanctuary in the midst of them : 
 one king shah he king to them all ; neither shall they de- 
 file themselves any more with their idols. They shah 
 have one shepherd. They shah also walk in my judg- 
 ments, and my servant David shall be their prince for 
 ever. — Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will 
 make a new covenant ; — and this shah be the covenant 
 that I will make with the house of Israel; After these 
 days, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write 
 it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall 
 be my people : and they shall teach no more every man 
 his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know 
 the Lord ; for they shah all know me, from the least of 
 them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord; for I 
 wiU forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin 
 no more." 1 A future and perfect revelation of the Divine 
 will is thus explicitly foretold. That these promised bles- 
 sings were to extend beyond the confines of Judea, is 
 expressly and frequently predicted : — " It is a light thing 
 that thou shouldest be my servant, to raise up the tribes 
 of J acob, and to restore the preserved of Israel : I will 
 also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou 
 mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth. 2 " 
 While the prophecies which are descriptive of the glo- 
 
 1 Deut. xviii. 18, 19. Isa. ix. 6, 7 ; xi. 1, 3, 4 ; xlii. 6 ; lv. 3, 
 4. Ezek. xxxiv. 23, 25 ; xxxvii. 22-26. Jer. xxxi. 31, 33, 34. 
 
 2 Isa. xlix. 6 i lvi. 6-8. 
 
38 
 
 NATURE OF THE 
 
 ries of the reign of the Messiah refer to its universal ex- 
 tension, and to the final restoration of the Jews, they 
 detail and define, at the same time, the nature and the 
 blessings of the gospel ; and no better description or de- 
 finition could now be given of the doctrine of Christ, and 
 of the conditions which he hath proposed for the accep- 
 tance of man, than those very prophecies which were de- 
 livered many hundreds of years before he appeared in the 
 world. The gospel, as the name itself signifies, denotes 
 glad tidings. Christ himself invited those who were 
 weary and heavy-laden to come unto him that they might 
 find rest unto their souls. He was the messenger of 
 peace. He came, as he professed, to offer a sacrifice for 
 the sins of the world, and to reveal the will of God to 
 man. He published the gospel of the grace of God. 
 His word is still that of reconciliation, his law that of 
 love ; and all the duty he has prescribed tends to qualify 
 man for spiritual and eternal felicity, for this is the sum 
 and the object of it all. What more could have been 
 given, and what less could have been required? In simi- 
 lar terms do the prophecies of old describe the new law 
 that was to be revealed, and the advent of the Saviour 
 that was to come: — "Kejoice greatly, 0 daughter of 
 Zion ; shout, 0 daughter of Jerusalem ; behold, thy king 
 cometh unto thee. — How beautiful upon the mountains 
 are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings of good, 
 that publisheth salvation 1 . — The Spirit of the Lord God 
 is upon me, because the Lord hath anointed me to preach 
 good tidings unto the meek : he hath sent me to bind up 
 the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, 
 to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." 2 Having 
 read these words out of the law, in the synagogue, Jesus 
 1 Isa. lii. 7. 2 Isa. lxi. 1. 
 
CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 
 
 39 
 
 said, "This day is this Scripture fulfilled." He was a 
 teacher of righteousness and of peace, and in him alone 
 it could have heen fulfilled. The same character of joy, 
 indicative of the kingdom of the Messiah, is also given hy 
 different prophets. He was to finish transgression, to 
 make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for ini- 
 quity; to sprinkle clean water upon the people of God, 
 to sprinkle many nations, to save them from their unclean- 
 ness, and to open a fountain for sin and for uncleanness. 
 " Let the wicked forsake his ways, and the unrighteous 
 man his thoughts; and let him return unto the Lord, 
 and he will have mercy upon him. I will forgive their 
 iniquity, and remember their sins no more." The Mes- 
 siah was to be anointed to comfort all that mourn, to ap- 
 point unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them 
 beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and the 
 garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. 1 And in the 
 gospel of peace these promised blessings are realized to all 
 who believe, and to whom he is precious. We now see what 
 many prophets and wise men did desire in vain to see. 
 The Christian religion has indeed been sadly perverted 
 and corrupted, and its corruptions are the subjects of pro- 
 phecy. Bigotry has often tarnished and obscured all its 
 benignity. Its lovely form has been shrouded in a mask 
 of superstition, of tyranny, and of murder. But the re- 
 ligion of Jesus, pure from the hps of its author and the 
 pen of his apostles, is calculated to diffuse universal hap- 
 piness; tends effectually to promote the moral culture 
 and the civilization of humanity; ameliorates the condi- 
 tion and perfects the nature of man. It is a doctrine of 
 righteousness, a perfect rule of duty : it abolishes idola- 
 try, and teaches all to worship God only : it is full of pro- 
 1 Dan. ix. 24. Isa. lv. 7. Jer. xxxi. 34. Isaiah lxi. 2, 3. 
 
40 
 
 NATURE OF THE 
 
 mises to all who obey it : it reveals the method of recon- 
 ciliation for iniquity, and imparts the means to obtain it : 
 it is good tidings to the meek : it binds up the broken- 
 hearted, and presents to us the oil of joy for mourning, 
 and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, or 
 the most perfect system of consolation, under all the evils 
 of life, that can be conceived by man. For the confir- 
 mation of all these prophecies concerning it, we stand not 
 in need of Jewish testimony, or that of the primitive 
 Christians, or of any testimony whatever. It is a matter 
 of experience and of fact. The doctrine of the gospel is 
 in complete accordance with the predictions respecting it. 
 When we compare it with any impure, degrading, vicious, 
 and cruel system of religion that existed in the world when 
 these prophecies were delivered, its superiority must be 
 apparent, and its unrivalled excellence must be acknow- 
 ledged. Deities were then worshipped whose vices 
 disgraced human nature; and even impiety could not 
 institute a comparison between them and the God of 
 Christians. Idolatry was universally prevalent, and men 
 knew not a higher homage than bowing down in adora- 
 tion to stocks and stones, and sometimes even to the 
 beasts. Sacrifices were everywhere offered up, and human 
 victims often bled, when the doctrine of reconciliation for 
 iniquity was unknown. And we have only to look be- 
 yond the boundaries of Christianity, — to Ashantee, or to 
 India, or to China, — to behold the most revolting of spec- 
 tacles in the religious rites and practices of man. Re- 
 garding the superiority of the Christian religion only as a 
 subject of prophecy, the assent can hardly be withheld, 
 that the prophecies concerning its excellence, and the 
 blessings which it imparts, have been amply verified by 
 the peace- speaking gospel of Jesus. 
 
CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 
 
 But, in ascertaining trie accomplishment of ancient pre- 
 dictions, in evidence of tire truth, the unbeliever is not 
 solicited to relinquish one iota of his scepticism in any 
 matter that can possibly admit of a reasonable doubt. For 
 there are many prophecies, of the truth of which every 
 Christian is a witness, and to the fulfilment of which the 
 testimony even of infidels must be borne. That the gos- 
 pel emanated from Jerusalem ; that it was rejected by a 
 great proportion of the Jews ; that it was opposed at first 
 by human power ; that idolatry has been overthrown be- 
 fore it; that kings have become subject to it and sup- 
 ported it ; that it has already continued for many ages, 
 and that it has been propagated throughout many coun- 
 tries, are facts clearly foretold and literally fulfilled. Ee- 
 joice greatly, 0 daughter of Zion; shout, 0 daughter of 
 Jerusalem; behold, thy king cometh unto thee: he is 
 just and having salvation ; lowly and riding upon an ass, 
 and upon a colt the foal of an ass. And I will cut off 
 the chariot from Ephraim, and the horse from Jerusa- 
 lem, and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall 
 speak peace unto the heathen, and his dominion shall be 
 from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the 
 earth. 1 He shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of 
 stumbling, and for a rock of offence, to both the houses 
 of Israel ; for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of 
 Jerusalem. The kings of the earth set themselves, and 
 the rulers take counsel together against the Lord, and 
 against his Anointed. 2 In like manner, Christ fre- 
 quently foretold the persecution that awaited his follow- 
 ers, and the final success of the gospel, in defiance of all 
 opposition. 3 " The Lord alone shall be exalted in that 
 
 i Zech. ix. 9, 10. 2 Isa. viii. 14. Psal. ii. 2. 
 
 3 Matt. x. 17 ; xvi. 18 ; xxiv. 14 ; xxviii. 19. 
 
4:2 
 
 PROPAGATION AND EXTENT 
 
 day, and the idols lie shall utterly aholish ; — from all 
 your idols will I cleanse you ; — I will cut off the names of 
 the idols out of the land, and they shall no more be re- 
 membered. 1 To a servant of rulers, kings shall see and 
 arise, princes also shall worship. The Gentiles shall 
 come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy 
 rising. Kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their 
 queens thy nursing mothers. 2 The Gentiles shall see thy 
 righteousness : — a people that knew me not shall be cal- 
 led after my name. In that day there shall be a root of 
 Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people ; to 
 it shall the Gentiles seek. I will make an everlasting 
 covenant with you. Behold, thou shalt call a nation that 
 thou knowest not ; and nations that knew not thee shall 
 run unto thee." 3 
 
 At the time the prophecies were delivered, there was 
 not a vestige in the world of that spiritual kingdom and 
 pure religion winch they unequivocally represent as des- 
 tined to extend in succeeding ages, not only throughout 
 the narrow bounds of the land of Judea, and those coun- 
 tries which alone the prophets knew, but over the Gen- 
 tile nations also, even to the uttermost ends of the earth. 
 None are now ignorant of the facts, that a system of re- 
 ligion which inculcates piety, and purity, and love, — 
 which releases man from every burdensome rite, and 
 every barbarous institution, and proffers the greatest of 
 blessings, — arose from the land of Judea, from among a 
 people who are proverbially the most selfish and worldly- 
 minded of any nation upon earth ; — that, though perse- 
 cuted at first, and rejected by the Jews, it has spread 
 throughout many nations, and extended to those who 
 
 1 Isa. ii. 17, 18 j Ezek. xxxvi. 25. Zech. xiii. 2. 
 
 2 Isa. xlix. 7, 23; lx. 3. 3 i sa , j xiii 2; xi. 10; lv. 3, 5. 
 
OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 4:3 
 
 were far distant from the scene of its origin ; and that it 
 freely invites all to partake of its privileges, and makes 
 no distinction between barbarian, Scythian, bond or free. 
 A Latin poet, who lived at the commencement of the 
 Christian era, speaks of the barbarous Britons as almost 
 divided from the whole world ; and yet although far more 
 distant from the land of Judea than from Eome, the law 
 which hath come out from Jerusalem hath taken, by its in- 
 fluence, the name of barbarous from Britain ; and in our 
 distant "isle of the Gentiles" are the prophecies fulfilled, 
 that the kingdom of the Messiah, or knowledge of the 
 gospel, would extend to the uttermost part of the earth. 
 And in the present day, we can look from one distant isle 
 of the Gentiles to another, — from the northern to the 
 southern ocean, or from one extremity of the globe to an- 
 other, — and behold the extinction of idolatry, and the 
 abolition of every barbarous and cruel rite, by the humani- 
 zing influence of the gospel. But it was at a time when 
 no divine light dawned upon the world, save obscurely on 
 the land of Judea alone ; when all the surrounding na- 
 tions, in respect to religious knowledge, were involved in 
 thick darkness, gross superstition, and blind idolatry; 
 when men made unto themselves gods of corruptible 
 things ; when those mortals were deified, after their death, 
 who had been subject to the greatest vices, and who had 
 been the oppressors of their fellow-men ; when the most 
 shocking rites were practised as acts of religion ; when 
 the most enlightened among the nations of the earth 
 erected an altar to the " unknown God," and set no limit 
 to the number of their deities ; when one of the greatest 
 of the heathen philosophers, and the best of their moralists, 
 despairing of the clear discovery of the truth by human 
 means, could merely express a wish for a divine revela- 
 
44 PBOPAGATION AND EXTENT 
 
 tion, as the only safe and certain guide; 1 when slaves 
 were far more numerous than freemen even where liberty 
 prevailed the most ; and when there was no earthly hope 
 of redemption from temporal bondage or spiritual slavery ; 
 — even at such a time the voice of prophecy was uplifted 
 in the land of Judea, and it spoke of a brighter day that 
 was to dawn upon the world. It was indeed a light shin- 
 ing in a dark place. And from whence could that light 
 have emanated but from heaven? A Messiah was pro- 
 mised, a prince of peace was to appear, a stone was to be 
 cut without hands, that should break in pieces and con- 
 sume all other kingdoms. And the spiritual reign of a 
 Saviour is foretold in terms that define its duration and 
 extent, as well as describe its nature : — " I shall see him, 
 but not now; I shall behold him, but not nigh. — His 
 name shall endure for ever ; his name shall be continued 
 as long as the sun ; and men shall be blessed in him : all 
 nations shall call him blessed. He shall have dominion 
 from sea to sea ; and from the river unto the ends of the 
 earth. Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for 
 thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth 
 for thy possession. All the ends of the world shall re- 
 member and turn unto the Lord ; and all the kindreds of 
 the nations shall worship before thee. 2 I will give thee 
 for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my sal- 
 vation unto the end of the earth. The glory of the Lord 
 shall be revealed; and all flesh shall see it together; for 
 the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. 3 The Lord hath 
 made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations. 
 He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till he have set 
 
 1 Plato in Phosdone et in Alcibiade ii. 
 
 2 Numb. xxiv. 17; Psal. lxxii. 17, 8; ii. 8; xxii. 27. 
 
 3 Isa. xlix. 6; xl. 5. 
 
OF CHEISTIANITY. 
 
 4:5 
 
 judgment in the earth; and the isles shall wait for his 
 law.i He will destroy in this mountain the face of the 
 covering cast over all people, and the vail that is spread 
 over all nations. 2 I am sought of them that asked 
 not for me; I am found of them that sought me 
 not : I said, Behold me, hehold me, unto a nation that 
 was not called hy my name. 3 " It shall come to pass, 
 in the last days," say both Isaiah and Micah in the same 
 words, " that the mountain of the Lord's house shall he 
 established in the top of the mountains, and shall be ex- 
 alted above the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it. 4 
 In the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my 
 people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons 
 of the living God. 5 The abundance of the sea shall be 
 converted unto thee, the forces of the Gentiles shall come 
 unto thee. 6 Sing, 0 barren, thou that didst not bear ; 
 break forth into singing, and cry aloud — for more are the 
 children of the desolate than the children of the mar- 
 ried wife. Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them 
 stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations : spare not, 
 lengthen thy cords — for thou shalt break forth on the right 
 hand and on the left, and thy seed shall inherit the Gen- 
 tiles : for thy Maker is thine husband : the Lord of hosts 
 is his name — the God of the whole earth shall he be 
 called. 7 The wilderness and the solitary place shall be 
 glad; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the 
 rose. 8 
 
 These prophecies all refer to the extent of the Mes- 
 siah's kingdom ; and clear and copious though they be, 
 they form but a small number of the predictions of the 
 
 i Isa. lii. 10; xlii. 4. 
 
 4 Isa. ii. 2.; Micah iv. 1. 
 
 7 Isa. liv. 1-3, 5. 
 
 2 Isa. xxv. 7. 
 5 Hosea i. 10. 
 8 Isa. xxxv. 1. 
 
 3 Isa. lxv. 1. 
 6 Isa. lx. 5. 
 
46 
 
 PROPAGATION AND EXTENT 
 
 same auspicious import: — and we have not merely to 
 consider what part of them may yet remain to he fulfil- 
 led, hut how much has already heen accomplished, of 
 which no surmise could have heen formed, and of which 
 all the wisdom of short-sighted mortals could not have 
 warranted a thought. All of them were delivered many 
 ages hefore the existence of that religion whose progress 
 they minutely describe ; and, when we compare the pre- 
 sent state of any country where the gospel is professed in 
 its purity, with its state at that period when the Sun of 
 righteousness began to arise upon it, we see light pervad- 
 ing the region of darkness, and ignorance and barbarism 
 yielding to knowledge and moral cultivation. In opposi- 
 tion to all human probability, and to human wisdom and 
 power, the gospel of Jesus, propagated at first by a few 
 fishermen of Galilee, has razed every heathen temple 
 from its foundation, has overthrown before it every impure 
 altar, has displaced, from every palace and every cottage 
 which it has reached, the worship of every false god ; the 
 whole civilized world acknowledges its authority ; it has 
 prevailed from the first to the last in defiance of persecu- 
 tion, of opposition the most powerful and violent, of the 
 direct attacks of avowed, and the insidious designs of 
 disguised enemies ; — and combating, as it ever has been 
 combating, with all the evil passions of men that impel 
 them to resist or pervert it, the lapse of eighteen centu- 
 ries confirms every ancient prediction, and verifies to this 
 hour the declaration of its Author,—" the gates of hell 
 shall not prevail against it." How is it possible that it 
 could have been conceived that such a religion would have 
 been characterized in all its parts — would have been in- 
 stituted — opposed — established — propagated throughout 
 the world — embraced by so many nations— protected at 
 
OF CHEISTIANITY. 
 
 47 
 
 last by princes and kings — and received as the rule of 
 faith and the will of God? How could all these things, 
 and many more respecting it, have been foretold, as they 
 unquestionably were, many centuries before the Author of 
 Christianity appeared, if these prophecies be not an attes- 
 tation from on high that every prediction and its comple- 
 tion is the work of God and not of man? What uninspir- 
 ed mortal could have described the nature, the effect, and 
 the progress of the Christian religion, when none could 
 have entertained an idea of its existence ? For paganism 
 consisted in external rites and cruel sacrifices, and in 
 pretended mysteries. Its toleration, indeed, has been 
 commended, and not undeservedly; for in religion, it 
 tolerated whatever was absurd and impious, in morals it 
 tolerated all that was impure and almost all that was 
 vicious. But the Jewish prophets, when the world was 
 in darkness, and could supply no light to lead them to 
 such knowledge, predicted the rise of a religion which 
 could boast of no such toleration, but which was to reveal 
 the will and inculcate the worship of the one living and 
 true God; which was to consist in moral obedience, to 
 enjoin reformation of life and purity of heart, to abolish 
 all sacrifice by revealing a better mean of reconciliation 
 for iniquity, to be understood by all from the simplicity of 
 its precepts, and to tolerate no manner of evil ; a religion 
 in every respect the reverse of paganism, and of which 
 they could not have been furnished with any semblance 
 upon earth. They saw nothing among the surrounding 
 nations but the worship of a multiplicity of deities and of 
 idols ; if they had traversed the whole world they would 
 have witnessed only the same spiritual degradation, and 
 yet they predicted the final abolition and extinction both 
 -of polytheism and of idolatry. The Jewish dispensation 
 
48 
 
 PROPAGATION AND EXTENT 
 
 was local, and Jews prophesied of a religion begin- 
 ning from Jerusalem, which was to extend to the utter- 
 most parts of the earth. So utterly unlikely and incre- 
 dible were the prophecies either to have been foretold by 
 human wisdom, or to have been fulfilled by human power ; 
 and when both these wonders are united, they convey an 
 assurance of the truth. As a matter of history, the pro- 
 gress of Christianity is at least astonishing ; as the fulfil- 
 ment of many prophecies, it is evidently miraculous. 1 
 
 The predicted success and extension of the gospel is 
 not less obvious in the New Testament than in the Old. 
 A single instance may suffice : — " I saw another angel 
 fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel 
 to preach to them that dwell upon the earth, and to every 
 nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people." These 
 are the words of a banished man, secluded in a small 
 island from which he could not remove ; a believer in a 
 new religion every where spoken against and persecuted. 
 They were uttered at a time when their truth could not 
 possibly have been realised to the degree in which it ac- 
 tually is at present, even if all human power had been 
 combined for extending, instead of extinguishing the 
 gospel. The diffusion of knowledge was then extremely 
 difficult; the art of printing was then unknown; and 
 
 1 "Were it even to be conceded, as it never will in reason be, 
 that the causes assigned by Gibbon for the rapid extension of 
 Christianity were adequate and true, one difficulty, great as it is, 
 would only be removed for the substitution of a greater. For 
 what human ingenuity, though gifted with the utmost reach of 
 discrimination, can ever attempt the solution of the question, how 
 were all these occult causes, (for hidden they must then have been,) 
 which the genius of Gibbon first discovered, foreseen, their com- 
 bination known, and all their wonderful effects distinctly described 
 for many centuries prior to their existence, or to the commence- 
 ment of the period of their alleged operation 1 
 
OF CHEISTIANITY. 
 
 49 
 
 many countries which the gospel has now reached, were 
 then undiscovered. And, multiplied as books now are, 
 
 more than at any former period of the history of man, 
 
 extensive as the range of commerce is, beyond what Tyre, 
 or Carthage, or Kome could have ever boasted,— the 
 dissemination of the Scriptures surpasses both the one and 
 the other : — they have penetrated regions unknown to any 
 work of human genius, and untouched even by the ardour 
 of commercial speculation; and, with the prescription of 
 more than seventeen centuries in its favour, the prophecy 
 of the poor prisoner of Patmos is now exemplified, and thus 
 proved to be more than a mortal vision, in the unexampled 
 communication of the everlasting gospel unto them that 
 dwell on the earth, to every nation, and kindred, and 
 tongue, and people. Christianity, is professed over Europe 
 and America. Christians are settled throughout every 
 part of the earth. The gospel is now translated into one 
 hundred and fifty languages and dialects, which are pre- 
 valent in countries from the one extremity of the world to 
 the other : and what other book, since the creation, has 
 ever been read or known in a tenth part of the number ? 
 Whatever may be the secondary causes by which these 
 events have been accomplished, or whatever may be the 
 opinion of men respecting them, the predictions which 
 they amply verify must have originated by inspiration from 
 him who is the first Great Cause. What divine warrant, 
 equal to this alone, can all the speculations of infidelity 
 supply, or can any freethinker produce, for disbelieving 
 the gospel ? 
 
 It is apparent, on a general view of the prophecies 
 which refer to Christ and the Christian religion, that they 
 include predictions relative to many of the doctrines of 
 the gospel which are subjects of pure revelation, or which 
 
 E 
 
50 
 
 PKOPAGATION AND EXTENT 
 
 reason of itself could never have discovered; and these 
 very doctrines, to which the self-sufficiency of human 
 wisdom is often averse to yield assent, are thus to be 
 numbered, in this respect, among the criterions of the 
 truth of divine revelation ; for if these doctrines had not 
 been contained in Scripture, the prophecies respecting 
 them could not have been fulfilled. And the more won- 
 derful they appear, they were by so much the more un- 
 likely or inconceivable to have been foretold by man, 
 and to have been afterwards embodied in a system of re- 
 ligion. 
 
 It is also evident that there are many prophecies appli- 
 cable to Jesus, to which no allusion is made in the history 
 of his life . The minds of his disciples were long impressed 
 with the prejudices, arising from the lowliness of his mor- 
 tal state, which were prevalent among the Jews ; and they 
 viewed the prophecies through the mist of those traditions 
 which had magnified the earthly power to which alone 
 they looked, and obscured the divine nature of the ex- 
 pected reign of the Messiah. It was only after the re- 
 surrection of Christ, as the Scriptures inform us, that 
 their understandings were opened to know the prophecies. 
 But while the accomplishment of many of these predic- 
 tions is thus unnoticed in the new Testament, the fulfil- 
 ment of each and all of them is written, as with a pen of 
 iron, in the life and doctrine and death of Jesus ; — and 
 the undesigned and unsuspicious proof, thus indirectly but 
 amply given, is now stronger than if an appeal had been 
 made to the prophecies in every instance; — and, freed 
 from the prejudices of the Jews, we may now combine 
 and compare all the antecedent prophecies respecting the 
 Messiah with the narrative of the New Testament, and 
 with the nature and history of Christianity ; and having 
 
OP CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 51 
 
 seen how the former, in all that has already been fulfilled, 
 is a transcript of the latter, we may draw the legitimate 
 conclusion, that the spirit of prophecy is indeed the tes- 
 timony of Jesus. 
 
 And may it not, on a review of the whole, be warrant- 
 ably asserted, that the time and the place of the birth of 
 Christ, the tribe and the family from which he was de- 
 scended, the manner of his life, his character, his miracles, 
 his sufferings and his death — the nature of Ms doctrine — 
 and the fate of his religion, that it was to proceed from 
 Jerusalem, that the Jews would reject it, that it would 
 be opposed and persecuted at first, that it would be ex- 
 tended to the Gentiles, that idolatry would give way be- 
 fore it, that kings would submit to its authority, and that 
 it would be spread throughout many nations, even to the 
 most distant parts of the earth, — were all of them subjects 
 of ancient prophecy? 
 
 Why, then, were so many prophecies delivered? Why, 
 from the calling of Abraham to the present time, have 
 the Jews been separated, as a peculiar people, from all 
 the nations of the earth? Why, from the age of Moses 
 to that of Malachi, during the space of one thousand 
 years, did a succession of prophets arise, all testifying of 
 a Saviour that was to come? Why was the book of 
 prophecy sealed for nearly four hundred years before the 
 coming of Christ? Why is there still, to this day, undis- 
 puted if not miraculous evidence of the antiquity of all 
 these prophecies, by their being sacredly preserved in 
 every age, in the custody and guardianship of the 
 enemies of Christianity? Why was such a multipli- 
 city of facts predicted that are applicable to Christ and 
 to him alone? Why, but that all this mighty prepara- 
 tion might usher in the gospel of Eighteousness ; and 
 
52 PROPAGATION AND EXTENT OP CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 that, like all the works of the Almighty, his word through 
 Jesus Christ might never he left without a witness of his 
 wisdom and his power. And if the prophecies which 
 testify of the gospel and of its Author display, from the 
 slight glance which has here been given of them, any 
 traces of the finger of God, how strong must he the con- 
 viction which a full view of them imparts to the minds 
 of those who diligently search the Scriptures, and see 
 how clearly they testify of Christ! 
 
DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 
 
 53 
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 PROPHECIES CONCERNING THE DESTRUCTION OF 
 JERUSALEM. 
 
 The commonwealth of Israel, from its establishment to 
 its dissolution, subsisted for more than fifteen hundred 
 years. In delivering their law, Moses assumed more 
 than the authority of a human legislator, and asserted 
 that he was invested with a divine commission ; and in en- 
 joining obedience to it, after having conducted them to 
 the borders of Canaan, he promises many blessings to 
 accompany their compliance with the law, and denounces 
 grievous judgments that would overtake them for the 
 breach of it. The history of the Jews in each succeed- 
 ing age, attests the truth of the last prophetic warning of 
 the first of their rulers ; but too lengthened a detail would 
 be requisite for its elucidation. Happily, it contains pre- 
 dictions, applicable to more recent events, which admit 
 not of any ambiguous interpretation, and refer to historical 
 facts that admit no cavil. He who founded their govern- 
 ment, foretold, notwithstanding the intervention of so many 
 ages, the manner of its overthrow. While they were wan- 
 dering in the wilderness, without a city, and without a 
 home, he threatened them with the destruction of their 
 cities, and the devastation of their country. While they 
 viewed, for the first time, the land of Palestine, and when 
 victorious and triumphant they were about to possess it, 
 
54 
 
 DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM, 
 
 he represented the scene of desolation that it would exhi- 
 bit to their vanquished and enslaved posterity, on their last 
 departure from it. Ere they themselves had entered it as 
 enemies, he describes those enemies by whom their de- 
 scendants were to be subjugated and dispossessed, though 
 they were to arise from a very distant region, and although 
 they did not appear till after a millenary and a half of 
 years : " The Lord shall bring a nation against thee from 
 lar, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flieth; 
 a nation whose tongue thou shalt not understand ; a nation 
 of fierce countenance, which shall not regard the person of 
 the old, nor show favour to the young. And he shall eat 
 the fruit of thy cattle, and the fruit of thy land, until thou 
 be destroyed : which also shall not leave thee either corn, 
 wine, or oil, or the increase of thy kine, or flocks of thy 
 sheep, until he have destroyed thee ; and he shall besiege 
 thee in all thy gates, until thy high and fenced walls come 
 down, wherein thou trustedst, throughout all thy land." 1 
 Each particular of this prophecy, though it be only in- 
 troductory to others, has met its full completion. The 
 remote situation of the Eomans, the rapidity of their 
 march, the very emblem of their arms, their unknown 
 language and warlike appearance, the indiscriminate cruel- 
 ty and unsparing pillage which they exercised towards the 
 persons and the property of the Jews, could scarcely have 
 been represented in more descriptive terms. 2 Vespasian, 
 Adrian, and Julius Severus, removed with part of their 
 armies from Britain to Palestine, the extreme points of 
 the Eoman world. The eagle was the standard of their 
 armies, and the utmost activity and expedition were dis- 
 played in the reduction of Judea. They were a nation 
 
 1 Deut. xxviii. 49-52. 
 
 2 See Jackson, Poole, Patrick, Whiston, Bishop Newton, &c. 
 
DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 
 
 55 
 
 of fierce countenance, a race distinct from the effeminate 
 Asiatic troops. At Gadara and Gamala, throughout 
 many parts of the Eoman empire, and, in repeated in- 
 stances, at Jerusalem itself, the slaughter of the Jews was 
 indiscriminate, without distinction of age or sex. The 
 inhabitants were enslaved and banished, all their posses- 
 sions confiscated, and the kingdom of Israel, humbled at 
 first into a province of the Eoman empire, became at last 
 the private property of the emperor. Throughout all the 
 land of Judea every city was besieged and taken ; and 
 their high and fenced walls were razed from the founda- 
 tion. But the prophet particularizes incidents the most 
 shocking to humanity, which mark the utmost possible 
 extremity of want and wretchedness ; the last act to which 
 famine could prompt despair, and the last subject of a 
 prediction that could have been uttered by man : " And 
 thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy 
 sons and of thy daughters, — in the siege and in the strait- 
 ness wherewith thine enemies shall distress thee ; so that 
 the man that is tender among you, and very delicate, his 
 eye shall be evil toward his brother, and toward the wife 
 of his bosom, and toward the remnant of his children 
 whom he shall leave, so that he will not give to any 
 of them of the flesh of his children, whom he shall 
 eat, because he hath nothing left him in the siege, 
 and in the straitness, wherewith thine enemies shall dis- 
 tress thee in all thy gates. The tender and delicate 
 woman among you, which would not adventure to set 
 the sole of her foot upon the ground for delicateness 
 and tenderness, her eye shall be evil toward the husband 
 of her bosom, and toward her son, and toward her daugh- 
 ter, and toward her young one, and toward her children 
 which she shall bear : for she shall eat them for want of 
 
56 
 
 DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 
 
 all things secretly in the siege and straitness wherewith 
 thine enemy shall distress thee in thy gates." 1 No com- 
 mentator, nor careful reader of Scripture and of Jewish 
 history, could fail to observe the repeated instances of the 
 fulfilment of this striking and awful prediction. When 
 Samaria, then the capital of Israel, was besieged by all 
 the hosts of the king of Syria, an ass's head was sold for 
 eighty pieces of silver. 2 When Nebuchadnezzar besieg- 
 ed J erusalem, the famine prevailed in the city, and there 
 was no bread for the people of the land. And Josephus, 
 in his history of the Jewish war, relates the direful cala- 
 mities of the Jews in their last siege, before they ceased 
 to have a city. The famine was too powerful for all 
 other passions, for what was otherwise reverenced was in 
 tins case despised. Children snatched the food out of 
 the very mouths of their fathers ; and even mothers, over- 
 coming the tenderest feelings of nature, took from their 
 perishing infants the last morsels that could sustain their 
 lives. — In every house where there was the least shadoAV 
 of food, a contest arose ; and the nearest relatives struo-- 
 gled with each other for the miserable means of subsis- 
 tence. 3 He adds a most revolting detail. 4 While, in all 
 these cases, the eye of man was thus evil towards his 
 brother, in the siege and in the straitness wherewith their 
 enemies distressed them — the unparalleled inhuman com- 
 pact between the two women of Samaria; the bitter 
 lamentation of Jeremiah over the miseries of the siege 
 which he witnessed, " The hands of the pitiful women 
 have sodden their own children, they were their meat in 
 
 1 Deut. xxviii. 53-57. 2 2 Kings vi. 25. 
 
 3 Joseph. Hist. lib. v. c. x. § 3.— lib. vi. c. iii. § 3. Quoted by 
 Eusebius, a. d. 315. Ecc. Hist. lib. iii. c. vi. p. 95, 97. Patrick, &c. 
 
 4 Joseph, ibid. vi. c. iii. § 4. 
 
DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 
 
 57 
 
 the destruction of the daughter of my people;" and the 
 harrowing recital, by Josephus, of the noble lady killing, 
 with her own hands, and eating secretly, her own suck- 
 ling (the discovery of which struck even the whole suffer- 
 ing city with horror,) which are all recorded as facts, 
 without the least allusion to the prediction, — too faith- 
 fully realize, to the very letter, the dread denunciations 
 of the prophet. When any well-authenticated facts, of 
 so singular and appalling a nature, were predicted for 
 ages, they could not possibly have been revealed but by 
 inspiration from that Omniscience which alone can fore- 
 see the termination of the iniquities of nations. 
 
 Moses, and the other prophets, foretold also that the 
 Jews would be left few in number, that they would be 
 slain before their enemies, that the pride of then power 
 would be broken, that their cities would be laid waste, 
 that they would be destroyed and brought to nought, 
 plucked from off the land, sold for slaves, and that none 
 Avould buy them, — that their high places were to be de- 
 solate, and their bones to be scattered around their al- 
 tars, — that Jerusalem was to be encamped round about, 
 to be besieged with a mount, to have forts raised against 
 it, to be ploughed over as a field, and to become heaps, — 
 that the end was to come upon it; and that the Lord 
 would judge them according to their ways, and recom- 
 pense them for all their abominations; the sword with- 
 out, and the pestilence and the famine within : " he that 
 is in the field shall die with the sword ; and he that is in 
 the city, famine and pestilence shall devour him." 1 
 
 These predictions, which are recorded in the Penta- 
 teuch, and in the subsequent prophecies, accord with the 
 
 1 Lev. xxvi. 30, &c. Dent, xxviii. 62, &c. Isa. xxiv. 3. Ezek. 
 vi. 5. Micah iii. 12. Jer. xxvi. 18. Ezek. vii. 7-9, 15. 
 
58 
 
 DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 
 
 minute prophetic narrative which Jesus gave of the siege 
 and destruction of Jerusalem. Any adequate delinea- 
 tion of it alone would far surpass the limits of this treatise. 
 But the subject has been fully and frequently illustrated, 
 and the prediction harmonizes so completely with the un- 
 impeachable testimony of impartial historians, that it is 
 merely necessary, for the elucidation of its truth, to com- 
 pare the prophetic description with the historical fact. 1 
 
 1 " The particular parts of the whole discourse have been ad- 
 mirably illustrated by many learned commentators. Christian 
 writers have always, with great reason, represented Josephus's 
 History of the Jewish War, as the best commentary on this chap- 
 ter, (Matt, xxiv.) and many have justly remarked it, as a wonder- 
 ful instance of the care of Providence for the Christian church, 
 that he, an eye witness of these things, and of so great credit, 
 should (especially in such an extraordinary manner) be preser- 
 ved, to transmit to us a collection of important facts, which so 
 exactly illustrate this noble prophecy in almost every circum- 
 stance." — (Doddridge s Family Expositor, vol. ii. p. 373; second 
 edition, 1745.) No author, perhaps, has been more frequently 
 quoted on any subject than Josephus on this; his History of the 
 Wars of the Romans with the Jews having been for many ages the 
 common property of the Christian church, in illustration of the 
 prophecies concerning the destruction of Jerusalem. These pro- 
 phecies were quoted and illustrated by Eusebius above 1500 years 
 ago, lib. iv. c. v. — ix. p. 92 — 102, edit. Cantab. 1720. After giv- 
 ing a tragic summary, from the 5th and 6th books of Josephus's 
 history, of the miseries sustained from famine during the siege, he 
 emphatically and justly states, that if any one compares the words 
 of Christ with Josephus's narrative of the whole war, he cannot 
 but admire the wonderful prescience and prophecy of Christ, and 
 confess they were truly divine and exceedingly wonderful. So 
 fully and frequently has the subject been illustrated, as stated in 
 every edition of this treatise, that any ' studious Christian,' at all 
 versant in the subject, could be at no loss to form, from the works 
 of various writers in past ages, a volume of coincident illustrations 
 of the same predictions from the same authorities. It may here 
 suffice to mention the names of Eusebius, Grotius, Tillemont, 
 
DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 
 
 59 
 
 Besides frequent allusions, in his discourses and para- 
 bles/ the predictions of Christ, concerning Jerusalem, are 
 recorded at length by three of the evangelists. They are 
 omitted by the apostle John, in whose writings alone, 
 from the age to which he lived, their insertion could have 
 been suspicious. They were delivered to the disciples of 
 Christ in answer to those direct questions which they put, 
 in their surprise and alarm, at his declaration of the fate 
 of the temple, " When shall these things be? What shall 
 be the sign of them, and of the end of the world?" The 
 reply embraces all the subjects of the query, and is 
 equally circumstantial and distinct. The death of Christ 
 happened thirty-seven years previous to the destruction 
 of Jerusalem. By the unanimous testimony of antiquity, 
 the three gospels were published, and at least two of the 
 evangelists were dead, several years before that event. 
 Copies of the gospels were disseminated so extensively 
 and rapidly, that any deceit must have been instanta- 
 neously detected by the powerful, and numerous, and 
 watchful enemies of the cross. And the evidence of the 
 prior publicity of the gospels was so strong, that it re- 
 mained unchallenged by Julian, Porphyry, or by Celsus. 
 The authenticity of the prophecy thus rests on sure 
 grounds, and the facts in which it received its accom- 
 plishment are incontestible. Josephus was one of the 
 
 Jackson, Poole, Patrick, Tillotson, Whitby, Abbadie, Whiston, 
 Doddridge, Pearce, Bishop Newton, Lardner, <kc, the last of 
 whom, in a single treatise, has 250 references to Josephus alone. 
 Josephus, Tacitus, Suetonius, and Eusebius, are quoted or referred 
 to in a single paragraph by Doddi'idge, as well as by many pre- 
 ceding writers ; and in this brief and most imperfect summary, 
 these authorities were consulted from the first. 
 
 1 Matt. xxi. 18, 19, 33-44; xxii. 1-7 ; xxv. 14-30. Mark xi. 
 12-20, &c. Luke xiii. 6-9; xiv. 16-24; xx. 9-18; xxiii. 27-31. 
 
60 
 
 DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 
 
 most distinguished generals in the commencement of the 
 Jewish war ; he was an eye-witness of the facts which he 
 records; he appeals to Vespasian and to Titus for the 
 truth of his history ; it received the singular attestation 
 of the subscription of the latter to its accuracy ; it was 
 published while the facts were recent and notorious ; and 
 the extreme carefulness with which he avoids the men- 
 tion of the name of Christ, in the history of the Jewish 
 war, is not less remarkable than the great precision with 
 which he describes the events that verify his predic- 
 tions. Not a few of the transactions are also related by 
 Tacitus, Suetonius, Philostratus, and Dion Cassius. 
 
 The different prophecies of Christ respecting Jerusa- 
 lem may be condensed into a single view. 
 
 " And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple ; 
 and his disciples came to him, for to show him the build- 
 ings of the temple. And Jesus said unto them, See ye 
 not all these things? verily I say unto you, there shall 
 not be left here one stone upon another that shall not be 
 thrown down. And as he sat upon the Mount of Olives, 
 the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, 
 when shall all these things be? and what shall be the 
 sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world? And 
 Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no 
 man deceive you; for many shall come in my name, 
 saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many. And the 
 time draws near ; and ye shall hear of wars, and rumours 
 of wars, — or commotions : these things must first come 
 to pass, but the end is not yet. Nation shall rise against 
 nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and great earth- 
 quakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pesti- 
 lences, and fearful sights ; and great signs shall there be 
 from heaven. All these things are the beginning of sor- 
 
DESTEUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 
 
 61 
 
 rows. But, before all these tilings, shall they lay their 
 hands upon you, and persecute you, delivering you up to 
 the synagogues and into prisons, being brought before 
 kings and rulers for my name's sake. And many shall 
 be offended. Ye shall be betrayed both by parents and 
 brethren, and kinsfolk and friends : and some of you shall 
 they cause to be put to death, and ye shall be hated of 
 all men for my name's sake. But there shall not a hair 
 of your head perish. And many false prophets will arise 
 and will deceive many : and because iniquity shall abound, 
 the love of many shall wax cold. And the gospel must 
 first be published among all nations, and then shall the 
 end come. When ye, therefore, shall see Jerusalem en- 
 compassed with armies, and the abomination of desola- 
 tion stand in the holy place, and where it ought not, then 
 let them which are in Judea flee to the mountains, and 
 let him which is in the midst of it depart out. Let him 
 which is on the house-top not go down into the house, 
 neither enter therein to take anything out of his house. 
 Neither let him that is in the field turn back again for 
 to take up his garment, for these are the days of ven- 
 geance. But woe unto them that are with child, and to 
 them that give suck in those days ; for there will be great 
 distress in the land, and wrath upon this people ; and they 
 shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led captive 
 into all nations. There shall be great tribulation, such 
 as was not from the beginning of the world to this time, 
 no, nor ever shall be; and Jerusalem shall be trodden 
 down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be 
 fulfilled. This generation shall not pass away till all 
 these things be fulfilled. 1 
 
 " Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees ; fill ye up the 
 1 Matt. xxiv. Mark xiii. Luke xxi. 
 
62 
 
 DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 
 
 measure of your fathers. Behold, I send unto you pro- 
 phets, and wise men, and scribes ; and some of them ye 
 shall kill, and crucify, and some of them shall ye scourge 
 in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city. 
 All these things shall come upon this generation. 0 
 J erusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and 
 stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would 
 I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen 
 gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would 
 not ! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. For 
 I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth till ye 
 shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the 
 Lord. 1 
 
 ** When he was come near, he beheld the city, and 
 wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at 
 least in this thy day, the things which belong to thy 
 peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes. For the 
 days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast 
 a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep 
 thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even with the 
 ground, and thy children within thee ; and they shall not 
 leave in thee one stone upon another, because thou knew- 
 est not the time of thy visitation. 2 
 
 These prophecies, from the Old Testament and from 
 the New, repel the charge of ambiguity. They are 
 equally copious and clear. History attests the truth of 
 each and all of them ; and a recapitulation of them forms 
 an enumeration of the facts. False Christs appeared. 
 Simon Magus boasted that he was some great one. Do- 
 sitheus, the Samaritan, pretended that he was the law- 
 giver prophesied of by Moses. Theudas, promising the 
 performance of a miracle, persuaded a great multitude to 
 1 Matt, xxiii. 29, 32, 34, 36-39. 2 Luke xix. 41-44. 
 
DESTRUCTION OE JERUSALEM. 
 
 63 
 
 follow him to Jordan, and deceived many. 1 The country 
 was filled with impostors and deceivers, who induced the 
 people to follow them into the wilderness; 2 — their credu- 
 lity became the punishment of their previous scepticism, 
 and, in one instance, the tumult was so great that the 
 soldiers took two hundred prisoners, and slew twice that 
 number. There were wars and rumours of wars; na- 
 tion rose against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. 
 The Jews resisted the erection of the statue of Caligula 
 in the temple ; and such was the dread of Eoman resent- 
 ment, that the fields remained uncultivated. At Csesarea, 
 the Jews and the Syrians contended for the mastery of 
 the city. Twenty thousand of the former were put to 
 death, and the rest were expelled. Every city in Syria 
 was then divided into two armies, and multitudes were 
 slaughtered.' Alexandria and Damascus presented a 
 similar scene of bloodshed. About fifty thousand of the 
 Jews fell in the former, and ten thousand in the latter. 4 
 The Jewish nation rebelled against the Eomans ; Italy was 
 convulsed with contentions for the empire ; and, as a proof 
 of the troubles and warlike character of the period, within 
 the brief space of two years, four emperors, Nero, Galba, 
 Otho, and ViteUius, suffered death. There were famines, 
 pestilences, and earthquakes in divers places. In the 
 reign of Claudius Csesar there were different famines. 
 They continued to be severe for several years throughout 
 the land of Judea. Pestilence succeeded them. In the 
 
 1 Joseph. Ant. lib. xx. cap. v. sect. 1. Quoted by Grotius, 
 Whitby, &c. 
 
 2 Ibid. lib. xx. cap. viii. quoted by Grotius, &c. 
 
 3 Ibid. Hist. lib. ii. cap. xviii. sects. 1, 2. Tillotson, Bishop 
 Newton, &c. 
 
 4 Ibid. lib. ii. c. xvii. sects. 7, 8, c. xx. sect. 2, Ibid. 
 
64 
 
 DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 
 
 same reign there were earthquakes at Eome, at Apamea, 
 and at Crete. In that of Nero there was an earthquake 
 in Campania, and another in which Laodicea, Hierapolis, 
 and Colosse were overthrown, and others are recorded to 
 have happened in various places, before the destruction 
 of the city of Jerusalem. 1 " The constitution of nature," 
 says the Jewish historian, 2 was confounded for the de- 
 struction of men, and one might easily conjecture that no 
 common calamities were portended." And there were 
 fearful sights and signs from heaven. Tacitus and Jose- 
 phus agree in relating and describing events so surpris- 
 ing and supernatural, that their narrative perfectly ac- 
 cords with the previous prediction. 3 And the fact can- 
 not be disputed, that, whatever these sights were, the 
 minds of men were impressed with the idea that they 
 were indeed signs from heaven : and even this coidd never 
 have been foreseen by man. There is surely something 
 at least unaccountable in their prediction, and in their 
 relation by historians, unprejudiced and unfriendly to the 
 cause which their testimony supports. The disciples of 
 Jesus were persecuted, imprisoned, afflicted, and hated 
 of all nations, for his nanus sake, and many of them 
 were put to death. Peter, Simon, and Jude were cruci- 
 fied: 4 Paul was beheaded; Matthew, Thomas, James, 
 
 1 Suet. Vit. Claud, cap. xviii. Tac. Ann. lib. xii. c. xliii. ; lib. 
 xiv. c. xxvii. Jos. lib. iv. c. iv. Grotius, Whitby, &c. 
 
 2 Jos. ibid. Whitby, Newton, Scott's Commentary. 
 
 3 " Evenerant prodigia, quae neque hostiis neque votis piare fas 
 habet gens superstitioni obnoxia, religionibus adversa. Visa? per 
 ccelum concurrere acies, rutilantia arma, et subito nubium igne 
 collucere templum. Expassaar epente delubri fores, et audita ma- 
 jor huinana vox, excedere deos; simul ingensmotus excedentium." 
 (Tacit. Hist. lib. v. cap. xiii.) Whitby, &c. 
 
 4 Cave's Lives of the Apostles. Dupin. 
 
DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 
 
 65 
 
 Matthias, Mark, and Luke, were put to death in differ- 
 ent countries, and in various manners. There was a war 
 against the very name. They were accused of hatred to 
 the human race. The prejudices and the interests of the 
 supporters of paganism were everywhere against them; 
 and in one memorable instance, Nero, to screen himself 
 from the guilt of being the incendiary of his capital, ac- 
 cused the innocent but hated Christians of that atrocious 
 deed, and inflicted upon them the most excruciating tor- 
 tures. 1 He made their sufferings a .spectacle and a sport 
 to the Komans. To compensate for his disappointment 
 in not trampling on the ashes of Eome, as well as to cloak 
 his iniquity., the monster (for the man and the monarch 
 were both laid aside) gratified his savage lust of cruelty, 
 by the substitution of one feast for another ; he selected 
 the Christians for his victims, from the general odium 
 under which they lay ; and their very name became the 
 warrant for that selection, and sufficed to sanction the 
 infliction of unheard-of barbarities. Many shall be of- 
 fended and shall betray one another ; and the love of 
 many shall wax, cold. The apostle of the Gentiles often 
 complained of false brethren, that many turned away from 
 him, and that he stood alone, forsaken by all, when he 
 first appeared before Nero. And Tacitus testifies that 
 very many were convicted, on the evidence of others who 
 had previously been accused. But the gospel was pub- 
 lished throughout the world, in defiance of all peril and 
 persecution. In the age of the apostles, epistles were 
 addressed to Christians at Eome, Corinth, Ephesus, 
 Philippi, Colosse, Thessalonica, and in Pontus, Galatia, 
 Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. After Christ deliver- 
 ed this prophecy, he was in a little time forsaken by all 
 
 1 Tacit. Annal. lib. xv. cap. xliv. Whitby, &c. 
 
 F 
 
66 
 
 DESTRUCTION OP JERUSALEM. 
 
 his disciples, and put to death as a criminal. At their 
 first assembly, they were a little nook, the number of the 
 names together was about a hundred and twenty. And, 
 unpromising as the prospect was, a few fishermen of Ga- 
 lilee, aided afterwards by a tent-maker of Tarsus, cir- 
 cumscribed not their labours, in the preaching of the 
 gospel, by the boundaries of the Soman empire. Could 
 the reception or the fate of Christ himself have warrant- 
 ed such a conclusion? Did ever any cause triumph by 
 such means? or was there any cause opposed like his? 
 And could any thing be more unlikely to have been 
 clearly foreseen and positively affirmed? All these events 
 preceded the destruction of Jerusalem, and then the end 
 of that city was at hand. The signs of its approaching 
 ruin are given as a warning to depart from it. Jerusa- 
 lem was encompassed with armies. The Soman armies, 
 with their idolatrous ensigns, which were an abomination 
 to the Jews, surrounded it; but instead of being a signal 
 for flight, this would naturally have implied the impossi- 
 bility of escape, and the warning would have been in vain. 
 Yet the words of Jesus did not deceive his disciples. 
 Cestius Gallus, the Soman general, besieged Jerusalem; 
 but immediately after, contrary to all human probability, 
 an interval was given for escape. He suddenly and 
 causelessly retreated, though some of the chief men of 
 the city had offered to open to him the gates. Josephus 
 acknowledges that the utmost consternation prevailed 
 among the besieged, and that the city would infallibly 
 have been taken. 1 And he attributes it to the just ven- 
 geance of Grod, that the city and the sanctuary were not 
 then taken, and the war terminated at once. He relates 
 also, how many of the most illustrious inhabitants depart- 
 
 1 Joseph, lib. ii. cap. xix. xx. Grotius, &c. &c. 
 
DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 
 
 67 
 
 ed from the city, as from a sinking vessel; and how, 
 upon the approach of Vespasian afterwards, multitudes 
 fled from Jericho into the mountainous country. Thither, 
 and to the city of Pella, fled all the disciples of Jesus : 1 
 and, amidst all the succeeding calamities, not a hair of 
 their heads did perish. 
 
 There shall he great tribulation, such as was not from 
 the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall 
 be. There shall be great distress in the land, and wrath 
 upon this people. These are the days of vengeance. 
 Such are some of the words of Jesus, relative to the de- 
 struction of Jerusalem ; and all the previous prophecies 
 regarding it were of the same sad import. The particu- 
 lars of the siege are all related by Josephus, and form a 
 detail of miseries that admit not of exaggeration; and 
 which he repeatedly declares, in terms that entirely 
 accord with the language of prophecy, are altogether 
 unequalled in the history of the world. — No general de- 
 scription can give a just idea of calamities the most ter- 
 rible that ever nation suffered. The Jews had assembled 
 in their city from all the surrounding country, to keep the 
 feast of unleavened bread. It was crowded with inhabi- 
 tants when they were all imprisoned within its walls. The 
 passover, which was commemorative of their first great 
 deliverance, had collected them for their last signal de- 
 struction. Before any external enemy appeared, the 
 fiercest dissensions prevailed ; the blood of thousands was 
 shed by their brethren; they destroyed and burned in 
 their frenzy their common provisions for the siege ; they 
 were destitute of any regular government, and divided in- 
 to three factions. On the extirpation of one of these, 
 
 1 Epiphanius in Haeres. Nazar. cap. vii. Eusebii Ec. Hist. lib. iii. 
 cap. v. Whitby, Doddridge, &c. 
 
68 
 
 DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 
 
 each of the others contended for the mastery. The most 
 ferocious and fanatic, the rohhers or zealots, as they are 
 indiscriminately called, prevailed at last. They entered 
 the temple, under the pretence of offering sacrifices, and 
 carried concealed weapons for the purpose of assassina- 
 tion. They slew the priests at the very altar ; and their 
 blood, instead of that of the victims for sacrifice, flowed 
 around it. They afterwards rejected all terms of peace 
 with the enemy ; none were suffered to escape from the 
 city ; every house was entered, every article of subsis- 
 ence was pillaged, and the most wanton barbarities were 
 committed. Nothing could restrain their fury; wherever 
 there was the appearance or scent of food, the human 
 bloodhounds tracked it out; and though a general famine 
 "raged around, though they were ever trampling on the 
 dead, and though the habitations for the living were con- 
 verted into charnel houses, nothing could intimidate, or 
 appal, or satisfy, or shock them, till Mary, the daughter of 
 Eleazar, a lady once rich and noble, displayed to them 
 and offered them all her remaining food, the scent of which 
 had attracted them in their search, — the bitterest morsel 
 that ever mother or mortal tasted, — the remnant of her 
 half-eaten suckling. Sixty thousand Eoman soldiers un- 
 remittingly besieged them ; they encompassed J erusalem 
 with a wall, and hemmed them in on every side; they 
 brought down their high and fenced walls to the ground ; 
 they slaughtered the slaughterers, they spared not the 
 people ; they burned the temple in defiance of the com- 
 mands, the threats, and the resistance of their general. 
 With it the last hope of all the Jews was extinguished. 
 They raised, at the sight, an universal but an expiring 
 cry of sorrow and despair. Ten thousand were there 
 slain, and six thousand victims were enveloped in its 
 
DESTRUCTION OE JERUSALEM. 
 
 69 
 
 blaze. The whole city, full of the famished dying, and 
 of the murdered dead, presented no picture hut that of 
 despair, no scene but of horror. The aqueducts and the 
 city sewers were crowded as the last refuge of the hope- 
 less. Two thousand were found dead there, and many 
 were dragged from thence and slain. The Eoman sol- 
 diers put all indiscriminately to death, and ceased not till 
 they became faint and weary and overpowered with the 
 work of destruction. But they only sheathed the sword 
 to light the torch. They set fire to the city in various 
 places. The flames spread everywhere, and were check- 
 ed but for a moment by the red streamlets in every street. 
 Jerusalem became heaps, and the mountain of the house 
 as the high places of the forest. Within the circuit of a 
 few miles, in the space of five months, — foes and famine, 
 pillage and pestilence within, — a triple wall around, and 
 besieged every moment from without, — eleven hundred 
 thousand human beings perished, though the tale of each 
 of them was a tragedy. Was there ever so concentrat- 
 ed a mass of misery? Could any prophecy be more faith- 
 fully and awfully fulfilled? The prospect of his own cru- 
 cifixion, when Jesus was on his way to Calvary, was not 
 more clearly before him, and seemed to affect him less, 
 than the fate of Jerusalem. How full of tenderness, and 
 fraught with truth, was the sympathetic response of the 
 condoling sufferer, to the wailings and lamentations of 
 the women who followed him, when he turned unto them 
 and beheld the city, which some of them might yet see 
 wrapt in flames and drenched in blood, and said, " Daugh- 
 ters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for your- 
 selves and for your children. For, behold, the days are 
 coming, in the which they will say, Blessed are the bar- 
 ren, and the wombs that never bare, and the paps which 
 
70 
 
 DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 
 
 never gave suck. Then shall they begin to say to the 
 mountains > Fall on us ; and to the hills, Cover us. For 
 if they do these things in the green tree, what shall he 
 done in the dry?" No impostor ever betrayed such feel- 
 ings as a man, nor predicted events so unlikely, astonish- 
 ing, and true, as an attestation of a divine commission. 
 Jesus revealed the very judgments of God; for such the 
 instrument, by whom it was accomplished, interpreted the 
 capture and destruction of Jerusalem, acknowledging that 
 his own power would otherwise have been ineffectual. 
 When eulogized for the victory, Titus disclaimed the 
 praise, affirming that he was only the instrument of exe- 
 cuting the sentence of the Divine justice. And their own 
 historian asserts, in conformity with every declaration of 
 Scripture upon the subject, that the iniquities of the Jews 
 were as unparalleled as their punishment. 
 
 All these prophecies, of which we have been reviewing 
 the accomplishment, were delivered in a time of perfect 
 peace, when the Jews retained their own laws, and enjoy- 
 ed the protection, as they were subject to the authority, 
 of the Eoman empire, then in the zenith of its power. 
 The wonder excited in the minds of his disciples at the 
 strength and stability of the temple, drew forth from 
 Jesus the announcement of its speedy and utter ruin. He 
 foretold the appearance of false Ohrists and pretended 
 prophets ; the wars and rumours of wars ; the famines 
 and pestilences and earthquakes and fearful sights that 
 were to ensue ; the persecution of his disciples ; the apos- 
 tacyofmany; the propagation of the gospel; the sign 
 that should warn his disciples to flee from approaching 
 ruin ; the encompassing and enclosing of Jerusalem ; the 
 grievous affliction of the tender sex ; the unequalled mi- 
 series of all ; the entire destruction of the city ; the shorten- 
 
DESTRUCTION OP JERUSALEM. 
 
 71 
 
 ing of their sufferings, that still some might be saved ; and 
 that all this dread crowd of events, which might well have 
 occupied the progress of ages, was to pass away within 
 the limits of a single generation. None hut He who dis- 
 cerns futurity could have foretold and described all these 
 things; and their complete and literal fidfilment shows 
 them to be indubitably the revelation of God. 
 
 But the prophecies also mark minuter facts, if possible 
 more unlikely to have happened. Jerusalem was to be 
 ploughed over as a field ; to be laid even with the ground ; 
 of the temple one stone was not to be left upon another : 
 the Jews Avere to be few in number ; to be led captive 
 into all nations ; to be sold for slaves and none would buy 
 them. And each of these predictions was strictly veri- 
 fied. Titus commanded the whole city and temple to be 
 razed from the foundation. The soldiers were not then 
 disobedient to their general. Avarice combined with 
 duty and with resentment: the altar, the temple, the 
 walls, and the city, were overthrown from the base, in 
 search of the treasures which the Jews, beset on every 
 hand by plunderers, had concealed and buried during the 
 siege. Three towers and the remnant of a wall alone 
 stood, the monument and memorial of Jerusalem ; and 
 the city was afterwards ploughed over by Terentius Rufus. 
 In the siege, and in the previous and subsequent destruc- 
 tion of the cities and villages of Judea, according to the 
 specified enumeration of J osephus, about one million three 
 hundred thousand suffered death. Ninety- seven thousand 
 were led into captivity. They were sold for slaves, and 
 were so despised and disesteemed, that many remained 
 unpurchased. And their conquerors were so prodigal of 
 their lives, that, in honour of the birth-day of Domitian, 
 two thousand five hundred of them were placed, in savage 
 
72 
 
 DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 
 
 sport, to contend with wild beasts, and otherwise to be 
 put to death. 1 
 
 But the miseries of their race were not then at a close. 
 There was a curse on the land, that hath scathed it, a 
 judgment on the people that scattered them throughout 
 the world. Many prophecies respecting them yet remain 
 to be considered, and much of their history is yet untold. 
 The prophecies are as clear as the fects are visible. 
 
 1 Tacitus, who flourished about thirty years after the destruc- 
 tion of Jerusalem, speaks of the strength of the fortifications of 
 that city, the immense riches and strength of the temple, the fac- 
 tions that raged during the siege, as well as of the prodigies that 
 preceded its fall. And he particularly mentions the large army 
 brought by Vespasian to subdue Judea, " a fact which shows the 
 magnitude and importance of the expedition." Philostratus par- 
 ticularly relates, that Titus declared, after the capture of Jerusa- 
 lem, that he was not worthy of the crown of victory, as he had 
 only lent his hand to the execution of a work in which God was 
 pleased to manifest his anger. Dion Cassius records the conquest 
 of Judea by Titus and Vespasian, the obstinate and bloody resis- 
 tance of the Jews during the siege, the destruction of the temple 
 by fire. It is recorded by Maimonides, and in the Jewish Tal- 
 mud, (as cited by Basnage and Lardner,) that Terentius Rufus, 
 an officer in the Roman army, tore up with a ploughshare the 
 foundations of the temple. The triumphal arch of Titus, com- 
 memorative of the destruction of Jerusalem, and with figures of 
 Roman soldiers, bearing on their shoulders the holy vessels of the 
 temple, is still to be seen at Rome. 
 
THE JEWS. 
 
 73 
 
 CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 PROPHECIES CONCERNING THE JEWS. 
 
 While Moses, as a divine legislator, promised to the 
 Israelites that their prosperity and happiness and peace 
 would all keep pace with their obedience, he threatened 
 them with a gradation of punishments, rising in propor- 
 tion to their impenitence and iniquity: and neither in 
 blessings nor in chastisements hath the Buler among the 
 nations dealt in like manner with any people. But their 
 wickedness, and consequent calamities, greatly prepon- 
 derated and are yet prolonged. The retrospect of the 
 history of the Jews, since their dispersion, could not, at 
 the present day, be drawn in truer terms, than in the 
 unpropitious auguries of their prophet above three thou- 
 sand two hundred years ago. In the most ancient of all 
 records, we read the lively representation of the present 
 condition of the most singular people upon earth. Moses 
 professed to look through the glass of ages ; the revolu- 
 tion of many centuries has brought the object immediately 
 before us : we may scrutinize the features of futiirity as 
 they then appeared to his prophetic gaze; and we may 
 determine between the probabilities whether they were 
 conjectures of a mortal who " knows not what a day may 
 bring forth," or the revelation of that Being " in whose 
 sight a thousand years are but as yesterday." 
 
 " I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw 
 
74 
 
 THE JEWS. 
 
 out a sword after you; and your land shall be desolate, 
 and your cities waste. And upon them that are left of 
 you I will send a faintness into their hearts, in the lands 
 of their enemies ; and the sound of a shaken leaf shall 
 chase them; and they shall flee, as fleeing from a sword; 
 and they shall fall when none pursueth; — and ye shall 
 have no power to stand before your enemies. And ye 
 shall perish among the heathen, and the land of your 
 enemies shall eat you up. And they that are left of you 
 shall pine away in their iniquity in your enemies' lands ; 
 and also in the iniquities of their fathers, shall they pine 
 away with them. And yet for all that, when they be in the 
 land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, neither 
 will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly. 1 And the 
 Lord shall scatter you among the nations, and ye shall be 
 left few in number among the heathen whither the Lord 
 shall lead you. 2 The Lord shall cause thee to be smit- 
 ten before thine enemies; thou shalt go out one way 
 against them, and flee seven ways before them, and shalt 
 be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth. 3 The 
 Lord shall smite thee with madness, and blindness, and 
 astonishment of heart ; and thou shalt grope at noon-day 
 as the blind gropeth in darkness, and thou shalt not pros- 
 per in thy ways ; and thou shalt be only oppressed and 
 spoiled evermore, and no man shall save thee. Thy sons 
 and thy daughters shall be given unto another people. — 
 There shall be no might in thine hand. The fruit of thy 
 land and all thy labours shall a nation, which thou knowest 
 not, eat up ; and thou shalt be only oppressed and crushed 
 alway ; so that thou shalt be mad for the sight of thine 
 eyes which thou shalt see. The Lord shall bring thee 
 
 5 Lev. xxvi. 33, 3G-39, 44. 2 Deut. iv. 27. 
 
 3 Deut. xxviii. 25. 
 
THE JEWS. 
 
 75 
 
 unto a nation which neither thou nor thy fathers have 
 known ; — and thou shalt become an astonishment, a pro- 
 verb, and a by- word, among all nations whither the Lord 
 shall lead thee. 1 Because thou servedst not the Lord thy 
 God with joyfulness and with gladness of heart for the 
 abundance of all things ; therefore shalt thou serve thine 
 enemies which the Lord shall send against thee, in hunger, 
 and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all things ; 
 and he shall put a yoke of iron upon thy neck, until he 
 have destroyed thee. And the Lord will make thy plagues 
 wonderful, and the plagues of thy seed, even great plagues 
 and of long continuance. 2 All these curses shall come 
 upon thee, and shall pursue thee, and overtake thee ; — 
 and they shall be upon thee for a sign and for a wonder, 
 and upon thy seed for ever. And it shall come to pass, 
 that, as the Lord rejoiced over you to do you good, and 
 to multiply you ; so the Lord will rejoice over you to de- 
 stroy you and to bring you to nought ; and ye shall be 
 plucked from off the land whither thou goest to possess it. 
 And the Lord shall scatter thee among all people, from 
 the one end of the earth even unto the other. And among 
 these nations shalt thou find no ease, neither shall the sole 
 of thy foot have rest ; but the Lord shall give thee there 
 a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind ; 
 and thy life shall hang in doubt before thee, and thou shalt 
 fear day and night, and shalt have none assurance of thy 
 life. In the morning thou shalt say, Would God it were 
 even! and at even thou shalt say, Would God it were 
 morning ! for the fear of thine heart wherewith thou shalt 
 fear, and for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt 
 see. 3 
 
 1 Deut. xxviii. 28, 29, 32, 33, 36, 37. 
 
 2 Ibid, xxviii. 47, 48, 59. 3 Ibid. 45, 46, 63-67. . 
 
76 
 
 THE JEWS. 
 
 The writings of all the succeeding prophets abound 
 with similar predictions. " I will cause them to he 
 removed into all kingdoms of the earth. I will cast 
 them out into a land that they know not, where I will 
 show them no favour. I will feed them with wormwood, 
 and give them water of gall to drink. I will scatter them 
 also among the heathen, whom neither they nor their 
 fathers have known. 1 I will deliver them to he removed 
 into all the kingdoms of the earth for their hurt, to be a 
 reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse, in all places 
 whither I shall drive them : and I will send the sword, 
 the famine, and the pestilence among them, till they be 
 consumed from off the land that I gave unto them and 
 to their fathers. 2 I will bereave them of children: I will 
 deliver them to be removed to all the kingdoms of the 
 earth, to be a curse, and an astonishment, and an hiss- 
 ing, and a reproach, among all the nations whither I have 
 driven them. 3 I will execute judgments in thee, and the 
 whole remnant of thee will I scatter into all the winds. 4 I 
 will scatter them among the nations, and disperse them in 
 the countries. 5 They shall cast their silver in the streets, 
 and their gold shall be removed ; their silver and their gold 
 shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath 
 of the Lord ; they shall not satisfy their souls, neither fill 
 their bowels, because it is the stumbling-block of their 
 iniquity. 6 I will sift the house of Israel among all na- 
 tions, like as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the 
 least grain fall upon the earth. Death shall be chosen 
 rather than life by all the residue of them that remain 
 of this evil family, which remain in all the places whither 
 
 1 Jer. xv. 4; xvi. 13; ix. 15, 16. 2 Ibid. xxiv. 9, 10. 
 
 3 Ibid. xv. 7; xxix. 18. 4 Ezek. v. 10. 
 
 , 5 Ibid. xii. 15. c Ezek. vii. 19. 
 
THE JEWS. 
 
 77 
 
 I have driven them, saith the Lord of hosts. They shall 
 he wanderers among the nations. 1 Make the heart of 
 this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their 
 eyes ; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their 
 ears, and understand with their heart, and convert and 
 be healed. Then said I, Lord, how long ? And he 
 answered, Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, 
 and the houses without man, and the land be utterly de- 
 solate, and the Lord have removed men far away, and 
 there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land. 2 
 Though they go into captivity before their enemies, thence 
 will I command the sword, and it shall slay them ; and I 
 will set mine eyes upon them for evil, and not for good. 
 But he that scattereth Israel will gather him and keep 
 him. 3 But fear not thou, 0 my servant Jacob, and be 
 not dismayed, 0 Israel; for, behold, I will save thee from 
 afar off, and thy seed from the land of their captivity. — 
 I will make a frill end of all the nations whither I have 
 driven thee ; but I will not make a full end of thee, but 
 correct thee in measure ; yet will I not utterly cut thee 
 off, or leave thee wholly unpunished. 4 The children of 
 Israel shall abide many days without a king, and without 
 a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, 
 and without an ephod, and without teraphim. After- 
 ward shall the children of Israel return, and seek the 
 Lord their God, and David their king ; and shall fear 
 the Lord and his goodness in the latter days." 5 
 
 All these predictions respecting the Jews are delivered 
 with the clearness of history and the confidence of truth. 
 They represent the manner, the extent, the nature, and 
 
 1 Amos ix. 9. Jer. viii. 3. Hos. ix. 17. 2 Isa. vi. 10-12. 
 3 Amos ix. 4. Jer. xxxi. 10. 4 Jer. xlvi. 27, 28. 
 
 5 Hosea iii. 4, 5. 
 
78 
 
 THE JEWS. 
 
 the continuance of their dispersion, their persecutions, 
 their blindness, their sufferings, their feebleness, their 
 fearfulness, their pusillanimity, their ceaseless wanderings, 
 their hardened impenitence, their insatiable avarice, and 
 the grievous oppression, the continued spoliation, the 
 marked distinction, the universal mockery, the unextin- 
 guishable existence, and unlimited diffusion of their race. 
 They were to be plucked from off their own land, smitten 
 before their enemies, consumed from off their own land, 
 and left few in number. The Eomans destroyed their 
 cities and ravaged their country; and the inhabitants who 
 escaped from the famine, the pestilence, the sword, and 
 the captivity, were forcibly expelled from Judea, and fled 
 as houseless wanderers, into all the surrounding regions. 
 But they clung, for a time, around the land which their 
 fathers had possessed for so many ages, and on which 
 they looked as an inheritance allotted by Heaven to their 
 race ; and they would not relinquish their claim to the 
 possession of it by any single overthrow, however great. 
 Unparalleled as were the miseries which they had suffer- 
 ed in the slaughter of their kindred, the loss of their pro- 
 perty and their homes, the annihilation of their power, 
 the destruction of their capital city, and in the devasta- 
 tion of their country by Titus ; yet the fugitive and exiled 
 Jews soon resorted again to their native soil; and sixty 
 years had scarcely elapsed, when, deceived by an impos- 
 tor, allured by the hope of a triumphant Messiah, and 
 excited to revolt by intolerable oppression, they strove by 
 a vigorous and united but frantic effort, to reconquer 
 Judea, to cast off the power of the Eomans, which had 
 everywhere crushed them, and to rescue themselves and 
 their country from ruin. A war which their enthusiasm 
 and desperation alike protracted for two years, and in 
 
THE JEWS. 
 
 79 
 
 which, exclusive of a vast number that perished by famine 
 and sickness and fire, five hundred and eighty thousand 
 Jews are said to have been slain, terminated in their en- 
 tire discomfiture and final banishment. They were so 
 beset on every side, and cut down in detached portions 
 by the Eoman soldiers, that, in the words of a heathen 
 historian, very few of them escaped. Fifty of their strong- 
 holds were razed from the ground, and their cities sacked 
 and consumed by fire ; J udea was laid waste and left as a 
 desert. 1 Though a similar fate never befell any other 
 people without proving the extirpation of their race or the 
 last of their miseries, that awful prediction, in its refer- 
 ence to the Jews, met its full completion — which yet they 
 survived, to await in every country, when exiles from their 
 own, an accumulation of almost unceasing calamities, pro- 
 tracted throughout many succeeding ages — they were root- 
 ed out of their land in anger, and in wrath, and in great 
 indignation^ A public edict of the Emperor Adrian ren- 
 dered it a capital crime for a Jew to set a foot in Jeru- 
 salem f and prohibited them from viewing it even at a 
 distance. Heathens, Christians, and Mahometans have 
 alternately possessed Judea. It has been the prey of 
 the Saracens: the descendants of Ishmael have often 
 overrun it : the children of Israel have alone been denied 
 the possession of it, though thither they ever wish to re- 
 turn, and though it forms the only spot on earth where 
 the ordinances of their religion can be observed. And, 
 amidst all the revolutions of states, and the extinction of 
 
 1 Dion. Cassius, lib. lxix. Jackson, Patrick, Basnage, &c. 
 
 2 Isaiah vi. 11. Jer. iv. 29. Deut. xxix. 28. 
 
 Tertul. Ap. c. xxi. p. 51. Ibid. Adv. Judseos, c. xiii. p. 146, 
 ed. Paris, 1608. Basnage's Continuation of Josephus, b. vi. c. 9, 
 §27. 
 
80 
 
 THE JEWS. 
 
 many nations, in so long a period, the Jews alone have 
 not only ever been aliens in the land of their fathers, hut 
 whenever any of them have been permitted, at any period 
 since the time of their dispersion, to sojourn there, they 
 have experienced even more contumelious treatment than 
 elsewhere. And to this day, (while the Jews who reside 
 in Palestine, or who resort thither in old age, that their 
 hones may not he laid in a foreign land, are alike ill- 
 treated and abused by Greeks and Franks, 1 ) the haughty 
 deportment of the despotic Mussulman, and the abject 
 state of the poor and helpless Jews, are painted to the life 
 by the prophet. The stranger that is within thee shall get 
 up above thee very high, and thou shalt come down very 
 low} 
 
 But the extent is still more remarkable than the man- 
 ner of their dispersion. Many prophecies describe it, 
 and foretold, thousands of years ago, what we now behold. 
 They have been scattered among the nations — among the 
 heathen — among the people, even from one end of the earth 
 unto the other. They have been removed into all the king- 
 doms of the earth; the whole remnant of them has been 
 scattered into all the winds; they have been dispersed 
 throughout all countries, and sifted among the nations like 
 as corn is sifted in a sieve, and yet not the least grain has 
 fallen upon the earth; though dispersed throughout all 
 nations, they have remained distinct from them all. And 
 there is not a country on the face of the earth where the 
 Jews are unknown. They are found alike in Europe, 
 Asia, Africa, and America. They are citizens of the 
 world, without a country. Neither mountains, nor rivers, 
 nor deserts, nor oceans, which are the boundaries of other 
 
 1 General Straton's MS. Jom-nal. 
 
 Deut. xxviii. 43. 
 
THE JEWS. 
 
 81 
 
 nations, have terminated their wanderings. They abound 
 in Poland, in Holland, in Eussia, and in Turkey. In 
 Germany, Spain, Italy, France, and Britain, they are 
 more thinly scattered. In Persia, China, and India, on 
 the east and on the west of the Ganges, they are few in 
 number among the heathen. They have trod the snows 
 of Siberia, and the sands of the burning desert, and the 
 European traveller hears of their existence in regions 
 which he cannot reach, even in the very interior of Africa, 
 south of Timbuctoo. 1 From Moscow to Lisbon, from 
 Japan to Britain, from Borneo to Archangel, from Hin- 
 dostan to Honduras, no inhabitant of any nation upon the 
 earth would be known in all the intervening regions but 
 a Jew alone. 
 
 But the history of the Jews throughout the whole world, 
 and in every age since their dispersion, verifies the most 
 minute predictions concerning them ; and to a recital of 
 facts too well authenticated to admit of dispute, or too 
 notorious for contradiction, may be added a description of 
 them all in the very terms of the prophecy. In the words 
 of Basnage, the elaborate historian of the Jews, " Kings 
 have often employed the severity of their edicts, and the 
 hands of the executioner, to destroy them ; the seditious 
 multitude has performed massacres and executions infi- 
 nitely more tragical than the princes. Both kings and 
 people, heathens, Christians, and Mahometans, who are 
 opposite in so many things, have united in the design of 
 ruining this nation, and have not been able to effect it. 
 The bush of Moses, surrounded with flames, has always 
 burned without consuming. The Jews have been driven 
 from all places of the world, which has only served todis- 
 1 Lyon's Travels in Africa, p. 146. 
 
 G 
 
82 
 
 THE JEWS. 
 
 perse them in all parts of the universe. They have, from 
 age to age, run through misery and persecution, and tor- 
 rents of their own blood." 1 Their banishment from Judea 
 was only the prelude to then* expulsion from city to city, 
 and from kingdom to kingdom. Their dispersion over 
 the globe is an irrefragable evidence of this, and many 
 records remain that amply corroborate the fact. Not 
 only- did the first and second centuries of the Christian 
 era see them twice rooted out of their own land, but each 
 .succeeding century has teemed with new calamities to 
 that once chosen but now long-rejected race. The his- 
 tory of their sufferings is a continued tale of horror. 
 Eevolt is natural to the oppressed ; and their frequent 
 seditions were productive of renewed privations and dis- 
 tresses. Emperors, kings, and caliphs, all united in sub- 
 jecting them to the same "iron yoke." Constantine, 
 after having suppressed a revolt which they raised, and 
 having commanded their ears to be cut off, dispersed 
 them as fugitives and vagabonds into different countries. 
 In the fifth century they were expelled from Alexandria, 
 which had long been one of their safest places of resort. 
 Justinian yielded to none of his predecessors in hostility 
 and severity against them. He abolished their syna- 
 gogues, prohibited them even from entering into caves 
 for the exercise of their worship, rendered their testimony 
 inadmissible, and deprived them of the natural right of 
 bequeathing their property; and when such oppressive 
 enactments led to insurrectionary movements among the 
 Jews, their property was confiscated, many of them were 
 beheaded, and so bloody an execution of them prevailed, 
 
 1 Basnage, b. vi. c. i. sect. 1. Jortin's Remarks on Eccl. Hist, 
 vol. ii. p. 181, &c. 
 
THE JEW'S. 
 
 83 
 
 that, as is expressly related, " all the Jews of that coun- 
 try trembled ;" x a trembling heart was given them. In 
 the reign of the tyrant Phocas, a general sedition broke 
 out among the Jews in Syria. They and their enemies 
 fought with equal desperation. They obtained the mas- 
 tery in Antioch; but a momentary victory only led to a 
 deeper humiliation, and to the infliction of more aggra- 
 vated cruelties than before. They were soon subdued 
 and taken captive, many of them were maimed, others 
 executed, and all the survivors were banished from the 
 city. Gregory the Great afforded them a temporary re- 
 spite from oppression, which only rendered their spoliation 
 more complete, and their suffering more acute, under the 
 cruel oppression of Heraclius. That emperor, unable to 
 satiate his hatred against them by inflicting a variety of 
 punishments on those who resided within his own domi- 
 nions, and by finally expelling them from the empire, 
 exerted his influence so effectually against them in other 
 countries, that they suffered under a general and simul- 
 taneous persecution from Asia to the furthest extremities 
 of Europe. 2 In Spain, conversion, imprisonment, or 
 banishment, were their only alternatives. In France a 
 similar fate awaited them. They fled from country to 
 country, seeking in vain any rest for the sole of their foot. 
 Even the wide-extended plains of Asia afforded them no 
 resting-place, but have often been spotted with their blood, 
 as well as the hills and valleys of Europe. Mahomet, 
 whose imposture has been the law and the faith of such 
 countless millions, has, from the precepts of the Koran, 
 infused into the minds of his followers a spirit of rancour 
 •and enmity towards the despised and misbelieving Jews. 
 He set an early example of persecution against them, 
 1 Basnage's Hist. b. vi. c. xxi. sect. 9. 2 ibid. 17. 
 
84 
 
 THE JEWS. 
 
 which the Mahometans have not yet ceased to imitate. 
 In the third year of the Hegira, he besieged the castles 
 which they possessed in the Hegiasa, compelled those 
 who had fled to them for refuge and defence, to an un- 
 conditional surrender, banished them the country, and 
 parted their property among his Mussulmans. He dis- 
 sipated a second time their re-combined strength, mas- 
 sacred many of them, and imposed upon the remnant a 
 permanent tribute. The church of Eome ever ranked 
 and treated them as heretics. The canons of different 
 councils pronounced excommunication against those who 
 should favour or uphold the Jews against Christians ; en- 
 joined all Christians neither to eat nor to hold any com- 
 merce with them ; prohibited them from bearing public 
 offices or having Christian slaves ; appointed them to be 
 distinguished by a mark ; decreed that their children 
 should be taken from them, and brought up in monas- 
 teries ; and what is equally descriptive of the low estima- 
 tion in which they were held, and of the miseries to which 
 they were subjected, there was often a necessity, even for 
 those who otherwise oppressed them, to ordain that it was 
 not lawful to take the life of a Jew without any cause. 1 
 Hallam's account of the Jews, during the middle ages, is 
 short, but significant. " They were everywhere the 
 objects of popular insult and oppression, frequently of a 
 general massacre. A time of festivity to others was often 
 the season of mockery and persecution to them. It was 
 the custom at Thoulouse to smite them on the nice every 
 Easter. At Beziers they were attacked with stones from 
 Pahn- Sunday to Easter, an anniversary of insult and 
 
 i Dupin's Ecc. Hist. Canons of different councils. Toledo, a.d. 
 633. Meux, 845. Paris, 846. Pavia, 850. Metz, Coyaco, 1050. 
 Rouen, 1074. Ravenna, 1311. Saltzburgh, 1420. 
 
THE JEWS. 
 
 85 
 
 cruelty generally productive of bloodshed, and to which 
 the populace were regularly instigated by a sermon from 
 the bishop. It was the policy of the kings of France to 
 employ them as a sponge to suck their subjects' money, 
 which they might afterwards express with less odium 
 than direct taxation would incur. It is almost incredible 
 to what a length extortion of money from the Jews was 
 carried. A series of alternate persecution and tolerance 
 was borne by this extraordinary people with an invincible 
 perseverance, and a talent of accumulating riches, which 
 kept pace with the exactions of their plunderers. Philip 
 Augustus released all Christians in his dominions from 
 their debts to the Jews, reserving a fifth part to himself. 
 He afterwards expelled the whole nation from France." 1 
 St Louis twice banished, and twice recalled them; and 
 Charles VI. finally expelled them from France. From 
 that country, according to Mezeray, they were seven times 
 banished. They were expelled from Spain ; and by the 
 lowest computation, one hundred and seventy thousand 
 families departed from that kingdom. 2 " At Verdun, 
 Treves, Mentz, Spires, Worms, many thousands of them 
 were pillaged and massacred. A remnant was saved by 
 a feigned and transient conversion; but the greater part 
 of them barricaded their houses, and precipitated them- 
 selves, their families, and their wealth, into the rivers or 
 the flames. These massacres and depredations on the 
 Jews were renewed at each crusade." 3 In England, also, 
 they suffered great cruelty and oppression at the same 
 period. During the crusades, the whole nation united 
 in the persecution of them. In a single instance, at York, 
 
 1 Hallam, vol. i. pp. 233, 234 
 
 2 Basnage, b. vii. c. xxi. Bishop Newton. 
 
 3 Gibbon's Hist. vol. xi. c. lviii. p. 26. 
 
86 
 
 THE JEWS. 
 
 fifteen hundred Jews, including women and children, were 
 refused all quarter, could not purchase their lives at any 
 price, and, frantic with despair, perished by a mutual 
 slaughter. Each master was the murderer of his family, 
 when death became their only deliverance. The scene 
 of the castle of Massada, which was their last for- 
 tress in Palestine, and where nearly one thousand perished 
 in a similar manner, 1 was renewed in the castle of York. 
 So despised and hated were they, that the barons, when 
 contending with Henry III., to ingratiate themselves with 
 the populace, ordered seven hundred Jews to be slaugh- 
 tered at once, their houses to be plundered, and their 
 synagogue to be burned. Eichard, John, 2 and Henry 
 
 1 Basnage, b. vii. c. x. sect. 20. Joseph, b. vii. e. viii. ix. Bp. 
 Newton. Kapin's Hist, of England, vol. iii. p. 97. 
 
 2 The persecutions to which the Jews were subjected at that 
 period, are described with strict truth in the historical romance 
 of Ivanhoe. They are characterized as " a race which, during 
 these dark ages, was alike detested by the credulous and preju- 
 diced vulgar, and persecuted by the greedy and rapacious nobility. 
 (Vol. i. p. 83.) " Except perhaps the flying fish, there was no 
 race existing on the earth, in the air, or the waters, who were the 
 objects of such an unremitting, general, and relentless persecution 
 as the Jews at this period. Upon the slightest and most unrea- 
 sonable pretences, as well as upon accusations the most absurd and 
 groundless, their persons and property were exposed to every turn 
 of popular fury; for Norman, Saxon, Dane, and Briton, however 
 adverse their races were to each other, contended which would 
 look with greatest detestation upon a people whom it was ac- 
 counted a point of religion to hate, to revile, to despise, to plun- 
 der, and to persecute. The kings of the Norman race, and the 
 independent nobles, who followed their example in all acts of ty- 
 ranny, maintained against this devoted people a persecution of 
 a more regular, calculated, and self-interested kind. It is a well- 
 known story of King John, that he confined a wealthy Jew in one 
 of the royal castles, and daily caused one of his teeth to be torn 
 out, until, when the jaw of the unhappy Israelite was half-disfur- 
 
THE JEWS. 
 
 87 
 
 III. often extorted money from them; and the last, by 
 the most unscrupulous and unsparing measures, usually 
 defrayed his extraordinary expenses with their spoils, and 
 impoverished some of the richest among them. His 
 extortions at last became so enormous, and his oppression 
 so grievous, that, in the words of the historian, he reduced 
 the miserable wretches to desire leave to depart the king- 
 dom; 1 but even self-banishment was denied them. Ed- 
 ward I. completed their misery, seized on all their pro- 
 perty, and banished them the kingdom. Above fifteen 
 thousand Jews were rendered destitute of any residence, 
 were despoiled to the utmost, and reduced to ruin. Nearly 
 four centuries elapsed before the return to Britain of this 
 abused race. 
 
 Some remarkable circumstances attest, without a pro- 
 longed detail of their miseries, that they have been a 
 people everywhere peculiarly oppressed. The first une- 
 quivocal attempt at legislation in France was an ordinance 
 
 nished, he consented to pay a large sum, which it was the tyrant's 
 object to extort from him. The little ready money that was in 
 the country, was chiefly in the possession of this persecuted peo- 
 ple, and the nobility hesitated not to follow the example of their 
 sovereign in wringing it from them by every species of oppression, 
 and even personal torture." (Ibid. pp. 120, 121.) The fictitious 
 history of Isaac of York is delineated in a manner equally de- 
 scriptive of the facts, and confirmatory of the prophecies respect- 
 ing the Jewish people ; and there exists not the history of any in- 
 dividual of any other nation, whether drawn from fancy or from 
 fact, which combines so many of the prophetic characteristics of 
 the fate of a Jew, as that which has thus been delineated, by a mas- 
 ter's hand, as a representation of their condition, at a period about 
 twenty-six centuries posterior to the prediction, and in a country 
 two thousand miles remote from the place where it was first ut- 
 tered, and from the only land ever possessed by the Jews. 
 1 Rapin's History of England, vol. iii. p. 405. 
 
88 
 
 THE JEWS. 
 
 against the Jews. And towards them alone one of the 
 noblest charters of liberty on earth — Magna Charta, the 
 Briton's boast — legalized an act of injustice. 1 For many 
 ages after their dispersion, they found no resting-place in 
 Europe, Asia, or Africa, but penetrated, in search of one, 
 to the extremities of the world. In Mahometan coun- 
 tries they have ever been subject to persecution, con- 
 tempt, and every abuse. They are in general confined 
 to one particular quarter of every city, (as they formerly 
 were to old Jewry in London;) they are restricted to a 
 peculiar dress ; and in many places are shut up at stated 
 hours. In Hamadan, as in all parts of Persia, " they 
 are an abject race,, and support themselves by driving a 
 peddling trade; — they live in a state of great misery, pay 
 a monthly tax to the government, and are not permitted 
 to cultivate the ground, or to have landed possessions." 2 
 They cannot appear in public, much less perform their 
 religious ceremonies, without being treated with scorn and 
 contempt." 3 The revenues of the prince of Bohara are 
 derived from a tribute paid by five hundred families of 
 Jews, who are assessed according to the means of each. 
 In Zante they exist in miserable indigence, and are ex- 
 posed to considerable oppression. 4 At Tripoli, when any 
 criminal is condemned to death, the first Jew who hap- 
 pens to be at hand is compelled to become the execu- 
 tioner; a degradation to the children of Israel to which 
 no Moor is ever subjected. 5 In Egypt they are despised 
 and persecuted incessantly. 6 In Arabia they are treated 
 
 1 Articles xii. xiii. 
 
 2 Morier's Travels in Persia, p. 379. 
 
 3 Sir J. Malcolm's History of Persia, vol. ii. p. 425. 
 
 * Hughes' Travels, vol. i. p. 150. 5 Lyon's Travels, p. 16. 
 6 Denon's Travels in Egypt, vol. i. p. 213. 
 
THE JEWS. 
 
 89 
 
 with more contempt than in Turkey. 1 The remark is 
 common to the most recent travellers both in Asia and 
 Africa, 2 that the Jews themselves are astonished, and the 
 natives indignant, at any act of kindness, or even of jus- 
 tice, that is performed towards any of this " despised 
 nation" and persecuted people. In Southey's Letters 
 from Spain and Portugal, this remarkable testimony is 
 borne respecting them; " Till within the last fifty years 
 the burning of a Jew formed the highest delight of the 
 Portuguese; they thronged to behold this triumph of the 
 faith, and the very women shouted with transport as they 
 saw the agonized martyr writhe at the stake. Neither 
 sex nor age could save this persecuted race; and Antonio 
 Joseph de Silvia, the best of their dramatic writers, was 
 burned alive because he was a Jew." Few years have 
 elapsed since there was a severe persecution against them 
 in Prussia and in Germany, and in several of the smaller 
 states of the latter country they are not permitted to sell 
 any goods even in the common markets. The pope has 
 lately re-enacted some severe edicts against them : and 
 ukases have recently been issued in quick succession, 3 re- 
 straining the Jews from all traffic throughout the interior 
 government of Eussia. They are absolutely prohibited, 
 on pain of immediate banishment, from offering any arti- 
 cle to sale," 4 whether in public or private, either by them- 
 selves or by others. They are not allowed to reside, 
 even for a limited period, in any of the cities of Eussia, 
 
 1 Niebuhr's Travels, vol. i. p. 408. 
 
 2 Morier's Travels in Persia, p. 266. Lyon's Travels in Africa, 
 p. 32. 
 
 3 15th November 1797. 25th February 1823. 8th June 1826. 
 
 4 Ukase, quoted from ' The World,' of date 31st October 1827. 
 Ib. article viii. 
 
90 
 
 THE JEWS. 
 
 without an express permission from government, which is 
 granted only in cases where their services are necessary 
 or directly beneficial to the state. A refusal to depart, 
 when they become obnoxious to so rigid a law, subjects 
 them to be treated as vagrants ; and none are suffered to 
 protect or to shelter them. Though the observance of 
 such edicts must, in numerous instances, leave them des- 
 titute of any means of support, yet their breach or neg- 
 lect exposes them to oppression under the sanction of the 
 law, and to every privation and insult, without remedy or 
 appeal. And though they may thus become the great- 
 est objects of pity, all laws of humanity are reversed by 
 imperial decrees towards them. For those who harbour 
 Jews that are condemned to banishment for having done 
 what all others may innocently do, are, as a late Eus- 
 sian ukase respecting them bears, " amenable to the laws 
 as the abettors of vagrants," 1 and, as in numberless in- 
 stances besides, no man shall save them. 
 
 1 Note. — While the prophecies described the past and existing 
 miseries of the Jews, they refer with no less precision to the time 
 yet to come, when the children of Israel shall have returned to 
 the loved land of their fathers, and their rebuke shall have ceased 
 from off the face of the earth, and when they shall prize their 
 blessings the more highly, as contrasted with the former suffer- 
 ings of their race. And the word of God, confirmed as its pro- 
 phetic truth is by the workings of the wrath of man, and by the 
 policy of earthly monarchs, will doubtless triumph over the high- 
 est mandates of mortals, and receive new illustrations of its truth, 
 when these shall have passed away. And the eleventh article of 
 the ukase, now in force, merits, in reference to a special predic- 
 tion, particular notice, and may here be subjoined, together with 
 its corresponding text, premising merely that it is to a specific 
 district of dismembered Poland that the Rabbins are sent away. 
 " Rabbins, or other religious functionaries are to be sent away by 
 the police officer, immediately on the discovery that they are 
 
THE JEWS. 
 
 91 
 
 While the recent ameliorated condition of the J ews in 
 the more civilized countries of Europe begins to give pro- 
 mise of the dawn of that day when the cup of trembling 
 shall be taken out of their hands, and while signs are not 
 wanting to show that it shall be given into the hands of 
 their enemies, new illustrations may still be adduced to 
 this hour of the indignities and miseries to which they 
 are subjected. A recent testimony from Turkey bears 
 that " it is impossible to express the contemptuous hatred 
 in which the Osmanlis (Turks) hold the Jewish people ; 
 and the veriest Turkish urchin who may encounter one of 
 the fallen nation on his path, has his mite of insult to add 
 to the degradation of the outcast and wandering race of 
 Israel. Nor dare the oppressed party revenge himself 
 even upon this puny enemy, whom his very name suffices 
 to raise up against him." 1 Instances are added of a 
 Turkish boy of ten years of age felling to the earth a 
 feeble Jewess, and of Turkish boys, in their amusement, 
 insulting and tormenting a Jew. I will give children to 
 
 such." " Thy teachers shall not be removed into a corner any 
 more, but thine eyes shall see thy teachers." (Isaiah xxx. 20.) 
 
 Lord Byron's brief and emphatic description of the Jews is 
 equally characteristic of the fact, and illustrative of the predic- 
 tions : 
 
 Tribes of the wandering foot and weary breast, 
 When shall we flee away and be at rest ? 
 
 They shall find no rest for the sole of their foot. I will send a 
 faintness into their heart, — a trembling heart and sorrow of mind. 
 
 But he that hath scattered Israel will gather him — and it is 
 
 asked, ivho are these that fly as a cloud, and as doves to their win- 
 dows ? Isaiah lx. 8. 
 
 1 The City of the Sultan, and the domestic manners of the Turks 
 in 1836, by Miss Pardoe, vol. ii. p. 362, 363. 
 
92 
 
 THE JEWS. 
 
 be their princes; and babes shall rule over them. — As for 
 my people children are their oppressors. 1 
 
 These facts, though they form but a brief and most 
 imperfect record, and therefore but a very faint image of 
 all their sufferings, show that the Jews have been removed 
 into all kingdoms for their hurt; that a sword has been 
 drawn after them; that they have found no rest for the 
 sole of their foot; that they have not been able to stand 
 before their enemies; there has been no might in their 
 hands ; their very avarice has proved their misery ; they 
 have been spoiled evermore; they have been oppressed and 
 crushed alway; they have been mad for the sight of their 
 eyes that they did see, as the tragical scenes at Massada, 
 and York, and many others testify: they have often been 
 left in hunger, and thirst, and nakedness, and in want of 
 all things; a trembling heart and sorrow of mind have 
 been their portion; they have often had none assurance of 
 their life; their plagues have been wonderful and great, 
 and of long continuance; and they have been for a sign 
 and for a wonder during many generations. 
 
 But the predictions rest not even here. It was distinct- 
 ly prophesied that the Jews would reject the gospel ; that, 
 from the meanness of his mortal appearance, and the 
 hardness of their hearts, they would not believe in a suf- 
 fering Messiah ; that they would be smitten with blindness 
 and astonishment of heart; that they would continue long, 
 having their ears deaf, their eyes closed, and their hearts 
 hardened; and that they would grope at noon-day, as 
 the blind gropeth in darkness. 2 And the great body of 
 the Jewish nation has continued long to reject Christian- 
 ity. They retain the prophecies, but discern not their 
 1 Isaiah iii. 4, 12. 2 Deut. xxviii. 28, 29. 
 
THE JEWS. 
 
 93 
 
 light, having obscured them by their traditions. Many 
 of their received opinions are so absurd and impious, their 
 rites are so unmeaning and frivolous, their ceremonies are 
 so minute, absurd, and contemptible, that the account of 
 them would surpass credibility, were it not a transcript of 
 their customs and of their manners, and drawn from their 
 own authorities. 1 No words can more strikingly or justly 
 represent the contrast between their irrational tenets, their 
 degraded religion, their superstitious observances, and the 
 dictates of enlightened reason, and of the gospel which 
 they vilify, than the emphatic description, They grope at 
 noon-day, as the blind gropeth in darkness. And if any 
 other instances be wanting of the prediction of events in- 
 finitely exceeding human foresight, the dispositions of all 
 nations respecting them are revealed as explicitly as their 
 own. That the Jews have been a proverb, an astonish- 
 ment, a by-word, a taunt, and a hissing among all na- 
 tions, — though one of the most wonderful of facts, un- 
 paralleled in the whole history of mankind, and as incon- 
 ceivable in its prediction as miraculous in its accomplish- 
 ment, — is a truth that stands not in need of any illus- 
 tration or proof, and of which witnesses could be found 
 in every country under heaven. Many prophecies con- 
 cerning the Jews, of more propitious import, that yet 
 remain to be accomplished, are reserved for testimonies 
 to future generations, if not to the present. 2 But it is 
 worthy of remark, as prophesied concerning them, that 
 they have not been utterly destroyed, though a full end has 
 been made of their enemies; that the Egyptians, the Assy- 
 rians, the Babylonians, the Eomans, though some of the 
 
 1 See Allen's Modern Judaism. The Edinburgh Encyclopaedia, 
 art. Jews. 
 
 2 See Appendix, No. II. 
 
94 
 
 THE JEWS. 
 
 mightiest monarchies that ever existed, have not a single 
 representative on earth; while the Jews, oppressed and 
 vanquished, banished and enslaved, and spoiled evermore, 
 have survived them all, and to this hour overspread the 
 world. Of all the nations around Judea, the Persians 
 alone, who restored them from the Babylonish captivity, 
 yet remain a kingdom. 
 
 The Scriptures also declare that the covenant with 
 Abraham, that God would give the land of Canaan to his 
 seed for an everlasting possession, would never be broken ; 
 but that the children of Israel shall be taken from among 
 the heathen, gathered on every side, and brought into their 
 own land, to dwell for ever where their fathers dwelt. 
 Three thousand seven hundred years have elapsed since 
 the promise was given to Abraham: and is it less than a 
 miracle, that, if this promise had been made to the des- 
 cendants of any but of Abraham alone, it could not now 
 possibly have been realized, as there exists not on earth 
 the known and acknowledged posterity of any other in- 
 dividual, or ahnost of any nation, contemporary with 
 him? 
 
 That the people of a single state (which was of very 
 limited extent and power in comparison of some of the 
 monarchies which surrounded it) should first have been 
 rooted up out of their own land in anger, wrath, and 
 great indignation, the like of which was never experienced 
 by the mightiest among the ancient empires, which all 
 fell imperceptibly away at a lighter stroke; and that 
 afterwards, though scattered among all nations, and find- 
 ing no ease among them all, they should have withstood 
 eighteen centuries of almost unremitted persecution ; and 
 that after so many generations have elapsed, they should 
 still retain their distinctive form, or, as it may be called, 
 
THE JEWS. 
 
 95 
 
 their individuality of character, is assuredly the most 
 marvellous event that is recorded in the history of na- 
 tions; and if it be not acknowledged as a " sign," it is 
 in reality, as well as in appearance, " a wonder," the 
 most inexplicable within the province of the philosophy 
 of history. But tbat, after the endurance of such mani- 
 fold woes, such perpetual spoliation, and so many ages of 
 unmitigated suffering, during which their life was to 
 hang in doubt within them, they should still be, as actually 
 they are, the possessors of great Avealth ; and that this 
 fact should so strictly accord with the prophecy, which 
 describes them on their final restoration to Judea, as 
 taking their silver and their gold with them, and eating 
 the riches of the Gentiles; 1 and also that, though captives 
 or fugitives " few in number," and the miserable rem- 
 nant of an extinguished kingdom at the time they were 
 " scattered abroad," they should be to this hour a 
 numerous people, — and that this should have been ex- 
 pressly implied in the prophetic declaration descriptive of 
 their condition on their restoration to Judea, after all 
 their wanderings, that the land shall be too narrow by 
 reason of the inhabitants, and that place shall not be found 
 for them? are facts which as clearly show, to those who 
 consider them at all, the operation of an overruling pro- 
 vidence, as the revelation of such an inscrutable destiny 
 is the manifest dictate of inspiration. 
 
 Such are the prophecies, and such are the facts re- 
 specting the Jews; — and from premises like these the 
 feeblest logician may draw a moral demonstration. If 
 they had been utterly destroyed; if they had mingled 
 among the nations; if in the space of nearly eighteen 
 centuries after their dispersion, they had become extinct 
 
 1 Isaiah lx. 9; lxi. 6. 2 Isaiah xlix. 19. Zech. x. 10. 
 
96 
 
 THE JEWS. 
 
 as a people ; even if they had heen secluded in a single 
 region, and had remained united; if their history had 
 been analogous to that of any nation upon the earth — an 
 attempt might, with some plausibility or reason, have 
 been made, to show cause why the prediction of their 
 fate, however true to the fact, ought not in such a case 
 to be sustained as evidence of the truth of inspiration. 
 Or if the past history and present state of the Jews were 
 not of a nature so singular and peculiar, as to bear out to 
 the very letter the truth of the prophecies concerning 
 them, with what triumph would the infidel have produced 
 these very prophecies as fatal to the idea of the inspira- 
 tion of the Scriptures. And when the Jews have been 
 scattered throughout the whole earth; when they have 
 remained everywhere a distinct race; when they have 
 been despoiled evermore, and yet never destroyed; when 
 the most wonderful and amazing facts, such as never oc- 
 curred among any people, form the ordinary narrative of 
 their history, and fulfil literally the prophecies concern- 
 ing them, may not the believer challenge his adversary 
 to the production of such credentials of the faith that is 
 in him ? They present an unbroken chain of evidence, 
 each link a prophecy and a fact, extending throughout a 
 multitude of generations, and not yet terminated. Though 
 the events, various and singular as they are, have been 
 brought about by the instrumentality of human means, 
 and the agency of secondary causes, yet they are equally 
 prophetic and miraculous ; for the means were as impos- 
 sible to be foreseen as the end, and the causes were as 
 inscrutable as the event; and they have been, and still 
 in numberless instances are, accomplished by the instru- 
 mentality of the enemies of Christianity. Whoever seeks 
 a miracle, may here behold a sign and a wonder, than 
 
THE JEWS. 
 
 97 
 
 which there cannot he a greater. And the Christian may 
 hid defiance to all the assaults of his enemies from this 
 stronghold of Christianity, impenetrable and impregnable 
 on every side. 
 
 These prophecies concerning the Jews are as clear as 
 a narrative of the events. They are ancient as the old- 
 est records in existence; and it has never been denied 
 that they were all delivered before the accomplishment of 
 one of them. They were so unimaginable by human 
 wisdom, that the whole compass of nature has never ex- 
 hibited a parallel to the events. And the facts are visible, 
 and present, and applicable even to a hairbreadth. Could 
 Moses, as an uninspired mortal, have described the his- 
 tory, the fate, the dispersion, the treatment, the disposi- 
 tions of the Israelites to the present day, or for three 
 thousand four hundred years, seeing that he was asto- 
 nished and amazed on his descent from Sinai, at the 
 change in their sentiments, and in their conduct, in the 
 space of forty days? Could various persons have testi- 
 fied, in different ages, of the self-same and of similar facts, 
 as wonderful as they have proved to be true ? Could 
 they have divulged so many secrets of futurity, when of 
 necessity they were utterly ignorant of them all? The 
 probabilities were infinite against them. For the mind 
 of man often fluctuates in uncertainty over the nearest 
 events, and the most probable results; but in regard to 
 remote ages, when thousands of years shall have elapsed, 
 and to facts respecting them, contrary to all previous 
 knowledge, experience, analogy, or conception, it feels 
 that they are dark as death to mortal ken. And, view- 
 ing only the dispersion of the Jews, and some of its 
 attendant circumstances — how their city was laid deso- 
 late — their temple, which formed the constant place of 
 
 II 
 
98 
 
 THE JEWS. 
 
 their resort before, levelled with the ground, and ploughed 
 over like a field — their country ravaged, and themselves 
 murdered in mass — falling before the sword, the famine, 
 and the pestilence — how a remnant was left, but des- 
 poiled, persecuted, enslaved, and led into captivity, — 
 driven from their own land, not to a mountainous retreat, 
 where they might subsist with safety, but dispersed among 
 all nations, and left to the mercy of a world that every- 
 where hated and oppressed them — shattered in pieces 
 like the wreck of a vessel in a mighty storm — scattered 
 over the earth, like fragments on the waters, and, instead 
 of disappearing, or mingling with the nations, remaining 
 a perfectly distinct people, in every kingdom the same, 
 retaining similar habits, and customs, and creeds, and 
 manners, in every part of the globe, though without 
 ephod, teraphim, or sacrifice — meeting everywhere the 
 same insult, and mockery, and oppression — finding no 
 resting-place without an enemy soon to dispossess them — 
 multiplying amidst all their miseries — surviving their 
 enemies — beholding, unchanged, the extinction of many 
 nations, and the convulsions of all — robbed of their silver 
 and of their gold, though cleaving to the love of them 
 still, as the stumbling-block of their iniquity — often be- 
 reaved of their very children — disjoined and disorganized, 
 but uniform and unaltered — ever bruised, but never broken 
 — weak, fearful, sorrowful, and afflicted — often driven to 
 madness at the spectacle of their own misery — taken up 
 in the lips of talkers — the taunt, and hissing, and infamy 
 of all people, and continuing ever, what they are to this 
 day, the sole proverb common to the whole world; how 
 did every fact, from its very nature, defy all conjecture, 
 and how could mortal man, overlooking a hundred suc- 
 cessive generations, have foretold any one of these won- 
 
THE JEWS. 
 
 99 
 
 ders that are now conspicuous in these latter times? 
 Who but the Father of Spirits, possessed of perfect pre- 
 science, even of the knowledge of the will, and of the 
 actions of free, intelligent, and moral agents, could have 
 revealed their unbounded and yet unceasing wanderings, 
 unveiled all their destiny, and unmasked the minds of 
 the Jews and of their enemies, in every age and in every 
 clime? The creation of a world might as well be the 
 work of chance as the revelation of these things. It is 
 a visible display of the power and of the prescience of 
 God, an accumulation of many miracles. And although 
 it forms but a part of a small portion of the Christian 
 evidence, it lays not only a stone of stumbling, such as 
 infidels would try to cast in a Christian's path, but it 
 fixes an insurmountable barrier at the very threshold of 
 infidelity, immovable by all human device, and imper- 
 vious to every attack. 
 
100 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 CHAPTEE V. 
 
 PKOPHECIES CONCERNING THE LAND OF JUDEA AND 
 CIECUMJACENT COUNTEIES. 
 
 The writings of the Jewish prophets not only described 
 the fate of that people for many generations subsequent 
 to the latest period to which the most unyielding scepti - 
 cism can pretend to affix the date of these predictions ; 
 but while the cities were teeming with inhabitants, and 
 the land flowing with abundance, for centuries before 
 Judea ceased to count its millions, they foretold the long 
 reign of desolation that would ensue. The land is a wit- 
 ness as well as the people. Its aspect in the present day 
 is the precise likeness delineated by the pencil of prophecy, 
 when every feature that could admit of change was the 
 reverse of what it now is: and it is necessary only to 
 compare the predictions themselves with that proof of 
 their fulfilment, which, were all other testimony to be 
 excluded, heathens and infidels supply. 
 
 The calamities of the Jews were to arise progressively 
 with their iniquities. They were to be punished again 
 and again, " yet seven times for their sins." 1 And in 
 the greatest of the denunciations which were to fill up the 
 measure of their punishments, the long-continued desola- 
 tion of their country is ranked among the worst and latest 
 of their woes ; and the prophecies respecting it which ad- 
 i Levit. xxvi. 18, 21, 24. 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 101 
 
 mit of a literal interpretation, and which have been liter- 
 ally fulfilled, are abundantly clear and expressive. 
 
 " I will make your cities waste, and bring your sanc- 
 tuaries unto desolation. — And I will bring the land into 
 desolation ; and your enemies which dwell therein shall 
 be astonished at it. And I will scatter you among the 
 heathen, and will draw out a sword after you ; and your 
 land shall be desolate, and your cities waste. Then shall 
 the land enjoy her sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate, 
 and ye be in your enemies' land ; even then shall the land 
 rest and enjoy her sabbaths. The land also shall be left 
 of them, and shall enjoy her sabbaths while she lieth de- 
 solate without them. 1 So that the generation to come 
 of your children that shall rise up after you, and the 
 stranger that shall come from a far land, shall say, when 
 they see the plagues of that land, and the sicknesses which 
 the Lord hath laid upon it, Wherefore hath the Lord done 
 thus unto this land? what meaneth the heat of this great 
 anger? The anger of the Lord was kindled against this 
 land, to bring upon it all the curses that are written in 
 this book." 2 In the vision of Isaiah, which he saw con- 
 cerning Judah and Jerusalem, we read, Your country is 
 desolate, your cities are burnt with fire; your land 
 strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, 
 as overthrown by strangers. And the daughter of Zion 
 is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden 
 of cucumbers, as a besieged city. Except the Lord of 
 hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should 
 have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto 
 Gomorrah. 3 Ye shall be as an oak whose leaf fadeth, 
 and as a garden that hath no water. 4 I will lay my 
 
 1 Levit. xxvi. 31-34, 43. 2 Deut. xxix. 22, 24, 27. 
 
 3 Isaiah i. 7-9. * Isaiah i. 30. 
 
102 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 vineyard waste. Of a truth many houses shall be deso- 
 late, even great and fair, without inhabitant. Yea, ten 
 acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, and the seed of an 
 homer shall yield an ephah. — Then shall the lambs feed 
 after their manner, and the waste places of the fat one 
 shall strangers eat. 1 Then, said I, Lord, how long? 
 And he answered, Until the cities be wasted without in- 
 habitant, and the houses without man, and the land be 
 utterly desolate, and the Lord have removed men far 
 away, and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the 
 land. But yet in it shall be a tenth ; and it shall return 
 and shall be eaten ; as a teil-tree, and as an oak, whose 
 substance is in them when they cast their leaves. 2 The 
 Lord Glod of hosts shall make a consumption, even deter- 
 mined, in the midst of all the land. 3 The glory of Jacob 
 shall be made thin, and the fatness of his flesh shall wax 
 lean: and it shall be as when the harvest-man gathereth 
 the corn, and reapeth the ears with his arm ; and it shall 
 be as he that gathereth ears in the valley of Eephaim. 
 Yet gleaning-grapes shall be left in it, as the shaking of 
 an olive-tree, two or three berries in the top of the utter- 
 most bough, four or five in the outmost fruitful branches 
 thereof, saith the Lord God of Israel. 4 Behold, the Lord 
 maketh the earth, 5 (the land) empty, and maketh it waste, 
 
 1 Isaiah v. 6, 9, 10, 17. 2 Isaiah vi. 11-13. 
 
 3 Isaiah x. 23. 4 Isaiah xvii. 4-6. 
 
 5 The twenty-fourth chapter of Isaiah contains a continuous 
 prophetic description (exactly analogous to other predictions) of 
 the desolation of Judea, during the time that the "inhabitants 
 thereof" were to be " scattered abroad;" and it is only necessary, 
 in order to prevent any appearance of ambiguity, to remark, that 
 the very same word in the original, which in the English transla- 
 tion, is here rendered earth, is, in subsequent verses of the same 
 chapter, also translated land; evidently implying the land of 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 103 
 
 and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the in- 
 habitants thereof. The land shall be utterly emptied, 
 and utterly spoiled; for the Lord hath spoken this word. 
 The earth (land) mourneth and fadeth away : — it is defil- 
 ed under the inhabitants thereof ; because they have trans- 
 gressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the 
 everlasting covenant. Therefore hath the curse devour- 
 ed the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate, — 
 and few men left. The new wine mourneth, the vine 
 languisheth, all the merry-hearted do sigh. The mirth 
 of tabrets ceaseth, the noise of them that rejoice endeth, 
 the joy of the harp ceaseth. They shall not drink wine 
 with a song; strong drink shall be bitter to them that 
 drink it. The city of confusion is broken down ; every 
 house is shut up, that no man may come in. There is 
 a crying for wine in the streets ; all joy is darkened, the 
 mirth of the land is gone. — When thus it shall be in the 
 midst of the land among the people, there shall be as the 
 shaking of an olive tree, and as the gleaning grapes when 
 the vintage is done. 1 Yet the defenced city shall be de- 
 solate, and the habitation forsaken, and left like a wil- 
 derness : there shall the calf feed, and there shall he lie 
 down and consume the branches thereof. When the 
 boughs thereof are withered, they shall be broken off : the 
 women come and set them on fire ; for it is a people of 
 no understanding. 2 Many days and years shall ye be 
 troubled, ye careless women ; for the vintage shall fail, 
 the gathering shall not come. Tremble, ye women that 
 
 Israel, the inhabitants of which were to be " scattered abroad :" 
 and so obviously is this the meaning of the word, that the chapter 
 is properly entitled " the deplorable judgments of God upon the 
 land." 
 
 1 Isaiah xxiv. 1, 3-11, 13. 2 Isaiah xxvii. 10, 11. 
 
104 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 are at ease ; be troubled, ye careless ones : strip you, and 
 make you bare, and gird sackcloth upon your loins. 
 They shall lament for the teats, for the pleasant fields, 
 for the fruitful vine. Upon the land of my people shall 
 come up thorns and briers; yea, upon all the houses of 
 joy in the joyous city; because the palaces shall be for- 
 saken, the multitude of the city shall be left; the forts 
 and towers shall be for dens for ever, a joy of wild asses, 
 a pasture of flocks ; until the Spirit be poured upon us 
 from on high, and the wilderness be a fruitful field, and 
 the fruitful field be counted for a forest. 1 The highways 
 lie waste, the wayfaring man ceaseth; he hath broken 
 the covenant, he hath despised the cities, he regardeth 
 no man. The earth mourneth and languisheth ; Leba- 
 non is ashamed and hewn down ; Sharon is like a wil- 
 derness ; and Bashan and Carmel shake off their fruits. 2 — • 
 Destruction upon destruction is cried ; for the whole land 
 is spoiled. I beheld, and lo the fruitful place was a wil- 
 derness, and all the cities thereof were broken down at 
 the presence of the Lord. For thus hath the Lord said, 
 The whole land shall be desolate ; yet will I not make a 
 full end. For this shall the earth mourn, — because I 
 have spoken it, I have purposed it, and will not repent, 
 neither will I turn back from it. 3 How long shall the 
 land mourn, and the herbs of every field wither, for the 
 wickedness of them that dwell therein ? I have forsaken 
 mine house, I have left mine heritage. Many pastors 
 have destroyed my vineyard, they have trodden my por- 
 tion under foot, they have made my pleasant portion a 
 desolate wilderness. They have made it desolate, and 
 being desolate it mourneth unto me; the whole land is 
 made desolate, because no man layeth it to heart. The 
 1 Isa. xxxii. 10-15. 2 Isa. xxxiii. 8, 9. 3 Jer. iv. 20, 26-28. 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 105 
 
 spoilers are come upon all liigli places through the wil- 
 derness ; — no flesh shall have peace. They have sown 
 wheat, hut shall reap thorns ; they have put themselves 
 to pain, hut shall not profit ; and they shall he ashamed 
 of your revenues, hecause of the fierce anger of the Lord. 1 
 Thus saith the Lord God to the mountains of Israel, and 
 to the hills, to the rivers, and to the valleys, Behold, I, 
 even I, will hring a sword upon you, and I will destroy 
 your high places. In all your dwelling-places the 
 cities shall he laid waste, and the high places shall be 
 desolate, that your altars may be laid waste and made 
 desolate, and your idols may be broken and cease. — 
 I will stretch out my hand upon them, and make the land 
 more desolate than the wilderness towards Diblath, in all 
 their habitations. 2 I will bring the worst of the heathen, 
 and they shall possess their houses : I will also make the 
 pomp of the strong to cease ; and their holy places shall 
 be defiled. Say unto the people of the land, Thus saith 
 the Lord God of the inhabitants of Jerusalem and of the 
 land of Israel, They shall eat their bread with careful- 
 ness, and drink their water with astonishment, that her 
 land may be desolate from all that is therein, because of 
 the violence of all them that dwell therein. Every one 
 that passeth thereby shall be astonished. 3 Hear this, all 
 ye inhabitants of the land. Hath this been in your days, 
 or even in the days of your fathers? Tell ye your child- 
 ren of it, and let your children tell their children, and 
 their children another generation. That which the pal- 
 mer-worm hath left hath the locust eaten; and that 
 which the locust hath left hath the canker-worm eaten ; 
 and that which the canker-worm hath left hath the cater- 
 
 1 Jer. xii. 4, 7, 10-13. 2 Ezek. vi. 3, 6, 14. 
 
 3 Ezek. vii. 24; xii. 19. Jer. xix. 8. 
 
106 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 pillar eaten. The field is wasted, the land mourneth, and 
 joy is withered away from the sons of men. And I will 
 restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the 
 canker-worm, and the caterpillar, and the palmer-worm. 
 — And my people shall never he ashamed. 1 The city 
 that went out hy a thousand shall leave an hundred, and 
 that which went forth hy an hundred shall leave ten, to 
 the house of Israel. Seek not Bethel; Bethel shall 
 come to nought. 2 Behold, I will set a plumb-line in the 
 midst of my people Israel : I will not again pass by them any 
 more. And the high places of Isaac shall be desolate, 
 and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste. 3 1 will 
 make Samaria as an heap of the field, and as plantings of a 
 vineyard ; and I will pour down the stones thereof into 
 the valley, and I will discover the foundations thereof." 4 
 
 Numerous and clear as these denunciations are, yet 
 such was the long- suffering patience of God, and such the 
 rebellious spirit of the Israelites of old, that it had become 
 a proverb in the land, " the days are prolonged, and 
 every vision faileth." But though that proverb ceased, 
 when great calamities did overtake them, and a temporary 
 desolation came over their land, yet the curses denounced 
 against it were not obliterated by a partial and transient 
 fulfilment, but, on the renewed and unrepented wicked- 
 ness of the people, fell upon them and their land with 
 stricter truth, and, as foretold, with sevenfold severity. 
 
 Moses and all the prophets set blessings and curses be- 
 fore the Israelites, with the avowed purpose that they 
 might choose between them. But while the prophetical 
 writings abound with warnings, the Scriptural records of 
 Israelitish history show how greatly these warnings were 
 
 1 Joel i, 2-4, 10, 12; ii. 25, 26. 2 Amos v. 3, 5. 
 
 3 Amos vii. 8, 9. 4 Micah i. 6. 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 107 
 
 disregarded. The word of God, which is perfect work, 
 abideth for ever : and it returns not to him void, but ful- 
 fils the purpose for which he sent it. And after the 
 statutes and judgments of the Lord had been set before 
 the Israelites for the space of a thousand years from the 
 time that they were first declared, the " burden of the 
 word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi," instead of speak- 
 ing, even then, of repealed judgments, closes the Jewish 
 Scriptures with tins last command, " Eemember ye the 
 law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him 
 in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments ; n 
 and, affixed to the command to remember these, the very 
 last words of the Old Testament, which seal up the vision 
 and the prophecies, plainly indicate, that however long 
 the God of Israel might bear with the Jews for trans- 
 gressing the law, while the law only was given them, yet 
 on their refusal to repent when the prophet, who was to 
 be " the messenger of the Lord," would be sent unto 
 them, the Lord would come and " smite the earth, or the 
 land, with a curse." 
 
 The term of the continuance of these judgments, and 
 of their full completion, is distinctly marked, as commen- 
 surate with the dispersion of the Jews, and terminating 
 with their final restoration. So long as they be in their 
 enemies' land, their own land lieth desolate. The judg- 
 ments were not to be removed from it " until the Spirit 
 be poured (upon the Jews) from on high, and the wilder- 
 ness be a fruitful field." 2 And the prophecies not only 
 portray Judea while forsaken of the Lord, his heritage 
 left, and given into the hands of its enemies, but they 
 also delineate the character and condition of the dwellers 
 therein, while its ancient inhabitants were to be scattered 
 1 Malachi iv. 4. 1 2 Isaiah xxxii. 15. 
 
108 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 abroad, and ere the time come when he shall reign in 
 Jerusalem before his ancients gloriously. 1 Annuncia- 
 tions of a future and final restoration almost uniformly 
 accompany the curses denounced against the land. And 
 frequent, and express as words can be, are the references 
 throughout the prophecies to the period yet to come, 
 when the children of Israel shall be gathered out of all 
 nations, and when the land then, at last and for ever, 
 brought back from desolation, and the cities, repaired 
 after the desolations of many generations, and the moun- 
 tains of Israel, which have been always waste, shall be 
 no more desolate, nor the people termed forsaken any 
 more. 2 After the Messiah was to be cut off, and the 
 sacrifice and oblation to cease, the ensuing desolations 
 were to reach even to the consummation, and till that de- 
 termined shall be poured upon the desolate. 3 And Jeru- 
 salem, as Jesus hath declared, shall be trodden down of 
 the Gentiles, till the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. 4 
 
 Neither the dispersion of the Jews nor the desolation 
 of Judea is to cease, according to the prophecies, till 
 other evidence shall thereby be given of prophetic in- 
 spiration. The application to the present period, or to 
 modern times, of the prophecies relative to the desola- 
 tion of Judea, is thus abundantly manifest. And the 
 more numerous they are, so much the more severe is the 
 test which they abide. And while the Jews are not yet 
 gathered from all the nations, nor planted in their own 
 land to be no more pulled out of it, 5 — nor its destroyers 
 and they that laid it waste, gone forth from it, 6 — nor the 
 
 1 Isaiah xxiv. 1, 23. 
 
 2 Ibid. lxi. 4. Ezek. xxxvi. 8, 10 j xxxvii. 21; xxxviii. 8. 
 Isaiah lxii. 4. 
 
 3 Dan. ix. 27. , 4 Luke xxi. 24. 5 Amos ix. 14, 15. 6 Isa. xlix. 17. 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 109 
 
 old waste places built, nor the foundations of many gene- 
 rations raised up, nor the land brought back from deso- 
 lation/ — the effect of every vision is still to be seen, and 
 even now, at this late period of the times of the Gentiles, 
 though the blessed consummation may not be very distant, 
 there is abundant evidence to complete the proof that 
 the curses that are written in the book of the Lord have 
 been brought upon the land, 2 and rest on it at this 
 day. 
 
 The devastation of Judea is so " astonishing," and its 
 poverty as a country so remarkable, that, forgetful of the 
 prophecies respecting it, and in the rashness of their zeal, 
 infidels have attempted to draw an argument from thence 
 against the truth of Christianity, by denying the possibi- 
 lity of the existence of so numerous a population as can 
 accord with Scriptural history, and by representing it as a 
 region singularly unproductive and irreclaimable. 3 But 
 
 1 Isaiah lviii. 12. 2 Deut. xxix. 27. 
 
 3 Voltaire, without adducing any authority whatever in support 
 of his assertion, and without expressly declaring that, in lieu of 
 such evidence, he was gifted with an intuitive knowledge of the 
 historical and geographical fact, — speaks of the ancient state of 
 Palestine with derision, describes it as one of the worst countries 
 of Asia ; likens it to Switzerland, and says that it can only be 
 esteemed fertile when compared with the desert. (Bp. Newton) 
 " La Palestine n'etait que ce qu'elle est aujourd'hui, un des plus 
 mauvais pays de FAsie. Cette petite province," &c. (CEuvres de 
 Voltaire, torn, xxvii. p. 107.) Without citing, on the other hand, 
 the ample evidence of Josephus and of Jerome, both of whom 
 were inhabitants of Judea, and more adequate judges of the fact, 
 the following testimony to the great fertility of that country, not 
 being chargeable with the partiality which might be attached to 
 the opinion either of a Christian or of a Jew, may be given in an- 
 swer to the groundless assertion of Voltaire; testimony which 
 ought to have been better known and appreciated even by that 
 high priest of modern infidelity, if the sacrifice of truth on the 
 
110 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 though they have voluntarily abandoned this indefensible 
 assumption, they have left to the believer the fruits of 
 their concession; they have given the most unsuspicious 
 testimony to the confirmation of the prophecies, and have 
 served to establish the cause which they sought to ruin. 
 The evidence of ancient authors ; the fertility of the soil 
 wherever a single spot can be cultivated; the remains of 
 vegetable mould piled, by artificial means, upon the sides 
 of the mountains, which may have clothed them with a 
 richer and more frequent harvest than the most ferile 
 vale ; and the multitude of the ruins of cities that now 
 cover the extensive but uncultivated and desert plains, 
 bear witness that there was a numerous and condensed 
 population in a country flowing with food ; and that, if 
 any history recorded its greatness, or any prophecies re- 
 vealed its desolation, they have both been amply verified. 
 
 The acknowledgments of Volney, and the description 
 which he gives from personal observation, are sufficient 
 to confute entirely the gratuitous assumptions and insi- 
 dious sarcasms of Voltaire: and, wonderful as it may 
 
 altar of wit had not been too common an act of his devotion to the 
 chief god of his idolatry. " Corpora hominum salubria et feren- 
 tialaborum; rari imbres, uber solum. Exuberant f rug es nostrum 
 ad morem; propter que eas balsamum et palmw. — Magna paris 
 Judeae vicis dispergitur; habent et oppida. Hierosolyma genti 
 caput. Illic immensae opulentiaa templum et primis munimentis 
 urbs." (Taciti Hist. lib. v. cap. vi. viii. Rel. Pales.) " Ultima 
 Syriarum est Palaestina, per intervalla magna protenta, cultis 
 abundans terris et nitidis, et civitates habens quasdam egregias, 
 nullam sibi cedentem, sed sibi vicissim velut ad perpendiculum 
 semulas." (Ammianus Marcellinus, lib. xiv. cap. viii. § 11. ibid.) 
 " Nec sane viris, opibus, armis quicquam copiosius Syria." (Flori 
 Hist. lib. ii. cap. viii. § 4.) "Syria in hortis operosissima est. 
 Indeque proverbium Grsecis, Multa Syrorum olera." (Plinii Hist. 
 Nat. lib. xx. cap. v.) 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 Ill 
 
 appear, copious extracts may be drawn from that writer, 
 whose unwitting or unwilling testimony is as powerful an 
 attestation of the completion of many prophecies, when 
 he relates facts of which he was an eye-witness, as his 
 untried theories, his ideal perfectibility of human nature, 
 if released from the restraints of religion, and his pervert- 
 ed views both of the nature and effects of Christianity, 
 have proved greatly instrumental in subverting the faith 
 of many, who, unguarded by any positive evidence, gave 
 heed to such seductive doctrines. There needs not to be 
 any better witness of facts confirmatory of the prophe- 
 cies, and in so far conclusive against all his speculations, 
 than Volney himself. Of the natural fertility of the 
 country, and of its abounding population in ancient times, 
 he gives the most decisive evidence. " Syria unites dif- 
 ferent climates under the same sky, and collects within a 
 small compass pleasures and productions which nature has 
 elsewhere dispersed at great distances of time and place. 
 To this advantage, which perpetuates enjoyments by their 
 succession, it adds another, that of multiplying them by 
 the variety of its productions. — With its numerous ad- 
 vantages of climate and soil, it is not astonishing that 
 Syria should always have been esteemed a most delicious 
 country, and that the Greeks and Eomans ranked it 
 among the most beautiful of their provinces, and even 
 thought it not inferior to Egypt." 1 After having assign- 
 ed several just and sufficient reasons to account for the 
 large population of Judea in ancient times, in contradic- 
 tion to those who were sceptical of the fact, he adds ; 
 " Admitting only what is conformable to experience and 
 nature, there is nothing to contradict the great popula- 
 
 1 Volney s Travels in Egypt and Syria, vol. i. pp. 316, 321. 
 English Translation, Lond. 1787. 
 
112 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 tion of high antiquity. Without appealing to the posi- 
 tive testimony of history, there are innumerable monu- 
 ments which depose in favour of the fact. Such are the 
 prodigious quantity of ruins dispersed over the plains, 
 and even in the mountains, at this day deserted. On 
 the remote parts of Carmel are found wild vines and 
 olive-trees, which must have been conveyed thither by 
 the hand of man: and in the Lebanon of the Druses and 
 Maronites, the rocks, now abandoned to fir-trees and 
 brambles, present us in a thousand places with terraces, 
 which prove that they were anciently better cultivated, 
 and consequently much more populous than in our days." 1 
 " Syria," says Gibbon, " one of the countries that 
 have been improved by the most early cultivation, is not 
 unworthy of the preference. The heat of the climate is 
 tempered by the vicinity of the sea and mountains, by the 
 plenty of wood and water; and the produce of a fertile 
 soil affords the subsistence and encourages the propaga- 
 tion of men and animals. From the age of David to 
 that of Heraclius the country was overspread with an- 
 cient and flourishing cities; the inhabitants were numer- 
 ous and wealthy." 2 Such evidence has merely been 
 selected as the most unsuspicious, though that of many 
 others might also be adduced. The country in the 
 vicinity of Jerusalem is indeed rocky, as Strabo re- 
 presents it. But these regions, as throughout the hill- 
 country of Judea, are well adapted for the cultivation of 
 the vine and the olive; and of old Israel sucked honey 
 from the rock, and oil out of the flinty-rock. " Even 
 the sides of the most barren mountains in the neighbour- 
 hood of J erusalem had been rendered fertile, by being 
 
 1 Volney's Travels in Egypt and Syria, vol. ii. p. 368. 
 
 2 Gibbon, vol. ix. p. 403. 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 113 
 
 divided into terraces, like steps rising one above another, 
 where soil has been accumulated with astonishing labour." 1 
 '* In any part of Judea," Dr Clarke adds, "the effects 
 of a beneficial change of government are soon wit- 
 nessed in the conversion of desolated plains into fertile 
 fields. — Under a Avise and beneficent government the pro- 
 duce of the Holy Land would exceed all calculation. Its 
 perennial harvest, the salubrity of its air, its limpid springs, 
 its rivers, lakes, and matchless plains, its hills and vales, 
 all these, added to the serenity of the climate, prove this 
 to be indeed a field which the Lord hath blessed." 2 But 
 the facts of the former fertility, as well as of the present 
 desolation of Judea, are established beyond contradiction; 
 and, in attempting in this respect to invalidate the truth 
 of sacred history, infidels have either been driven, or have 
 reluctantly retired, from the defenceless ground which they 
 themselves had once assumed, and have given room where- 
 on to rest an argument against their want of faith as well 
 as of veracity. For, in conclusion of this matter, it surely 
 may, without any infringement of truth or justice, be re- 
 marked, that the extent of the present desolation — the 
 very allegation on which they would discredit the Scrip- 
 tural narrative of the ancient glory of Judea — being itself 
 a clearly-predicted truth, then the greater the difficulty 
 of reconciling the knowledge of what it was to the fact of 
 what it is, and the greater the difficulty of believing the 
 possibility of so " astonishing" a contrast, the more won- 
 derful are the prophecies which revealed it all, the more 
 completely are they accredited as a voice from heaven, 
 
 1 Clarke's Travels, vol. ii. p. 520. General Straton describes 
 these terraces as resembling the gradus of a theatre, and particu- 
 larly marked them as vestiges of ancient " luxuriance. 1 ' 
 
 2 Clarke's Travels, voL ii. p. 521. 
 
 I 
 
114: 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 and the argument of the infidel leads the more directly 
 to proof against himself. Such is " the positive testi- 
 mony of history/' and such the subsisting proofs of the 
 former grandeur and fertility of Palestine, that we are 
 now left, without a cavil, to the calm investigation of the 
 change in that country from one extreme to another, and 
 of the consonance of that change with the dictates of pro- 
 phecy. 
 
 Having visited the land of Judea, the writer may con- 
 fidently affirm that it sets before the eyes of every be- 
 holder, who knows the Bible and can exercise his reason, a 
 three-fold illustration of the truth of Scripture, in respect 
 to its past, present, and yet destined state. It not only 
 presents to view the scenes of Scriptural history, often 
 recognisable to this hour as the places of which the 
 sacred penmen wrote, and where events were transacted, 
 the knowledge of which shall ever be the common pro- 
 perty of man ; but it exhibits, even among the barren but 
 terraced mountains of Israel, such proofs of ancient cul- 
 tivation, as show to a demonstration, that the ancient fer- 
 tility and glory of the land were not inferior to what 
 Scripture represents. Looking on it as it is, the whole 
 land now bears the burden of the word of the Lord. And 
 yet it shows as clearly, whenever that burden shall be 
 removed and the Lord shall in mercy remember the land, 
 that it yet retains the capability, as if it had never been 
 laid waste, of blooming forth anew in all its beauty, and 
 bearing its fruits in all their profusion, till its mountains 
 and plains be again clothed with as rich and varied a 
 produce as any land on earth can yield. 
 
 To that consummation of all their predictions concern- 
 ing it, the prophets ever looked. The people that have 
 been scattered throughout the world shall finally be 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 115 
 
 brought back to the land of their fathers, to be no more 
 plucked out of it for ever. And the fruitfulness of the 
 land of Canaan, long dormant but never dead, shall re- 
 appear in its glory, when the wilderness shall be turned 
 into a, fruitful field, and there shall be no more desola- 
 tion. But notwithstanding the blasphemies that have been 
 spoken against the mountains of Israel, no man who has 
 stood in the midst of them could fail to see that they He 
 desolate as smitten with a curse, and that they shall be 
 desolate no more when that judgment shall be taken 
 away. Many prophetic songs of rejoicing and praise 
 await the time when the wilderness and the solitary place 
 shall be glad for them, and the desert shall rejoice and 
 blossom as the rose, and the terraced mountains of Israel 
 shall be planted anew by the hands of Israel's children, 
 and bear the shame of the heathen no more. Prophesy 
 unto the mountains of Israel and say, Ye mountains of 
 Israel, because they have made you desolate, and ye are 
 taken up in the lips of talkers, and are an infamy of 
 the people: therefore, ye mountains of Israel, hear the 
 word of the Lord God: Thus saith the Lord to the 
 mountains, and to the hills, to the rivers, and to the 
 valleys, to the desolate wastes, and to the cities that are 
 forsaken, which became a prey and derision to the re- 
 sidue of the heathen that are round about, etc. — Ye, 0 
 mountains of Israel, shall yield your fruit to my people 
 Israel. — And I will settle you after your old estates, and 
 will do better unto you than at your beginnings; neither 
 will I cause men to hear in thee the shame of the heathen 
 any more; neither shalt thou bear the reproach of the 
 people any more. — Ezek. xxxvi. 1-15. The mockery 
 of misjudging scoffers, and the blasphemies from the lips 
 of talkers, uttered in purposed refutation of the truth of 
 
116 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 the word of God, are turned into a testimony against 
 themselves. And while the extent of the predicted de- 
 solation shows how wonderful their realization has been, 
 another reversal of the fate of Judea is yet reserved and 
 destined to show, in obvious application to events yet to 
 come, how mercy rejoiceth over judgment; how truth, 
 even in things opposite to each other, when rightly dis- 
 cerned, is ever triumphant ; and how the Hps of profane 
 talkers, having tendered their testimony, shall be silent 
 for ever, and the mountains of Israel be neither a deri- 
 sion nor a reproach any more. 
 
 Under any regular and permanent government, a re- 
 gion so favoured by climate, so diversified in surface, so 
 rich in soil, and which had been so luxuriant for ages, 
 would naturally have resumed its opulence and power ; 
 and its permanent desolation, alike contradictory to every 
 suggestion of experience and of reason, must have been 
 altogether inconceivable by man. But the land was to 
 be overthrown by strangers, to be trodden down; mischief 
 was to come upon mischief, and destruction upon destruc- 
 tion, and the land was to be desolate. The Chaldeans 
 devastated Judea, and led the inhabitants into temporary 
 captivity. The kings of Syria and Egypt, by their extor- 
 tions and oppression, impoverished the country. The 
 Eomans held it long in subjection to their iron yoke. 
 And the Persians contended for the possession of it. But 
 in succeeding ages, still greater destroyers than any of 
 the former appeared upon the scene to perfect the work 
 of devastation. " In the year 622 (636) the Arabian 
 tribes collected under the banners of Mahomet seized, or 
 rather laid it waste. Since that period, torn to pieces 
 by the civil wars of the Fatimites and the Ommiades ; 
 wrested from the califs by their rebellious governors; 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 117 
 
 taken from them by the Turkmen soldiery; invaded by 
 the European crusaders; retaken by Mamelouks of Egypt, 
 and ravaged by Tamerlane and his Tartars, it has at 
 length fallen into the hands of the Ottoman Turks." 1 It 
 has been overthrown by strangers; trodden under foot: 
 destruction has come upon destruction. 
 
 The Scriptural record bears, that when the Israelites 
 first entered into possession of their inheritance, the Lord, 
 according to his word by Moses, gave them a land for 
 which they did not labour, and cities which they built 
 not; and they dwelt in them. 2 But ere that promise 
 was thus fulfilled, at the time when the law was given 
 them, and statutes and ordinances were set in Israel, it 
 was written, among the curses denounced against disobe- 
 dience, / will make your cities waste. — I will scatter you 
 among the heathen — and your cities shall be waste* 
 Other prophecies, pointing to distant ages, and to events 
 not realized to this day, prescribe the only term of the 
 desolation of the cities as of the land, Upon the land of 
 my people shall come up thorns and briars; yea, upon 
 all the houses of joy in the joyous city; because the palaces 
 shall be forsaken, the multitude of the city shall be left; 
 the forts and towers shall be for dens for ever — until 
 the Spirit be poured upon us from on high, and the wil- 
 derness be a fruitful field* The curses, as recorded, 
 were all to be completed on the land and on the people; 
 and the blindness of Israel was not to until the 
 
 cities should be waste without inhabitant, and the houses 
 without man. 5 
 
 The import of these predictions, if rightly regarded, is 
 
 1 Volney's Travels, vol. i. p. 357. 
 
 2 Joshua xxiv. 13. 3 Lev. xxvi. 31, 33. 4 Isaiah xxxii. 13-15. 
 5 Isaiah vi. 11. 
 
118 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 such that the completion of them alone gives ocular de- 
 monstration, that the word of the Lord is as a hammer 
 that breaketh the rock in pieces. 
 
 When Israel first entered into Canaan, a hundred and 
 twelve cities, mentioned hy name, together with their vil- 
 lages, fell to the lot of the tribe of Judah. 1 Forty-eight 
 cities were given to the Levites out of the possession of 
 the other tribes. The half tribe of Manasseh, east of the 
 Jordan, had for an inheritance all the region of Argob, 
 with all the kingdom of Bashan, from Salcah to Edrei, 
 in which were sixty cities, fenced with high walls, gates, 
 and bars, besides unwalled towns a great many* In the 
 histories of the wars of the Eomans with the Jews, ere 
 the last tribe of Israel was rooted out of their own land 
 to be dispersed in every other, Tacitus, as already quot- 
 ed, records that, besides the towns, great part of Judea 
 was overspread with villages; and Josephus relates that 
 Upper and Lower Galilee were thickly set with cities, 
 and with populous villages. When finally the Jews were 
 besieged in all their gates, a Eoman historian gives a spe- 
 cification of their number, in testifying that five hundred 
 strongly fortified citadels, and nine hundred and eighty- 
 five noble villages, were overthrown to their foundations. 3 
 
 Many of the cities of the land were rebuilt and repeo- 
 pled, but not by Jews any more. Ptolemy, in the second 
 century, gives in his geography the names of upwards of 
 fifty cities or towns, situated within the ancient borders of 
 Israel, and a far greater number within the limits of the 
 kingdom of Solomon, In the fourth century, according 
 to Ammianus Marcellinus, Palestine had renowned cities 
 that rivalled each other in their greatness. Syria, in the 
 
 1 Joshua xv. 20-63. 2 Deut. iii. i, 5. 3 Dion. Cass. Hist. 
 Rom. lib. lxix. p. 798. 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 119 
 
 words of Gibbon, was overspread with ancient and flourish- 
 ing cities to the days of Heraclius, in the seventh cen- 
 tury. It contained, in the days of the Lower Empire, 
 two hundred bishoprics ; and though some of the sees are 
 marked as villages, not a few were populous and splendid 
 cities. Csesarea, Antipatris, Monte-Pellegrino (Athlite,) 
 Kamlah, Eas, Lebona, Area, Paneas, Safed, Akka (Acre,) 
 Gerasa (Gerash,) Adgeloun, besides many other fortresses 
 and walled towns in Syria, were strong enough to with- 
 stand the assaults of powerful armies, in the wars of the 
 crusades, and some of them were only taken after des- 
 perate and protracted sieges. 1 In the fourteenth cen- 
 tury Syria, after the destruction of many of its cities and 
 strongholds, could still count thirty fortresses. 
 
 Such records suit not the present day, in which ruins 
 testify their truth as to the past. But the names of 
 '* ruined or deserted places," though only partially ascer- 
 tained, are more numerous than the names which all an- 
 cient records, now extant, supply, of the cities and villages 
 which of old were peopled either by Jews or Gentiles. 
 City after city may now be called by its name, that each 
 and all may bear witness to the word of the Holy One of 
 Israel. 
 
 The progressive desolation of the cities of Syria has 
 been traced by the author in other pages, in which their 
 existing state of ruin or desertion is too minutely de- 
 scribed to admit of recapitulation here, where so many 
 prophecies demand a succinct illustration. 2 But having 
 visited Palestine a second time since the treatise referred 
 to was published, some supplementary proof, derived from 
 personal observation, may be conjoined with other testi- 
 monies of the desolation that has come upon the cities, 
 1 See Land Tsrael, p. 200-268. 2 lb., pp. 296-333, 358-384. 
 & 
 
120 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 which, long after the days of the prophets, " overspread 
 the land." 
 
 In the lists of Arabic names of places in Palestine 
 given by the Eev. EH Smith, who has resided many 
 years in Syria, and traversed many of its districts, one 
 hundred and three ruined or deserted places are named, 
 in the district of Hebron, and to the south of that town. 1 
 Among these, the ancient names of Kerioth, Arad, El- 
 Moladah, Aroer (in Judah,) Beersheba, Elusa, Eboda, 
 Tekoa, Berachah, Eamah, Ziph, Engedi, Maon, Carmel 
 (of Judah,) Phogor, Gedor, Adoraim, Dumah, Anab, 
 Socoh, Jattir, and Nezib, are recognised in the deserted 
 ruins Karyetein, Tell Arad, el-Milh, Ararah, Bir es Seba, 
 el-Khulasah, Abdeh, Tekua, Bereikut, er-Bam, Zif, Ain 
 Jidy, Main, Kurmul, Faghur, Jedur, Dura, Daumeh, 
 Annabeh, esh-Schuweikeh, Attir,. and Beit Nusib. 
 
 Twenty-nine cities are named by Joshua as the ut- 
 termost cities of Judah towards the coast of Edom. 
 But in travelling, as the writer did, from Hebron to that 
 coast, and returning by a different route, not a single 
 city, or town, or house, did we pass, or see on any side, 
 except in utter ruin. In Mr Smith's lists of places 
 south of Hebron, are the names of thirty-six " ruined or 
 deserted places," but not one that is inhabited. They 
 are all now numbered among the decayed places of 
 Judah. 
 
 The head of a valley once crowned with Carmel 
 of Judah, is now, on both sides and around it, cover- 
 ed with its ruins. The remains of two large churches, 
 half a mile apart, the thick walls of a ruined castle, many 
 heaps of hewn stones, and remains of walls nearly level- 
 
 1 Robinson and Smith's Palestine, Second Appendix, Arabic 
 Lists, pp. 1H-117. 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 121 
 
 led with the ground, indicate no mean ancient city; while 
 its situation, though all be desolate around it now, shows 
 that of old it was worthy of its name of Carmel or fruit- 
 ful. At Karyetein heaps of ruins mark the site of an 
 ancient town. There are evident marks and remains of 
 buildings spread over a large space at Araar, which, 
 however decayed, recurring at short distances, give proof 
 that the valley of Aroer of Judah was once thickly peopled ; 
 and that near to its borders on the south-east, Judah 
 continued to be overspread with towns and villages. Of 
 the ruins both of Eboda and Tekoa, as described by Dr 
 Eobinson and Mr Smith, the principal in each are those 
 of a large church, and of a castle and fortress. They 
 "stumbled by accident" on the ruins of Ruhaibeh; but 
 though thus discovered, and from the space these cover, 
 they judged upon the spot that it must have been a city 
 of not less than 12,000 or 15,000 inhabitants. The 
 ruins of Elusa, once an episcopal city, cover, in their 
 estimation, a space large enough for a population of 
 15,000 or 20,000 souls. 
 
 In the districts round. Jerusalem there were, in 1835, 
 sixty-four ruined or deserted places ; and thirty-nine in 
 the territories of Eamlah and Lydda. 1 Some of the vil- 
 lages, then inhabited, have since been added to their num- 
 ber. 2 In the districts of Nabulus or Neopolis, there were 
 in the same year, thirty ruined or deserted places; twenty 
 other villages in the same regions had been reduced to 
 similar desolation or desertion in the year 184:4. Among 
 these Shiloh, once so famous in Israel, Eas, a strong for- 
 tress in the days of the crusaders, Thebez, Endor, Her- 
 mon, and Tannach, in their altered condition, but scarcely 
 
 1 Mr Smith's Arabic Lists, ibid. pp. 121-126. 
 
 2 Shahmeh, el-Mansurah, Deir el-Muheisen, Deir Bezia. 
 
122 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 altered names, have sunk into the tenantless Seilun, er- 
 Kas, Tubas, Endur, Haramon, and Tannak. 
 
 Mr Smith's lists of the names of places in the exten- 
 sive districts of Tiberias, Nazareth, Acre, and Safed. and 
 Huleh, do not embrace "the uninhabited places." These 
 regions included Upper and Lower Galilee, which, ir. the 
 days of Josephus, were Ml of people, and overspread with 
 cities and large villages. In traversing the great ilain 
 of Esdraelon, anciently that of Jezreel, no dwellings but 
 tents of the wandering Arabs are passed, and no villages 
 are now to be seen throughout it, save those which very 
 sparingly skirt the base of the surrounding hills. The 
 broad summit of Gerizzim, and the spacious top of T&bor, 
 are alike covered with extensive nuns. Of the cities that 
 bordered the lake of Tiberias, none remain but as uterly 
 desolate . In Upper Galilee the towns of Ccesarea jPhil r ippi, 
 into which Jesus went, are no more. The name* of 
 seventeen ruined places in the neighbourhood of Pareas, 
 its miserable representative, are given by Burckhardt. 1 ' 
 From Dan, in its vicinity, of which scarce a vestige re- 
 mains, to Beersheba, also desolate, the traveller now 
 passes — not from city to city — but from ruin to rain; 
 and from one end of the land to the other, anciently em- 
 bracing the thousands of Israel, cities once crowded, and 
 fortresses that could withstand armies, bear witness tc the 
 truth and power of that word as the Lord's, which has 
 laid them in the dust, and made them a pasture for flocks, 
 or dens for beasts, and covered them with thorns ; and 
 the traveller may now sometimes " stumble" on an an- 
 cient city, unseen till he tread it under foot. 
 
 Cities that existed in their prime long after the days of 
 the latest of the prophets, are as utterly desolate as any in 
 1 Pp. 44, 45. 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 123 
 
 the land ; and cities built by Eomans are now as waste as 
 any they destroyed. Of the former, the once princely ca- 
 pital of Herod the Great may here supply an illustration. 
 Caesarea, on the sea-coast, nearly midway between Acre 
 and Jaffa, fallen and ruined as it lies, still exhibits traces 
 of its ancient magnificence. Jesus was brought before 
 Herod, as Nazareth lay within his jurisdiction; and 
 Caesarea, which rose to the height of its splendour seven 
 centuries after the days of Isaiah, has sunk into utter 
 desolation under the sentence that beforehand had passed 
 indiscriminately on the cities of the land. Its walls, of 
 far later construction and more circumscribed extent 
 than those built by Herod, give evidence of its strength 
 in times comparatively recent. But whether built anew 
 by Saracens or crusaders, whom its capture successively 
 enriched, they could not finally avert its doom. 
 
 In the sixteenth century Eauwolf could speak of its 
 large and broad streets, in which scarcely any one was to 
 be seen, and of its stately antiquities, which then remain- 
 ed, though they are less stately now. Its desolation has 
 since been perfected. Its streets are all encumbered and 
 concealed by its fallen and indistinguishable ruins ; — and 
 the nobler buildings of that once proud city, for the cele- 
 bration of whose games the palace of the Caesars was 
 disfurnished of the richest ornaments, form at best but 
 the larger heaps. Twenty thousand Jews were slain 
 within it in the day of Jerusalem's fall; but, populous 
 as it long after was, it is now without an inhabitant. 
 Paul was there imprisoned for two years, and though it 
 ministered to the honour of Caesar and the pride of Herod, 
 it lies as low as if an apostle of Jesus had shaken off the 
 dust of his feet as a testimony against it. Felix trembled 
 
124: 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 when he there spake of judgment ; Caesarea can now tell 
 its own. 
 
 The comparatively modern wall that surrounded the 
 less extended city was strongly fortified with bastions, 
 which, though firmly built in the pyramidal form, have 
 not remained unbroken. (See plate II.) Within it are 
 seen heaps of desolated buildings covered with thistles, 
 noxious weeds, and rank herbage, through which, cover- 
 ing the rough ruins, it is not easy to penetrate. Wild 
 boars, hyenas, and wolves, snakes and scorpions have long 
 made it their resort or their abode. 1 The writer saw no 
 living thing within it, except, when wearied with wander- 
 ing on foot over its tangled ruins > — matted as they were, 
 after the earlier rain, with, thistles, hemlock, and other 
 wild plants intertwined — he had scarcely begun to ride 
 through them by a beaten track, when a large ser- 
 pent darted across it through the rustling plants,, and 
 at the sight, his horse starting back literally shud- 
 dered mider him, and could not be forced onward, where 
 the multitude, after the oration of Herod, had shouted, " it 
 is the voice of a god and not of a man," and where, in 
 later times, proud Eomans, Saracens, and Templars, had 
 gaily pranced along a street built of polished stones. 
 
 The ruins of a large church, which Pococke conjec- 
 tured to be the cathedral of the archbishop, rise con- 
 spicuously in the midst of indiscriminate and indescriba- 
 ble heaps. It is about 150 feet long and 60 broad, 
 with a vault beneath, 56 feet in length. Many fallen and 
 broken columns, chiefly on the skirt of the ruins on the 
 shore, denote the destruction of a splendid city. Others 
 
 1 Pococke, p. 59. Buckingham's Palestine, p. 137. Mr Gr. Ro- 
 binson's Travels, i. p. 190. Clarke's Travels, ii. 645. 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 125 
 
 of granite or marble, alike prostrate, are partly buried in 
 the ruins, where doubtless many are wholly concealed, as 
 some in recent times have been raised up and carried 
 away. The large columns, partly projecting from the 
 ruins, can still show that lofty pillars adorned the city of 
 Caesarea. Between the more modern wall, on the south, 
 and the ancient wall, which is distinctly traceable, are 
 large green mounds, seemingly the graves of some of the 
 noblest structures of Herod. Two of the most elevated 
 of these enclose on both sides an oblong space, sweep 
 round its eastern extremity, but leave it open towards the 
 shore (as described by Josephus) ; and thus constitute the 
 form, as they mark the site, of a grand amphitheatre well 
 fitted for the celebrated games of that joyous city. But 
 the green mounds are no less adapted now for their pre- 
 sent and predicted use, a, pasture of the flocks of the wan- 
 dering Arabs, after that wealthy and renowned city, like 
 others in the land, has ceased to be a spoil and a prey. 
 
 The glory of man is as the flower of the grass; but 
 the word of our God abidethfor ever. And when the last 
 predicted fact concerning the cities of the land shall be 
 accomplished, Herod's once boasted but long-forgotten 
 labours will not be for ever lost. Caesarea, utterly deso- 
 late, has its ample stores ready for the day when the sons 
 of strangers shall build up the walls of the desolate cities 
 of Israel. It was the capital of a kingdom in the days 
 of Herod, and subsequently of the Eoman province of 
 Palestina Prima, and in later times an archiepiscopal city, 
 to which seventeen bishoprics were subject. But its cities, 
 like itself, have fallen. And in travelling along the de- 
 solate sea- shore of Canaan from Dor on the one side, to 
 Mukhalid on the other, or from one miserable village to 
 the next, a distance of about twenty miles, not a single 
 
126 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 inhabited place was passed or seen, and tents of the Be- 
 douin, even close to the coast, are now the only dwellings 
 of men. 
 
 Concerning the cities already referred to, the prediction 
 is in each case a fact ; and one and all are desolate with- 
 out inhabitant} 
 
 But other cities of Israel are laid waste or desolate, 
 besides those in which no man dwells. A few miserable 
 huts clustering round ruins, or raised as if in mockery 
 over fallen cities, cannot redeem them from desolation. 
 What they are may be contrasted with what they have 
 been: and there is a word also for them. 
 
 In the districts attached to Neapolis, as still ranked 
 among inhabited places, the defenceless villages or hum- 
 ble hamlets of Lubban, Jeljuleh, Salim, Beit Dejan, Acra- 
 beh, Daumeh, Jeba, el-Fendakumieh, Jeblon, Shutta, 
 Beisan, and Sebustieh, are the wrecks that bear the 
 names of Lebonah, Gilgal, Salim, Beth Dagon, Acraba- 
 tene, Edumia, Geba, Pentacomias, Gilboa, Beth Shitta, 
 Bethsan, or Scythopolis, once, according to Josephus and 
 Pliny, the greatest city of Decapolis, and Sebaste, or 
 Samaria, the ancient capital of the ten tribes of Israel. 
 
 Bysan, as described by Dr Richardson, is "a collec- 
 tion of the most miserable hovels, containing about 200 
 inhabitants." Its site is covered with large heaps of hewn 
 stones, with prostrate columns of Corinthian architecture 
 emblems of the greatness of the fallen city. On the 
 south end of the same valley of the Jordan, close, as 
 Josephus describes the city, and as Mr Buckingham first 
 marked its site, to the foot of the hills of Judah, as they 
 rise from the plain, are the wide-spread vestiges of the 
 1 Isaiah lx. 10; Ixi. 4. 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 127 
 
 city of Jericho, beside the fountain of Elisha, and between 
 it and the hill, as partly on its sloping base. It is alto- 
 gether in utter ruin. Bare, and partly broken walls, 
 around which were some naked children, with not more 
 than thirty houses covered with roofs, and others in ruins, 
 form the modern Rieha, perhaps a suburb of the ancient 
 city. In the country adjacent to Bamlah, the ancient 
 Arimathea, there are found, at every step, as described 
 by Volney, dry wells, cisterns fallen in, and vast vaulted 
 reservoirs, which prove that in ancient times this town 
 must have been upwards of a league and a half in cir- 
 cumference. " Solomon built Beth-horon the upper, 
 and Beth-horon the nether, fenced cities, with walls, gates, 
 and bars." The two small villages, " Beit' Ur, the upper 
 and lower, represent theancient upper and lower Bethoron." 
 Though built by Solomon, they have been overthrown to 
 their foundations. In the one, the foundations of large 
 stones indicate an ancient site;" the other exhibits 
 " traces of ancient walls and foundations." Between them 
 are " foundations of large stones, the remains perhaps of 
 a castle which once guarded the pass." 1 While founda- 
 tions of many generations yet await the time when they 
 shall be raised up again, cities that were celebrated in 
 more modern times can only be renewed by a similar re- 
 construction. In the twelfth century the wealth of Paneas 
 could bribe a king of Jerusalem, Baldwin III., to break 
 a treaty that he might pay his debts ; and the archbishop 
 of Tyre, the historian of the Crusades, relates that the 
 prey was so great and unheard of that the countries of 
 the Crusades could not furnish the like. Foundations 
 are yet firm where all else is fallen ; there are strong 
 remnants of an ancient wall built of long bevelled stones, 
 1 Robinson and Smith, iii. p. 59. 
 
128 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 with bastions, along the edge of a ravine ; a gate, and 
 part of a wall yet stand, in which are imbedded many 
 pieces of granite columns, the index of older ruins. A 
 long space extending a mile or more from the village is 
 now overspread with ruins, among which, if searched for 
 in the adjoining wood, where no wall any longer stands, 
 are found many architectural fragments, and prostrate 
 columns and fallen altars. The historical and predicted 
 fact is amply corroborated on the spot, that destruction 
 has come upon destruction, till nothing be left but memo- 
 rials that it has done its work on one of the richest cities 
 of the land. Burckhardt described Paneas as containing, 
 in 1810, "about a hundred and fifty houses, inhabited 
 by Turks, Greeks, Druses," &c. In 1844, they were 
 reduced to about twenty houses, little else than miserable 
 huts, loosely constructed with stones from the ruins. Yet 
 no natural cause exists why a city, whose name did 
 honour to both an emperor and a tetrarch, should not 
 be as populous and prosperous as ever. There the 
 Jordan, in its primary source, rising from a spacious 
 cavern in a limestone rock, gushes to the width of a 
 hundred and eighty feet from .among loose stones at 
 its base, and in the space of a few yards beneath forms 
 an unbroken stream of equal breadth, as if it flowed at 
 once a river from a rock. Stones covered with aqua- 
 tic plants, speedily divide it for a while into lesser streams, 
 that in a soil so fertile, a climate so delicious, and a spot 
 so picturesque, might irrigate a paradise or enrich a city. 
 Desolate — and all but deserted — as Csesarea Philippi is, 
 many olives, figs, pomegranates, and vines, often inter- 
 twined, adorn and enrich a bold ravine, down which the 
 river leaps, and other circumjacent valleys, in which too 
 luxuriant myrtles, woodbines, holly, oliander, mint, thyme, 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 129 
 
 and passion flowers, combine their fragrance and their 
 beauty. Cataracts, in some places, may be heard when 
 they cannot be seen, from the closeness of the trees and 
 the density of the foliage. The beauties of nature flourish 
 amidst the ruins of art ; and a magnificent terebinth- tree, 
 the trunk of which is thirteen feet eight inches in circum- 
 ference, still stands in the humble village. The principal 
 part of the ancient city seems to have been, as Burckhardt 
 states, on the opposite side of the river, now destitute of 
 houses, and of standing though ruined walls, but covered 
 for a large space with old foundations and heaps of hewn 
 stones, which are overspread with thistles and shadowed by 
 trees. Philip the tetrarch did not build his capital, nor 
 Herod his, that in after ages their proud and joyous cities 
 might illustrate the power of another word than their own. 
 But sharing in the common doom of the cities of the land, 
 of the one and of the other as of the rest it is now true as 
 written for generations to come, Yet the defenced city — as 
 those cities were — shall be desolate, and the habitation for- 
 saken, and left like a wilderness: there shall the calf feed, 
 and there shall he lie down and consume the branches 
 thereof. 
 
 But on the east no less than on the west of the Jordan, 
 the once famous as well as numerous cities that were 
 situated there, proclaim the truth of the word that alike 
 went forth against them. Bashan pertained to Israel as 
 well as Carmel, and Grilead no less than Ephraim; and 
 a promise yet unfulfilled still substantiates the claim. The 
 cities of the plain of Bashan (or the Hauran) were the 
 possession of one half of the tribe of Manasseh, as were 
 those of the plain of Sharon of the other. And two tribes 
 besides had their inheritance there. 
 
 K 
 
130 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 East of that river — where the conquests of the Israel- 
 ites began, and where the Jews retained no mean portion 
 of their territory, till finally dispersed by the Eomans 
 when Jerusalem was destroyed, — the land, as well as on 
 the western side, is. studded all over with joint illustra- 
 tions of Scriptural history and prophecy, both where 
 Israelites of old did dwell, and where their enemies sub- 
 sisted as thorns in their sides. 
 
 Numerous were the cities of the Israelites beyond Jor- 
 dan. So soon as they began to possess the land they 
 took all the cities of Sihon, king of the Amorites, from 
 Aroer, which is by the brink of the river Arnon; and 
 from the city that is by the river, even unto Gilead, there 
 was not one city too strong for them : the Lord their God 
 delivered all into their hands. Great was their triumph 
 when, at the battle of Edrei, the king of Bashan was smit- 
 ten before Israel, and his kingdom became a portion of 
 their inheritance. There was not a city which they took 
 not, — threescore cities fenced with high walls, gates, and 
 bars. From the king of Bashan and the king of the 
 Amorites they took all the land " from the river of Arnon 
 unto mount Hermon, all the cities of the plain, and all 
 Gilead and Bashan unto Salcah and Edrei, cities of the 
 kingdom of Bashan." These territories are defined, as 
 indubitably marked by the same natural boundaries to 
 this day. In full and literal accomplishment of a pre- 
 diction and a promise, the conquest of all these cities was 
 complete. They became the prey and the possession of 
 the children of Israel; and they dwelt in them. But as 
 complete is their predicted desolation or desertion now. 
 And as it was said in truth unto Moses, " I will deliver the 
 king of Bashan, and his people, and his land into thy hand," 
 (Deut. iii. 2.) so truly has the word of the Lord by Moses 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 131 
 
 and the prophets heen accomplished, I will make your cities 
 ivaste. — Your cities shall be made waste without an inha- 
 bitant. — The cities of Aroer are forsaken; they shall be 
 for flocks to lie down, and none shall make them afraid. 
 — In that day shall the strong cities be as a forsaken 
 bough. The defenced city shall be desolate, and the habi- 
 tation forsaken, and left like a wilderness, &p. 
 
 The record of the curse that has not fallen " causeless/' 
 may be as brief as the Scriptural record of the accom- 
 plishment of the promise, when their primary occupancy 
 of these very cities was the earnest of still larger bless- 
 ings to Israel's tribes. 
 
 Within the precisely defined regions of these royalties 
 then, but desolations now, from the river Arnon to mount 
 Hermon, (exclusive of Ammon and Moab, or places to the 
 east or south of As-Salt,) there were in the year 1834, 
 as their names are given in Mr Smith's Arabic lists, three 
 hundred and forty-five places " in ruins or deserted." 
 The proof is thus plain that, as to the Scriptural record, 
 besides the threescore cities, there were " unwalled towns 
 a great many;" and the evidence is thus abimdant and 
 precise, that these cities are desolate or in ruins, or else 
 deserted or without inhabitant. 
 
 But large as this number is, it comprehends not all the 
 ruined or forsaken cities or towns, with which this region 
 is so thickly studded. The author, while in Palestine, 
 was informed by Mr Smith, who has traversed at different 
 times great part of Syria, and obtained the names in the 
 separate localities, that his lists were not complete ; and 
 that on both sides of the Jordan, places previously inha- 
 bited were then deserted, (in 184:4.) The stroke that 
 has continued for ages upon the land has not yet ceased. 
 Ancient towns that retained a village popidation twelve 
 
132 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 or even two years ago, now bear the emphatic name 
 charab. Though unable to penetrate farther than Gerash, 
 the writer, in passing over Ajlun (or mount Gilead,) took 
 down from natives of the country the names of seventeen 
 places, marked in Mr Smith's lists as inhabited, in which 
 no man any longer dwelt. And from many more in the 
 Hainan the inhabitants have since been driven out by the 
 Bedouins, who live not in houses but in tents. 
 
 The very term, in the Hebrew original, of that denun- 
 ciation which has fallen thus heavily upon the cities of 
 Israel, is unconsciously repeated in their cognate language 
 by the native Arabs, as descriptive of places now inhabit- 
 ed no more. In questioning many of them, in different 
 localities on both sides of the Jordan, concerning such sites, 
 we heard uniformly the same word from their lips, repeat- 
 edly by several of them at the same moment : and places 
 formerly inhabited were declared to be charab, desolate. 1 
 
 Ibrahim Pasha, after an " exterminating war" in the 
 Hauran, by the terror of his name controlled the Be- 
 douins, or incorporated them in his armies. When Euro- 
 pean policy and arms gave anew to the Sultan the nominal 
 sovereignty of Syria, an Osmanli governor in Turkish in- 
 fatuation was set over the Hauran. But he was speedily 
 compelled to abandon it to the Bedouins. So entirely had 
 they overspread the country, after defeating the troops of 
 the Pasha of Damascus in 1844, that though we watch- 
 ed for an opening, it was then impossible for us to 
 penetrate it, either on the west or on the north ; and 
 after passing through ten thousand war-camels, about 
 twelve miles from Damascus, a cloud of dust in the dis- 
 tance, raised by the seeming advance of a hostile tribe, so 
 
 i Lev. xxvi. Lev. xxvi. 31, 33. Isa. lxi. 4. Ezek. vi. 6. ; 
 
 xxvi. 35, 38, &c. 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 133 
 
 intimidated the guides or guards that accompanied us, 
 that, without a word of warning, they fled, driving before 
 them the mule that, with other articles, carried the plates, 
 on which we hoped to transfer the views of some of 
 the desolate ruins or deserted cities of that stricken re- 
 gion. In the following year, as stated in a letter from 
 Damascus, the Bedouins came like hungry wolves up- 
 on the villages of the Hauran, so that there was hardly 
 one remaining. 1 In that land a " treaty of peace" 
 is often hut a short and uncertain truce; and respite 
 from war is now unknown in that still troubled comitry. 
 Vain were the attempt to draw from the testimonies of 
 travellers a precise estimate of the existing loneliness of 
 these once populous and crowded cities, or to say what 
 villages or houses are not now — or may not be to-mor- 
 row — bereft of the last man that lingered within them. 
 But there is ample proof how numerous and great, and 
 densely peopled these cities were, which had first to be 
 in ruins, as many are, or else deserted, as their respective 
 designations (without any reference to the prediction) 
 bear, before they could thus jointly testify, that each word 
 which fell on them of old, was that of the Lord. 
 
 Cities are desolate without inhabitant, and houses with- 
 out man, though the cities remain, and the houses in 
 many instances are yet " entire," while the once splen- 
 did capital of Herod levelled with the dust, has only its 
 holes for reptiles and wild beasts ; and more modern towns 
 built by triumphant Eomans in their Syrian provinces, 
 are strewed upon the ground, and, covered with briars, or 
 thorns, or thistles, take the lowest place among the deso- 
 late cities to be raised from their foundations. 
 
 1 Free Church Missionary Record, vol. ii. 258. Letter from 
 Rev. Mr Graham. 
 
134 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 The mere number, however vast, of " places in ruins 
 or deserted," inadequately represents either the extent of 
 the desolation, or the import of their doom, as actually 
 realized. As the desolation or abandonment of these 
 cities is somewhat more minutely regarded, the verifica- 
 tion of the prophetic word rises more clearly and won- 
 derfully into view ; and may here again, in one instance 
 at least, be an object of sight. 
 
 Assyrian arts, long lost, and sometimes ignorantly de- 
 spised, are no longer wholly hid, when, for the first time 
 in the present year (a.d. 1847,) specimens of them, dug 
 from the ruins of Nineveh, may be seen in national mu- 
 seums in Paris and in London. And records of antiquity 
 give no note of the splendour which once dazzled the 
 now lonely spot of Gerash, like that which, by a modern 
 invention, the sun's rays now reflect on a daguerreotype 
 plate from its ruins. The stateliest of its edifices, now its 
 monuments, are the only memorials of its greatness. 
 
 Its walls, from three to four miles in circumference, 
 inclose an area covered all over with ruins. Without a 
 house that is not levelled with the ground and overspread 
 with thistles, two theatres, ranking among the most en- 
 tire of its ruins, bear witness that Gerasa was once a joy- 
 ous city. Of one of these, the semi- circular seats, form- 
 ed for its gay inhabitants, may, on a minute inspection, be 
 partly seen on the upper edge of the plate, near the massy 
 ruins of a magnificent temple, facing the empty niches in 
 its broken walls. In the theatre are twenty-eight rows 
 of seats, the uppermost of which is about a hundred and 
 twenty paces in circuit. The walls of the temple, fully 
 eight feet thick, built by Eomans to last for ages, were 
 surrounded by a Corinthian peristyle of many columns, 
 the once lofty shafts of which, now lie in immense heaps 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 135 
 
 around its base. Fronting the theatre there stood, as 
 there now lies, a street lined on both sides with columns, 
 which bisected the city to its opposite extremity, and ter- 
 minated in a semicircular colonnade that opened at once 
 to the temple and the theatre. It was crossed by similar 
 streets of which some of the columns are still erect, 
 amidst remaining foundations, broken walls, and heaps of 
 ruins. The lines of columns, crossed at right angles by 
 others, once closely ranged, may yet be seen as the chief 
 street traversed the city now buried in its ruins. The 
 pavement of the streets, seldom equalled in modern capi- 
 tals, is in many places as perfect as when foot passengers 
 thronged the paths on both sides, and chariots passed be- 
 tween them. The south-western gateway, as seen near 
 the centre of the plate, was not built, as now it stands, to 
 lead to a desolate city without an inhabitant. Many 
 arched chambers, some of very large dimensions, have 
 now become fit tenements for reptiles and wild beasts. 
 Another temple, built on a spacious area, closely lined 
 by two hundred pillars, now fallen, was adorned in front 
 by columns that, still standing together, may challenge 
 competition with the ornaments of a modern city, though 
 it be not, as Grerasa was, a mere provincial town. Dis- 
 covered, like the city, in 1806, they stand after many 
 generations to testify that cities in the land of Israel built 
 by strangers, which could vie with each other in their 
 greatness, and give its name to the region, have yet, 
 however desolate, something to show what they were; 
 though, according to the word of the Lord, not one citi- 
 zen is left to boast of them now, and none can claim these 
 princely columns, grand streets, and noble ruins, as their 
 own. The gods for whose honour these temples were 
 built are gone; as true it is that the Lord will famish 
 
136 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 all the gods of the earth. But though temples decay and 
 cities fall, His word abideth for ever. And were the pre- 
 dicted time come, and the covenanted people there, easy 
 were the task, — without hewing a stone, — for the sons of 
 strangers to build up the walls of the fallen Gerasa. 
 
 Burckhardt's pages contain as minute a description as 
 passing visits, during two tours in the Hauran, in the years 
 1810 and 1812, could supply, of many of the ancient 
 cities east of the Jordan, whether they then retained a 
 village population, or were abandoned by their inhabitants, 
 or reduced to ruins. Mr Buckingham travelled in the 
 Hauran in 1816 : Mr G. Robinson, accompanied by Cap- 
 tain (now Colonel) Chesney, in 1830 ; and Lord Lindsay 
 in 1837. They all testify how numerous are the ruined 
 or deserted cities in the lands of Gilead and Bashan. 
 These regions, the reputed fertility and ancient populous- 
 ness of which, sceptics down to the present day might 
 have held in derision without a challenge, — now at last 
 vindicate the most ancient record of conquests that long 
 preceded the siege of Troy, and disclose to view cities 
 without inhabitant, and houses without man, habitations 
 forsaken and left like a wilderness; yet such that, where 
 in ruins, they can be raised again from then foundations, 
 or be repaired to dwell in, and such, where deserted, that 
 it may be said of them, in yet unaccomplished promises, 
 to the ancient people, Turn again, 0 virgin of Israel, turn 
 again to these thy cities. 
 
 On an isolated hill, to the east of the lake of Tiberias, 
 extensive ruins of buildings and walls, quantities of polish- 
 ed stone and prostrate columns, now called El Hossn, are 
 conjectured by Burckhardt to be the remains of the an- 
 cient town of Eegaba or Argob, and by some also to occu- 
 py the site of the more modern town of Gadara. At Oom 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 137 
 
 Keis, now also tenantless, are the remains of two theatres, 
 immense heaps of hewn stones, and lines of fallen columns 
 that mark a once colonaded street, like that of Gerash, 
 supposed to be the site of the Jewish city of Gamala, 
 that for a time withstood Vespasian and Titus. The 
 ruins of Draa or Edrei, are two miles and a half in cir- 
 cuit. "The town of Szalkhat, or Salcah, contains upwards 
 of eight hundred houses; hut it is now uninhabited." 1 — 
 The circuit of the ancient city of Kanout, or Kenath, is 
 about two miles and a half or three miles. Paved streets 
 and courts, large apartments, and smaller vaulted rooms, 
 still entire in spacious edifices, several towers, and up- 
 wards of forty columns still erect, some of which rank 
 among the finest in Syria, a large building in ruins, ap- 
 parently a church, beside another seemingly a monastery, 
 — denote no ignoble city; 2 while the whole ground upon 
 which the ruined habitations stand, overgrown with oak 
 trees, and streets that hide the ruins, shows, like the sites of 
 many cities besides, that the defenced city is forsaken, and 
 the habitation forsaken, and left like a wilderness; there 
 shall the calf feed, and there shall he lie down and con- 
 sume the branches thereof. In the seventh century, on 
 the invasion of the Saracens, the populous city of Bosra, 
 as Gibbon relates, could send forth from its gates twelve 
 thousand horse. In the twelfth, when treachery had failed, 
 an army of Crusaders dared not assault it. Its thick 
 walls, about three miles in circuit, are still in some places 
 almost perfect. They are now, for the most part, an en- 
 closure of ruins, which spread also beyond them. The 
 principal ruin is that of a temple, in front of which are 
 four large Corinthian columns, upwards of forty-five feet 
 in height. Others are still erect; and many are scat- 
 i Burckliardt, p. 100. a Ibid. p. 83-86. 
 
138 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 tered in all directions. Two triumphal arches still stand, 
 as if in mockery of the fallen and forsaken city. Ezra, 
 the ancient Zavara, once a flourishing city, is between 
 three and four miles in circumference. " The ancient 
 buildings," says Burckhardt, " in consequence of the 
 strength and solidity of their walls, are, for the greater 
 part, in complete preservation." "We walked," says 
 Lord Lindsay, " through several streets of houses seem- 
 ingly in good repair, and almost all untenanted." From 
 the top of a large unoccupied house, ft which is quite per- 
 fect, and carpeted with grass, he saw the roofs of number- 
 less smaller houses, quite entire, and just as green." " In 
 many places are two or three arched chambers, one above 
 the other, forming so many stories. This substantial 
 mode of building prevails also in most of the ancient pub- 
 lic edifices remaining in the Haouran," &c. 
 
 But throughout the same region, in the hills and plains 
 of Grilead and Bashan, many ancient but now deserted or 
 ruined cities, besides those whose names are recorded in 
 Scripture or in history, equally illustrate the truth of the 
 prophetic word, as it passed alike upon all. Shaara, once 
 a considerable city, and a well peopled village after the 
 commencement of the present century, has since been 
 Sf abandoned" or forsaken, though " most of-the houses 
 in the town are in good preservation." 1 Missema, a 
 ruined town, three miles in circuit, " has no inhabitant," 2 
 Dhami, or Dama, may contain three hundred houses, 
 most of which are still in good preservation." 3 It now 
 ranks among deserted places ; as does also Kuffer, thus 
 described by Burckhardt : " Kuffer was once a consider- 
 able town. It is built in the usual style of this country, 
 
 1 Robinson's Travels, vol. ii. pp. 135, 136. Burckhardt, p. 114. 
 
 2 Burckhardt, pp. 115, 116. 3 Ibid. p. 111. 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 139 
 
 entirely of stone, most of the houses are still entire ; the 
 doors are imiformly of stone, and even the gates of the 
 town, between nine and ten feet high, are of a single piece 
 of stone. On each side of the streets is a foot pavement 
 two feet and a half broad, and raised one foot above the 
 level of the street itself, which is seldom more than one 
 yard in width. The town is three-quarters of an hour in 
 circumference, and, being built on a declivity, a person 
 may walk on it upon the flat roofs of the houses," &C 1 
 " At Ayoun are about four hundred houses without any 
 inhabitant." 2 At the distance of five miles, in the de- 
 serted region in the vicinity of Salcah, stands Oerman, an 
 ancient city, somewhat larger than Ayoun. 3 For a simi- 
 lar distance the intermediate country is full of ruined walls 
 to Szalkhat, distant from which, about ten miles, is the 
 deserted city of Kereye, which has several ancient towers 
 and public buildings, and " contains about five hundred 
 houses." 4 " My guides," says Burckhardt, were " afraid 
 of prolonging their stay in these desert parts." 5 The 
 vision of Isaiah, and of other prophets, is realized. The 
 time is come in which the cities are desolate without in- 
 habitant, and the houses without man; and the defenced 
 city is desolate, and the habitation forsaken, and left like 
 a wilderness. " Desert parts," is the appropriate de- 
 scriptive designation of a region, than which perhaps none 
 on earth — scarcely excepting China, in Mr Buckingham's 
 estimation — was ever more thickly studded with cities, 
 and of cities compactly built together, than which perhaps 
 none were ever more crowded with inhabitants. 
 
 A recent traveller, who partly traversed the western 
 side of the Hauran, thus records his testimony concern- 
 
 1 Burckhardt, p. 90, 91. 2 Ibid. p. 97. 
 
 3 Ibid. p. 97. 4 Ibid. p. 103. 5 Ibid. p. 99. 
 
MO 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 ing the desolated and deserted cities which he saw : "JNowa, 
 the ancient Neva, — like Sananein, and other towns and 
 villages in the road, is a heap of ruins. Population 
 seems to have decreased from thousands to hundreds, and 
 from hundreds to decades : what were once cities of con- 
 siderable magnitude are now wretched villages : and large 
 towns have not a single tenant to perpetuate the memory 
 of their name." " From Nowato Feek the road crosses 
 a vast plain destitute of cultivation and inhabitants. No- 
 thing is seen but the ruin of tenantless villages and towns 
 scattered in every direction, with multitudes of hawks and 
 herons occupying the spots deserted by man." 1 
 
 In prefacing his lists of names of places in the Hau- 
 ran, Mr Smith states that, " respecting the whole, it is 
 necessary to observe that the inhabitants so often move 
 from village to village, that the fact of a village having 
 been inhabited when we were there, is no evidence that 
 it is so at the present time." There are other cities 
 besides the tenantless places already specified that demand 
 a passing notice, though they retained a village popula- 
 tion when last visited by any European traveller. 
 
 Its remaining town walls, nearly four miles in circum- 
 ference, which may be traced all round the city, and are 
 in many places perfect, and the loftiness of its public 
 edifices, attest that Shohba was formerly one of the chief 
 cities of these districts. 2 Eight gates of the city, each 
 formed of two arches, a large edifice in the form of a cres- 
 cent, with several niches in the front ; and another, of a 
 square form, built of massy stones, with a spacious gate, 
 and a double range of vaults, one above the other; a 
 theatre in good preservation, now " the principal curio- 
 
 1 Travels by C B. Elliott, vol. ii. pp. 325, 327. 
 5 Burckhardt, p. 70. Robinson. 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 141 
 
 sity" of the city, enclosed by a wall ten feet in thickness, 
 with upper and lower chambers, and ten rows of seats, of 
 which the uppermost is sixty-four paces in circuit; and 
 the remains of an aqueduct — of which some of the few 
 arches left are upwards of forty feet in height — that ter- 
 minates in a spacious bath; well-paved streets, the chief 
 of which is doubly lined with ruined habitations; and the 
 doors of most of the houses formed of a single slab of stone, 
 with stone hinges, — indicate a walled city with gates and 
 bars not originally designed though destined to be a Druse 
 village in a country where, as now recorded concerning 
 it, " the tenure of property is so uncertain, that shops 
 and bazars are not to be found." — Soueida was for- 
 merly one of the largest cities in the Haouran ; the circuit 
 of its ruins is at least four miles ; among them is a street 
 running in a straight line, in which the houses on both 
 sides are still standing. "I was twelve minutes," says 
 Burckhardt, " in walking from one end to the other. 
 A large building in ruins, with many broken pillars, seems 
 to have been a church." 
 
 The city of Zaele, half a mile in circuit, is in summer 
 a much frequented watering place of the Arabs. " The 
 great desert extends to the north-north- east and south- 
 east of Zaele ; to the distance of three days' journey east- 
 ward, there is still a good arable soil, intersected with 
 numerous tels or hillocks, and covered with the ruins of 
 so many cities and villages, that, as I was informed," 
 says Burckhardt, " in whatever direction it is crossed, 
 the traveller is sure to pass, every day, five or six of 
 these ruined places." 1 "The great Syrian desert and 
 its borders are not a bare wide waste of sand. Its sur- 
 face consists generally of a fine black soil, covered in 
 1 Burckhardt, p. 94. 
 
U2 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 winter with long lank grass and herbs, and peopled with 
 antelopes, wild asses, and boars" 1 The multitude of the 
 city shall be left; the forts and towers shall be for dens 
 for ever, a joy of wild asses, a pasture for flocks; until 
 the Spirit be poured on us from on high, and the wilder- 
 ness be like a fruitful field, etc. Of Syria, in general, 
 Volney states that there are prodigious quantities of ruins 
 dispersed over the plains, and even in the mountains, at 
 this day deserted? 
 
 The forts and towers shall be for dens. — The fortress 
 shall cease from Ephraim. Palestine, on both sides of 
 the Jordan, was anciently a land of walled towns, for- 
 tresses, castles, and towers. In unconscious confirma- 
 tion of the prophecy, Yolney testifies that " every step 
 we meet with ruins of towers, dungeons, and castles, with 
 fosses — frequently inhabited by jackals, owls, and scor- 
 pions."* When towers have fallen, the arches on which 
 they were built remain, and, like natural cavities in a 
 rock, they are now for dens. And where they still 
 stand, as in many deserted cities east of the Jordan, they 
 are open to wild beasts, and serve them for shade or for 
 shelter, when they have ceased to be the defences of 
 habitations now forsaken by men. Kanouat, Oerman, 
 Kereye, without inhabitants, have each several ancient 
 towers. Among other ruined castles the name of that of 
 Baldwin tells of its construction eighteen centuries after 
 the days of Isaiah, while its ruins show that it has 
 ceased. The wall of the castle of Salcah, nearly half a 
 mile in circumference, is flanked all round with towers 
 and turrets. It long withstood a hard pressed siege by 
 the Sultan of Egypt in the fourteenth century. Stones 
 
 1 Malte-Brune and Balbis' Geography, p. 640. 
 
 2 Volney 's Travels, vol. ii. p. 368. 3 T bid . p . 336. 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 143 
 
 of sixty and eighty- six pounds weight were then thrown 
 against it from machines, one of which was transported 
 thither in separate parts on two hundred camels. Parts 
 of the wall are now fallen, and in many places fill to half 
 its depth the moat hy which it was surrounded. The 
 populous city of Bozrah, in the seventh century, was 
 secure at least from a surprise, by the solid structure of 
 its walls ; and could then send forth from its gates twelve 
 thousand horse. These walls are now broken. At the 
 time of Burckhardt's visit in 1812, its castle was garri- 
 soned by six Arab soldiers, 1 and has now ceased to be a 
 defence against the Bedouins, who are masters of Bashan, 
 and whose battle-fields are plains. The castle of Adjloun, 
 apparently of Eoman architecture, about four hundred 
 paces in circuit, may be almost said to be in ruins. 2 
 
 On the west, as on the east of the Jordan, fortresses 
 have ceased from the land, and are now defenceless ruins, 
 from the desert of the Euphrates to the shores of the 
 Mediterranean. Athlite, on its coast, is the castrum 
 Pelegrinorum, or Castel Pelegrino, a strong citadel in the 
 days of the crusades. Its remains still manifest its 
 strength in ancient times. Though less lofty than the 
 walls once were, the east end and north-west corner of 
 the walls of a church, now form the most conspicuous 
 object in the centre of the principal ruins above which 
 they tower. The interior of the church is filled with 
 ruins, miserable huts, and heaps of dung. The scene all 
 around is a mass of ruins, intermixed with hovels covered 
 with earth. The wall which projects on the south-west 
 point towards the sea, is very firmly built of large hewn 
 stones, and is nine feet wide; a tower at its termination 
 had partly fallen in a storm two days before that in winch 
 1 Burckhardt, p. 233. 2 Buckingham, p. 157. 
 
144 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 the daguerreotype view was taken, and we were told that 
 the opposite side fell two years previously. Time is still 
 continuing its ravages on the ruins ; and the destructive 
 hand of man has been also at work. Between the point, 
 where the shadow of the church, as seen in the water, 
 and the shore, a small rude quay has been formed at the 
 foot of the outer wall for shipping the hewn stones of 
 which it and the other walls are formed ; and many were 
 transported to Acre by Ibrahim Pasha, and subsequently 
 by its Turkish governor. Some remains of two waUs may 
 be seen in the plate. But from remnants of each in various 
 places, the fortress appears to have been surrounded by 
 three strong walls besides the external wall. The loftiest 
 ruin is the fragment of an inner wall, nearly a hundred 
 feet in height. The fortress, like every other in the 
 land, has ceased : and though inferior in magnitude and 
 strength to others, its remains still testify that mighty 
 bulwarks have fallen before the word of the Lord. 
 
 The castle of Paneas was one of the strongest fortresses 
 of Syria in the time of the crusades, when it repeatedly 
 resisted and repelled powerful armies. It was strong 
 by nature as by art. — a choice station for a citadel on the 
 oblong summit of a hill. The traveller, as the writer can 
 testify, now passes unchallenged and undisturbed over its 
 solitary but very extensive nuns. They are utterly deso- 
 late and defenceless. Every building is unroofed, and 
 most of the walls are broken down. The most entire are 
 those on the highest point, which are still large and strong, 
 and firmly built of bevelled stone. Hewn stones he in 
 heaps in various places throughout the ruins, and are 
 spread around the sides of the hill. It was encompassed 
 by a wall ten feet in thickness, flanked with numerous 
 towers, and fully a mile in circumference, or twenty-five 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 U5 
 
 minutes as thus measured by Burckhardt. For many 
 ages after the prophecy it was not destined for dens, 
 for which it is well adapted now. There are many 
 apartments and recesses in the castle. " At both the 
 western corners runs a succession of dark strongly built 
 low apartments, like cells, vaulted, and with small narrow 
 loop-holes, as if for musketry. It must certainly," says 
 Burckhardt, " have been a very strong hold to those who 
 possessed it." 1 Thou hast brought his strongholds to 
 ruin. 
 
 Of Tabaria, or the modern Tiberias, Burckhardt wrote, 
 " The town is surrounded towards the land by a thick and 
 well-built wall, about twenty feet in height, with a high 
 parapet and loop-holes. It surrounds the city on three 
 sides, and touches the water at its two extremities. The 
 town- wall is flanked by twenty round towers standing at 
 unequal distances. Both towns and walls are built with 
 black stones of moderate size, and seem to be the work 
 of not very remote times ; the whole being in a good 
 state of repair, the place may be considered as almost im- 
 pregnable to Syrian soldiers." 2 In different ages, built 
 and rebuilt as many of the towns and fortresses of the 
 land of Israel have been, they have not only been suc- 
 cessively destroyed by foreign invaders and hostile armies, 
 but, more immediately and terribly, many of them have 
 been repeatedly overthrown by earthquakes. Again and 
 again the cities and strongholds of Palestine have been 
 thus shattered or levelled, as if the hand of the Lord had 
 itself been put forth in the accomplishment of his word. 
 Like Paneas, and many strongholds besides, Tiberias per- 
 tained to Ephraim, from which the fortresses were ex- 
 pressly to cease. In 1837, Tiberias, together with its 
 I Burckhardt's Syria, p. 37. 2 Ibid. pp. 320, 321. 
 
 L 
 
146 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 walls, was destroyed by an earthquake. In the following 
 year, "the prostrate walls of the town presented little more 
 than heaps of ruins." Some of the wide breaches in the 
 western wall, have since been partly filled with stones 
 loosely put up, which the hand could again lay in heaps 
 upon the ground. And on the south, instead of a barrier 
 impregnable by Syrian soldiers, the only pathway to the 
 huts that have been built upon the ruins of the city, is 
 over the prostrate wall, trodden under foot by men and 
 beasts. 
 
 The castle and town of Safed were completely over- 
 thrown in the same earthquake in which Tiberias fell. 
 The castle equalled in strength and extent that of Paneas ; 
 and the ruin is as entire. " It was anciently surrounded 
 by stupendous works, moats, bulwarks, towers." In the 
 beginning of last century, as stated by Yan Egmont and 
 Heyman, the thickness of the wall and of the corridor, or 
 covered passages, which extended round them, was twenty 
 paces. It was the residence of a governor till levelled 
 by the earthquake. It is now utterly destroyed ; but its 
 ruins would supply materials for the construction of a 
 town. — The spacious top of Mount Tabor was fortified by 
 Josephus. The remains of a large fortress are yet seen 
 amidst its thickets. " A thick wall," as Burckhardt re- 
 lates, " may be traced quite round the summit ; on seve- 
 ral parts of it are the remains of bastions." Many arches 
 are yet unbroken, covering vaulted chambers, some of 
 which are very large. This fortress, besieged like all 
 others in the land, could not resist the power of the Bo- 
 mans ; but arched chambers of its towers, level with the 
 ground, or overgrown with wood, are still for dens, where 
 wild boars and other wild animals abound. Not a man 
 lives near it, though its fertile summit is covered with 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 147 
 
 foundations of walls, and heaps of hewn stones, where 
 foxes have their holes, and wild beasts their dens. 
 
 Whether on the tops of mountains or in the plains, in 
 inland regions or on the sea-shore, the fortresses of the 
 land are now strong in nothing hut in illustration of the 
 word of the Lord of Hosts to whom power belongs. Foes 
 often severally possessed them of old; and for ages they 
 were scenes of ceaseless encounters, and not unfrequently 
 of sieges for months or for years. Many a city were 
 the strongholds of Palestine erected to secure ; and many 
 an assailant did the}' defy. Each believer may now 
 appropriate them ; and what they were not in war they 
 may prove in argument, impregnable and unassailable 
 in defence of that word which now stamps them as 
 its own, and which, through the Spirit that laid on 
 them their burdens which brought them to ruin, is 
 mighty to the pulling down of greater strongholds than 
 were they. 
 
 The daguerreotype may here supply, on this theme, an- 
 other and concluding illustration, — where art had once 
 its triumph in another way, and Herod in a single spot 
 set such a barrier to the ocean as can still withstand it, 
 and erected towers which have fallen before the word of 
 Him who set the sand on every shore to stay its proudest 
 waves. 
 
 Buried as is the royal city of Oaesarea, enough of its 
 harbour alone yet remains to show how princely that city 
 was, when exalted unto heaven higher than was its tribu- 
 tary Capernaum. The original construction of the port 
 was a vaunted triumph of ancient art, that did honour to 
 a king who bore the name of Great. Immense stones 
 above fifty feet long, eighteen broad, and nine deep — 
 some less but others larger — were laid down to the depth 
 
14:8 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 of twenty fathoms, for the construction of a mole, whose 
 width above the water was two hundred feet. The sea- 
 ward half was denominated the first breaker of the waves. 
 On the other, towers were erected, more celebrated than 
 that of Straho, which previously occupied the site of 
 Csesarea. Of these, the largest, a splendid work, bore 
 the name of the Tower of Drusus, in honour of that son- 
 in-law of Csesar. Though now there be no towers to de- 
 fend a harbour, and no city to need their defence, and the 
 only export from the tenantless Csesarea he, like that of 
 Athlite, stones from its ruins, yet so solid was the struc- 
 ture of the mole, that, after having been lashed for eigh- 
 teen hundred years by the tempestuous ocean, the line of 
 it still divides the smooth water from the broken waves, 
 which, beyond it, on hoth sides, are only stayed upon the 
 beach. But above the level of the water every structure 
 is either vanished or broken ; and the tumbled masses on 
 the remaining tower, which bounded the harbour on the 
 south, indicate its fall from the ruthless violence of man 
 or storms of war, rather than from those of the ocean. 
 The ruin, as in the plate, now stands as the only repre- 
 sentative of the Tower of Drusus ; hut built as it partly is, 
 as a narrow inspection may show, on prostrate columns, 
 that may have changed their places from the portico of a 
 palace or a temple to the buried base of a tower, a later 
 construction than that by Herod is denoted, and a renew- 
 ed proof is thus given that tower after tower has there 
 fallen, while the hidden base of the mole beneath the 
 waves has remained comparatively entire. The tower 
 exists not, to stand another shock of war, though the 
 break- water remains to allay the fury of the waves. Cse- 
 sarea is now the abode of wild beasts alone. But though 
 the truth be clear to the eye, that, even as affecting the 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 149 
 
 strongest bulwarks, destruction has come upon destruction, 
 till over the forts and towers the word of the Lord is 
 perfect work, yet the same Divine testimony bears that 
 the time cometh when " violence shall no more be heard 
 in thy land, nor wasting and destruction within thy bor- 
 ders ; but thou shalt call thy walls salvation and thy gates 
 praise." The farther prospect which prophecy opens up, 
 even from ruined towers and fallen fortresses, and har- 
 bours, which like the cities may yet be repaired, is that 
 of a time when such defences shall not be needed, even as 
 the fact is clear that men have resorted to such bulwarks 
 in vain. Fortresses have ceased; but the word that fore- 
 told their destruction does not fail. They are for dens, 
 — not for ever, without a limit to the time — but until the 
 Spirit be poured upon us from on high, — then judgment 
 shall dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness remain in 
 the fruitful field. And the work of righteousness shall be 
 peace; and the effect of righteousness, quietness, and as- 
 surance for ever. 2 In the first verse of the same chapter 
 it is written of Him of whom all the prophets testified, 
 " Behold a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes 
 shall rule in judgment." Jesus was sent by Pilate to 
 Herod; but it may be seen how the proudest tower of 
 that monarch has fallen before the word of the Lord by 
 his prophets, and like Ins city and Ins kingdom lay with- 
 in a higher jurisdiction than his own . And the utter de- 
 struction of many strongholds is a confirmation of the 
 promise to which it points, " In that day shall this song 
 be sung in the land of Judah; Salvation will God ap- 
 point for walls and buhvarks. — Trust in the Lord for 
 ever; for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength: 
 for he bringeth down them that are on high; the lofty city 
 
 1 Isa. lx. 18. 2 Isa. xxxii. 14, 1-1 
 
150 
 
 JUDEA, 
 
 he layeth it low; he layeth it low even to the ground; he 
 bringeth it even to the dust. 1 
 
 Such of old were the cities and the strongholds in the 
 land of Israel ; and, according to the word that compre- 
 hensively and indiscriminately fell upon them all, — such 
 are they now. Their progressive desolation, perfected at 
 last to the prescribed degree, the author has traced at 
 length in other pages — limiting these imperfect notices 
 to existing facts ; of many of which, besides other testi- 
 monies, he can now speak as an eye-witness. Cumula- 
 tive as the evidence is, it becomes the more complete, 
 the more it is searched into; and little else than summary 
 as is the needful notice of the promiscuous desolation that 
 has come over the cities of the land, the few whose bur- 
 dens bear their names, as significantly and emphatically 
 show the effect of every vision. 
 
 Hazor shall be a dwelling for dragons, and a desola- 
 tion for ever; there shall no man abide there, nor any 
 son of man dwell in it. % In the previous editions of this 
 treatise, the author could not adduce any illustration of 
 this prediction, after having long sought in vain for any 
 recognition or identification of the city itself, either by his- 
 torians or travellers, except the vague, and therefore un- 
 satisfactory as indefinite notice by Burckhardt, who had 
 heard of, but had not seen, " the ruins of a city called 
 Hazouri." Yet forgotten and unknown for many ages 
 as it had been, it was once the capital of kingdoms. Its 
 earliest history, from the first conquest of Canaan by the 
 Israelites, and its latest, as desolate to this hour, are 
 alike recorded in the book of the Lord. Joshua took 
 Hazor, and smote the king thereof with the sivord; for 
 1 Isa. xlvi. 1, 4, 5. 2 Jcr. xlix. 33. 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 151 
 
 Hazor beforetime was the head of all these kingdoms 1 — 
 of Canaan. But when the children of Israel again and 
 again did evil in the sight of the Lord, He sold them in- 
 to the hand of Jabin, king of Canaan, who reigned in 
 Hazor, when the enemies of Israel had re-possessed their 
 metropolis. Sisera was the captain of his host. He 
 had nine hundred chariots of iron ; and twenty years he 
 mightily oppressed the children of Israel. 2 Hazor was 
 one of the cities of the tribe of Eaphtali ; and it ranked 
 among the renowned cities or fortresses, for the building 
 of which, as well as of the temple of Jerusalem, Solomon 
 raised the levy recorded in Scripture. 3 But though thus 
 rebuilt by the wisest of monarchs in the days of his glory, 
 the ancient capital of the kingdoms of Canaan, in which 
 that king reigned into whose hands the Israelites were 
 sold, it is itself a tribute, long unclaimed, to the word of 
 the Holy One of Israel. Separated as it was, in its fate, 
 from the other cities at the first — burned and utterly de- 
 stroyed by Joshua, while of the cities that stood still in 
 then strength, Israel burned none of them, save Hazor 
 only 4 — it is also so singled out, by a special judgment, 
 from among many more, which pass unnamed under the 
 general sentence of desolation, that not only is it singly 
 a credential of inspiration, but its name, like tbat of Sis- 
 era of old, may be taken up in a triumphal song, such 
 as, in prophetic truth, shall yet be raised over all the 
 enemies of Israel. 
 
 " At the end of an hour and a half," east by south 
 from Paneas, on the route to Damascus, says Burckhardt, 
 " we came to Ain-el-Hazouri, a spring, with the tomb of 
 Sheikh Othman el-Hazouri just over it; to the north of 
 it one hour are the ruins of a city called Hazouri. The 
 1 Josh. xi. 10. 2 Judges iv. 2, 3. 3 Kings ix. 15. 4 Josh. xi. 13. 
 
152 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 mountain here is overgrown with oaks, but contains good 
 pasturage. I was told that in the Wady Kastebe, near 
 the castle, (of Paneas,) there are oak trees more than 
 sixty feet high. One hour more brought us to the village 
 of Djoubela," 1 &c. 
 
 Such is the passing and hearsay notice given by one of 
 the most renowned and intelligent of modern travellers, of 
 that city which was anciently the head of the kingdoms 
 of Canaan. The writer is not aware that it is even men- 
 tioned by any other traveller since the days of Brocardus, 
 (Burchardt,) in the thirteenth century, who speaks of its 
 ruins, but did not visit them. It is a desolation. And 
 that predicted word has so fallen on it now, as it thus 
 seems to have lain on it long, that but for the prophecy 
 thereby confirmed, its ruins scarcely demand the notice of 
 the traveller, to turn him aside from his path though in 
 search of ruins, and though those that still bear its an- 
 cient name are very near to the route, as much trodden 
 as most in the land, from Paneas to Damascus, by which 
 many European travellers have passed. Such is the 
 unregarded desolation now of the metropolis of the 
 Canaanites, against which, as against them, the word of 
 the Lord had gone forth ; and thus unknown it still might 
 lie, for any other interest it now possesses, did not pro- 
 phecy alone recall it from oblivion, to show what desola- 
 tion the Lord hath wrought upon a city first spoken of in 
 Scripture as the head of the kingdoms of Canaan. 
 
 The name Hazour is well known at Paneas. It desig- 
 nates the ruins; Ain- Hazour, the fountain of Hazor; 
 and Djebel-Hazour, the hill of Hazor. The ruins are 
 not, as stated to Burckhardt, an hour's distance from the 
 spring ; but comparatively near it, on the opposite side of 
 1 Burckhardt'a Syria, p. i4. 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 153 
 
 a grove of noble oaks, such as scarcely any spot in Eng- 
 land could show. The sheikh with whom he journeyed 
 was on his way to Damascus; and, perhaps, wished not 
 to he stayed on his journey by the idle curiosity of a tra- 
 veller inquisitive about ruins, who, he may have thought, 
 would have grudged an hour, but not, like himself, a few 
 minutes, to look on fallen Hazor. He was the sheikh of 
 the village of Paneas, within whose bounds the ruins lie ; 
 but in the desolate remains of Hazor he had nothing to 
 show or boast of, in his estimation, worthy of the delay of 
 a quarter of an hour. From that capital its king de- 
 scended with his confederates to the waters of Merom, 
 Lake Houle, or the Lacus Samachonitis, " and these 
 kings pitched there together to fight against Israel.'* 1 The 
 traveller, on the way from Jerusalem to Damascus, ascends 
 from the waters of Merom to Paneas, and from thence to 
 Ain Hazour, and he needs but to turn aside a little way 
 to see, when pointed out to him, the ruins that still bear 
 the name of Hazour. The name remains, but the city is 
 no more, and literally, as the word of the Lord revealed 
 the existing fact, though long unknown in other lands, 
 no man abides there, nor does a son of man dwell in it. 
 Its site is nearly midway between one poor village and 
 another, that are about eight or nine miles apart. The 
 fountain of Hazor now waters only a tomb. The city that 
 was the head of kingdoms is a desolation ; and now can only 
 vie with the most complete ruins. Habitations for men there 
 are none; and no man there occupies the poorest hovel, 
 such as often rest on other ruins. Those of Hazor consist 
 of the foundations of buildings, and heaps of stones spread 
 over a considerable space, lying loosely together, and in 
 some places thrown up into long lines, or dykes, full of 
 1 Joshua xi. 5. 
 
154 
 
 JUDEA, 
 
 holes, into which any reptiles may creep. Lizards may he 
 seen every where, in great numbers, throughout the land. 
 And purposely guarding against a leading question, and 
 without speaking of serpents, the writer asked an old 
 man, who left his flock at a short distance and came to 
 him amidst the heaps, whether he ever saw any lizards 
 running into the holes. He answered in the affirmative: 
 and of his own accord added, that there were many ser- 
 pents also, of which he mentioned three different kinds, 
 of one of which the bite is death. He affirmed that he 
 had himself seen some large serpents ; and when asked 
 if he had seen any as large as a stick which the author 
 had in his hand, he held up his own wand, six feet in 
 length, and said that he had seen some larger than it. 
 He persisted in the assertion that there were many ser- 
 pents that had their holes in the ruins ; but when ques- 
 tioned, as a test of his veracity, about other animals, he 
 stated, with seeming candour, that he had never seen any 
 scorpions there. It is now obvious to any one who be- 
 holds them, that the stones of Hazor now he, as if placed 
 and fitted for being — what that city was to become — a 
 dwelling for serpents. 
 
 No man shall abide there; neither shall a son of man 
 dwell in it. Not a human habitation is near it ; and 
 situated as it is on the lower skirts of Hermon, the Be- 
 douins do not there pitch their tents, as in the plains. No 
 natural cause could be assigned for the completion of this 
 wondrous prediction. The site was well fitted for the 
 capital of Canaan ; and the '* host of Hazor," of which 
 Sisera was the captain, has no mean place hi Scriptural 
 history. In the approach to it from Paneas, we repeat- 
 edly plucked, while seated on horseback, the flowers of 
 myrtles, which, in their great abundance, perfumed the 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 155 
 
 air; and woodbines, mint, thyme, hollies, and oleanders 
 added to its fragrance, or adorned the wilderness. Near 
 to the ruins, and not in the bottom of a valley but on 
 the top of a hill, are stately oaks that would add to the 
 grandeur of any park in England — four of which we mea- 
 sured from eleven feet and a half to upwards of thirteen 
 feet in circumference — the branches of one of them ex- 
 tending seventy-four feet from the opposite extremities. 
 The heights of Jebel Hazour are for the most part covered 
 with thorns, and trees or bushes of the quercus ilex (oak) 
 interspersed with roses, many prickly plants, varieties of 
 thistles, one of them, together with a species of very 
 high broom, distinguished by its beautiful yellow flowers. 
 These, with some partial cultivation, show how plentifully 
 industry might there reap its reward, in the environs of a 
 city now itself a desolation. But while many citizens of 
 modern towns court in other lands the shade of humbler 
 trees, and are often crowded beneath them, there is not 
 one inhabitant of that city now to rest under the lofty and 
 umbrageous oaks of Hazor, or to drive a wolf from the 
 fountain, or a serpent from its dwelling. There are other 
 cities in the land once subject to that head of the king- 
 dom, that still have men to dweU in them, the city that 
 went out by a thousand may yet have a hundred left, and 
 that which went out by a hundred may count ten. Paneas, 
 often taken and often demolished, has yet its twenty 
 houses and its hundred inhabitants; and a large village 
 still subsists on the nearest border of the marshy and 
 pestiferous plain of Houle. But the doomed capital of 
 Canaan, though rebuilt by Solomon, with its fountain 
 still flowing pure as ever, its shady oaks, its rich and 
 partly cultivated soil, and its pure air perfumed with the 
 scent of Lebanon, is a desolation, a dwelling of serpents, 
 
156 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 and not of a single human being ; no man abides there; 
 neither does a son of man dwell in it. 
 
 Bethel, too, forms a theme, as it also had a distinguish- 
 ed place, among the cities of Israel. Though it was call- 
 ed Bethel, or the house of God, by the pilgrim father of 
 the tribes of Israel, and though to him Jehovah said, I 
 am the God of Bethel, yet that city became a chief seat 
 of idolatry under the king of Israel. Jeroboam made two 
 calves of gold, and said, Behold thy gods, 0 Israel ; and 
 he set up the one in Bethel, and the other put he in Dan. 
 He raised an altar, and placed in Bethel priests of the 
 high places, and sacrificed unto the calves that he had 
 made. Bethel became a Beth-aven, or house of idols. 
 But the word of the Lord went forth against it. — / will 
 visit the altars of Bethel, and the horns of the altar shall 
 he cut off, and fall to the ground. And I will smite the 
 winter-house with the summer-house; and the house of 
 ivory shall perish, and the great houses shall have an end, 
 saith the Lord. 1 Seek ye me, and ye shall live: but seek 
 not Bethel. — Bethel shall come to nought. 2 Long unknown, 
 and if sought for, sought in vain, Bethel, to which idola- 
 trous Israelites resorted, has of late years been identified 
 with the ruins of Beitin. They lie in heaps. The great 
 houses have an end. The ruined walls of a Greek church 
 stand " within the foundations of a much larger and ear- 
 lier edifice built of large stones, part of which have been 
 used for erecting the later structure. The broken walls 
 of several other churches are also to be distinguished." 
 The rest of the ruins are undistinguishable heaps. There 
 were altars at Bethel, not only in Israelitish but in Christ- 
 ian times, as they are still to be seen in other ruined 
 chinches in the land. But the thorn and the thistle have 
 
 1 Amos iii. 14, 1 J. 2 Amos v. 4,5. 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 157 
 
 come up on their altars, as on those of Beth-aven, where 
 no summer-house or winter-house, or any other remains, 
 and the traveller " can find nothing to take away hut a 
 stone/' where houses of ivory, that betokened pride, have 
 perished, and thistles flourish amidst the ruins of Bethel, 
 which has come to nought. 
 
 " Jesus upbraided the cities wherein most of his mighty 
 works were done, because they repented not: Woe unto thee 
 Chorazin! woe unto thee Bethsaida! for if the mighty 
 works which were done in you, had been done in Tyre 
 and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sack- 
 cloth and ashes. And thou, Capernaum, which art ex- 
 alted unto heaven shalt be brought down to hell." 1 Caper- 
 naum was on the sea-coast, or on the shore of the lake 
 of Tiberias, in the border of Zabulun and Nephthalim. 
 Exalted as it was into heaven, there is not now a city, 
 nor village, nor ruined town which now bears its name ; 
 and hence its site has not, with absolute certainty, been 
 ascertained. For centuries past it has generally been 
 identified with the ruins of Tell-hum, which he on the sea- 
 coast or shore, near to the northern extremity of the lake. 
 In the land itself they are still said to be the ruins of 
 Capernaum, though bearing another name. They form 
 no inconsiderable field of ruins, at least a mile and a half 
 in circumference. There is not a single dwelling or in- 
 habitant on the desolate and deserted spot. Foundations 
 of buildings, fallen walls, and heaps of stones, now cover 
 the space where once stood a town. Its ancient houses 
 are now strewed in promiscuous ruin upon the ground. 
 The walls of a small ruined building are alone erect ; but 
 they pertained not, as they now stand, to the ancient city, 
 for they have been raised from older ruins, as columns 
 1 Matt. ix. 20-23. 
 
158 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 and pilasters imbedded in their structure, plainly show. 
 There is not a house that has not been brought down to 
 hades, as the original bears, or to utter destruction. All 
 have ceased to exist. Not far from the only unfallen ruin 
 are the prostrate ruins of an edifice, which Dr Eobinson 
 well describes, and of which he states that, " for expense 
 of labour and ornament, it surpasses any thing we had yet 
 seen in Palestine. The extent of the foundations of this 
 structure is no longer definitely to be made out. We 
 measured one hundred and five feet along the northern 
 wall, and eight feet along the western, — perhaps this was 
 their whole length. Within the space thus inclosed, and 
 just around, are strewed, in utter confusion, numerous 
 columns of compact limestone, with beautiful Corinthian 
 capitals, sculptured entablatures, ornamental friezes, and 
 the like. The pedestals of the columns are still in their 
 place, though somewhat overturned and removed. The 
 columns are large, but of regular length. Here wo 
 found for the first time, the singularity of double co- 
 lumns; that is, two attached shafts, with capitals and 
 base, cut from the same solid block — several blocks 
 of stone are nine feet long, by half that width, and of 
 considerable thickness, on one side of which are sculptur- 
 ed pannels with ornamental work, now defaced. The 
 whole edifice must have been of an elegant structure — 
 the confusion is too great and hopeless to admit of any 
 certainty as to the character of the building." 1 Such 
 now is the long-reputed site of Capernaum, — and doubt- 
 less of a city in which Jesus preached and did many 
 mighty works, — and such, so far as can be discerned 
 now, are the prostrate ruins of its noblest edifice. — But 
 the fact stated by Josephus that in his day a fountain called 
 1 Eobinson and Smith, vol. iii. pp. 298, 299. 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 159 
 
 Capharnaoum (in some MSS. Kwxoigmap, Kaparnaoum) 
 watered trie plain of Gennesareth, seems to justify the 
 opinion of Baronius, and others, that the town had hence 
 its name, and was situated there. The ancient names 
 both of the fountain and of the city, so far as can with 
 certainty be known, have perished, and Capernaum, un- 
 der its own name, has been sought for in vain, as if it 
 had gone down to hades. The copious fountain of Ain- 
 el-Tin, beside the ruined Khan Minyeh, and a low 
 mound with ruins in the vicinity, have been conjectured 
 with seeming probability to be the fountain and the 
 site of Capernaum. If such it be, other memorials of 
 the lost city may be discovered amidst the adjoining 
 heights, or the surrounding thickets, that to the passers 
 by have often hid the fountain itself from view; and clearer 
 proof may thereby be given that Capernaum has been 
 thrust down from a station well fitted for a paradise. 
 Whether it stood in the one place or the other, Capernaum 
 has fallen as low as any proud city can he. 
 
 While at Tell- Hum we asked an Arab soldier, who 
 accompanied us from Tiberias, if there were similar ruins, 
 or any others, in the neighbourhood, and he at once men- 
 tioned Tell, on the Jordan, and Korazi. We then went 
 to a Bedouin, whom we saw at a short distance, and put 
 to him the same question. He immediately answered, 
 " at Ain Korazi," and pointed towards it in the same 
 direction. The one said it was an hour distant, the other 
 " an hour and a half." On reaching the ruins, three 
 Zingaris, or Gypsies, whose low tents were at a short 
 distance, came down with lebban, or sour milk, for sale. 
 When questioned as to the name of the ruins in the midst 
 of which we were, they answered with one voice, before 
 the word was uttered in their hearing, Korazi; and 
 
160 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 when interrogated anew, they repeated it emphatically, 
 with visible expressions of surprise at our seeming doubts. 
 There seems no reason for questioning that Korazi is 
 the Chorazin of Scripture, in which it is not said to stand 
 on the shore of the lake of Tiberias, as Capernaum and 
 Bethsaida are. We reached it in fifty-five minutes from 
 the chief ruin of Tell- Hum, from three to four miles distant. 
 It lies almost directly to the west of the point where the 
 Jordan flows into the lake. It retains the name; and is 
 known by it still among the inhabitants of the country 
 around, and as we repeatedly enquired, especially at Safet, 
 by no other. The name, as pronounced, was there written 
 in Arabic, in the author's note-book, by an intelligent na- 
 tive of the country, Korazi. It was doubtless, he said, 
 the Chorazin of Scripture. 
 
 Korazee, of which not a house now stands, consists 
 of fallen walls lying in heaps, of no defined form, in- 
 termixed with lines of ruined buildings, and some 
 squares whose form is still entire, filled with ruins. 
 The remains of huts which have been built in the midst 
 of previous ruins, and formed out of them, disfigure in 
 many places the structure of the original buildings, so as 
 to render it untraceable. As in Tell- Hum, several pe- 
 destals of columns retain their position, but the shafts are 
 levelled with the ground and intermingled with the fallen 
 dwellings. Many of the stones, either fixed in the rem- 
 nants of the walls or fallen, are from three to five feet 
 long; and others longer. In general, like those of Tell- 
 Hum, they are only roughly cut. The most noticeable 
 objects in prostrate Chorazin are the remains of a build- 
 ing formed of large hewn stones, with many lying in 
 masses ; — another ruin, the walls of wliich, still standing, 
 built of hewn stone roughly cut and partly corroded, are 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 161 
 
 well coated in the inside with plaster, which still partly ad- 
 heres to them without ; — two tops of niches, of the shell 
 pattern, very entire, and beautifully cut, finely arched, 
 and figured on the edges ; — and, also prostrate on the 
 ground, two well cut and ornamented upper lintels, which 
 once covered the door-ways, six and eight feet wide, 
 which seem to show that houses which were not lowly, 
 have been thrust down to the dust, — and under Avhich may 
 have passed some of the men that brought the word of 
 woe from the hps of Jesus on impenitent Chorazin, now 
 without a house or an inhabitant though Tyre and Sidon 
 have their dwellers still. 
 
 It is a desolate place, as it has a cheerless look. No 
 plaster now covers its black stones as they He upon the 
 ground. A small field of tobacco, amidst the ruins, was 
 the only sign of industry about it : and, though in a hilly 
 region, a few poor tents were the only dwellings near it. 
 Its ruins are at least a mile in circumference, possibly 
 more: for covered as they are with thistles, rank weeds, 
 and a few wild figs — a token of times long past — its site, 
 at a short distance, is scarcely distinguishable from its 
 desolate vicinity. 
 
 Bethsaida of Galilee, that stood like Capernaum on 
 the shore, may yet be discovered, if its ruins have not 
 perished, and its name be not lost. Bethsaida, on the 
 eastern bank of Jordan, where some of Christ's miracles 
 were wrought, has been known ere now to have extensive 
 ruins at el Tell — but tents are the chief dwellings of those 
 who now pasture their flocks around it. 
 
 On the west borders of the lake of Tiberias in the land 
 of Galilee, the cities in which Jesus did mighty works, 
 and yet they repented not, are no more. And the only 
 village that retains an inhabitant, — though it has not es- 
 
 M 
 
162 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 caped the curse which the last word of the Old Testa- 
 ment dropped upon the land, if it would not hear the 
 Messenger of the Lord, — is that of Magdala, which gave 
 her surname to a great sinner, who became a great peni- 
 tent and loved the Saviour much; and who, having washed 
 his feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her 
 head, has given that name to many an asylum through- 
 out the world; while Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Caper- 
 naum which was exalted unto heaven in its pride, have, 
 as cities, long passed into utter ruin and oblivion. Mighty 
 works of Jesus were done in them: and his word, as 
 mighty, rests upon them still. They have been made to 
 hear it; though they would not listen in faith to the 
 gracious words that proceeded out of his mouth, nor re- 
 gard his upbraiding because of their impenitence. But 
 they are their own witnesses of their woe, as He denounc- 
 ed it ; and they show that Ins words, however disregard- 
 ed, do not pass away. 
 
 And your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste. 
 Then shall the land enjoy her Sabbaths as long as it lieth 
 desolate, and ye be in your enemies' land: even then shall the 
 land rest, and enjoy her Sabbaths, etc. 1 A single reference 
 to the Mosaic law respecting the Sabbatical year, renders 
 the full import of this prediction perfectly intelligible and 
 obvious. " But in the seventh year shall be a Sabbath 
 of rest unto the land; thou shalt neither sow thy field 
 nor prune thy vineyard." And the land of Judea hath 
 even thus enjoyed its Sabbaths so long as it hath lain 
 desolate. In that country where every spot was cultivat- 
 ed like a garden by its patrimonial possessor, where 
 every little hill rejoiced in its abundance, where every 
 1 Lev. xxvi. 33, 34. 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 163 
 
 steep acclivity was terraced by the labour of man, and 
 where the very rocks were covered with thick mould, and 
 rendered fertile; even in that self- same land, with a tern 
 perature the same 1 and with a soil unchanged save only 
 by neglect, a dire contrast is now and has for a lengthen- 
 ed period of time been displayed by fields untilled and 
 unsown, and by waste and desolated plains. Never 
 since the expatriated descendants of Abraham were 
 driven from its borders, has the land of Canaan been 
 so u plenteous in goods," or so abundant in population 
 as once it was; never, as it did for ages unto them, has 
 it vindicated to any other people a right to its possession,. 
 or its own title of the land of promise ; it has rested from 
 century to century; and while that marked, and stricken, 
 and scattered race, who possess the recorded promise of 
 the God of Israel as their charter to its final and ever- 
 lasting possession, still " be in the land of their enemies, so 
 long their land lieth desolate." There may thus almost 
 be said to be the semblance of a sympathetic feeling be- 
 tween this bereaved country and banished people, as if 
 the land of Israel felt the miseries of its absent children, 
 awaited their return, and responded to the undying love 
 they bear it, by the refusal to yield to other possessors the 
 rich harvest of those fruits, with which, in the days of 
 their allegiance to the Most High, it abundantly blessed 
 them. And striking and peculiar, without the shadow of 
 even a semblance upon earth, as is this accordance be- 
 tween the fate of Judea and of the Jews, it assimilates 
 as closely, (and, may we not add, as miraculously?) to 
 those predictions respecting both, which Moses utter- 
 ed and recorded ere the tribes of Israel had ever set 
 
 1 See Brewster's Philosophical Journal, num. xvi. p. 227. 
 
164: 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 a foot in Canaan. The land shall he left of them, 
 and shall enjoy her rest while she lieth desolate without 
 them. 1 
 
 To the desolate state of Judea every traveller bears 
 witness. The prophetic malediction was addressed to the 
 mountains and the hills, to the rivers and to the valleys ; 
 and the beauty of them all has been blighted. Where 
 the inhabitants once dwelt in peace, each under his own 
 vine, and under his own fig-tree, the tyranny of the 
 Turks, and the perpetual incursions of the Arabs, the last 
 of a long list of oppressors, have spread one wide field of 
 almost unmingled desolation. The plain of Esdraelon, 
 naturally most fertile, its soil consisting of "fine rich 
 black mould," 2 bounded by Carmel, Gilboa, Little Her- 
 mon, Mount Tabor, and the hills of Nazareth, and so ex- 
 tensive as to cover about three hundred square miles, is a 
 solitude, 3 almost entirely deserted. 4 South of Hebron, 
 through hills and valleys of Judah, and the extensive 
 plain of Beersheba, a day's journey may be passed 
 without , seeing a cultivated field, except perhaps a spot 
 scratched by the wretched plough of the Bedouins. 
 The country is continually overrun with rebel tribes; the 
 Arabs pasture their cattle upon the spontaneous produce 
 of the rich plains with which it abounds. 5 Every ancient 
 landmark is removed. " The art of cultivation," says 
 Volney, " is in the most deplorable state, and the coun- 
 tryman must sow with the musket in his hand ; and no 
 more is sown than is barely necessary for subsistence." 
 
 i Lev. xxvi. 43. 2 General Straton's MS. Travels. 
 
 3 Clarke's Travels, vol. ii. p. 497. Maundrell's Travels, p. 95. 
 
 4 Burckhardt's Travels in Syria, pp. 334, 342. 
 Clarke's Travels, vol. ii. pp. 484, 491. 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 165 
 
 " Every day I found fields abandoned by the plough." 1 
 In describing his journey through Galilee, Dr Clarke re- 
 marks, that the earth was covered with such a variety of 
 thistles, that a complete collection of them would be a 
 valuable acquisition to botany. 2 Six new species of that 
 plant, so significant of natural fertility and existing deso- 
 lation, were discovered by himself in a scanty selection. 
 It is needless to multiply quotations to prove the desola- 
 tion of a country which the Turks have possessed, and 
 which the Arabs have plundered for ages. But evi- 
 dence may here be adduced from the Official Eeport of a 
 Commissioner of the British Government on the Commer- 
 cial Statistics of Syria, which was presented to both Houses 
 of Parliament by command of her Majesty, (Lond. 1840.) 
 " The agricultural produce of Syria is far less than might 
 have been expected from the extensive tracts of fertile 
 lands, and the favourable character of the climate. In 
 the districts where hands are found to cultivate the fields, 
 production is large, and the return for capital is consi- 
 derable ; but the want of population for the purposes of 
 cultivation is deplorable. JRegions of the highest fertility 
 remain fallow, and the traveller passes over contiguous 
 leagues of the richest soil, which is wholly unproductive 
 to man." 3 Begions of the highest fertility lie fallow, or, 
 in other words, the land rests and enjoys its Sabbaths, and 
 lieth desolate without its ancient inhabitants, who are still 
 scattered throughout the world in the lands of their enemies. 
 The land mourns and is laid waste, and each stranger from 
 a far land now sees what the prophet saw in vision — I be- 
 held, and lo, the fruitful plain was a wilderness* 
 
 1 Volney's Travels, vol. ii. p. 413. Volney's Ruins, c. xi. p. 7. 
 
 2 Clarke's Travels, vol. ii. p. 451. 
 
 a Dr Bo wring's Report on Syria, page 9. * Jer. iv, 26. 
 
166 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 While eye-witnesses in modern times have thus borne 
 ample, uniform, and decisive testimony to the general 
 desolation of Judea, yet such is the natural fertility of the 
 land, that a temporary respite from predatory assaults, 
 even under the penalty of grievous exactions and oppres- 
 sive bondage, leads, on the part of the miserable pea- 
 santry, to a more extended though not improved cultiva- 
 tion of the lands which environ their miserable villages ; 
 and, as described by different travellers at different times, 
 the same spot may assume a somewhat varied aspect. 
 But the general desolation abides unchanged ; every pro- 
 phetic characteristic remains : and each place, when 
 named, preserves its peculiar prophetic features. The 
 cultivation is everywhere wretched. And though an 
 extensive range of ripened grain may in some places pre- 
 sent to view, as often witnessed by the writer, a seemingly 
 rich prospect, which, on glancing over its golden surface 
 at a distance, the yellow ears overtopping the weeds, 
 gives promise of a rich harvest ; yet, in the plains of 
 Judea, the shocks, as in our less fertile soil and far colder 
 clime, fall not heavy into the hands of the reaper. For 
 on closer inspection the ranker weeds are but ill conceal- 
 ed ; the grain is often reduced to less than half of what it 
 seemed ; and not unfrequently, whenever the cropped ears 
 of the thin barley had been removed, a field of thistles 
 appeared in their stead, covering the ground so closely 
 that they formed the most abundant and seemed the only 
 crop. 
 
 But specially of the mountains of Israel it may be said, 
 that they have been always desolate; and they specially 
 have been a derision. At first sight they seem to merit 
 it. They are bleak and bare. Their aspect, as they 
 rise naked from the plain, is that of dreary desolation, if 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 167 
 
 not of irreclaimable barrenness. The marvel is, that 
 they should ever have formed a large portion of a glorious 
 land, or that those hills should have rejoiced on every or 
 on any side, on which a solemn stillness and gloomy sad- 
 ness now universally rest. The Christian or the pilgrim 
 Jew may well ask himself, in doubt, Can these be the 
 mountains of Israel? And the sceptic may deceitfully 
 think to justify himself in the averment, apparently war- 
 ranted by pointing to the desolate hills of Judea, if such 
 was the seat of the glory of Solomon, surely the record 
 of that glory is a fable. Assuredly the land has another 
 and opposite aspect and character now from that which it 
 bore, when it was a good land, a land of wheat, and barley, 
 and vines, and fig-trees, and pomegranates; a land of 
 oil-olive and honey; a land wherein Israel eat bread 
 without scarceness and lacked not any thing, Deut. viii. 
 7—9. The contrast is so great and dire, that some visible 
 demonstration may be needful to sustain a faltering faith, 
 and refute an apparently rational incredulity. But the un- 
 questioned and unquestionable fact is, as predicted, that the 
 mountains of Israel are waste and desolate. And the more 
 nearly they are seen, the more manifest is the proof, and 
 the more astonishing is the fact, that so marvellous a 
 desolation has come over them. Approaching their base 
 the prospect becomes more saddening ; and, looking from 
 beneath, nothing in many places but the stony fronts of 
 the empty terraces, successively receding and ascending, 
 is to be seen, desolation having trodden on every step. 
 And the frowning mountains look down on those who pass 
 beneath, as if they angrily responded to the reproaches 
 which have been cast upon them, and uttered forth the 
 judgments which they bear. Still nothing can be more 
 palpably manifest, than that the mountains have been 
 
168 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 laid desolate, and that the time was when art, and cli- 
 mate, and soil combined their utmost powers to adorn 
 and enrich them as a garden which the Lord had blessed. 
 And with a glance the wonder ceases, how they were of 
 old renowned for beauty and fertility; and the more just 
 astonishment cannot be repressed, how such extensive 
 regions, terraced all over, and ever ready for renewed 
 cultivation, could have lain desolate for so many genera- 
 tions, or how, were the restraining cause removed, they 
 could remain unproductive for a single year. Ascend- 
 ing on the way from Gaza to J erusalem, between two 
 hills, so as to pass by the lowest level, the writer counted 
 on one of them sixty-seven successive terraces, perfectly 
 distinct, and in many places complete. The whole scene 
 around, in an extensive view, gave similar demonstration 
 of ancient glory and existing desolation, the extreme con- 
 trast rendering each the more astonishing. Mountain 
 after mountain was lined throughout, from the base to the 
 summit, with terraces fading only in the distance, generally 
 uncovered now but by weeds and creeping thorns, which 
 rise not enough to hide the stony fronts which of old were 
 cut from the rock or built by man, to clothe the moun- 
 tains with vines, and fig-trees, and pomegranates, and 
 olives, and other fruits, of which, but in isolated spots hid 
 from the general view, not a vestige remains. 
 
 I will give it into the hands of stealers for a prey, 
 and unto the wiched of the earth fpr a spoil. The rob- 
 bers shall enter into it and defile it} Instead of abiding 
 under a settled and enlightened government, Judea has 
 been the scene of frequent invasions, " which have in- 
 troduced a succession of foreign nations (des peuples 
 etrangers') 2 " When the Ottomans took Syria from the 
 1 Ezek. vii. 21, 22. 2 Volney's Travels, vol. i. p. 356. 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 169 
 
 Mamelouks, they considered it as the spoil of a vanquish- 
 ed enemy. According to this law, the life and property 
 of the vanquished belong to the conqueror. The govern- 
 ment is far from disapproving of a system of robbery and 
 plunder which it finds so profitable." 1 
 
 Many pastoks have destroyed my vineyard, they have 
 tkodden my portion under foot? The ravages committed 
 even by hosts of enemies are in general only temporary; 
 or if an invader settle in a conquered country, on becom- 
 ing the possessor, he cultivates and defends it. And it 
 is the proper office of government to render life and pro- 
 perty secure. In neither case has it fared thus with 
 Judea. But besides successive invasions by foreign na- 
 tions, and the systematic spoliation exercised by a despo- 
 tic government, other causes have conspired to perpetuate 
 its desolation, and to render abortive the substance that 
 is in it. Among these has chiefly to be numbered, its 
 being literally trodden under foot by many pastors. Vol- 
 ney devotes a chapter, fifty pages in length, to a description, 
 as he entitles it, " of the pastoral or wandering tribes of 
 Syria," chiefly of the Bedouin Arabs, by whom, especi- 
 ally, Syria is incessantly traversed. " The pachalics of 
 Aleppo and Damascus may be computed to contain about 
 thirty thousand wandering Turkmen (Turkomans) . All their 
 property consists in cattle." In the same pachalics, the 
 number of the Curds " exceeds twenty thousand tents and 
 huts," or an equal number of armed men. " The Curds 
 are almost everywhere looked upon as robbers. Like the 
 Turkmen, these Curds are pastors and wanderers? A 
 third wandering people in Syria are the Bedouin Arabs." 4 
 " It often happens that even individuals, turned robbers 
 
 1 Volney's Travels, vol. ii. pp. 370, 381. 2 Jer. xii. 10. 
 
 3 Ibid. vol. ii. 370-375. 4 Ibid. 1. 377. 
 
170 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 in order to withdraw themselves from the laws or from 
 tyranny, unite and form a little camp, which maintain 
 themselves hy arms, and increasing, become new hordes 
 and new tribes. We may pronounce, that in cultivable 
 countries the wandering life originates in the injustice or 
 want of policy of the government ; and that the sedentary 
 and the cultivating state is that to which mankind is most 
 naturally inclined." 1 "It is evident that agriculture 
 must be very precarious in such a country, and that, un- 
 der a government like that of the Turks, it is safer to lead 
 a wandering life, than to choose a settled habitation, and 
 rely for subsistence on agriculture." 2 " The Turkmen, 
 the Curds, and the Bedouins, have no fixed habitations, 
 but keep perpetually wandering with their tents and herds, 
 in limited districts, of which they look upon themselves as 
 the proprietors. The Arabs spread over the whole fron- 
 tier of Syria, and even the plains of Palestine." 3 — Thus, 
 contrary to their natural inclination, the peasants, often 
 forced to abandon a settled life, and pastoral tribes in 
 great numbers, or many, and without fixed habitations, 
 divide the country, as it were by mutual consent, and 
 apportion it in limited districts among themselves by an 
 assumed right of property, and the Arabs, subdivided also 
 into different tribes, spread over the plains of Palestine, 
 " wandering perpetually," as if on very purpose to tread 
 it down. — What could be more unlikely or unnatural in 
 such a land! yet what more strikingly and strictly true! 
 or how else could the effect of the vision have been seen ! 
 " Many pastors have destroyed my vineyard; they have 
 trodden my portion under foot. ,,i 
 
 Ye shall be as a garden that hath no water. 5 How long 
 
 1 Volney's Travels, vol. ii. p. 383. 2 Ibid. p. 387. 
 
 3 lb. pp. 367, 368. 4 Jer. xii. 12. 5 Isa. i. 30. 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 171 
 
 shall the land mourn, and the herbs of every field wither, 
 for the wickedness of them that dwell therein P — " In all 
 hot countries, wherever there is water, vegetation may be 
 perpetually maintained and made to produce an uninter- 
 rupted succession of fruits to flowers, and flowers to 
 fruit." 2 "The remains of cisterns are to he found 
 (throughout Judea), in which they collected the rain- 
 water ; and traces of the canals by which those waters 
 were distributed on the fields. — These labours necessarily 
 created a prodigious fertility under an ardent sun, where 
 a little water was the only requisite to revive the vegeta- 
 ble world." 3 Such labours, with very slight exceptions, 
 are now unknown. Judea is as a garden that hath no 
 water, and the herbs of every field wither. "We see 
 there none of that gay carpeting of grass and flowers 
 which decorate the meadows of Normandy and Flanders, 
 nor those clumps of beautiful trees which give such rich- 
 ness and animation to the landscapes of Burgundy and 
 Brittany. — The land of Syria has almost always a dusty 
 appearance."* Had not these countries been ravaged by 
 the hand of man, they might perhaps at this day have 
 been shaded with forests. That its productions do not 
 correspond with its natural advantages, is less owing to 
 its physical than political state." 5 
 
 In a dry season, or even soon after copious rains have 
 ceased, the unshaded and unwatered ground is speedily 
 scorched by the heat ; in early summer, the herbs soon 
 wither, and the grass, wherever it grows, is dry. Through- 
 out the land, grass or hay is never cut, that food for 
 cattle may be stored, and fresh verdure clothe the ground ; 
 
 1 Jer. xii. 4. 2 Volney's Travels, vol. ii. p. 359. 
 
 3 Malte-Brun's Geography, vol. ii. pp. 150, 151. 
 
 4 Volney's Travels, vol. ii. p. 359. 5 lb. pp. 359, 360. 
 
172 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 but the herbs of every field wither, and hence, from the 
 accomplishment of this word, the dusty appearance of the 
 land of Syria, by which the sceptic characterises it, and, 
 as he well may, sets up in contrast the gay carpeting of 
 Normandy. South of Hebron we passed, for a day's jour- 
 ney, through withered herbs, chiefly a species of wild 
 barley, which covered the ground like a parched and 
 stunted crop. As in other places, we passed for many a 
 mile along the rich valley of the Jordan — which might 
 well vie in its produce with tropical climes — through 
 withered thistles and other herbs as dry, — though not 
 far from its banks that are fringed with verdant trees. 
 " In returning from the Kalaat Hainan," says Burck- 
 hardt, " I was several times reprimanded by my guide, 
 for not taking proper care of the tobacco that fell from 
 my pipe. The whole of the mountain is thickly covered 
 with dry grass, which readily takes fire, and the slightest 
 breath of air instantly spreads the conflagration far over 
 the country, to the great risk of the peasant's harvest." — 
 " The Arabs who inhabit the valley of the Jordan, inva- 
 riably put to death any person who is known to have been 
 even the innocent"cause of firing the grass. One even- 
 ing, while at Tabaria, I saw a large fire on the opposite 
 side of the lake, which spread with great velocity for two 
 days, till its progress was checked by the wady Feik." 1 
 Contiguous leagues of the richest soil, lying fallow in 
 regions of the highest fertility, though wholly unproduc- 
 tive to man, as recorded in the Parliamentary Eeport, 
 bear abundant proof, that the land is as a garden that 
 hath no water, that the land mourns, and the herbs of 
 every field do wither, for the wickedness of them that 
 dwell therein. 
 
 1 Burckhardt, pp. 331, 332. 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 173 
 
 Sharon is like a wilderness; and Bashan and Carmel 
 shale off their fruits. 1 No precise illustration of these 
 predictions was given in previous editions of this treatise ; 
 but an extract from the work of a more recent traveller 
 may show how the celebrated plain of Sharon not only 
 partakes of the general desolation, as predicted, but how 
 it also bears witness to the word that has fallen upon it- 
 self. " The plain of Sharon," says Mr Eobinson, " cele- 
 brated in Scripture for its fertility, and the beautiful 
 flowers that grow spontaneously from the soil, stretches 
 along- the coast, from Gaza on the south to Mount Car- 
 mel in the north, being bounded towards the east by the 
 hills of Judea and Samaria. The soil is composed of very 
 fine sand, 2 which, though mixed with gravel, appears ex- 
 tremely fertile, and yet it is but partially cultivated, and 
 still less inhabited. On either side of the road ruined 
 and abandoned villages present themselves to the view of 
 the disappointed traveller, impressing him with a species 
 of melancholy which he is at a loss to account for, seeing 
 no just cause for the existence of such a state of things in 
 a land " so plenteous in goods," and so abundant in popu- 
 lation as once it was. If he should attribute it, as most 
 likely he will, to the misrule of those that govern, he 
 may, after mature reflection, ask himself the question : 
 The judgments pronounced against the land, have they 
 yet received their frill completion ? And are not its pre- 
 sent rulers the visible instruments of those judgments? 
 ' Your land strangers devour it in your presence, and it 
 
 1 Isaiah, xxxiii. 9. 
 
 2 In some places along the coast the sand from the sea-shore 
 has partially spread over the borders of the plain and mingled 
 with the soil. But like other plains of Palestine, that of Sharon 
 consists of rich as well as deep alluvial soil. 
 
174 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 is desolate as overthrown by strangers.'" 1 Having since 
 passed through Sharon from end to end, we may affirm, 
 from personal observation, that Sharon is a wilderness. 
 With very partial exceptions it is now abandoned to the 
 Bedouins, who in the present day pitch their tents near to 
 the sea-shore, as well as on the borders of the desert. 
 In an extensive view over the plain from elevated ground 
 beside the village of Mukhalid, not a village nor habita- 
 tion was to be seen, as far as the eye can reach, and be- 
 fore arriving there from the north, not an inhabited vil- 
 lage had we passed or seen, for the distance, along the 
 coast, of six hours and a-half, or about twenty miles, 
 though the ruined capital of Herod lay in our path ; and 
 the nearest in any direction, we were told, is ten miles 
 distant. But true it is of Sharon, as of other plains, that, 
 while strangers have devoured it, and the wicked of the 
 earth have made of it a prey and a spoil, many pastors or 
 herdsmen, tread it under foot, and have made the plea- 
 sant portion of the Lord a desolate wilderness. We there 
 saw nine or ten flocks of cattle and sheep, some of which 
 were large, spread over the nearest borders of the plain. 
 The habitations of the solitary village are wretched hovels, 
 and the cattle pertaining to it, far too few to depasture 
 the adjacent plain, where the flocks of the wandering 
 Arabs freely roam. But deserted and desolate as it lies, 
 the wilderness retains not a little of the beauty of Sharon, 
 ere, unsheltered as it is, it is scorched by the summer sun, 
 its grass withered and its flowers faded. The ground is in 
 many places covered with beautiful flowers. About mid- 
 way between Mukhalid and Jaffa, the borders of a stream 
 (the Phaalek) were extremely rich, after the earlier rain, in 
 wild spontaneous produce ; and vigorous plants were mat- 
 1 Travels in Syria, by G. Robinson, Esq. vol. i. pp. 25, 26. 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 175 
 
 ted together in impenetrable closeness and the richest 
 luxuriance. Yet even there desolation is still advancing 
 in unarrested progress ; and one of its causes, not over- 
 looked in prophecy, may he witnessed in its defacing and 
 destructive effects, where the traveller seems to be leaving 
 a desolated plain for a rich orchard, or a shady grove, or 
 — what all the land shall yet be — a garden like that of 
 Eden. But on a closer inspection several of the trees 
 were withering away, but not from age. They had not 
 been scathed from the top by lightning ; but, with less 
 instantaneous but not less destructive efficacy, they had 
 been burned at the root by Bedouins. The lowest part of 
 the trunks, half through or more, had been turned into 
 ashes, and the trees were left standing to wither and die, 
 till the hand could pull them down, or a blast lay them 
 on the ground, when their withered branches would be 
 fitted for the fires of the Bedouins, with the trunks, per- 
 haps, of other trees for their hearths. In some instances, 
 the soil had been partly scraped out beneath, to form hol- 
 lows for the fire, as seen by the uncovered and burned 
 roots. While desolation thus continues to spread over 
 Sharon and other plains — where all manner of fruit- 
 trees of old adorned and enriched the land — the time is 
 long past in which one generation had to tell another of 
 such judgments ere they came; but how true as to the 
 past, with such direful causes in operation still, is the 
 word of the Lord, whether figuratively or literally, — a 
 nation is come up upon my land — he hath laid my vine 
 waste, and barked my fig-tree: he hath made it clean 
 bare, and cast it away; the branches thereof are made 
 white. — The vine is dried up, and the fig-tree languish- 
 ed; the pomegranate tree and the palm tree also, and 
 
176 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 the apple tree, even all the trees of the field are withered: 
 because joy is withered away from the sons of men. 1 — 
 Numberless are the trees that have thus been withered, 
 till over extensive plains there is no fruit to be plucked 
 from a tree, and Bedouins have often far to wander ere 
 they pitch their tents near any trees that remain, not for 
 fruit to eat, but for branches to burn. Sharon is like a 
 wilderness; 
 
 And Bashan and Carmel shake off their fruits. " The 
 oppressions of the government, on the one side, and those 
 of the Bedouins, on the other," as Burckhardt witnessed 
 while there were numerous peasants there, " have re- 
 duced the Fellah of the Haouran (Bashan) to a state 
 little better than that of the wandering Arab. Few in- 
 dividuals, either among the Druses or Christians, die in 
 the same village in which they were born. Families are 
 continually moving from one place to another ; in the first 
 year of their new settlement, the sheikh acts with moder- 
 ation towards them ; but his vexations becoming in a few 
 years insupportable, they fly to some other place ; but 
 they soon find that the same system prevails over the 
 whole Gountry. — This continued wandering is one of the 
 principal reasons why no village in the Haouran has 
 either orchards or fruit-trees, or gardens for the growth 
 of vegetables. ' Shall we sow for strangers, ' was the 
 answer of a Fellah, to whom I once spoke on the sub- 
 ject, and who by the word strangers meant both the suc- 
 ceeding inhabitants, and the Arabs, who visit the Haouran 
 in the spring and summer." 2 "Of the vineyards, for 
 which Bozrah was celebrated, and which are commemor- 
 ated by Greek medals, KOA^NIA BOCTPHC, 
 
 1 Joel i. 6, 7, 12. 2 Burckhardt's Syria, p. 299. 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 177 
 
 not a vestige remains. There is scarcely a tree in the 
 neighbourhood of the town; and the twelve or fifteen fa- 
 milies who now (1812) inhabit it cultivate nothing* but 
 wheat, barley, horse-beans, and a little dhourra. A 
 number of fine rose trees grow wild among the ruins of 
 the town, and were just beginning to open their buds." 1 
 Where wheat and barley lately grew, and celebrated vine- 
 yards anciently flourished for ages, and fine rose trees shoot 
 up wild as in a wilderness, among the ruins of the city that 
 was for ages the capital of Bashan, no natural cause 
 exists to prevent the growth of fruit-trees, or diminish 
 the renown of vineyards as of old. But the word is that 
 of the God of nature, Bashan shall shake off its fruits. 
 Yet He is also the God of hope, to them that believe his 
 word. And while the fruitless Bashan is a witness to 
 sceptics of its truth, they who are not such may see in 
 the roses that bloom over the ruins of Bozrah, a token 
 of the coming time — as a prophetic emblem of the fact, 
 that the desert shall blossom as the rose — when another 
 word shall be fulfilled, and Israel shall feed on Bashan. 
 
 Carmel, as well as Bashan, has heard the word of the 
 Lord. It was renowned, even among the mountains of 
 Israel, for its excellency, as denoted by its name, a fruit- 
 ful field. Such was its fruitfulness, and so close the 
 thickets on its top, that, as most forcibly indicating the 
 impossibility of the escape of any from the all-searching 
 eye and righteous judgments of the living God, it is said, 
 " though they dig into hell, thence shall my hand take 
 them ; though they climb up to heaven, thence will I bring 
 them down ; and though they hide themselves in the top 
 of Carmel, I will search them out thence," &c. — Amos 
 ix. 2, 3. " The top and sides of Carmel," says Lord 
 1 Burckhardt's Syria, p. 236. 
 
 N 
 
178 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 Lindsay, " are covered with shrubs and flowers, but quite 
 bare of trees: a few olives flourish at its foot, and on the 
 lowest slopes, as if trying to get up and invalidate the pro- 
 phecy. The ' excellency of Carmel' is indeed departed." 1 
 The people that were the flock of the Lords inheritance, 
 and that dwelt solitarily in the wood in the midst of Car- 
 mel, have been fed by the rod, 2 and the land has been 
 smitten till Sharon is a wilderness, and Carmel is bare. 
 From its summit and its sides, it has shaken off its fruit, as 
 the land shook off its people. As long as they be in their 
 enemies' land, so long does Carmel, as a portion of their 
 own, He desolate. But if the time be not distant now — 
 as we think that there are many signs to show that it is 
 not — when ungodliness shall be turned from Jacob; and 
 the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall 
 be none; and the sins of Judah, and they shall not be 
 found, and the Lord will pardon those whom He will re- 
 serve — then the excellency of Carmel shall return, and 
 fruit-trees may begin to creep up the hill, not to invali- 
 date, but, in another manner and in other days, to sub- 
 stantiate prophecy, for, in those days, and in that time, 
 Israel, come again to his habitation, shall feed on Car- 
 mel and Bashan. 3 
 
 The lambs feed after their manner, and the waste 
 places of the fat ones shall strangers eat. Josephus de- 
 scribes Galilee, of which he was the governor, as " fall 
 of plantations of trees of all sorts, the soil universally 
 rich and fruitful, and all, without the exception of a sin- 
 gle part, cultivated by the inhabitants. Moreover," he 
 adds, " the cities he here very thick, and there are very 
 many villages, which are so full of people by the richness 
 
 1 Lord Lindsay's Travels, vol. ii. p. 78. 
 
 2 Micah vii. 14. 3 Jer. 1. 19, 20. 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 179 
 
 of their soil, that the very least of them contained above 
 fifteen thousand inhabitants." 1 Such was Galilee, at the 
 commencement of the Christian era, several centuries after 
 the prophecy was delivered ; but now, "the plain of Esdrae- 
 lon, and all the other parts of Galilee which afford pasture, 
 are occupied by Arab tribes, around whose brown tents the 
 sheep and lambs gambol to the sound of the reed, which at 
 night-fall calls them home." 2 The calf feeds and lies down 
 amidst the ruins of the cities, and consumes, without hin- 
 drance, the branches of the trees ; and however changed 
 maybe the condition of the inhabitants, the lambs feed after 
 their manner, and, while the land mourns, and the merry- 
 hearted sigh, they gambol to the sound of the reed. — 
 There shall the calf feed, and there shall he lie down and 
 consume the branches thereof^ 
 
 When the boughs thereof are withered, they shall be 
 broken off; the women come and set them on fire: for 
 they are a people of no understanding? The precise and 
 complete contrast between the ancient and existing state 
 of Palestine, as separately described by Jewish and So- 
 man historians and by modern travellers, is so strikingly 
 exemplified in their opposite descriptions, that in refer- 
 ence to whatever constituted the beauty and the glory of 
 the country, or the happiness of the people, an entire 
 change is manifest, even in minute circumstances. The 
 universal richness and fruitfulness of the soil of Galilee, 
 together with its being " full of plantations of all sorts of 
 trees," are represented by Josephus as " inviting the 
 most slothful to take pains in its cultivation." And the 
 other provinces of the Holy Land are also described by 
 
 1 Josephus' Wars, book iii. chap. iii. § 2. 
 
 2 Schulze, quoted by Malte-Brun, vol. ii. p. 148, 
 
 3 Isa. xxvii. 1 1 . 
 
180 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 him as having " abundance of trees, full of autumnal fruit, 
 both that which grows wild and that which is the effect 
 of cultivation." 1 Tacitus relates, that, besides all the 
 fruits of Italy, the palm and balsam-tree flourished in the 
 fertile soil of Judea. And he records the great careful- 
 ness with which, when the circulation of the juices seem- 
 ed to call for it, they gently made an incision in the 
 branches of the balsam, with a shell or pointed stone, not 
 venturing to apply a knife. 2 No sign of such art or care 
 is now to be seen throughout the land. The balsam-tree 
 has disappeared where it long flourished; and hardier 
 plants have perished from other causes than the want of 
 due care in their cultivation. And instead of relating 
 how the growth of a delicate tree is promoted, and the 
 medicinal liquor, at the same time, extracted from its 
 branches, by a nicety or perfectness of art worthy of the 
 notice of a Tacitus, a different task has fallen to the lot 
 of the traveller from a far land, who describes the customs 
 of those who now dwell where such arts were practised. 
 " The olive-trees (near Arimathea) are daily perishing 
 through age, the ravages of contending factions, and even 
 from secret mischief. The Mamelouks having cut down 
 all the olive-trees, for the pleasure they take in destroy- 
 ing, or to make fires, Yaffa has lost its greatest conveni- 
 ence." 3 Instead of " abundance of trees being still the 
 effect of cultivation," such, on the other hand, has been 
 the effect of these ravages, that many places in Palestine 
 are now " absolutely destitute of fuel." Yet in this de- 
 vastation, and in all its progress, may be read the literal 
 fulfilment of the prophecy, which not only described the 
 
 1 Josephus' Wars, book iii. chap. iii. sect. 4. 
 
 2 Taciti Hist. lib. v. cap. vi. 
 
 3 Volney's Travels, vol. ii. pp. 332, 333. 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 181 
 
 desolate cities of Judea as & pasture of flocks, and as places 
 for the calf to feed and lie down, and consume the branches 
 thereof; but which, with equal truth, also declared, when 
 the boughs thereof are withered, they shall be broken off; 
 the women come and set them on fire: 
 
 For it is a people of no understanding. " The most 
 simple arts are in a state of barbarism. The sciences 
 are totally unknown. 1 
 
 While such, in literal confirmation of the prophecy, is 
 the testimony of Volney, Burckhardt as unconsciously and 
 incidentally remarks, that such an undertaking as that of 
 clearing the rubbish which prevents water from flowing 
 into an ancient cistern, in order to render it useful to 
 themselves, is " an undertaking far beyond the views of 
 the wandering Arabs." The manner in which they de- 
 stroy a whole tree that the withered branches may be 
 broken off and set on fire, has been already noticed. 
 And reckless as they are of all but their immediate wants, 
 many a goodly tree has thus fallen, that the withered 
 boughs might, night after night, supply fuel for their fires, 
 till no fruit or shelter be found on the desolated spot ; 
 and where such a practice prevails, the bare desert is ex- 
 tended over other plains than that of Sharon. But the 
 Bedouins who kindle their fires at the roots of the finest 
 trees, are not the only inhabitants who give this predicted 
 proof, that the inhabitants of the land are a people of no 
 understanding. Near to the village of Sandianeh, on 
 the south-east base of the range of Carmel, where, from 
 the abundance of wood, the pruning-knife would supply 
 fuel for a far larger population, one of the finest oaks, 
 ten feet in circumference, had been burnt at the root, 
 around which lay some of the branches withering into 
 1 Volney's Travels, vol. ii. p. 442. 
 
182 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 firewood. Close by the sources of the J ordan, as they 
 gush copiously from the ground, amidst all but impene- 
 trable thickets of brambles, and other thorny plants, 
 which a little art would convert into heaps of brushwood, 
 the writer measured a magnificent oak, upwards of fifteen 
 feet in circumference, which was burnt close to the ground 
 to the depth of three feet and a half, or nearly from side 
 to side ; and hence, though containing solid wood enough 
 to floor a mansion, was fast withering away, that its 
 branches might be broken off to form fires for worse than 
 Goths who had no sense to convert the noble tree to any 
 better use, nor ingenuity to form an axe to fell it, nor 
 understanding or taste to spare the finest oak that shaded 
 the fountain of Jordan ; while in strange contrast, they 
 let alone the briars that flourish luxuriantly on the site 
 of Dan, and that were to come up upon the cities of Israel. 
 In the north of Syria we saw thousands of pines that had 
 been burnt at the root, whose large and once lofty stems, 
 that would well have formed masts for many navies, were 
 rotting on the ground, after the branches had been 
 broken off. Causes are thus visible at this day, which, 
 though originating in ignorance, as well as in the ravages 
 of contending factions and secret mischief — solve the 
 mystery of bare and desolated plains, where even fruit 
 trees were proverbial for their abundance. Judea, in the 
 days of Josephus, had abundance of trees, and was full of 
 autumnal fruit. But now, with very limited exceptions, 
 its hills are bare ; and branches are broken off where trees 
 are not suffered to grow to any height. On his first visit 
 to Jerusalem, the author, seeing several women carrying 
 on their heads loads of branches into that city — where 
 Solomon made cedars like the sycamores in the valley 
 for abundance — was informed, on questioning his friend 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 183 
 
 Mr Nicolayson, that such, except for ovens, was the only 
 fuel. On his second visit, on the way from J erusalem to 
 Hebron, he met two women with loads of firewood burnt 
 at the ends and withered, who were followed by two men 
 with four asses similarly laden ; and he passed, in some 
 places, many bushes of the evergreen oak, several of the 
 largest of which, the earliest prey, had been burnt at the 
 root, and the wood carried away; and the region that, 
 with partial exceptions, was stripped of its covering, seem- 
 ed to be spreading farther and farther from J erusalem, as 
 from other villages in the land not yet desolated by the 
 Bedouins. 
 
 Upon the land of my people shall come up thorns and 
 briars, &{c. Mahometan destroyers of Syria, to whom it 
 was unlawful to drink " the fruit of the vine," caused the 
 vines to be rooted up, and way was thus made for thorns 
 and briars to replace them. Terraced hills that were 
 previously covered with the shadows of the vine, and drop- 
 ped down new wine, have now these base substitutes as 
 their only clothing, scarcely covering their nakedness. 
 And the time is come, and long has been, that every 
 place where there were a thousand vines at a thousand 
 silverlings, it is for briars and thorns. " The earth," 
 says Volney, "produces only briars and wormwood." 1 A 
 thorny shrub (merar) abounds throughout the desolated 
 hills and plains of Palestine. Some of the former are so 
 closely beset, in many places, with thorns, that they can 
 only be ascended with great difficulty ; and in many places, 
 especially in the richest watered spots, a profusion of 
 matted thorny plants present an impenetrable barrier : 
 and briars sometimes cannot be counted, where each of 
 
 1 Ruins, p. 9. 
 
184 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 a thousand vines had once its price. " The whole district 
 of Tiberias," well adapted for the cultivation of the vine, 
 and embracing some of the most fertile regions of Syria, 
 is, in the words of Burckhardt, " covered with the thorny 
 shrub merar." 1 
 
 Your highways shall be desolate. 2 The highways lie 
 waste; the wayfaring man ceaseth. 3 So great must have 
 been the intercourse, in ancient times, between the po- 
 pulous and numerous cities of Judea, and so much must 
 that intercourse have been increased by the frequent and 
 regular journeyings, from every quarter, of multitudes go- 
 ing up to Jerusalem to worship, in observance of the rites, 
 and in obedience to the precepts of their law, that scarcely 
 any country ever possessed such means of crowded high- 
 ways, or any similar reason for abounding so much in 
 wayfaring men. In the days of Isaiah, who uttered the 
 latest of these predictions, " the land was full of horses, 
 neither was there any end of their chariots." And there 
 not only subsist to this day in the land of Judea, numer- 
 ous remains of paved ways formed by the Romans at a 
 much later period, and " others evidently not Roman;" 4 
 but among the precious literary remains of antiquity which 
 have come down to our times, three Roman itineraries 
 are to be numbered, that can here be confidently appealed 
 to. From these, and from the testimony of Arrian and 
 Diodorus Siculus, as well as of Josephus and Eusebius, it 
 appears, asReland has clearly shown, that in Palestine, long 
 after it came under the power of the Romans, and after 
 it was greatly debased from its ancient glory, there were 
 forty- two different highways, (via? publicse,) all being dis- 
 
 1 Burckhardt's Syria, p. 333. 
 3 Isaiah xxxiii. 8. 
 
 2 Levit. xxvi. 22. 
 
 4 General Straton's MS. 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 185 
 
 tiiictly specified, which intersected it in various directions. 1 
 There were, besides, Eoman roads from Antioch on the 
 north, from Ctesiphon upon the Euphrates, on the east, 
 and from Akaba on the Bed Sea, on the south, to Jeru- 
 salem. Yet the prophecy is literally true. "In the 
 interior part of the country there are neither great roads, 
 nor canals, nor even bridges over the greatest part of the 
 rivers and torrents, however necessary they may be in 
 winter. Between town and town there are neither posts 
 nor public conveyances. Nobody travels alone, from the 
 insecurity of the roads. One must wait for several tra- 
 vellers who are going to the same place, or take advan- 
 tage of the passage of some great man who assumes the 
 office of protector, but is more frequently the oppressor 
 of the caravan. The roads in the mountains are extreme- 
 ly bad ; and the inhabitants are so far from levelling them, 
 that they endeavour to make them more rugged, in or- 
 der, as they say, to cure the Turks of their desire to in- 
 troduce their cavalry. It is remarkable that there is not 
 a waggon or a cart in all Syria." 2 " There are," con- 
 tinues Volney, " no inns anywhere. The lodgings in the 
 khans (or places of reception for travellers) are cells where 
 you find nothing but bare walls, dust, and sometimes 
 scorpions. The keeper of the khan gives the traveller 
 the key and a mat, and he provides himself the rest. 
 He must therefore carry with him his bed, his kitchen 
 utensils, and even his provisions ; for frequently not even 
 bread is to be found in the villages." 3 " There are no 
 carriages in the country," says another traveller, "under 
 any denomination." "Among the hills of Palestine,"* 
 
 1 Relandi Palsestina ex monumentis veteribus illustrata, torn. i. 
 lib. ii. cap. iii. iv. v. pp. 405, 425. 
 
 2 Volney 's Travels, vol. ii. pp. 417, 419. 
 
 3 Ibid. pp. 417—419. 4 Wilson's Travels, p. 100. 
 
186 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 according to a third witness, " the road is impassable ; 
 and the traveller finds himself among a set of infamous 
 and ignorant thieves, who would cut his throat for a far- 
 thing, and rob him of his money for the mere pleasure of 
 doing it." 1 Generally speaking," says Dr Bowring, in 
 the Parliamentary Eeport, " the roads in Syria are in a 
 deplorable condition ; in the rainy season, indeed, travel- 
 ling is almost impossible. I understand that roads are 
 scarcely, if ever, repaired. Wheel-carriages, of course, 
 cannot be employed." 2 Every traveller can bear witness to 
 the same fact. In a country where there is a total want of 
 wheel- carriages of every description, the highways, how- 
 ever excellent and numerous they once might have been, 
 must lie waste; and where such dangers have to be en- 
 countered at every step, and such privations at every 
 stage, it is not now to be wondered that the way-faring 
 man ceaseth. But let the disciples of Volney tell by 
 what dictates of human wisdom the whole of his descrip- 
 tion of these existing facts was summed up, in a brief 
 sentence, by Moses and Isaiah; by the former, thirty- 
 three, and, by the latter, twenty-five centuries past. 
 
 I will send wild beasts among you which shall devour 
 your cattle ! 3 I will make you waste, — and I will send 
 upon you evil beasts, &c. 4 Palestine, to this day, is 
 overrun by wild beasts. Hyenas, lynxes, wild boars, bears, 
 foxes, wolves, and jackals abound both in the mountains 
 and plains. After sunset the Bedouin fires, especially in 
 the south, where flocks abound, are seen blazing at va- 
 rious distances over the face of the country, in order to 
 save the cattle, gathered together, from being devoured 
 
 1 Richardson's Travels, vol. ii. p. 225. 
 
 2 Report of Syria, p. 46. 
 
 3 Deut. xxvi. 22. * Ezek. v. U, 17. 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 187 
 
 by the wild beasts. Sleeping in a tent at Nabulus, the 
 author was wakened by the howlings of wild beasts, and 
 the responding and mingled barking of dogs. On the 
 sea-shore, at the foot of Carmel, two lynxes were seen late 
 at night at the door of an adjoining tent. And though 
 detached from the other mountains of Judea, and situated 
 on the sea- side, Carmel is still, as it has long been, " a 
 habitation of wild beasts." 1 The writer was there inform- 
 ed by Lord Eokeby that one of his servants had seen 
 many hyenas at Jenin, of which he counted sixteen ; and 
 another stated that the number was immense. And, at 
 the same time, Lord Claude Hamilton stated that, on the 
 plain of Jericho and the banks of the Jordan, he had seen 
 wild boars and innumerable traces of them. Even in the 
 day time, the wolf, the fox, the wild boar, the jackal, and 
 the hyena, are occasionally seen (as may here be person- 
 ally testified,) by the passing traveller. As Mr Bucking- 
 ham was travelling on the east of the Jordan, near to 
 the ruined town of Fahaez, two large boars, seemingly 
 ferocious, and wild as any he had seen, rushed forth from 
 the surrounding woody thickets; and near to Zey, an- 
 other ruined town, overgrown with trees, a place in which 
 there was abundance of pines, was, he was assured, a 
 favourite haunt of wild boars, which he could easily cre- 
 dit, " as there were a number of places then visible in 
 which they had very recently muzzled up the fresh earth 
 in search of roots as food." 2 The woods that fringe the 
 Jordan are the resort of wild boars. " In the wooded 
 parts of Mount Tabor are wild boars and ounces." 3 
 
 1 Mariti's Travels, vol. ii. p. 140. 
 
 2 Buckingham's Travels among the Arab Tribes, pp. G4, 121, 
 122. 
 
 3 Burckhardt, p. 335. 
 
188 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 The Lord hath not yet returned to visit the vineyard 
 which his own right hand did plant ; and of the land of 
 Judea, which he gave to the seed of Ahraham by an 
 everlasting covenant, it may literally be said, The boar 
 out of the wood doth waste it, and the wild beast of the 
 field doth devour it} But looking beyond the time of 
 these grievous desolations, the promise stands sure, " I 
 will make with them a covenant of peace, and will cause 
 the evil beasts to cease out of the land : and they shall 
 dwell safely in the wilderness, and sleep in the woods." 
 But to this day the prophetic denunciation retains its un- 
 diminished as unrepealed power. 
 
 Thou shalt carry much seed into the field, and shalt 
 gather but little in : for the locust shall consume it — all 
 thy trees and fruit of thy land shall the locust consume. 
 That which the palmer-worm hath left hath the locust 
 eaten; and that which the locust hath left hath the canker- 
 worm eaten; and that which the canker-worm hath left 
 hath the caterpillar* eaten. 3 " It was," says Burck- 
 hardt at Naeme, east of the lake of Tiberias, in the 
 plains of Bashan, " that I saw for the first time, a swarm 
 of locusts ; they so completely covered the surface of the 
 ground, that my horse killed numbers of them at every 
 step, whilst I had the greatest difficulty in keeping from 
 my face those which rose up and Hew about." He de- 
 scribes one species, the flying locust, that feeds only upon 
 the leaves of trees and vegetables, and the wild herbs of 
 the desert, sparing the wheat and barley: and another 
 species, the devouring locust, " Avhich devour whatever 
 
 1 Ps. lxxx. 13. 
 
 2 a Chasil, alterum locusti genus," another species of locust. 
 Arius Montanus. 
 
 3 Deut. xlviii. 42 ; Joel i. 3, 4. 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 189 
 
 vegetation they meet with, and are the terror of the hus- 
 bandman." He was told that the offspring of the former 
 produced in Syria partake of the voracity of the latter, and 
 like them prey upon the crops of grain. 1 What the one 
 leaves the other eats : and both the leaves of the trees of the 
 field and the fruits of the land are thus consumed by the 
 locusts. In the mountains of Gilead, the writer (in 1844) 
 saw the plants on the ground covered with locusts ; and 
 in the plain, in the way to Damascus, so closely did they 
 cover them, that as those who accompanied him passed 
 through them in a line, a cloud of locusts arose along it, 
 and diverging for a little from the path, he was soon 
 forced to resume it, as the locusts rose so thickly around 
 him that it was impossible to defend his face as they flew 
 to and fro, when raised from the ground which they 
 literally covered. In the following year, " the want of 
 rain rendered the Hauran a desert ; and the locusts over- 
 spread the land like a cloud, eating and devouring every 
 thing before them." 2 
 
 The spoilers shall come upon all high places through the 
 wilderness. The robbers shall enter into it, &c. The 
 land of Israel has not only been given into the hands of 
 strangers for a prey, and unto the wicked of the earth for 
 a spoil, as foreign nations have successively subjugated 
 and despoiled it ; but it has also been the prey of bor- 
 dering marauders, to whose assaults it has for ages 
 been exposed. " These precautions, on the part of tra- 
 vellers, are above all necessary in the countries exposed 
 to the Arabs, such as Palestine and the whole frontier of 
 
 1 Burckhardt's Syria, p. 238. 
 
 8 Letter from the Rev. Mr Graham, Damascus. Missionary 
 Record of the Free Church of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 258. 
 
190 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 the desert." 1 "The Arabs are plunderers of the culti- 
 vated lands, and robbers on the highroads. — On the slight- 
 est alarm the Arabs cut down their (the peasants') har- 
 vests, seize their flocks, &c. The peasants with good 
 cause call them thieves. The Arab makes his incursions 
 against hostile tribes, or seeks plunder in the country 
 or on the highways. He became a roller from greedi- 
 ness, and such is in fact his present character. A plun- 
 derer rather than a warrior, the Arab attacks only to 
 despoil. 2 Such is the systematic spoliation and robbery 
 to which the inhabitants of Palestine have been subjected 
 for ages. 
 
 The inhabitants of Jerusalem, and of the land of Is- 
 rael shall eat their Iread with carefulness, and drink their 
 water with astonishment, that her land may be desolate 
 from all that is therein, because of the violence of all them 
 that dwell therein. " In the great cities" (in Syria, none 
 of which are in the Holy Land) " the people have much 
 of that dissipated and careless air which they usually 
 have with us, because there, as well as here," says Vol- 
 ney, alluding to France, " inured to suffering from habit, 
 and devoid of reflection from ignorance, they enjoy a 
 kind of security. Having nothing to lose, they are in 
 no dread of being plundered. The merchant, on the 
 contrary, lives in a state of perpetual alarm, under the 
 double apprehension of acquiring no more, and losing 
 what he possesses. He trembles lest he should attract 
 the attention of rapacious authority, which would consi- 
 der an air of satisfaction as a proof of opulence and the 
 signal for extortion. The same dread prevails through- 
 out the villages, where every peasant is afraid of exciting 
 
 1 Volney's Travels, vol. ii. p. 417. 2 Ibid. chap, xxiii. 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 191 
 
 the envy of his equals, and the avarice of the Aga and 
 his soldiers. In such a country, where the subject is 
 perpetually watched by a despoiling government, he must 
 assume a serious countenance for the same reason that 
 he wears ragged clothes;" 1 or, as the description might 
 appropriately have been concluded, in the very words of 
 the prophet, " because of the violence of them that dwell 
 therein." 
 
 They shall be ashamed of your revenues. " From the 
 state of the contributions of each pachalic, it appears 
 that the annual sum paid by Syria into the Kasna, or 
 treasury of the Sultan, amounts to 2345 purses; viz. 
 
 For Aleppo 800 purses. 
 
 Tripoli 750 
 
 Damascus 45 
 
 Acre 750 
 
 Palestine — 
 
 2345 purses; 
 
 which are equal to 2,931,250 livres," or £122,135 ster- 
 ling. After the specification of some incidental sources 
 of revenue, it is added, " we cannot be far from the 
 truth, if we compute the total of the Sultan's revenue 
 from Syria to be 7,500,000 livres," (£312,500 ster- 
 ling,) or less than the third part of one million sterling, 
 and less than a seventh part of what it yielded, in tribute, 
 unto Egypt, long after the prophecies were sealed. This 
 is the whole amount that a government which has reached 
 the acme of despotism, and which accounts pillage a right 
 and all property its own, can extort from impoverished 
 Syria. But, insignificant as this sum is, as the revenues 
 of those extensive territories which included in ancient 
 
 1 Volney's Travels, vol. ii. pp. 477, 478. 2 Ibid. p. 860. 
 
192 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 times several opulent and powerful states, the greater 
 part must be deducted from it, before estimating the 
 pitiful pittance, which, under the name of revenue, its 
 oppressive masters can now drain from the land of Israel. 
 A single glance at the preceding statement affords the 
 obvious means of distinguishing the comparative desola- 
 tion and poverty of the different provinces of Syria. And 
 the least unproductive of these in revenue, the pachalics 
 of Aleppo and Tripoli, and a considerable portion of what 
 now forms the pachalic of Acre, were not included within 
 the boundaries of ancient Judea. Palestine, containing 
 the ancient territory of Philistia, and part of Judea, was 
 then gifted in whole, by the Sultan, to two individuals. 
 The very extensive pachalic of Damascus, so unproduc- 
 tive of revenue, includes Jerusalem, and a great propor- 
 tion of ancient Judea; so that of it, even with greater 
 propriety than of the rest, it may be said, they shall be 
 ashamed of your revenues. Under the Egyptian govern- 
 ment of Mehemet Ah, the revenues of Syria, though in- 
 creased, came far short of the expenditure. " It cannot 
 be doubted," says Dr Bowring, " that the possession of 
 Syria is very onerous, in a pecuniary point of view, to the 
 Pacha. It is the generally received opinion that the 
 35,000 purses (L. 175,000 sterling) which are paid in 
 tribute to the Porte, are (were) usually paid by Egypt. 
 Thus an enormous amount of the surplus revenues of the 
 Viceroy's territories in Africa are swallowed up by his 
 Asiatic possessions. Large amounts are imported into 
 Syria and from Egypt." 
 
 I will bring your sanctuaries into desolation. I will 
 destroy the sanctuaries of Israel. I will destroy your 
 high places. These holy places shall be defiled. The 
 1 Parliamentary Report, p. 25. 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 193 
 
 testimony of the sceptical Gibbon may here be adduced 
 in literal illustration of both these predictions, ". After the 
 final destruction of the stately temple of the Jewish na- 
 tion by the arms of Titus and Hadrian, a ploughshare 
 was drawn over the consecrated ground, as a sign of 
 perpetual interdiction. Sion was deserted, and the va- 
 cant space of the lower city was filled with the public 
 and private edifices of the iElian colony, which spread 
 over the adjacent hill of Calvary. The holy places were 
 polluted with the monuments of idolatry ; and either by 
 design or accident, a chapel was dedicated to Venus, on 
 the spot which had been sanctified by the death and re- 
 surrection of Christ." 1 Omar, on the first conquest of 
 Jerusalem by the Mahometans, erected a mosque on the 
 site of the temple of Solomon : and jealous as the God of 
 Israel is, that his glory be not given to another, the un- 
 seemly, and violent, and sometimes bloody contentions 
 among professing Christians — that to this day can only be 
 suppressed by the thongs of the police of the Moslem go- 
 vernor of Jerusalem — in the chief of their holy days, and 
 in the church of the holy sepulchre around the reputed 
 tomb of the Author of the faith they dishonour, — bear not 
 a feebler testimony, in the present day, than the preceding 
 fact has borne for ages to the truth of this prediction. 
 The frenzied zeal of crusading Christians could not long 
 rescue the holy sepulchre from the heathen who defiled 
 it, though, with that intent, Europe then poured like a 
 torrent upon Asia. But in the land called holy, other 
 sanctuaries than the temple of Jerusalem have been 
 brought into desolation : and the holy places have been 
 poUuted with other things than the monuments of idol- 
 atry, or religious rites akin to pagan orgies, but disgrace- 
 1 Gibbon's Hist. vol. iv. p. 100, c. 23. 
 
 0 
 
194: 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 M to the Christian name. / will bring the worst of the 
 heathen and they shall possess their houses: I will also 
 make the pomp of the strong to cease; and their holy places 
 shall be defied. 1 The high places of Israel have long been 
 destroyed. Heathens have possessed the houses of the 
 land, and Mahometans still hold as their own most of 
 those that remain. The pomp of the strong has ceased; 
 the forts and towers are for dens: but the most magnifi- 
 scent ruin are those of temples. Pagan sanctuaries that 
 succeeded the high-places of Israel, and churches with- 
 out number, that also succeeded the synagogues of the 
 land, have alike been brought to desolation. Tadmor, 
 (Palmyra,) built by Solomon, has its ruined temples, to 
 which in modern times it owes its renown. That of Baal- 
 bec is a still more splendid ruin ; and the sun, to whose 
 idolatrous worship it was erected, ripens the wild plants 
 that have come up on its broken images, and cover its 
 buried altars. These " two renowned remains of anti- 
 quity," that once towered in grandeur to the honour of 
 Baal, are, in their desolation, witnesses for the living God. 
 Geraza, too, has both its ruined temples and churches. 
 Thistles in that land have come over many other altars 
 than those of Bethel. One upwards often feet high was 
 measured by the writer, beside a fallen altar in a ruined 
 church at Gerash, where Christian emblems are conjoined 
 with the pagan tokens of empty niches in broken walls; 
 and another altar lies in the untrodden street. The 
 altars of Samaria have been cast down like its other 
 stones into the valley, and lie there, as may be seen, 
 where the beasts of the field do eat. Those of Csesarea 
 Philippi lie indiscriminately among its ruins, and there does 
 the calf feed, and there does he lie down, and consume 
 1 Ezek. vii. 24. 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 195 
 
 the branches that shadow them. — Though he crossed not 
 the Jordan, nor traversed the land, Maundrell relates, in 
 his journey from Aleppo to Jerusalem, that " perhaps not 
 fewer than a hundred ruined churches came in our way." 1 
 Many a desolate sanctuary is now a lair for heasts : and 
 many holy places are in the strictest sense literally defied 
 to this day, even where villages still exist, and heathens, 
 and others not better than they, possess houses where cities 
 stood. The cathedral of Tartous, or Orthosia, — a hun- 
 dred and thirty feet long, ninety-three broad, and sixty- 
 one high — the most entire in all the land, with its walls, 
 columns, arches, aisles, and roof unbroken, is still, as we 
 saw it, what it was a hundred and sixty years ago when 
 visited by Maundrell, as since by others, " a stall for 
 cattle." 2 The cathedral of Caesarea is as open to wild 
 beasts and as fitted for their dens as any of its towers — 
 and its large vault is occupied by myriads of fleas. The 
 walls of the principal ruin of Athlite, once those of a large 
 church, enclose hovels and heaps of dung. The niches in 
 the walls of the cathedral of Tyre, not empty now as seen 
 by former travellers, seem to be hid from view by an im- 
 mense dunghill, accumulated, in continued defilement of 
 one of the most celebrated of the holy places in the land ; 
 while, in striking contrast, according to another prophe- 
 tic word, fishers, at a few yards' distance, spread their nets, 
 and are still spreading them, over the ruins of Old Tyre 
 buried in the midst of the sea, on a place bare like the top of 
 a rock, and clean as the sand that is washed by the ocean. 
 The high-places are desolate. The sanctuaries are de- 
 stroyed. The altars are laid waste. The idols are broken 
 and have ceased. And the holy places are defiled. 
 
 1 Maundrell's Travels, p. 65. 
 
 2 Ibid. p ; 25. Pococke, Buckingham. 
 
196 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 Instead of viewing separately each special prediction, 
 the prophecies respecting the desolation of the land of 
 Judea are so abundant, that several may be grouped to- 
 gether; and their meaning is so clear that any explana- 
 tory remarks would be superfluous. Nor is the evidence 
 of their complete fulfilment indistinct, or difficult to be 
 found; for Volney illustrates six predictions in a single 
 sentence, to which he subjoins a reflection, not less con- 
 firmatory than the whole, of prophetic inspiration. 
 
 " I will destroy your high places, and bring your 
 sanctuaries into desolation. 1 The palaces shall be for- 
 saken* I will destroy the remnant of the sea-coast. I 
 will make your cities waste. The multitude of the city 
 shall be left, the habitation forsaken, &c. The land shall 
 be utterly spoiled* I will make the land more desolate 
 than the wilderness. " The temples are thrown down — 
 the palaces demolished — the ports filled up — the towns 
 destroyed — and the earth, stripped of inhabitants, seems 
 a dreary burying-place' 
 
 Such is one sentence of a book which was written to 
 disprove and to deride revelation, and which, not less 
 perhaps than any other, has caused or confirmed the 
 scepticism of innumerable thousands. And having ten- 
 dered this testimony, Volney, taking God's name in vain, 
 thus exclaims, in confirmation of his word, " Good God ! 
 from whence proceed such melancholy revolutions? For 
 what cause is the fortune of these countries so strikingly 
 changed? Why are so many ciiks destroyed ? Why is not 
 that ancient population reproduced and perpetuated? — I 
 wandered over the country; I traversed the provinces; I 
 enumerated the kingdoms of Damascus and Idumea, of 
 
 1 Lev. xxvi. 30, 31. 2 Isaiah xxxii. 14. 3 Isaiah xxiv. 3. 
 * Volney's Ruins, chap. xi. p. 8. 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 197 
 
 J erusalem and Samaria. This Syria, said I to myself, 
 now almost depopulated, then contained a hundred 
 flourishing cities, and abounded with towns, villages, and 
 hamlets. What are become of so many productions of 
 the hands of man ! What are become of those a^es of 
 abundance and of life?" &c. x Seeking to be wise, men 
 become fools, when they trust to their own vain imagi- 
 nations, and will not look to that word of God, which is 
 as able to confound the wise, as to give understanding to 
 the simple. These words, from the lips of a great advo- 
 cate of infidelity, proclaim the certainty of the truth 
 which he was too blind or bigoted to see. For not more 
 unintentionally or unconsciously do many illiterate Arab 
 pastors, or herdsmen, verify one prediction, while they 
 literally tread Palestine under foot, than Volney the aca- 
 demician, himself verifies another, while, speaking in his 
 own name, and the spokesman also of others, he thus 
 confirms the unerring truth of God's holy word, by what 
 he said, as well as by describing what he saw. The 
 generation to come of your children that shcdl rise up 
 
 after you, and THE STBANGEB THAT SHALL COME EEOM A 
 
 fak land, shall say, when they see the plagues of that 
 land, and the sickness which the Lord hath laid upon it, 
 Wherefore hath the Lord done this unto the land? what 
 meaneth the heat of this great anger P 
 
 It is no " secret malediction," spoken of by Volney, 
 which God has pronounced against Judea. It is the curse 
 of a broken covenant that rests upon the land — the con- 
 sequences of the iniquities of the people, not of those only 
 who have been plucked from off it, and scattered through- 
 out the world, but of those also that dwell therein. The 
 ruins of empires originated not from the regard which 
 
 1 Volney's Ruins, chap. xi. p. 8. 2 Deut. xxix. 22-24. 
 
198 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 mortals paid to revealed religion, but from causes diame- 
 trically the reverse. Neither Jews nor Christians who 
 possessed a revelation, were the desolators; under them 
 Judea flourished. The destruction of Jerusalem, and of 
 the cities of Palestine, was the work of the Eomans, who 
 were pagan idolators; and the devastation, in more recent 
 ages, was perpetuated by the Saracens and Turks, be- 
 lievers in the impostor Mahomet, and the desolations 
 were wrought by the enemies of the Mosaic and Christian 
 dispensations. The desolations are not of divine appoint- 
 ment, but only as they have followed the violations of the 
 laws of God, or have arisen from thence. The virtual 
 renunciation of a holy faith brought on destruction. And 
 none other curses have come upon the land than those 
 that are written in the book. The character and condi- 
 tion of the people are not less definitely marked, than the 
 features of the land that has been smitten with a curse 
 because of their iniquities. And when the unbeliever 
 asks, wherefore hath the Lord done this unto the land, 
 the same word which foretold that the question would be 
 put, supplies an answer and assigns the cause. Then 
 shall men say, Because they have forsaken the covenant 
 of the Lord God of their fathers, &C. 1 
 
 The land is defiled under the inhabitants thereof, he- 
 cause they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordi- 
 nances, broken the everlasting covenant: therefore hath 
 the curse devoured the land, 2 &c. These expressive 
 words, while they declare the cause of the judgments and 
 desolations, denote also the great depravity of those who 
 were to inhabit the land of Judea during the time of its 
 desolation, and while its ancient inhabitants were to be 
 " scattered abroad." And although the ignorance of 
 J Deut. xxix. 25. 2 Isaiah xxiv. 25. 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 199 
 
 those who dwell therein may be pitied, their degeneracy 
 will not be denied. The ferocity of the Turks, the pre- 
 datory habits of the Arabs, the abject state of the few 
 poor Jews who are suffered to dwell in the land of their 
 fathers, the base superstitions of the different Christian 
 sects, — the frequent contentions that subsist among such 
 a mingled and diversified people, and the gross ignorance 
 and great depravity that prevail throughout the whole, 
 have all sadly changed and stained the moral aspect of 
 that country, which from sacred remembrances is deno- 
 minated the Holy Land, — have converted that region, 
 where alone in all the world, and during many ages, the 
 only living and true God was worshipped, and where alone 
 the pattern of perfect virtue was ever exhibited to human 
 view or in the human form, into one of the most dearad- 
 ed countries of the globe, and, in appropriate terms, may 
 well be said to have defiled the land. And it has been 
 defiled throughout many an age. The Father of mercies 
 afflicteth not willingly, nor grieveth the children of men. 
 Sin is ever the precursor of the actual judgments of 
 Heaven. It was on account of their idolatry and wicked- 
 ness that the ten tribes were earliest plucked from off the 
 land of Israel. The blood of Jesus, according to their 
 prayer, and the full measure of their iniquity, according 
 to their doings, were upon the Jews and upon their child- 
 ren. Before they were extirpated from that land which 
 their iniquities had defiled, it was drenched with the blood 
 of more than a million of their race. Judea afterwards 
 had a partial and temporary respite from desolation, when 
 Christian churches were established there. But in that 
 land, the nursery of Christianity, the seeds of its corrup- 
 tion, or perversion, began soon to appear. The moral 
 power of religion decayed, its simplicity was abandon- 
 
200 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 ed, and the nominal disciples of a pure faith " broke the 
 everlasting covenant." 1 The doctrine of Mahomet, — 
 the Koran or the sword, — was the scourge and the cure 
 of apostacy; but all the native impurities of the Mahome- 
 tan creed succeeded to a grossly corrupted form of Chris- 
 tianity. Since that period, hordes of Saracens, Egyp- 
 tians, Eatimites, Tartars, Mamelukes, Turks, (a combina- 
 tion of names of unmatched barbarism, at least in modern 
 times,) have, for the space of twelve hundred years, defiled 
 the land of the children of Israel with iniquity and with 
 blood. And in very truth the prophecy savours not in 
 the least of hyperbole, — the worst of the heathen shall pos- 
 sess their houses. And the holy places shall be defiled. 
 But the defilement of the land, no less than that of the 
 holy places, is not yet cleansed away. And Judea is still 
 defiled to this hour, not only by oppressive rulers, but 
 by an unprincipled and a lawless people. " The barbar- 
 ism of Syria," says Volney, "is complete." 2 "I have 
 often reflected," says Burckhardt, in describing the dis- 
 honest conduct of a Greek priest in the Hauran, (but in 
 words that admit of too general an application,) " that if 
 the English penal laws were suddenly promulgated in this 
 country, there is scarcely any man in business, or who 
 has money dealings with others, who would not be liable 
 to transportation before the end of the first six months." 3 
 " Under the name of Christianity, every degrading super- 
 stition and profane rite, equally remote from the enlight- 
 ened tenets of the gospel and the dignity of human 
 nature, are professed and tolerated. The pure gospel of 
 Christ, everywhere the herald of civilization and of 
 science, is almost as little known in the Holy Land as in 
 
 1 Isaiah xxiv. 5. 2 Volney 's Travels, vol. ii. p. 442. 
 
 3 Burckhardt's Travels in Syria, p. 89. 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 201 
 
 California or New Holland. A series of legendary tra- 
 ditions, mingled with remains of Judaism, and the wretch- 
 ed phantasies of illiterate ascetics, may now and then 
 exhibit a glimmering of heavenly light; but if we seek for 
 the effects of Christianity in the land of Canaan, we must 
 look for that period, when the desert shall blossom as the 
 rose, and the wilderness become a fruitful field." 1 Maun- 
 drell specially remarks, concerning the hundred churches 
 which he and those who accompanied him saw, that 
 "though their other parts were totally demolished, yet 
 the east end we always found standing and tolerably en- 
 tire." 2 These very walls and any others of churches 
 that still stand, sometimes solitary amidst fallen cities, are 
 all witnesses, by the niches, like those of heathen temples, 
 which they hold up to view, that the curse has not fallen 
 causeless; but that the predicted cause of the desolating 
 judgments is as clear, as are the niches — or other Christian 
 emblems (falsely so called) — in the walls, or the words of 
 the text; and may be as plainly seen as are the altars 
 that lie among the ruins. The land is defiled under 
 the inhabitants thereof, because they have transgressed 
 the laws, changed the ordinances, broken the everlast- 
 ing covenant: therefore hath the curse devoured the land, 
 and 
 
 They that dwell therein are desolate. " The govern- 
 ment of the Turks in Syria is a pure military despotism, 
 that is, the bulk of the inhabitants are subject to the ca- 
 prices of a faction of armed men, who dispose of every 
 thing according to their interest and fancy." In each 
 government the pacha is an absolute despot. In the 
 villages, the inhabitants, limited to the mere necessaries 
 
 1 Clarke's Travels, vol. ii. p. 405. 
 
 2 Maundrell's Travels, p. 65. 
 
202 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 of life , have no arts but those without which they cannot 
 subsist." " There is no safety without the towns, nor 
 security within their precincts." 1 And 
 
 Few men left. While their character is thus depraved 
 and their condition miserable, their number is also small 
 indeed, as the inhabitants of so extensive and fertile a re- 
 gion. After estimating the number of inhabitants in 
 Syria, in general, Volney remarks ; "So feeble a popu- 
 lation in so excellent a country may well excite our asto- 
 nishment, but this will be increased, if we compare the 
 present number of inhabitants with that of ancient times. 
 We are informed by the philosophical geographer, Strabo, 
 that the territories of Yamnia and Yoppa, in Palestine 
 alone, were formerly so populous as to bring forty thou- 
 sand armed men into the field. At present they could 
 scarcely furnish three thousand. From the accounts we 
 have of Judea, in the time of Titus, which are to be 
 esteemed tolerably accurate, that country must have con- 
 tained four millions of inhabitants. If we go still farther 
 back into antiquity, we shall find the same populousness 
 among the Philistines, the Phoenicians, and in the king- 
 doms of Samaria and Damascus." 2 Thus, on a compari- 
 son of the ancient and the existing population, that 
 country does not now contain above a tenth part of the 
 number of inhabitants, which it plentifully supported ex- 
 clusively from their industry and from the rich resources 
 of its own luxuriant soil, for many successive centuries ; 
 and how could it possibly have been imagined that this 
 identical land would ever yield so scanty a subsistence to 
 the desolate dwellers therein, and that there would be so 
 few men left ? 
 
 1 Volney's Travels, vol. ii. pp. 370, 37 G, 380. 
 
 2 Ibid. vol. ii. p. 366. 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 203 
 
 The mirth of the tabret ceaseth, the noise of them that 
 rejoice endeth, the joy of the harp ceaseth} Instrumental 
 music was common among the Jews. The tabret, and 
 the harp, the cymbal, the psaltery, and the viol, and other 
 instruments of music, are often mentioned as hi familiar 
 use among the Israelites, and regularly formed a great 
 part of the service of the temple. At the period when 
 the prediction was delivered, the harp, the viol, and the 
 tabret, and pipe, and wine were in their feasts ; and even 
 though the Jews have long ceased to be a nation, the use 
 of these instruments has not ceased from among them. 
 But in the once happy land of Judea, the voice of 
 mirthful music is at rest. In a general description of 
 the state of the arts and sciences in Syria, including the 
 whole of the Holy Land, Volney remarks, that adepts 
 in music are very rarely to be met with. " They have 
 no music but vocal; for they neither know nor esteem 
 instrumental; and they are in the right, for such instru- 
 ments as they have, not excepting their flutes, are de- 
 testable." 2 The mirth of the tabret ceaseth, the joy of the 
 harp ceaseth. 
 
 But this is not the sole instance in which the melan- 
 choly features of that desolate country seem to be trans- 
 ferred to the minds of its inhabitants. And the plaintive 
 language of the prophet (the significancy of which might 
 well have admitted of some slight modification, if one 
 jot or tittle could pass away till all be fulfilled) is true to 
 the very letter, when set side by side, unaided by one 
 syllable of comment, with the words of a bold and avow- 
 ed unbeliever. 
 
 All the merry-hearted do SIGH ; they shall not drink wine 
 with a song; all joy is darkened, the mirth of the land 
 1 Isaiah xxiv. 8. 2 Volney 's Travels, vol. ii. p. 439. 
 
204 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 is gone. Their shouting shall be no shouting. 1 " Their 
 performance" (singing) "is accompanied with sighs and 
 gestures. They may be said to excel most in the me- 
 lancholy strain. To behold an Arab with his head in- 
 clined, his hand applied to his ear, his eyebrows knit, his 
 eyes languishing; to hear his plaintive tones, his sighs 
 and sobs, it is almost impossible to refrain from tears." 2 
 If any further illustration of the prediction be requisite, 
 the same ill-fated narrator of facts exhibits anew the vi- 
 sions of the prophet. From his description (chap, xl.) 
 of the manner and character of the inhabitants of Syria, 
 it is obvious that melancholy is a predominating feature. 
 
 Instead of that open and cheerful countenance, which 
 we either naturally possess or assume, their behaviour is 
 serious, austere, and melancholy. They rarely laugh; 
 and the gaiety of the French appears to them a fit of 
 delirium. When they speak, it is with deliberation, with- 
 out gesture, and without passion ; they listen without in- 
 terrupting you ; they are silent for whole days together : 
 and by no means pique themselves on supporting conver- 
 sation. Continually seated, they pass whole days musing, 
 with their legs crossed, their pipes in their mouths, and 
 almost without changing their attitude. The orientals, 
 in general, have a grave and phlegmatic exterior; a 
 stayed and almost listless deportment ; and a serious, nay, 
 even sad and melancholy countenance." 3 Having thus 
 explicitly stated the fact, Volney, by many arguments, 
 equally judicious and just, most successfully combats the 
 idea that the climate and soil are the radical cause of so 
 striking a phenomenon; and after assigning a multipli- 
 city of facts from ancient history, winch completely dis- 
 
 » Isaiah xxiv. 7, 9. 2 Volney's Travels, pp. 439, 440. 
 3 Volney's Travels, vol. ii. pp. 461, 476. 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 205 
 
 prove the efficacy of such causes, he instances that of the 
 Jews, " who, limited to a little state, never ceased to 
 struggle for a thousand years against the most powerful 
 empires. 1 If the men of these nations were inert," he 
 adds, " what is activity? If they were active, where then 
 is the influence of climate? Why, in the same countries, 
 where so much energy was displayed in former times, do 
 we at present find such profound indolence?" And hav- 
 ing thus relieved the advocate for the inspiration of the 
 Scriptures from the necessity of proving that the contrast 
 in the manner and character of the present and of the 
 ancient inhabitants of Syria is (even now, when the change 
 is become matter of history and observation, and when 
 the circumstances respecting it are known,) incapable of 
 solution from any natural causes, such as by some con- 
 ceivable possibility might have been foreseen, he proceeds 
 to point out those real, efficacious, and efficient causes, 
 viz. the mode of government, and the state of religion 
 and of the laws, the nature of which no human sagacity 
 could possibly have descried, and which came not into 
 existence or operation in the manner in which they have 
 so long continued, for many ages subsequent to the period 
 when their full and permanent effect was laid open to the 
 full view of the prophets of Israel. The fact, thus clear- 
 ly predicted and proved, is not only astonishing as refer- 
 able to the inhabitants of Judea, and as exhibiting a con- 
 trast, than which nothing, of a similar kind, can be more 
 complete ; but it is so very contradictory to the habits of 
 men and customs of nations, that it is totally inexplicable 
 how, by any human means, such a fact, even singly, 
 could ever have been foretold. From the congregated 
 groups of savages, cheered by their simple instruments of 
 1 Volney's Travels, vol. ii. p. 464. 
 
206 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 music, exulting in their war- songs, and revelling in their 
 mirth, to the more elegant assemblages of polished so- 
 ciety, listening with delight to the triumphs of music ; 
 from the huts of the wilderness to the courts of Asia and 
 of Europe; and from the wilds of America, the jungles of 
 India, and even the deserts of central Africa, to the mea- 
 dows of England, the plains of France, or the valleys of 
 Italy ; the experience of mankind in every clime, — except 
 partially where the blasting influence of the crescent is 
 felt, — proclaims as untrue to nature the predicted fact, 
 which actually has been permanently characteristic of 
 the inhabitants of the once happy land of Israel. The 
 fact perhaps would have been but slowly credited, and the 
 synonymous terms of the ample description and of the 
 repeated prophecies might have been reckoned the fiction 
 of a biassed judgment, had a Christian, instead of Volney, 
 been the witness. 
 
 They shall not drink wine with a song. Strong drink 
 shall he bittek unto them that drink it. 1 The more close- 
 ly that the author of the Buins of Empires traces the 
 causes in which the desolation of these regions, and the 
 calamities of the inhabitants, originate, he supplies more 
 abundant data for a demonstration that the prophecies 
 respecting them cannot but be Divine. " One of the 
 chief sources," continues Volney, " of gaiety with us, is 
 the social intercourse of the table, and the use of wine. 
 The orientals (Syrians) are almost strangers to this double 
 enjoyment. Good cheer would infallibly expose them to 
 extortion, and wine to corporal punishment, from the zeal 
 of the police in enforcing the precepts of the Koran. It 
 is with great reluctance the Mahometans tolerate the 
 Christians the use of a liquor they envy them." 3 To this 
 1 Isaiah xxiv. 9. 2 Volney's Travels, vol. ii. p. 480. 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 207 
 
 statement may be subjoined tbe more direct but equally 
 unapplied, testimony of recent travellers. " The wines 
 of Jerusalem," says Mr JolifFe, " are most execrable. In 
 a country where every species of vinous liquor is strictly 
 prohibited by the concurrent authorities of law and gospel, 
 a single fountain may be considered of infinitely greater 
 value than many wine-presses." 1 Mr Wilson relates, 
 that the wine drunk in Jerusalem is probably the very 
 worst to be met with in any country. 2 While the intol- 
 erance and despotism of the Turks, and the rapacity and 
 wildness of the Arabs, have blighted the produce of 
 Judea, and render abortive all the influence of climate, 
 and all the fertility of that land of vines, the unnatural 
 prohibition of the use of wine, and the rigour with which 
 that prohibition is enforced, have peculiarly operated 
 against the cultivation of the vine, and turned the tread- 
 ing of the wine-press into an odious and unprofitable task. 
 Yet in a country where the vine grows spontaneously, and 
 which was celebrated for the excellence of its wines, 3 no- 
 thing less than the operation of causes unnatural and ex- 
 treme as these, could have verified the language of pro- 
 phecy. But in this instance, as truly as in every other, 
 a recapitulation of the prophecies is the best summary of 
 the facts. And, by only changing the future into the 
 present and the past, after an interval of two thousand 
 five hundred years, no eye-witness, writing on the spot, 
 could delineate a more accurate representation of the 
 existing state of Judea, than in the very words of Isaiah, 
 in which, as in those of other prophets, the various and 
 desultory observations of travellers are concentrated into 
 a description equally perspicuous and true. 
 
 1 Joliffe's Letters from Palestine, vol. i. 184. 
 
 2 Wilson's Travels, p. 130. 3 Relandi PaUestina, pp. 381, 792. 
 
208 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 " Many days and years shall ye be troubled ; for the 
 vintage shall fail, the gathering shall not come. They 
 shall lament for the teats, for the pleasant fields, for the 
 fruitful vine. Upon the land of my people shall come up 
 thorns and briars ; yea, upon all the houses of joy in the 
 joyous city; because the palaces shall be forsaken; the 
 multitude of the city shall be left; the forts and towers 
 shall be for dens, a joy of wild asses, a pasture of flocks. 1 
 The highways lie waste ; the way-faring man ceaseth. — 
 The earth (land) mourneth and languisheth ;— Sharon is 
 like a wilderness ; and Bashan and Carmel shake off their 
 fruits. 2 The land shall be utterly emptied and utterly 
 spoiled. The earth mourneth and fadeth away — it is 
 defiled under the inhabitants thereof, because they have 
 transgressed the laws. — Therefore hath the curse devour- 
 ed the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate, and 
 few men left. — The vine languisheth, all the merry-heart- 
 ed do sigh. — The mirth of the tabrets ceaseth, the noise 
 of them that rejoice endeth, the joy of the harp ceaseth. 
 — They shall not drink wine with a song; strong drink 
 shall be bitter to them that drink it. The city of con- 
 fusion is broken down; — all joy is darkened; the mirth 
 of the land is gone.'' 3 
 
 To this picture of common and general desolation, that 
 no distinguishing feature might be left untouched or un- 
 traced by his pencil, the prophet adds : — When thus it 
 shall be in the midst of the land among the people, there 
 shall be as the shaking of an olive tree, and as the glean- 
 ing of grapes when the vintage is done. 1 The glory of 
 Jacob shall be made thin, and the fatness of his flesh shall 
 
 1 Isaiah xxxii. 10, 12-14. 2 Isaiah xxxiii. 8, 9. 
 
 3 Ibid. xxiv. 3-11. 4 Ibid, xxxiv. 13. 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 209 
 
 wax lean. And it shall he as when the harvest-man 
 gather eth the corn, and reapeth the ears with his arm ; 
 and it shall he as he that gathereth ears in the valley of 
 Bephaim. Yet gleaning- grapes shall he left in it, as 
 the shaking of an olive-tree, two or three herries in the 
 top of the uppermost hough, four or five in the outmost 
 fruitful hranches thereof, saith the Lord God of Israel. 
 In that day shall his strong cities he as a forsaken hough, 
 and an uppermost hranch which they left, hecause of the 
 children of Israel. 1 When Isaiah saw the glory, as he 
 heard the voice, of the Lord of Hosts, and prophesied, 
 according to his word, of the deep blindness that was to 
 fall on his people Israel, the prophet's question, Lord, 
 how long? was thus answered — not by any of the ador- 
 ing seraphim but by the Lord himself, to whom it was 
 addressed after a ministering angel had laid upon his un- 
 clean lips a live coal from off the altar — Until the cities 
 he desolate without inhabitant, and the houses without 
 man, and the land he utterly desolate, and the Lord have 
 removed men far away, and there be a great forsaking in 
 the midst of the land. But yet in it shall he a tenth, and 
 it shall return and shall be eaten (shall undergo a repeat- 
 ed devastation) : as a teil tree, and as an oak, whose sub- 
 stance is in them when they cast their leaves : so the holy 
 seed shall he the substance thereof? 
 
 There is thus a promised and predicted limit, in degree 
 as in duration, to the desolation of the land, as there is 
 to the judgments on the people. It is written that the 
 Lord will remember both. As of the one it is said, " I will 
 make a fall end of all the nations whither I have scat- 
 tered thee, yet will I not make a full end of thee ; but 
 i Ibid. xvii. 4-6, 9. 2 Isaiah vi. 11-13. 
 
210 
 
 JUDBA. 
 
 will correct thee in measure," &c. " I will not utterly 
 destroy the house of Jacob, saith the Lord of Hosts." 1 
 And even so, the Lord hath not given up his pleasant 
 portion to unmeasured and unlimited desolation. For 
 though the fruitful field be a wilderness, thus hath the 
 Lord said, The whole land shall he desolate ; yet will I 
 not make a full end. 2 As a final question then, not less 
 definite than any of the rest, it may he asked and ascer- 
 tained, Is the substance yet in the land? Is there still 
 a gleaning of the glory of Israel? And desolate as the 
 land is — with many a fruitful place like an actual wilder- 
 ness — is there yet in it a tenth ? 
 
 The substance, in one word, is in it, as in a teil-tree 
 and an oak when they cast their leaves. As other pro- 
 phecies similarly bear, an oak whoseleaffadeth, and a gar- 
 den that hath no water, are fitting similitudes of that land 
 which was the glory of all lands. Though the cities be 
 waste, and the land be desolate, it is not from the poverty 
 of the soil that the fields are abandoned by the plough, 
 nor from any diminution of its ancient and natural fertility 
 that the land has rested for so many generations. Judea 
 was not forced only by artificial means, or from local and 
 temporary causes, into a luxuriant cultivation, such as a 
 barren country might have been, concerning which it 
 would not have needed a prophet to tell, that if once de- 
 vastated and abandoned it would ultimately and perman- 
 ently revert into its original sterility. Palestine at all 
 times held a far different rank among the richest coun- 
 tries of the world ; and it was not a bleak and sterile por- 
 tion of the earth, nor a land which even many ages of 
 desolation and neglect could impoverish, that God gave, 
 1 Jer. xxx. 11; xlvi. 28. 2 Ibid. iv. 26, 27. 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 211 
 
 in possession and by covenant, to the seed of Abraham. 
 No longer cultivated as a garden, but left like a wilder- 
 ness, Judea is indeed greatly changed from what it was ; 
 all that human ingenuity and labour did devise, erect, 
 or cultivate, men have laid waste, and desolate; the 
 " plenteous goods," with which it was enriched, adorned, 
 and blessed, have fallen like seared and withered leaves, 
 when their greenness is gone ; and stripped of its " an- 
 cient splendour," it is left as an oak whose leaf fadeth. 
 But its inherent sources of fertility are not dried up ; the 
 natural richness of the soil is unblighted ; the substance is 
 in it strong as that of the teil-tree or the solid oak, which 
 retain their substance, when they cast their leaves. And 
 as the leafless oak waits throughout winter for- the genial 
 warmth of returning spring, to be clothed with renewed 
 foliage, so the once glorious land of Judea is yet full of 
 latent vigour, or of vegetable power strong as ever, ready 
 to shoot forth, even " better than at their beginnings," 
 whenever the sun of heaven shall shine on it again, and 
 the " holy seed" be prepared for being finally " the sub- 
 stance thereof." The substance that is in it, which alone 
 has here to be proved, is, in few words, thus described 
 by an enemy : " The land in the plains is fat and loamy, 
 
 and exhibits every sign of the greatest fecundity 
 
 Were nature assisted by art, the fruits of the most distant 
 countries might be produced within the distance of twenty 
 leagues." 1 "Galilee," says Malte-Brun, "would be a 
 paradise, were it inhabited by an industrious people, un- 
 der an enlightened government. Vine- stocks are to be 
 seen here a foot and a half in diameter." 2 The regions 
 also on the east of Jordan are not less fertile naturally ; 
 
 1 Volney's Travels, vol. i. pp. 308, 317. 
 
 2 Scliulze, in Pallas, cited by Malte-Brun, Geogr. vol. ii. p. 148. 
 
212 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 and now that they have been traversed by modern travel- 
 lers, they are no longer to be ranked as a desert, as if 
 incapable of cultivation. For clearly as crowded ruins 
 betoken a once densely populated country, the fact is as 
 clear that the substance is in it for the ample sustenance 
 of as many as ever dwelt within its bounds, and that its 
 most desolated and depopulated regions are but like the 
 leafless oak, as hard and sound in its substance as ever. 
 " The peasants of the Haouran," says Burckhardt, " are 
 extremely shy in speaking of the produce of their land, 
 from an apprehension that the stranger's inquiries may 
 lead to new extortions. I have reason to believe, how- 
 ever, that in middling years wheat yields twenty-five fold ; 
 in some parts of the Haouran this year (1812) the bar- 
 ley has yielded fifty-fold, and even in some instances 
 eighty. A sheikh assured me — that from twenty mouds 
 of wheat seed he once obtained thirty ghararas, 1 or one 
 hundred and twenty fold. Where abundance of water 
 can be conducted into the fields from neighbouring 
 springs, the soil is again sown after the grain harvest, 
 with vegetables, lentils, pease, sesamum, &c." "At El 
 Torra, as in so many other places of the Haouran, I saw 
 the most luxuriant wild herbage, through which my horse 
 with difficulty made his way ; artificial meadows could 
 hardly be finer than these desert fields; and it is this 
 which renders the Haouran so favourite an abode of the 
 Bedouin. The peasants of Syria are ignorant of the ad- 
 vantage of feeding their cattle with hay, they suffer the 
 superfluous grass to wither away,' &c. 3 Thus the sub- 
 
 1 Three rotola and a half make a moud, and eighty mouds a 
 gharara. A rotola is equal to about five and a half pounds 
 English. 
 
 2 Burckhardt, pp. 296, 297. 3 Ibid. p. 246. 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 213 
 
 stance which is in it is the very cause why many pastors 
 have trodden, and still tread, the land under foot, from its 
 eastern to its western borders. And such is the har- 
 mony between seemingly discordant and diversified pro- 
 phecies, that because of the ignorance of them that dwell 
 therein, the herbs of every field wither, and the grass 
 withers away, as declared by the prophet, and described 
 by a most observant and intelligent traveller, who never 
 once alludes to any prediction ; but who thus shows how 
 these things are accordant with the fact, that desert fields 
 have yet their substance in them, while, all uncultivated 
 as they are, they still afford a pasture for flocks, not to be 
 surpassed by the finest artificial meadows. 
 
 But that the land, with its substance still in it, is like 
 a garden, though without water, and an oak without its 
 leaves, may be farther seen in the " fat and loamy soil of 
 the plains," of which Volney testifies, and in its depth al- 
 so, as in various places we measured it, — where it was 
 cut into by rivers or streamlets, or torrents from the 
 mountains, — eight or ten or twenty feet, and yet no sub- 
 soil was disclosed to view ; — and more obviously still by 
 the gleanings that are left, which show what a smitten 
 land still bears. It has now its real as well as prophetic 
 symbols, in ears such as those which an ungleaned field 
 of old retained in the best of Israel's past days, when the 
 crop had been cut down and carried away; — in the soli- 
 tary clusters, or the single grapes which were found in a 
 vineyard when the vintage was past ; and in the outermost 
 branches of a shaken olive with some of its berries left, — ■ 
 as well as in the hardy oak whose substance is in it, though 
 its leaves be faded, or in an unwatered garden that is a 
 garden still. The figures of Scripture are not, like many 
 in other books, only or chiefly, if at all, for embellishment ; 
 
214 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 nor have they there a place that imagination may disport 
 itself with them. But as they elsewhere give to abstract 
 truths a palpable form, they here illustrate the doings, as 
 they are the words, of the Lord, and present a combina- 
 tion of expressive similitudes which render it hard to 
 wrest Scripture here, as they visibly exhibit the truths 
 which they reveal. Intelligible as they are, their pre- 
 cise meaning and fixed significancy may be read in other 
 words of holy writ. 
 
 " I command thee to do this thing," said the Lord, 
 by his servant Moses, to the people of Israel. " When 
 thou cuttest down thine harvest in thy field, and hast 
 forgot a sheaf in the field, thou shalt not go again 
 to fetch it: it shall be for the stranger, for the fa- 
 therless, and the widow, that the Lord thy God may 
 bless thee in all the work of thine hands. When thou 
 beatest thine olive-tree, thou shalt not go over the boughs 
 again ; — when thou gatherest the grapes of thy vineyard, 
 thou shalt not glean it afterwards; it shall be for the 
 stranger," &C. 1 " When ye reap the harvest of your land, 
 thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of thy field, neither 
 shalt thou gather the gleanings of thy harvest, and thou 
 shalt not glean thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather 
 any grapes of thy vineyard, thou shalt leave them for the 
 poor and stranger." 2 " And when ye reap the harvest of 
 your land, thou shalt not make clean riddance of the cor- 
 ners of thy field when thou reapest, neither shalt thou gather 
 any gleaning of thy harvest : thou shalt leave them unto 
 the poor, and to the stranger : I am the Lord your God." 3 
 
 Such was the law, as that of a God of mercy, in Israel ; 
 and such are the express things, each of which was to be 
 the measure, as the similitudes, of the judgments that 
 i Deut. xxiv. 19-21. 2 Lev. xix. 9, 10. 3 Ibid, xxiii. 22. 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 215 
 
 were to come upon the land — a reaped but ungleaned 
 field, of which the corners were not to be wholly reaped, 
 nor a clean riddance to be made of them, and from which 
 a forgotten sheaf was not to be fetched again ; a beaten 
 olive-tree, of which the boughs were not to be gone over 
 again ; — and, when the vintage was past, an ungleaned 
 vineyard, of which every grape was not to be gathered, 
 but some to be left for the poor and the stranger — as 
 Israel's people long have been, and as the gleanings of 
 Israel's land — though long possessed by the worst of the 
 heathen, and reaped by the wicked of the earth — was to 
 be left for them. 
 
 These predictions imply, as otherwise declared without 
 a metaphor, that a small remnant would be left, and that 
 the Lord would not make a full end; that though the 
 land of Israel should become poor like a field that had 
 been reaped, an olive that had been shaken, and a vine- 
 yard when the vintage was past, yet some ears, or single 
 sheafs would be left; a few olives still hanging on a 
 beaten bough ; some grapes, or clusters that once left were 
 not to be gathered, such as grew in the land that was 
 the vineyard of the Lord. And is there yet such a glean- 
 ing left of the glory of Israel? There is. And there 
 could not be any similes more natural, or expressive, or 
 descriptive of the fact. 
 
 Nabulus, or Neapolis, is identified with the ancient 
 Sychem or Sychar. There Abraham was first stayed in 
 his pilgrimage; there he first received the promise of the 
 land unto his seed; there Jesus, on his way from Judea 
 to G alilee, tarried two days, at the entreaty of its Sama- 
 ritan inhabitants, many of whom believed on him, though 
 he wrought no miracles among them ; and there — as if 
 a word had dropped down on it from the side of Mount 
 
216 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 Gerizim, at the foot of which it lies, when Joshua read 
 the blessings in the hearing of assembled Israel spread 
 over the valley — the same Divine word that has given its 
 free licence to the curse over all the land, has arrested 
 desolation in its progress ere it reached a full end; for 
 there may be seen, as it were, a sheaf which none 
 have fetched from the field that has been reaped, a berry 
 left on the beaten olive, and a cluster of grapes in a 
 gathered vineyard. " It is luxuriously embosomed," as 
 justly described by Dr Clarke, " in the most delightful 
 and fragrant bowers, half-concealed by rich gardens and 
 by stately trees, collected into groves all around the bold 
 and beautiful valley in which it stands." 1 " Here," says 
 Dr Eobinson, " a scene of luxuriant and almost unparal- 
 leled verdure burst upon our view. The whole valley was 
 filled with gardens of vegetables and orchards of all 
 kinds of fruits, watered by several fountains, which burst 
 forth in various parts, and flow westwards in refreshing 
 streams." 2 "We had often read of the verdure and 
 beauty of this scene, but it far surpassed our expectations. 
 The town with its cupolas and minarets is literally em- 
 bosomed in trees." 3 On the sloping sides of Gerizim as 
 they begin to rise from the plain, on the south-west side 
 of the town, cultivated terraces in close and regular suc- 
 cession are covered with fruit-trees, chiefly the olive. 
 Along the bottom of the mountain and the valley at its 
 base, the foliage is close and luxuriant, the gardens are 
 watered, by artificial channels, as well as by the flowing 
 streams, and the trees, some of which are very large, were, 
 as we saw them, loaded with fruit. Pomegranates, olives, 
 figs, aoricots, chesnuts, and mulberries abound. Orange- 
 
 1 Clarke, ii. 400, vol. iii. p. 95. 2 Vol. ili. p. 95. 
 
 :; Narrative by Bonar and M'Cheyne. 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 217 
 
 trees, vines, almond-trees, and palms also combine to 
 show in a single spot, with many cultivated fields in the 
 vicinity, how rich are the gleanings of that glorious land, 
 in which Israel lacked not any thing. Yet, with aU its 
 richness, Nabulus is but as the corner of a field, which 
 has not been wholly reaped. The Samaritans, as Jesus 
 was told by a woman of Sychar, said that men ought 
 to worship in that mountain, on the top of which 
 stood their temple, now level with the extensive ruins of 
 the city. The greater part of the mountain, which was 
 terraced to its summit, is bare. Over a large portion of 
 its now naked sides, where not precipitous, the soil is rich 
 and sufficiently abundant for the growth of trees to clothe 
 it, even where, as seen from beneath, the fronts of the 
 terraces present nothing but an aspect of sterility. The 
 hills beside Gerizim, when seen from its higher elevation, 
 present to view terraces that run along their sides, and 
 are intersected at right angles by divisions or walls, that 
 seem to have been the boundaries of vineyards, and thus 
 indicate a corresponding fruitfulness in ancient times, that 
 has not been spared like the valley beneath. 
 
 The plain of Sharon, though a wide- spread wilderness, 
 has yet some corners that have not been reaped — some 
 gleanings that are left. The environs of Jaffa are cover- 
 ed with rich and beautiful gardens and orchards, chiefly 
 filled with orange-trees, loaded, as we saw them, with 
 their green and golden fruit. There are many palms, 
 fig-trees, and sycamores: and the water-melons of Jaffa 
 are plentiful, and not to be surpassed, as they are cele- 
 brated, for their excellence. The gardens and groves 
 extend over several square miles. Beyond them and the 
 circumjacent cultivated lands, the ground, though untilled, 
 is no less fertile naturally, and is diversified on the south 
 
218 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 with little hills that once rejoiced on every side; and in 
 many places the uncultivated wastes, rich in nature's un- 
 aided loveliness, are besprinkled or bespread with flowers, 
 such as no care can rear in less genial climes. Towards 
 the northern borders of the same plain, though Carmel 
 has cast off its fruit, yet, a few miles south of its eastern 
 extremity — between the desolated plains of Sharon and 
 Esdraelon — the vicinity of Sandianeh, in woody richness 
 and beauty, would be a lovely scene in any land. Before 
 reaching, from the south, that hitherto scarcely visited 
 corner, we entered the altered scenery, as the hilly ground, 
 clothed with wood, borders the naked plain of Sharon. 
 Undulating hills of varied form and elevation, together 
 with their intervening valleys, are decked with fresh and 
 vigorous evergreen oaks, that are either closely crowded, 
 more thinly ranged by nature's hand, or sparcely scat- 
 tered where seats of nobles might proudly stand, were not 
 wild prowling Bedouins to be seen. — The bare and marshy 
 plain of Houle has still its corners, of which a full rid-, 
 dance has not yet been made, — on one extremity culti- 
 vated fields, protected by the guards at Jacob's bridge, 
 and on the other, noble oaks and other trees that shade 
 and surround the rugged path or desolate highway for 
 several miles, from the lower sources of the Jordan, at 
 Tel-el- Kady, the site of Dan, to the higher at Paneas, as 
 these present their respective claims to be the birth-place 
 of that famous stream. At either place, there is no sign 
 to show that the Jordan, though rising amidst ruins, flows 
 now through so desolate a valley as that which bears its 
 name. " The garden of Geddin, situated on the borders of 
 Mount Sharon, and protected by its chief, extends several 
 miles in a spacious valley, abounding with excellent fruits, 
 such as olives, almonds, peaches, apricots, and figs. A 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 219 
 
 number of streams that fall from the mountains, traverse it, 
 and water the cotton plants that thrive well in this fertile 
 soil." 1 " The scenery in the plain of Zabulon is, to the 
 full, as delightful as in the rich vale upon the south of the 
 Crimea ; — it reminds the traveller of the finest parts of 
 Kent and Surrey. 2 The soil, although stony, is exceed- 
 ingly rich, hut now entirely neglected. But the delight- 
 ful vale of Zabulon appears everywhere covered with 
 spontaneous vegetation, flourishing in the wildest exuber- 
 ance." Along the mountains of Gilead, "the land, pos- 
 sessing extraordinary riches, abounds with the most 
 beautiful prospects, is clothed with rich forests, varied 
 with verdant slopes; and extensive plains of a fine red 
 soil are now covered with thistles, as the best proof of its 
 fertility. "3 The beautiful scenery in Mount Gilead and 
 Adjlun (Ajalon) has also been described by Irby and 
 Mangles, Mr Eobinson, and more recently by Lord Lind- 
 say, who justly remarks, that " it can scarcely be surpas- 
 sed in beauty" — " every minute introduces you to some 
 new scene of loveliness ;" — " but a painter alone could 
 give an idea of these scenes of beauty and grandeur."* 
 
 After crossing the Jordan, and passing through immense 
 fields of thistles, and some patches of cultivated ground, 
 we ascended Mount Gilead by the Wady Hamour. The 
 lower part of the valley was besprinkled with trees, which 
 increased in number and size as we advanced. Before 
 reaching a higher elevation olives chiefly abounded. 
 Many of them were large and beautiful, though their cul- 
 tivation was wholly neglected ; one beside our path was 
 fourteen feet in circumference. Oaks, gradually suc- 
 
 1 Mariti's Travels, ii. 151. 2 Clarke, ii. 400. 
 
 3 Buckingham's Travels, p. 325. 
 
 4 Lord Lindsay's Travels, vol. ii. pp. 102, 107. 
 
220 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 ceeding to the olive with which they were partially inter- 
 mingled, soon thickened into a dense wood ; and we pass- 
 ed for five hours through a fine forest of varieties of oaks, 
 of which the evergreen was hy far the most frequent. 
 Pines took their place on the higher ascents, and also 
 crowned the wooded circumjacent hills. Along the banks 
 of the stream oleanders in full bloom rose to the height 
 of twenty or thirty feet ; and they clothed so closely a 
 level space on the sides of a small wady on an opposite 
 hill, that their rich flowers appeared like a purple carpet 
 fringed with green. The denseness of the wood at times 
 shut out every view save that of our immediate path ; but 
 in every open space or glade, the ground was wildly beau- 
 tified by the close flowers of immense fields of thistles of 
 varied hues, as rank as they were luxuriant, many of which 
 we estimated at eight feet high. The pendulous ivy 
 often hung and gently waved from the outer branches of 
 high trees. Laurels were innumerable and large. The 
 wild almond tree, honeysuckle, and myrtle paid their tri- 
 bute of fragrance and beauty to the sweetness and loveli- 
 ness of the scene. After ascending to the top of the 
 valley, in crossing the adjoining heights, still more lovely 
 prospects opened to our view through the hills of Gilead 
 and Adjelun. From a small space cleared of wood, 
 where Ave pitched our tent for the night, the mountains 
 around were seen in woodland beauty not to be surpass- 
 ed, some of them wholly invested in the green verdure of 
 the trees, so that a solitary bare spot, however small, was 
 looked for in vain. 
 
 Were it not for the locusts that had come like a cloud 
 to do their appointed work, and for endless fields of 
 rankest thistles that betoken desolation as well as fer- 
 tility, where, as of old, all manner of fruits might as 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 221 
 
 luxuriantly grow; — were it not for the fire, as related by 
 Lord Lindsay, a witness of its effects, that in the vicinity 
 has " burnt a whole mountain side," where " many trees 
 had perished in the conflagration, and some were stand- 
 ing half alive, half dead, while others had quite escaped" 
 — and thus threatened to make a full riddance of that 
 corner of the land, as has been made, from such and 
 other causes, of far more extensive regions; — were it not 
 that, where olives grow, the labour of the olive fails, and 
 that the laurels, whose flourishing in all their freshness 
 would symbolise unfaded renown, were, with few excep- 
 tions, harked and blasted, so that they may not there be 
 seen in such profusion by any stranger from a far land 
 again; — were it not that this very region is as lonely as 
 it is lovely, all but tenantless and forsaken, and so few 
 men left, that in a long day's journey we passed but a 
 single village, and met no travellers in the mountains of 
 Israel, which no man passeth through, and where the way- 
 faring man ceaseth: — were it not for them that dwell 
 therein, small as their number is, the rude inhabitants of 
 that solitary village, — in a site fitted for princely man- 
 sions, and not for miserable hovels — who refused us milk, 
 or any other food for money, and would not suffer us to 
 put up our tent for a night on a desolate spot near their 
 dwellings, and also for a camp of miserable wanderers 
 whom we met in their migrations, with their wives, and 
 children, and scanty flocks, in another woodland of 
 Gilead; — and, still more, were it not that, instead of a 
 flourishing city in a delightsome land, situated as in an- 
 cient days beside the source of the Amour, a copious 
 fountain of the purest water flowing from a rock, we saw 
 nothing but some foundations of ruins, which, if not 
 sought for, might not have been seen, that are still re- 
 
222 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 cognised as Oom el-Jelaad, but now as utterly desolate as 
 if, like Gilead of old, it had been threshed anew with 
 threshing instruments of iron; — were it not for such signs 
 and tokens of predicted judgments, these hills are so full 
 of beauty that, instead of a corner of a field in a desolate 
 land which thus far only has remained unscathed, they 
 look as if no curse had ever come near them, and as if 
 they stood in a land still blessed of the Lord. And 
 yet these beauteous hills, bordering both, lie between the 
 desolate valley of the Jordan, and the naked plains of the 
 Hauran, as if forming to each field a corner of which, 
 forsaken as it is, and long forgotten as it has been, a full 
 riddance has not been made ; and Gilead, the land of 
 balm, looks as if it were Gilead still. Where the works 
 of man have perished, natural beauties survive. Enough 
 is left there to show that Israel's was — and may be 
 again — a goodly heritage; and desolate as it lies, the 
 gleanings might suffice to close the lips of talkers till they 
 can tell of as lovely hills in populous regions as those of 
 forsaken Gilead: and when confronted merely with its 
 natural growth, or wild produce, neither sown nor plant- 
 ed by the hand of man, sceptics might blush for their blas- 
 phemies against Immanuel's land, and see here not only 
 visible proofs of Scriptural inspiration, but also substan- 
 tial reasons for believing predictions yet unaccomplished, 
 even as beholding how — were the time but only come — 
 Israel shall be satisfied in Gilead. 
 
 Not in Gilead only might they, — or any other people — 
 did not promises which are only theirs forbid that the land 
 should be else than desolate in the possession of any other 
 race, — be satisfied, but in Ephraim too, as the same 
 good word of hope does bear. Other fields have their 
 corners that have not been cut down — as gleanings be- 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 223 
 
 sides are still spread over them. Nabulus is near to the 
 ancient capital of Ephraim. The hills of Samaria are 
 less bleak and bare than those of Judea; and throughout 
 the land, where they still are to be found, many villages 
 have yet their fig-trees, olives, and pomegranates around 
 them. Two or three may here be noticed in lieu of re- 
 iterated descriptions. "The valley of El-Deir, near 
 Souf, is," as described by Burckhardt, " a most roman- 
 tic spot. The narrow plain was sown with wheat and 
 barley. Large oaks and walnut trees overshadow the 
 stream." 1 The gardens of the large village of Anepta, 
 in the hill-country of Samaria, fenced, like many others, 
 with the prickly pear, plentifully bears figs, pomegranates, 
 almonds, and vines. A grove of fine olives spreads over 
 the vaUey, one of which was fourteen feet in circumfer- 
 ence ; and, as we passed, cattle were treading out the 
 corn in a large thrashing-floor, which lay in heaps around 
 it. — Situated on the summit of a lofty hill, Safed, of which 
 the inhabitants were buried in the ruins, that, like those of 
 the castle, were levelled with the ground by the earthquake 
 in 1834, not only gives evidence how soon the walls of a fal- 
 len city of Israel may be raised from its ruins, as if built of 
 stone newly hewn from the quarry ; but it also shows, instead 
 of naked plains as now, what fruits the hills of Israel, at 
 their greatest height, can bear. On the elevated region 
 on which it stands there are several projecting or moun- 
 tain tops, which give rise to a succession of steep inter- 
 mediate valleys, on the sides of two or three of which, 
 and anciently round the summit of one, with the castle 
 in the centre, the city was built. Vines wholly cover the 
 terraced sides of the hill below the castle; and as these 
 were seen by us at midsummer from the opposite height, 
 1 Burckhardt, p. 20,5. 
 
224: 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 one line of pomegranates rose above another, the bright 
 red flowers of which seemed to rest on the verdant foliage 
 of the vines, intermingled with the deep green of the fig- 
 tree, and the silvery leaves of the olive which flick- 
 ered in the scented air. Over the cultivated ter- 
 races, the stones that present an aspect of sterility in 
 neglected hills, were altogether hid from view; and the 
 steep slope was then one mass of verdure, as the vines 
 were spread over the ground, or hung over the ter- 
 races beneath, or rose over them above; and other fruits 
 flourished as luxuriantly, with soil and sun to nourish 
 and ripen them all. By such a gleaning grape on a 
 mountain top, not only may the faithfulness of the word 
 be seen, as it remains, but it shows what a vintage is 
 past, how the paths of the Lord dropped down fatness of 
 old on his chosen people in his chosen land, and the hills 
 were covered with the shadow of the vine, and how when 
 He shall turn his feet to these long desolations, — it shall 
 come to pass in that day, that the mountains shall drop 
 down new wine, and the hills shall flow with milk, 1 when 
 swords, now so readily drawn, shall be beaten into plough- 
 shares, and spears, that now bristle throughout the land, 
 shall be beaten into pruning hooks, and Jew and Gentile 
 cease to trust in bulwarks that earthquakes can throw 
 down. — Amidst younger and lesser, but still large, trees, 
 an olive decaying with age still lingers in the vale of 
 Safed, — as on the uppermost branch of a shaken tree — 
 to show like others what berries that tree did bear, as 
 there they hang. Though its place be high on a moun- 
 tain, the circumference of its trunk (22 feet 3 inches) 
 exceeds that of the seemingly co-eval olive, which is 
 vauntingly shown as the largest at Tivoli, in one of the 
 1 Joel iii. 18. 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 225 
 
 finest olive groves of Italy at the foot of the Sahine hills, 
 but which is not half the dimensions of some of the other 
 olive-gleanings, after the harvest, in Israel's desolate and 
 neglected land. And yet, derided as it has been, it 
 wants not other witnesses throughout its bounds; for from 
 the heights of Lebanon to the plain of Philistia, and from 
 the desolate shores of Canaan to the border of the now 
 fruitless Bashan, such gleanings are seen beside the path 
 of the traveller, as may put to shame the vintage of other 
 lands. Of these a note may here be given, by merely 
 stating the circumference of some of the largest trees, as 
 we measured them in passing. 
 
 About eight miles south from Sidon, near a small 
 stream covered with oleander, there stood by the way- 
 side a sycamore tree, much decayed with age, and wasted 
 away in the centre — thirty feet in circumference. Another 
 sycamore, still flourishing, upwards of twenty-eight feet, 
 also stands alone, in a desolated plain, nearly mid-way 
 between Migdol and Ashdod. At the former village, 
 amidst many fine olives, we measured four, seventeen, 
 nineteen, twenty-two, and twenty-six and a half feet in 
 circuit. In the valley of Dibbin, in Gilead, are olives from 
 thirteen to seventeen feet ; and others of equal size still 
 flourish, amidst rank thorns, in a grove of fine olives, 
 where none are left to gather their fruit, in their own 
 village of El-Gitta. Close by Jerusalem, the largest olive 
 in the valley of J ehosaphat is eight yards in girth, and one 
 in that of Hinnom is ten. One, at least, in Shechem is 
 nine in girth; around the roots, about half a foot from the 
 ground, it is twelve yards. The above measurements are 
 those of the trunks of the trees, some of which, like that 
 in Tivoli, are much decayed. Near to Beshirrai, in Le- 
 
226 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 banon, at the height of about three thousand feet, where 
 many terraces are clothed with vines as richly as at Safed, 
 are chesnut trees upwards of twenty- two feet in circuit. 
 At the foot of that " goodly mountain/' a tree at the 
 corner of two streets near the bazars of Damascus, vies 
 in circumference with that of the largest of the cedars 
 of Lebanon, two of which are about thirteen yards in 
 circumference at an elevation so high that if ever reach- 
 ed by mountain tops in our cold clime, where it would 
 border the region of perpetual snow, scarcely a blade 
 could grow. 
 
 That land once flowed with milk and honey, and was 
 designated as a land of honey, as well as of oil-olive. 
 And here, too, there is still something left. Bee-hives, 
 laid horizontally, and formed of large jars of pottery, 
 piled up in successive rows, are frequent throughout many 
 of the remaining villages. In the vicinity of Sandianeh, 
 we counted in passing, not the whole number, but a hun- 
 dred hives at the village of Kannia, and at CafFrin a hun- 
 dred and thirty. In three arched recesses in the wall of 
 a large square building at Solomon's pools, were two hun- 
 dred hives. The bees were as active, as the lambs are 
 as sportive as ever, in a land where many men are idle, 
 and joy has withered from among them. Honey did not 
 exceed a fifth part of the English price ; at Jaffa, oranges 
 were but a twentieth; and throughout the land other fruits 
 were proportionally cheap. 
 
 Other illustrations may here be given from Beyrout 
 and Hebron, as from Sychar or Nabulus, how cities of 
 Israel were anciently environed— the gleanings of the 
 past and earnests of the future. 
 
 . " Beyrout has a line appearance, the rising ground be- 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 227 
 
 hind being studded with villas, and completely clothed 
 with verdant gardens and mulberry trees." 1 The view 
 (see plate) taken in early spring, before the vines had 
 put forth their leaves, shows their naked stocks, with the 
 supporters prepared for bearing heavy clusters of grapes, 
 where in due season nothing can be seen but rich fruit 
 and verdant foliage. Irrigated, like those of Sychar, 
 the environs of Beyrout are as a watered spot in an un- 
 watered garden. A fine large olive grove, which might 
 be the boast of any land, spreads along its plain. Defend- 
 ed by the Lebanon from the incursions of the wandering 
 Arabs, the villas are safe beyond the walls ; and each 
 man, more than in other parts of that troubled land, can 
 still sit in safety under his own vine, and under his own 
 fig-tree, though in ages past that town too has often 
 been a spoil and a prey, and more recently was battered 
 by British cannon. Far within the bounds of the an- 
 cient kingdom of Solomon as it lies, some vestige of that 
 glory, which has indeed waxed thin, may there be seen. 
 And whether the traveller first enters the Holy Land 
 there or at Jaffa, he touches an ungleaned field which 
 once throughout was a land of vines and oil- olive, of 
 pomegranates, and figs, and whose emblem was the palm. 
 
 On the opposite extremity of the land, on the south, 
 beyond which there is neither town nor village, Hebron 
 yields another illustration, while, situated between them 
 far from either, the hill of Samaria, its city gone, may 
 yet give evidence of rural beauty. 
 
 Hebron, less rich and picturesque than some other 
 places in the land, is associated with themes of peculiar 
 interest. There Abraham pitched his tent, and dwelt in 
 the plain of Mamre, which is Hebron. There he built 
 1 Narrative, p. 238. 
 
228 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 an altar unto the Lord ; and there the Lord appeared un- 
 to him, and communed with the father of the faithful. 1 
 There Sarah died, and hence the cave of Machpelah he- 
 fore Mamre became the burying-place of Abraham, Isaac, 
 and Jacob — whose God is not the God of the dead, hut of 
 the living. 2 There Jacob dwelt when he sent Joseph out 
 of the vale of Hebron to his other sons, who fed their 
 flocks in Shechem. There David reigned seven years 
 before he sat on the throne of Zion. 4 Hebron was built 
 seven years before Zoan in Egypt; 5 and has long out- 
 lasted that ruined city, in which God set a fire. And 
 while the Pharaohs have been dragged from their tombs, 
 and the temples of Egypt have been deserted, and the 
 sanctuaries of Israel are defiled and desolate, that build- 
 ing which encloses the cave in which the first fathers of 
 the Israelitish race were buried, is entire, and guarded 
 with religious care. According to Jewish and Arab tra- 
 dition and belief — far more worthy of trust than Greek 
 and Eoman legends, often discordant alike with Scrip- 
 ture and with reason — the bodies of the patriarchs were 
 laid where the mosque of Hebron, originally built by So- 
 lomon, now stands. The massy and peculiar structure 
 of part of the building, — in an inner wall of which the 
 writer in passing measured a single stone twenty-four 
 feet in length, — seems to denote its Hebrew origin, long 
 antecedent to the days of the Saracens. As seen in the 
 centre of the plate, it has escaped destruction, and is 
 undefaced by decay, while thousands of edifices else have 
 fallen, and, so far as its original structure yet remains, 
 not one of equal antiquity now stands on the west of the 
 Jordan. While it recalls ancient days, it speaks also of 
 
 i Gen. xiii. 18; xviii. 1, 33. 2 Gen. xxiii. 2, 18-20. 
 
 3 Ibid, xxxvii. 14. 4 2 Sam. ii. 11. 5 Num. xiii. 22. 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 229 
 
 the resurrection of the dead, of the time of the adoption 
 of the body from the power of the grave, the time when 
 the elect of God from the east and from the west, from 
 the north and from the south, shall sit down with Abra- 
 ham, Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of God, when 
 the cave of Machpelah shall give up its dead. Hebron, 
 a city of refuge in Israel, has hitherto escaped more 
 than other cities, and has here its gleanings to present 
 as witnesses. Among many lesser trees in the adjoining 
 plain, one called (t Abraham's oak" spreads its branches 
 over a space two hundred and fifty feet in circumference. 
 Many fine olive trees skirt the town, and are spread around 
 it, (see plate.) Eich vineyards, intermixed with many 
 fig trees and pomegranates, clothe the valley, and par- 
 tially the terraced sides of the circumjacent hills. Thirty- 
 three centuries and a half have passed away since men 
 were sent by Moses, ere the Israelites entered it, to see 
 the land, and to hear the fruit of it. They came to He- 
 bron and to the brook of Eshcol, and cut down from 
 thence a branch with one cluster of grapes, and they bare 
 it between two upon a staff, and they brought of the 
 pomegranates and of the figs. Nearly eighteen hundred 
 years ago, the last tribe of Israel was rooted out of Judea; 
 and even at this distant age, in the desolate land of an ex- 
 patriated people, Hebron in rich abundance has its vines, 
 and pomegranates, and figs, such as vindicate their fame 
 in the most ancient times ; and at the time the writer 
 was first in the land, some Jews of Hebron, who dared 
 not pass the threshold of the mosque over the tomb of 
 Abraham, cut down a branch with one cluster of grapes — 
 about a yard in length, though unripe and scarcely fully 
 grown, (June 17, 1839,) and presented it to Sir Moses 
 Montefiore, then on a second visit to the land of his 
 
230 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 fathers, not without the hope in his heart that the time 
 of Israel's return was nigh. Such gleanings, which, amidst 
 such desolation, might tend to strengthen the wish and 
 confirm the hope, are not to be gathered by the strangers, 
 who have laid it desolate to the degree prescribed to 
 them by Him who brake up for the sea his decreed 
 place, and set bars and doors, and said, Hitherto shalt 
 thou come but no farther: and here shall thy proud waves 
 be stayed. But the connection of these with other pre- 
 dictions may be reserved for other pages, as pertaining 
 to another theme. 
 
 If aught still more definite be sought to show that 
 the word is the Lord's and that his hand is in the work, 
 as He hath the times and the seasons in his own power, 
 the testimony may be taken of a Commissioner of the 
 British government, who was sent forth to Syria for the 
 promotion of commerce and not for the illustration of 
 prophecy, and of a British consul long resident in the 
 land, who was astonished to hear his own testimony thus 
 applied in illustration of a predicted fact, and in settling 
 the last question that has here to be resolved. 
 
 Is there yet in it a tenth? The first paragraph in the 
 first document affixed to the Eeport on the Statistics 
 of Syria, laid before Parliament runs thus : " Population. 
 Syria is a country whose population bears no proportion 
 to its superficies, and the inhabitants may be considered, 
 on the most moderate calculation, as reduced to a tithe 
 of what the soil could abundantly maintain under a wiser 
 system of administration." 1 In the body of the Eeport, 
 respecting the productive powers of northern Syria, it is 
 stated, that " the country is capable of producing TEN- 
 FOLD the present produce." 12 The degree of the depopula- 
 
 1 Page 111. -? Page 90. 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 231 
 
 tion seems thus to be commensurate with that of the 
 desolation, as thus authoritatively ascertained, for " com- 
 mercial" purposes and prospects, and both, as Mr Con- 
 sul Moore personally informed the author, before being 
 aware of another use of the testimony, — were the closest 
 to the truth that they could make them. In many pre- 
 vious editions, it was stated, before the British Govern- 
 ment sent forth a commission to make such inquiries : 
 ** It is impossible to ascertain the precise proportion. The 
 words of Pierre Bello, quoted by Malte-Brun, 1 though the 
 same in substance with the testimony of others, here 
 afford the closest commentary. ' A tract from which a 
 hundred individuals draw a scanty subsistence formerly 
 maintained thousands.'" But this is closer and more 
 precise. And, as already quoted, it has also been record- 
 ed, without any allusion to the predictions, " Population 
 seems to have decreased from thousands to hundreds, 
 and from hundreds to decades; what were cities of con- 
 siderable magnitude, are now wretched villages ; and large 
 towns have not a single tenant to perpetuate the memory 
 of their name." — " The population of the country is re- 
 duced to a tithe of what the soil could abundantly main- 
 tain" — " the country is capable of producing tenfold the 
 present produce." Surely it was the Lord in his glory 
 who said — that, ere that glory should arise on Israel, the 
 cities should be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses 
 without man — and the land be utterly desolate — and 
 added, Yet in it shall be a tenth. 2 Surely it was none 
 but He that formed the mountains and created the wind, 
 and declareth unto man what is his thought, and maketh 
 the morning darkness, and treadeth upon the high places 
 of the earth, The Lord, the Lord God of hosts is his 
 1 Greog. vol. ii. p. 151. 2 Isaiah vi. 13 
 
232 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 name, who thus saith; 1 The city that went out by a thou- 
 sand shall leave an hundred, and that which went out by a 
 hundred shall leave ten, to the house of Israel? Surely 
 that is the word of the Lord in which it is written — 
 though other judgments were still to follow — in that day, 
 when only gleaning grapes were to he left in the land, 
 shall his strong cities he as a forsahen bough, and an up- 
 permost branch which they left, because of the children of 
 Israel: and there shall be a desolation. Surely the God 
 of Israel is the Lord; and surely, the Lord of all the 
 earth shall He be called. 
 
 While gleanings are thus strewed over Israel's land, 
 from Lebanon to Philistia and from Bashan to the sea, 
 they show how rich was the field that has been reaped, 
 how great is the desolation that has been wrought; and 
 how, while each vision is seen in its effect, and each 
 figure in its accordant facts, — the whole land is so de- 
 picted and described in its varied features, that he who 
 has eyes to see may see, and he who has ears to hear 
 may hear, that Israel's land is the witness of Israel's 
 God. 
 
 A glorious land, without its cultivators ; a goodly inhe- 
 ritance without its heirs; Jacob's heritage waste, and 
 Jacob's children wanderers among the nations, till joy 
 is withered from the sons of men in their withered land, 
 which, delightsome as it was, now mourns unto the Lord 
 because of its desolation, and has become as a garden with- 
 out water, an oak without leaves, an olive that has been 
 shaken, and a vineyard when the vintage is past, a fruit- 
 ful field, when the harvest is over, like unto a desolate 
 wilderness : — but still a garden once worthy of the Lord, 
 and called his own, not altogether empty, but run to 
 1 Amos iv. 13. 2 Ibid. v. 3. 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 233 
 
 waste, its substance in it as a garden still, unweeded and 
 unwatered, covered with briers, and thorns, and thistles, 
 such as neglected gardens grow, with herbage luxuriant as 
 the richest meadows, traversed by the wild boar of the 
 forest, and the wild beasts of the field, a borderless pas- 
 ture of wandering flocks ; — an oak, or a teil-tree, whose 
 wood is the hardiest, whose roots are as deep, and whose 
 trunk and branches are as strong as ever, however leaf- 
 less it be for a season; — an olive beaten once, but not 
 gone over again, and still bearing some lingering berries on 
 its else forsaken boughs; — a vineyard, when the vintage 
 is past, but to which no man has corns back to fetch 
 again the clusters or grapes that were forgotten ; — and a 
 fruitful field when the harvest is over, and the harvest 
 shouting has ceased, but yet the reaped field as of Israel's 
 land, — here, a left sheaf, and there an uncut corner, and 
 everywhere ungathered ears, enough to fill the gleaners 
 lap, as it was by God's own law in times long past, when 
 the poor and the stranger were not forgotten of the 
 Lord — go that, were the gleaners come, it would be as 
 he that gathereth ears in the valley of Bephaim, while 
 yet the tithe in Israel's land is left for Jacob's children : 
 Such is now the goodly land which the God of the whole 
 earth espied for Abraham, and by these similitudes it is 
 set in view. Such as it was to be it has become, while 
 bereft for many generations of the people, whom, by a 
 mighty hand and an outstretched arm, the Lord did take 
 from Egyptian bondage, and plant, as his own vine, 
 within it. Without looking here at other signs which 
 are set for determining the time for the destined gleaners 
 to come — the destined restorers to restore — while these 
 facts are so positive and plain, and these judgments de- 
 fined as they reach their measured bounds, who, in the 
 
234 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 exercise of that reason which God has given him, dis- 
 carding an incredulity alike unjustifiable and ungodly, 
 may not in these days, when such things are seen, be 
 himself a witness of the truth of the words immediately 
 annexed to these predictions, — at that day shall a man 
 look to his Maker, and his eyes shall have respect to the 
 Holy One of Israel! 1 For others there is another time, 
 and another word — Lord, when thy hand is lifted up, 
 they will not see: hut they shall see, and be ashamed 
 for their envy at the people. 2 
 
 That a land with such gleanings left, and such sub- 
 stance in it, should be so desolate, may well astonish those 
 who dwell therein, and also every stranger from afar land 
 who visits it. Visited as of late years it has been by many, 
 speculations are now rife, and attempts have been made, 
 for its improvement and renewed cultivation. " Both for 
 agriculture and manufactures," according to an eye-wit- 
 ness, as reported to the British government, "Syria has 
 great capabilities. Were fiscal exactions checked and re- 
 gulated, could labour pursue its peaceful vocations, were 
 the aptitudes which the country and its inhabitants pre- 
 sent, for the development of industry, called into play, the 
 whole face of the land would soon be changed." 3 The 
 same Beport bears, that a " forced cultivation" had been 
 tried. " Last year (1837) Ibrahim Pasha forced an in- 
 creased cultivation throughout Syria, and the inhabitants 
 of the different towns were obliged to take upon themselves 
 the agricultural charge of every spot of land susceptible 
 of improvement. He himself set the example, and em- 
 barked a large sum in such enterprises. The officers of 
 the army, down to the majors, were forced also to adven- 
 
 1 Isaiah xvii. 7. 2 Isaiah xxvi. 11. 
 
 3 Parliamentary Report, p. 29. 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 235 
 
 ture in similar undertakings. The result was, however, 
 extremely unfortunate from the want of the usual periodi- 
 cal rains which caused the failing of the crops generally 
 in Syria, and in most cases a total loss of capital ensued." 1 
 " I will make your heaven as iron, and your earth as brass, 
 and your strength shall be spent in vain, for your land 
 shall not yield her increase, $c. — I will scatter you among 
 the heathen — and your land shall be desolate. — Then shall 
 the land rest and enjoy her Sabbaths, and ye be in your 
 enemies land, even then shall the land rest. — Your ene- 
 mies which dwell therein shall be astonished at it, $c. 2 In 
 speaking of this abortive attempt to force the ^cultiva- 
 tion of the land as an illustration of these predictions, to 
 an intelligent Arab of the Greek church, who had been 
 previously converted from infidelity after reading thrice 
 the Arab edition of this treatise, he said to the writer, 
 that he knew it well, for he himself had lost much money 
 in the ruinous enterprise. As long as they (the Jews) be 
 in their enemies land, their land lieth desolate. 
 
 But the same sure word hath declared, that " the great 
 capabilities of Syria for agriculture" shall not for ever be 
 dormant and inert, " for the whole face of the land," — in 
 the same words as those of Dr Bowring, but in another 
 book than that which was thus laid by sovereign authority 
 before earthly legislators, — shall yet be changed, though 
 by other men and other means, and that, too, " soon" or 
 speedily when the time is come, and when the work ac- 
 cording to His wokd shall be hastened. Israel shall 
 blossom and bud, and fill the face of the land with fruit. 
 
 Although all the power and all the expenditure of one 
 of the greatest of modern despots — a fierce lord into whose 
 hands Egypt has been given, whose rod over it that smote 
 1 Parliamentary Report, pp. 9, 19. 2 Lev. xxvi. 19, 20, 32-34. 
 
236 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 whole Pcdestina has been broken — were exercised and 
 spent in vain ; yet wherever any spot has been fixed on 
 as the residence, and seized as the property, either of a 
 Turkish Aga or of an Arab Sheikh, it enjoys his protec- 
 tion, is made to administer to his wants or to his luxury, 
 and the exuberance and beauty of the land of Canaan soon 
 re-appear. But such spots are, in the words of an eye- 
 witness, only " mere sprinklings" 1 in the midst of exten- 
 sive desolation. And how could it ever have been fore- 
 seen, that the same cause, viz. the residence of despotic 
 spoliators, was to operate in so strange a manner, as to 
 spread a wide wasting desolation over the face of the 
 country, and to be, at the same time, the very means of 
 preserving the thin gleaning of its ancient glory? or that 
 a few berries on the outmost bough would be saved by 
 the same hand that was to shake the olive? Spots culti- 
 vated even by the Bedouins, show fields of barley in the 
 midst of plains of thorns or thistles. 
 
 Without entering in these pages on the field, now nar- 
 rowing fast, of unfulfilled predictions, as inapplicable to 
 our present theme, though not of itself unimportant or 
 forbidden, — -justice would not here be done to the evi- 
 dence which prophecy presents in its accomplishment, 
 were we altogether to overlook predicted events, asso- 
 ciated, as to time, with the predicted degree of the depo- 
 pulation and desolation of Israel's land — which such ex- 
 plicit testimonies thus accredit as realized. The vision 
 of the prophet itself here speaks, and may well disavow a 
 needless interpretation. 
 
 The fortress also shall cease from Ephraim, and the 
 kingdom from Damascus, and the remnant of Syria : 
 they shall be as the glory of the children of Israel, saith 
 1 General Straton's MS. Travels. 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 237 
 
 the Lord of hosts. And in that day it shall come to pass, 
 the glory of Jacob shall he made thin — yet gleaning grapes 
 shall be left in it, 1 Qc. 
 
 The remnant of Syria, — spared till then, — was to be- 
 come like the glory of Israel when thinned to its glean- 
 ings. What that remnant of Syria was, may he clearly 
 seen. " The country of Kesrouan, in Lebanon/' says 
 Burckhardt, as he visited and described it in 1810, "is 
 full of villages and convents. There is hardly any place 
 in Syria less fit for culture — yet it has become the most 
 populous part of the country. The satisfaction of in- 
 habiting the neighbourhood of places of sanctity, of hav- 
 ing church bells, &c. are the chief attractions that have 
 peopled Kesrouan with Catholic Christians." 2 In the Par- 
 liamentary Beport, published in 1843, Dr Bowring states, 
 that " the inhabitants of Lebanon are an active and indus- 
 trious race, who turn to good account such parts of their 
 soil as are suited to agricultural production. — In many 
 parts of the mountain range the land is laid out in ter- 
 races, much resembling the almost horticultural cultiva- 
 tion of Tuscany and Lucca. — Large quantities of mul- 
 berry trees grow at various elevations. There is also an 
 abundance of olive trees, some vineyard grounds, much 
 wheat and maize, and many gardens filled with vegeta- 
 bles. There is no part of Syria in which there is so 
 obvious an activity — none in which the inhabitants appear 
 so prosperous or so happy." 3 Lebanon for many ages 
 maintained its independence, and was ruled by its own 
 chiefs. But, within a short space, it has since been deso- 
 lated by civil wars. Its inhabitants have been disarmed, 
 armed, and disarmed again. The weapons put in their 
 hands for expelling Mehemet Ali from Egypt, were used 
 1 Isa. xvii. 3-G. 2 Burckhardt, p. 182. 3 Page 8. 
 
238 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 for their mutual destruction. In an official communica- 
 tion from the British ambassador at Constantinople to 
 the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, it is recorded, under 
 date, "May 17, 1845, The last advices from Syria, 
 dated the 4th inst., present a most melancholy picture 
 of the state of affairs in Mount Lebanon. The flames 
 of civil war had burst out afresh; crimes of the deep- 
 est dye had been committed with impunity; conflicts 
 between armed bodies of men had taken place with con- 
 siderable loss of life; murder, pillage, and conflagration, 
 were raging in several parts of the mountain," Qc. 1 In 
 his next letter, the civil warfare in Lebanon was described 
 as " increasing both in extent and violence." The Con- 
 sul-General of Syria, in addressing Sir Stratford Can- 
 ning, May 17, 1847, "towards sunset the 16th, I saw 
 the smoke, the sure sign of a collision, rising from the 
 village of Abaidie, and soon afterwards a larger quantity 
 from the lower part of the valley. The next morning a 
 number of houses and small villages were seen burning 
 on the mountain-side close to Beyrout. The Druses burnt 
 the chief village of the Meten and the old castle of the 
 Maronite Emirs there. The sight of eighteen burning 
 villages and hamlets, or houses, created a great sensa- 
 tion in Beyrout." 2 In the Times of June 25, of the 
 same year, it is recorded at the close of a leading arti- 
 cle, that " a Tartar brought intelligence from Beyrout of 
 the 24th ult. Tranquillity was not yet restored in the 
 mountains; fresh engagements had taken place between 
 the Maronites and the Druses. The Smyrna journals of 
 the 9th inst. bring news from Beyrout of the 3d inst. 
 
 1 Sir Stratford Canning to the Earl of Aberdeen. Par. papers. 
 Correspondence relative to Syria, Part i. p. 106. 
 
 2 Correspondence relative to Syria, Part ii. pp. 164, 165. 
 
JUDEA. 
 
 239 
 
 The Maronites, though at first victorious, had ultimately 
 succumbed. The number of the milages burned exceeded 
 a hundred, two- thirds of which belonged to the Christians; 
 and seventeen of their convents had been reduced to ashes." 
 
 On the western side of the Anti-Lebanon, the ap- 
 pearance of burning villages in the mountain was like 
 that of a grand illumination, as stated in a letter to the 
 author from the Eev. Mr Graham of Damascus. In an- 
 other dated from that city 10th September 1845, which 
 he received from Mr Consul Wood, a most intelligent and 
 watchful observer of what passes in Syria, he says, " You 
 will have heard through the channel of the newspapers 1 the 
 late scenes in Lebanon, — and you are perhaps struck with 
 the fact, that in spite of the united efforts to cause Lebanon 
 to prosper and flourish, its last flowers are fast withering 
 away." The writer of these pages was indeed struck 
 with the fact, as the reader of them may be, that Mr 
 
 1 Of these, some farther extracts may be given: — " Beyrout, 
 May 17, 1845. — A civil war, and one of extermination, reigns at 
 this moment in the mountains, between the Druses and the Chris- 
 tians; and during the last fifteen days the horrors we have seen 
 perpetrated are dreadful. On every side the sounds of battle are 
 heard, and nothing is seen but fire and flames, — houses, villages, 
 churches, and convents, being reciprocally a prey to the flames. At 
 the moment I write, we have before us the appalling spectacle of 
 no less than eleven villages, and a number of Maronite churches 
 and convents in flames." — (From the Malta Times.) " The news 
 from, this country is dreadful — it sickens the heart. Besides the 
 accounts given in the Levant papers — which of course must pal- 
 liate the events as much as possible — we have seen letters from 
 Beyrout which give a horrible account of Syria in general, and of 
 Lebanon in particular. For fifteen days previously, wholesale 
 murder, burning, and every possible crime was committed. The 
 greater part of the villages and towns in the high lands are in 
 ashes." — (The Impartial of Smyrna.) " Christian, Druse, and 
 mixed villages are all burnt." — Times, June 5, 1845. 
 
240 
 
 JUDEA. 
 
 Wood's information, thus incidentally communicated, is 
 to the very letter, a confirmation of the truth of a predic- 
 tion concerning Lebanon, — as marked in the margin of 
 the English Bibles, in closer conformity to the original 
 than the text — Lebanon is withered away} 
 
 When such testimonies as those previously adduced had 
 been as unconsciously and officially given, there was not 
 long delay till the remnant of Syria — that part of it 
 which above all others was the most populous and pros- 
 perous — was spared no longer — and it speedily became 
 as desolate as that portion of the land which was anciently 
 the exclusive possession of the sons of Jacob. 
 
 / will cut off the inhabitant from the plain of Aven, 
 literally, as in the margin, Bikath-aven. 2 " Nothing can 
 be more striking," says Burckhardt, as he wrote in 1810, 
 " than a comparison of the fertile but uncultivated dis- 
 tricts of Behaa and Baalbec, with the rocky mountains, 
 in the opposite direction, where, notwithstanding that 
 nature seems to afford nothing for the sustenance of the 
 inhabitants, numerous villages flourish. "3 The Behaa is 
 the plain between Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, and is 
 doubtless the same as Bikath- Aven — the plain of idols, 
 situated as one of the greatest of idolatrous temples 
 there was, — and lying as it does between Damascus 
 and Beth-eden, in Lebanon, with both which names 
 and places it is associated in the prophetic record. 
 Long one of the most populous as fertile regions of Asia, 
 for the possession of which the kings of Syria and of 
 Egypt often contended in wars in which thousands fell, 
 the inliabitants have been cut off from its uncultivated 
 wastes — now as deserted and desolate as Esdraelon and 
 Sharon, even where villages were thickly clustered on the 
 Isa. xxxiii. 9. 2 Amos i. 5. 3 Buvckhardt's Syria, p. 20. 
 
LEBANON. 
 
 241 
 
 " rocky mountains" which enclose it. In passing across 
 it, in about three hours, from the ruins of Baalbec to 
 Lebanon, we saw not a village in the plain, and did not 
 meet a man. It was a plain of idols, as one of the most 
 magnificent temples ever built by man was situated in it, 
 and still bears in its stupendous ruin, the name of the 
 chief of the heathen gods — Baal-bec ; and fertile as any 
 region of Syria, it is " an uncultivated district," from 
 which its once teeming population has been swept, and is 
 now, as bearing one of the noblest of ruins, visited by 
 strangers who cannot inspect its ruins without trampling 
 under foot the broken idols in their ruined temple. 
 
 Lebanon was celebrated for the extent of its forests, 
 and especially for the size and excellency of its cedars. 
 It abounded also in the pine, the cypress, and the vine, 
 &c. Its forest was a Scriptural figure of the glory of 
 Assyria and of Egypt ; and its fall too was a figure of 
 theirs. The high ones of stature shall be hewn down. 
 Lebanon shall fall mightily } To itself the prophecy ex- 
 clusively applies, Lebanon is ashamed, and withered away . 
 — Open thy doors, 0 Lebanon, that the fire may devour 
 thy cedars. Howl fir-tree, for the cedar is fallen, because 
 the gallants are spoiled. 2 In describing Egypt's fall, it 
 is said, Thou shalt be brought down with the teees op 
 Eden, unto the nether parts of the earth* The forest of 
 the vintage is come down — but still, as in other things, a 
 gleaning remains, even of the glory of the forest of Leba- 
 non. Where anciently it stood, the region, for many 
 miles around, is bleak, desolate, and bare, as if not a single 
 tree of renown had ever there adorned the wilderness. 
 But seen at a distance, in descending from the loftiest 
 heights of Lebanon, there is one covered spot — as if by a 
 
 1 Isaiah x. 33, 34. 2 Zech. xi. 1,2. 3 Ezek. xxxi. 18. 
 
 K 
 
24:2 
 
 LEBANON. 
 
 left sheaf in a shorn field — in which a few cedars worthy 
 of Lebanon are seen, of which the writer may now testify, 
 having rested during a Sabbath under their shade. 
 
 Of Lebanon, Yolney says, "Towards Lebanon the 
 mountains are lofty, but they are covered in many places 
 with as much earth as fits them for cultivation by indus- 
 try and labour. There, amidst the crags of the rocks, 
 may be seen the no very magnificent remains of the 
 boasted cedars." 1 In a note, he adds, that " there are 
 but four or five of these trees which deserve any notice." 
 The dark speck, where the forest of Lebanon spread wide- 
 ly on every side, is now indeed so small a gleaning of its 
 ancient glory, that, in the words of the prophet, thus 
 tauntingly confirmed by the sceptic, Lebanon is ashamed. 
 But the magnitude of the few old cedars that yet remain 
 may shame the goodliest trees of " Provence and Lom- 
 bardy," as much as their gay carpeting shows that Israel's 
 land now blushes in its withered herbs. Eight cedars 2 — 
 the smallest of which all the forests of France would, 
 if they could, boast of as their " king" — are magnificent 
 remains, that show what a goodly mountain Lebanon was, 
 and how withering is that word which has left them alone, 
 with smaller trees on a knoll or little hill. And fallen as 
 the forest is, as fell the proud Assyrian whom it typified in 
 his pride, what was true of him is true of it ; and the 
 scoff of the sceptics at its four or five trees that deserve 
 any notice, may show how he could not here write a note 
 ! Travels, vol. i. p. 292. 
 
 2 Two are thirty- eight feet in circumference. The rest which we 
 measured are 33^ feet, 31 feet 10 inches, 29 feet, 28|, 27|, and 
 22 feet, round the trunks, the least of these being thus upwards 
 of seven yards, and the largest nearly thirteen yards in girth. 
 Some of these have been stated by others as larger, and are so 
 nearer to the root. They are as lofty as they are large. 
 
LEBANON. 
 
 243 
 
 of a few words, or state a minute fact, without giving a 
 literal interpretation to an apparently symbolical predic- 
 tion. The rest of the trees of his forest shall be few that 
 a child may write them. Assyria and Egypt have been 
 brought down, with the trees of Eden. — But, though the 
 proofs of inspiration be complete, the end is not yet. Le- 
 banon may now be ashamed beside Gilead. But of both 
 it is written, when civil wars and all others shall be no 
 more, " / will bring them into the land of Gilead and 
 Lebanon, and place shall not be found for them." And 
 when all figures of judgments shall have passed away, and 
 Israel shall be the Lord's inheritance, the Egyptian shall 
 serve with the Assyrian. 
 
2U 
 
 SAM AW A. 
 
 SAMAKIA AND JEEUSALEM. 
 
 The separate capitals of Israel and of J udah have their 
 assigned burdens resting on them, to which they bear 
 witness, as do Bethel, Hazor, and Chorazin to theirs. 
 
 Among such a multiplicity of prophecies, where the 
 prediction and the fulfilment of each is a miracle, it is 
 almost impossible to select any as more wonderful than 
 the rest. But those concerning Samaria are not the least 
 remarkable. That city was, for a long period, the capital 
 of the ten tribes of Israel. Herod the Great enlarged 
 and adorned it, and, in honour of Augustus C«sar, gave 
 it the name of Sebaste. There are many ancient medals 
 which were struck there. 1 It was the seat of a bishopric, 
 as the subscription of some of its bishops to the acts of 
 ancient councils attests. Its history is thus brought down 
 to a period unquestionably far remote from the time of 
 the prediction ; and the narrative of a traveller, which 
 alludes not to the prophecy, and which has even been un- 
 noticed by commentators, shows its complete fulfilment. 
 Besides other passages which speak of its extinction as a 
 city, the word of the Lord which Micah saw concerning 
 Samaria, is — " I will make Samaria as a heap of the 
 field, and as plantings of a vineyard: and I will pour 
 down the stones thereof into the valley; and I will discover 
 the foundations thereof."' 2 And " this great city is now 
 wholly converted into gardens ; and all the tokens that re- 
 main to testify that there ever has been such a place, are 
 only on the north side, a large square piazza encompassed 
 
 1 Calmet's Dictionary. Relandi Paliestina, p. 981. 
 
 2 Micah i. G. 
 
SAMARIA. 
 
 245 
 
 with pillars, and on the east some poor remains of a 
 great church." i Such was the first notice of that ancient 
 capital given hy Maundrell in 1696, and it is confirmed 
 by Mr Buckingham in 1816 : "The relative distance, 
 local position, and unaltered name of Sehaste, leave no 
 douht as to the identity of its site ; and," he adds, " its 
 local features are equally seen in the threat of Micah." 
 
 Such was the hrief notice of the ancient capital of Israel, 
 contained in many editions of this treatise. But hav- 
 ing visited the interesting spot, the author cannot forbear 
 from glancing at the prophetic history of Samaria, and 
 also pointing more minutely to its local features as they 
 are indeed clearly seen in the threatenings of the pro- 
 phets. A daguerreotype view may now set its cityless 
 hill before the eye of the reader. 
 
 In the origin of its history, the hill of Samaria was 
 bought of Shemer, by Omri king of Israel, who built on it 
 a city, which, after the name of Shemer, owner of the 
 hill, he called Samaria. 2 Few seats of royalty can rival 
 its princely site. In regard at least to its capabilities for 
 strength or beauty, separately, far more conjointly, it 
 could scarcely be surpassed. Its local position is most 
 peculiar. Of a finely varied and oblong form, the iso- 
 lated hill of Samaria, with a flattened summit, seems as 
 if it had been raised by nature at " the head of the fat 
 valley," to be at once a stronghold and royal seat. And 
 judgment-stricken as it is, none can stand on the unco- 
 
 1 Maundrell's Travels, p. 78. Buckingham's Travels, pp. 511, 
 512. It has also been described in similar terms by other travel- 
 lers. The stones are poured down into the valley, the foundations 
 discovered, and there is now only to be seen " the hill where once 
 stood Samaria." Nabulus has been mistaken by one traveller for 
 the ancient Samaria. 
 
 2 1 Kings xvi. 24. 
 
1. 
 
 246 SAMARIA. 
 
 vered foundations of the vanished city, and look, from 
 among its solitary columns, on the gleanings of its ancient 
 glory all around, without beholding, as it were, in the 
 mind's or the memory's eye, the once glorious beauty of 
 the city and the scene, ere ever the flower that bloomed 
 there in all its gorgeous beauty had faded, or " the crown 
 of pride" that was seated there had been trampled under 
 foot. On one side, beyond the narrow intervening vale, 
 where native loveliness in wild luxuriance lingers still, the 
 terraced hills which bound the head of the valley, rise 
 gently from the plain, as if spread forth to view in all their 
 natural richness, and must once have formed a noble por- 
 tion of the scene of " glorious beauty," which the hang- 
 ing gardens of Babylon could have but faintly imitated. 
 And on the other, the valley, varied in its features, but 
 unvaried in natural fertility, spreads forth into a wide 
 expanse, as if unfolding the ancient glory of Israel, while 
 as yet there was no leanness there. 
 
 But Samaria was as noted for its wickedness as for its 
 beauty ; and therefore it is marked all over with judgments. 
 Omri, the king of Israel, and founder of Samaria, wrought 
 evil in the eyes of the Lord; and did worse than all that 
 were before him. But Ahab, his son, and other successors 
 in his stead, exceeded him in iniquity. Samaria became 
 the seat of idolatry and wickedness ; and the word of the 
 Lord went forth against it. 
 
 The head of Ephraim is Samaria. 1 Woe to the crown 
 of pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim, whose glorious 
 beauty is as a fading flower, which are on the head of 
 the fat valleys of them that are overcome with wine; 
 Behold the Lord hath a mighty and strong arm, which, 
 as a tempest of hail and a destroying storm, as a flood of 
 
 1 Isaiah vii. 9. 
 
SAMARIA. 
 
 247 
 
 mighty water overflowing, shall cast down to the earth 
 with the hand. The crown of pride, the drunkards of 
 Ephraim, shall be trodden under feet: and the glorious 
 beauty which is on the head of the fat valley shall be a 
 fading flower , and as the hasty fruit before the summer; 
 which, when he that looketh upon it seeth, while it is yet in 
 his hand he eateth it up. 1 I will cause to cease the king- 
 dom of the house of Israel. 3 I will hedge up the way 
 with thorns, and make a wall, that she shall not find her 
 paths} None shall deliver her out of mine hand. I 
 will also cause her mirth to cease, her feast days, her new 
 moons, and her Sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts. And 
 I will destroy her vines and her fig-trees, whereof she hath 
 said, These are my rewards that my lovers have given 
 me: and I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the 
 field shall eat them.* The pride of Israel doth testify 
 to his face: therefore shall Israel and Ephraim fall in 
 their iniquity. 5 They have deeply corrupted themselves, 
 therefore he will remember their iniquity, he will visit 
 their sins. — As for Ephraim, their glory shall fly away 
 like a bird. The inhabitants of Samaria shall mourn 
 over it— for the glory thereof, because it is departed from 
 it. As for Samaria, her king is cut off as the foam up- 
 on the water. 6 Samaria shall become desolate : for she 
 hath rebelled against her God. 1 The word of the Lord 
 which Micah saw concerning Samaria — What is the 
 transgression of Jacob ? is it not Samaria ? — Therefore 
 I will make Samaria as an heap of the field, and as plant- 
 ings of a vineyard. And I will pour down the stones 
 thereof into the valley ; and I will discover the foundations 
 thereof For the statutes of Omri are kept, and all 
 
 1 Isaiah xxviii. 1-4. 2 Hos. i. 4. 3 Hos. ii. 6. 4 Ibid. v. 5. 
 5 Hos. ii. 10-12. 6 Ibid. x. 5,7. 7 Ibid. xiii. 16. 
 
248 
 
 SAMAEIA. 
 
 the works of the house of Ahab, and ye walk in all 
 their counsels, that I should make you a desolation. 1 Woe 
 to them that are at ease in Zion, and trust in the mountain 
 of Samaria, which are named chief of the nations — that 
 lie upon beds of ivory, and stretch themselves upon their 
 couches — that chaunt to the sound of the viol, and drink 
 wine in bowls — but they are not grieved for the affliction 
 of Joseph: therefore now shall they go captive with the first 
 that go captive.' 1 
 
 The ten tribes, whose capital was Samaria, were the 
 first to go captive. The king of Assyria came up through- 
 out all the land, and went up to Samaria, and besieged 
 it three years; and he took Samaria, and carried Israel 
 away into Assyria. And the glory of Ephraim flew aivay 
 like a bird. But the predicted doom of the land of Israel, 
 and of the city of Samaria, was not to be taken away till 
 the captivity of Israel should also cease. Eebuilt and de- 
 stroyed anew, it has ever met its yet irrevocable fate. After 
 the expulsion of the Israelites, its new inhabitants, brought 
 by the king of Assyria from Babylon, Cuthah and Hamath, 
 &c. were called by its name. But it had yet to be cast 
 down and to be laid desolate. And the Samaritans, lit- 
 tle more than a century before the Christian era, having, 
 by inflicting injuries on a colony of the Jews, provoked 
 the wrath of Hyrcanus, the ethnarch and high-priest of 
 Judea, he besieged Samaria, and encompassed it with a 
 ditch and double wall, eighty furlongs, or ten miles in 
 length. His sons Antigonus and Aristobulus were set 
 over the siege. Suffering the greatest privations, and 
 reduced to extreme distress, the Samaritans invoked the 
 aid of Antiochus Cyzicenes, who reigned at Damascus 
 over Coele- Syria and Phoenicia. Antiochus was defeated, 
 1 Micah i. G; vi. 16. 2 Amos vi. 1-7. 3 2 Kings xvii. 5, 6. 
 
SAMARIA. 
 
 24:9 
 
 and all his aid was in vain, though he ravaged the land of 
 Israel and Judea. Samaria was again invested. Her 
 way was hedged up, walled with a wall she could not find 
 her path. And the glorious beauty was as a fading flower , 
 and as the hasty fruit before the summer, which, when he 
 that looketh upon it seeth, while it is yet in his hand he eat- 
 eth it. After a year's siege, it was no sooner in the hand of 
 Hyrcanus, than he destroyed it. Having taken Samaria, 
 he demolished it utterly, till he left not any vestige of a 
 city. 1 Though rebuilt by Gabinius, proconsul of Syria, 
 and afterwards enlarged and adorned by Herod the Great, 
 neither consul nor king could avert its fate. And now, 
 no city there, " the hill on which stood Samaria" is alone 
 to be seen, bearing in its " features" the threatenings of 
 the prophets. 
 
 Behold the Lord hath a mighty and strong arm, which, 
 as a destroying storm, — shall cast down to the earth 
 with the hand. — Samaria has been cast down to the earth. 
 The crown of pride has been trodden under foot. Not a 
 single portion of a wall of any ancient edifice is standing. 
 There are only the remains of a comparatively modern 
 church. Samaria is no more. It extended over the 
 whole summit, and partly the sides of the hill — as still 
 seen in its columns that yet stand, some of which are 
 near to the village, others, whether standing or broken, in 
 various places, while a colonnade still stands, as there 
 also its monument, on the western extremity the most 
 remote from the village, as faintly seen in the plate. But 
 where it stood in its glory, the ruined city has not been 
 suffered to lie. 
 
 I will make Samaria as a heap of the field, and as 
 plantings of a vineyard. Stones abound in the moun- 
 1 Joseph. Ant. xiii. c. x. 2, 3. 
 
250 
 
 SAMARIA. 
 
 tainous regions of Israel ; and it is evident, that in their 
 terraced vineyards the stones have heen gathered out of 
 the level spaces, which are occupied only by the soil, 
 and when freed from them were fitted for planting. In 
 some fields in the valleys, the stones have been gathered 
 up, and have been cast into heaps, which thus form liter- 
 ally " heaps of the field." The author, on being asked, 
 while first approaching Samaria, what he understood by 
 heaps of the field, unhesitatingly answered, as thus ex- 
 plained, such heaps as had been passed the preceding day. 1 
 Samaria, it is recorded, was utterly demolished, immedi- 
 ately after it was taken by Aristobulus, and must then have 
 formed a great mass of ruins. From these it was raised 
 again by Gabinius and by Herod the Great, who enlarged 
 and adorned it, to render it worthy of its new name, which 
 he gave to Augustus, who had given him a kingdom. 
 But again it has been cast down, and more lowly than 
 before. It is even reduced to be as an heap of the 
 field. The stones which yet lie on its surface, bereaved 
 of the glory that might seem to hover around a ruin, 
 however defaced, have been gathered singly, and cast 
 into heaps, as if they were heaps of a field, and not the 
 remains of a capital. The ground has been cleared of 
 them to form the gardens or patches of cultivated 
 ground possessed by the inhabitants of the wretched vil- 
 lage which stands on the extremity of the site of the an- 
 cient city. The stones, as if in a field or vineyard, have 
 manifestly been gathered up in heaps, to prepare the 
 ground for being sown or planted. Quadrangular lines 
 of columns, in an open space on the north side of the hill, 
 towards its base, marking the site of some public building, 
 likely the forum as conjectured by Count Portalis, now 
 
 1 Narrative by Bonar and M'Cheync, p. 203. 
 
SAMARIA. 
 
 251 
 
 stand in afield which was covered when we saw it with a 
 crop of ripe barley, that was overtopped in various places 
 with sixteen heaps of stones within the space inclosed by 
 the ancient colonnade; and thus as literally heaps of the 
 field, they have also taken the predicted form of the 
 stricken and departed city, and are useful in illustration of 
 the word of the Lord, though they cannot show with cer- 
 tainty what building was there thronged with those who 
 looked to other laws more than to the decalogue, and 
 were lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God. Of all 
 the glory of the royal city of Samaria, nothing greater 
 remains than an heap of the field. But only a very small 
 portion of it now rests where its crown of pride rose 
 high ; for it is farther said, 
 
 / will pour down the stones thereof into the valley, <$fc. 
 The road which ascends the hill of Samaria is inclosed on 
 both sides by stones, so rudely piled up, that they may 
 be said to be heaped rather than to be built. Yet all 
 the way they testify that the stones which once formed 
 Samaria have been cast down. They have evidently per- 
 tained to ancient buildings, for broken capitals, and pe- 
 destals, and other fragments of columns and of hewn 
 stones, may be seen lying confusedly together. And not 
 there only, but all along the sloping sides of the hill, from 
 its summit to its base, lie many stones, of various forms, 
 and fragments of columns, whose form or massiveness lias 
 staid their course, manifestly showing that they have been 
 cast down, and could not of themselves have fallen where 
 they lie. The progress of the stones of Samaria, when 
 cast down by the hand, or poured down into the valley, 
 maybe traced the whole way, from the site of the city on 
 the top of the hill to the very bottom of the valley, where 
 
252 
 
 SAMARIA. 
 
 chiefly they abound, either partially strewed over it, (see 
 plate,) or gathered into heaps among the trees, that the 
 beasts of the field may the more freely eat. 
 
 I will discover the foundations thereof. In various 
 places along the summit of the hill, monolith-columns, 
 the ornaments of ancient buildings, and colonnades, now 
 stand alone without princely edifices, or any other, to 
 adorn. The site of the ancient city — except on the small 
 point where the poor village of Sabustieh, with scarcely 
 two hundred inhabitants, still stands — is as destitute of 
 houses as if no capital had ever been there, and no city 
 had ever covered it. The crown of pride has been 
 wholly cast down. The very ruins, unlike those of other 
 cities, lie not where they fell, to keep the foundations 
 from view. These are indeed discovered and laid bare. 
 The hewn stones, that once or oftener were erected into 
 the city of Samaria or Sebaste, have been cast down to 
 the ground, and have been thrown into heaps, or, in far 
 larger quantities, have been poured down into the valley. 
 The proud metropolis, though that of Israel, where false 
 gods were worshipped, has wholly disappeared : and the 
 hill is now seen without its city, of which scarcely a ves- 
 tige, except some of the columns that adorned it in the 
 days of Herod, remains where it stood. Without the 
 wreck of a ruin, or any stones to cover them, founda- 
 tions alone remain. Some of these are still discernible 
 on the west of the village. But on the author's second 
 visit, immediately after the ingathering of the harvest, 
 they were covered with heaps of unthrashed barley, be- 
 side a thrashing-floor, like to which Samaria has been. 
 The foundations are now so level with the ground, that 
 they would scarcely disfigure it. The foundations of walls 
 
SAMARIA. 
 
 253 
 
 are traceable, where overgrown with grass for the leasts 
 of the field to eat. And in some instances, all uncover- 
 ed, they are plainly seen, as low as when they first were 
 laid, in the long parallel lines of the then future hut now 
 fallen and vanished edifices, in which unholy men of 
 Israel kept the statutes of Omri, and broke the command- 
 ments of their God ; chaunted to the sound of the viol, 
 while they would not listen to the voice of the prophets ; 
 and were at ease in Zion, while they would not mourn 
 for the afflictions of Joseph; and trusted in the mountain 
 of Samaria, Avhile those very judgments were sounding in 
 their ears, which that mountain itself has not heard in vain. 
 
 In those days of Baalim, wherein Israel burned incense 
 to them, and decked herself with jewels, and went after 
 her lovers, and forgat the Lord, the citizens of her 
 adopted and illegitimate capital, the hine of Bashan, that 
 dwelt in the mountain of Samaria, oppressed the poor, 
 and crushed the needy, and said unto their masters, 
 Bring, and let us drink. The drunkards of Ephraim 
 erred through wine, and through strong drink were out 
 of the way; they erred in vision, and stumbled in judg- 
 ment, and wrought woe to Israel. " I will cause all her 
 mirth to cease, her feast-days, her new-moons, and her 
 sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts. I will destroy her 
 vines and her fig-trees; and I will make them a forest, 
 and the leasts of the field shall eat them." 1 And now, 
 while Samaria is desolate, and the days of her iniquity 
 have been visited upon her, the beasts of the field browse 
 among the trees in the bottom of the valley and hills; and 
 on the grassy mounds, — rising one above another, that 
 girt the lower part of the hill of Samaria, and abound also 
 on those that adjoin it, retaining the form of terraced 
 1 Hosea ii. 11, 12. 
 
254: 
 
 JERUSALEM. 
 
 vineyards, — the beasts of the field now pasture where the 
 vines circled, as in ringlets, the head of the fat valley on 
 which Samaria was a crown of pride; and so utterly are her 
 vineyards destroyed, that it was only after much search- 
 ing that a leaf of a wild vine could he found. 
 
 But Samaria has to assume an altered and a smiling 
 aspect, when she shall see her native children return to 
 her again. " Behold, I will allure her, saith the Lord, 
 and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably 
 unto her, and I will give her her vineyards from hence, 
 and the valley of Achor for a door of hope: she shall sing 
 there, as in the day of her youth, as in the day when she 
 came forth out of the land of Egypt. I will betroth 
 thee unto me for ever — in righteousness, and in judgment, 
 and in loving-kindness, and in mercies, and in faithful- 
 ness. 1 Thou shalt yet plant vines upon the mountains of 
 Samaria, 0 virgin of Israel: the planters shall plant, and 
 shall eat them as common things. For there shall be a 
 day that the watchmen upon Mount Ephraim shall cry, 
 Arise ye, and let us go up to Zion unto the Lord our 
 God. 2 The house of Jacob shall possess the fields of 
 Samaria." 3 And, while the crown of pride has been 
 trodden under the feet of men and of beasts, in that day 
 shall the Lord of hosts be for a crown of glory, and for 
 a diadem of beauty, to the residue of his people/ the 
 remnant of Israel. 
 
 But the predicted fate of Jerusalem has been more 
 conspicuously displayed, and more fully illustrated, than 
 that of the capital of the ten tribes of Israel. It formed 
 the theme of prophecy from the death-bed of Jacob, — 
 
 1 Hosea ii. 14, 15, 19. 2 Jer. xxxi. 5, 6. 
 
 3 Obad. 19. 4 Isaiah xxviii. 5. 
 
JERUSALEM. 
 
 255 
 
 and as the seat of the government of the children of 
 Judah, the sceptre departed not from it till the Messiah 
 appeared, on the expiration of seventeen hundred years 
 after the death of the Patriarch, and till the period of its 
 desolation, prophesied of by Daniel, had arrived. A des- 
 tiny diametrically opposite to the former, then awaited it, 
 even for a longer duration; and ere its greatness was 
 gone, even at the very time when it was crowded with 
 Jews, from all quarters, resorting to the feast, and when 
 it was inhabited by a numerous population dwelling in 
 security and peace, its doom was denounced, — that it 
 was to be trodden down of the Gentiles, till the times of 
 the Gentiles should be fulfilled. The times of the Gen- 
 tiles are not yet fulfilled, and Jerusalem is still trodden 
 down of the Gentiles. The Jews have often attempted 
 to recover it; no distance of space or of time can separate 
 it from their affections; they perform their devotions 
 with their faces towards it, as if it were the object of 
 their worship as well as of their love ; and although their 
 desire to return be so strong, fixed, and indelible, that 
 every Jew, in every generation, counts himself an exile; 
 yet they have never been able to rebuild their temple, 
 nor to recover Jerusalem from the hands of the Gentiles. 
 But greater power than that of a proscribed and exiled 
 race has been added to their own, in attempting to frus- 
 trate the counsel that professed to be of God. Julian, 
 the emperor of the Eomans, not only permitted, but in- 
 vited the Jews to rebuild Jerusalem and their temple ; 
 and promised to re-establish them in their paternal city. 
 By that single act, more than by all his writings, he 
 might have destroyed the credibility of the gospel, and 
 restored his beloved but deserted paganism. The zeal 
 of the Jews was equal to his own ; and the work was be- 
 
256 
 
 JERUSALEM. 
 
 gun by laying again the foundations of the temple. In 
 the space of three days, Titus had formerly encompassed 
 that city with a wall when it was crowded with his ene- 
 mies ; and, instead of being obstructed, that great work, 
 when it was confirmatory of an express prediction of 
 Jesus, was completed with an astonishing celerity; — and 
 what could hinder the emperor of Eome from building a 
 temple at Jerusalem, when every J ew was zealous for the 
 work? Nothing appeared against it but a single sen- 
 tence uttered, some centuries before, by one who had been 
 crucified. If that word had been of man, would all the 
 power of the monarch of the world have been thwarted in 
 opposing it ? And why did not Julian, with all his in- 
 veterate enmity and laborious opposition to Christianity, 
 execute a work so easy and desirable ? A heathen his- 
 torian relates, that fearful balls of fire, bursting from the 
 earth, sometimes burned the workmen, rendered the 
 place inaccessible, and caused them to desist from the 
 undertaking. 1 The same narrative is attested by others. 
 
 1 " Imperii sui memoriam magnitudine operum gestiens propa- 
 gare, ambitiosum quondam apud Hierosolymam templum, quod 
 post multa et interneciva certamina, obsidente Vespasiano, postea- 
 que Tito, a?gre est expugnatum, instaurare sumptibus cogitabat 
 immodicis; negotiumque maturandum Alypio dederat Antioch- 
 ensi, qui olim Britannias curaverat pro praefectis. Cum itaque 
 rei eidem instaret Alypius, juvaretque provinciae rector, metuendi 
 globi flammarum, prope fundamenta, crebis assultibus erumpentes, 
 fecere locum exustis aliquoties operantibus inaccessum ; hocque 
 modo, elemento destinatius repellente, cessavit inceptum." (Am- 
 mian. Marcell. lib. xxii. cap. i. sect. 2, 3. Grot, de Ver. &c. 
 Rufini Hist. Eccles. lib. i. c. xxxvii. Socrat. lib. ii. c. xvii. 
 Theodoret. lib. iii. c. xvii. Sozomen. lib. v. c. xxi. Cassidior. 
 Hist. Tripart. lib. vi. c. xliii. Nicephor. Callis. lib. x. c. xxxii. 
 Greg. Nazianz. in Julian. Orat. ii. Chrysostom. de L. Bab. Mart, 
 et contra Judaeos, iii. p. 491. Lind. — Vide Am. Mar. torn, iii 
 p. 2.) 
 
JERUSALEM. 
 
 257 
 
 Chrysostom, who was a living witness, appealed to the 
 existing state of the foundations, and to the universal 
 testimony which was given of the fact. The historical 
 evidence was too strong even for the scepticism of Gibhon 
 altogether to gainsay ; and brought him to the acknow- 
 ledgment that such authority must astonish an incredu- 
 lous mind. Even independently of the miraculous inter- 
 position, the fulfilment is the same. The attempt was 
 made avowedly, and it was abandoned without any appar- 
 ent cause. It was never accomplished; and the prophecy 
 stands fulfilled. But, even if the attempt of Julian had 
 never been made, the truth of the prophecy itself is un- 
 assailable. The Jews have never been reinstated in 
 Judea. Jerusalem has ever been trodden down of the 
 Gentiles. The edict of Adrian was renewed by the suc- 
 cessors of Julian ; and no Jews could approach unto J e- 
 rusalem but by bribery or by stealth. For many ages it 
 was a spot unlawful for them to touch. In the crusades, 
 all the power of Europe was employed to rescue Jerusa- 
 lem from the heathens, but equally in vain. It has been 
 trodden down for nearly eighteen centuries by its suc- 
 cessive masters ; by Komans, Grecians, Persians, Sara- 
 cens, Mamelukes, Turks, Christians ; and again by the 
 worst of rulers, the Arabs and the Turks. And could 
 any thing be more improbable to have happened, or more 
 impossible to have been foreseen by man, than that any 
 people should be banished from their own capital and 
 country, and remain expelled and expatriated for nearly 
 eighteen hundred years? Did the same fate ever befall 
 any nation, though no prophecy existed respecting it? 
 Is there any doctrine in Scripture so hard to be believed 
 as was this single fact at the period of its prediction? 
 And even with the example of the Jews before us, is it 
 
 s 
 
258 
 
 JERUSALEM. 
 
 likely, or is it credible, or who can foretel, that the pre- 
 sent inhabitants of any country upon earth shall be ba- 
 nished into all nations, — retain their distinctive charac- 
 ter, — meet with an unparalleled fate, — continue a peo- 
 ple, — without a government and without a country, — and 
 remain for an indefinite period, exceeding seventeen hun- 
 dred years, till the fulfilment of a prescribed event to be 
 accomplished after so many generations? Must not the 
 knowledge of such truths be derived from that prescience 
 alone which scans alike the will and the ways of mortals, 
 the actions of future nations, and the history of the latest 
 generations? 
 
 Jerusalem was the city which the Lord did choose to 
 place his name there. He loved the gates of Zion more 
 than all the dwellings of Jacob. But while the land has 
 been defiled, and the people have been scattered abroad, 
 these gates have long fallen, and Zion has often been 
 filled with judgment. The tomb of David stands without 
 the wall of the present city ; but the palaces of Jerusalem 
 have disappeared from Mount Zion. Not a vestige of its 
 bulwarks that long withstood Soman hosts remains ; and 
 the city of David that stood on Zion, has wholly vanish- 
 ed, as if that site of Israelitish royalty, like Samaria the 
 other, had never been reclaimed from the plough. Only a 
 small portion of the mount is now enclosed within the walls 
 of the modern J erusalem ; and Mount Zion may now be 
 seen, as each successive traveller can testify, as the pro- 
 phet saw it in vision, ploughed as a field, (see frontis- 
 piece.) In other places throughout the land, grain is 
 sown around closer and larger olives than those of Zion 
 as it is among them, while many open spaces or fields are 
 there given up entirely to the plough. " At the time I 
 visited this sacred ground," says Dr Richardson, " one 
 
JERUSALEM. 
 
 259 
 
 part of it supported a crop of barley, another was under- 
 going the labour of the plough, and the soil turned up 
 consisted of stone and lime mixed with earth, such as is 
 usually met with in the foundations of ruined cities. It 
 is nearly a mile in circumference. We have here another 
 remarkable instance of the special fulfilment of prophecy ; 
 therefore shall Zion for your sokes be ploughed as a 
 field." 1 Zion testifies against her children. On his first 
 visit to Zion, the writer of these pages, together with his 
 friends, gathered some ears of barley from a field that 
 had been ploughed and reaped : but, on the last, we saw 
 the plough, as in any other field, actually cleaving the soil 
 of Zion. 
 
 And the mountain of the house as the high places of 
 the forest.'* Jerusalem lay in heaps, after it was besieged, 
 taken, and destroyed by the Chaldeans, and also by the 
 Eomans. To this day the mosque of Omar maybe seen, 
 as in the plate, as the crescent of Mahomet towers over it, 
 where the nobler temple of Solomon stood in its glory. 
 The mountain of the house, with its trees around it, may 
 still be said to be " as the high places of the forest," de- 
 voted as it is, as were they, to the cause of false religion, 
 and not to the worship of the Holy One of Israel. But 
 the words of truth immediately subjoined to these denun- 
 ciations of the prophet, tell of other times than these in 
 which many a crescent, as now, glitters over it, in token 
 that Jerusalem is still trodden down of the Gentiles. 
 But in the last days it shall come to pass, that the 
 mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established 
 in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted 
 above the hills; and people shall flow unto it. And 
 
 1 Richardson's Travels, p. 349. Mic. iii. 12. Jer. xxvi. 18. 
 
 2 Mic. iii. 1, 2. 
 
260 
 
 JEKUSALEM. 
 
 many nations shall come and say, Come and let us go to 
 the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God 
 of Jacob, Qc. 1 
 
 Though a ploughshare did pass over the consecrated 
 ground, as a sign of perpetual interdiction, Zion shall be 
 redeemed with judgment, and they that return of her 
 with righteousness. 2 The Lord is jealous for Zion : and 
 will return unto it. There is a coming year of recom- 
 mences for the controversy of Zion? " Thou, 0 Lord, 
 shalt arise and have mercy upon Zion: for the time to 
 favour her, yea, the set time, is come. For thy servants 
 take pleasure in her stones, and favour the dust thereof. 
 So the heathen shall fear the name of the Lord, and all 
 the kings of the earth thy glory. When the Lord shall 
 build up Zion he shall appear in his glory. He will re- 
 gard the prayer of the destitute, and not despise their 
 prayer. This shall be written for the generation to come; 
 and the people which shall be created shall praise the 
 Lord," Ps. cii. 13, &c. The place of the sanctuary of 
 the Lord shall yet be beautified. Jerusalem, not Borne, 
 shall be " the eternal city." For thus it is written, " The 
 sons of them that afflicted thee shall come bending unto 
 thee : and all they that despised thee shall bow themselves 
 down at the soles of thy feet; and they shall call thee the 
 city of the Lord, the Zion of the Holy One of Israel. 
 Whereas thou hast been forsaken and hated, so that no 
 man went through thee; I will make thee an eternal 
 excellency, a joy of many generations. — I, the Lord, will 
 hasten it in his time." Isa. lx. 14, &c. 
 
 But the prophecies are not confined to the land of 
 Judea ; they are equally unlimited in their range over 
 
 1 Mic. iv. 1, 2. Isa. ii. 2, 3. 
 
 2 Isaiah i. 27. 3 Isaiah xxxiv. 8. 
 
JERUSALEM. 
 
 261 
 
 space as over time. After a lapse of many ages, the 
 countries around Judea are now beginning to be known. 
 And each succeeding traveller, in the communication of 
 new discoveries concerning them, is gradually unfolding 
 the very description which the prophets gave of their po- 
 verty and desolation, at the time of their great prosperity 
 and luxuriance. The countries of the Ammonites, of the 
 Moabites, of the Edomites, or inhabitants of Idumea, and 
 of the Philistines, all bordered with Judea, and each is 
 the theme of prophecy. The relative positions of them 
 all are distinctly defined in Scripture, and have been 
 clearly ascertained. 1 And the territories of the ancient 
 enemies of the Jews, long overrun by the enemies of 
 Christianity, present many a proof of the inspiration of 
 the Jewish Scriptures, and of the truth of the Christian 
 religion. 
 
 1 Kelandi Palsestina Illustrate; D'Anville's Map; Maps in Vol- 
 ney's, Burckhardt's, and Buckingham's Travels; Well's Scripture 
 Geography; Gibbon's History; Shaw's Travels, &c. 
 
262 
 
 AMMON. 
 
 CHAPTEK VI. 
 
 AMMON. 
 
 The country anciently peopled by the Ammonites, is 
 situated to the east of Palestine, and is now possessed 
 partly by the Arabs and by the Turks. It is naturally 
 one of the most fertile provinces of Syria, and it was for 
 many ages one of the most populous. The Ammonites 
 often invaded the land of Israel : and at one period, united 
 with the Moabites, they retained possession of a great 
 part of it, and grievously oppressed the Israelites for the 
 space of eighteen years. Jephthah repulsed them, and 
 took twenty of their cities; but they continued afterwards 
 to harass the borders of Israel, and their capital was be- 
 sieged by the forces of David, and their country rendered 
 tributary. They regained and long maintained their in- 
 dependence, till Jotham, the king of Judah, subdued 
 them, and exacted from them an annual tribute of a hun- 
 dred talents, and thirty thousand quarters of wheat and 
 barley; yet they soon contested again with their ancient 
 enemies, and exulted in the miseries that befell them, 
 when Nebuchadnezzar took Jerusalem, and carried its 
 inhabitants into captivity. In after-times, though suc- 
 cessively oppressed by the Chaldeans, (when some of the 
 earliest prophecies respecting it were fulfilled,) and by 
 the Egyptians and Syrians, Amnion was a highly produc- 
 
AMMON. 
 
 263 
 
 tive and populous country, when the Komans became 
 masters of all the provinces of Syria; and its capital was 
 included among the ten allied cities, which gave name to 
 the celebrated Decapolis. When first invaded by the 
 Saracens, (a.d. 632,) " this country (including Moab) was 
 enriched by the various benefits of trade;" and Ammon, 
 to which the Greeks and Eomans gave the name of Phil- 
 adelphia, was included among the populous cities which, 
 as recorded by Gibbon, " were secure at least from a 
 surprise by the solid structure of their walls." 1 The 
 fact of its natural fertility is corroborated by every tra- 
 veller who has visited it. And "it is evident," says 
 Burckhardt, "that the whole country must have been 
 extremely well cultivated, in order to have afforded sub- 
 sistence to the inhabitants of so many towns," 2 as are 
 
 1 Gibbon's Hist. vol. ix. c. 51, p. 383. 
 
 2 Burckhardt's Travels in Syria, p. 357. 
 
 Having frequent occasion, in the subsequent pages, to refer to 
 the authority of the celebrated and lamented traveller, J. Lewis 
 Burckhardt, the following ample testimonies to his talents, perse- 
 verance, and veracity will show with what perfect confidence his 
 statements may be relied on, especially as the subject of the ful- 
 filment of prophecy, being never once alluded to in all his writ- 
 ings, seems to have been wholly foreign to his view, as well as to 
 theirs who, without partiality, have thus appreciated his labours. 
 " He was a traveller of no ordinary description, a gentleman by 
 birth, and a scholar by education; he added to the ordinary ac- 
 quirements of a traveller, accomplishments which fitted him for 
 any society. His description of the countries through which he 
 passed, his narrative of incidents, his transactions with the natives, 
 are all placed before us with equal clearness and simplicity. In 
 every page they will find that ardour of research, that patience of 
 investigation, that passionate pursuit after truth, for which he was 
 eminently distinguished." — (Quarterly Review, vol. xxii. p. 437.) 
 " He appears, from his books and letters, to have been a modest, 
 
264: 
 
 AMMON. 
 
 now visible only in their ruins. While the fruitfulness 
 of the land of Amnion, and the high degree of pros- 
 perity and power in which it subsisted, long prior and 
 long subsequent to the date of the predictions, are in- 
 disputably established by historical evidence, and by 
 existing proofs, the researches of recent travellers (who 
 were actuated by the mere desire of exploring these re- 
 gions and obtaining geographical information) have made 
 known its present aspect ; and testimony the most clear, 
 unexceptionable, and conclusive, has been borne to the 
 state of dire desolation to which it is, and has long been 
 reduced. 
 
 It was prophesied concerning Ammon, " Son of man, 
 set thy face against the Ammonites, and prophesy against 
 them. I will make Eabbah of the Ammonites a stable 
 for camels and a couching- place for flocks. Behold, I 
 will stretch out mine hand upon thee, and will deliver 
 thee for a spoil to the heathen ; and I will cut thee off 
 from the people, and I will cause thee to perish out of 
 the countries; I will destroy thee. The Ammonites shall 
 not be remembered among the nations. Eabbah (the 
 
 laborious, learned, and sensible man, exempt from prejudice, un- 
 attached to systems; detailing what he saw plainly and correctly, 
 and of very prudent and discreet conduct," — {Edinburgh Review, 
 Number lxvii. p. 109.) The following extract from General 
 Straton's manuscript Travels was written at Cairo, and is the 
 more valuable, as containing the result of personal knowledge and 
 observation : — " Burckhardt speaks Arabic perfectly, has adopted 
 the costume, and goes to the religious places of worship; has been 
 at Mecca; in short, follows in every thing the Turkish manners 
 and customs, and he is not to be distinguished from a Mussulman. 
 With what advantage must he travel ! He is by birth a Swiss, 
 but having been educated in England, speaks our language per- 
 fectly." 
 
AMMON. 
 
 265 
 
 chief city) of the Ammonites shall be a desolate heap. 
 Amnion shall be a perpetual desolation." 1 
 
 Ammon was to be delivered to be a spoil to the heathen, 
 to be destroyed, and to be a perpetual desolation. " All 
 this country, formerly so populous and flourishing, is now 
 changed into avast desert." 2 Euins are seen in every 
 direction. The country, long subjected to the Saracens, is 
 now wholly possessed and pastured by the Bedouins. The 
 extortions of the Turks, and the depredations of the Arabs, 
 kept it in perpetual desolation and made it a spoil to the 
 heathen. " The far greater part of the country is unin- 
 habited, being abandoned to the wandering Arabs, and 
 the towns and villages are in a state of total ruin." 3 " At 
 every step are to be found the vestiges of ancient cities, 
 the remains of many temples, public edifices, and Greek 
 churches." 4 The cities are desolate. "Many of the 
 ruins present no objects of any interest. They con- 
 sist of a few walls of dwelling-houses, heaps of stones, the 
 foundations of some public edifices, and a few cisterns 
 filled up ; there is nothing entire, but it appears that the 
 mode of building was very solid, all the remains being 
 formed of large stones. — In the vicinity of Ammon there 
 is a fertile plain interspersed with low hills, which for the 
 greater part are covered with ruins." 5 
 
 While the country is thus despoiled and desolate, there 
 are valleys and tracts throughout it, which " are covered 
 with a fine coat of verdant pasture, and are places of re- 
 sort to the Bedouins, where they pasture their camels 
 
 1 Ezek. xxv. 2, 5, 7, 10; xxi. 32. Jer. xlix. 2. Zeph. ii. 9. 
 
 2 Seetzen's Travels, p. 34. 3 Ibid. p. 37. 
 
 4 Burckhardt's Travels in Nubia, introd. pp. 37, 38, 44. 
 
 5 Burckhardt's Travels in Syria, pp. 355, 357, 364. 
 
266 
 
 AMMON. 
 
 and their sheep." 1 "The whole way we traversed/' 
 says Seetzen, " we saw villages in ruins, and met num- 
 bers of Arabs with their camels," &c. Mr Buckingham 
 describes a building among the ruins of Amnion, " the 
 masonry of which was evidently constructed of materials 
 gathered from the ruins of other and older buildings on 
 the spot. On entering it at the south end," he adds, 
 " we came to an open square court, with arched recesses 
 on each side, the sides nearly facing the cardinal points. 
 The recesses in the northern and southern wall were ori- 
 ginally open passages, and had arched door-ways facing 
 each other ; but the first of these was found wholly closed 
 up, and the last was partially filled up, leaving on- 
 ly a narrow passage, just sufficient for the entrance of 
 one man, and of the goats, which the Arab keepers drive 
 in here occasionally for shelter during the night." 1 He 
 relates that he lay down among flocks of sheep and goats, 
 close beside the ruins of Amnion; and particularly re- 
 marks that, during the night, he was almost entirely pre- 
 vented from sleeping by the bleating of flocks. 8 So 
 literally true is it, although Seetzen, and Burckhardt, and 
 Buckingham, who relate the facts, make no reference or 
 allusion whatever to any of the prophecies, and travelled 
 for a different object than the elucidation of the Scrip- 
 tures, that the chief city of the Ammonites is a stable for 
 camels, and a couching-place for flocks. 
 
 The Ammonites shall not be remembered among the na- 
 tions. While the Jews, who were long their hereditary 
 enemies, continue as distinct a people as ever, though 
 
 1 Buckingham's Travels in Palestine, &c. p. 329. 
 
 2 Buckingham's Travels among the Arab Tribes, under the 
 title of Ruins of Ainmon, pp. 72, 73, &c. 
 
AMMON. 
 
 267 
 
 dispersed among all nations, no trace of the Ammonites 
 remains, none are now designated by their name, nor do 
 any claim descent from them. They did exist, however, 
 long after the time when the eventful annihilation of their 
 race was foretold, for they retained their name, and con- 
 tinued a great multitude until the second century of the 
 Christian era. 1 Yet they are cut of from the people. 
 Ammon has perished out of the countries; it is destroyed. 
 No people is attached to its soil ; none regard it as their 
 country and adopt its name; and the Ammonites are not 
 remembered among the nations. 
 
 Rabbah (Eabbah Ammon, the chief city of Ammon,) 
 shall be a desolate heap. Situated as it was, on each side 
 of the borders of a plentiful stream, — encircled by a 
 fruitful region, — strong by nature and fortified by art, 
 nothing could have justified the suspicion, or warranted 
 the conjecture, in the mind of an uninspired mortal, that 
 the royal city of Ammon, whatever disasters might pos- 
 sibly befall it in the fate of war or change of masters, 
 would ever undergo so total a transmutation as to become 
 a desolate heap. But although, in addition to such 
 tokens of its continuance as a city, more than a thousand 
 years had given uninterrupted experience of its stability, 
 ere the prophets of Israel denounced its fate ; yet a period 
 of equal length has now marked it out, as it exists to this 
 day, a desolate heap, a perpetual or permanent desola- 
 tion. Its ancient name is still preserved by the Arabs ; 
 and its site is now " covered with the ruins of private 
 buildings, nothing of them remaining except the founda- 
 tions and some of the door-posts. — The buildings, exposed 
 to the atmosphere, are all in decay," 2 so that they may 
 
 1 Justin Martyr, p. 392, edit. Thirl. 
 
 2 Burckhardt's Travels in Syria, pp. 3-39, 360. 
 
268 
 
 AMMON. 
 
 be said literally to form a desolate heap. The public 
 edifices, which once strengthened or adorned the city, 
 after a long resistance to decay, are now also desolate ; 
 and the remains of the most entire among them, subject- 
 ed as they are to the abuse and spoliation of the wild 
 Arabs, can be adapted to no better object than a stable 
 for camels. Yet these broken walls and ruined palaces, 
 Avhich attest the ancient splendour of Ammon, can now, 
 by means of a single act of reflection, or simple process of 
 reason, be made subservient to a far nobler purpose than 
 the most magnificent edifices on earth can be, when they 
 are contemplated as monuments on which the historic 
 and prophetic truth of Scripture is blended in one bright 
 inscription. A minute detail of them may not therefore 
 be uninteresting. 
 
 Seetzon, whose indefatigable ardour led him, in defiance 
 of danger, the first to explore the countries which he east 
 of the Jordan, and east and south of the Dead Sea, or 
 the territories of Ammon, Moab, and Edom, justly cha- 
 racterizes Ammon as " once the residence of many kings, 
 — an ancient town which flourished long before the Greeks 
 and Eomans, and even before the Hebrews," 1 and he 
 chiefly enumerates those remains of ancient greatness 
 and splendour which are most distinguishable amidst its 
 ruins. " Although this town has been destroyed and 
 deserted for many ages, I still found there some remark- 
 able ruins, which attest its ancient splendour. Such as, 
 1st, A square building, very highly ornamented, which 
 has been perhaps a mausoleum. 2d, The ruins of a 
 large palace. 3d, A magnificent amphitheatre of im- 
 
 1 A brief account of the countries adjoining the Lake of Tibe- 
 rias, the Jordan, and the Dead Sea, by M. Seetzen, Conseille d'- 
 Ambassade de S. M. l'Empereur de Russe, pp. 35, 36. 
 
AMMON. 
 
 269 
 
 mense size, and well preserved, with a peristyle of Cor- 
 inthian pillars without pedestals. 4th, A temple with a 
 great number of columns. 5th, The ruins of a large 
 church, perhaps the see of a bishop in the time of the 
 Greek emperors. 6th, The remains of a temple with 
 columns set in a circular form, and which are of an ex- 
 traordinary size. 7th, The remains of the ancient wall, 
 with many other edifices." 1 Burckhardt, who afterwards 
 visited the spot, describes it with great minuteness. He 
 gives a plan of the ruins ; and particularly noted the ruins 
 of many temples, of a spacious church, a curved wall, a 
 high arched bridge, the banks and bed of the river still 
 partially paved ; a large theatre, which has forty rows of 
 seats, vaults on both its wings, and a colonnade in front, 
 which must have had at least fifty columns ; the castle, a 
 very extensive building, the walls of which are thick, and 
 denote a remote antiquity; many cisterns and vaults; 
 and a plain covered with the decayed ruins of private 
 buildings; 2 — monuments of ancient splendour amidst a 
 desolate heap. 
 
 More recent travellers, with this treatise in their hands, 
 or with the full knowledge of these prophecies, have visit- 
 ed Amnion; and the testimony to the predicted facts, 
 first unconsciously given, has been repeated and corro- 
 borated by those who have personally testified, as they 
 consciously witnessed, the fulfilment of the prophecies. 
 
 Great was our own regret at the frustration of the fond 
 hope, after all seemed secure for realizing it, of daguer- 
 reotyping what the prophets told of Amnion, and what 
 Lord Claud Hamilton, Lord Lindsay, and other witnes- 
 ses saw, as they at once read these prophecies and wit- 
 
 1 Seetzen's Travels, pp. 35, 36. 
 
 2 Burckhardt's Travels in Syria, p. 358, &c. 
 
270 
 
 AMMON. 
 
 nessed their accomplishment. By the former the writer 
 was earnestly urged, while at Jerusalem in 1839, to 
 accompany him and Mr Littleton on their tour east of 
 the Jordan ; and such was then the facility of visiting the 
 land when it had a ruler, that he offered, in great kind- 
 ness and strong temptation, to go to Moab as Avell as 
 Amnion, wherever he wished. A sense of duty, limited 
 to a single object, forbade what was then as easy as de- 
 sirable. But, on his second visit, when all government 
 over these regions, but that of the Bedouins, had ceased, 
 it was impossible, in the summer of 1844, to reach it, 
 though only a day's journey from Gerash, or, after repeat- 
 ed attempts, in any other direction. For at that very time 
 two hostile tribes were fiercely contending for the pos- 
 session of the ruins of Amnion, which was itself the scene 
 of bloody conflict, as if these wild sons of Ishmael, who 
 believed not in Scripture, had been emulously striving to 
 the death which of them should be instrumental in the 
 accomplishment of the words of a prophet of Israel, in 
 having the ancient capital of the Ammonites, long Israel's 
 enemies, as a stable for their camels, and a couching 
 place for their flocks. On recrossing the Jordan, a troop 
 of spearmen passed us in all haste to that scene of com- 
 bat, and were joined by some of our Bedouins, who them- 
 selves had formerly been driven from the immediate 
 vicinity of Amnion, and whose possession it had been, 
 though they could no longer conduct a traveller to its 
 ruins. In that land of perpetual contests, where war no 
 less than robbery is a trade, such seeming rivalry for the 
 actual accomplishing of a predicted word, may not cease 
 among these believers in a false prophet, till the words 
 which have gone forth against Ammon and other lands, 
 as given to such possessors, reach their period of comple- 
 
AMMON. 
 
 271 
 
 tion in the accomplishment of other predictions in which 
 such wild warriors and long established desolaters have 
 another part and another destiny, ere blessings at last rest 
 on Ishmael's seed. " Bebuke the company of spearmen 
 — scatter thou the people that delight in war. Princes 
 shall come out of Egypt; and Ethiopia shall soon stretch 
 out her hand unto God. Sing unto the Lord ye king- 
 doms of the earth; — lo He doth send forth his voice, 
 and that a mighty voice. Ascribe ye strength unto God : 
 his excellency is over Israel, and his strength is in the 
 clouds." 1 His strength is in the clouds; but his judgments 
 are yet upon the earth. And without a daguerreotype 
 view, — the evidence itself is as if photographic, and the 
 proof is complete, how Ammon to this day bears witness, 
 as only at length it has thus been heard to testify, that 
 power belongs unto the Lord, even as that hostile metro- 
 polis, like another Hazor, tells that its own words of judg- 
 ment have fallen on it in truth as strict as that of those 
 which, as the Scriptural record bears, went forth against 
 David and fell on him, as he was driven from his throne, 
 because of a deed that was done at Ammon, and deeds of 
 darkness met their righteous retributive judgments in 
 what was done in the light of the sun, — and Absalom too 
 his fate as he hung upon a tree. 
 
 " The wonderful fulfilment of the prophecies," Lord 
 Claud Hamilton observes, " is an interesting subject of 
 observation in this country. The Ammonites shall not 
 be remembered among the nations. Eabbah of the Am- 
 monites shall be a desolate heap. Ammon shall be a 
 perpetual desolation. I will make Eabbah of the Am- 
 monites a stable for camels, and a couching-place for 
 flocks." He stated to the writer, on again meeting him 
 } Psalm lxviii. 30-34. 
 
272 
 
 AMMON. 
 
 at Carmel, as he had recorded in his journal, from which 
 these words are transcribed, that while he was " traversing 
 the ruins of the city, the number of goats and sheep which 
 were driven in among them, was exceedingly annoying, 
 however remarkable as fulfilling the prophecies." They 
 interrupted or prevented some of his measurements. 
 
 " We passed many ruined sites" says Lord Lindsay, 
 " and the whole country has once been very populous, but 
 during the whole day's ride, thirty-five miles at least (from 
 Jerash to Amnion,) we did not see a single village ; the 
 whole country is one vast pasturage, overspread with the 
 flocks and herds of the Bedouins. The dreariness of 
 its (Ammon's) present aspect, is quite indescribable, — it 
 looks like the abode of death, — the valley stinks with dead 
 camels, one of which was rolling in the stream; and though 
 we saw none among the ruins, they were absolutely covered 
 in every direction with their dung. That morning's ride 
 would have convinced a sceptic ; How runs the prophecy? 
 « I will make Eabbah a stable for camels,'" &c. x " We 
 found the principal ruins much more extensive and in- 
 teresting than we expected, — not certainly in such good 
 preservation as those of Jerash, but designed on a much 
 larger scale. — Bones and skulls of camels were moulder- 
 ing in the area of the theatre, and in the vaulted galleries 
 of this immense structure. — Amnion is now quite desert- 
 ed, except by the Bedouins, who water their flocks at its 
 little river, &c. — We met sheep and goats by thousands, 
 and camels by hundreds, coming down to drink, all in 
 beautiful condition . " 2 
 
 " To the southward of the Zerka," says Mr Eobinson, 
 " commences the country anciently inhabited by the peo- 
 ple called Ammonites, a country in those days- as remark- 
 
 1 Lord Lindsay's Travels, vol. ii. p. 75. 2 Ibid. p. 117. 
 
AMMON. 
 
 273 
 
 able for its rich productions , as for the number and 
 strength of the cities that covered its surface. The space 
 intervening between the river and the western hills is en- 
 tirely covered with the remains of private buildings, — now 
 only used for stables for camels and sheep; there is not 
 a single inhabitant remaining, thus realizing the prophecy 
 concerning this devoted city/' &C. 1 
 
 The " royal city" of the Ammonites withstood a hard- 
 pressed siege, in the days of David king of Israel, who 
 himself fought against it, and finally took it. And under 
 the name of Philadelphia, after an interval of upwards of 
 sixteen hundred years, it was a strong and populous city 
 when the Saracens invaded the eastern empire. 
 
 Its Acropolis, long its chief stronghold, is still conspi- 
 cuous among its ruins. It stands, as described by Lord 
 Claud Hamilton, " on an isolated hill to the north of the 
 town. Its walls are high, very well built, and in many 
 parts in good preservation ; but within, the ruins, rub- 
 bish, and herbage, have grown nearly to their level. The 
 chief of these ruins are those of a temple, which was 
 once adorned with a portico and peristyle of grand Cor- 
 inthian columns, all now prostrate ; but their massive re- 
 mains, immense capitals, and large pediments, attest their 
 former magnificence. Of one of the most perfect of 
 these, the shaft alone, without pediment or capital, is 
 thirty-three feet in length, and four feet and a half in 
 diameter." But the Acropolis, no less than the city, 
 presents its illustrations of the word of the Lord. " There 
 is a small stone building quite entire, now used as a shel- 
 ter for flocks, of which there are many. And without 
 the walls, as otherwise within them, nothing remains but 
 1 Travels, vol. ii. p. 175. 
 
 T 
 
274- 
 
 AMMON. 
 
 scattered materials of former habitations, now partially 
 concealed by the flowers and grass. 
 
 " Leaving the Acropolis, we descended, and crossing 
 the stream, on the northern bank of which, among other 
 remains, are those of an Ionic colonnade, we proceeded 
 to the farthest ruins. The most remote of these is a 
 small theatre, evidently intended for scenic representa- 
 tions, as the space behind the proscenium was enclosed, 
 and formed part of the building. Three passages re- 
 mained as perfect as when they were formed, and they 
 opened upon the stage by three arches. There were like- 
 wise side entrances, and communicating passages well 
 adapted for theatrical purposes. The proscenium was very 
 handsomely ornamented; above the three arches ran a 
 rich frieze of Corinthian decorations most beautifully carv- 
 ed, and perfectly uninjured; above were three niches for 
 statues; the seats were on both sides perfect, but the 
 centre forming the stage has been thrown down. There 
 were three entrances by handsome arches, which brought 
 the spectators to a broad landing place, half-way up the 
 rows of seats, and two smaller arches, which probably 
 served for entrances to the seats of honour, which here, 
 as at Pompeii, were close to the stage. The theatre is 
 remarkably well built, and is composed of very handsome 
 stone; from without there are three entrances to the 
 scenes, and four niches for statues, two between the doors, 
 and two flanking them. 
 
 " The great theatre, near the other, is a grand edi- 
 fice: it is scooped out of the side of the hill, being partly 
 composed of the living rock, but chiefly of masonry. This 
 theatre must have been intended for games and other ex- 
 ercises in the open air, as, instead of the enclosed passages 
 
AMMON. 
 
 275 
 
 and covered chambers behind the stage, there is only an 
 open colonnade of handsome Corinthian columns, which 
 extends from one extreme to the other of the rows of seats. 
 Within the colonnade is an extensive arena of a horse- 
 shoe form, 128 feet from seat to seat. Forty- three rows 
 of seats extend to a great height, and are separated into 
 three tiers by broad landing-places ; seven radii of smaller 
 steps admitted the spectators to their several seats, and 
 each tier has several recesses. The second tier has doors 
 communicating to a high arched passage, winch runs 
 round the theatre, and opens upon a side staircase, by 
 which means the crowd could be divided ; back staircases 
 also mount from these passages to the upper tier, so as to 
 enable the more humble spectators to gain and leave 
 their seats without incommoding their richer neighbours 
 below. In the centre of the uppermost bench is excavat- 
 ed a square chamber, with a beautifully carved cornice, 
 having an elegant niche of the shell pattern on each 
 side. There is, as usual in all ancient theatres, an arch 
 entering upon the arena on each side where the seats 
 terminate, reaching the proscenium. 
 
 " Of the other principal ruins a more slight notice may 
 be given. A grand building, once apparently of an octa- 
 gonal form, has still four of its sides perfect, which con- 
 tain a grand alcove, and three lesser recesses. A colon- 
 nade of large Corinthian pillars was once ranged within 
 it, but what purpose it served, there are no means of 
 ascertaining. Heaps of rums lie around it in bewilder- 
 ing confusion. Near to it are large houses, divided into 
 many apartments, and a more modern church in good 
 preservation ; but all are alike deserted, though little la- 
 bour would restore some of these buildings, not to their 
 pristine glory, but to useful dwellings. And passing from 
 
276 
 
 AMMON. 
 
 these, other ruins are numerous but uninteresting. But 
 the remains yet standing of one grand temple are suffi- 
 cient to exhibit its former magnificence, surrounded as it 
 was by lofty columns, some of which are still entire. A 
 noble alcove, richly wrought, containing niches, and sup- 
 ported by pilasters, is yet perfect, a beautiful specimen 
 of the riches of ornament, and fine finish of the corners. 
 And near to the ruinous town is a little fane, square with- 
 out but circular within, both sides being most richly 
 decorated with frieze corners and pilasters of the Corinth- 
 ian order. Four niches within are equally elaborately 
 carved. It is divided into square apartments, each con- 
 taining a variety of rich and elegant ornaments ; and an 
 open arch, which forms the entrance, has the most beau- 
 tifully carved ceiling which I ever saw." 1 
 
 Such is now the once royal city of Ammon. Numer- 
 ous ruins, and heaps in bewildering confusion, show how 
 it has become a desolate heap. But this is not now its 
 only feature. Some buildings in good preservation, and 
 others still perfect, whatever purposes they may have 
 been constructed to serve, fulfil now the purpose which, 
 long before their erection, the prophet assigned them. 
 Arches, of old trodden by the lovers of pleasure, of high 
 or of low degree, unbroken by time which has laid the 
 gay flutterers in the dust, are now promiscuously crowded 
 by beasts ; and where nobles were before kept from con- 
 tact with their fellows, the pilgrim traveller in a desolate 
 land now has cause to complain of the annoyance of flocks. 
 It was not for them that arches, sculptured with exqui- 
 site art, and almost unrivalled beauty, were erected ; nor 
 to shelter them that walls, which, uninjured, have endur- 
 ed for ages, were built ; nor did stables for camels, and 
 1 Lord Claud Hamilton's Journal. 
 
AMMON. 
 
 277 
 
 couching places for flocks, enter into the design of the 
 architects of the palaces, theatres, or temples of Amnion, 
 nor of the sculptors of their beautifully carved cornices 
 and ceilings, and grand columns and alcoves. But He 
 who saw the end from the beginning, declared it, ere 
 ever one of these edifices of Grecian architecture was 
 constructed, or the foundation of any of them was laid, or 
 the plan of any of them was thought of, the appointed 
 doom, and destiny, and use to which they have been 
 brought, were delineated by the prophets ; and as Ammon 
 was taken by David, so also, in a higher sense, it is now 
 held captive by the word of the Lord, and awaits the time 
 when the children of Israel shall be restored, and the 
 Lord, in the latter days, shall bring again the captivity 
 of Ammon. 
 
 " East of Assalt," including Ammon, are thirty ruined 
 or deserted places, of which the names are given in Mr 
 Smith's Arabic Lists, only two being marked as having 
 any inhabitants (in 1834); one of which, el-Fuhais, we 
 were informed, was also since deserted. 
 
278 
 
 MOAB. 
 
 CHAPTEE VII. 
 
 MOAB. 
 
 The prophecies concerning Moab are more numerous 
 and not less remarkable. Those of them which met their 
 completion in ancient times, and which related to parti- 
 cular events in the history of the Moabites, and to the 
 result of their conflict with the Jews or any of the neigh- 
 bouring states, however necessary they may have been at 
 the time for strengthening the faith or supporting the 
 courage of the children of Israel, need not now be ad- 
 duced in evidence of inspiration; for there are abundant 
 predictions which refer so clearly to decisive and unques- 
 tionable facts, that there is scarcely a single feature pecu- 
 liar to the land of Moab, as it now exists, which was not 
 marked by the prophets in their delineation of the low 
 estate to which,, from the height of its wickedness and 
 haughtiness, it was finally to be brought down. 
 
 " Against Moab, thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God 
 of Israel, Woe unto Nebo ! for it is spoiled ; Kiriathaim 
 is confounded and taken; Misgab is confounded and dis- 
 mayed. There shall be no more praise of Moab. And 
 the spoiler shall come upon every city, and no city shall 
 escape : the valley also shall perish, and the plain shall 
 be destroyed, as the Lord hath spoken. Give wings un- 
 to Moab, that it may flee and get away; for the cities 
 thereof shall be desolate, without any to dwell therein. 
 
MOAB. 
 
 279 
 
 Moab hath been at ease from his youth, and he hath set- 
 tled on his lees, and hath not been emptied from vessel 
 to vessel, neither hath he gone into captivity. Behold, 
 the days come, saith the Lord, that I will send unto him 
 wanderers that shall cause him to wander. How is the 
 strong staff broken, and the beautiful rod ! Thou daugh- 
 ter that dost inhabit Dibon, come down from thy glory, 
 and sit in thirst; for the spoiler of Moab shall come up- 
 on thee, and he shall destroy thy strongholds. Moab is 
 confounded, for it is broken down. Moab is spoiled. 
 And judgment is come upon the plain country; upon 
 Holon, and upon Jahazah, and upon Mephaath, and up- 
 on Dibon, and upon Nebo, and upon Beth-diblathaim ; 
 and upon Kiriathaim, and upon Bethgamul, and upon 
 Bethmeon, and upon Kerioth, and upon Bozrah, and up- 
 on all the cities of the land of Moab, far or near. The 
 horn of Moab is cut off, and his arm is broken, saith the 
 Lord. 0 ye that dwell in Moab, leave the cities and 
 dwell in the rock, and be like the dove that maketh her 
 nest in the sides of the hole's mouth. We have heard the 
 pride of Moab, (he is exceeding proud,) his loftiness, and 
 his arrogancy, and his pride, and the haughtiness of his 
 heart. And joy and gladness is taken from the plentiful 
 field, and from the land of Moab; and I have caused wine 
 to fail from the wine-presses; none shall tread with 
 shouting; their shouting shall be no shouting. From 
 the cry of Heshbon even unto Elealeh, and even unto 
 Jahaz, have they uttered their voice, from Zoar even 
 unto Horonaim ; the waters also of Nimrim shall be de- 
 solate. I have broken Moab like a vessel wherein is no 
 pleasure. They shall cry, how is it broken down! And 
 Moab shall be destroyed from being a people, because he 
 
280 
 
 MOAB. 
 
 hath magnified himself against the Lord. " 1 " The cities of 
 Aroer are forsaken ; they shall be for flocks/' which shall 
 he down, and none shall make them afraid." 2 " Moab 
 shall be a perpetual desolation." 3 
 
 The land of Moab lay to the east and south-east of 
 J udea, and bordered on the east, north-east, and partly 
 on the south of the Dead Sea. Its early history is nearly 
 analogous to that of Amnion ; and the soil, though per- 
 haps more diversified, is, in many places where the desert 
 and plains of salt have not encroached on its borders, of 
 equal fertility. There are manifest and abundant vesti- 
 ges of its ancient greatness. " The whole of the plains 
 are covered with the sites of towns, on every eminence or 
 spot convenient for the construction of one. And as the 
 land is capable of rich cultivation, there can be no doubt 
 that the country, now so deserted, once presented a conti- 
 nued picture of plenty and fertility."* The form of fields 
 is still visible : and there are the remains of Eoman high- 
 ways, which in some places are completely paved, and on 
 which there are milestones of the times of Trajan, Mar- 
 cus Aurelius, and Severus, with the number of the miles 
 legible upon them. Wherever any spot is cultivated the 
 corn is luxuriant ; and the riches of the soil cannot per- 
 haps be more clearly illustrated than by the fact, that one 
 grain of Heshbon wheat exceeds in dimensions two of the 
 ordinary sort, and more than double the number of grains 
 grow on the stalk. The frequency, and almost, in many 
 instances, the close vicinity of the sites of the ancient 
 towns, " prove that the population of the country was 
 
 » Jer. xlviii. 1, 2, 8, 9, 11, 12, 17, 18, 20-25, 28, 29, 33, 34, 
 38, 39, 42. 2 Isaiah xvii. 2. 3 Zeph. ii. 9. 
 
 4 Captains Irby and Mangles's Travels, p. 37 8. 
 
MOAB. 
 
 281 
 
 formerly proportioned to its natural fertility." 1 Such 
 evidence may surely suffice to prove, that the country was 
 well cultivated and peopled at a period so long posterior 
 to the date of the predictions, that no cause less than 
 supernatural could have existed at the time when they 
 were delivered, which could have authorized the assertion, 
 with the least probability or apparent possibility of its 
 truth, that Moab would ever have been reduced to that 
 state of great and permanent desolation in which it 
 has continued for so many ages, and which vindicates 
 and ratines to this hour the truth of the Scriptural pro- 
 phecies. 
 
 The cities of Moab were to be desolate without any to 
 dwell therein; no city was to escape. Moab was to flee 
 away. And the cities of Moab have all disappeared. 
 Their place, together with the adjoining part of Idumea, 
 is characterised, in the map of Volney's Travels, by the 
 ruins of towns. His information respecting these ruins 
 was derived from some of the wandering Arabs ; and its 
 accuracy has been fully corroborated by the testimony of 
 different European travellers of high respectability and 
 undoubted veracity, who have since visited this devastat- 
 ed region. The whole country abounds with ruins. And 
 Burckhardt, who encountered many difficulties in so deso- 
 late and dangerous a land, thus records the brief history 
 of a few of them : " The ruins of Eleale, Heshbon, Meon, 
 Medaba, Dibon, Aroer, still subsist to illustrate the his- 
 tory of the Beni Israel." 2 And it might, with equal 
 truth, have been added, that they still subsist to confirm 
 the inspiration of the Jewish Scriptures, or to prove that 
 
 1 Captains Irby and Mangles's Travels, pp. 377, 378, 456, 460. 
 
 2 Burckhardt's Travels in Nubia, Introduction, p. 38. 
 
282 
 
 MOAB. 
 
 the seers of Israel were the prophets of God, for the de- 
 solation of each of these very cities was the theme of a 
 prediction. Every thing worthy of observation respect- 
 ing them has been detailed, not only in Burckhardt's 
 Travels in Syria, hut also by Seetzen, and, more recent- 
 ly, by Captains Irby and Mangles, who, along with Mr 
 Bankes and Mr Legh, visited this deserted district. The 
 predicted judgment has fallen with such truth upon these 
 cities, and upon all the cities of the land of Moab, far 
 and near, and they are so utterly broken down, that even 
 the prying curiosity of such indefatigable travellers could 
 discover, among a multiplicity of ruins, only a few remains 
 so entire as to be worthy of particular notice. The sub- 
 joined description is drawn from their united testimony. 
 — Among the ruins of El Aal (Eleale) are a number of 
 large cisterns, fragments of buildings, and foundations of 
 houses. At Heshban (Heshbon) are the ruins of a large 
 ancient town, together with the remains of a temple, and 
 some edifices. A few broken shafts of columns are still 
 standing; and there are a number of deep wells cut in 
 the rock. 1 The ruins of Medaba are about two miles in 
 circumference. There are many remains of the Avails of 
 private houses constructed with blocks of silex, but not a 
 single edifice is standing. The chief object of interest is 
 an immense tank or cistern of hewn stones, " which, as 
 there is no stream at Madeba," Burckhardt remarks, 
 " might still be of use to the Bedouins, were the sur- 
 rounding ground cleared of the rubbish to allow the water 
 to flow into it ; but such an undertaking is far beyond the 
 views of the wandering Arab." There is also the foun- 
 dation of a temple built with large stones, and apparently 
 1 Burckhardt's Travels in Syria, p. 365. 
 
MOAB. 
 
 283 
 
 of great antiquity, with two columns near it. 1 The ruins 
 of Diban, (Dibon,) situated in the midst of a fine plain, 
 are of considerable extent, but present nothing of inter- 
 est. 2 The neighbouring hot wells, and the similarity of 
 the name, identify the ruins of Myoun with Meon, or 
 Beth-meon of Scripture. 8 Of this ancient city, as well 
 as of Araayr (Aroar,) nothing is now remarkable but what 
 is common to them with all the cities of Moab — their en- 
 tire desolation. The extent of the ruins of Rabba (Eab- 
 bath-Moab,) formerly the residence of the kings of Moab, 
 sufficiently proves its ancient importance, though no other 
 object can be particularized among the ruins, except the 
 remains of a palace or temple, some of the walls of which 
 are still standing ; a gate belonging to another building ; 
 and an isolated altar. There are many remains of pri- 
 vate buildings, but none entire. There being no springs 
 on the spot, the town had two birkets, the largest of 
 which is cut entirely out of the rocky ground, together 
 with many cisterns. 4 
 
 Mount Nebo was " completely barren" where Burck- 
 hardt passed over it, and the site of the ancient city had 
 not then been ascertained. 5 But of that city, as of the 
 mountain, it may now be said, Nebo is spoiled. It has 
 its name with others in Mr Smith's Arabic Lists. In that 
 of places " south of Assalt," are the names of forty-seven 
 " ruined or deserted places," among which are numbered 
 
 1 Burckhardt's Ti-avels, p. 366. Seetzen's Travels, p. 37. Cap- 
 tains Irby and Mangles's Travels, p. 471. 
 
 2 Captains Irby and Mangles's Travels, p. 462. Seetzen's Tra- 
 vels, p. 38. 
 
 3 Burckhardt's Travels, p. 365. Irby and Mangles's Travels, p. 464. 
 
 4 Seetzen's Travels, p. 39. Burckhardt's Travels, p. 377. 
 
 5 Burckhardt's Travels, p. 370. 
 
284: 
 
 MOAB. 
 
 Heshbon, el-Al, Neba, Madeba, Main, Arair, and 
 Dibon. 1 
 
 Wbile tbe ruins of all these cities still retain their an- 
 cient names, and are the most conspicuous amidst the 
 wide scene of general desolation, and while each of them 
 was in like manner particularized in the visions of the 
 prophet, they thus formed but a small number of the cities 
 of Moab; and the rest are also, in similar verification of 
 the prophecies, desolate, without any to dwell therein. 
 ISTot one of the ancient cities of Moab now exists, as 
 tenanted by man. Kerek, which neither bears any re- 
 semblance in name to any of the cities of Moab which are 
 mentioned as existing in the time of the Israelites, nor 
 possesses any monuments which denote a very remote 
 antiquity, is the only nominal town in the whole country; 
 and, in the words of Seetzen, who visited it, " in its pre- 
 sent ruined state, it can only be called a hamlet ; and 
 the houses have only one floor." 2 But the most popu- 
 lous and fertile province in Europe (especially any situat- 
 ed in the interior of a country like Moab) is not covered 
 so thickly with towns as Moab is plentiful in ruins, desert- 
 ed and desolate though now it be. Burckhardt enumer- 
 ates about fifty ruined sites within its boundaries, many 
 of them extensive. In general they are a broken down 
 and undistinguishable mass of ruin; and many of them 
 have not been closely inspected. But, in some instances, 
 there are the remains of temples, sepulchral monuments, 
 the ruins of edifices constructed of very large stones, in 
 one of which buildings, " some of the stones are twenty 
 feet in length, and so broad that one constitutes the thick- 
 
 1 Second Appendix, pp. 169, 170. 
 
 2 Burckhardt's Travels, p. 338. Seetzen's Travels, p. 39. 
 
MOAB. 
 
 285 
 
 ness of the wall;" traces of hanging gardens; entire 
 columns lying on the ground, three feet in diameter, and 
 fragments of smaller columns; and many cisterns cut 
 out of the rock. When the towns of Moah existed in 
 their prime, and were at ease,— when arrogance, and 
 haughtiness, and pride prevailed amongst them, the de- 
 solation and total desertion and abandonment of them all 
 must have utterly surpassed all human conception. And 
 that such numerous cities, which subsisted for many ages 
 — which were diversified in their sites, some of them be- 
 ing built on eminences, and naturally strong, others on 
 plains, and surrounded by the richest soil, — some situated 
 in valleys by the side of a plentiful stream, and others 
 where art supplied the deficiencies of nature, and where 
 immense cisterns were excavated out of the rock, — and 
 which exhibit in their ruins many monuments of ancient 
 prosperity, and many remains easily convertible into pre- 
 sent utility, — should have all fled away, all met the same 
 indiscriminate fate, and be all desolate without any to 
 dwell therein, notwithstanding all these ancient assurances 
 of their permanent durability, and these existing facilities 
 and inducements for being the habitations of men, — is a 
 matter of just wonder in the present day, — and had any 
 other people been the possessors of Moab, the fact would 
 either have been totally impossible, or unaccountable. 
 Trying as this test of the truth of prophecy is, that is the 
 word of God, and not of erring man, which can so well 
 and so triumphantly abide it. They shall cry of Moab, 
 how is it broken down! 
 
 The valley also shall perish, and the plain shall he de- 
 stroyed. Moab has often been a field of contest between 
 the Arabs and the Turks ; and although the former have 
 retained possession of it, both have mutually reduced it 
 
286 
 
 MOAB. 
 
 to desolation. The different tribes of Arabs who traverse 
 it, not only bear a permanent and habitual hostility to 
 Christians and to Turks, but one tribe is often at variance 
 and at war with another ; and the regular cultivation of 
 the soil, or the improvement of those natural advantages 
 of which the country is so full, is a matter either never 
 thought of, or that cannot be realized. Property is there 
 the creature of power and not of law; and possession 
 forms no security where plunder is the preferable right. 
 Hence the extensive plains, where they are not partially 
 covered with wood, present a barren aspect, which is only 
 relieved at intervals by a few clusters of wild fig-trees, 
 that show how the richest gifts of nature degenerate when 
 unaided by the industry of man. And instead of the 
 profusion which the plains must have exhibited in every 
 quarter, nothing but " patches of the best soil in the ter- 
 ritory are now cultivated by the Arabs;" and these only 
 " whenever they have the prospect of being able to secure 
 the harvest against the incursions of enemies." 1 The 
 Arab herds now roam at freedom over the valleys and 
 the plains ; and " the many vestiges of ancient field- en- 
 closures" 2 form not any obstruction; they wander undis- 
 turbed around the tents of their masters, over the face of 
 the country; and while the valley is perished, and the 
 plain destroyed, the cities also of Aroer are forsaken; 
 they are for Jiocks which lie down, and none make them 
 afraid. 
 
 The strong contrast between the ancient and the actual 
 state of Moab is exemplified in the condition of the inha- 
 bitants as well as of the land; and the coincidence between 
 the prediction and the fact is as striking in the one case 
 as in the other. 
 
 1 Burckhardt's Travels in Syria, p. 369. 2 Ibid. p. 365. 
 
MOAB. 
 
 287 
 
 The days come, saith the Lord, that I will send unto 
 him (Moah ) wanderers that shall cause him to wander, 
 and shall empty his vessels. The Bedouin (wandering) 
 Arabs are now the chief and almost the only inhabitants 
 of a country once studded with cities. Traversing the 
 country, and fixing their tents for a short time in one 
 place, and then decamping to another, depasturing every 
 part successively, and despoiling the whole land of its 
 natural produce, they are wanderers who have come up 
 against it, and who keep it in a state of perpetual desola- 
 tion. They lead a wandering life ; and the only regu- 
 larity they know or practise, is to act upon a systematic 
 scheme of spoliation. They prevent any from forming a 
 fixed settlement who are inclined to attempt it; for al- 
 though the fruitfulness of the soil would abundantly re- 
 pay the labour of settlers, and render migration wholly 
 unnecessary, even if the population were increased more 
 than tenfold ; yet the Bedouins forcibly deprive them of 
 the means of subsistence, compel them to search for it 
 elsewhere, and, in the words of the prediction, literally 
 cause them to wander. " It may be remarked generally 
 of the Bedouins," says Burckhardt, in describing their 
 extortions in this very country, " that wherever they are 
 the masters of the cultivators, the latter are soon reduced 
 to beggary by their unceasing demands." 1 
 
 0 ye that dwell in Moab, leave the cities and dwell in 
 the rock, and he like the dove that maketh her nest in the 
 sides of the hole's mouth. In a general description of the 
 condition of the inhabitants of that extensive desert which 
 now occupies the place of these ancient flourishing states, 
 Volney, in plain but unmeant illustration of this predic- 
 tion, remarks, that " the wretched peasants live in per- 
 i Burckhardt 's Travels in Syria, p. 381. 
 
288 
 
 MOAB. 
 
 petual dread of losing the fruit of their labours ; and no 
 sooner have they gathered in their harvest, than they 
 hasten to secrete it in private places, and retire among the 
 rocks which border on the Dead Sea." 1 Towards the 
 opposite extremity of the land of Moab, and at a little 
 distance from its borders, Seetzen relates that there are 
 many families living in caverns ; and he actually desig- 
 nates them "the inhabitants of the rocks." 2 And at the 
 distance of a few miles from the ruined site of Heshbon, 
 " there are many artificial caves in a large range of per- 
 pendicular cliffs, in some of which are chambers and small 
 sleeping apartments." 3 While the cities are desolate with- 
 out any to dwell therein, the rocks are tenanted. But 
 whether flocks lie down in the former, without any to 
 make them afraid, — or whether men are to be found 
 dwelling in the latter, and are like the dove that maketh 
 her nest in the sides of the hole's mouth, — the wonderful 
 transition, in either case, and the close accordance, in 
 both, of the fact to the prediction, assuredly mark it, in 
 characters that may be visible to the purblind mind, as 
 the word of that God before whom the darkness of futu- 
 rity is as light, and without whom a sparrow cannot fall 
 unto the ground. 4 
 
 1 Volney's Travels, vol. ii. p. 344. 
 
 2 Seetzen's Travels, p. 26. See Monthly Review, vol. lxxi. p. 
 405. 
 
 3 Captains Irby and Mangles's Travels, p. 473. 
 
 4 Another prediction respecting the dwellers in Moab ought not 
 perhaps to be passed over in silence, although the terms in which 
 it is expressed are not so clear and unambiguous as those to which 
 the observations in the text are confined, and although it may 
 have met its primary fulfilment in a much earlier age. Yet it is 
 so intelligible, that the fact to which it bears an unrestrained ap- 
 plication, may be left as its sole and adequate exposition : and the 
 
M0AI3. 
 
 289 
 
 And although chargeable with the impropriety of being 
 somewhat out of place, it may not be here altogether im- 
 proper to remark, that, demonstrative as all these clear 
 predictions and coincident facts are of the inspiration of 
 the Scriptures, it cannot but be gratifying to every lover 
 of his kind, when he contemplates that desolation, caused 
 by many sins and fraught with many miseries, which the 
 wickedness of man has wrought, and which the prescience 
 of God revealed, to know that all these prophecies, while 
 they mingle the voice of wailing with that of denuncia- 
 tion, are the word of that God, who, although he suffers 
 not iniquity to pass unpunished, overrules evil for good, 
 and makes the wrath of man to praise him, and who in 
 the midst of judgment can remember mercy. And rea- 
 soning merely from the " imiform experience" (to borrow 
 a term, and draw an argument from Hume) of the truth 
 of the prophecies already fulfilled, the unprejudiced mind 
 will at once perceive the full force of the truth derived 
 
 continued truth of the prophecy greatly strengthens, instead of 
 weakening the evidence of its inspiration- And how is Moab 
 broken down and spoiled, when, in lieu of the arrogancy and ex- 
 ceeding pride and haughtiness of its ancient inhabitants, the fol- 
 lowing description is characteristic of the wanderers who now pos- 
 sess it! " In the valley of Wale," which is situate in the immedi- 
 ate vicinity of the river Arnon, into which the Wale flows, Burck- 
 hardt observed " a large party of Arabs Shererat encamped — 
 Bedouins of the Arabian desert, who resort hither in summer for 
 pasturage." Being oppressed and hemmed in by other Arab tribes, 
 " they wander about in misery, have very few horses, and are not 
 able to feed any flocks of sheep, or goats. . . . The tents are very 
 miserable; both men and women go almost naked, the former be- 
 ing only covered round the waist, and the women wearing nothing 
 but a loose shirt hanging in rags about them." Moab shall be a 
 derision. Asa wandering bird cast out of the nest, so the daughters 
 of Moab shall be at the fords of Arnon. (Burckhardt's Travels, pp. 
 370, 371. Jer. xlviii. 89. Isaiah xvi. 2.) 
 
 U 
 
290 
 
 MOAB. 
 
 from experience, 1 and acknowledge that it would be a re- 
 jection of the authority of reason as well as of revelation, to 
 mistrust the truth of that prophetic affirmation of resusci- 
 tating and redeeming import, respecting Amnion and 
 Moab, which is the last of the series, and which alone now 
 waits futurity to stamp it with the brilliant and crowning 
 seal of its testimony. I will bring again the captivity of 
 Moab in the latter days, saith the Lord. 2 I will bring 
 again the captivity of the children of Ammon, saith the 
 Lord? The remnant of my people shall possess them} 
 They shall build the old wastes, they shall raise up the 
 former desolations, and they shall repair the waste cities; 
 the desolations of many generations." 5 
 
 1 " Being determined by custom to transfer the past to the fu- 
 ture in all our inferences; where the past has been entirely regu- 
 lar and uniform, we expect the event with the greatest assurance, 
 and leave no room for any contrary supposition." (Hume's Essay 
 on Probability, vol. ii. p. 61.) 
 
 2 Jer. xlviii. 47. 
 
 3 Ibid. xlix. 6. 4 Zeph. ii. 9. 
 5 Isa. lxi. 4; lviii. 12. Ezek. xxxvi. 33,36. 
 
IDtJMEA. 
 
 291 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 IDUMEA OK EDOM. 
 
 A heavier doom was denounced against the land of 
 Edom, or Idumea : and the testimony of an infidel was 
 the first to show how it has been realised. That testi- 
 mony, as forming an exposition of itself, may, in a pri- 
 mary view of them, be subjoined to the prophecies, and 
 must have its due influence on every unbiassed mind. 
 
 Concerning Edom, thus saith the Lord of hosts, is 
 wisdom no more in Teman? is counsel perished from the 
 prudent? Is their wisdom vanished? I will bring the 
 calamity of Esau upon him the time that I will visit him. 
 If grape-gatherers come to thee, would they not leave 
 some gleaning-grapes? if thieves by night, they will de- 
 stroy till they have enough. But I have made Esau 
 bare, I have uncovered his secret places, and he shall not 
 be able to hide himself. Behold, they whose judgment 
 was not to drink of the cup have assuredly drunken : and 
 art thou he that shall altogether go unpunished? thou 
 shalt not go unpunished, but thou shalt surely drink of 
 it. I have sworn by myself, saith the Lord, that Bozrah 
 (the strong or fortified city) shall bocome a desolation, a 
 reproach, a waste, and a curse; and all the cities there- 
 of shall be perpetual wastes. Lo, I will make thee small 
 among the heathen, and despised among men. Thy ter- 
 
292 
 
 IDUMEA. 
 
 ribleness hath deceived thee, and the pride of thine heart, 
 
 0 thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, that holdest 
 the height of the hill : though thou shouldest make thy 
 nest as high as the eagle, I will bring thee down from 
 thence, saith the Lord. Also Edom shall be a desola- 
 tion ; every one that goeth by it shall be astonished, and 
 shall hiss at all the plagues thereof. As in the overthrow 
 of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the neighbour cities there- 
 of, saith the Lord, no man shall abide there, neither shall 
 a son of man dwell in it. Thus saith the Lord God, I will 
 stretch out mine hand upon Edom, and will cut off man and 
 beast from it ; and I will make it desolate from Teman. 2 
 The word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, 
 set thy face against Mount Seir, and prophesy against it, 
 and say unto it, Thus saith the Lord God, I will stretch 
 out my hand against thee, and I will make thee most de- 
 solate. I will lay thy cities waste, and thou shalt be de- 
 solate. 3 Thus will I make Mount Seir most desolate, and 
 cut off from it him that passeth out, and him that return- 
 eth. 4 I will make thee perpetual desolations, and thy cities 
 shall not return. 5 When the whole earth rejoiceth, I 
 will make thee desolate. Thou shalt be desolate, 0 Mount 
 Seir, and all Idumea, even all of it; and they shall know 
 that I am the Lord. Edom shall be a desolate wilder- 
 ness. 7 For three transgressions of Edom, and for four, 
 
 1 will not turn away the punishment thereof. 8 Thus saith 
 the Lord concerning Edom, I have made thee small among 
 the heathen, thou art greatly despised. The pride of 
 thine heart hath deceived thee, thou that dwellest in the 
 clefts of the rock, whose habitation is high. Shall I not 
 
 1 Jer. xlix. 7-10, 12, 13, 15-18. 2 Ezek. xxv. 13. 
 
 3 Ezek. xxxv. 1-4. 4 Ibid. 7. 5 Ibid. 9. 6 Ibid. 14, 15. 
 7 Joel iii. 19. 8 Amos i. 11. 
 
IDUMEA. 
 
 293 
 
 destroy the wise men out of Edom, and understanding 
 out of the mount of Esau? The house of Jacob shall pos- 
 sess their possessions, but there shall not be any remain- 
 ing of the house of Esau. 1 I laid the mountains of Esau 
 and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness. 
 Whereas Edom saith, We are impoverished, but we will 
 return and build the desolate places ; thus saith the Lord 
 of hosts, They shall build, but I will throw down; and 
 they shall call them the border of wickedness." 2 Is there 
 any country, once inhabited and opulent, so utterly deso- 
 late ? There is, and that land is Idumea. The territory 
 of the descendants of Esau affords as miraculous a 
 demonstration of the inspiration of the Scriptures, as the 
 fate of the children of Israel. 
 
 Idumea was situated to the south of Judea and of Moab; 
 it bordered on the east with Arabia Petrsea, under which 
 name it was included in the latter part of its history, and 
 it extended southward to the eastern gulf of the Red 
 Sea. A single extract from the Travels of Volney will 
 be found to be equally illustrative of the prophecy and of 
 the fact. " This country has not been visited by any 
 traveller, but it well merits such an attention; for from 
 the report of the Arabs of Bakir, and the inhabitants of 
 Gaza, who frequently go to Maan and Karak, on the road 
 of the pilgrims, there are to the south-east of the lake 
 Asphaltites (Dead- Sea), within three days' journey, up- 
 wards of thirty ruined towns absolutely deserted. Several 
 of them have large edifices, with columns that may have 
 belonged to ancient temples, or at least to Greek churches. 
 The Arabs sometimes make use of them to fold their 
 cattle in; but in general avoid them on account of the 
 enormous scorpions with which they swarm. We cannot 
 ^bad. 1-3, 8, 17, 18. 2 Malachi i. 3, L 
 
294: 
 
 IDUMEA. 
 
 be surprised at these traces of ancient population, when 
 we recollect that this was the country of the Nabatheans, 
 the most powerful of the Arabs, and of the Idumecms, 
 who, at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem^eie almost 
 as numerous as the J ews, as appears from Josephus, who 
 informs us, that on the first rumour of the march of Titus 
 against Jerusalem, thirty (twenty) thousand Idumeans in- 
 stantly assembled, and threw themselves into that city for 
 its defence. It appears that besides the advantages of 
 being under a tolerably good government, these districts 
 enjoyed a considerable share of the commerce of Arabia 
 and India, which increased their industry and population. 
 We know that as far back as the time of Solomon, the 
 cities of Astioum Gaber (Esion Gaber) and Ailah (Eloth) 
 were highly frequented marts. These towns were situ- 
 ated on the adjacent gulf of the Eed Sea, where we still 
 find the latter yet retaining its name, and perhaps the 
 former in that of El Akaba, or the end (of the sea). 
 These two places are in the hands of the Bedouins, who 
 being destitute of a navy and commerce, do not inhabit 
 them. But the pilgrims report that there is at El Akaba 
 a wretched fort. The Idumeans, from whom the Jews 
 took only their ports at intervals, must have found in them 
 a great source of wealth and population. It even appears 
 that the Idumeans rivalled the Tyrians, who also pos- 
 sessed a town, the name of which is unknown, on the 
 coast of Hedjaz, in the desert of Till, and the city of 
 Faran, and without doubt, El- Tor, which served it by 
 way of port. From this place, the caravans might reach 
 Palestine and Judea in eight or ten days. This route, 
 which is longer than that from Suez to Cairo, is in- 
 finitely shorter than that from Aleppo to Bassorah." 1 
 1 Volney's Travels, vol. ii. pp. 344-346. 
 
IDUMEA. 
 
 295 
 
 Evidence, which must have been undesigned, which can- 
 not be suspected of partiality, and which no illustration 
 can strengthen, and no ingenuity pervert, is thus borne 
 to the truth of the most wonderful prophecies. That the 
 Idumeans were a populous and powerful nation long pos- 
 terior to the delivery of the prophecies; that they possess- 
 ed a tolerably good government (even in the estimation of 
 Yolney); that Idumea contained many cities; that these 
 cities are now absolutely deserted, and that their ruins 
 swarm with enormous scorpions ; that it was a commercial 
 nation, and possessed highly frequented marts; that it 
 formed a thoroughfare in ancient times, but yet that it 
 had not then been visited by any traveller ; are facts all 
 recorded, or proved to a wish, by this able but uncon- 
 scious commentator. 
 
 Idumea was a kingdom previous to Israel, having been 
 governed first by dukes and princes, afterwards by eight 
 successive kings, and again by dukes, before there reign- 
 ed any king over the children of Israel 1 Its fertility 
 and cultivation in the earliest times, are implied not only 
 in the blessings of Esau, whose dwelling was to be the 
 fatness of the earth, and of the dew of heaven from above;* 
 but also in the condition proposed by Moses to the E do- 
 mites, when he solicited a passage for the Israelites 
 through their borders, " that they would not pass 
 through the fields or through the vineyards." The 
 Idumeans were, without doubt, both an opulent and a 
 powerful people. They often contended with the Israel- 
 ites, and entered into a league with their other enemies 
 against them. In the reign of David they were indeed 
 subdued and greatly oppressed, and many of them were 
 
 1 Genesis xxxvi. 31-43. 2 Ibid, xxvii. 39. 
 
296 
 
 IDUMEA. 
 
 dispersed throughout the neighbouring countries, particu- 
 larly Phoenicia and Egypt. But during the decline of 
 the kingdom of Judah, and for many years previous to 
 its extinction, they encroached upon the territories of the 
 Jews, and extended their dominion over the south-wes- 
 tern part of Judea. Though no excellence whatever be 
 now attached to its name, which exists only in past his- 
 tory, Idumea, including perhaps Judea, as Eeland has 
 shown, was then not without the praise of the first of Eo- 
 man poets. 
 
 Primus Idumseas referam tibi, Mantua, palmas. 
 
 Virg. Georg. iii. 12. 
 
 And of Lucan, (Pharsal. iii. 216.) 
 
 Arbustis palmarum dives Idume. 
 
 But Idumea, as a kingdom, can lay claim to a higher 
 renown than either the abundance of its flocks, or the 
 excellence of its palm trees. The celebrated city of 
 Petra, (so named by the Greeks, and so worthy of its 
 name, on account both of its rocky situation and vicinity,) 
 was situated within the patrimonial territory of the Edom- 
 ites. There is distinct and positive evidence that it was 
 a city of Edom, 1 and the metropolis of the Nabatheans, 2 
 whom Strabo expressly identifies with the Idumeans — 
 possessors of the same country, and subject to the same 
 
 1 Petra being afterwards more particularly noticed, some quota- 
 tions from ancient authors respecting it may here be subjoined. 
 
 Tlsrga woXig tv yy) Edu/j, rr^g Agufiiag. Eusebii Onomast. 
 " Petra civitas Arabia in terra Edom." Hieron. torn. iii. p. 59. 
 Vide Relandi Palasstina, torn. i. p. 70. 
 
 2 M?jr£GToX/g <5s rwv Na/3ara/£«i/ tsnv v\ Tterga xaXou^nrj. Strabo, 
 lib. xvi. p. 779, edit. Paris, 1620, ed. Falc. p. 1106. 
 
IDUMEA. 
 
 297 
 
 laws.i " Petra," to use the words of Dr Vincent, by 
 whom the state of its ancient commerce was described 
 before its ruins were discovered, " is the capital of Edom 
 or Seir, the Idumea or Arabia Petrsea of the Greeks, the 
 Nabatea, considered both by geographers, historians, and 
 poets, as the source of all the precious commodities of the 
 east." 2 " The caravans, in all ages, from Minea, in the 
 interior of Arabia, and from Gerrha on the Gulf of Per- 
 sia, from Hadramaut on the ocean, and some even from 
 Sabea or Yemen, appear to have pointed to Petra as a 
 common centre ; and from Petra the trade seems again 
 to have branched out into every direction, to Egypt, Pa- 
 lestine, and Syria, through Arsinoe, Gaza, Tyre, Jeru- 
 salem, Damascus, and a variety of subordinate routes 
 that all terminated on the Mediterranean. There is 
 every proof that is requisite, to show that the Tyrians and 
 Sidonians were the first merchants who introduced the 
 produce of India to all the nations which encircled the 
 Mediterranean; so there is the strongest evidence to 
 prove that the Tyrians obtained all their commodities 
 from Arabia. But if Arabia was the centre of tins 
 commerce, Petra 3 was the point to which all the Ara- 
 bians tended from the three sides of their vast pen- 
 insula." 4 " The name of this capital, in all the various 
 languages in which it occurs, implies a rock, and as 
 such it is described in the Scriptures, in Strabo, and Al- 
 Edrissi." 5 
 
 1 Nafiarctm ds eifiiv bi Idovfiaioi. Strabo, lib. xvi. p. 760, edit. 
 Falcon, p. 1081. 
 
 2 Vincent's Commerce of the Ancients, vol. ii. p. 263. 
 
 3 Agatharchides Huds. p. 57. Plinii Hist. Nat. lib. vi. cap. 
 xxviii. quoted by Vincent, ibid. p. 262. 
 
 4 Ibid. pp. 260-262. 
 
 6 Vincent's Commerce of the Ancients, vol. ii. p. 264. 
 
298 
 
 1DUMEA. 
 
 About 800 years before Christ, Amaziah, the king of 
 Judea, took Selah (or Petra, both names alike signifying 
 a rock) after having slain 10,000 Edomites. 1 Five hun- 
 dred years thereafter, it withstood the repeated assaults 
 of Demetrius, who marched suddenly against it to take it 
 by surprise : and he who afterwards entered Babylon, re- 
 treated from before the capital of Edom. 2 Petra, sub- 
 sequently to its subjugation by the Nabathean Arabs, 
 was termed the capital of Arabia, or more properly of 
 Arabia Petrsea : and a race of kings who reigned there un- 
 der the names of Obodas and Aretas, were each succes- 
 sively designated " the king of Arabia." Three hundred 
 years after the last of the prophets, and nearly a century 
 before the Christian era, Alexander Janneus, king of 
 Judea, having taken several cities of the Idumeans and 
 neighbouring nations, was defeated by Obodas, lost his 
 army, and scarcely escaped with his life. Aretas, the 
 successor of Obodas, who next reigned at Petra, " a per- 
 son very illustrious" (smdo^og) discomfited and slew Anti- 
 ochus Dionysius, king of Syria; and Ccelesyria was added 
 to his dominions. When Hyrcanus, the son of Alexan- 
 der, was dispossessed of his kingdom by his elder brother 
 Aristobulus, Antipater, an Idumean of great wealth, the 
 father of Herod the Great, urged him to flee for aid to 
 " the king of Arabia," and conducted him to " Petra, where 
 the palace of Aretas was." 3 On the promised restoration 
 by Antipater, as soon as he should be repossessed of his 
 kingdom, of the twelve cities and territory which his 
 father had taken* from the Arabs or Nabatheans, Aretas, 
 
 1 2 Kings xiv. 7. 2 Diod. Sic. torn. viii. p. 416. Prideaux- 
 
 3 E/c Tlergav ottou fianXua v\v rou Agzra. Joseph. Ant. lib. xiv 
 c. 1. sect. 4. 
 
 4 Viz. Medaba, Naballo, Livias, Tharabasa, Agalla, Athone, 
 Zoara, Orome, Marissa, Rydda, Lyssa, and Oryba. Ibid. 
 
IDUMEA. 
 
 299 
 
 at the head of 50,000 men, horse and foot, marched 
 against Aristobulus, conquered him in battle, and, ad- 
 vancing with all his army, entered Jerusalem, and having 
 united the forces of the Jews with his own,, pressed vigor- 
 ously the siege of the temple — which was only raised by 
 the advance of the Eomans to the aid of Aristobulus. 1 
 At a period posterior as well as well as prior to the com- 
 mencement of the Christian era, there always reigned at 
 Petra, as Strabo relates, a king of the royal lineage, with 
 whom a prince or procurator, denominated his brother, 
 was associated in the government. In the beginning of 
 the second century, Petra, though its independence was 
 lost, was still the capital of a Etonian province, or the re- 
 puted metropolis of Arabia ; and, as its coins attested, the 
 emperor Adrian added his name to that of the city : 3 it 
 long continued to be the capital of the third Palestine — 
 Palestina tertia sive salutaris; and, as such, was also 
 the metropolitan see of fifteen bishoprics pertaining to 
 that province. 4 
 
 The ancient state of Idumea cannot in the present day 
 be so clearly ascertained from the records respecting it, 
 which can be gleaned from history, whether sacred or 
 profane, as by the wonderful and imperishable remains of 
 its capital city, and by " the traces of many towns and 
 villages," which indisputably show that " it must once have 
 been thickly inhabited." 5 It not only can admit of no 
 dispute, that the cities of Idumea subsisted in a very dif- 
 
 1 Joseph. Ant. c. ii. sect. 1. ed. Fale. p. 1107. 2 Strabo, p. 779. 
 
 3 Petra est Arabia? metropolis, quo spectant nummi, in quibus 
 AAPIANH I1ETPA MHTPOI10AIC legitur, &c. Vide Relandi 
 Palest, torn. ii. p. 931. 
 
 4 Ibid. torn. i. p. 315, kc. 
 
 5 Burekhardt's Travels in Syria, p. 436. 
 
300 
 
 IDUMEA. 
 
 ferent state from that absolute desolation in which, long 
 prior to the period of its reality, it was represented in the 
 prophetic vision; hut there are prophecies regarding it, 
 especially those in the thirty-fourth chapter of Isaiah, 
 that have yet a prospective view, and which refer to the 
 time when " the children of Israel shall possess their 
 possessions," or to " the year of recompences for the con- 
 troversy of Zion." But, difficult as it has hitherto been 
 to ascertain those existing facts, and precise circumstances, 
 which form the strongest features of its desolate aspect, 
 (and that ought to be the subject of scientific as well as 
 of religious inquiry,) enough has been discovered to show 
 that the sentence against it, though fulfilled by the agency 
 of nature and of man, is precisely such as was first record- 
 ed in the annals of inspiration. 
 
 Edam shall be a desolation. From generation to gene- 
 ration it shall lie waste, &c. Judea, Ammon, and Moab, 
 exhibit so abundantly the remains and the means of an 
 exuberant fertility, that the wonder arises in the reflect- 
 ing mind, how the barbarity of man could have so 
 effectually counteracted, for so many generations, the 
 prodigality of nature. But such is Edom's desolation, 
 that the first sentiment of astonishment on the contem- 
 plation of it, is, how a wide extended region, now diver- 
 sified by the strongest features of desert wildness, could 
 ever have been adorned with cities, or tenanted for ages 
 by a powerful and opulent people. Its present aspect 
 would belie its ancient history, were not that history cor- 
 roborated by " the many vestiges of former cultivation," 
 by the remains of walls and paved roads, and by the ruins 
 of cities still existing in this ruined country. 
 
 The total cessation of its commerce ; the artificial irri- 
 gation of its valleys wholly neglected ; the destruction of 
 
IDUMEA. 
 
 301 
 
 all the cities, and the continued spoliation of the country 
 by the Arabs, the permanent exposure, for ages, of the soil 
 unsheltered by its ancient groves, and unprotected by any 
 covering from the scorching rays of the sun ; the unob- 
 structed encroachments of the desert, and of the drifted 
 sands from the borders of the Bed Sea, the consequent 
 absorption of the water of the springs and streamlets dur- 
 ing summer; are causes which may have all combined 
 their baneful operation in rendering Edom most desolate, 
 the desolation of desolations. Volney's account is suffi- 
 ciently descriptive of the desolation which now reigns over 
 Idumea; and the information which Seetzen derived at 
 Jerusalem respecting it, is of similar import. 1 He was 
 told " that at the distance of two days' journey and a half 
 from Hebron, he would find considerable ruins of the an- 
 cient city of Abde, and that for all the rest of the journey 
 he would see no place of habitation: he would meet only 
 with a few tribes of wandering Arabs." From the bor- 
 ders of Edom, Captains Irby and Mangles beheld a 
 boundless extent of desert view, which they had hardly 
 ever seen equalled for singularity and grandeur. And 
 the following extract, descriptive of what Burckhardt 
 actually witnessed, cannot be more graphically abbrevi- 
 ated than in the words of the prophet. — " It might with 
 truth," says Burckhardt, " be called Petrsea, not only 
 on account of its rocky mountains, but also of the elevat- 
 ed plain already described, 2 which is so much covered 
 with stones, especially flints, that it may with great pro- 
 priety be called a stony desert, although susceptible of 
 culture ; in many places it is overgrown with wild herbs, 
 and must once have been thickly inhabited; for the traces 
 
 1 Seetzen's Travels, p. 46. 
 
 2 Sheera (Seir) the territory of the Edoraites, pp. 410, 435. 
 
302 
 
 1DUMEA. 
 
 of many towns and villages are met with on both sides of 
 the Hadj road, between Maan and Akaba, as well as be- 
 tween Maan and the plains of the Hauran, in which di- 
 rection are also many springs. At present all this country 
 is a desert, and Maan {Teman) 1 is the only inhabited place 
 in it. 2 / will stretch out my hand against thee, 0 Mount 
 Seir, and will maize thee most desolate. I will stretch 
 out my hand upon Edom, and will make it desolate from 
 Teman, <Sfc. If grape-gatherers come to thee, would they 
 not leave some gleaning grapes ? if thieves by night, they 
 will destroy till they have enough. But I have made 
 Esau bare. Edom shall be a desolate ivilderness. I 
 loill stretch out upon Idumea the line of confusion, and 
 the stones of emptiness. 
 
 Of the remains of ancient cities still exposed to view 
 in different places throughout Idumea, Burckhardt de- 
 scribes " the ruins of a large town, of which nothing re- 
 mains but broken walls and heaps of stones ; the ruins of 
 several villages in its vicinity; 3 the ruins of an ancient 
 city consisting of large heaps of hewn blocks of silicious 
 stone ; the extensive ruins of Gherandel, Arindela, an an- 
 cient town of Palsestina Tertia." 4 " The following ruined 
 places are situated in Djebal Shera (Mount Seir) to the 
 south and south-west of Wady Mousa, Kalaat, Djerba, 
 Basta, Eyl, Ferdakh, Anyk, Bir el Beytar, Shemakh, 
 and Syk. Of the towns laid down in D'Anville's map, 
 Thoana excepted, no traces remain." 5 Laborde passed 
 the ruins of Elana, a town in Wady (valley) Pambouehe- 
 be, of another in Wady Sabra, where there are the ruins 
 of a theatre and several temples — and of Ameime, where 
 
 1 See map prefixed to Burckhardt's Travels. 
 
 2 Burckhardt's Travels, p. 436. 3 Ibid. p. 418. 
 4 Ibid. p. 441. 5 Ibid. pp. 443, 444. 
 
IDUMEA. 
 
 303 
 
 there are the remains of numerous cisterns excavated 
 from the rock, into which the water flowed by an aque- 
 duct nine miles in length. I will lay thy cities waste, 
 and thou shalt be desolate. 0 Mount Seir, I will make 
 thee perpetual desolations; and thy cities shall not re- 
 turn. 
 
 Malachi, the last of the prophets, who wrote two hun- 
 dred years after Ezekiel, and above three hundred after 
 Isaiah, describes the heritage of Esau as laid waste for 
 the dragons of the wilderness. But he adds, Whereas 
 Edom saith, we are impoverished, but we will return and 
 build the desolate places; thus saith the Lord, They shall 
 build, but I will throw down. In recording the inva- 
 sion of Demetrius, about three hundred years before the 
 Christian era, into the land of Edom, Diodorus describes 
 the country as desert, and the inhabitants as living with- 
 out houses; nor does he mention any city in that region 
 but Petra alone. Yet the names of some of the cities of 
 Arabia Petrsea, enumerated by Josephus, as existing at 
 the time when the Eomans invaded Palestine — the names 
 of eighteen cities of Palestina Tertia, of which Petra was 
 the capital, and the metropolitan see, in the times of the 
 Lower Empire — and the towns laid down in D'Anville's 
 map, together with the subsisting ruins of towns in Edom, 
 specified by Burckhardt, and also by Laborde — give proof 
 that Edom, after having been impoverished, did return 
 and build the desolate places ; even as " the ruined towns 
 and places," still visible and named, show that though 
 the desolate places were built again, according to the 
 prophecy, they have, as likewise foretold, been thrown 
 down, and are " ruined places" lying in utter desolation. 
 
 While the cities of Idumea, in general, are thus most de- 
 solate, and while the ruins themselves are as indiscriminate 
 
304: 
 
 IDUMEA. 
 
 as they are undefined in the prediction, (there being no- 
 thing discoverable, as there was nothing foretold, but 
 their excessive desolation, and that they shall not return,) 
 there is one striking exception to this promiscuous deso- 
 lation, which is alike singled out by the inspired prophet, 
 and by the scientific traveller. 
 
 Burckhardt gives a description, of no ordinary interest, 
 of the site of an ancient city which he visited, the ruins 
 of which not only attest its ancient splendour, but they 
 " are entitled to rank among the most curious remains of 
 ancient art." Though the city be desolate, the monu- 
 ments of its opulence and power are durable. These — 
 as described by Burckhardt in his passing visit, — are, 
 a channel on each side of the river, for conveying the 
 water to the city ; numerous tombs ; above two hundred 
 and fifty sepulchres or excavations ; many mausoleums, 
 one in particular of colossal dimensions, in perfect pre- 
 servation, and a work of immense labour, containing a 
 chamber sixteen paces square, and above twenty-five in 
 height, with a colonnade in front thirty-five feet high, 
 crowned with a pediment highly ornamented, &c; two 
 large truncated pyramids, and a theatre with all its 
 benches, capable of containing about three thousand spec- 
 tators, all cut out of the rock. In some places these 
 sepulchres are excavated one over the other, and the side 
 of the mountain is so perpendicular that it seems impossi- 
 ble to approach the uppermost, no path whatever being 
 visible. "The ground is covered with heaps of hewn 
 stones, foundations of buildings, fragments of columns and 
 vestiges of paved streets, all clearly indicating that a large 
 city once existed here. On the left bank of the river is 
 a rising ground, extending westward for nearly three quar- 
 ters of a mile, entirely covered with similar remains. On 
 
CORINTHIAN COLUMNS IN PETHA, 
 
IDUMEA. 
 
 305 
 
 the right bank where the ground is more elevated, ruins 
 of the same description are to he seen. There are also 
 the remains of a palace and of several temples. In the 
 eastern cliff there are upwards of fifty separate sepulchres 
 close to each other." 1 These are not the symbols of a 
 feeble race, nor of a people that were to perish utterly. 
 But a judgment was denounced against the strongholds 
 of Edom. The prophetic threatening has not proved an 
 empty boast, and it could not have been the Avord of an 
 uninspired mortal. / will make thee small among the 
 heathen. Thy terribleness hath deceived thee, and the 
 pride ofthme heart, 0 thou that dioellest in the clefts of 
 the rock, that holdest the height of the hill: though thou 
 shouldest make thy nest as high as the eagle, I will bring 
 thee down from thence, saith the Lord. Also Edom shall 
 be a desolation. 
 
 These descriptions, given by the prophet and by the 
 ol erver, are so analogous, and the precise locality of the 
 scene, from its peculiar and characteristic features, so 
 identified, — and yet the application of the prophecy to 
 the fact so remote from the thoughts or view of Burck- 
 hardt, as to be altogether overlooked, — that his single 
 delineation of the ruins of the chief (and assuredly the 
 strongest and best fortified) city of Edom was deemed in 
 the first edition of this treatise, and in the terms of the 
 preceding paragraph, an illustration of the prophecy, alike 
 adequate and legitimate. And though deprecating any 
 allusion whatever of a personal nature, and earnest only 
 for the elucidation of the truth, the author yet trusts that 
 he may here be permitted to disclaim the credit of hav- 
 ing been the first to assign to the prediction its wonder- 
 ful and appropriate fulfilment; and it is with no slight 
 
 f Burckhardt's Travels in Syria, pp. 422-432. 
 
 X 
 
306 
 
 1DUMEA. 
 
 gratification that he is now enabled to adduce higher 
 evidence than any opinion of his own, and to state, that 
 the self- same prophecy has been applied by others — with 
 the Bible in their hands, and with the very scene before 
 them — to the self- same spot. Yet it may be added, 
 that this coincident application of the prophecy, without 
 any collusion, and without the possibility at the time of 
 any interchange of sentiment, affords, at least, a strong 
 presumptive evidence of the accuracy of the application, 
 and of the truth of the prophecy; and it may well lead 
 to some reflection in the mind of any reader, if scepticism 
 has not barred every avenue against conviction. 
 
 On entering the pass which conducts to the theatre of 
 Petra, Captains Irby and Mangles remark ; — " The ruins 
 of the city here burst on the view in their full grandeur, 
 shut in on the opposite side by barren craggy precipices 
 from which numerous ravines and valleys branch out in 
 all directions; the sides of the mountains covered with an 
 endless variety of excavated tombs and private dwellings, 
 (0 thou that dwellest in the clefts of the bock, &c. — 
 Jer. xlix. 16,) presented altogether the most singular 
 scene we ever beheld." 
 
 In still farther confirmation of the identity of the site, 
 and the accuracy of the application, it may be repeated, 
 in the words of Dr Vincent, that " the name of this ca- 
 pital, in all the various languages in which it occurs, im- 
 plies a rock, and as such it is described in the Scriptures, 
 in Strabo, and Al Edrissi." 1 And in a note he enumer- 
 ates among the various names having all the same signi- 
 fication— Selah, a rock, (the very word here used in the 
 original,) Petra, a rock, (the Greek name, which has 
 precisely the same signification,) and The Rock, pre- 
 1 Commerce of the Ancients, vol. ii. p. 264. 
 
1DUMEA. 
 
 307 
 
 eminently — expressly referring to this passage of Scrip- 
 ture. 1 Petrsea, according to Bochart, no mean autho- 
 rity, was so called from its metropolis Petra, of which the 
 Hebrew name was Selah, and the Arabic, Hagar; Selah 
 being the very same among the Hebrews, and Hagar 
 among the Arabians, as Petra among the Greeks ; this 
 name was given to the city because rocky mountains 
 overhung it — of which the Arabian geographer states that 
 houses are there excavated in the rock. 2 This testimony, 
 however high the authority, is yet enhanced by the fact, 
 that it was given long before the ruins of Petra were dis- 
 covered, or the prediction applied to the fact. 
 
 1 See Blaney, in loco. 
 
 2 Cum Petrsea dicatur — a metropoli Petra, cujus Hebraeum 
 nomen Selah. 2 Kings xiv. 7, et Isa. xvi. 1, et Arabicum Hagar, 
 Geograph. Nub. Clhn. iii. part 5. Hebrasis autem Selah et Arabi- 
 bus Hagar id ipsum sunt quod Graecis Petra; atque hoc nomen 
 urbi inditurn, quia illi imminent saxosi montes, de quibus ita Geo- 
 graphus Arabs — Hagar est arx pulchre sita inter montes — sunt- 
 que ibi domus excisce in petra. Hos montes Arabica voce Agar, 
 id est, Petram, appellat Paulus, Gal. iv. 25, tanquam urbi cogno- 
 mines. Bochart Phaleg. lib. iv. c. xxvii. c. 275, 276. Edit. 
 Lugd. Bat. 1712. 
 
 It may be interesting, if not instructive, to the Christian reader, 
 in reference to the allegory spoken of by the Apostle (Galatians 
 j[v. 25,) to add, as Josephus has related, and as the name imports, 
 that the Nabatheans, who, after the Edomites possessed for so 
 long a period Petra as their capital, were the descendants of Ne- 
 baioth, the first-born of Ishmael, the son of Hagar. Its desolate 
 site in the present day, and the unrepealable decree of perpetual 
 desolation which rests on Edom alone, may be deemed a farther 
 exposition of the allegory. And that allegory itself, which the 
 future state of the world has yet fully to expound, would prove to 
 be written for instruction in righteousness, if men were hence led, 
 from its prophetic truth and spiritual application, to consider the 
 different character and final fate of the children of the bond wo- 
 man and of the free. 
 
308 
 
 IDUMEA. 
 
 Captains Irby and Mangles, having, together with Mr 
 Bankes and Mr Legh, spent two days in diligently exa- 
 mining them, give a more particular detail of the ruins 
 of Petra than Burckhardt's account supplied; and the 
 more full the description, the more precise and wonderful 
 does the prophecy appear. Near to the place where 
 they entered Wady Mousa, " the high land was covered 
 upon both its sides, and on its summits, with lines and 
 solid masses of dry wall. The former appeared to be 
 traces of ancient cidtivation, the solid ruins seemed to be 
 only the remains of towers for watching in harvest and 
 vintage time. The whole neighbourhood of the spot bears 
 similar traces of former industry; all which seem to in- 
 dicate the vicinity of a great metropolis." 1 A narrow 
 and circuitous defile, surrounded on each side by precipi- 
 tous or perpendicular rocks, and forming " a sort of sub- 
 terranean passage," opens on the east the way to the 
 ruins of Petra. The rocks, or rather hills, then diverge 
 on either side, and leave an oblong space, where once 
 stood the metropolis of Edom, deceived by its terrible- 
 ness, where now lies a waste of ruins, encircled by rocks 
 or cliffs, which still show how the pride and labour of art 
 tried there to vie with the sublimity of nature. Along 
 the borders of these cliffs, detached masses of rock, nu- 
 merous and lofty, have been wrought into sepulchres, the 
 interior of which is excavated into chambers, while the 
 exterior has been cut from the live rock into the forms of 
 towers, with pilasters, and successive bands of frieze and 
 entablature, wings, recesses, figures of animals, and co- 
 lumns. 
 
 " Tombs present themselves, not only in every avenue 
 to the city, and upon every precipice that surrounds it, 
 1 Captains Irby and Mangles's Travels, p. 402. 
 
IDUMEA. 
 
 309 
 
 but even intermixed almost promiscuously with its public 
 and domestic edifices; the natural features of the defile 
 grew more and more imposing at every step, and the ex- 
 cavations and sculpture more frequent on both sides, till 
 it presented at last a continued street of tombs." The 
 base of the cliffs wrought out into all the symmetry and 
 regularity of art, with colonnades and pedestals, and 
 ranges of corridors adhering to the perpendicular surface; 
 flights of steps chiselled out of the rock; many grottos, 
 " which are certainly not sepulchral ;" some excavated 
 residences of large dimensions, in one of which is a sin- 
 gle chamber, sixty feet in length, and of a breadth pro- 
 portioned ; other dwellings of inferior note, particularly 
 abundant in one defile leading to the city, the steep sides 
 of which contain a sort of excavated suburb, accessible by 
 flights of steps; niches, sometimes thirty feet in excavat- 
 ed height, with altars for votive offerings, or with pyra- 
 mids, columns, or obelisks; some small pyramids hewn 
 out of the rock on the summit of the heights; horizontal 
 grooves for the conveyance of water, cut in the face of 
 the rock, and even across the architectural fronts of some 
 of the excavations; and, in short, " the rocks hollowed 
 out into innumerable chambers of different dimensions, 
 whose entrances are variously, richly, and often fantasti- 
 cally decorated with every imaginable order of architec- 
 ture ;"* — all united not only form one of the most singular 
 scenes that the eye of man ever looked upon, or the ima- 
 gination painted — a group of wonders perhaps unparal- 
 leled in their kind — but also give indubitable proof, both 
 that in the land of Edom there was a city where human 
 ingenuity, and energy, and power must have been exert- 
 
 1 Captains Irby and Mangles's Travels, pp. 407-437. Macmi- 
 chael's Journey, pp. 228, 229. 
 
310 
 
 IDUMEA. 
 
 ed for many ages, and to so great a degree, as to have 
 well entitled it to be noted for its strength or terribleness, 
 and that the description given of it by the prophets of 
 Israel was as strictly literal as the prediction respecting 
 it is true. " The barren state of the country, together 
 with the desolate condition of the city, without a single 
 human being living near it, seem," in the words of those 
 who were spectators of the scene, " strongly to verify the 
 judgment denounced against it." 1 0 thou that dwellest 
 in the clefts of the rock, <Sfc. Also Edom shall be a deso- 
 lation, <§c. 
 
 Of all the ruins of Petra, the mausoleums and sepul- 
 chres are among the most remarkable, and they give the 
 clearest indication of ancient and long- continued royalty, 
 and of courtly grandeur. Their immense number corro- 
 borates the accounts given of their successive kings and 
 princes by Moses and Strabo, though a period of eighteen 
 hundred years intervened between the dates of their re- 
 spective records concerning them. The structure of the 
 sepulchres also shows that many of them are of a more 
 recent date. " Great," says Burckhardt, " must have 
 been the opulence of a city which could dedicate such 
 monuments to the memory of its rulers." 2 But the 
 long line of the kings and of the nobles of Idumea, has 
 for ages been cut off; they are without any representa- 
 tive now, without any memorial but the multitude and 
 the magnificence of their unvisited sepulchres. They 
 shall call the nobles thereof to the kingdom, (or rather, 
 they shall call, or summon, the nobles thereof,) but there 
 shall be no kingdom there, and all her princes shall be 
 nothing. 
 
 1 Irby and Mangles's Travels, p. 439. 
 
 2 Burckhardt's Travels, p. 425. 
 
IDUMEA. 
 
 311 
 
 The description given by Volney, and depending for 
 its accuracy on the authority of Arabs, formed till very 
 recently the only account of the modern state of Idumea; 
 and though the testimony was recorded in a manner and 
 came through a channel the most unsuspected possible, 
 yet the evidence was not sufficiently direct or discrimin- 
 ating to mark, as Volney had otherwise done, the exact, 
 prophetic, and characteristic features of the scene. The 
 interesting details, from personal observation, communi- 
 cated by Burckhardt, and subsequently by Captains Irby 
 and Mangles, rescued the subject from obscurity, and 
 brought to light the remarkable fact of the ruins of " a 
 city" surrounded with rocks, in the midst of the desert. 
 
 When, in the streets of Jerusalem, the people shouted 
 hosannahs to the Son of David, and while some of the 
 Pharisees among the people said unto him, Master, re- 
 buke thy disciples, he answered and said unto them, I tell 
 you that if these should hold their peace, the stones would 
 immediately cry out. And in an infidel age, while many 
 modern cities and nations disowned the authority of the 
 God of Israel and disbelieved his word, those of ancient 
 times stood forth anew before the world, like witnesses 
 arisen from the dead, to show the authority, the power, 
 and the truth of his word over them, and to raise a warn- 
 ing and instructive voice to the cities of the nations, lest 
 they too should become the monuments of the wrath which 
 they have defied. And when men would not hear of ho- 
 sannahs to the Son of David, or of divine honours to the 
 name of Christ, deserts immediately spake and rocks cried 
 out, and, responding to the voice of the prophets, testified 
 of those who testified of Jesus. The capital of Edom, as 
 well as the capital of other ancient kingdoms, was heard 
 
312 
 
 IDUMEA. 
 
 of again; and its rocks now send forth a voice that may 
 well reach unto the ends of the earth. 
 
 It entered not into the thoughts of the writer, and far 
 surpassed his hopes, when first led to look into the prophe- 
 cies concerning Edom, from the statement of an Arab 
 report recorded by Volney, that in so short a time the 
 fulfilment of these prophecies might be set before the eyes 
 of men, even without their having to " come and see." 
 And after having adduced new evidence in successive 
 editions of this treatise from striking facts, clearly illus- 
 trative of the predictions relative to Edom, and to its 
 once terrible metropolis, an appeal may now be made to 
 the sight as well as to the understanding of men. For 
 while the sixth edition of this treatise was passing through 
 the press, the author timely received from Paris (and 
 would that that city would give heed to the truth, which it 
 thus farther affords the means of confirming) the first six 
 livraisons of a work entitled, Voyage de V Arable Petrepar 
 Mess. Leon de Laborde et Linant, then in the course of 
 publication, which contains, in the numbers first published, 
 seventeen splendid engravings of the ruins of Petra alone, 
 in which, by merely affixing a text, the beauties of art 
 become immediately subservient to the interests of reli- 
 gion. To these, others have been added, and the splen- 
 did work has been completed. Where, very recently, it 
 was difficult, if not impossible, to ascertain a single fact, 
 and where only indirect evidence could be obtained, men 
 may now, as it were, look upon the ruins of the chief city 
 of Edom, of which the very existence was till lately alto- 
 gether unknown. A better idea may be formed of the 
 site of Petra from the plan of it by Count Laborde, than 
 by any additional verbal description. All the plates at- 
 
IDUMEA. 
 
 313 
 
 test its vast magnificence/ and the almost incredible and 
 inconceivable labour, continued as it must nave been from 
 age to age, prior to the days of Moses and later than the 
 Christian era, by which so great a multiplicity of dwell- 
 ings and mausoleums were excavated from the rock. 
 And Truth speaks out, not from the lips of a lying spirit 
 evoked by the fancy of a sceptical philosopher, but from 
 the face of the live rock, which exhibits the excavations 
 in the clefts, singularly characteristic of the scene, and 
 declares by the order of architecture, as if still told by 
 every stroke of the chisel, that the citizens of Petra did 
 build after the era of the prophets; while the fragments of 
 ruins, of Grecian and Eoman architecture, as well as of 
 more ancient date, which are strewed over the ground, 
 and cover the valley which was the site of the city, and 
 which is surrounded by precipitous hills and excavated 
 rocks, shoAv that these buildings, whose doom was pro- 
 nounced before their erection, have, according to the same 
 sure word, been thrown down. 
 
 The explicit testimony of Laborde here enhances the 
 value of his precious engravings. It is, he states, " from 
 the summit of El Nakb, that one can judge of the general 
 aspect of the country, of the melancholy and dismal cha- 
 racter of which it is difficult to convey an idea with the 
 pencil alone. But the prophetic description surpasses 
 that of the pen or pencil of man, however gifted the 
 painter, or however graphic the delineation. For he im- 
 mediately adds, " Many prophets have announced the 
 misery of Idumea, but the strong language of Ezekiel can 
 alone come up to the height, or reach the acme, of this 
 great desolation." 1 Moreover the word of the Lord came 
 unto me, saying, Son of man, set thy face against Mount 
 
 1 On petit juger ainsi di leur elevation et de l'aspect general du 
 
314: 
 
 IDUMEA. 
 
 Seir and prophesy against it, and say unto it, Thus saith 
 he Lord God, behold 0 Mount Seir I am against thee, 
 and I will make thee most desolate. I will lay thy cities 
 waste, and when the whole earth rejoiceth I will make thee 
 desolate. I will make Mount Seir most desolate, and cut 
 off from it him that passeth out and him that returneth. 
 I will make thee perpetual desolations, and thy cities shall 
 not return, and ye shall know that I am the Lord. 1 
 
 One. engraving, the view of an isolated column, is pe- 
 culiarly striking, as indirectly exemplifying the unique 
 character of the scenery, hy which, at a glance, Petra is 
 identified. The design of the picture is to represent an 
 isolated column. But the hack-ground exhibits to view 
 "a part of the valley of Moses" (Ouadi Mousa), some of 
 those high rocks in the more distant perspective, which are 
 pierced with many excavations (perces de milliers exca- 
 vations.) Other plates present to view the vast magni- 
 ficence of the tombs of Petra. There is one tomb, of 
 which a view is given, which is particularly deserving of 
 notice, as there is engraven on it a Latin inscription, with 
 a name of a magistrate, Quintus Praetextus Florentinus, 
 who died in that city, being governor of that part of 
 Arabia Petrsea. " It behoved to be," it is said; " about 
 the time of Adrian or Antoninus Pius," or at a period 
 unquestionably several centimes posterior to the latest of 
 the predictions. 
 
 Elaborate descriptions of splendid scenes by the pen of 
 travellers, are, as Laborde remarks, sometimes charged 
 
 pays, dont le fcriste et lugubre caractere est difficile a transporter 
 avec l'aide seule du crayon. Plusieurs prophetes avaient annonce 
 le malheur de l'ldumee; mais la forte parole d'Ezechiel pent seule 
 s'elever a la hauteur de cette grande desolation. — Voyage, p. 61. 
 1 Ezekiel, xxxv. 
 
IDUMEA. 
 
 315 
 
 with being exaggerated. But the views which he gives 
 of the Khasne of Petra, show that the verbal description 
 might be highly wrought, and yet come short of the truth; 
 even as he and others remark, that the pencil itself can 
 convey only an inadequate representation of " the magni- 
 ficent edifice," which, to this day, is only slightly defaced. 
 
 The previous testimonies to recently ascertained facts, 
 sufficient to constitute conclusive evidence, have been re- 
 tained as in preceding editions ; for illustrations of literal 
 prophecies from literal facts, wherever these are undoubt- 
 edly established and rightly applied, admit not of change, 
 like imaginative expositions. When a Scriptural com- 
 mand, in reference to a prophetic vision, was disregarded, 
 and men would not wait for it, while it tarried till the 
 appointed time, when, as made plain upon tables, it should 
 speak and not lie, a symbolical significancy could alone 
 be attached in ancient times to the judgments on Edom 
 and the proudest of its cities, when Aretas reigned in his 
 " palace at Petra," or when that city was the capital of 
 aPioman province, or a metropolitan see in Christian times. 
 Jerome, for example, could not see this vision as the pro- 
 phet saw it, while the inhabitants of Edom, as he testifies, 
 continued to dwell in excavated habitations, or in the cliffs 
 of the rocks. It was too early then for the expositor to 
 see those things which the prophets had written, and, not 
 reading these predictions literally, Christian writers readily 
 interpreted them after the manner of the Jewish, sub- 
 stituting the enemies of the church for the enemies of 
 Israel, as symbolised by Edom or the Edomites. And 
 it ought not, we apprehend, to be deemed late enough 
 now to sanction the averment, that these prophecies were 
 fulfilled two thousand years ago, while yet Idumea was a 
 kingdom, and the Edomites a people. In either way, as 
 
316 
 
 IDUMEA. 
 
 in any other, the word of God is not bound. Judgments 
 indeed fell — or began to fall — on Edom in times anterior 
 to that era; others rest upon it still, as it now speaks for 
 itself; and it has yet to bear witness to other prophecies. 
 The distinction has to be drawn not only between figura- 
 tive and literal predictions, of which the latter have been 
 trenching greatly on the former as men would construe 
 them, — but also between accomplished and unaccomplish- 
 ed prophecies; that the former be not made to occupy the 
 place of the latter, as men, we are free to confess, are 
 yet prone to err. But this truth may here be plain, that 
 as in fact Edom was confederate in ancient days with 
 Amnion and Moab against Israel, so, in fact also, their 
 capital cities as well as their territories, now themselves 
 own their fealty, and yield their united homage, to the 
 word of the Lord of hosts, the Holy One of Israel. 
 
 Though the attempt did fail to reach the chief cities 
 of Amnion and Moab, that the light of the sun reflected 
 from their ruins might be made to vindicate the oracles 
 of its Creator, and their exclusive right to be their own 
 interpreters of his word to them — some of the wonders of 
 Petra, that have not been overcharged, may here be seen 
 as they are set forth by the daguerreotype, which, for 
 truth's sake, may claim its right to supersede the labours 
 of the pen and the pencil, however elaborate or excellent 
 they be. 
 
 The only building " which has resisted the ravages of 
 time," is marked in the plan of Laborde, Serail Pharaon, 
 (or palace of Pharaoh,) which he designates " ruined 
 temple." He thus describes it: — " Situated to the west 
 of the city, on the banks of the river, it towers over the 
 innumerable debris, or wrecks of buildings, which cover 
 the soil, and yet presents, though in ruins, a beautiful 
 
IDUMEA. 
 
 317 
 
 mass, and beautiful details of architecture. The cornice 
 which surmounts the temple, is in a pure and elegant 
 style." " The arch of triumph," says Dr Eobinson, 
 (C seems to have formed the approach to the palace or pile 
 of building beyond, which the Arabs call Kusr Far'on, 
 ' Pharaoh's Castle,' the distribution of the interior (of 
 which) into several chambers and stories, seems to show 
 conclusively, that it was not a temple." 1 The same 
 building (see plate) is described by Lord Claud Hamilton. 
 <e A square palace, near to the triumphal arch, is the only 
 edifice of masonry standing. I entered it and examined 
 the interior. The wooden joints still remain in the walls, 
 apparently strong and sound. The ground is strewed 
 with portions of the roof, hewn stones, and portions of the 
 cornice, amongst which, numbers of thistles, prickly 
 plants and nettles grow. At first, I was not certain about 
 the nettles; but, wishing to ascertain their identity, I 
 put my hand to them, and though they had not the 
 force of English nettles, yet they gave a pungent feel- 
 ing, which, if the plant were stronger, would amount to 
 a sting. They had exactly the leaf; but it was late in 
 the season, so that want of moisture had probably weak- 
 ened them. Thus there were nettles in the only palace 
 that the proud city of Petra contains erect. Thorns 
 come up in her palaces, nettles and brambles in the for- 
 tresses thereof. The testimony of the Eev. E. Woolmer 
 Cory of Pembroke College, Cambridge, as adduced in 
 many former editions, was communicated to the author 
 by his brother, to whom, after visiting Petra, he thus 
 wrote, " The common English black thorn and bramble 
 are very common in Petra ; and a plant more prickly 
 1 Vol. ii. p. 524. 
 
318 
 
 IDUMBA. 
 
 than either, and also regular, old, stinging nettles." 
 " Both in the interior of the palace" and in what must 
 have been its adjoining enclosures, according to the more 
 recent testimony of Dr Wilson, there are many hushes 
 and shrubs growing, such as we should expect to find in 
 any similar body of ruins, as brooms, thistles, nettles, 
 thorns, and others of a like sort. It is impossible to 
 look at them in the place in which they are found, with- 
 out recalling to mind the language of the prophet, Thorns 
 shall come up in her palaces, nettles and brambles in the 
 fortresses thereof" <Sfc. The writer may here add, that 
 on first entering the ruined edifice through a narrow 
 opening in the wall, he unconsciously put his foot among 
 some rank nettles, in full vigour in early summer, the 
 stinging properties of which, satisfied with the sense of 
 sight, he had no need or inclination to try. Such is now, 
 as seen in the plate, the last erect structure of this proud 
 capital of Idumea. Its other walls, as seen in the view 
 taken by Laborde, are shattered, and partly fallen, to 
 the base. The lower part of a column in front is nine- 
 teen feet in circumference, equal to those of the grand 
 temple of Baalbec. The thickness of the wall of the 
 palace is upwards of eight feet. Part of a fallen column 
 is about five feet in diameter. But not one now stands 
 to decorate the ruin. 
 
 The gateway, or " triumphal arch," near it, through 
 which princes of Edom passed, has a fragment left, which, 
 though it be not a noble nun, so stands alone, like the 
 broken edifice to which, by a paved way, it led, that 
 though no longer a memorial of some long-forgotten 
 victory of the once terrible Edomites, has enough left to 
 be a monument of their metropolis, and of the triumph, 
 
IDUMEA. 
 
 319 
 
 that shall never be forgotten of the word of the Lord 
 over that capital of the enemies of Israel, all prostrate 
 around it. 
 
 Hemmed in by precipitous cliffs and rocky hills, at 
 least two miles in circumference, at the elevation of more 
 than two thousand feet above the great valley of the Araba, 
 in Mount Seir, the city built by " the people of the Lord's 
 curse," has now no power but to testify, like other cities 
 of that land, that his threatening to throw down, however 
 often it was rebuilt, is perfect work. Such indiscriminate 
 and indefinable ruins resemble those of many other cities, 
 even of Judah and of Israel, as of Amnion and of Moab, 
 and of far mightier cities than these, however proud, that 
 extended without obstruction over a far wider space: but 
 as the prophet, in uttering forth the words of the God of 
 truth against Edom, spake of those who, deceived in their 
 terribleness and the pride of their hearts, dwelt in the clefts 
 of the rock, or of Selah, and made their nests as high as the 
 eagles, it is not in the bottom of a valley, however high 
 the elevation of its site, that the fall completion of such 
 judgments are to be found. And more than the " deso- 
 late heap" of the capital of Moab, or the stables and 
 couching-places of Amnion, the cliffs that environ the old 
 metropolis of Edom, — not more clearly demonstrative 
 of Scriptural inspiration, though reduced more humiliat- 
 ingly to a " court for owls," — have, on their discovery, 
 awakened a higher interest, and command a greater 
 astonishment, than the wide- spread ruins of any city of a 
 plain. Its possessors, long after the irresistible word of 
 the living God had gone forth against it, might, not with- 
 out seeming cause, exult in the pride of their hearts; and 
 they have left works for the wonder of the world, though 
 in vain as to their own glory or the endurance of their 
 
320 
 
 1DUMEA. 
 
 city or their race, they made their own nests as high 
 as the eagles, or hewed themselves sepulchres out of the 
 rocks. 
 
 The first glance at the indiscriminate ruins of the rock- 
 girt city, low as they can he, may, because of the cir- 
 cumscribed space they occupy, apparently diminished by 
 the height of the precipitous cliffs, have lowered the high 
 expectations of some stranger from a far land; but the 
 more closely and the more fully that the environing rocks 
 and ravines are examined, the more does the wonder rise 
 at the ancient grandeur and existing desolation of that 
 " renowned emporium of commerce," all bare and empty 
 now, in which nothing of its departed glory remains that 
 ruthless spoliators or wild beasts could destroy or devour, 
 and not a bone is to be found in its sepulchres, reputed 
 or real, while oleanders blossom like flowerets round a rifled 
 tomb, and briars, and thorns, and thistles take their ap- 
 pointed place in the palaces and fortresses thereof. 
 
 But as a question has been raised whether any of these 
 excavations were dioellings, and as it has been stated, 
 after a disturbed visit of a single day, that they exhibit 
 no trace of having been constructed for habitations, 
 though at the same time it be confessed that, at a later pe- 
 riod, they may not improbably have been thus used, there 
 may be here a call for clear and conclusive evidence, 
 that at least some of them were dioellings in the clefts 
 of the rock. Those travellers, we apprehend, who, with- 
 out disturbance, have most leisurely and fully examin- 
 ed these excavations, render their express testimony, on 
 full conviction, that in ancient times many of them were 
 obviously dwellings. Captains Irby and Mangles state, 
 that " there are grottos in great number, which are cer- 
 tainly not sepulchral. » They describe the sides of the 
 
IDUMEA. 
 
 321 
 
 mountain as " covered with an endless variety of exca- 
 vated tombs and private dwellings, presenting altogether 
 the most singular scene they ever beheld." 1 Lord Claud 
 Hamilton as unhesitatingly states, that " many of these 
 excavations have been intended for the living, as they 
 contain several apartments." "Days and weeks," says 
 Lord Lindsay, ft might be spent here if every excavation 
 were visited. We left the valley after revisiting the Kasne, 
 and exploring several of the excavated dwellings; for it is 
 clear, I think, both from the language of Scripture, and 
 the appearance of the caves themselves, that the majo- 
 rity, if not all of them, were the abodes of the living, 
 not of the dead. Such is Petra. Thy terribleness hath 
 deceived thee — 0 thou that dwellest in the clefts of the 
 rock." 
 
 That the houses of Petra were excavated in the rock 
 is expressly related by the geographer, Edrisi; and 
 Jerome, in the fifth century, also testifies that the in- 
 habitants of Edom, from Petra to the borders of Judea, 
 dwelt in caves. 
 
 Count Portalis, formerly Prussian Charge d' Affaires 
 at Constantinople, and now a member of the Prussian 
 government — than whom a more acute and intelligent 
 observer has not visited Petra — kindly favoured the 
 author with the following extract from his Journal, on 
 this point, to which he gave special attention : " It is 
 probable that, in a climate so warm as that of Arabia 
 Petrea, and in a country whose rocks were so marvel- 
 lously adapted for artificial excavations, and which con- 
 tained so many natural ones besides — the first inhabi- 
 tants woidd have preferred caverns — cool and dry — to 
 houses such as we now inhabit; and it was not till a later 
 period, and when Petra had become a flourishing city, 
 1 Irby and Mangles, p. 129. 
 
 Y 
 
322 
 
 IDUMEA. 
 
 that the houses of hewn stones — the remains of which 
 are seen in the central valley of this strange city — were 
 constructed. These new buildings, however, did not 
 cause the abandonment of the ancient usages. The win- 
 dows which are frequently seen in the strange edifices, 
 cut out of the lateral walls of the sieke, and of the valley 
 into which it opens, show that these constructions were, 
 in part at least, if not all, dwellings and not tombs. I 
 am indeed inclined to believe, that those of the excava- 
 tions which served for the sepulture of the dead, were 
 devoted to this purpose at a later period, and that this 
 change took place at the time when Petra was a Roman 
 colony. Besides the windows which we noticed in several 
 of these edifices, we saw here and there holes in the rocks 
 above the entrance of the cells, which holes were evi- 
 dently intended for the insertion of joists belonging to a 
 part of the edifice now ruined, and constructed in front 
 of the excavations. Thus the excavations were only a 
 part of the houses of the old Nabathean city, and served 
 as sleeping places and dwelling chambers for the fa- 
 mily, while in front of these cool retreats were raised 
 reception chambers, such as the Orientals at the present 
 day call le salamlik. Most of the large excavations show 
 evident traces of constructions in front of the wall of rock 
 from which they are hewn ; and as, besides, these inte- 
 rior facades contain often windows, it is difficult to con- 
 ceive how many travellers who have successively visited 
 Petra, have seen in it nothing but tombs." 
 
 Dr Wilson, in his able and learned work on the Lands 
 of the Bible, states that there is a great multitude of ex- 
 cavations on both sides of the defile by which the brook 
 of Wadi Musa makes its escape through the rocks. Along 
 the adjoining cliffs are many excavations connected with 
 two terraces, and rising one above another, but much 
 
IDUMEA. 
 
 323 
 
 broken and injured, in the staircases leading to them. 
 We spent more than a couple of hours in exploring them ; 
 for though they were not very remarkable in point of art, 
 being of the most simple construction, many of them un- 
 equivocally appeared to us to have been the abodes of 
 the living, and not of the dead. In these excavations we 
 sometimes found apartments and recesses which did not 
 at all appear fitted for the reception of coffins or sarco- 
 phagi, but obviously intended for family convenience. 
 Some of them have windows as well as doors. In front 
 of two or three of them are receptacles for water. They 
 are approachable by a common way, exactly such as the 
 wants of living inhabitants would suggest," &C. 1 
 
 Some notes taken by the writer of these pages on the 
 spot may, in more minute detail, be subjoined in confir- 
 mation of the fact, that other excavations in Petra bear 
 unequivocal proofs that they were constructed for habita- 
 tions, and were actually dioellings in the rock. 
 
 On the opposite side of the valley, near the great tomb, 
 with three rows of columns (as marked inLaborde's chart,) 
 of part of which, with the adjoining structure, a daguerreo- 
 type view is given, — one excavation, about fifteen feet 
 square, and sixteen high, so far as not filled up with rubbish, 
 which keeps the rocky floor from view, had but one small re- 
 cess, (one foot four inches by one foot ten,) and had mani- 
 festly been divided into two apartments in depth, the upper 
 lighted by a window and supported by beams, the open 
 resting places of which are seen on the opposite sides; 
 another chamber beside it is about thirteen feet square, 
 without any inner recess, about the same height, and a 
 very high door- way, as if for light, but no window. At 
 the distance of half a mile from the "Great Tomb," 
 1 Vol. i. 312. 
 
324: 
 
 1DUMEA. 
 
 along the same cliff to the north, where tombs are mark- 
 ed in the plan, there are a number of apartments nearly 
 contiguous, all of which, so soon as entered, seemed 
 manifestly designed for the living and not for the dead. 
 There, on the north-east side of the valley, one excava- 
 tion is thirty-nine feet by thirty-eight, in which there are 
 none of the ordinary inner excavations for corpses, and 
 the only recess is a small cubical one of seven feet. The 
 door is about ten feet high, and nearly seven broad, with 
 a window on each side, and three windows above, exactly 
 in the same manner as if formed for an upper storey, the 
 central one being larger than those on the sides. The 
 whole apartment is well lighted ; and on its base the cen- 
 tral part is lower than the sides, which form, as it were, 
 a raised seat or divan, on the end, and on both sides. 
 The central part forms an area twenty-eight feet and a- 
 half by twenty-two ; the elevation forms three sides of a 
 parallelogram, regularly cut and raised at least two feet 
 eight inches above the floor, with a step, or rather seat, 
 a few inches lower, cut all around. The whole is finished 
 with perfect regularity. The excavation has incompara- 
 bly more the appearance of a dwelling than of a tomb. 
 Beside it, is another apartment, similarly formed and 
 benched, without any cavities for the dead, twenty-three 
 feet by twenty-two, having a side chamber with a win- 
 dow. In both there are openings for bars to the doors. 
 Close by is a circular excavation seemingly an oven. 1 On 
 the same ledge of rock a third chamber, with two open- 
 ings or windows, is about nineteen feet square, and a 
 fourth, at the foot of a connecting staircase, twenty feet 
 and a half by seventeen feet four inches. (Others are 
 
 1 In the opposite cliff, near other dwellings, Irby and Mangles 
 noted " particularly an oven." 
 
IDUMEA. 
 
 325 
 
 close around.) In none of these are there any recesses 
 for the dead, as in those that ultimately at least have been 
 used for tombs. Beyond this cluster of apartments, which 
 would have formed no mean suite of chambers or summer 
 retreat for a prince of Edom, is a chamber with two win- 
 dows, sixteen feet nine inches by fifteen and a half, of pre- 
 cisely similar construction, with a lower place in the centre, 
 and an upper along three of the sides, with a step or seat 
 between them; and so well adapted are they for the purpose 
 for which the writer doubted not, as he saw them, that they 
 were designed, that as he took these notes upon the spot, 
 (as literally transcribed for the printer,) one Arab, who 
 had aided him in the measurements, sat down upon the 
 seat, while another, who brought in a lizard about a foot 
 long, seemingly fatigued with his search after animals of 
 any sort, stretched himself at full length on the bare and 
 uncushioned divan, while the writer stood in the ser- 
 vant's place, with a measuring line and a note-book in 
 his hand. Two openings, or windows, as well as the door, 
 lighted the apartment, in which there is not the slightest 
 appearance of any excavation for a corpse. The place, 
 like many others, was manifestly designed for the living, 
 not for the dead, as much as the oven beside them. Ex- 
 actly similar in every respect, though smaller, is a conti- 
 guous apartment. 
 
 While noting these dviellings, now bare as the rock, 
 wholly deserted by man, but open to owls, it may do 
 more than mark the locality to other travellers, to tell 
 that there on a higher ascent stands a chair of stone cut 
 from the rock, in an open excavated space, with a block 
 projecting from the centre, the pedestal it may have 
 been — as the grooved space behind seems to indicate, — 
 of one of the gods of Edom, who was not likely exalted* 
 
326 
 
 IDUMEA. 
 
 there to preside over tombs, though his own seat, if such 
 it was, be now as empty as are both the dwellings and 
 the tombs of his worshippers. 
 
 In a cliff on the opposite end of the city, between the 
 theatre and the Kasne, the writer measured several exca- 
 vations varying from fourteen to twenty-one feet square, 
 though sometimes oblong, in only one of which was there 
 any recess for a corpse, and that too, like many others 
 in different places, of rude and seemingly later construc- 
 tion. In one the only niche was three feet four inches 
 by two feet, and only fifteen inches in depth, and could 
 never have been designed for a tomb. Outside another, 
 which is twenty feet square, seats along the wall, on both 
 sides of the door, were not constructed for the dead. The 
 excavation with four windows, as seen in the daguerreotype 
 plate, is thirty- three feet long, nearly twenty-one wide, 
 and twenty-five feet high, above the rubbish with which 
 the floor is covered. At one end there is a separate 
 chamber, with a long inner door, and a window, and a 
 smaUer chamber in the opposite end, above which is an- 
 other with an inner door, and a window, as seen in the 
 plate. Where all is empty and bare, every needful indi- 
 cation exists, that all these, and doubtless innumerable 
 more, were dwellings in the clefts of the rock. 
 
 But though proofs were multiplied indefinitely, that 
 excavated dwellings in the face of the cliffs were all empty 
 now, the evidence would not thereby be exhausted. It 
 is written, " Thy terribleness hath deceived thee, and the 
 pride of thine heart, 0 thou that dwellest in the clefts of 
 the rock, that holdest the height of the hill, though thou 
 shouldst make thy nest as high as the eagles, Iivill bring 
 thee down from thence, saith the Lord. Also Edom shall 
 be a desolation, every one that goeth by it shall be asto- 
 
yptlyCSKtitiiMt 
 
 BIL IDS II IE (f ^TEAj 
 
 MB 
 
IDUMEA. 
 
 327 
 
 nished." The El-Deir (see plate) is excavated from one 
 of the highest peaks of the hills that environ Petra, and 
 is nearly on a level with the top of Mount Hor surmount- 
 ed by Aaron's tomb, over against it. Cut out of the rock 
 which flanks it on both sides and in front, it is still 
 entire, an astonishing excavation. It speaks for itself as 
 to its form and its beauty, which is still inferior to that of 
 the Kasne. Its length across the front is 152 feet, its 
 height about equal; and its lower columns, as they spring 
 from the wall, are about twelve feet in semi-circumfer- 
 ence. Its magnitude may thus be estimated, to convey 
 an idea of which the artist has introduced three figures, 
 of six feet in proportionate height. It seems to have 
 been a temple, when Edom had its gods. But there, and 
 in the now " savage scenery around," as Lord Lindsay 
 terms it, a testimony may be raised, for the God of gods, 
 who laid the foundation of the everlasting mountains, and 
 who said of Edom, though thou shouldst make thy nest 
 as high as the eagles, I will bring thee down from thence. 
 There once stood more than that temple of rock, on the 
 heights of these cliffs of Selah. The temple stands, but 
 the worshippers and all their destructible works are gone. 
 
 Fronting that height of the hill out of which this marvel- 
 lous structure was wrought, is an open area two hundred and 
 sixty feet broad, on which are foundations of walls, hewn 
 stones, and fragments of pottery, a large circular line, which 
 cannot show of what it is the vestige, while the opposite 
 peak is encircled with foundations of a wall, and covered 
 with fallen ruins of ancient buildings, where all is now 
 utterly destroyed, and the fine mosaic of old, seemingly 
 once a tesselated pavement, is reduced, in large quanti- 
 ties, into the very diminutive and well formed squares, of 
 which it was originally constructed. Within that height 
 
328 
 
 IDUMEA. 
 
 or peak, once built all over, reaching nearly to its sur- 
 face is an excavation, upwards of ten yards in length, 
 and nearly the same width. Every ledge of rock seems 
 there to have been occupied by man; and fallen masonry 
 fronts excavated dwellings. 
 
 The result of Count Portalis's observations was thus 
 recorded in his Journal : " The route which conducts to 
 the Deir, is a road carefully cut out in the rock; this 
 road had evidently a double object, for besides that it 
 was a means of communication between the lower city and 
 the sort of acropolis on which the Deir stands, it served 
 to conduct the rain-water into the numerous cisterns 
 which are found from place to place. The purpose to 
 collect the rain-water is clearly shown by the artificial 
 channels intended to concentrate it towards one point, and 
 canals cut in the fissures of the rock. With a soil of 
 rocks which art had transformed into innumerable chan- 
 nels and reservoirs, with numerous and carefully con- 
 structed cisterns which are met with at every step, one 
 may conceive how Petra could formerly have contained 
 and supplied with water a numerous population. There 
 must have been abundance of water in this vast reservoir 
 of rocks, towards which there opened all the gorges and 
 gigantic fissures of this circle of natural walls. The 
 ground around the Deir, and that of the detached hill 
 which surmounts it, is covered with fragments of pottery 
 and the debris of masonry, and the rocks near it are fil- 
 ed with excavations of all forms and sizes, and with stair- 
 cases conducting to them. May not this have been the 
 acropolis, the almost inaccessible place of refuge of the 
 Nabathean city? Behind the Deir a narrow and impass- 
 able gorge penetrates into the rock. In it is an aqueduct 
 partly cut in the rock — partly constructed of masonry. 
 
IDUMEA. 
 
 329 
 
 We can scarcely suppose that this arid, elevated, and iso- 
 lated rock contained a spring; but probably if this aque- 
 duct was traced, it would lead to vast cisterns or tanks 
 for the supply of this portion of the city, which I am in- 
 clined to regard as the acropolis of Petra." 
 
 Such was our own opinion formed on the spot. There can 
 here be no question as to the date of these constructions, 
 that can have any thing to do with that of the inspira- 
 tion of this prophetic record. Though thou shouldst 
 make thy nest as high as the eagles, is the form of this 
 denunciation against Edom. They who dwelt in the 
 clefts of the rock, or of Selah or (Petra) and held the 
 height of the hill, did build their nest as high as the 
 eagles, as the eagles around still fly out of their undesert- 
 ed nests to testify; and the Lord has executed his word, 
 and brought those down, who could not have built their 
 nests higher than they did. An aged anchorite, for many a 
 year past, has been the self-constituted guardian of the 
 tomb of Aaron, and has there taken up his abode. But 
 no man remains where many dwelt, to keep watch or ward 
 over the deserted temples of the gods of Edom, whether 
 in the bottom of the valley or on the height of the hill. The 
 nests which men did build in Selah are all pulled down. 
 Their dwellings in the rock are consigned to other occu- 
 pants, and even where they became tombs, these are all 
 empty and bare, and the dead have not been suffered to 
 repose in them. 
 
 On the top of yonder cliff so near, the first high priest 
 of Israel died. Moses and Eleazar descended from the 
 mount; and all Israel mourned. Ignorant of the great 
 High Priest and only Mediator, whose body, though dead, 
 it was not possible that any sepulchre could hold, and who 
 is alwe again, and liveth for evermore — men in that land 
 
330 
 
 IDUMEA. 
 
 to this day deem it an act of devotion to sacrifice a kid 
 or lamb at Aaron's tomb. But where that tomb is in 
 immediate prospect, and from the midst of visible judg- 
 ments, the Spirit of prophecy, whose behests have ever 
 been obeyed, — as if issuing its mandate to other men of 
 coming days, and pointing to another tribute and another 
 time, can even there lift up its voice and say, Send ye the 
 lamb to the ruler of the land, from Selah ( Petra ) to the 
 wilderness, unto the mount of the daughter of Zion. 
 
 Lord Claud Hamilton, who, together with LordEoke- 
 by and Mr Littleton, visited Petra in 1839, thus bears 
 witness to the predicted desolation which has come on 
 Edom and its capital. After quoting some of these pro- 
 phecies, he adds, " Nothing can exceed the desolation of 
 its present condition, although the signs of its former 
 wealth and power are so durable as to have remained 
 many centuries after it was deserted, and they look as if 
 as many more may pass over them without working any 
 visible change. The commencement of the prophecy has 
 been most wonderfully fulfilled, for although it was beyond 
 the foresight of man to imagine that so wealthy and pow- 
 erful a city should be deserted and desolate, yet all hu- 
 man works and habitations are subject to a like fate, — 
 but the words, 'I will make thee small among the heathen,' 
 have been actually accomplished to such a degree that the 
 very site of Petra has for centuries been unknown. That 
 a great city should be thus swept from the memory of 
 man, and blotted out, for a long season, from the know- 
 ledge of the world, is a most striking manifestation of the 
 truth of the prophetic record, and utterly exceeded all 
 human foresight and sagacity. But every step in this 
 country exhibits some wonderful fulfilment of the doom 
 which was pronounced while it was flowing with riches 
 
TDUMEA. 
 
 331 
 
 and teeming with inhabitants; every specific misfortune 
 has overtaken this devoted kingdom, and yet there are 
 innumerable remains of what it once was." 
 
 A few extracts from Lord Claud Hamilton's graphic 
 description of Petra will be interesting to the reader: — 
 
 " Following a path which wound amongst undulating 
 hills and rocks, we gradually found ourselves surrounded 
 by the peculiar remains of this singular locality. On both 
 sides were curiously shaped tombs, either excavated from 
 the living rock, with fanciful exteriors, or boldly cut out 
 from it, and standing apart in square masses with orna- 
 mented facades, and surmounted with battlements, steps, 
 small pyramidal forms, and other devices, equally hewn 
 out from the mountain. Many of these excavations may 
 have been intended for the living, as they contain several 
 apartments. On the left the abrupt cliffs rise to a great 
 height, and towering over the undulated site of the an- 
 cient capital, exhibit on their pierced sides numerous 
 marks of the industry and peculiar taste of the inhabit- 
 ants of Selah. In front is an extensive space, partially 
 covered with grass, shrubs, and ruins, and intersected 
 with ravines, in which it is evident that streams formerly 
 flowed; beyond, some lower hills form the eastern horizon, 
 whilst to the right another lofty range of precipitous hills 
 hem in the valley, and present a continued line of splen- 
 did facades, and noble excavated temples and palaces, 
 which at once strike the beholder as the most extraordi- 
 nary sight that the imagination can conceive. — Nothing 
 can exceed the singularity of the general aspect: nor do 
 the excavations lose any of their marvels on a nearer ap- 
 proach. Having passed the single column of which La- 
 borde speaks, and also the square palace and triumphal 
 arch, the full and distinct view of the wondrous line of 
 
332 
 
 IDUMEA. 
 
 magnificent excavations burst on my sight. It is impos- 
 sible by any description to convey an idea of the general 
 aspect of this most extraordinary place, where art and 
 nature seem to have striven for the mastery, and each has 
 contributed to render it alike the most wonderful and in- 
 structive sight that can possibly be surveyed by man. 
 The high cliffs of the northern boundary present to view 
 an endless variety of excavations, dwellings, tombs, and 
 temples." 
 
 The theatre of Petra, like that of Amnion, is not the 
 least remarkable memorial of its populousness and wealth, 
 constructed, as it was, for the simultaneous and transient 
 assemblage of the gayest of its citizens, and not, though 
 both be equally empty now, like the tombs, for the per- 
 manent abode of the successive generations of its nobles. 
 As measured by the same intelligent and observant tra- 
 veller, " it consists of thirty-eight rows of high steps or 
 of stone benches, of which the uppermost is 152 paces in 
 length." The length of the lowest row of seats, as mea- 
 sured by the writer, is two hundred and thirty- eight feet, 
 and that of the middle three hundred and forty-five. The 
 theatre was thus capable of containing, exclusive of the 
 spaces for passages, upwards of seven thousand persons. 
 But how different now is a night- scene there from what it 
 was, when the capital of Edom, deceived by its terrible- 
 ness, and fearless of danger, was given to its pleasures, 
 and the shout of a multitude may have been heard in 
 triumph. With other feelings the solitary sojourner of a 
 day, as may be farther related in facts, not painted in 
 fancy, contemplates the scene of desolated grandeur over 
 which the word of the Lord is triumphant. 
 
 " It was the season of full moon. I went out to en- 
 joy the fine effect produced by the shades amongst these 
 
1 
 
 1DUMEA. 
 
 333 
 
 high cliffs, and to contemplate this scene of departed 
 grandeur in the stillness of night, which so well ac- 
 corded with its desolate appearance. Nothing could ex- 
 ceed the beauty of the evening. The clear sky spangled 
 with innumerahle bright stars, whilst the light which rules 
 the night cast its fine pale beams on the many temples, 
 palaces, dwellings, and tombs that every cliff and rock 
 presented; their numbers, inexplicable situations, and ap- 
 parent want of arrangement and system, rendered the 
 scene indescribably interesting. I chose the theatre as 
 one point of observation. There, alone, surrounded by 
 tenantless cliffs, I tried to conjure up some of the many 
 scenes which had been enacted there, when the rocks re- 
 sounded with the applauses of assembled thousands, and 
 this deserted spot was crowded with the noble, the great, 
 and the wealthy, brilliant with light, and gorgeous from 
 the dresses of the spectators — the power and glory of 
 Edom seemed as a dream which could not be credited. 
 Turning homewards again, the view of the open ground, 
 the arch, the square palace, and the cliff beyond, was 
 peculiarly striking. 
 
 " The springs have been dried up to such an extent 
 as to render the renewal of the general fertility of Edom 
 impossible. In the vicinity of the theatre of Petra, and 
 in other places along the course of the stream, reeds and 
 shrubs grow luxuriantly, oleanders and wild figs abound, 
 and give proof that a little cultivation would again cover 
 the rock, and fill the cliffs with the numberless gardens 
 which once adorned them. The traces of former ferti- 
 tility are innumerable; and it is likewise evident, that 
 every spot capable of sustaining vegetable life was care- 
 fully watered and cultivated. There are numerous grooves 
 in the rocks to convey the rain water to tombs, or to the 
 
334 
 
 IDUMEA. 
 
 little clefts in which even now figs are found. Every 
 spot capable of being so protected has been walled up, 
 however small the space gained, and however difficult the 
 means of securing it. The ancient inhabitants seem to 
 have left no accessible place untouched. They have ex- 
 hibited equal art and industry in eliciting from the grand 
 Avails of their marvellous capital whatever the combina- 
 tion of climate, irrigation, and botanical skill could foster 
 in the scanty soil that was afforded them. The hanging 
 gardens must have produced an enchanting effect amongst 
 the noble buildings of the town when it was in all its 
 glory." 1 
 
 / will make thee perpetual desolations, and thy cities 
 shall not return, and ye shall know that I am the 
 
 LOED. 2 " EVEKY ONE THAT GOETH BY IT SHALL EE AS- 
 TONISHED." 3 " I would/' says a recent traveller, "that 
 the sceptic could stand as I did, among the ruins of this 
 city among the rocks, and there open the sacred book 
 and read the words of the inspired penman, written when 
 this desolate place was one of the greatest cities in the 
 world. I see the scoff arrested, his cheek pale, his lip 
 quivering, and his heart quaking with fear, as the ruined 
 city cries out to him in a voice loud and powerful as that 
 of one risen from the dead, — though he would not believe 
 Moses and the prophets, he believes the hand-writing of 
 God himself in the desolation and eternal ruin around 
 him." 4 " If I had never stood on the top of Mount Sinai, 
 I should say that nothing could exceed the desolation of the 
 view from the summit of Mount Hor, its most striking ob- 
 
 1 Lord Claud Hamilton' Journal. 
 
 2 Ezekiel xxxv. 9. 3 Jeremiah xlix. 17. 
 4 Incidents of Travels, by Stephens, p. 68. 
 
ID U ME A. 
 
 335 
 
 jects being the dreary and rugged mountains of Seir, bare 
 and naked of trees and verdure, and heaving their lofty 
 summits to the skies, as if in a vain and fruitless effort to 
 excel the mighty pile, on the top of which the high-priest 
 of Israel was buried. Before me was a land of barren- 
 ness and ruin, a land accursed of God, and against which 
 the prophets had set their faces ; the land of which it was 
 thus written in the Book of Life, Son of man, set thy face 
 against Seir, and prophesy against it, and say unto it, 
 Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, 0 Mount Seir, I am 
 against thee, and I will stretch out my hand against thee, 
 and I will make thee most desolate, Qc, <Sfc. — (Ezek. 
 xxxv.) 1 
 
 They shall be called the border of wickedness. Strabo 
 contrasts the quiet disposition of the citizens of Petra with 
 the contentious spirit of the foreigners who resided there; 
 and the uninterrupted tranquillity which the townsmen 
 mutually maintained together, excited the admiration of 
 Athenodorus. 2 The fine gold is changed: no such peo- 
 ple are now to be found there. Though Burckhardt tra- 
 velled as an Arab, associated with them, submitted to all 
 their privations, and was so completely master of their 
 language and of their manners, as to escape detection, 
 he was yet reduced to that state within the boundaries of 
 Edom, which alone can secure tranquillity to the traveller 
 in the desert ; "he had nothing with him that could at- 
 tract the notice, or excite the cupidity of the Bedouins," 
 and was even stripped of some rags that covered his 
 wounded ankles. 3 The Arabs in that quarter, he observes, 
 
 have the reputation of being very daring thieves." In 
 like manner a Motselim, who had been twenty years in 
 office, pledged himself to Captains Irby and Mangles, and> 
 
 1 Incidents of Travels, p. 71. 
 
 2 Strabo, p. 779. 3 Burckhardt's Travels, 438. 
 
336 
 
 IDUMEA. 
 
 the travellers who accompanied, (in presence of the gover- 
 nor of Jerusalem,) that the Arabs of Wady Mousa are 
 " a most savage and treacherous race," and added, that 
 they would make use of their Frank's blood for a medi- 
 cine. That this character of wickedness and cruelty was 
 not misapplied, they had too ample proof, not only in the 
 dangers with which they were threatened, but by the fact 
 which they learned on the spot, that upwards of thirty 
 pilgrims from Barbary had been murdered at Petra the 
 preceding year, by the men of Wady Mousa. 1 Even the 
 Arabs of the surrounding deserts, as already stated, dread 
 to approach it; and towards the borders of Edom on the 
 south, "the Arabs about Akaba," as described by Po- 
 cocke, and as experienced by Burckhardt, " are a very 
 bad people, and notorious robbers, and are at war with 
 all others." 2 Such evidence, all undesignedly given, clear- 
 ly shows that in truth Edom is called the border of 
 wickedness. 
 
 I will make thee small among the nations; thou art 
 greatly despised. Contrasted with what it was, or reck- 
 oned among the nations, Edom is small indeed. Within 
 almost all its boundary it may be said that none abide, or 
 have any fixed or permanent residence; and instead of 
 the superb structures, the works of various ages, which 
 long adorned its cities, the huts of the Arabs, where even 
 huts they have, are mere mud hovels of " mean and rag- 
 ged appearance," which, in general, are deserted on the 
 least alarm. But miserable habitations as these are, 
 they scarcely seem to exist anywhere throughout Edom, 
 but on a single point on its borders ; and wherever the 
 Arabs otherwise wander in search of spots for pasturage 
 
 1 Irby and Mangles' s Travels, p. 417. Macmichael's Journey, 
 pp. 202, 234. 
 
 2 Pococke's Description of the East, vol. i. p. 136. 
 
IDUMEA. 
 
 337 
 
 for their cattle, (found in hollows, or near to springs after 
 the winter rains,) tents are their only covering. Those 
 which pertain to the more powerful tribes, are sometimes 
 both numerous and large ; yet, though they form at best 
 but a frail dwelling, many of them are " very low and 
 small." Near to the ruins of Petra, Burckhardt passed 
 an encampment of Bedouin tents, most of which were " the 
 smallest he had ever seen, about four feet high, and ten 
 in length;" and towards the south-west border of Edom, 
 he met with a few wanderers who had no tents with them, 
 and whose only shelter from the burning rays of the sun, 
 and the hea vy dews of night, was the scanty branches of 
 the Tahl trees. The subsistence of the Bedouins is often 
 as precarious as their habitations are mean ; the flocks 
 they tend, or which they pillage from more fertile regions, 
 are their only possessions; and in that land where com- 
 merce long concentrated its wealth, and through which 
 the treasures of Ophir passed, the picking of gum arabic 
 from thorny branches is now the poor occupation, the 
 semblance of industry practised by the wild and wander- 
 ing tenants of a desert. Edom is small among the nations; 
 and how greatly is it despised, when the public authori- 
 ties at Constantinople deny any knowledge of it, or of 
 the ruins of its capital — when the city of Petra is thus 
 forgotten and unknown among the representatives of the 
 villagers of Byzantium ! 
 
 Concerning Edom, thus saith the Lord, Is wisdom no 
 more in Teman? is understanding perished from the 
 prudent? Shall I not destroy the wise men out of Edom, 
 and understanding out of the mount of Esau ? Fallen 
 and despised as it now is, Edom,— did not the prescription 
 of many ages abrogate its right, — might lay claim to the 
 title of having been the first seat of learning, as well as the 
 
 z 
 
338 
 
 IDUMEA. 
 
 centre of commerce. While splendid remains of ancient 
 art give undoubted proof that wisdom and understanding 
 subsisted in the mount of Esau after the age of the pro- 
 phets, the first of modern philosophers thus speaks of the 
 wisdom of the Edomites in the earliest ages. "The 
 Egyptians having learned the skill of the Edomites, be- 
 gan now to observe the position of the stars, and the 
 length of the solar year, for enabling them to know the 
 position of the stars at any time, and to sail by them at 
 all times without sight of the shore; and thus gave a be- 
 ginning to astronomy and navigation. "i " It seems that 
 letters, and astronomy, and the trade of carpenters, were 
 invented by the merchants of the Eed Sea, and that they 
 were propagated from Arabia Petraea into Egypt, Chal- 
 dea, Syria, Asia Minor, and Europe." 2 While the phi- 
 losopher may thus think of Edom with respect, neither 
 the admirer of genius, the man of feeling, nor the child 
 of devotion will, even to this day, seek from any land a 
 richer treasure of plaintive poetry, of impassioned elo- 
 quence, and of fervid piety, than Edom has bequeathed 
 to the world in the book of Job. It exhibits to us, in 
 language the most pathetic and sublime, all that a man 
 could feel, in the outward pangs of his body, and the in- 
 ner writhings of his mind, of the frailties of his frame, 
 and of the dissolution of his earthly comforts and endear- 
 ments ; all that mortal can discern, by meditating on the 
 ways, and contemplating the works of God, of the omni- 
 science and omnipotence of the Most High, and of the 
 inscrutable dispensations of his providence; all that know- 
 ledge which could first tell, in written word, of Arcturus, 
 and Orion, and Pleiades; and all that devotedness of soul, 
 
 1 Sir Isaac Newton's Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms, p. 208. 
 
 2 Ibid. p. 212. 
 
1DUMEA. 
 
 339 
 
 and immortality of hope, which — with patience that fal- 
 tered not even when the heart was bruised, and ahnost 
 broken, and the body covered over with distress — could 
 say, " Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him." 
 
 But if the question now be asked, is understanding 
 perished out of Edom? the answer, like every response of 
 the prophetic word, may be briefly given : it is. The 
 minds of the Bedouins are as uncultivated as the deserts 
 they traverse. Practical wisdom is, in general, the first 
 that man learns, and the last that he retains. And the 
 simple but significant fact already alluded to, that the 
 clearing away of a little rubbish, merely " to allow the 
 water to flow" into an ancient cistern, in order to render 
 it useful to themselves, " is an undertaking far beyond 
 the views of the wandering Arabs," shows that under- 
 standing is indeed perished from among them. They 
 view the indestructible works of former ages not only with 
 wonder, but with superstitious regard, and consider them 
 as the work of genii. They look upon a European as 
 a magician, and believe that, having seen any spot where 
 they imagine that treasures are deposited, he can " af- 
 terwards command the guardian of the treasure to set 
 the whole before Yam." 1 In Teman, which yet main- 
 tains a precarious existence, the inhabitants possess the 
 desire without the means of knowledge. The Koran is 
 their only study, and contains the sum of their wisdom. 
 — And although he was but a " miserable comforter," and 
 was overmastered in argument by a kinsman stricken 
 with affliction, yet no Temanite can now discourse with 
 either the wisdom or the pathos of Eliphaz of old. Wis- 
 dom is no more in Teman, and understanding has perish- 
 ed out of the mount of Esau. 
 
 1 Burckhardt's Travels, p. 429. 
 
340 
 
 IDUMEA. 
 
 While there is thus subsisting evidence and proof that 
 the ancient inhabitants of Edom were renowned for wis- 
 dom as well as for power, and while desolation has spread 
 so widely over it, that it can scarcely be said to be in- 
 habited by man ; there still are tenants who hold pos- 
 session of it, to whom it is abandoned by man, and to 
 whom it was decreed by a voice more than mortal. And 
 insignificant and minute as it may possibly appear to those 
 who reject the light of revelation, or to the unreflecting 
 mind, that will use no measuring line of truth which 
 stretches beyond that which inches out its own shallow 
 thoughts, and wherewith, rejecting all other aid, it tries, 
 by the superficial touch of ridicule alone, to sound the 
 unfathomable depths of infinite wisdom : yet the follow- 
 ing Scripture, mingled with other words already verified 
 as the voice of inspiration, and voluntarily involving its 
 title to credibility in the appended appeal to fact and 
 challenge to investigation, may, in conjunction with kin- 
 dred proofs, yet tell to man — if hearing he will hear, and 
 show him, if seeing he will see — the verity of the Divine 
 word, and the infallibility of the Divine judgments; and, 
 not without the aid of the rightful and unbiassed exercise 
 of reason, may give understanding to the sceptic, that he 
 may be converted, and that he may be healed by him 
 whose word is ever truth. 
 
 . " But the cormorant and the bittern shall possess it 
 ( Idumea;) the owl also, and the raven, shall dwell in it. 
 It shall be an habitation for dragons and a court for 
 owls. The wild beasts of the desert shall also meet with 
 the wild beasts of the island, and the satyr (the hairy or 
 rough creature ) shall cry to his fellow; the screech-owl 
 also shall rest there, and find for herself a place of rest. 
 There shall the great owl make her nest, and lay, and 
 
XDUMEA: 
 
 341 
 
 hatch, and gather under her shadow; there shall the vul- 
 tures also he gathered, every one with her mate. Seek ye 
 out of the book of the Lord, and read; no one of these 
 shall fail, none shall want her mate; for my mouth it hath 
 commanded and his spirit it hath gathered them. And 
 he hath cast the lot for them, and his hand hath divided it 
 unto them by line: they shall possess it for ever; from 
 generation to generation shall tliey dwell therein." 1 
 
 The vision to which these predictions are annexed refers 
 to " the day of the Lord's vengeance, and the year of 
 recompences for the controversy of Zion." 2 We think, 
 assuredly, that it sets forth judgments not yet realised, 
 which the nations are caUed to hear; for his indignation, 
 — as spoken of also by all the prophets since the world 
 began, — shall be upon all nations, and his fury upon all 
 their armies. But given as the command is concerning 
 the animals that were to possess Edom, Seek ye out of 
 the book of the Lord and read; no one of these shall fail, 
 the evidence of the truth of this prediction, as heretofore 
 realised, or as those its destined occupants possess Edom 
 now, may well come within the sphere of legitimate in- 
 quiry, and take its place among the proofs of prophetic in- 
 spiration, exclusive, as in all other respects, of all to which 
 any doubt can be attached. 
 
 The prediction respecting them is conjoined with 
 others, which have now their striking or their full com- 
 pletion. The line of confusion and the stones of empti- 
 ness have been stretched over Edom. Many ancient 
 terraces in the vicinity of Petra are empty and bare; and 
 lines of confusion are stretched over the proud capital 
 where aqueducts ran along the cliffs, and combined mag- 
 nificence, beauty, and order, were carefully struck out by 
 
 1 Isaiah xxxiv. 11, 13-17, 2 See Note in the Appendix. 
 
342 
 
 IDUMEA. 
 
 the artist's chisel; and streets of the now formless city in 
 the valley beneath are no longer traceable, and edifices 
 and habitations he in undistinguishable heaps, the utter 
 desolation and confusion of which renders hopeless any 
 attempt to decipher their original form. Of the hills 
 which surround Petra, in nothing now but savage gran- 
 deur, the bare surface is in many places, where not 
 of sterile rock, like that of a newly ploughed field, with 
 its gathered stones spread over it, or as if the soil 
 had been washed away, and the stones left to cover the 
 bare subsoil. Such was the approach to Petra, on each 
 side of a broken paved way, on the ascent along Mount 
 Hor; and, ere the empty dwellings in the cliffs are reach- 
 ed, instead of any semblance to the precincts of a city or 
 a capital, nothing covered the ground, but, far between, 
 a few desert plants; the hills in general were there en- 
 tirely barren, a very portraiture of perfect desolation. 
 At every step there were renewed proofs that the stones 
 of emptiness were stretched over Edom. Along the base 
 of the range of Mount Seir, bare stones, in vast quanti- 
 ties, evidently carried down by torrents from the open- 
 ings of the wadys, are spread for a vast extent over the 
 side of the valley, as if strewn in confusion over its desert. 
 About an hour before entering the mountain- chain, nearly 
 opposite to Petra, we passed some hewn stones or foun- 
 dations of buildings, that bear the name of Kannetyra, 
 in the midst of a plain now covered only with flints and 
 stones,, and there, as if in mimic mockery, the mirage over- 
 spread the place where the dwellings of men had stood, 
 and gave a magic but momentary beauty to the desert. 
 
 They shall call the nobles thereof to the hingdom, but 
 none shall be there, and all her princes shall be nothing. 
 But though these be invoked in vain, where princes and 
 
IDTJMEA. 
 
 343 
 
 nobles dwelt in the chief city of the kingdom, dragons 
 have their habitation, and owls their courts; birds of prey 
 their nests, and the wild beasts of the desert their home, 
 and, as if called by their names, they meet where there 
 are now no nobles to convene, no kingdom to which they 
 can be called, no man to dwell. 
 
 Thorns come up in the palaces of Edom; nettles and 
 brambles in the fortresses thereof. The princes are no- 
 thing: none of the nobles are there; but other occu- 
 pants are not wanting, and it is both a habitation of 
 dragons and a court for owls. Dr Shaw represented the 
 land of Edom, and the desert of which it now forms 
 part, as abounding with a variety of lizards and vipers, 
 which are very numerous and troublesome: 1 and Volney 
 relates that the Arabs, in general, avoid the ruins of the 
 cities of Idumea, on account of the enormous scorpions 
 with which they swarmed. " So plentiful," as observed 
 by Mr Cory, " are the scorpions in Petra, that though it 
 was cold and snowy, we found them under the stones, 
 sometimes two under one stone; and I have no doubt," 
 he adds, " that there are vast numbers of them in the 
 summer time, as well as serpents, which the natives say 
 there are." " The creeping things," according to the 
 testimony of Dr Wilson, " which are found in the ruins of 
 Petra, are so numerous, that the place, like all others, I 
 suppose, of a similar character in the country, may be 
 characteristically spoken of as f an habitation for dra- 
 gons.' The Fellahin, in the space of a few minutes, 
 caught for us some scores of lizards, chameleons, centi- 
 pedes, and scorpions." " It literally swarms with them." 2 
 He gives a delineation from nature of some of them which 
 
 1 Shaw's Travels, vol. ii. pp. 105, 330. 
 
 2 Lands of the Bible, vol. i. p. 329. Vol. ii. p. 738. 
 
344: 
 
 IDUMEA. 
 
 he carried to Britain. We also saw many of these 
 " creeping things;" and on first asking an Arah at Petra 
 if he could show us a scorpion, he almost immediately 
 brought one on the point of a sharp stick, with which he 
 had pierced it through, from under the first stone which 
 he raised; another escaped. Serpents were said to he 
 very numerous in summer. I have laid his (Esaus) 
 heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness. It is a 
 habitation for dragons, — and a court for owls. 
 
 Captains Irby and Mangles relate, that while they and 
 their fellow-travellers were examining the ruins and con- 
 templating the sublime scenery of Petra, " the scream- 
 ing of the eagles, hawks, and owls, who were soaring above 
 their heads in considerable numbers, seemingly annoyed 
 at our approaching their lonely habitation, added much to 
 the singularity of the scene." While the screaming of 
 the eagles, hawks, and owls, which in considerable num- 
 bers soared over their heads, was heard in the day-time 
 by one party of travellers, others (Laborde, &c), who 
 more lately followed them, and remained longer on the 
 spot, relate, in a like incidental manner, that at night the 
 screech-owl was heard above the rest. When Dr Wilson 
 and his companions lodged among the ruins of Petra, 
 they " enjoyed the midnight concert of both owl and 
 owlet. Among the birds which we noticed, or which 
 the Fellahin told us are to be found there,, or in the 
 neighbourhood, are the eagle, ossifrage (akab),, kite, hawk, 
 great owl, small owl, and raven, — the partridge and the 
 pterocles, and the kifud/' 1 &c. " One traveller (quoted 
 by Dr Wilson,) " states> that there is abundant evidence 
 of the complete fulfilment of the prophecies against Edom, 
 without descending to minute and literal details, &c. and 
 * Lands of the Bible, vol. ii. p. 337. 
 
IDUMEA. 
 
 345 
 
 that he neither saw nor heard the screech-owl." The 
 bird of night, if undisturbed, may keep within its court 
 by day; and sleep may seal up the ears against its loud 
 cry by night. But the same witness also states, that he 
 observed " some white vultures, which were generally seen 
 in pairs, soaring above the valley, or perched upon the 
 rocks." It shall be a court for owls. The screech-owl 
 also shall rest there, and find for herself a place of rest. 
 There shall the great-owl make her nest, and lay and hatch, 
 and gather under her shadow: there shall the vultures also 
 be gathered, every one with her mate, or, according to the 
 strictest literality, " in pairs." 
 
 At Petra we saw as well as heard eagles, vultures, and 
 owls. Several of the last were scared in the day-time from 
 their nests, as the author passed some of the excavations, 
 and he saw at once at least two different species, one of 
 which was very large. Of eagles and vultures, or other 
 ravenous birds, there are, as of owls, different species. 
 And as each or any of these is known to man, and Gan 
 be distinguished even at night, or when unseen, by its 
 peculiar scream; so, now that the cry of a wild beast, or 
 the sound of a reptile, or the screaming of a bird of prey, 
 are the only forms or signs of recognition among the 
 tenants of the capital of Edom, it is thus that they are 
 gathered together, every one with her mate. 
 
 The wild beasts of the desert shall also meet with the 
 wild beasts of the island. The prediction imports, 
 that wild beasts of different kinds would meet in Idu- 
 mea. Of all the wonderful circumstances attached 
 to the history, or pertaining to the fate of Edom, 
 there is one which is not to be ranked among the 
 least in singularity, that bears no remote application to 
 the prefixed prophecy, and that ought not, perhaps, to 
 
346 
 
 IDUMEA. 
 
 pass here unnoted. It is recorded in an ancient chroni- 
 cle, that the emperor Deems caused fierce Hons and 
 lionesses to be transported from [the deserts of] Africa to 
 the borders of Palestine and Arabia, in order that, pro- 
 pagating there, they might act as an annoyance and a 
 barrier to the barbarous Saracens. 1 Between Arabia and 
 Palestine lies the doomed and execrated land of Edom. 
 And to this day, those who ought to be most versant of 
 this fact, testify that the wild beasts of the desert are to 
 be found in Edom. The sheikh and his brother who ac- 
 companied Mr Cory, assured him that both lions and 
 leopards are often seen in Petra, and hills immediately 
 beyond it, but that they never descend into the plain be- 
 neath. Mr Cory was of opinion that by leopards they 
 meant ounces, " but the lion, from their description, could 
 not be mistaken." More definite evidence may now be 
 adduced. " The wild goat and the wild boar, we were 
 informed," says Dr Wilson, " are to be found in the lo- 
 cality. The other mammalia of the place (Petra) and 
 the neighbourhood, according to the Fellahin, besides the 
 hedge-hog and porcupine, above alluded to, are the fox, 
 wolf , jackal, hyena, lynx, leopard, hare, weebar, or coney, 
 jerboa, &c. We were told that the lion is found in Wadi 
 Hamad." 2 The names of the wild beasts which, without 
 putting any leading question, we obtained at Petra, as known 
 there, and frequenting its vicinity, were the wild boar, fox, 
 leopard, jackal, wild cat, and wolf. The wild beasts of 
 the desert meet there with the wild beasts of the island. 
 
 1 'O avrog Aeixiog fioutiXzvg rjyayev a<rro rr\g Afgixqg Xsovrug <po- 
 fisgoug xai Xsaivag, xai aftsXvGiv sig ro Xi^irov avaroAjjs aTo Aga/3/a$ 
 xai Tla\a,i<frivrig sag rov Kigxitf/ov Kaorgou, ir^og ro Toiriffai ysvsocv bia 
 rovg Bagfiagovg ~2agaxrivovg. (Chronicon Alexandrinum, ad. an. C. 
 358. Relandi Palsestina, p. 97.) 
 
 2 Lands of the Bible, vol. ii. p. 379. 
 
IDUMEA. 
 
 34:7 
 
 The satyr shall cry to his fellow. The satyr is entirely a 
 fabulous animal. The word (soir) literally means a rough 
 hairy one: and, like a synonymous word in both the 
 Greek and Latin languages which has the same signifi- 
 cation, has been translated both by lexicographers and 
 commentators, the goat. 1 Parkhurst says, that, in this 
 sense, he would understand this very passage : and Lowth 
 distinctly asserts, without assigning to it any other mean- 
 ing, that "the word originally signifies goat." 2 Such 
 respectable and well-known authorities have been cited, 
 because their decision must have rested on criticism alone, 
 as it was impossible that their minds could have been 
 biassed by any knowledge of the fact in reference to 
 Edom. It was their province, and that of others, to 
 illustrate its meaning : it was Burckhardt's, however un- 
 sciously, to bear, from ocular observation, witness to its 
 truth. " In all the wadys south of the Modjel and El 
 Asha," (pointing to Edom,) " large herds of mountain- 
 goats are met with. They pasture in flocks of forty and 
 fifty together." 3 They dwell there. 
 
 The only other animals specified in prophecy are, ac- 
 cording to the English translation, the cormorant and the 
 bittern, — in the original, the kaat (flNp), and the kiphod 
 CtfEFp)' The similarity of the name with that of the 
 katta, mentioned by Burckhardt as abounding in immense 
 numbers in Slier a (Mount Seir), as in other districts of 
 Syria, induced the writer from the first to believe that it 
 
 1 " So the Greek rgayog, a he-goat, is from rgayug, rough, on 
 account of the roughness of his hair, and the Latin hircus, a he- 
 goat, for hirtus, rough." (Parkhurst 's Lexicon.) 
 
 2 Lowth assigns the reason why the word is translated satyr;. 
 it is supposed that evil spirits of old time appeared in the shape 
 of goats, as the learned Bochart has proved. (Isa. xiii. 21.) 
 
 a Burckhardt's Travels in Syria. 
 
34:8 
 
 IDUMEA. 
 
 was identical with the haath, which is sometimes written 
 hata} The opinion was embraced by. several learned 
 writers; but has been recently controverted, as it is said 
 that " the Arabic and Hebrew names do not agree." 
 Nothing of questionable accuracy can stand as evidence. 
 And of this animal, be what it may, it may yet be said, 
 as but lately of all, " Seek ye out of the book of the Lord, 
 and read; no one of these shall fail." While in Petrathe 
 author of these pages noted the names of the birds from 
 the native Arabs, whenever he heard any of them crying 
 to its mate, as the bird was seen, and the cry clearly 
 distinguished from the others. Once, but only once, 
 while an Arab of the country was with him, on thus 
 asking the name of a bird as its single cry was heard, the 
 answer at once was, the kaat, as the original Hebrew 
 word is usually pronounced. He listened attentively to 
 catch the sound a second time, but in vain. Whether the 
 bird was the hatta of the Arabs, he did not know. And 
 this only can he say, that the cry of the kaat may be 
 heard among the cliffs of Petra. The subject is yet open 
 to farther inquiry. 2 
 
 1 Onkel. Simon. Lex. p. 1393. 
 
 2 Not having marked the peculiar cry of the kaat with sufficient 
 distinctness, when only once he heard it, nothing but a merely 
 conjectural remark may here be made by the author, viz. that its 
 cry — like that of wa wee, or jackal, — may possibly be such as to 
 identify it, from its similarity to the name. Anxious to obtain 
 farther proof on this as on other matters, after being four days in 
 Petra, he offered L.20 to the Arab sheikh who conducted us thi- 
 ther, to stop a single day longer, — but in vain, from the dread of 
 an attack by hostile Arabs. He entirely agrees with Count Por- 
 talis and Lord Lindsay, and others, who have also visited it, that 
 " weeks" would be necessary for sufficiently and satisfactorily ex- 
 ploring Petra, with its ravines and vicinity. The rest of Mount 
 Seir, except the small portion passed through by more recent 
 
1DUMEA. 
 
 349 
 
 The kifud seems to identify itself with the kiphud, 
 (porcupine or hedgehog) which we were told by the Fella- 
 hin, as was also Dr Wilson, is found in the neighbouring 
 valleys, though not in Petra. The place divided unto 
 these various animals, is not any special spot, but the land 
 of Idumea. But if they be in Petra, its capital, though 
 not exclusively there, or in any other portion of the land, 
 they are found within it. 
 
 But the evidence respecting all the animals specified in 
 the prophecy, as the future possessors of Edom, may not 
 be yet complete. And the command still stands, for 
 those of future generations no less than of the present, 
 Seek ye out of the book of the Lord, and read: no one 
 of these shall fail, none shall want her mate. — He hath cast 
 the lot for them, and his hand hath divided it unto them 
 by line: they shall possess it for ever, from generation to 
 generation shall they dwell therein. Yet recent as the 
 disclosure of any information respecting them has been, 
 — and offered, as in these pages it has been for the first 
 time, for the consideration of every candid mind, the 
 positive terms and singleness of object of the prophecies 
 themselves, and the undesigned and decisive evidence 
 first given to the facts, are surely enough to show 
 how greatly these several specific predictions and their 
 respective facts exceed all possibility of their being 
 the word or the work of man, and how clearly there may 
 be discovered in them all, if sight itself be conviction, the 
 credential of inspiration, and the operation of His hands, 
 to whose prescience futurity is open, — to whose power 
 
 visitants to Petra, has not yet been traversed and described by 
 any others, so far as known to the writer, since Burckhardt and 
 Irby and Mangles travelled from Kerack to Petra. 
 
350 
 
 IDUMEA. 
 
 all nature is subservient, — and* 'whose mouth it hath 
 commanded, and whose spirit it hath gathered them." 
 
 Noted as Edom was for its terribleness, and possessed 
 of a capital city, from which even a feeble people coidd 
 not easily have been dislodged, there scarcely could have 
 been a question, even among its enemies, to what people 
 that country would eventually belong. And it never 
 could have been thought of by any native of another land, 
 as the Jewish prophets were, nor by any uninspired mor- 
 tal whatever, that a kingdom, which had previously sub- 
 sisted so long, (and in which princes ceased not to reign, 
 commerce to flourish, and " a people of great opulence" 
 to dwell for more than six hundred years thereafter,) 
 would be finally extinct, that all its cities would be for 
 ever desolate, and, though it could have boasted, more 
 than any other land, of indestructible habitations for men, 
 that their habitations would be desolate; and that certain 
 wild animals, mentioned by name, would, in different 
 manners and degrees, possess the country from genera- 
 tion to generation. 
 
 There shall not be any remaining of the house of Esau. 
 Edom shall be cut off for ever. The aliens of Judah 
 ever look with wistful eyes to the land of their fathers; 
 but no Edomite is now to be found to dispute the right of 
 •any animal to the possession of it, or to banish the owls 
 from the temples and tombs of Edom. But the house 
 of Esau did remain, and existed in great power, till after 
 the commencement of the Christian era, a period far too 
 remote from the date of the prediction for their subse- 
 quent history to have been foreseen by man. The Idu- 
 means were soon after mingled with the Nabatheans. 
 
 1 Origen, lib. iii. in Job. 
 
IDUMEA. 
 
 351 
 
 And in the third century, their language was disused, and 
 their very name, as designating any people, had utterly 
 perished ; and their country itself having become an out- 
 cast from Syria, among whose kingdoms it had long been 
 numbered, was united to Arabia Petrsea. Though the 
 descendants of the twin-born Esau and Jacob have met a 
 diametrically opposite fate, the fact is no less marvellous 
 and undisputed, than the prediction in each case is alike 
 obvious and true. While the posterity of Jacob have 
 been " dispersed in every country under heaven," and are 
 " scattered among all nations," and have ever remained 
 distinct from them all, and while it is also declared that 
 " a full end will never be made of them;" the Edomites, 
 though they existed as a nation for more than seventeen 
 hundred years, have, as a period of nearly equal dura- 
 tion has proved, been cut off for ever; and while Jews are 
 in every land, there is not any remaining, so far as known, 
 on any spot on earth, of the house of Esau. 
 
 Idumea, in aid of a neighbouring state, did send forth 
 on a sudden, an army of twenty thousand armed men, — 
 it contained many towns and villages long after the Chris- 
 tian era, — successive kings and princes reigned in Petra, 
 — and magnificent tombs and temples, whose empty 
 chambers and naked walls of wonderful architecture still 
 strike the traveller with amazement, were constructed 
 there, at a period unquestionably far remote from the time 
 when it was given to the prophets of Israel to tell, that 
 the house of Esau was to be cut off for ever, that there 
 would be no kingdom there, and that wild animals would 
 possess Edom for a heritage. And so despised is Edom, 
 and the memory of its greatness lost, that there is no re- 
 cord of antiquity that can so clearly show us what once 
 it was, in the days of its power, as we can now read in 
 
352 
 
 IDUMEA. 
 
 the page of prophecy, its existing desolation. But in that 
 place where kings kept their court, and where nobles as- 
 sembled, where manifest proofs of ancient opulence are 
 concentrated, where princely mausoleums and temples re- 
 taining their external grandeur, but bereft of all their 
 splendour, still look as if " fresh from the chisel," — even 
 there no man dwells, it is given by lot to birds, and beasts, 
 and reptiles; it is a " court for owls," and scarcely are 
 they ever frayed from their " lonely habitation" by the 
 tread of a solitary traveller from a far distant land, among 
 deserted dwellings and desolated ruins. 
 
 Hidden as the history and state of Edom have been 
 for ages, every recent disclosure, being an echo of the 
 prophecies, amply corroborates the truth, that the word 
 of the Lord does not return unto him void, but ever fulfils 
 the purpose for which he hath sent it. But the whole of 
 its work is not yet wrought in Edom, which has farther 
 testimony in store; and while the evidence is not yet com- 
 plete, so neither is the time of the final judgments on the 
 land yet fully come. Judea, Amnion, and Moab, ac- 
 cording to the word of prophecy, shall revive from their 
 desolation, and the wild animals who have conjoined their 
 depredations with those of barbarous men, in perpetuating 
 the desolation of these countries, shall find a refuge and 
 undisturbed possession in Edom, when the year of recom- 
 penses for the controversy of Zion being past, it shall be 
 divided unto them by line, when they shall possess it for 
 ever, and from generation to generation shall dwell there- 
 in. But without looking into futurity, a retrospect may 
 here warrant, before leaving the subject, a concluding 
 clause. 
 
 That man is a bold believer, and must with whatever 
 reluctance, forego the name of sceptic, who possesses such 
 
IDUMEA. 353 
 
 redundant credulity as to think, that all the predictions 
 respecting; Edom, and all others recorded in Scripture, 
 and realized by facts, were the mere hap-hazard results 
 of fortuitous conjectures. And he who thus, without re- 
 flecting how incongruous it is to " strain at a gnat and 
 swallow a camel," can deliberately, and with an unruffled 
 mind, place such an opinion among the articles of his faith, 
 may indeed be pitied by those who know in whom they 
 have believed, but, if he forfeit not thereby all right of 
 ever appealing to reason, must at least renounce all title 
 to stigmatize, in others, even the most preposterous be- 
 lief. Or if such, after all, must needs be his philosophi- 
 cal creed, and his rational conviction ! what can hinder 
 him from believing also that other chance words — such 
 as truly marked the fate of Edom, but more numerous 
 and clear, and which, were he to " seek out and read," 
 he would find in the self-same "book of the Lord," — 
 may also prove equally true to the spirit, if not to the 
 letter, against all the enemies of the gospel, whether hy- 
 pocrites or unbelievers ? May not his belief in the latter 
 instance be strengthened by the experience that many 
 averments of Scripture, in respect to times then future, 
 and to facts then unknown, have already proved true? 
 And may he not here find some analogy, at least, on 
 which to rest his faith, whereas the conviction which in 
 the former case he so readily cherishes, is totally desti- 
 tute of any semblance whatever to warrant the possibility 
 of its truth? Or is this indeed the sum of his boasted 
 wisdom, to hold to the conviction of the fallacy of all the 
 coming judgments denounced in Scripture till " expe- 
 rience," personal though it should be, prove them to be 
 as true as the past, and a compulsory and unchangeable 
 but unredeeming faith be grafted on despair? Or if less 
 
 2a 
 
354 
 
 1DUMEA. 
 
 proof can possibly suffice, let him timely read and exa- 
 mine, and disprove also, all the credentials of revelation, 
 before he account the believer credulous, or the unbe- 
 liever wise; or else let him abandon the thought that the 
 unrepentant iniquity and wilful perversity of man, and an 
 evil heart of unbelief (all proof derided, all offered mercy 
 rejected, all meetness for an inheritance among them that 
 are sanctified unattained, and all warning lost,) shall not 
 finally forbid that Edom stand alone, the seared and 
 blasted monument of the judgments of heaven. 
 
 A word may here be spoken even to the wise. Were 
 any of the sons of men to be uninstructed in the fear of 
 the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom, and in the 
 knowledge of his word, which maketh wise unto salva- 
 tion, and to be thus ignorant of the truths and precepts 
 of the gospel, which should all tell upon every deed done 
 in the body; what in such a case, if all their superior 
 knowledge were unaccompanied by religious principles, 
 would all mechanical and physical science eventually 
 prove, but the same, in kind, as the wisdom of the wise 
 men of Edom? And were they to perfect in astronomy, 
 navigation, and mechanics, what, according to Sir Isaac 
 Newton, the Edomites began, what would the moulding 
 of matter to their will avail them, as moral and account- 
 able beings, if their own hearts were not conformed to 
 the Divine will ; and what would all their labour be at 
 last, but strength spent for nought? For were they to 
 raise column above column, and again to hew a city out 
 of the cliffs of the rock, let but such another word of that 
 God, whom they seek not to know, go forth against it, 
 and all their mechanical ingenuity and labour would just 
 end in forming — that which Petra is, and which Borne 
 itself is destined to be — " a cage of every unclean and 
 
1DUMEA. 
 
 355 
 
 hateful bird." The experiment has already been made; 
 it may well and wisely be trusted to as much as those 
 which mortals make; and it is set before us that, instead 
 of provoking the Lord to far worse than its repetition in 
 personal judgments against ourselves, we may be warned 
 by the spirit of prophecy, which is the testimony of Jesus, 
 to hear and obey the words of Him — even of Jesus, who 
 delivereth from the wrath to come. For how much greater 
 than any degradation to which hewn but unfeeling rocks 
 can be reduced, is that of a soul, which while in the body 
 might have been formed anew after the image of an all- 
 holy God, and made meet for beholding his face in glory, 
 — passing from spiritual darkness into a spiritual state 
 where all knowledge of earthly things shall cease to be 
 power, — where all the riches of this world shall cease to 
 be gain, — where the want of religious principles and of 
 Christian virtues shall leave the soul naked, as the bare 
 and empty dwellings in the clefts of the rocks — where 
 the thoughts of worldly wisdom, to which it was inured 
 before, shall haunt it still, and be more unworthy and 
 hateful occupants of the immortal spirit, than are the 
 owls amid the palaces of Edom — and where all those sin- 
 ful passions, which rested on the things which were seen 
 shall be like unto the dragons which have Edom for their 
 habitation, — when dust shall be the serpent's meat, and he 
 that is unjust shall be unjust still, and he that is filthy, 
 shall be filthy still; and he that is righteous shall be 
 righteous still; and he that is holy shall be holy still. 
 
 But, in very faithfulness, there may well be here a word 
 for professing believers, as well as for avowed sceptics. 
 It is near at hand, and not afar of, when Edom is the 
 theme. Let it not be man's but the Lord's. " Where- 
 
356 
 
 IDUMEA. 
 
 as Mom saith, We are impoverished, but we will return 
 and build the desolate places, thus saith the Lord of hosts, 
 they shall build, but I will throw down; and they shall 
 call them the border of wickedness, and the people against 
 whom the Lord hath indignation for ever. And your 
 eyes shall see, and ye shall say, The Lord shall be mag- 
 nified from the border of Israel. A son honour eth his 
 father, and a servant his master: if then I be a father, 
 where is mine honour ? and if I be a master, where is my 
 fear ? saith the Lord of hosts unto you, 0 priests that de- 
 spise my name. And ye say, wherein have we despised 
 thy name ? Ye offer polluted bread upon mine altar; and 
 ye say, Wherein have we polluted thee ? In that ye say, 
 The table of the Lord is contemptible. If ye offer the 
 blind for sacrifice, is it not evil ? and if ye offer the lame 
 and sick, is it not evil? offer it now unto thy governor; 
 will he be pleased with thee, or accept thy person, saith the 
 Lord of hosts, $c. From the rising of the sun, even unto 
 the going down of the same, my name shall be great among 
 the Gentiles; and in every place incense shall be offered 
 unto my- name, and a pure offering: for my name shall 
 be great among the heathen, saith the Lord of hosts." 1 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 Only of recent years have the minds of men been turned to- 
 wards Edom; and after the lapse of many ages, European travel- 
 lers have visited it again. It now stands forth as a witness for the 
 Holy One of Israel. But its testimony is not yet exhausted. For- 
 gotten and despised as it long has been— it may be that now at 
 last it has attracted the attention of the world— that the nations 
 may be prepared to hear the Divine invocation to them, to regard 
 what has there yet to be done, or to the judgments of which even 
 desolate Edom shall be the appointed place— in the year ofrecom- 
 
 1 Malachi i. 4-8, 11. 
 
IDUMEA. 
 
 357 
 
 pensesfor the controversy of Zion — after which the wilderness and 
 the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice 
 and blossom as the rose} The word of the Lord is that of the 
 Eternal, with whom one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand 
 years as one day. Three thousand three hundred years have passed 
 away since the first predictions, in which Mount Seir was included, 
 or Edom was involved, that have respect to times yet future, were 
 recorded or uttered by Moses, or by Balaam. " / will set thy 
 bounds from the Red Sea, even unto the seaof the Philistines, and from 
 the desert unto the river." 2 He took up his parable and said — I 
 shall see him, but not now : I shall behold him, but not nigh : 
 there shall come a star out of Jacob, and a sceptre shall rise out 
 of Israel, and shall smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the 
 children of Sheth. And Edom shall be a possession, Seir also shall 
 be a possession for his enemies, and Israel shall do valiantly. 3 Out 
 of Israel shall come he that shall have dominion, &c." Later pro- 
 phets also testified, — " In that day will I raise up the tabernacle 
 of David that is fallen, and close up the breaches thereof : and I 
 will raise up his ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old : 
 that they may possess the remnant of Edom, and of all the heathen 
 that are called by my name, saith the Lord that doeth this." 4 But 
 upon Mount Sion shall be deliverance, and there shall be holiness ; 
 and the house of Israel shall possess their possessions. And they 
 of the south, shall possess the mount of Esau, and they of the plain 
 the Philistines, &c. And saviours shall come up on Mount Zion 
 to judge the Mount of Esau : and the kingdoms shall be the 
 Lord's." 5 " Thus saith the Lord God; When the whole earth re- 
 joiceth, I will make thee desolate." 0 
 
 These predictions speak unequivocally, — if read literally, as 
 others have been literally fulfilled, — of a time yet future, and of 
 things that are yet to come to pass. The vision, like every other, 
 is for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak and not lie: 
 though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not 
 tarry. Behold his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him : 
 but the just shall live by his faith." 1 Let it here suffice to say, that 
 desolate as Edom is, the desolation of desolations, according to the 
 Hebrew idiom, or the most desolate of all these deserted lands — 
 
 1 Isaiah xxxv 1. 2 Numbers xxiii. 31. 3 Ibid. xxiv. 15-19. 
 
 4 Amos ix. 11, 12. 5 Obadiah 17, 19, 21. 6 Ezsk. xxxv. 14. 
 7 Habakkuk ii. 3, 4. 
 
358 
 
 IDUMEA. 
 
 alone bare as the Lord has made it, while withered herbs, or briars, 
 thorns, and thistles, or else luxuriant pasturage, everywhere cover 
 the desolated lands of Israel, Amnion, and Moab, — there still are 
 signs to show that there may be a remnant of Edom capable of 
 being the j^ossession of the people for whom it is destined by 
 the Lord. Though in the words of Burckhardt, all the coun- 
 try between Maan and Akaba., as well as between Maan and 
 the plains of the Hauran, may with great propriety be called 
 a stony desert, it is yet susceptible of culture, and in many 
 places overgrown with wild herbs, as many traces of towns and 
 villages show that it must once have been thickly inhabited. 
 The valley of Ghoeyr, a large rocky and uneven basin, which di- 
 vides on the- north the district of Djebal, or Gabalene, from that 
 of Djebal Shera, or Mount Seir, is famous for excellent pasturage, 
 produced by its numerous springs, and has become in consequence 
 a favourite place of encampment for all the Bedouins of Djebal 
 and Shera. 1 Shobak, " the principal place in Djebal Shera," where 
 about a hundred Arab families had built their houses, or pitched 
 their tents, in an old castle of Saracenic construction, is (a.d. 
 1812) surrounded by gardens and olive plantations. 2 Though 
 " Maan (Teman) is situated in the midst of a rocky country not 
 capable of cultivation," yet " the pomegranates, apricots, and 
 peaches of Maan are of the finest quality." The slopes of the 
 mountain near the village of Eldjy, are formed into artificial ter- 
 races, which, when visited by Burckhardt, were covered with corn 
 fields and plantations of fruit trees, though less fruitful, when seen 
 by more recent travellers. In the history of the Crusades by 
 William of Tyre, quoted by Lord Lindsay, it is related that, in 
 the twelfth century, the country near Petra was covered with olive 
 trees, to which the crusaders set fire, ere the Moslems surrendered. 
 " The Refaya Bedouins — who have the reputation," says Burck - 
 hardt, " of being very daring thieves, and the Arabs Saoudyne, in 
 Mount Seir, are Fellahin, or cultivators. The former, who had 
 about sixty tents, the latter twice as many, had corn fields, and 
 vineyards, and dried large quantities of grapes." Most desolate 
 as Edom is — though not now a tenth nor a hundredth part of 
 what it was — there may yet — susceptible of culture as it partly 
 is, — be a larger remnant at last for a possession to the seed of 
 Jacob. 
 
 1 Burckhardt, pp. 1 1 0, 1 1 4. 2 J bid. p. 4 1 6. 
 
1DUMEA. 
 
 359 
 
 Bozrah is a name which, as well as Selah, has its place in un- 
 fulfilled as well as in accomplished prophecies. Some have sup- 
 posed it to be Bozrah of the Hauran ; but the lands both of Moab 
 and Ammon lay between that city and Mount Seir. The Bozrah 
 of Edom seems, with incomparably greater propriety, to be iden- 
 tified with Beszeyra, of which the ruins show that it was, " in an- 
 cient times, a considerable city." > Of late years a tower was 
 built there by the Arabs Howeytat; after the erection of which 
 the inhabitants of Omeda, now a ruined village, three or four 
 hours to the north of it, removed to Beszeyra, which was a village 
 of about fifty houses, when visited by Burckhardt. It thus ex- 
 ists — or existed — again as an inhabited place. And mean as it 
 may seem, it is still said of Bozrah in the book of the Lord, in 
 reference to the treading of the wine press, the day of vengeance, 
 the year of his redeemed, " Who is this that cometh from Edom, 
 with dyed garments from Bozrah? this that is glorious in his ap- 
 parel, travelling in the greatness of his might? I that speak in 
 righteousness, mighty to save." — The day will declare it. But, 
 as thus it is written, though not thus alone, — the time may not 
 yet be past in which men shall say, The Lord will be magnifie 
 from the border of Edom. But the illustration of such prophe- 
 cies pertains to another theme, as they point to another time. 
 Burckhardt, p. 407. 
 
360 
 
 PIIILIST1A. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 PHILISTIA. 
 
 The land of the Philistines bordered on the west and 
 south-west of J udea, and lies on the south-east of the Me- 
 diterranean sea. It lay within the allotted borders of 
 the tribe of Judah, Ekron, with her towns and villages. 
 From Ekron even unto the sea, all that lay near Ashdod 
 with their villages. Ashdod, with her towns and villages, 
 unto the river of Egypt, and the great sea, and the border 
 thereof. 1 When Joshua was old and stricken in years, all 
 the borders of the Philistines were included in the very 
 much land that remained to be possessed, — -five lords of 
 the Philistines; the Gazathites, and the Ashdothites, the 
 Eshkalonites, the Gittites, and the Ekronites. 2 After the 
 days of Joshua and of the elders that outlived him, when 
 the tribes of Israel forsook the Lord God of their fathers, 
 all these were numbered among their enemies that were 
 left to try the Israelites, and to be thorns and scourges in 
 their sides, until they should perish from off the good land 
 which the Lord their God had given them. That such 
 the Philistines were age after age, the Scriptural history 
 of Israel amply shows. 
 
 The land of the Philistines retains to this day its natu- 
 ral fertility as in ancient times. Nowhere through Syria 
 1 Josh. xy. 45-47. 2 Ibid. xiii. 1-3. 
 
PHILISTIA. 
 
 361 
 
 is the land more rich, the soil more deep, or finer glean- 
 ings left, than in the land of Philistia, north of Gaza. 
 Long after the Christian era it possessed a very numer- 
 ous population, and strongly-fortified cities; and in the 
 comparatively recent period of the twelfth century, Ash- 
 kelon was one of the strongest fortresses of Syria, the 
 last that the crusaders took, as it long resisted all their 
 hosts. No human probability could possibly have existed 
 in the days of the prophets, or at a far later age, of its 
 eventual desolation. But as now explored, long after the 
 days of its grandeur and glory are gone, it belies every 
 promise which the fertility of the soil, and the excellence 
 both of its climate and soil gave, for many preceding 
 centuries, of its permanency as a rich and well-cultivated 
 region. The gods of the Philistines that led Israel astray 
 are forgotten: they have all fallen, as did Dagon before 
 the ark of the Lord. But the land where their worship 
 was established, responds to the word of the only living 
 and true God, and takes its appointed place among the 
 witnesses that testify how He only is the Lord, who was, 
 and is, and shall be, the God of Israel. It harboured for 
 century after century the enemies of the people whom He 
 chose as his own; but the voice of prophecy, which was 
 not silent respecting it, proclaimed the fate that awaited 
 it, in terms as contradictory, at the time, to every natu- 
 ral suggestion, as they are descriptive of what Philistia 
 now actually is — and whose it yet shall be. 
 
 Thus saith the Lord God; Because the Philistines have 
 dealt by revenge, and have taken vengeance with a despite- 
 ful heart, to destroy it for the old hatred; therefore thus 
 saith the Lord God; Behold L will stretch out my hand 
 upon the Philistines, and L will cutoff the Cherethims, and 
 destroy the remnant of the sea-coast. And I will execute 
 
362 
 
 PHILISTIA. 
 
 vengeance upon them with furious rebukes; and they shall 
 know that I am the Lord, when I shall lay my ven- 
 geance upon them. 1 — The Lord will spoil the Philistines, 
 the remnant of the country of Caphtor. Baldness is 
 come upon Gaza; Ashhelon is cut off ivith the rem- 
 nant of their valley: how long wilt thou cut thyself? 
 0 thou sword of the Lord, how long will it he ere thou 
 be quiet? put up thyself into thy scabbard, rest, and be 
 still. How can it be quiet, seeing that the Lord hath given 
 it a charge against Ashkelon, and against the sea-shore ? 
 there hath he appointed it. 2 Thus saith the Lord; For 
 three transgressions of Gaza, and for four, I will not turn 
 away the punishment thereof. L will send a fire upon 
 the wall of Gaza, which shall devour the palaces thereof: 
 and L will cut off the inhabitant from Ashdod, and him 
 that holdeth the sceptre from Ashkelon, and I will turn 
 mine hand against Ekron: and the remnant of the Phi- 
 listines shall perish, saith the Lord God. 3 For Gaza shall 
 be forsaken, and Ashkelon a desolation; they shall drive 
 out Ashdod at the noon-day, and Ekron shall be rooted 
 up. Woe unto the inhabitants of the sea-coast, the na- 
 tion of the Gherethites ! the word of the Lord is against you. 
 0 Canaan, the land of the Philistines, Lioilleven destroy 
 thee, that there shall be no inhabitant. And the sea-coast 
 shall be dioellings and cottages for shepherds, and folds 
 for flocks. And the coast shall be for the remnant of the 
 house of Judah; they shall feed thereupon : in the houses 
 of Ashkelon shall they lie down in the evening: for the 
 Lord their God shall visit them, and turn away their 
 captivity. 41 — The king shall perish from Gaza, and Ashke- 
 lon shall not be inhabited. And a bastard shall divell in 
 
 » Ezek. xxv. 15-17. 
 3 Amos i. 6, 7, 8. 
 
 2 Jer. xlvii. 4-7. 
 4 Zeph. ii. 4-7. 
 
PHILISTIA. 
 
 363 
 
 Ashdod, and I will cut off the pride of the Philistines. 
 A nd I will take away his Mood out of his mouth, and his 
 abominations from between his teeth: but he that remain- 
 eth, even he shall be for our God, and he shall be as a go- 
 vernor in Judah, and Ekron as a Jebusite. And I will 
 encamp about mine house because of the army, because of 
 him that passeth by, and because of him that returneth; 
 and no oppressor shall pass through them any more; 
 for now have I seen with mine eyes. 1 
 
 These are the words of the eternal Spirit, by whose 
 inspiration all Scripture was given; and they have thus 
 respect to the future — as still it is — even as they tell of 
 the past and depict the present. Volney may continue, 
 as in all former editions, to be the leading witness; and 
 the daguerreotype may complete the proof. 
 
 The Iflnd of the Philistines was to be destroyed. It 
 partakes of the general desolation common to it with 
 Judea and other neighbouring states. But its aspect 
 presents some existing peculiarities, which travellers fail 
 not to particularize, and which, in reference both to the 
 state of the country, and the fate of its different cities, 
 the prophets failed not to discriminate as justly as if their 
 description had been drawn both with all the accuracy 
 which ocular observation, and all the certainty which au- 
 thenticated history could give. And the authority, so 
 often quoted, may here again be appealed to. Volney 
 (though, like one who in ancient times was instrumental 
 to the fulfilment of a special prediction, " he meant not 
 so, neither did his heart think so,") from the manner in. 
 which he generalizes his observations,, and marks the pe- 
 culiar features of the different districts of Syria, with 
 greater acuteness and perspicuity than any other travel- 
 1 Zech. ix. 5-8. 
 
364: 
 
 PHILISTIA. 
 
 ler whatever, is the ever-ready purveyor of evidence in 
 all the cases which came within the range of his topogra- 
 phical description of the wide field of prophecy; while, at 
 the same time, from his known, open, and zealous, hosti- 
 lity to the Christian cause, his testimony is alike decisive 
 and unquestionable ; and the vindication of the truth of 
 the following predictions may safely be committed to this 
 redoubted champion of infidelity. 
 
 The sea-coast shall be dwellings and cottages for shep- 
 herds, and folds for flocks. The remnant of the Philis- 
 tines shall perish. Baldness is come upon Gaza; it shall 
 be forsaken. The king shall perish from Gaza. Ash- 
 kelon shall be a desolation; it shall be cut off with the rem- 
 nant of the valley; it shall not be inhabited. " In the 
 plain between Eamla and Gaza," (the very plain of the 
 Philistines along the sea-coast) " we met with a number 
 of villages, badly built of dried mud, and which, like the 
 inhabitants, exhibit every mark of poverty and wretched- 
 ness. The houses, on a nearer view, are only so many 
 huts (cottages) sometimes detached, at others ranged in 
 the form of cells, aromid a court-yard, enclosed by a mud 
 wall. In winter, they and their cattle may be said to 
 live together, the part of the dwelling allotted to them- 
 selves being only raised two feet above that in which they 
 lodge their beasts — (dwellings and cottages for shepherds, 
 and folds for flocks.) Except the environs of these vil- 
 lages, all the rest of the country is a desert, and aban- 
 doned to the Bedouin Arabs, who feed their flocks on it." 1 
 The remnant shall perish: the land of the Philistines 
 shall be destroyed that there shall be no inhabitant, and 
 the sea- coast shall be dwellings and cottages for shepherds, 
 and folds for flocks. 
 
 i Volney's Travels, vol. ii. pp. .3-35, 336. 
 
PHILISTIA. 
 
 365 
 
 " The ruins of white marble sometimes found at Gaza, 
 prove that it was formerly the abode of luxury and opu- 
 lence. It has shared in the general destruction; and, 
 notwithstanding its proud title of the capital of Palestine, 
 it is now no more than a defenceless village," (baldness 
 has come upon it,) " peopled by, at most, only two thou- 
 sand inhabitants. "i It is forsaken and bereaved of its 
 king. " The sea-coast, by which it was formerly washed, 
 is every day removing farther from the deserted ruins of 
 Ashkelon." 2 It shall be a desolation. Ashkelon shall 
 not be inhabited. " Amidst the various ruins, those of 
 Ezdoud (Ashdod,) so powerful under the Philistines, are 
 now remarkable for their scorpions." 3 
 
 Although the Christian traveller must yield the palm 
 to Volney, 4 as the topographer of prophecy, and although 
 supplementary evidence be not requisite, yet a place is 
 here willingly given to the following just observations. 
 
 "Ashkelon was one of the proudest satrapies of the lords 
 of the Philistines; now there is not an inhabitant within 
 its walls; and the prophecy of Zechariah is fulfilled. The 
 king shall perish from Gaza, and Ashkelon shall not be 
 
 1 Volney's Travels, vol. ii. p. 340. 2 Ibid. 338. 3 Ibid. 
 
 4 Had Volney been a believer; had he " sought out of the book 
 of the Lord and read;" and had he applied all the facts which he 
 knew in illustration of the prophecies, how completely would he 
 have proved their inspiration! But it is well for the cause of truth, 
 that such a witness was himself an unbeliever ; for his evidence, 
 in many an instance, comes so very close to the predictions, that 
 his testimony in the relation of positive facts would have been 
 utterly discredited, and held as purposely adapted to the very 
 words of prophecy, by those who otherwise lent a greedy ear to 
 his utterance of some of the wildest fancies and most gross un- 
 truths that ever emanated from the mind of man, or ever entered 
 into a deceitful heart. He who so artfully could pervert the truth, 
 falls the victim of facts stated by himself. 
 
366 
 
 PHILISTIA. 
 
 inhabited. When the prophecy was uttered, both cities 
 were in an equally flourishing condition; and nothing but 
 the prescience of Heaven could pronounce on which of the 
 two, and in what manner the vial of its wrath should be 
 poured out. Gaza is truly without a king. The lofty 
 towers of Ashkelon lie scattered on the ground, and the 
 ruins within its walls do not shelter a human being. How 
 is the wrath of man made to praise his Creator ! Hath he 
 said, and shall he not do it? The oracle was delivered 
 by the mouth of the prophet more than five hundred years 
 before the Christian era, and we behold its accomplish- 
 ment eighteen hundred years after that event." 
 
 Cogent and just as the reasoning is, the facts stated by 
 Volney give wider scope for an irresistible argument. 
 The fate of one city is not only distinguished from that of 
 another ; but the varied aspect of the country itself, the 
 dwellings and cottages for shepherds in one part, and that 
 very region named, the rest of the land destroyed and 
 uninhabited, a desert, and abandoned to the flocks of the 
 wandering Arabs; Gaza, bereaved of a king, a defenceless 
 village, destitute of all its fortifications, Ashkelon, a de- 
 solation, and without an inhabitant — form in each instance 
 a specific prediction, and a recorded fact, and present 
 such a view of the existing state of Philistia, as might 
 render it difficult to determine, from the strictest accord- 
 ance that prevails between both, whether the inspired 
 penman, or the defamer of Scripture, gives the more vivid 
 description. Nor is there any obscurity whatever, in any 
 one of the circumstances, or in any part of the proof. 
 The coincidence is too glaring, even for wilful blindness 
 not to discern ; and to all, the least versed in general his- 
 tory, the priority of the predictions to the events is 
 
 1 Richardson's Travels, vol. ii. p. 204. 
 
PHILISTIA. 
 
 367 
 
 equally obvious. And such was the natural fertility of 
 the country, and such was the strength and celebrity of 
 the cities, that no conjecture possessing the least shadow 
 of plausibility can be formed in what manner any of these 
 events could possibly have been thought of, even for 
 many centuries after "the vision and prophecy" were 
 sealed. After that period, Gaza defied the power of 
 Alexander the Great, and withstood for two months a 
 hard-pressed siege. The army, with which he soon after- 
 wards overthrew the Persian empire, having there, as 
 well as at Tyre, been checked or delayed in the first flush 
 of conquest, and he himself having been twice wounded 
 in desperate attempts to storm the city, the proud and 
 enraged king of Macedon, with all the cruelty of a brutish 
 heart, and boasting of himself as a second Achilles, drag- 
 ged at his chariot-wheels the intrepid general who had 
 defended it, twice around the walls of Gaza. 1 Ashke- 
 lon was no less celebrated for the excellence of its wines, 
 than- for the strength of its fortifications. 2 And of Ash- 
 dod, it is related by an eminent ancient historian, not on- 
 ly that it was a great city, but that it withstood the long- 
 est siege recorded in history, (it may almost be said, 
 either of prior or of later date,) having been besieged for 
 the space of twenty-nine years by Psammetticus, king of 
 Egypt. 3 Strabo, after the commencement of the Chris- 
 tian era, classes its citizens among the chief inhabitants 
 of Syria. Each of these cities, Gaza, Ashkelon, and 
 Ashdod, was the see of a bishop, from the days of Con- 
 stantine to the invasion of the Saracens. And, as a de- 
 cisive proof of their existence as cities, long subsequent 
 
 1 Quintus Curtius, lib. iv. cap. xxvi. 
 
 2 Relandi Palsestina, pp. 341, 586. 
 
 3 Herodot. Hist. lib. ii. cap. clvii. 
 
368 
 
 PITILISTIA. 
 
 to the delivery of the predictions, it may further be re- 
 marked, that different coins of each of these very cities 
 are extant, and are copied and described in several ac- 
 counts of ancient coins. i The once princely magnificence 
 of Gaza is still attested by the "ruins of white marble;" 
 and the house of the present Aga is composed of frag- 
 ments of ancient columns, cornices, &c. ; and in the 
 court-yard, and immured in the wall, are shafts and capi- 
 tals of granite columns. 2 
 
 In short, cottages for shepherds, and folds for flocks, 
 partially scattered along the sea-coasts, are now truly the 
 best substitutes for populous cities, that the once power- 
 ful realm of Philistia can produce; and the remnant of 
 that land, which gave titles and grandeur to the lords of 
 the Philistines, is destroyed. Gaza, the chief of its satra- 
 pies, " the abode of luxury and opulence," now bereaved 
 of its king, and bald of all its fortifications, is the de- 
 fenceless residence of a subsidiary ruler of a devastated 
 province; and, in kindred degradation, ornaments of its 
 once splendid edifices are now bedded in a wall that forms 
 an enclosure for beasts. A handful of men could now 
 take unobstructed possession of that place, where a strong 
 city opposed the entrance and defied for a time the power 
 of the conqueror of the world. The walls, the dwellings, 
 and the people of Ashkelon have all perished; and 
 though its name was, in the time of the crusades, shouted 
 in triumph throughout every land in Europe, it is now 
 literally without an inhabitant. And the ancient Ash- 
 dod, which withstood a siege treble the duration of that 
 of Troy, and thus outrivalled far the boast of Alexander 
 at Gaza, has, in verification of " the word of God, which 
 is sharper than any two-edged sword," been cut off, and 
 1 Relandi Palest, pp. 595, 609, 797. 2 General Straton's MS. 
 
PHILISTIA. 
 
 369 
 
 its ruins, or ruined site, in the days of Volney, were 
 famous only for their scorpions. 
 
 The wonderful contrast in each particular, whether in 
 respect to the land, or to the cities of the Philistines, is 
 the exact counterpart of the literal prediction ; and, hav- 
 ing the testimony of Volney to all the facts, and also in- 
 disputable evidence of the great priority of the predic- 
 tions to the events, what more complete or clearer proof 
 could there be, that each and all of these predictions 
 emanated from the prescience of Heaven? And yet, 
 though previously unthought of by the writer, a more 
 complete proof may be given. 
 
 A more precise statement may show how wonderful 
 these predictions are. 
 
 Set down by name, tenantless as it is, it was long 
 otherwise with Ashkelon than with many of the unnamed 
 cities of the land of Israel, of which we never read that 
 they withstood a foe, after the Eomans besieged the Jews 
 in all their gates. A reiterated account need not here 
 be given of the beauty as well as the strength of that ce- 
 lebrated fortress, or of the most famous of its sieges, when 
 it long resisted and repelled the power of the combined 
 hosts of the crusaders by sea and land, and yielded at last 
 on " honourable" terms, when the consuming flames — of 
 which the fuel was laid by the besieged for the destruc- 
 tion of a fort raised against it — made a breach in the wall 
 which proved the death-bed of the assailing Templars. 
 Dismantled and renewed again and again, in the days of 
 Saladin of Egypt and Eichard of England, " its fortifica- 
 tions were at length utterly destroyed by Sultan Bibars 
 in the year 1270. Ml But it continued to harbour a Turk- 
 ish garrison till the beginning of the seventeenth cen- 
 
 1 See Land of Israel, pp. 229, 231, 270, 373-378. 
 
 2 B 
 
370 
 
 PHILISTIA. 
 
 tury. The " deserted ruins" lay undisturbed till Ibrahim 
 Pasha caused a portion of them to be raised for the con- 
 struction of large barracks in the vicinity, for his army 
 of Syria. The work was stopped when all was ready for 
 its completion. But the space thus cleared was convert- 
 ed into gardens by the inhabitants of a neighbouring vil- 
 lage. Upwards of twenty fountains of excellent water, 
 before buried under ruins, were opened up anew ; irrigat- 
 ed from which many verdant spots, — formed into gardens, 
 fenced and terraced with stones of houses in which Ascalo- 
 nites, long of a formidable name, did dwell, — have sprung 
 up among the ruins, intermixed with which were patches 
 of wheat, barley, pulse, tobacco, while fig-trees, — which, as 
 seen in the plate, had not then in early spring put forth their 
 leaves — olives, almonds, and pomegranates, are not want- 
 ing where not a man of Ashkelon remains. It has been 
 wholly uninhabited beyond the memory of man ; and the 
 fortress, for which many kings have contended, is now the 
 defenceless property of the miserable villagers of El- Jura, 
 whom we saw cowering within their own mud huts at the 
 sight of Bedouins. They have never known an inhabi- 
 tant within the walls of Ashkelon ; and when questioned 
 as to the fact, one of them, an aged man, strangely asked 
 the writer, when there last were any. Eival caliphs of 
 Egypt and of Bagdad, and kings from the ends of the 
 earth, have contended for its possession, have conquered 
 and have lost it, while some, like Baldwin II., have be- 
 sieged it in vain. But when all evanescent conquests are 
 over, the word of the Lord maintains its triumph, and it 
 has still another to achieve. The view is taken from the 
 interior, long crowded with inhabitants ; and some of the 
 ruined walls beside the eastern gate are seen, from which 
 fierce combatants issued forth, while proud defiance was 
 
PHILISTIA. 
 
 371 
 
 often shouted from the walls. Ashkelon too has its sanc- 
 tuaries that are desolate, and a lesser and larger church 
 have heen disclosed to view, when robbed of the stones that 
 covered their ruins. One of them is about 140 feet in 
 length, and eighty in breadth; and broken pedestals, ca- 
 pitals, and shafts of columns, show that the church was 
 elegant as well as spacious, and seem to tell that there 
 once stood the cathedral of Ascalon. Now the bloody 
 warriors and apostate worshippers are gone. Towers and 
 temples alike are desolate. But within the few past 
 years, open fountains that before were closed, and ver- 
 dant spots, yielding their produce to peaceful labour, 
 where thorns, and thistles, and wild herbs every where 
 covered — as they still largely do — the fallen houses of 
 the proud Ascalonites, have not yet reversed its only 
 temporary doom ; but, like the first appearance of a bud on 
 a bare fig-tree, like that which the plate exhibits, they may 
 seem in the visions of hope to show that were all things 
 else ready, so also are they, for the time when words of 
 righteous judgment shall give place to those of promised 
 mercy, and Ashkelon, which at the first lay within the 
 borders of the tribe of Judah, shall be built again — not 
 for barracks for Egyptian soldiers — but with houses in 
 which the remnant of Judah, returned again, shall lie down 
 in the evening. But to this day the word stands true, 
 Ashkelon shall not be inhabited. Whether desolate, as 
 before, or partially cultivated, as of late, the old man 
 and others said, they had never known an inhabitant with- 
 in it ; though immediately without its walls, there are, of 
 recent construction, two or three small houses for watch 
 towers during the vintage, where vines, on the outside, 
 adorn the else useless wall of Ashkelon, even as vines 
 shall cover the long desolate land, when fortresses shall 
 
372 
 
 PHILISTIA. 
 
 cease for ever. Ashkelon is cut of with the remnant 
 of their valley. 
 
 How long wilt thou cut thyself? 0 thou sword of the 
 Lord, how long will it be ere thou be quiet ? Put up thy- 
 self into thy scabbard, rest, and be still. How can it be 
 quiet ? seeing the Lord hath given it a charge against Ash- 
 kelon, and against the sea-shore, there hath he appointed 
 it. How long will it be ere the sword be quiet, and be 
 put in the scabbard, and rest, and be still? History can- 
 not yet answer the prophetic question, which the book of 
 the Lord, elsewhere, can alone resolve. But it can fully 
 and clearly tell, that against Ashkelon and against the 
 sea-shore, the Lord, in times now past, did in truth ap- 
 point it. From the days of the prophets to the present 
 time, the sea- shore of Philistia has often been the battle- 
 field of successive combatants. 
 
 In the twelfth century, or about two thousand years 
 after this prophecy of Amos, the sea-shore of Philistia 
 was the scene of some of the fiercest battles of the Cru- 
 saders. There Saladin and his armies were alternately 
 the conquerors and the conquered. There, near to Ash- 
 kelon, the Franks defeated the Moslems with a terrible 
 slaughter; and "pursuing their vanquished foes," says 
 the chief historian of these wars, " for twelve miles there 
 did not cease to be a continued slaughter of the enemy." 1 
 There too the last battles of the Crusades were fought, 
 on the sea-coast where the Lord had appointed the sword. 
 In the words of Gibbon, " After the surrender of Acre, 
 and the departure of Philip (king of France,) the king of 
 England led the Crusaders to the recovery of the sea- 
 coast; — a march of one hundred miles, from Acre to 
 Ascalon was a great and perpetual battle of eleven days." 2 
 
 1 Hist. Will. Tyr. p. 1010. 2 Gibbon, vol. xi. p. 143. 
 
GAZA. 
 
 373 
 
 There the sword is not yet put up in its scabbard. From 
 the ruins of Ashkelon the writer saw seven thousand Be- 
 douins — sons of Ishmael, whose hand is against every 
 man, and every man's hand against them — as they were 
 returning from a battle fought with a hostile tribe on the 
 sea-coast of Philistia. 
 
 Of the truth of the prophecies . concerning tenantless 
 Ashkelon there cannot be a doubt : but a question may 
 arise whether baldness, in the full meaning of the word, 
 has come upon Gaza, the only remaining town in Philis- 
 tia, or whether that city, however fallen from its former 
 greatness, can strictly be said to be forsaken if peopled, 
 like the modern town, by 2000 inhabitants. But, as in 
 some other instances, the author has been driven from a 
 comparatively vague or undefined to a strictly literal in- 
 terpretation. 
 
 Baldness shall come upon Gaza. It shall be forsaken. 
 The writer, after having unconsciously rested a night on 
 the site of ancient G aza, as the smoothest place that could 
 be chosen whereon to pitch a tent, was for the first time 
 aware of the literal interpretation of the prophecy, when 
 he saw it on the spot. Detained for a day till camels 
 could be procured, (the plague being then prevalent at 
 Gaza,) the author spent it in traversing the sand hills on 
 which the manifold but minute remains of an ancient city 
 are yet in many places to be seen. Though previously 
 holding to the interpretation given above, and not ima- 
 gining that any clearer illustration could be given, and 
 ignorant or forgetful at the time of any historical testi- 
 mony that the site of modern differed from that of ancient 
 Gaza, it was impossible for him to doubt that a city had 
 once stood where innumerable vestiges of it are to be 
 seen. The debris of ruins recognised at first sight by 
 
374. 
 
 GAZA. 
 
 every traveller in the east as clearly indicating the site 
 of an ancient city, are abundant, hut most minute. In- 
 numerable fragments of broken pottery, pieces of glass, 
 (some of which were beautifully painted,) and of polished 
 marble, lie thickly spread in every level and hollow place, 
 at a considerable elevation and various distances, on a space 
 of several square miles. These obvious indications of the 
 site of an ancient city, recurring over a wide extent, 
 are so abundant, that the number of different places in 
 which they profusely lie cannot be reckoned under fifty, 
 — which not unfrequently are surmounted by sand on 
 every side. They generally occupy a level space, far 
 firmer than the surrounding sand, and vary in size from 
 small patches to more open spaces of twelve or twenty 
 thousand square yards. The successive sand hills, or 
 rather the same oblong sand hill, greatly varied in its 
 elevation, and of an undulated surface, throughout which 
 they recur, extends to the west and west south-west from 
 the sea nearly to the environs of the modern Gaza. 
 
 Before approaching Gaza, unconscious where the an- 
 cient city stood, it might well be asked what is meant by 
 baldness coming upon it. But having traversed the place 
 on which it stood, and beholding it as it rises naked and 
 bare above the plain, the writer could not fail to see that 
 its perfect baldness shows how truly that word of the 
 Lord rests upon it. 1 On his first visit, he looked in vain 
 
 1 Some supplementary evidence may here be adduced, as stated 
 in the Narrative by Messrs Bonar and M'Cheyne. — " Dr Black 
 remained to examine more fully the hills of sand. Dr Keith took 
 the direction of the sea, which is about three miles distant from 
 the modern town, starting the idea, that in all probability these 
 heaps of sand were covering the ruins of ancient Gaza." — " Re- 
 turning to our tents, we were now prepared to verify Dr Keith's 
 conclusion, of the truth of which he had been fully satisfied, name- 
 
GAZA. 
 
 375 
 
 for any fragment of ruin one cubic foot in size, for any 
 shrub, or plant, or blade of grass, to relieve or interrupt 
 the perfect baldness that has come on Gaza. He saw 
 nothing but a jackal freely coursing over its bare surface. 
 The sand of the desert is nowhere more smooth and bare; 
 and the dark spots, where nothing but the vestiges of ruins 
 lie, are so flat and level, that they form no exception to 
 its baldness. 
 
 Many of the ruins, it may well be imagined, lie buried 
 in the sand ; those that remained above the surface have 
 been carried away, and may be found in the close vicinity, 
 imbedded in the walls of houses or court- yards of the 
 comparatively modern town. 
 
 Nothing but historical testimony to the fact, that the 
 site of the modern town differed from that of the ancient 
 city, seems requisite to complete the proof that Gaza once 
 flourished where baldness now reigns. And the geogra- 
 pher Strabo, who lived at the commencement of the 
 Christian era, in describing the coast of Syria, records : 
 " Afterwards is the port of Gaza, and at the distance of 
 seven furlongs the city, formerly illustrious, which was 
 destroyed by Alexander, and remaining desert. " l The dis- 
 
 ly, that these hills of sand, where we had pitched our tents, really 
 cover the ruins of ancient Gaza. Each of us had found minute 
 fragments of polished marble in the flat hollows between the sand 
 hills, the remains no doubt of ' the palaces of Gaza. 1 We now 
 saw in a manner we had never done before, that God had liter- 
 ally fulfilled his own word, ' Baldness is come upon Gaza,' — 
 that literally and most remarkably the appearance of baldness has 
 come upon Gaza. No spot of verdure, not a single blade of grass 
 did we see upon the sand hills. One solitary tree there was which 
 only served to make the barrenness more remarkable. This bar- 
 ren, bare hill of sand, is the bald head of Gaza. How awfully true 
 and faithful are the words of God." — Narrative, pp. 136-138. 
 
376 
 
 GAZA. 
 
 tance of seven furlongs from the shore would have oc- 
 cupied the very site of the ancient city, as now seen "by 
 its rubbish. But the modern town lies at the distance 
 of nearly three miles, or twenty-four furlongs. Ancient 
 writers, not distinguishing between them, seem sometimes 
 to have confounded the one site with the other. Jerome 
 relates that, in his time, the beginning of the fifth cen- 
 tury, scarcely a vestige existed of the ancient city, and 
 that which was then seen, was built in another place, in- 
 stead of the city which was utterly ruined. 1 ! In tne extracts 
 from ancient authors, whose age is uncertain, edited by 
 Hudson, in the fourth volume of the lesser geographers, 
 distinct mention is made of new Gaza, and of desert Gaza* 
 Of the same place (rather than of the road) the apostle 
 Paul speaks, under the same name, of Gaza, which is de- 
 sert. The very appellation it thus received, as recorded 
 or described by Strabo and another Greek geographer, as 
 well as in the Acts of the Apostles, and which most em- 
 phatically and truly describes it in one word, 3 — for no desert 
 can be more bare, — shows how baldness has come upon it. 
 It is worthy also of remark, as Arrian relates, that the city 
 besieged by Alexander was great, was situated on a height; 
 and that the access to it was very difficult, on account of 
 the height of the sand, 4 — facts precisely applicable to the 
 
 scrra drahioig, hdo%6g tots ysvo^sv/j, xa,ri6<7ra<ffjt,svri 6' biro AXs^avdgov, 
 xai pevouffa s^fiog. Strabo, torn. ii. p. 1080. Ed. Fal. 
 
 1 Antiquae civitatis locum vix fundamentorum pnebere vestigia, 
 hanc autem quae nunc cernitur in alio loco, pro ilia quae corruit, 
 aedificatam* Hieron. torn. iii. p. 218. 
 
 2 Relandi Palestina, torn. i. p. 509. 
 
 3 — iroXig ft'ivovm "EPHM02. Strabo. 
 
 "H "EPHMOS Ta£a. Rel. Pal. torn. i. p. 509. 
 — tig Td^av. avrri igriv "EPHMOS. Acts viii. 26. 
 
 4 Arrian, lib. ii. 26. 
 
GAZA. 
 
 377 
 
 site above described, of ancient, or desert Gaza, but not 
 of new Gaza. 
 
 Desert and desolate, as it bas long been and still lies, 
 not tenanted eitber by man or beast, Gaza is forsaken. 
 
 On a second visit to Gaza, the writer more leisurely 
 surveyed the site, and was fully confirmed in the opinion, 
 that the ancient city was entombed in the sand, and that 
 baldness had thus come upon it. In less than a mile 
 from the present town, on a direct line towards the sea, 
 the sand commences, and all vegetation ceases. For 
 more than a mile and a half, in the same direction, 
 the whole space is covered with sand, and in every hollow 
 innumerable diminutive pieces of broken pottery and mar- 
 ble are spread over the surface. About twelve years ago, 
 and for some years previously, attempts were made in 
 various places to cultivate the sand, and hewn stones were 
 everywhere found, where the ground was dug for plant- 
 ing trees, near to the old port, and between it and the 
 modern town. Passing along the shore to the south, we 
 came on the remains of an old wall, which reached to the 
 sea. Ten large massy fragments of wall were imbedded 
 in the sand, or resting on it. A large square building 
 in ruins close by the shore seems to be the remains of 
 some public edifice. At the farther distance of about 
 two miles are fragments of another wall. Four interme- 
 diate fountains still exist, nearly entire, in a line along the 
 coast, which doubtless pertained to the ancient port of 
 Gaza. For a short distance inland, the debris is less 
 frequent, as if marking the space between it and the an- 
 cient city: but it again becomes plentiful in every hollow. 
 About half a mile from the sea, we saw three pedestals of 
 beautiful marble. And many stones had been taken to 
 
378 
 
 GAZA. 
 
 Gaza from a spot near to the sea, where an attempt had 
 been made to form a garden ; but where the trees are 
 again partly buried in the sand. There is not a single 
 habitation near it. Holes were still to be seen from 
 which hewn stones had been taken ; and the former se- 
 cretary of Ibrahim Pasha at Gaza, and another native, 
 (Ibrahim Jusef, and Halil Eiz Alliah,) stated, that all the 
 way between the present town and the sea, hewn stones of 
 various sizes had been taken out of the sand, and carried 
 to Gaza for building. 
 
 The author was not previously aware that hewn stones 
 had been raised out of the sand, or that actual proof could 
 thus be given of what he " imagined" to be the fact, that 
 the ruins of the ancient city were buried in the sand. 
 Positive information and visible proofs of the fact con- 
 firmed his previous conjecture. 
 
 It thus appears how, as in Volney's days, the ruins of 
 white marble are found at Gaza, and also, as stated by 
 General Straton, how the houses of the Aga, &c. were 
 composed of fragments of ancient columns, cornices, &c. 
 On the surface of the sand nothing was left worth taking 
 away, and from beneath it the proofs come forth that 
 where baldness reigns, the royal city stood. 
 
 Akir, a small village, has been recently identified as 
 the site of Ekron. Some vestiges of the ancient city 
 are still to be seen. But these form not now, as else- 
 where throughout the land, a heap of ruins. The ground 
 has been cleared of them ; and their chief remains are 
 now found in two or three very small spots, in the midst 
 of ploughed fields. Ekron has been rooted up. 
 
 The sea-coast of Philistia shall be cottages for shep- 
 herds and folds for flocks. Such in fact it now literally 
 is. Along the shores of Galilee, Samaria, and Judea, 
 
GAZA. 
 
 379 
 
 only three or four villages remain, exclusive of Tyre, 
 Sidon, Acre, and Jaffa. But they are comparatively 
 numerous on the sea-coast of Philistia. Volney, as in a 
 previous page, well describes them as they were in his day, 
 sixty years ago, and as they still are, according to the 
 prophetic description, true to the very letter, the " huts'' 
 are cottages for shepherds, the " court yards," folds for 
 flocks. Witnesses cognizant of predicted truths, can only 
 yield a testimony corresponding to that of the sceptic. 
 " We were much struck by observing how truly ' the sea- 
 coast had become dwellings and cottages for shepherds, 
 and folds for flocks,' — for the hills and vales are so com- 
 pletely pastoral, that from one rising ground we counted 
 ten large flocks and herds." 1 These are driven into the 
 villages at night, for protection from the wild beasts, by 
 the mud- walls that surround them. And the shepherds 
 have their separate cottages and court-yards, or folds, for 
 the black cattle, sheep, and goats that respectively be- 
 long to them. The cottages are entered on passing 
 through the fold. Each may be distinguished in the da- 
 guerreotype view of the remnant of Ashdod, as the for- 
 mer are covered, and the latter open at the top — -folds, 
 not stables such as the ruins of Amnion supply. While the 
 daguerreotype view was taken, the flocks were pasturing 
 on the plain, but some cattle were browsing in the im- 
 mediate vicinity of the village, beside a sheet of water as 
 seen in the original plate. So lowly is Ashdod now, 
 which of old was one of " the proud satrapies of Philis- 
 tina," whose lords are gone, as shepherds take their 
 place, that — though the governor of Jaffa, whom we met 
 by the way, ordered an Arab soldier who accompanied 
 us, to tell the sheikh to give us " the best entertainment," 
 
 1 Narrative, p. 138. 
 
380 
 
 GAZA. 
 
 - — we preferred, even with the prospect of a rainy night, 
 a canvass tent to the house, or rather cottage, of the 
 humble chief, which, like the rest, could only be entered 
 through a filthy fold for a flock. 
 
 Yet in that fertile land "only man is vile;" — and 
 incomparably more than in Edom, there is a remnant 
 for the children of Israel, which awaits them still, richer 
 than the gleanings of the land that was their own. Bare 
 to perfect baldness as ancient Gaza is, the opposite side 
 of the modern town may challenge any land with its rich 
 grove* of olives, (at least three miles in length,) and with 
 that also at a short distance, in the vicinity of Migdol. 
 Though the country, in general, is bare, and trees are 
 clustered around villages alone, yet a solitary tree of the 
 largest size, or three or four standing singly and far be- 
 tween, prove that the whole plain might be enriched anew 
 with fruit trees, as well as the immediate vicinity of the 
 villages. One of the finest crops of wheat which, in either 
 journey, the author saw in Syria, grew under the partial 
 and protecting shade of stately olives in the plains of Gaza. 
 Amidst visible judgments, the lingering remnant of what 
 Philistia was is itself an augury of better things to come 
 in other days; for looking beyond the time in which, the 
 sea- coast should be, as it is, dwellings and cottages for 
 shepherds and folds for flocks, the prophet of the Lord, 
 in words as sure, immediately adds, And the coast shall 
 be for the remnant of the house of Judah; they shall feed 
 thereon: in the houses of Ashhelon they shall lie down in 
 the evening : for the Lord their God shall visit them, and 
 turn away their captivity: and such is the natural ferti- 
 lity of that coast to this day, that, though Benjamin shall 
 possess Gilead, Judah need not envy Benjamin. 
 
SUMMARY OF THE PROPHECIES, ETC. 381 
 
 Such are the prophecies which explicitly and avowedly 
 refer to the land of Judea, and to the surrounding states; 
 and such the very facts which the prophet foretold. The 
 predictions and the proofs of their fulfilment are so numer- 
 ous, that it is impossible to concentrate them in a single 
 view, without the exclusion of many; and they are, upon 
 a simple comparison, so obvious and striking, that any 
 attempt at their farther elucidation must hazard the ob- 
 scuring of their clearness, and the enfeebling of their 
 force. There is no ambiguity in the prophecies them- 
 selves, for they can bear no other interpretation but what 
 is descriptive of the actual events. There can be no 
 question of their genuineness or antiquity, for the coun- 
 tries whose future history they unveiled contained several 
 millions of inhabitants, and numerous flourishing cities, at 
 a period centuries subsequent to the delivery, the trans- 
 lation, and publication of the prophecies, and when the 
 regular and public perusal of their Scriptures was the law 
 and the practice of the Israelites; and they have only 
 gradually been reduced to their existing state of long- 
 prophesied desolation. There could not possibly have 
 been any human means of the foresight of facts so many 
 and so marvellous; for every natural appearance contra- 
 dicted and every historical fact condemned the supposi- 
 tion; and nothing but continued oppression and a succes- 
 sion of worse than Gothic desolators, — no government on 
 earth but the Turkish, — no spoliators but the Arabs, — 
 could have converted such natural fertility into such utter 
 and permanent desolation. Could it have been foreseen, 
 that after the lapse of some hundred years, no interval of 
 prosperity or peaceful security would occur throughout 
 many ensuing generations, to revive its deadened ener- 
 gies, or to rescue from uninterrupted desolation one of 
 
382 
 
 SUMMARY OF THE PROPHECIES 
 
 the richest, and one of the most salubrious regions of the 
 world, which the greater part of these territories natur- 
 rally is? Could the present aspect of any country, with 
 every alterable feature changed, and with every altered 
 feature marked, have been delineated by different unin- 
 spired mortals, in various ages from 2200 to 3300 years 
 past? And there could not, so far as all researches have 
 hitherto reached, be a more triumphant demonstration, 
 from existing facts, of the truth of manifold prophecies. 
 In reference to the complete historical truth of the pre- 
 dictions respecting the successive kings of Syria and 
 Egypt, Bishop Newton emphatically remarks, (as Sir 
 Isaac Newton's observations had previously proved,) that 
 there is not so concise and comprehensive an account of 
 their affairs to be found in any author of these times ; that 
 the prophecy is really more perfect than any single his- 
 tory, and that no one historian hath related so many cir- 
 cumstances as the prophet has foretold •} so that " it was 
 necessary to have recourse to several authors for the bet- 
 ter explaining and illustrating the great variety of par- 
 ticulars contained in the prophecy." The same remark 
 in the same words, may, more obviously and with equal 
 truth, be now applied to the geographical, as well as to 
 the historical proof of the truth of prophecy. Judea, 
 which, before the age of the prophets, had, from the uni- 
 formity and peculiarity of its government and laws, re- 
 mained unvaried in a manner and to a degree unusual 
 among nations, has since undergone many convulsions, 
 and has for many generations been unceasingly subjected 
 to reiterated spoliation. And now, after the lapse of 
 more than twenty centuries, travellers see what prophets 
 foretold. Each prediction is fulfilled in all its particu- 
 
 1 Signs of the Times, vol. i. pp. 44-73. 
 
CONCERNING JUDEA, ETC. 
 
 383 
 
 lars, so far as the facts have (and in almost every case 
 they have) been made known. But while the recent" dis- 
 coveries of many travellers have disclosed the state of 
 these countries, each of their accounts presents only an 
 imperfect delineation; and a variety of these must be 
 combined before they bring fully into view all those di- 
 versified, discriminating, and characteristic features of 
 the extensive scene, which were vividly depicted of old, 
 in all their minute lines and varied shades, by the pencil 
 of prophecy, and which set before us, as it were, the his- 
 tory, the land, and the people of Palestine. 
 
 Judea trodden down by successive desolators, — re- 
 maining uncultivated from generation to generation, — the 
 general devastation of the country, — the mouldering ruins 
 of its many cities, — the cheerless solitude of its once hap- 
 py plains, — the wild produce of its luxuriant mountains, — 
 the land covered with briars and thorns, — the highways 
 waste and untrodden,— its ancient possessors scattered 
 abroad ; — the inhabitants thereof depraved in character 
 few in number, eating their bread with carefulness, or in 
 constant dread of the spoiler or oppressor ; — the insecurity 
 of property, — the uselessness of labour, — the poverty of 
 their revenues, — the land emptied and despoiled, — in- 
 strumental music ceased from among them, — the mirth 
 of the land gone, — the use of wine prohibited in a land 
 of vines, and the wine itself bitter unto them that drink 
 it; — the cities desolate without inhabitant, and the houses 
 without man ; — the fortress ceased, — the forts and towers 
 for dens, — the devastation of the land of Ammon, — the 
 extinction of the Ammonites, the destruction of all their 
 cities, — their country a spoil to the heathen, — and a per- 
 petual desolation: — the desolation of Moab, its cities 
 without any to dwell therein, and no city escaped,— the 
 
384 
 
 SUMMARY OF THE PROPHECIES 
 
 valley perished, the plain destroyed, — the wanderers that 
 have come up against it, and that cause its inhabitants to 
 wander, — the manner of the spoliation of the dwellers in 
 Moab, their danger and insecurity in the plain country, 
 and flying to the rocks for a refuge and a home, while 
 flocks he down among the ruins of the cities — none 
 there to make them afraid, — and the despoiled and im- 
 poverished condition of some of its wretched wander- 
 ers: — Idumea the scene of an unparalleled desolation, 
 — its cities utterly abandoned and destroyed, of the 
 greater part of them no traces left, — a desolate wil- 
 derness, over which the line of confusion is stretched 
 out, — the country bare, — no kingdom there, — its princes 
 and nobles nothing, and empty sepulchres their only me- 
 morials, — thistles and thorns in its palaces, — a border of 
 wickedness, and yet greatly despised, — wisdom perished 
 from Teman, and understanding out of the mount of 
 Esau, — abandoned to birds and beasts and reptiles, spe- 
 cified by name, — its ancient possessors cut off for ever, 
 and no one remaining of the house of Esau: — the de- 
 struction of the cities of the Philistines, — cottages for 
 shepherds, and folds for flocks, along the sea coasts, — 
 the remnant of the plain destroyed and unoccupied by 
 any fixed inhabitants: — Lebanon ashamed, — its cedars, 
 few and diminutive, now a mockery instead of a praise : 
 and, finally, the different fate of many cities particularly 
 defined, — the long subjection of Jerusalem to the Gen- 
 tiles ; — Samaria desolate, as an heap of the field, or cast 
 down into the valley, and its foundations discovered, all 
 so clearly marked both in the prophecy and on the spot, 
 that they serve to fix its site; — Rabbah- Amnion, the 
 capital of the Ammonites, now a desolate heap, a pasture 
 for camels, and a couching-place for flocks; — the chief 
 
CONCERNING JUDEA. ETC. 
 
 385 
 
 city of Edom brought down — a court for owls — and no 
 man dwelling in it; — Gaza forsaken, and baldness come 
 upon it, — Ashkelon desolate, without an inhabitant, — 
 and Ekron rooted up : — These are all ancient prophecies, 
 and these are all present facts, which form of themselves 
 a phalanx of evidence which all the shafts of infidelity 
 can never pierce. 
 
 Though the countries included in these predictions 
 comprehend a field of prophecy extending over upwards 
 of one hundred and twenty thousand square miles, the 
 existing state of every part of which bears witness of their 
 truth; yet the prophets, as inspired by the God of 
 nations, foretold the fate of mightier monarchies, of more 
 extensive regions, and of more powerful cities ; and there 
 is not a people, nor a country, nor a capital, which was 
 then known to the Israelites, whose future history they 
 did not clearly reveal. And, instead of adducing argu- 
 ments from the preceding very abundant materials, or 
 drawing those facts already adduced, to their legitimate 
 conclusion, they may be left in their native strength, like 
 the unhewn adamant ; and we may pass to other proofs 
 which also show that the temple of Christian faith rests 
 upon a rock that never can be moved. 
 
 2 c 
 
386 
 
 NINEVEH. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 NINEVEH. 
 
 To a brief record of the creation of the antediluvian 
 world, and of the dispersion and different settlements of 
 mankind after the deluge, the Scriptures of the Old Tes- 
 tament add a full and particular history of the Hebrews 
 for the space of fifteen hundred years, from the days of 
 Abraham to the era of the last of the prophets. While 
 the historical part of Scripture thus traces, from its ori- 
 gin, the history of the world, the prophecies give a pro- 
 spective view which reaches to its end. And it is re- 
 markable that profane history, emerging from fable, be- 
 comes clear and authentic about the very period when 
 sacred history terminates, and when the fulfilment of 
 those prophecies commences, which refer to other nations 
 besides the Jews. 
 
 Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, was for a long time 
 an extensive and populous city. Its walls are said by 
 heathen historians, to have been a hundred feet in height, 
 sixty miles in compass, and to have been defended by 
 fifteen hundred towers, each two hundred feet high. 1 
 
 1 Diod. Sic. lib. ii. p. 12, 13. See Bochart. Phaleg. lib. iv. e. xx. 
 c. 252. Rollins Anc. Hist. vol. ii. pp. 56, 57. Bishop Newton, 
 Gibbon, &c. Strabo, whose testimony also has been often repeat - 
 ed, states that it was larger than Babylon. " It must be owned," 
 
NINEVEH. 
 
 387 
 
 Although it formed the subject of some of the earliest 
 of the prophecies, and was the very first which met its 
 predicted fate ; yet a heathen historian, iu describing its 
 capture and destruction, repeatedly refers to an ancient 
 prediction respecting it. Diodorus Siculus relates, that 
 the king of Assyria, after the complete discomfiture of 
 his army, confided in an old prophecy, that Nineveh 
 would not be taken unless the river should become the 
 enemy of the city; 1 that after an ineffectual siege of two 
 years, the river, swollen with long- continued and tem- 
 pestuous torrents, inundated part of the city and threw 
 down the wall for the space of twenty furlongs; and that 
 the king, deeming the prediction accomplished, despaired 
 of his safety, and erected an immense funeral pile, on 
 which he heaped his wealth, and with himself, his house- 
 hold, and palace, were consumed. 2 The book of Nahum 
 was avowedly prophetic of the destruction of Nineveh: 
 and it is there foretold that " the gates of the rivers 
 shall be opened, and the palace shall be dissolved." 
 "Nineveh, of old, like a pool of water — with an overrun- 
 ning flood he will make an utter end of the place there- 
 of." 3 The historian describes the facts by which the 
 other predictions of the prophet were as literally fulfilled. 
 He relates that the king of Assyria, elated with his for- 
 mer victories, and ignorant of the revolt of the Bactrians, 
 had abandoned himself to scandalous inaction ; had ap- 
 
 says Calmet, " that Nineveh was one of the most ancient, the 
 most famous, the most potent, and the largest cities of the world." 
 
 1 Diod. Sic. lib. ii. pp. 82, 83, edit. Wessel. 1793. See Univ. 
 Hist. vol. iv. pp. 305-8, v. 37, &c. Bishop Newton, p. 134, 13th 
 edition. 
 
 2 Ibid. p. 84. Poole, Univ. Hist. ibid. Bishop Newton. 
 
 3 Nahum ii. 
 
388 
 
 NINEVEH. 
 
 pointed a time of festivity, and supplied his soldiers with 
 abundance of wine; and that the general of the enemy, 
 apprised by deserters of their negligence and drunken- 
 ness, attacked the Assyrian army while the whole of them 
 were fearlessly giving way to indulgence, destroyed great 
 part of them, and drove the rest into the city. 1 The 
 words of the prophet were hereby verified: " While they 
 be folden together as thorns, and while they are drunken 
 as drunkards, they shall be devoured as stubble My 
 dry." 2 The prophet promised much spoil to the ene- 
 my: " Take the spoil of silver, take the spoil of gold; for 
 there is no end of the store and glory out of all the plea- 
 sant furniture." 3 And the historian affirms, that many 
 talents of gold and silver preserved from the fire, were 
 carried to Ecbatana. 4 According to Nahum, the city 
 was not only to be destroyed by an overflowing flood, but 
 the fire also was to devour it; 5 and, as Diodorus relates, 
 partly by water, partly by fire, it was destroyed. 6 
 
 1 Diod. Sic. lib. ii. pp. 81, 84. Univ. Hist. Ibid. 
 
 2 Nahum i. 10. 3 Nahum ii. 9. 
 
 4 Diod. p. 87. " The two armies," says Kollin, after quoting 
 this prophecy, " enriched themselves with the spoils of Nineveh." 
 Vol. ii. p. 103. Bishop Newton. 
 
 5 Nahum iii. 15. 
 
 6 See Bishop Newton's Dissertation ix. Nineveh, which first 
 led Israel captive, was the first city of the Gentiles that met its 
 predicted fate. The fulfilment of the prophecies concerning it, 
 which are all contained in the short book of Nahum, and in three 
 verses of Zephaniah, was too remarkable to pass unnoticed in tne 
 earliest ages of our era. Josephus, after briefly describing the 
 reign of Jotham, states, that " there was at that time a prophet, 
 named Nahum, who prophesied thus of the catastrophe or over- 
 throw of Nineveh, ' Nineveh shall be a pool of water agitated,' 
 &c. Nahum ii. 8—13, and he adds, that the prophet foretold 
 many other things which it was unnecessary for him to repeat, 
 and which were all fulfilled after the lapse of a hundred and fif ■ 
 
NINEVEH. 
 
 389 
 
 The utter and perpetual destruction and desolation of 
 Nineveh were foretold : " The Lord will make an utter 
 end of the place thereof. Affliction shall not rise up the 
 second time. She is empty, and void, and waste. The 
 Lord will stretch out his hand against the north, and de- 
 stroy Assyria, and will make Nineveh a desolation, and 
 dry like a wilderness. How has she "become a desola- 
 tion, a place for heasts to lie down in!" 1 In the second 
 century, Lucian, a native of a city on the hanks of the 
 Euphrates, testified that Nineveh was utterly perished, — 
 
 teen years," Ant. lib. ix. c. 11. sect. 3. Jerome (a.d. 392,) in his 
 preface to the book of Jonah, relates, that both Hebrew and Greek 
 historians recorded its overthrow. (Tom. vi. c. 399, 390, ed. 
 Venet. 1768.) And in his commentary on Nahum, he repeatedly 
 refers to its capture and spoliation by the Chaldeans, or Babylo- 
 nians, in illustration of the prophecy, Ibid. c. 534, 555, &c. In 
 like manner, Cyril of Alexandria, (a.d. 412,) in his commentary on 
 the same prophecy, quoted by Bochart, describes not only the de- 
 struction of Nineveh, but, in terms analogous to those of Lucian, 
 its entire desolation. Besides other intervening writers who treat 
 of the subject, Bochart, Marsham, and Poole, in the seventeenth 
 century, adduced the testimony of Diodorus Siculus, who has long 
 been the chief authority upon the subject, although his testimony 
 in regard to the magnificence and subsequent destruction of Ni- 
 neveh is corroborated by that of Herodotus, Strabo, Tacitus, Pliny, 
 &c. The fall of Nineveh is described, and the prophecies both of 
 Nahum and Zephaniah, thereby illustrated, are quoted or referred 
 to in such well-known works published in the last century, as 
 Prideaux's Connections (a.d. 1715) and Bishop Newton's Disserta- 
 tion on the Prophecies (a.d. 1754), Bollin's Ancient History, (a.d. 
 1730), The Universal History, (a.d. 1747) the last of which, the 
 latest and the best, is referred to in every edition. The edition 
 of Diodorus Siculus, from which the facts were quoted and the 
 references taken, was published forty years after the last of 
 these works. The facts, like the prophecies, are few, and are 
 all included in a few pages, to which the index readily points in 
 every edition of his works. 
 
 1 Nahum i. 8, 9; ii. 10. Zeph. ii. 13, 14, 15. 
 
390 
 
 NINEVEH. 
 
 that there was no vestige of it remaining, — and that none 
 could tell where once it was situate. 1 This testimony of 
 Lucian, and the lapse of many ages, during which the 
 place was not known where it stood, render it at least 
 somewhat doubtful whether the remains of an ancient 
 city, opposite to Mosul, which have been described as 
 such by travellers, be indeed those of ancient Nineveh. 
 The name, however, was attached to the spot by the in- 
 habitants of the country in the beginning of the seventh 
 century. The battle of Nineveh decided the fate of 
 Chosroes. Its locality is thus described by Gibbon : — 
 " The Eomans boldly advanced from the Araxes to the 
 Tigris, and the timid prudence of Rhazates was content 
 to follow them by forced marches through a desolate 
 country, till he received a peremptory mandate to risk 
 the fate of Persia in a decisive battle. Eastward of the 
 Tigris, at the end of the bridge of Mosul, the great Nineveh 
 had formerly been erected : the city, and even the ruins 
 of the city, had long since disappeared: the vacant 
 space [empty, void, and waste] afforded a spacious field 
 for the operation of the two armies." 2 The great city 
 had hecome " the field" of Nineveh. An utter ruin had 
 been made of it at once; affliction did not rise up a 
 second time. " One thing is sufficiently obvious to the 
 most careless observer," says Kich, who was himself a 
 most careful observer, (i which is, the equality of age of 
 all these vestiges. Whether they belonged to Nineveh 
 or some other city, is another question, and one not so 
 easily determined; but that they are all of the same age 
 and character does not admit of a doubt." 3 " Pottery, 
 
 1 Bochart, Marsharo, Calmet, Bishop Newton, &c. 
 
 2 Hist. vol. viii. pp. 250, 251, c. 46. 
 
 3 Rich's Residence in Koordistan and Nineveh, vol. ii. p. 44. 
 
NINEVEH. 
 
 391 
 
 and other Babylonian fragments" — " fragments of cunei- 
 form inscriptions on stone, similar in every respect to 
 those got at Babylon," 1 are found in the mounds that 
 constitute the ruins. In contrasting the then existing 
 great and increasing population, and the accumulating 
 wealth of the proud inhabitants of the mighty Nineveh, 
 with the utter ruin that awaited it, — the word of God, 
 (before whom all the inhabitants of the earth are as 
 grasshoppers), by Nahum was — " Make thyself many as 
 the canker-worm, make thyself many as the locusts. 
 Thou hast multiplied thy merchants above the stars of 
 heaven: the canker-worm spoileth and fleeth away. Thy 
 crowned are as the locusts, and thy captains as the great 
 grasshoppers which camp in the hedges in the cold day; 
 but when the sun riseth, they flee away; and their place 
 is not known where they are," or were. Whether these 
 words^ imply that even the site of Nineveh would in 
 future ages be uncertain or unknown, or as they ra- 
 ther seem to intimate, that every vestige of the palaces 
 of its monarchs, of the greatness of its nobles, and of the 
 wealth of its numerous merchants, would wholly disappear; 
 the truth of the prediction cannot be invalidated under 
 either interpretation. The avowed ignorance respecting 
 Nineveh, and the oblivion which passed over it, for many 
 an age, conjoined with the meagreness of evidence to 
 identify it still, prove that the place was long unknown 
 where it stood, and that even now it can scarcely with 
 certainty be determined. And, if the only spot that 
 bears its name, or that can be said to be the place where 
 it was, be indeed the site of one of the most extensive of 
 cities on which the sun ever shone, and which continued 
 
 1 Rich's Residence in Koordistan and Nineveh, vol. ii. pp. 38, 
 55. 
 
392 
 
 NINEVEH. 
 
 for many centuries to be the capital of Assyria, — the 
 " principal mounds," few in number, in many places over- 
 grown with grass, " resemble the mounds left by intrench- 
 ments and fortifications of ancient Eoman camps," and 
 the appearances of other mounds and ruins, less marked 
 than even these, extending for ten miles, and widely 
 spread, and seeming to be "the wreck of former 
 buildings," 1 shew that Nineveh is left without one 
 monument of royalty, without any token or memorial of 
 its ancient splendour and magnificence; and so entirely 
 are the very vestiges of the city in many places swept 
 away, that of a large space which the plough has passed 
 over for ages, it is said, "what part was covered by 
 ancient Nineveh it is nearly now impossible to ascertain." 2 
 " The country," " this uneven country," are epithets de- 
 scriptive of its supposed site. " In such a country it is 
 not easy to say what are ruins and what are not; what is 
 art converted by the lapse of ages into a semblance of 
 nature, and what is merely nature broken by the hand of 
 time into ruins approaching in their appearance those of 
 art." 3 Of the merchants, that were multiplied above the 
 stars of heaven — of the crowned and of the captains of 
 the great Nineveh, it may be said, that they were as the 
 great grasshoppers, which, camping in the hedges in a 
 cold day, flee away on the rising of the sun, and their 
 place is not known where they were. Neither from the 
 low grounds, covered with bushes of tamarisk, where it is 
 not cultivated/ nor from the high country completely 
 covered with pebbles, 5 could it be known where the nobles 
 of Nineveh were. " The name of Nineveh," said Volney, 
 
 1 Buckingham's Travels in Mesopotamia, vol. ii. pp. 49, 51, 62. 
 
 2 Rich's Residence in Koordistan, vol. ii. p. 53. 
 
 3 Ibid. p. 57. 4 Ibid. p. G2. 5 Ibi(Ji p ^ 
 
NINEVEH. 
 
 <( seems to be threatened with the same oblivion which 
 has overtaken its greatness." 1 The Lord hath given a 
 commandment concerning thee, that no more of thy name 
 he sown. I will make thy grave, for thou art vile. 
 Darkness shall pursue his enemies? The great Nineveh 
 is no more. No more of its name is sown: the town 
 near to its site is called by another name. But its name 
 written in the word of God, shall not pass into oblivion, 
 till tongues shall cease and prophecy fail. 
 
 The Lord did make the grave of Nineveh. And, dis- 
 closing at last its ancient glory, else but obscurely known, 
 it has of late been partly disinterred. There is now an- 
 other proof than that of the largeness of a heap, where 
 the palace stood. And the written record of the man- 
 ner of its destruction is accredited as if by a voice from 
 its grave. The government of France has become the 
 purveyor of evidence : and Paris might learn a lesson from 
 the shipload of the relics of Nineveh, ere the cities of 
 the nations fall. More may hence be learned, than the 
 knowledge of Assyrian arts. 
 
 " Nineveh, the city of fifteen hundred towers, whose 
 walls were a hundred feet in height, and had space on 
 their summits for three chariots abreast, seemed more 
 utterly ruined than even Babylon; yet from beneath its 
 dust has the long buried arts of the Assyrian been re- 
 covered. Fifteen halls of this vast palace, with their cor- 
 responding esplanades have been cleared. The rest of 
 the monument, it is made quite certain, has been destroy- 
 ed, — intentionally however, the stones having been car- 
 ried off to serve for other buildings. A fortunate acci- 
 dent — that would seem an evil one at the time — has pre- 
 served for us what remains. This portion of the palace 
 1 Ruins, c. 8. 2 Nahum i. 8, 14. 
 
394: 
 
 NINEVEH. 
 
 has been ravaged by fire, which has entirely destroyed 
 only the timbers of the roofs : — but as the other calcined 
 materials were rendered useless for new constructions, they 
 have been left where they were; and thus one- third of the 
 edifice remains to testify of the rest." 1 " Fifteen cham- 
 bers, some above a hundred feet in length, and evidently 
 forming part of a magnificent palace, have been opened. 
 Their walls are entirely covered with inscriptions and 
 sculptures. The latter are almost without exception his- 
 torical, and illustrate events of the highest interest, sieges, 
 naval manoeuvres, triumphs, single combats, &c. The in- 
 scriptions are in the cuneiform character, and are of such 
 great length that all the arrow-headed inscriptions before 
 known, if united together, would not equal them. Al- 
 though the ornaments, robes, and various implements of 
 war are finished with extraordinary precision, they do not 
 detract from the effect of the whole, nor do they add heavi- 
 ness to the figures. The extreme beauty and elegance 
 of the various objects introduced among the groups, 
 are next to be admired. The shapes of the vases, 
 of the drinking cups, the sword- scabbards adorned 
 with lions, and the shields decorated with animals and 
 flowers — the chairs, tables, and other articles of domestic 
 use, — the ornaments of the head, and bracelets and ear- 
 rings, are all designed with the most consummate taste, and 
 rival the productions of the most cultivated period of Greek 
 art." 2 " Nineveh seemed more utterly ruined than even 
 Babylon: yet from beneath its dust have the long buried 
 arts of the Assyrian been discovered." I will make thy 
 grave. I will cast abominable filth upon thee, and make 
 thee vile, and will set thee as a gazing-stock. 3 
 
 1 Athenaeum, No. 900. January 25, 1845, p. 99. 
 
 2 Ibid. No. 901, pp. 120, 122. 3 Nahum i. 14; iii. 6. 
 
NINEVEH. 
 
 395 
 
 " Fifteen halls of this vast palace, with their corre- 
 sponding esplanades have been cleared. This portion of 
 the palace has been ravaged with fire, which has en- 
 tirely destroyed only the timbers of the roofs: but as the 
 other calcined materials were rendered useless for new 
 constructions, they have been left where they were; and 
 thus one-third of the edifice remains to testify of the rest." 
 While they be f olden together as thorns, and while they 
 are drunken as drunkards they shall be devoured as stub- 
 ble fully dry. The fire shall devour thy bars. There 
 shall the fire devour thee.i 
 
 The buried arts of the Assyrian have been recovered 
 from beneath the dust of Nineveh. And still figured on 
 the calcined walls of the disentombed palace, are vases, 
 drinking-cups, decorated scabbards and shields, chairs, 
 tables, and other articles for domestic use, ornaments of 
 the head, and bracelets and ear-rings, all designed with 
 the most consummate taste, so as to rival the productions 
 of the most cultivated period of Greek art — and also 
 figures of the very things of which the prophet spake, in 
 issuing his mandate to the enemies of Nineveh, to be 
 obeyed ere that city should be turned into its grave. 
 Take ye the spoil of silver, take the spoil of gold, for there 
 is no end of the store and glory out of all the pleasant 
 furniture. 
 
 Such was, and such is, the capital of Assyria, which 
 led Israel captive — and such the evidence that when raised 
 from the grave, it discloses, that the God of Israel is the 
 Lord of Hosts, and that all the vain glories of the proud- 
 est mortals perish at his word, 
 
 1 Nahum i. 10; iii. 13, 15. 
 
396 
 
 BABYLON. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 BABYLON. 
 
 If ever there was a city that seemed to bid defiance to 
 any predictions of its fall, that city was Babylon. It was 
 for a long time the most famous city in the whole world. 1 
 Its walls, which were reckoned among the wonders of the 
 world, appeared rather like the bulwarks of nature than 
 the workmanship of man. 2 The temple ofBelus, half a 
 mile in circumference and a furlong in height — the hang- 
 ing gardens, which, piled in successive terraces, towered 
 as high as the walls — the embankments which restrained 
 the Euphrates — the hundred brazen gates — and the ad- 
 joining artificial lake — all displayed many of the mightiest 
 
 1 Plinii Hist. Nat. lib. v. cap. xxvi. 
 
 a The extent of the walls of Babylon is variously stated, by He- 
 rodotus at 480 stadia, or furlongs, in circumference; by Pliny and 
 Solinus at sixty Roman miles, or of equal extent; by Strabo at 385 
 stadia; by Diodorus Siculus, according to the slightly different 
 testimony of Ctesias and Clitarchus, both of whom visited Baby- 
 lon, at 360 or 365; and to the last of these statements that of 
 Quintus Curtius nearly corresponds, viz. 368. The difference of 
 a few stadia rather confirms than disproves the general accuracy 
 of the three last of these accounts. There may have been an error 
 in the text of Herodotus of 480, instead of 380, which Pliny and 
 Solinus may have copied. The variation of 20 or 25 stadia, in 
 excess, may have been caused by the line of measurement having 
 been the outside of the trench, and not immediately of the wall. 
 
BABYLON. 
 
 397 
 
 works of mortals concentrated in a single point. 1 Yet, 
 while in the plenitude of its power, and according to the 
 most accurate chronologers, 160 years before the foot of 
 an enemy had entered it, the voice of prophecy pronoun- 
 ced the doom of the mighty and unconquered Babylon. 
 A succession of ages brought it gradually to the dust; 
 and the gradation of its fall is marked till it sunk at last 
 into utter desolation. At a time when nothing but mag- 
 nificence was around Babylon the great, fallen Babylon 
 was delineated exactly as every traveller now describes its 
 ruins. — And the prophecies concerning it may be viewed 
 connectedly from the period of their earliest to that of 
 their latest fulfilment. 
 
 The immense fertility of Chaldea, which retained also 
 the name of Babylonia till after the Christian era, 2 cor- 
 responded, if that of any country could vie, with the 
 greatness of Babylon. It was the most fertile region of 
 the whole east. 3 Babylonia was one vast plain, adorned 
 and enriched by the Euphrates and the Tigris, from 
 
 And thus the various statements may be brought nearly to corre- 
 spond. Major Kennel, estimating the stadium at 491 feet, com- 
 putes the extent of the wall at 34 miles, or eight and a half on 
 each side. The opposite and contradictory statements of the 
 height and breadth of the wall may possibly be best reconciled on 
 the supposition that they refer to different periods. Herodotus 
 states the height to have been 200 cubits, or 300 feet, and the 
 breadth 50 cubits, 7 5 feet. According to Curtius, the height was 
 130 feet, and the breadth 32; while Strabo states the height at 75 
 feet, and the breadth at 32 feet. 
 
 1 Herod, lib. i. c. clxxviii. Diodor. Sic. lib. ii. p. 26. (Calmet.) 
 Plin. lib. v. xxvi. Quintus Curtius, lib. v. c. iv. See Prideaux, 
 Rollin, &c. 
 
 2 Strabo, lib. xvi. p. 743. 
 
 3 " Agrum totius orientis fertilissimum." (Plin. Hist. Nat. lib. 
 v. c. xxvi. 
 
398 
 
 BABYLON. 
 
 which, and from the numerous canals that intersected the 
 country from the one river to the other, water was dis- 
 tributed over the fields by manual labour and by hydrau- 
 lic machines, 1 giving rise, in that warm climate and rich 
 exhaustless soil, to an exuberance of produce without a 
 known parallel, over so extensive a region, either in an- 
 cient or modern times. Herodotus states, that he knew 
 not how to speak of its wonderful fertility, which none but 
 eye-witnesses would credit; and, though writing in the 
 language of Greece, itself a fertile country, he expresses 
 his own consciousness that his description of what he ac- 
 tually saw would appear to be improbable, and to exceed 
 belief. In his estimation, as well as that of Strabo and 
 of Pliny, (the three best ancient authorities that can be 
 given,) Babylonia was of all countries the most fertile in 
 corn, the soil never producing less, as he relates, than 
 two hundred fold, an amount, in our colder regions, 
 scarcely credible, though Strabo, the first of ancient geo- 
 graphers, agrees with the " father of history" in record- 
 ing that it reached even to three hundred, the grain, too, 
 being of prodigious size. 2 After being subjected to Per- 
 sia, the government of Chaldea was accounted the noblest 
 in the Persian empire. 3 Besides supplying horses for 
 military service, it maintained about seventeen thousand 
 horses for the sovereign's use. And, exclusive of monthly 
 subsidies, the supply from Chaldea (including perhaps 
 Syria) for the subsistence of the king and of his army, 
 amounted to a third part of all that was levied from the 
 whole of the Persian dominions, which at that time ex- 
 tended from the Hellespont to India. 4 Heredotus inci- 
 
 1 Herod, lib. i. c. cxcii. 
 
 2 Herod, lib. i. c. cxcii. Strabo, lib. xvi. p. 742. 
 
 3 Herod, lib. i. c. cxcii. 4 Ibid. 
 
BABYLON. 
 
 399 
 
 dentally mentions that there were four great towns in the 
 vicinity of Babylon. 
 
 Such was the " Chaldee's excllency," that it departed 
 not on the first conquest, nor on the final extinction of 
 its capital, hut one metropolis of Assyria arose after ano- 
 ther in the land of Chaldea, when Babylon had ceased to 
 be "the glory of kingdoms." The celebrated city of 
 Seleucia, whose ruins attest its former greatness, was 
 founded and built by Seleucus Nicator, king of Assyria, 
 one of the successors of Alexander the Great, in the year 
 before Christ 293, — three centuries after Jeremiah pro- 
 phesied. In the first century of the Christian era it con- 
 tained six hundred thousand inhabitants. 1 The Parthian 
 kings transferred the seat of empire to Ctesiphon, on the 
 opposite bank of the Tigris, where they resided in winter ; 
 and that city, formerly a village, became great and 
 powerful. 2 Six centuries after the latest of the predic- 
 tions, Chaldea could also boast of other great cities, 3 such 
 as Artemita and Sitacene, besides many towns. When 
 invaded by Julian, it was, as described by Gibbon, a 
 "fruitful and pleasant country." And, at a period 
 equally distant from the time of the prophets and from 
 the present day, in the seventh century, Chaldea was the 
 scene of vast magnificence, in the reign of Chosroes. 
 " His favourite residence of Artemita or Destagered, was 
 situated beyond the Tigris, about sixty miles to the north 
 of the capital (Ctesiphon). The adjacent pastures," in 
 the words of Gibbon, "were covered with flocks and 
 herds; the paradise, or park, was replenished with phea- 
 sants, peacocks, ostriches, roebucks, and wild boars ; and 
 the noble game of Hons and tigers was sometimes turned 
 
 1 Plin. lib. vi. c. xxvi. 2 Strabo, lib. xvi. p. 743. 
 
 3 Ibid. p. 7U. 
 
400 
 
 BABYLON. 
 
 loose for the golden pleasures of the chase. Nine hundred 
 and sixty elephants were maintained for the use and 
 splendour of the great king; his tents and baggage were 
 carried into the field by twelve thousand great camels, 
 and eight thousand of a smaller size; and the royal 
 stables were filled with six thousand mules and horses. 
 Six thousand guards successively mounted before the 
 palace gate, and the service of the interior apartments 
 was performed by twelve thousand slaves. The various 
 treasures of gold, silver, gems, silk, and aromatics, were 
 deposited in an hundred subterranean vaults." 1 — In the 
 eighth century the town of Samarah, Horounieh, and 
 Djasserik, formed, so to speak, one street of twenty- 
 eight miles." 2 Chaldea, with its rich soil and warm 
 climate, and intersected by the Tigris and Euphrates, 
 was one of the last countries in the world, of which the 
 desolation could have been thought of by man. For to 
 this day " there cannot be a doubt, that, if proper means 
 were taken, the country would with ease be brought into 
 a high state of cultivation." 3 
 
 Manifold are the prophecies respecting Babylon and 
 the land of the Chaldeans; and the long lapse of ages 
 has served to confirm their fulfilment in every particular, 
 and to render it at last complete. The judgments of 
 heaven are not casual, but sure ; they are not arbitrary, 
 
 1 Gibbon's History, vol. viii. c. 46, pp. 227, 228. 
 
 2 Malte-Brun's Geography, vol. ii. p. 119. Historical docu- 
 ments are not wanting to prove that the richness of Chaldea, 
 down to the time of the Arabian califs, was such as to give the 
 charm of truth (which, indeed, it is generally admitted that they 
 possess) to many of the splendid descriptions which abound in 
 the otherwise fictitious narratives of the Arabian Nights Enter- 
 tainments. 
 
 3 Bombay Philosophical Transactions, vol. i. p. 124. 
 
BABYLON. 
 
 401 
 
 but righteous. And they were denounced against the 
 Babylonians, and the inhabitants of Chaldea, expressly 
 because of their idolatry, tyranny, oppression, pride, 
 covetousness, drunkenness, falsehood, and other wicked- 
 ness. So debasing and brutifying was their idolatry, — 
 or so much did they render the name of religion subser- 
 vient to their passions, — that practices the most abomin- 
 able, which were universal among them, formed the very 
 observance of some of their religious rites, of which even 
 heathen writers could not speak but in terms of indig- 
 nation and abhorrence. Though enriched with a prodi- 
 gality of blessings, the glory of God was not regarded by 
 the Chaldeans ; and all the glory of man, with which the 
 plain of Shinar was covered, has become, in consequence 
 as well as in chastisement of prevailing vices and of con- 
 tinued though diversified crimes, the wreck, the ruin, and 
 utter desolation which the word of God (for whose word but 
 his?) thus told from the beginning that the event would be. 
 
 " The burden of Babylon, which Isaiah the son of Amos 
 did see. — The noise of a multitude in the mountains, like 
 as of a great people; a tumultuous noise of the kingdoms 
 of nations gathered together; the Lord of hosts mustereth 
 the host of the battle. They come from a far country, 
 from the end of heaven, even the Lord, and the weapons 
 of his indignation, to destroy the whole land. Behold, 
 the day of the Lord cometh, cruel both with wrath and 
 fierce anger, to lay the land desolate; and he shall destroy 
 the sinners thereof out of it. It shall be as the chased 
 roe, and as a sheep that no man taketh up; they shall every 
 man turn to his own people, and flee every man unto his 
 own land. Every one that is found shall be thrust 
 through, and every one that is joined unto them shall fall 
 by the sword. — Behold I will stir up the Medes against 
 
 2d 
 
402 
 
 BABYLON. 
 
 them, which shall not regard silver, and as for gold they 
 shall not delight in it. Their hows also shall dash the 
 young men to pieces; and they shall have no pity on the 
 fruit of the womb; their eye shall not spare children. 
 And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the 
 Chaldees' excellency, shall be as when God overthrew 
 Sodom and Gomorrah. It shall never be inhabited, 
 neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation; 
 neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there; neither shall 
 the shepherds make their fold there; but wild beasts of the 
 desert shall he there; and their houses shall be full of dole- 
 fill creatures; and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall 
 dance there. And the wild beasts of the islands shall cry 
 in their desolate houses, and dragons in their pleasant 
 palaces." 1 " Thou 'shalt take up this proverb against the 
 king of Babylon, and say, How hath the oppressor ceased! 
 the golden city ceased! Thy pomp is brought down to 
 the grave, and the noise of thy viols : the worm is spread 
 under thee, and the worms cover thee. Thou shalt be 
 brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit. Thou art 
 cast out of thy grave like an abominable branch. I will 
 cut off from Babylon the name, and remnant, and son, 
 and nephew, saith the Lord. I will also make it a pos- 
 session for the bittern, and pools of water ; and I will 
 sweep it with the besom of destruction, saith the Lord of 
 hosts." 2 " Babylon is fallen, is fallen ; and all the graven 
 images of her gods, he hath broken unto the ground." 3 
 " Thus saith the Lord that saith unk the deep, be dry; 
 and I will dry up thy rivers; that saith of Cyrus he is 
 my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure/ — and I 
 will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two- 
 
 i Isaiah iftl',4, 5, 9, 14, 15, 17-22. 2 lb. xiy.4, 11, 15, 19, 22, 23. 
 3 Ibid. xxi. 9. 4 Ib.xliv. 24,27, 28. 
 
BABYLON. 
 
 4:03 
 
 leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut." 1 " Bel 
 boweth down," &c. 2 <f Come down and sit in the dust, 
 0 virgin daughter of Babylon ; sit on the ground : there 
 is no throne, 0 daughter of the Chaldeans. Sit thou 
 silent, and get thee into darkness, 0 daughter of the 
 Chaldeans ; for thou shalt no more be called The lady of 
 kingdoms. Thou hast said, I shall be a lady for ever. 
 Hear now this, thou that art given to pleasures, that 
 dwellest carelessly; that sayest in thine heart, I am, 
 and none else besides me ; I shall not sit as a widow, 
 neither shall I know the loss of children. But these two 
 things shall come to thee in a moment in one day, the 
 loss of children, and widowhood : they shall come upon 
 thee in their perfection, for the multitude of thy sorceries, 
 and for the great abundance of thine enchantments. For 
 thou hast trusted in thy wickedness," &c. Therefore 
 shall evil come upon thee; thou shalt not know from 
 whence it riseth : and mischief shall fall upon thee ; thou 
 shalt not be able to put it off : and desolation shall come 
 upon thee suddenly, which thou shalt not know. "a 
 
 " I will punish the land of the Chaldeans, and will 
 make it perpetual desolations. And I will bring upon 
 that land all my words which I have pronounced against 
 it, even all that is written in this book which Jeremiah 
 hath prophesied against all the nations. For many na- 
 tions and great kings shall serve themselves of them also: 
 and I will recompense them according to their deeds, 
 and according to the works of their own hands." 4 " The 
 word that the Lord spake against Babylon, and against 
 the land of the Chaldeans, by Jeremiah the prophet. De- 
 clare ye among the nations, and publish, and set up a 
 
 1 Isaiah xlv. 1. 2jbid. xlvi j 
 
 3 Isa. xlvii. 1, 5, 7-11. * Jer. xxv. 12-14. 
 
4:04: 
 
 BABYLON. 
 
 standard; publish, and conceal not; say, Babylon is taken, 
 Bel is confounded, Merodach is broken in pieces; her 
 idols are confounded, her images are broken in pieces. 
 For out of the north there cometh up a nation against 
 her, which shall make her land desolate, and none shall 
 dwell therein ; they shall remove, they shall depart, both 
 man and beast." 1 " For, lo, I will raise and cause to 
 come up against Babylon an assembly of great nations 
 from the north country; and they shall set themselves in 
 array against her ; from thence she shall be taken ; their 
 arrows shall be as of a mighty expert man; none shall 
 return in vain. And Chaldea shall be a spoil ; all that 
 spoil her shall be satisfied, saith the Lord. Behold, the 
 hindermost of the nations shall be a wilderness, a dry 
 land, and a desert. Because of the wrath of the Lord 
 it shall not be inhabited, but it shall be wholly desolate : 
 every one that goeth by Babylon shall be astonished, and 
 hiss at all her plagues." 2 " Her foundations are fallen, 
 her walls are thrown down; for it is the vengeance of the 
 Lord; take vengeance upon her; as she hath done, do 
 unto her. Cut off the sower from Babylon, and him 
 that handleth the sickle in the time of harvest : for fear 
 of the oppressing sword they shah turn every one to his 
 people, and they shall flee every one to his own land." 8 
 " Go up against the land of Merathaim, even against it, 
 and against the inhabitants of Pekod; waste and utterly 
 destroy after them. A sound of battle is in the land, 
 and of great destruction. How is the hammer of the 
 whole earth cut asunder and broken! how is Babylon be- 
 come a desolation among the nations ! I have laid a 
 snare for thee, and thou art also taken, 0 Babylon, and 
 thou wast not aware ; thou art found, and also caught, be- 
 » Jer. 1. 1, 2, 3. 2 Ibid. 9, 10, 12, 13. 3 Ibid. 15, 16. 
 
BABYLON. 
 
 405 
 
 cause thou hast striven against the Lord. The Lord 
 hath opened his armoury, and hath brought forth the 
 weapons of his indignation : for this is the work of the 
 Lord God of hosts in the land of the Chaldeans. Come 
 against her from the utmost border, open her store- 
 houses ; cast her up as heaps, and destroy her utterly; 
 let nothing of her be left," 1 "The voice of them that 
 flee and escape out of the land of Babylon, to declare in 
 Zion the vengeance of the Lord our God, the vengeance 
 of his temple. Call together the archers against Baby- 
 lon : all ye that bend the bow, camp against her round 
 about: let none thereof escape: recompense her accord- 
 ing to her work ; according to all that she hath done, do 
 unto her: for she hath been proud against the Lord, 
 against the Holy One of Israel. Therefore shall her 
 young men fall in the streets, and all her men of war 
 shall be cut off in that day, saith the Lord. Behold, I 
 am against thee, 0 thou most proud, saith the Lord God 
 of hosts : for thy day is come, the time that I will visit 
 thee. And the most proud shall stumble and fall, and 
 none shall raise him up : and I will kindle a fire in his 
 cities, and it shall devour all round about him." 2 " A 
 sword is upon the Chaldeans, saith the Lord, and upon 
 the inhabitants of Babylon, and upon her princes, and 
 upon her wise men. A sword is upon the liars; a sword 
 is upon her mighty men ; a sword is upon their horses, 
 and upon their chariots, and upon ah the mingled people 
 that are in the midst of her, and they shall become as 
 women ; a sword is upon her treasures; and they shall be 
 robbed. A drought is upon her waters; and they shall 
 be dried up; for it is the land of graven images, and they 
 are mad upon their idols. Therefore the wild beasts of 
 1 Jer. 1. 21-26. 2 Ibid. 28-32. 
 
406 
 
 BABYLON. 
 
 the desert, with the wild heasts of the islands, shall dwell 
 there, and the owls shall dwell therein : and it shall he no 
 more inhabited for ever ; neither shall it be dwelt in from 
 generation to generation. As God overthrew Sodom and 
 Gomorrah, and the neighbour cities thereof, saith the 
 Lord ; so shall no man abide there, neither shall any son 
 of man dwell therein. Behold, a people shall come from 
 the north, and a great nation, and many kings shall be 
 raised up from the coasts of the earth. They shall hold 
 the bow and the lance ; they are cruel and will not show 
 mercy; their voice shall roar like the sea, and they shall 
 ride on horses, every one put in array, like a man to the 
 battle, against thee, 0 daughter of Babylon. The king 
 of Babylon hath heard the report of them, and his hands 
 waxed feeble : anguish took hold of him, and pangs as of 
 a woman in travail. Behold, he shall come up like a 
 lion from the swelling of Jordan unto the habitation of 
 the strong; but I will make them suddenly run away 
 from her ; and who is a chosen man, that I may appoint 
 over her? For who is like me? and who will appoint 
 me the time ? and who is that shepherd that will stand 
 before me? Therefore hear ye the counsel of the Lord, 
 that he hath taken against Babylon, and his purposes 
 that he hath purposed against the land of the Chaldeans; 
 surely the least of the flock shall draw them out; surely 
 he shall make their habitation desolate with them. 1 I 
 will send unto Babylon fanners, that shall fan her, and 
 shall empty her land, for in the day of trouble they shall 
 be against her round about. Against him that bendeth 
 let the archer bend his bow, and against him that lifteth 
 himself up in his brigandine : and spare ye not her young 
 men; destroy ye utterly all her host. Thus the slain 
 1 Jer. 1. 35—46. 
 
BABYLON. 
 
 407 
 
 shall fall in the land of the Chaldeans, and they that are 
 thrust through in her streets, &c. Babylon is suddenly 
 fallen and destroyed: howl for her; take balm for her 
 pain, if so be she may be healed. We would have healed 
 Babylon, but she is not healed : forsake her, and let us 
 go every one unto his own country, .for her judgment 
 reacheth unto heaven, and is lifted up even to the skies. 1 
 The Lord hath raised up the spirit of the kings of the 
 Medes ; for his device is against Babylon to destroy it, 
 &c. 0 thou that dwellest upon many waters, abundant 
 in treasures, thine end is come, and the measure of thy 
 covetousness. The Lord of hosts hath sworn by himself, 
 saying, Surely I will fill thee with men, as with caterpil- 
 lars; and they shall lift up a shout against thee. 2 Be- 
 hold, I am against thee, 0 destroying mountain, saith 
 the Lord, which destroyest all the earth; and I will 
 stretch out my hand upon thee, and roll thee down from 
 the rocks, and will make thee a burnt mountain. Set 
 up a standard in the land, blow the trumpet among the 
 nations, prepare the nations against her; call together 
 against her the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Aschenaz; 
 prepare against her the nations, with the kings of the 
 Medes, the captains thereof, and all the rulers thereof, and 
 all the land of his dominion. And the land shall tremble 
 and sorrow; for every purpose of the Lord shall be per- 
 formed against Babylon, to make the land of Babylon a 
 desolation without an inhabitant. The mighty men of 
 Babylon have forborne to fight, they have remained in 
 their holds; their might hath failed; they became as 
 women ; they have burnt her dwelling-places ; her bars 
 are broken. One post shall run to meet another, and 
 one messenger to meet another, to shew the king of Ba- 
 i Jer. li. 2, 4, 8, 9. 2 Ibid. 11, 13, 14. 
 
4:08 
 
 BABYLON. 
 
 bylon that his city is taken at one end, and that the pas- 
 sages are stopped. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the 
 God of Israel, The daughter of Babylon is like a thresh- 
 ing floor : it is time to thresh her ; yet a little while, and 
 the time of her harvest shall come. 1 I will dry up her 
 sea, and make her, springs dry. And Babylon shall be- 
 come heaps, a dwelling-place for dragons, an astonish- 
 ment, and an hissing, without an inhabitant. In their 
 heat I will make their feasts, that they may sleep a per- 
 petual sleep, and not wake. How is the praise of the 
 whole earth surprised! How is Babylon become an 
 astonishment among the nations ! The sea is come up 
 upon Babylon: she is covered with the multitude of the 
 waves thereof. Her cities are a desolation, a dry land 
 and a wilderness, a land wherein no man dwelleth, neither 
 doth any son of man pass thereby. And I will punish 
 Bel in Babylon; and I will bring forth out of his mouth 
 that which he hath swallowed up : and the nations shall 
 not flow together any more unto him; yea the wall of 
 Babylon shall fall. A rumour shall come one year, and 
 after that in another year shall come a rumour, and 
 violence in the land, ruler against ruler. Therefore, be- 
 hold, the days come that I will do judgment upon the 
 graven images of Babylon ; and her whole land shall be 
 confounded, and all her slain shall fall in the midst of 
 her, &c. 2 And I will make drunk her princes, and her 
 wise men, her captains, and her rulers, and her mighty 
 men; and they shall sleep a perpetual sleep, and not 
 wake, saith the King, whose name is the Lord of hosts. 
 Thus saith the Lord of hosts, The broad walls of Babylon 
 shall be utterly broken, and her high gates shall be burnt 
 with fire ; and the people shall labour in vain, and the 
 1 Jer. li. 25, 27—33. 2 Ibid. li. 36, 37, 39, 41—44, 46, 47. 
 
BABYLON. 
 
 409 
 
 folk in the fire, and they shall be weary. And it shall 
 be, when thou hast made an end of reading this book, 
 that thou shalt bind a stone to it, and cast it into the 
 midst of Euphrates; and thou shalt say, Thus shall Ba- 
 bylon sink, and shall not rise from the evil that I will 
 bring upon her." 1 
 
 The enemies who were to besiege Babylon — the cowar- 
 dice of the Babylonians — the manner in which the city 
 was taken, and all the remarkable circumstances of the 
 siege, were foretold and described by the prophets as the 
 facts are related by ancient historians. 
 
 Go up, 0 Elam (or Persia) besiege, 0 Media! The 
 Lord hath raised up the spirit of the kings of the Medes, 
 for his device is against Babylon to destroy it. 2 The 
 kings of Persia and Media, prompted by a common in- 
 terest, freely entered into a league against Babylon, and 
 with one accord intrusted the command of their united 
 armies to Cyrus, 3 the relative and eventually the successor 
 of them both. But the taking of Babylon was not re- 
 served for these kingdoms alone ; other nations had to be 
 prepared against her. 
 
 Set up a standard in the land; blow the trumpet 
 among the nations, prepare the nations against her, call 
 together against her the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and 
 Aschenaz. Lo, I will raise, and cause to come up 
 against Babylon, an assembly of great nations from the 
 north country, &c. 4 Cyrus subdued the Armenians, 
 who had revolted against Media, spared their king, bound 
 
 1 Jer. U. 57, 58, 63, 64. 
 
 2 Jackson (Dr Thos.), Grotius, Poole, Prideaux, Lowth, Rollin, 
 Bishop Newton, &e. &c. 
 
 3 Xenoph. Cyrop. lib. i. c. v. p. 53, ed. Hutch. Glasg. 1821. 
 
 4 Jackson, Grotius, Poole, &c. &c. 
 
410 
 
 BABYLON. 
 
 them over anew to their allegiance, by kindness rather 
 than by force, and incorporated their army with his own. 1 
 He adopted the Hyrcanians, who had rebelled against 
 Babylon, as allies and confederates with the Medes and 
 Persians. 2 He conquered the united forces of the Baby- 
 lonians and Lydians, took Sardis, with Croesus and all 
 his wealth, spared his life, after he was at the stake, re- 
 stored to him his family and his household, received him 
 into the number of his counsellors and friends, and thus 
 prepared the Lydians, over whom he reigned, and who 
 were formerly combined with Babylon, for coming up 
 against it. 3 He overthrew also the Phrygians and Cap- 
 padocians. and added their armies in like manner to Ins 
 accumulating forces.* And by successive alliances and 
 conquests, by proclaiming liberty to the slaves, by a hu- 
 mane policy, consummate skill, and a pure and noble dis- 
 interestedness, and a boundless generosity, he changed, 
 within the space of twenty years, a confederacy which the 
 king of Babylon had raised up against the Medes and 
 Persians, whose junction he feared, into a confederacy 
 even of the same nations against Babylon itself ; — and 
 tlius a standard was set up against Babylon in many a 
 land, kingdoms were summoned, prepared, and gathered 
 together against her; and an assembly of great nations 
 from the north, — including Ararat and Minni, or the 
 greater and lesser Armenia, and Aschenaz, or according 
 to Bochart, Phrygia, — were raised up and caused to 
 come against Babylon. Without their aid, and before 
 they were subjected to his authority, he had attempted 
 
 1 Xenoph. Cyrop. lib. iii. c. i. p. 156. 
 
 2 Ibid. lib. iv. c. ii. pp. 215, 217. 
 
 3 Ibid. lib. v. c. ii. pp. 408, 416. 
 
 4 Ibid. lib. vii. c. iv. pp. 427, 428. 
 
BABYLON. 
 
 411 
 
 in vain to conquer Babylon ; but when he had prepared 
 and gathered them together, it was taken, though by arti- 
 fice more than by power. 
 
 They shall hold the bow and the lance — they shall ride 
 upon horses — let the archer bend his bow — all ye that 
 bend the bow shoot at her. They rode upon horses. 
 Forty thousand Persian horsemen were armed from 
 among the nations which Cyrus subdued; many horses 
 of the captives were besides distributed among all the 
 allies. And Cyrus came up against Babylon with a 
 great multitude of horses ;* and also with a great multi- 
 tude of archers and javelin-men/ that held the bow and 
 the lance. 
 
 No sooner had Cyrus reached Babylon, with the na- 
 tions which he had prepared, and gathered against her, 
 than in hope of discovering some point not utterly im- 
 pregnable, accompanied by his chief officers and friends, 
 he rode around the walls, and examined them on every 
 side, after having for that purpose stationed his whole army 
 round the city. 3 They camped against it round about. 
 They put themselves in array against Babylon round about. 
 
 Frustrated in the attempt to discover, throughout the 
 whole circumference, a single assailable point, and find- 
 ing that it was not possible, by any attack, to make him- 
 self master of walls so strong and so high, and fear- 
 ing that his army would be exposed to the assault of the 
 Babylonians by a too extended and consequently weakened 
 fines, — Cyrus, standing in the middle of his army, gave 
 orders that the heavy armed men should move, in oppo- 
 site directions, from each extremity towards the centre ; 
 and the horse and light armed men being nearer and ad- 
 
 1 Xenoph. Cyrop. vii. c. iv. p. 428. 
 
 2 Ibid. p. 429. 3 Ibid. c. v. 
 
4:12 
 
 BABYLON. 
 
 vancing first, and the phalanx being redoubled and closed 
 up, the bravest troops thus occupied alike the front and 
 the rear, and the less effective were stationed in the 
 middle. 1 Such a disposition of the army, in the esti- 
 mation of Xenophon, himself a most skilful general, was 
 well adapted both for fighting and preventing flight ; while 
 the Christian, judging differently of their successive move- 
 ments, may here see the fulfilment of one prediction after 
 another. For, as in this manner " they stood facing the 
 walls," in regular order, and not as a disorderly and un- 
 disciplined host, though composed of various nations, 
 they set themselves in array against Babylon, every man 
 put in array. 
 
 A trench was dug round the city, — towers were erect- 
 ed — Babylon was besieged — the army was divided into 
 twelve parts, that each, monthly by turn, might keep 
 watch throughout the year; 2 — and though the orders 
 were given by Cyrus, the command of the Lord of Hosts 
 was unconsciously obeyed — let none thereof escape. 
 
 The mighty men of Babylon have forborne to fight. 
 They have remained in their holds; their might hath 
 failed, they became as women. 3 Babylon had been the 
 hammer of the whole earth, by which nations were 
 broken in pieces, and kingdoms destroyed. Its mighty 
 men carried the terror of their arms to distant regions, 
 and led nations captive. But they were dismayed ac- 
 cording to the word of the God of Israel, whenever 
 the nations which he had stirred up against them stood in 
 array before their walls. Their timidity, so clearly pre- 
 dicted, was the express complaint and accusation of their 
 enemies, who in vain attempted to provoke them to the 
 
 1 Xenoph. Cyrop. vii. c. iv. 430. 2 Ibid. pp. 430, 434. 
 
 3 See Prideaux, Lowth, Bishop Newton, &c. 
 
BABYLON. 
 
 413 
 
 contest. Cyrus challenged their monarch to single com- • 
 hat, hut also in vain; 1 for the hands of the king of Baby- 
 lon waxed feeble. Courage had departed from hoth 
 prince and people; and none attempted to save then- 
 country from spoliation, or to chase the assailants from 
 their gates. They sallied not forth against the invaders 
 and besiegers, nor did they attempt to disjoin and disperse 
 them, even when drawn all around their walls, and com- 
 paratively weak along the extended line. Every gate 
 was still shut; and they remained in their holds. Being 
 as unable to rouse their courage, even by a close block- 
 ade, and to bring them to the field, as to scale or break 
 down any portion of their stupendous walls, or to force 
 their gates of solid brass, Cyrus reasoned that the greater 
 that was their number, the more easily would they be 
 starved into surrender, and yield to famine, since they 
 would not contend with arms or come forth to fight. And 
 hence arose for the space of two years his only hope of 
 eventual success. So dispirited became its people, that 
 Babylon, which had made the world as a wilderness, was 
 long unresistingly a beleagured town. But, possessed of 
 many fertile fields, and of provisions for twenty years, 
 which in their timid caution they had plentifully stored, 
 they derided Cyrus from their impregnable walls within 
 which they remained. 2 Their profligacy, their wicked- 
 ness and false confidence were unabated; they continued 
 to live carelessly in pleasures, but their might did not 
 return; and Babylon the great, unlike to many a small 
 fortress and unwalled town, made not one effort to regain 
 its freedom, or to be rid of the foe. 
 
 1 Xen. Cyrop. lib. v. c. iii. p. 290. 
 
 2 Xenoph. Cyrop. L vii. c. v. p. 434. Herod. 1. i. c. cxc. 
 
414 
 
 BABYLON. 
 
 Much time having been lost, and no progress having 
 been made in the siege, the anxiety of Cyrus was strongly 
 excited, and he was reduced to a great perplexity, when 
 at last it was suggested and immediately determined on, 
 to turn the course of the Euphrates. But the task was 
 not an easy one. The river was a quarter of a mile 
 broad, and twelve feet deep, and, in the opinion of one 
 of the counsellors of Cyrus, the city was stronger by 
 the river than by its walls. Diligent and laborious pre- 
 paration was made for the execution of the scheme, yet 
 so as to deceive the Babylonians. And the great trench, 
 ostensibly formed for the purpose of blockade, which for 
 the time it effectually secured, was dug around the walls 
 on every side, in order to drain the Euphrates, and to 
 leave its channel a straight passage into the city, through 
 the midst of which it flowed. When all things were in 
 readiness for the execution of his design, Cyrus, having 
 formed his army into two great divisions, stationed them 
 respectively where the river entered, and where it emerged 
 from the city, and hasted with the ineffective part of his 
 troops to the lake which the queen of Babylon had made, 
 and suddenly diverted the course of the Euphrates. So 
 soon as the water ceased to flow into its wonted channel, 
 Cyrus having returned to his army, commanded those 
 about him to descend into the dry part of the river, 1 to 
 ascertain if a passage could be effected; and on their re- 
 porting its practicability, the order was given to the vast 
 besieging army to pass by the bed of the river as a road 
 into the city. " I will dry up thy sea, and make the 
 springs dry. Thus saith the Lord, — that saith to the 
 
 4 E/g to fygov rov ironx/uov, Xen. vii. 5, p. 435. Toug vorafiovg 
 rov fyoavu. Septuagint translation. 
 
BABYLON. 
 
 415 
 
 deep, Be dry, and I will dry up the rivers. A drought 
 is upon her waters, and they shall be dried up." 1 
 
 Each command of Cyrus, and each act of his army, as 
 related by Herodotus and Xenophon, shows how the plea- 
 sure of the Lord and his purpose against Babylon were 
 performed. 
 
 The father of history expresses a doubt whether the 
 device, by which a way, unimpeded by the impregnable 
 walls, was opened into Babylon, was the invention of Cyrus, 
 or the suggestion of another. But there is not a doubt 
 in history that then, as at a future period, a snare was 
 laid for Babylon. 
 
 The execution of an enterprise so hazardous, demand- 
 ed the greatest circumspection and regularity of move- 
 ment. And Cyrus gave orders to each Persian captain 
 of a thousand men, cavalry as well as infantry, to be at 
 his post and in his own presence, at the head of his sol- 
 diers, ranged two and two, to be followed by the allies in 
 their wonted order. 3 And thus watching their time and 
 preserving their ranks, they marched into the city, every 
 man in the order previously prescribed. That men should 
 have rode in hostile array against such a city as Babylon, 
 begirt with stupendous walls, except where a deep river 
 passed between them, is not the least wonder of the siege. 
 But Cyrus, with his many thousands of horsemen, and 
 Alexander afterwards with his band of Greeks, were both 
 the servants of the Lord in accomplishing the prediction. 
 They shall ride upon horses, every man put in array, 
 like a man to the battle against thee, 0 daughter of 
 Babylon. 
 
 1 See Grotius, Jackson, Prideaux, Lowth, Rollin, Bishop New- 
 ton, &c 
 
 2 Ibid. 3 Xen. vii. 5, p. 435. 
 
416 
 
 BABYLON. 
 
 While hosts of enemies thus stole into Babylon, like 
 a thief into a house by stratagem and at night, no 
 situation for the moment, could have been more cri- 
 tical and dangerous than theirs: for if the design had 
 been discovered, and if the gates leading from the 
 river to the city had been shut, they would have 
 been shut up as in a net, as Herodotus relates, 1 and 
 their destruction would have been seemingly inevitable ; 
 and but for the word that never errs, and the eye that 
 watches over all, the assailants would have been the vic- 
 tims. But the Babylonians, given up on that night to 
 intemperance in honour of their god, exercised no caution 
 as they felt no fear, and the enemy passed into the city 
 without obstruction or opposition, — for, though they knew 
 it not, the prophecy was true, the gates shall not he shut. 
 
 To encourage his troops to pass fearlessly through the 
 streets, and to cast off the dread of being assailed with 
 darts from the roofs of the houses, Cyrus previously an- 
 nounced that the doors were of palm- wood, covered with 
 bitumen, and would easily be set on fire by the torches 
 and inflammable matter with which, for that intent, they 
 were plentifully supplied. 2 They have burnt her dwell- 
 ing-places; her bars are broken. To which it is added, 
 
 One post shall run to meet another, and one messenger 
 to meet another, to show the king of Babylon that his city 
 is taken at one end; and that the passages are stopped, 
 and the reeds they have burned with fire, and the men of 
 war are affrighted. The king was in the city, and yet 
 had to be told that it was taken. The seeming enigma, 
 that messengers should run in different and opposite di- 
 rections, to convey to the same place tidings of the same 
 event, is expounded by the fact of the nearly simultaneous 
 1 Xen. lib. i. c. cxci. Jackson, &c. 2 Ibid. vii. 5, p. 436. 
 
BABYLON. 
 
 417 
 
 entrance of the enemy at both ends of Babylon, between 
 which the space of at least eight miles intervened. In 
 attempting to bear with all expedition the disastrous tid- 
 ings to the king in his palace, situated near the centre of 
 the city, messengers from each end would thus necessarily 
 so run as to meet each other, unconscious that the same 
 message was alike borne by both, and that their speed 
 would be in vain. The proof is not here the less striking 
 because it is inferential; for it may well be presumed that 
 such messengers did run, and that the numerous torches 
 of the invading host were not borne in vain. 
 
 The river, from its great breadth and depth, and its 
 sides being walled and strongly fortified, was held to be 
 a defence of the city, rivalling, if not surpassing, that of 
 the walls. And the city was taken, not only in a man- 
 ner most unsuspected, but at a time when the Babylo- 
 nians were the most unprepared and all sobriety and vi- 
 gilance set aside. Herodotus relates, on the testimony 
 of the inhabitants, that from the great extent of the city, 
 and its being taken at the time of a feast, while the peo- 
 ple were given up to dancing and indulgence, those who 
 lived in the utmost parts of the city were in the hands of 
 their enemies, before those who dwelt in the centre were 
 conscious of the fact. 1 And though it may seem incre- 
 dible that, as Aristotle relates, the tidings were unknown 
 in some places within the walls on the third day; yet such 
 a statement from such a pen, adds to the proof of the 
 predicted fact. There was no alarm from without; nor 
 even the appearance of a foe. Not a gate of the city 
 wall was opened; not a brick of it had fallen. But, as a 
 snare had been laid for Babylon, so also it was taken, and 
 it was not aware/ it was found and also caught, for it 
 
 1 Herod, ibid. 2 Grotius, Jackson, Poole, &c. 
 
 2e 
 
418 
 
 BABYLON. 
 
 had sinned against the Lord. How is the praise of the 
 whole earth surprised! For thou hast trusted in thy wick- 
 edness; and thy wisdom and thy knowledge, it hath per- 
 verted thee; therefore shall evil come upon thee, and thou 
 shalt not know from whence it ariseth; and mischief shall 
 fall upon thee, and thou shalt not he able to put it of, <Sfc. 
 — None shall save thee. 
 
 In their heat I will make their feasts, and I will make 
 them drunken, that they may rejoice and sleep a perpetual 
 sleep, and not wake, saith the Lord. I will bring them 
 down like lambs to the slaughter, <fyc. I will make drunk- 
 en her princes and her wise men; her captains and her 
 riders, and her mighty men, and they shall sleep a perpe- 
 tual sleep,*- §c. Cyrus, having purposely chosen, for the 
 execution of his plan, the time of a great annual Babylon- 
 ish festival, stimulated his assembled troops to enter the 
 city, because, in that night of general revel within the 
 walls, many of them were asleep, many, drunk, and con- 
 fusion universally prevailed. On passing, without ob- 
 struction or hindrance, into the city, the Persians slaying 
 some, putting others to flight, and joining with the revel- 
 lers as if slaughter had been merriment, hastened by the 
 shortest way to the palace, and reached it ere yet a mes- 
 senger had told the king that the city was taken. The 
 gates of the palace, which was strongly fortified, were 
 shut. The guards stationed before them were drinking 
 beside a blazing light, when the Persians rushed impetu- 
 ously upon them. The louder and altered clamour, no 
 longer joyous, caught the ear of the inmates of the palace, 
 and the bright light showed them the work of destruction, 
 without revealing its cause. And not aware of the pre- 
 sence of an enemy in the midst of Babylon, the king him- 
 
 1 Grotius, Jackson, Poole, &c. 
 
BABYLON. 
 
 419 
 
 self, excited by the warlike tumults at the gates, com- 
 manded those within to examine from whence it arose ; 
 and according to the same word, by which the gates 
 (leading from the river to the city) were not shut, the 
 loins of kings were loosed to open before Cyrus the two- 
 leaved gates. At the first sight of the opened gates of the 
 palace of Babylon, the eager Persians sprang in. The king 
 of Babylon heard the report of them — anguish took hold 
 of him, — he and all who were about him perished : God 
 had numbered his kingdom and finished it : it was divided 
 and given to the Medes and Persians ; the lives of the 
 Babylonian princes, and lords, and rulers, and captains, 
 closed with that night's festival : the drunken slept a per- 
 petual sleep, and did not wake. 1 
 
 Cyrus' brief address to his generals before marching 
 into Babylon, concluded, as recorded by Xenophon, in 
 these remarkable words: "Go, seize your arms; and 
 together with the gods, I will lead you on (nyyeo^ai). 
 Do ye, said he, Gadatas and Gobryas, show us the ways, 
 for ye know them ; and, once entered, advance with the 
 utmost expedition to the palace." The speed of the 
 conqueror and of the avenger of blood, outstripped that 
 of the winged messenger of misfortune. Gobryas, for- 
 merly an injured vassal of the king of Babylon, pressed 
 on with those about him, not without the hope that on 
 such a night, while unguarded revelry reigned universally 
 in the city, the gates 4 of the palace, like those of the 
 river, might be open. But though their hopes were 
 vain, and the palace gates were shut, and a double wall 
 surrounded it, yet the gates were opened, and when the 
 palace was taken, and the king and his nobles slain, the 
 
 1 Herod, lib. i. c. cxci, Xen. Cyr. lib. vii. c. v. pp. 434, 430. 
 
420 
 
 BABYLON. 
 
 castles were delivered up,i and Cyrus, in a single night, 
 was master of Babylon. I will go before them, and 
 make the crooked places straight. 
 
 To mask their purpose, the invading host mimicked 
 the shouting, as their leaders knew the customs of the 
 intemperate and frantic crowd, through whom they passed, 
 or whom they slew. And it was from the warlike and 
 tumultuous noise, 2 exceeding the obstreperous mirth of 
 drunken soldiery, around the palace and at the very gates, 
 that the two-leaved gates were opened. Shout against 
 her round about. Their voice shall roar (lit. sound, or 
 make a tumultuous noise,) tike the sea. The king of 
 Babylon heard the report of them, $c. 
 
 All her slain shall fall in the midst of her. The Ba- 
 bylonians would not go forth to fight. They mocked the 
 enemy from their lofty walls, and defied danger from 
 without, and dreaded it not within. In the siege, none 
 of the Babylonians fell— but in the city, even in the 
 midst of it they were slain. There the palace was situ- 
 ated and the guards were stationed, and in the very midst 
 of it the soldiery of Babylon were massacred; the men 
 of war were affrighted, and then, together with the king, 
 his princes and lords were there slain. 
 
 She hath been proud against the Lord; against the 
 Holy One of Israel; therefore her young men shall fall 
 in the steeets, and all her men of war shall be cut off 
 in that day. Cyrus sent troops ofl» horse throughout the 
 streets, with orders to slay all who were found there. 
 And he commanded proclamation to be made, in the 
 Syrian language, that all who were in the houses should 
 remain within; and that, if any one were found abroad, 
 1 Xen. ibid. p. 440. 2 Xen. Gyr. ibid. p. 438. 
 
BABYLON. 
 
 421 
 
 he should be killed. These orders were obeyed. 1 Every 
 one that is found shall be thrust through, &c. They shall 
 wander every man to his quarter. 
 
 I will Jill thee with men as with caterpillars. Not 
 only did the Persian army enter with ease as caterpillars, 
 together with all the nations that had come up against 
 Babylon, but they seemed also as numerous. Cyrus, 
 after the capture of the city, made a great display of his 
 cavalry in the presence of the Babylonians, and in the 
 midst of Babylon. Four thousand guards stood before 
 the palace gates, and two thousand on each side. These 
 advanced as Cyrus approached; two thousand spearmen 
 followed them. These were succeeded by four square 
 masses of Persian cavalry, each consisting of ten thou- 
 sand men ; and to these again were added, in their order, 
 the Median, Armenian, Hyrcanian, Caducian, and Sacian 
 horsemen, — all as before riding upon horses, every man 
 in array — with lines of chariots four abreast, concluding 
 the train of the numerous hosts. 2 Cyrus afterwards re- 
 viewed, at Babylon, the whole of his army, consisting of 
 one hundred and twenty thousand horse, two thousand 
 chariots, and six hundred thousand foot. 3 Babylon, which 
 was taken when not aware, and within whose walls no 
 enemy, except a captive, had been ever seen, was also 
 filled with men as with caterpillars, as if there had not 
 been a wall around it. The Scriptures do not relate the 
 manner in which Babylon was taken, nor do they ever 
 allude to the exact fulfilment of the prophecies. But 
 there is, in every particular, a strict coincidence between 
 the predictions of the prophets and the historical narra- 
 tives, both of Herodotus and Xenophon. 
 
 1 Xen. Cyr. ibid. p. 439. 2 Ibid. lib. viii. c. iii. pp. 494, 495. 
 3 Ibid. c. vi. p. 532. 
 
422 
 
 BABYLON. 
 
 On taking Babylon suddenly, and by surprise, Cyrus, 
 as had been literally prophesied concerning him, and as 
 the sign by which it was to be known that the Lord had 
 called him by his name, (Isa. xlv. l-4i) became imme- 
 diately possessed of the most secret treasures of Babylon. 
 No enemy had ever dared to rise up against that great 
 city. To take it, seemed not a work for man to attempt : 
 but it became the easy prey of him who was called the 
 servant of the Lord. And as at this day, — from the 
 perfect representation given by the prophets, of every 
 feature of fallen Babylon, now at last utterly desolate, — 
 men may know that God is the Lord, seeing that all who 
 have visited and describe it, show that the predicted judg- 
 ments against it have been literally fulfilled ; so at that 
 time, Cyrus — who, for two years, could only look on the 
 outer side of the outer wall of Babylon, and who had be- 
 gun to despair of reducing it by famine, — was to know by 
 the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret 
 places being given into his hand, that the Lordivhich had 
 called him by his name, was the God of Israel. And 
 when the appointed time had come that the power of their 
 oppressor was to be broken, Babylon was taken; and 
 when the similarly prescribed period of the captivity of 
 the Jews, for whose sake he was called, had expired, 
 Cyrus was their deliverer. 
 
 Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose 
 
 1 Isaiah prophesied above one hundred and sixty years before 
 the taking of Babylon, two hundred and fifty years before Hero- 
 dotus, and nearly three hundred and fifty before Xenophon. See 
 Bishop Newton. — Josephus states that this prophecy was deliver- 
 ed by Isaiah two hundred and ten years before the taking of Ba- 
 bylon. Isaiah prophesied, b. c. 760-798. Babylon was taken by 
 Cyrus, b. c. 538. Herodotus was born about 484 b. c, and Xen- 
 ophon 349. 
 
BABYLON. 
 
 423 
 
 right hand I have holden, to subdue NATIONS before him. 
 Cyrus commencing his career with a small army of Per- 
 sians, not only succeeded to the kingdom of the Medes 
 and Persians, first united under him, but the Hyrcanians 
 yielded also voluntarily to his authority. He subdued 
 the Syrians, Assyrians, Cappadocians, both Phrygias, the 
 Lydians, Carians, Phoenicians, and Babylonians. He 
 governed the Bactrians, Indians, and Cilicians, and also 
 the Sacians, Paphlagonians and Mariandinians, and other 
 nations. He likewise reduced to his authority the Greeks 
 that were in Asia, and the Cyprians, and the Egyptians. 1 
 Nations were thus subdued before him. 
 
 I will stir up the Medes against them, which shall not 
 regard silver; and as for gold, they shall not delight in 
 it. He who was called the anointed of the Lord was free 
 from covetousness. His character is drawn by Xeno- 
 phon, (who states that he excelled all other kings,) as the 
 model of a wise and generous prince. The liberality of 
 Cyrus was more noble than the mere possession of im- 
 mensity of wealth, though including both the riches of 
 Croesus and the treasures of Babylon. He reckoned that 
 his riches belonged not any more to himself than to his 
 friends. 2 And he made as well as pronounced it his ob- 
 ject to use and not to hoard his wealth, and to apply it 
 to the reward of his servants, and in relief of their wants. 
 So little did he regard silver or delight in gold, that 
 Croesus told him that, by his liberality, he would make 
 himself poor, instead of storing up vast treasures to him- 
 self. The Medes possessed, in this respect, the spirit of 
 their chief, of which an instance, recorded by Xenophon, 
 is too striking and appropriate to be passed over. 3 When 
 
 1 Xen. Cyr. lib. i. pp. 4, 5. 2 lb. lib. viii. c. iv. p. 516. 
 3 lb. lib. viii. c. ii. p. 482. 
 
424 
 
 BABYLON. 
 
 Gobryas, an Assyrian governor, whose son the king of 
 Babylon had slain, hospitably entertained him and his 
 army, Cyrus appealed to the chiefs of the Medes and 
 Hyrcanians, and to the noblest and most honourable of 
 the Persians, whether giving first what was due unto the 
 gods, and leaving to the rest of the army their portion, 
 they would not overmatch his generosity by ceding to 
 him their whole share of the first and plentiful booty 
 which they had won from the land of Babylon. Loudly 
 applauding the proposal, they immediately and unani- 
 mously consented ; and one of them said, " Gobryas may 
 have thought us poor, because we came not loaded with 
 golden coins, 1 and drink not out of golden cups; but by 
 this he will know, that men can be generous even with- 
 out gold." 2 As for gold, they did not delight in it. 
 
 Gobryas, it may be presumed, was stirred up and pre- 
 pared, by gratitude on the one hand, as well as by re- 
 venge on the other, to go up against Babylon. And, it 
 may be mentioned, he was afterwards the first to lead the 
 way to the palace ; and — for, though a great deep, the 
 judgments of God are altogether righteous, — his hand 
 was among those who slew the murderer of his son. 
 
 While such abundant illustrations of the truth of pro- 
 phecy in respect to the siege of Babylon are before us, it 
 may be specially noted, that there is not any other king 
 or conqueror in ancient history, or even in Christian times, 
 whose character, in the union of a noble disinterestedness 
 and nobler self-denial, and of a sound because moral po- 
 licy, and of an integrity which casts the conduct of many 
 others into the shade, and of forbearance and generosity 
 toward conquered enemies, the Babylonians excepted, 
 ever surpassed or equalled that of Cyrus, as drawn or 
 
 1 Darics. 2 Xen. lib. v. p. 289. 
 
BABYLON. 
 
 425 
 
 described by profane historians. By some it has indeed 
 been deemed, we think unjustly, as in part a fiction, even 
 because of its very excellence. But the description is 
 given by a heathen, which tallies so closely with the word 
 of the prophet. Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, to 
 Cyrus, and I have raised him up in righteousness, and I 
 will direct all his ways} 
 
 And it is immediately added by the prophet — he shall 
 build my city, and he shall let go my captives, not for price 
 nor reward, saith the Lord of Hosts. 2 And assuredly 
 he was the man who first set forth the decree for the re- 
 storation of the Jews and the rebuilding of the temple. 
 And far from acting thus, either for price or reward, he 
 commanded the generals and governors in the vicinity of 
 Judea, to supply the Jews with gold and silver, for the 
 building of the temple and beasts for sacrifice, which 
 accordingly they did. 3 
 
 Cyrus, thus called by name, — a hundred and twenty 
 years, as recorded by Josephus, before the destruction of 
 the temple, — to the execution, in its appointed time, of the 
 Lord's purpose of restoring the captive Jews and giving 
 commandment for the rebuilding of the city of J erusalem, 
 issued his decree to that effect, in the full knowledge, as 
 related by the Jewish historian, of the prophecy of Isaiah, 
 after the seventy years' captivity had expired. Scriptural 
 history bears, " In the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, 
 that the word of the Lord by Jeremiah might be 
 fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of 
 Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his 
 kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying, Thus saith 
 Cyrus, king of Persia, The Lord God of heaven hath 
 
 1 Isaiah xlv. 1, 13. 2 Ibid. xlv. 13. • 
 
 3 Jos. Ant. lib. xi. c. i. sect. 2, 3. 
 
426 
 
 BABYLON. 
 
 given me all the kingdoms of the earth; and lie hath 
 charged me to build him an house at Jerusalem, which is 
 in Judah." 1 The words of the decree, or writing, are 
 recorded by Josephus, which hear, that the Lord Al- 
 mighty, the God of Israel, had given him all the king- 
 doms of the earth, (r^g aixw^m airofofy j3aaiXsa). 2 In pro- 
 fane history it is related, in like manner, that Cyrus was 
 the founder of the Persian empire, — the second great 
 monarchy or universal empire, after the fall of the Baby- 
 lonian. Arrian, Strabo, and Plutarch give the inscrip- 
 tion on the tomb of Cyrus, — which was visited by Alex- 
 ander the Great, the subverter of the Persian empire; 
 " 0 mortal, I am Cyrus, the son of Cambyses, who 
 founded the Persian empire and ruled over Asia, do not 
 envy me a monument." The name of Cyrus in the pro- 
 phetic record, is far more enduring than any monument of 
 marble or of brass. And he who thus executed the counsel 
 of the Lord, was no subordinate ruler, but a mighty king, 
 the conqueror of nations, and the liberator of the Jews. 
 
 Such, as Herodotus states, was the first conquest; such 
 the first conqueror of Babylon : and such the prophetic 
 history of both. 
 
 None shall return in vain. The walls of Babylon 
 Avere incomparably the loftiest and the strongest ever built 
 by man. They were constructed of such stupendous size 
 and strength, on very purpose that no possibility might 
 exist of Babylon ever being taken. And, if ever confi- 
 dence in bulwarks could not have been misplaced, it was 
 when the citizens and soldiery of Babylon, who feared to 
 encounter their enemies in the field, — in perfect assur- 
 ance of their safety, and beyond the reach of the Par- 
 thian arrow, scoffed, from the summit of their impregnable 
 1 Ezra i. 1. 2. 2 Chron. xxxvi. 22, 23. 2 Ant. xi. 1. 
 
BABYLON. 
 
 427 
 
 walls, the hosts which encompassed them. But though 
 the proud boast of a city so defended, and which had 
 never been taken — that it would stand for ever, — seemed 
 scarcely presumptuous; yet, subsequently to the deli- 
 very of the prophecies concerning it, Babylon was not on- 
 ly repeatedly taken, but was never once besieged in vain. 
 Cyrus indeed departed, after he first appeared before its 
 walls, but he went to prepare and gather together the na- 
 tions against it. And he did not return in vain. But 
 this prediction, as it is applicable also to all others, is 
 true, not of him only, but also of all who, in after ages, 
 came up against Babylon. It fell before every hand that 
 was raised against it. Yet its greatness did not depart, 
 nor was its glory obscured in a day. Cyrus was not its 
 destroyer; but he sought by wise institutions to perpe- 
 tuate its pre-eminence among the nations. He left it to 
 his successor in all its strength and magnificence. Be- 
 belling against Darius, the Babylonians made prepara- 
 tions for a siege, and bade defiance to the whole power 
 of the Persian empire. Fully resolved not to yield, and that 
 famine might never reduce them to submission, they adopt- 
 ed the most desperate and barbarous resolution of putting 
 every woman in the city to death, with the exception of 
 their mothers, and one female, the best beloved in every 
 family, to bake their bread. All the rest were assembled 
 together, and strangled. 1 These two things shall come 
 upon thee in a moment in one day, the loss of children 
 and widowhood: they shall come upon thee in their per- 
 fection, for the multitude of thy sorceries, and for the 
 great abundance of thine enchantments. For thou hast 
 trusted in thy wickedness, <Sfc. They did come upon 
 
 1 Herod, lib. iii. c. cl. torn. iii. 160, edit. Foul. — See Prideaux, 
 Bishop Newton. 
 
428 
 
 BABYLON. 
 
 them in their perfection, when their wives and children 
 were strangled by their own hands; and so suddenly, as 
 before, in a moment in one day, did these things come 
 upon them, that the victims were assembled for the sacri- 
 fice; so general was the instant widowhood, that fifty 
 thousand women were afterwards taken, in proportionate 
 numbers, from the different neighbouring provinces of 
 the empire, to replace those who had been slain ; and 
 the very reservation of their mothers multiplied the la- 
 mentations for the loss of children. But trust in their 
 wickedness brought them no safety. For, while they 
 were thus instrumental in the infliction of one grievous 
 judgment, for which such murderers were ripe, their ini- 
 quity was not thereby lessened ; and therefore, at how- 
 ever great a price, they procured not any security against 
 another judgment, which also had been denounced against 
 Babylon for its wickedness. They deemed themselves 
 absolutely secure against famine and against assault. 
 The artifice of Cyrus could not again be a snare; and an 
 attempt to renew it was, along with every other, entirely 
 frustrated. But still it was not in vain that Darius be- 
 sieged Babylon. 
 
 In the twentieth month of the siege a single Persian, 
 whose body was covered over with the marks of stripes 
 and with blood, and whose nose and ears had been 
 newly cut off, presented himself at one of the gates of 
 Babylon, — a helpless object of pity, and, if not a great 
 criminal indeed, the obvious victim of wanton and savage 
 cruelty. He had fled, or escaped, from the camp of the 
 enemy. But he was not a common deserter, such as 
 they might not have admitted within their walls, — but it 
 was Zophyrus, who was well known as one of the chief 
 nobles of Persia. He represented to the Babylonians, 
 
BABYLON. 
 
 429 
 
 that, not for any crime, but for the honest advice which 
 he had given to Darius to raise the siege, as the taking 
 of the city seemed to all impossible, the enraged tyrant 
 (his pride wounded, or his fears perhaps awakened, that 
 his army would be discouraged by such counsel) had in- 
 flicted upon him the severest cruelties, caused him to be 
 mutilated as they saw, and to be scourged, of which his 
 whole body bore the marks; — to one of his proud spirit 
 and high rank, disgrace was worse than suffering, and 
 he came to join the revolters, his soul burning for ven- 
 geance against their common tyrant. " And now," ad- 
 dressing them, he said, " I come for the greatest good to 
 you, for the greatest evil to Darius, to his army, and to the 
 Persians. The injuries which I have suffered shall not be 
 unrevenged, for I know, and will disclose all his designs." 
 
 On such proofs, and cheered by such hopes, the Baby- 
 lonians did not doubt the sincerity of Zophyrus nor his 
 devotion to their cause, identified, as it clearly seemed, 
 with the only hope of revenge against the cruel author of 
 his wrongs, towards whom they could not conceive but 
 that he would cherish an inflexible hatred. He sought 
 but to fight against their enemies. At his request, they 
 gladly and unhesitatingly intrusted him with a military 
 command. Forgiveness of injuries was not then reckon- 
 ed a virtue — which it is too seldom practically accounted 
 even in a Christian land; and vengeance, still called 
 honour, sleeps not in an unforgiving breast. Zophyrus 
 soon satisfied the Babylonians that his wrongs would not 
 long be unavenged. To their delight, having watched 
 the first opportunity, he sallied forth from the gate of 
 Semiramis, on the tenth day after his entrance into the 
 city, and falling suddenly on a thousand of the enemy, 
 slew them every one. After an interval of only seven 
 
430 
 
 BABYLON. 
 
 days, twice that number were, in like manner, slain, near 
 to the Kinian gates. The men of Babylon were animat- 
 ed with new vigour and new hopes; and the praise of Zo- 
 phyrus was on every tongue. He received a higher 
 command. But the Persians, seemingly more wary, were 
 nowhere open to attack for the space of twenty days. On 
 the expiration of that period, however, Zophyrus, by a 
 noted exploit, again proved himself worthy of still greater 
 authority, by leading out his troops from the Chaldean 
 gates, and killing, in one spot, four thousand men. In 
 reward for such services, and such tried fidelity, skill, and 
 courage, as none, they thought, could be more worthy of 
 the honour and of the trust, they not only raised him to 
 the chief command of their army, but appointed him to the 
 dignified and most responsible office in Babylon, which it 
 was his aim to attain, that of {riijj><p v\ag) guardian of their 
 walls." 1 
 
 Darius, as if to be secure against the continued repeti- 
 tion of such desultory carnage of his troops, advanced with 
 all his army to the walls. They were manned to repel 
 the assault. But the treachery of Zophyrus, however 
 incredible, and unknown and unsuspected, alike by the 
 Babylonians and the Persians, became immediately ap- 
 parent. Intrusted as he was, in virtue of his office, with 
 the gates of the city, no sooner had the enemy approach- 
 ed, and the armed citizens ascended the walls, than he 
 opened the Belidian and the Cissian gates, close to which 
 the choicest Persian troops were stationed. The whole 
 scheme was a preconcerted snare, known only to Darius 
 and Zophyrus, and invented solely by the latter, the mu- 
 tilation of whose body was his own voluntary act. To 
 the glory of the deed were added the greatest gifts and 
 1 Herod, c. clii. — clvii. pp. 166-173. 2 Herod, c. clviii. clix. 
 
BABYLON. 
 
 431 
 
 honours, and the governorship of Babylon without tribute, 
 for his reward. The numbers of the different detach- 
 ments of the Persian troops who fell, their positions, and 
 the precise time of their successive advancements, had all 
 been resolved on and arranged. And Darius as freely 
 sacrificed the lives of seven thousand men, as Zophyrus 
 had inflicted incurable wounds upon himself. " Thus," 
 says Herodotus, "was Babylon a second time taken." 
 And thus was the word of God, — from whom nothing 
 past, present, or future can be hid, — a second time ful- 
 filled against Babylon — none shall return in vain. 
 
 Babylon was a third time taken by Alexander the 
 Great. Mazseus, the Persian general, surrendered the 
 city into his hands, and he entered it with his army drawn 
 up, " as if they were marching to battle." 1 Again was it 
 jilled with men, — and literally was every man put in ar- 
 ray, like a man to the battle. The siege of so fortified a 
 city would have been a work of great difficulty and labour, 
 even to the conqueror of Asia. But the inhabitants 
 eagerly flocked upon the walls to see their new king, and 
 exchanged, without a struggle, the Persian for the Mace- 
 donian yoke. Babylon was afterwards successively taken 
 by Antigonus, by Demetrius, by Antiochus the Great, 
 and by the Parthians. But whatever king or nation came 
 up against it, NONE returned in vain. 
 
 Each step in the progress of the decline of Babylon 
 was the accomplishment of a prophecy. Conquered, for 
 the first time, 3 by Cyrus, it was afterwards reduced 
 from an imperial to a tributary city. Come down and 
 
 1 " Quadrato agmine, quod ipse ducebat, velut in aciem irent, 
 ingredi suos jubet." (Quint. Curt. lib. v. c. ii.) 
 
 2 " Tarn munitse urbis." (Ibid.) 
 
 3 Herod, lib. i. c. cxci. Lowth, Bishop Newton. 
 
432 
 
 BABYLON. 
 
 sit in the dust, 0 virgin daughter of Babylon; sit on the 
 ground, there is no throne, 0 daughter of the Chaldeans. 
 — After the Babylonians rebelled against Darius, the walls 
 were reduced in height, and all the gates destroyed. 1 
 The wall of Babylon shall fall, her walls are thrown down. 
 — Xerxes, after his ignominious retreat from Greece, 
 rifled the temples of Babylon, 2 in which the golden images 
 alone were estimated at L. 20,000,000, beside treasures 
 of vast amount. I will punish Bel in Babylon, and I 
 will bring forth out of his mouth that which he has swal- 
 lowed up; I will do judgment upon the graven images of 
 Babylon. 3 — Alexander the Great attempted to restore it 
 to its former glory, and designed to make it the metro- 
 polis of an universal empire. But while the building of 
 the temple of Belus, and the reparation of the embank- 
 ments of the Euphrates, were actually carrying on, the 
 conqueror of the world died, at the commencement of this 
 his last undertaking, in the height of his power, and in 
 the flower of his age. 4 Take balm for her pain, if so be 
 that she may be healed. We would have healed Babylon, 
 but she is not healed. — Patrocles, the governor of Ba- 
 bylon under Seleucus, one of the successors of Alexander, 
 alarmed at the sudden and unexpected tidings, that his 
 enemy Demetrius, with an army, was at hand, dared not, 
 from the small number of his forces, wait his approach, 
 ordered the Babylonians to leave the city and to " flee 
 into the desert," 6 and, abandoning the city, sought pro- 
 
 1 Herod, lib. iii. c. cl. Calmet, &c. 
 
 2 Herod, lib. i. c. clxxxiii. Arrian. de Expeditione Alex. lib. 
 vii. c. xvii. Prideaux, Lowth, Bishop Newton. 
 
 3 Jer. li. 44, 47, 52. 
 
 4 Arrian. lib. vii. c. xvii. Strabo, lib. xvi. p. 738. Ibid. Rollin. 
 
 5 Jer. li. 8, 9. 6 pvyiTv hg rjjv igqftov. 
 
BABYLON. 
 
 433 
 
 tection for himself and fo his troops from the marshes of 
 the Euphrates rather than the walls of Bahylon. On 
 entering Bahylon, though he had come up suddenly like 
 the swelling of a river, Demetrius found " a deserted 
 city." 1 He shall come, up like a lion from the swelling of 
 Jordan unto the habitation of the strong; but I will make 
 them suddenly run away from her? 
 
 Babylon was soor resorted to again, but the vicinity of 
 the city of Seleucia built on very purpose, as Pliny re- 
 cords, 3 and as Christian writers have long remarked, 
 tended greatly to its abandonment and decay, and was the 
 chief cause of the decline of Babylon as a city, and drain- 
 ed it of a great part of its population. Ptolemy Euerge- 
 tes, who extended his conquests beyond the Euphrates, 
 carried with him into Egypt 2500 idols, some of which 
 Cambyses, who reigned at Babylon, had long before taken 
 from the Egyptians. 4 At a later period, or 130 years be- 
 fore the Christian era, Phrahates king of Parthia, as Jus- 
 tin relates, having marched against the Scythians who had 
 begun to lay waste his territories, delegated his authority 
 to one Himerus, a favourite on account of the beauty of 
 his youth or childhood, who, forgetful of his former (con- 
 dition of) life, and of his duty as deputy, grievously op- 
 pressed the Babylonians and other states. Phrahates 
 
 1 BctfiuXoovcc Trjv iroXiv sxXsXeiu/ih^v zvgs. Diod. Sic. torn. viii. 
 lib. xix. pp. 423, 424. 2 Jer. 1. 44. 
 
 3 In solitudinem rediit exhausta vicinitati Seleuciae, ob id con- 
 ditse a Nicatore. Plin. Nat. Hist. 1. vi. c. 36. 
 
 4 Hieron. Tom. v. p. 706, in Dan. xi. 8. 
 
 5 Phrahates cum adversus eos proficisceretur, ad tutelam regni 
 reliquit Himerum quendam, pueritiae sibe flore conciliatum; qui 
 tyrannica crudelitate, oblitus et vitse prseteritse, et vicarii officii. 
 Babylonios, multasque alias civitates importune vexavit. Justin, 
 lib. xlii. p. 268. 
 
 2f 
 
434: 
 
 BABYLON. 
 
 was discomfited and slain by the Scythians, as was also 
 his uncle and successor, Artabanus, soon after hy the 
 Thogarii ; and his son Mithridates the Great immediately 
 succeeded to the kingdom of Parthia. Diodorus Siculus, 
 in seeming inadvertence, speaks of Euemerus or Humerus 
 as king of Parthia; hut mentions that he was an Hyr- 
 canian hy birth, and in a single passage or fragment, his 
 description of the cruelties exercised by him against the 
 Babylonians is rich in illustrations, and, conjoined with 
 corroborative testimony, marks the continued progress of 
 the prophetic judgments against Babylon. Exceeding in 
 cruelty all known tyrants as Diodorus relates, he omitted 
 no sort of punishment ; for having enslaved many of the 
 Babylonians even for any cause whatever, he was wont to 
 send them away with all their households into Media, hav- 
 ing given orders that their effects, or rather that they 
 themselves should be sold as spoil. He also set fire to 
 the forum of Babylon, and to some of the temples, and 
 destroyed the fairest part of the city. 1 
 
 J 'On 'Eujj^sgos 6 ruv Tluoduv (3a6i'ksvg, 'Tgxaviog uv to ysvog, 
 ufioryjTi ds {tingfiaXkw ntavrag rovg fivrifiovsvo/jjsvoug rvgavvovg, ovx. 
 sffriv owoiov rifiu^iocg ysvog avsXi^s. UoWovg ds rw Ba^vXuviuv xcci 
 iiu raig rv^ouffaig amaig ffavoixiovg s£,avdga<7rodi6afiz]/og eig rv\v M}j- 
 dtav V^iiti^^i irgotfra^ag Xa<pvgo>7rvXriacci* xai rr\g Ba^uXuvog rqv 
 ayogav, %ai riva ruv isgw, sviirgqae, xcci ro zgariarov rrjg iroXzug disp- 
 Oeigs. Diod. Sic. vol. x. p. 128. Translated as above. The pre- 
 ceding passage of Diodorus is quoted by Usher and Bishop New- 
 ton, &c. as descriptive of the desolation of Babylon and of the 
 cruelties exercised against the Babylonians, without any specific 
 reference to any special prediction. In the common Latin trans- 
 
 * Aaipi/^a is a term which specially denotes the spoils taken from the liv- 
 ing, as distinguished from anuXa,, or those of the dead. Scap. The com- 
 pound word is otherwise used by Diodorus to denote that the persons of cap. 
 tives were sold as spoil, and thus implies that they were subjected to the 
 lowest servitude and utmost spoliation. 
 
BABYLON. 
 
 435 
 
 There is no throne, 0 daughter of the Chaldeans; for 
 thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate. Take 
 the millstones and grind meal, Qc. This prophecy is 
 thus interpreted by Grotius and Lowth, without any 
 allusion to the actual fact of the servitude or slavery of 
 the Babylonians — ( Prepare yourself for servile offices.' 1 
 ' From being mistress of kingdoms thou shalt become a 
 mean slave; thy captives shall be set to grind, which was 
 reckoned the lowest degree of drudgery, (see Exod. xi. 5; 
 Judges xvi. 21.) such was the pistrinum, or turning the 
 mill among the Eomans.' 2 Himerus, the worst of ty- 
 rants, exercised every species of cruelty upon the Baby- 
 lonians, and reduced many of them to actual slavery, and 
 consequently to its meanest toils. I will cause the arro- 
 gancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haugh- 
 tiness of the terrible* 
 
 In suddenly running away from her at the approach 
 
 lation, which alone they quote, there is no mention whatever, as 
 in the original, of the fact, that commandment was given by the 
 tyrant that their spoils should be sold, or that the exiles, as spoil, 
 should be set up for sale. But it is not unworthy of being noted; 
 for Lowth, who does not refer to this testimony of Diodorus or to 
 any similar facts whatever, thus gives the interpretation of the 
 words of the prophecy, Uncover thy lochs, <Scc. ' Thy hairs shall 
 hang about thy ears, without being dressed up or adorned with a 
 diadem; thou shalt lose all thy finery and those ornaments in which 
 thou didst pride thyself, as marks of thy state; and the persons 
 of the greatest quality shall be despoiled of their gaiety, and car- 
 ried captives in a mean and ragged condition.' 1 Such was the in- 
 terpretation of an able commentator before the fact was applied to 
 the prediction. And such is the confirmation which it receives, 
 after the lapse of more than a century, from the words omitted by 
 a translator, but which are to be found in the old as well as mo- 
 dern editions of Diodorus. 
 
 1 Para te servilibus ministeriis. Grot. Isaiah xlvii. 2. 
 
 2 Lowth. Ibid. 3 Isaiah xiii. 11. 
 
436 
 
 BABYLON. 
 
 of Demetrius, some of the inhabitants of Babylon left the 
 Euphrates and fled to the desert, others passed over the 
 Tigris into Susiana; and the intervening rivers and 
 ditches, or marshy ground, over which they had to pass 
 in their hasty retreat, were the best protection of the 
 hand that accompanied Patrocles. After reducing many 
 of the Babylonians to bondage, Himerus banished them 
 from Babylon into Media, which lay beyond the Tigris 
 and Choaspes and their tributary streams: but first he 
 commanded that they should be sold ; and the rich and 
 gay apparel of the proud daughter of Babylon, ill-suited 
 to the wandering exiles, did not any longer befit their 
 station or their toils. The mandates of those who at dif- 
 ferent times had been appointed over her, were obeyed ; 
 but it had long before been written concerning the daugh- 
 ter of the Chaldeans, uncover thy locks, make bare the 
 leg, uncover the thigh, pass over the rivers, §c. Thou 
 saidst, I shall be a lady for ever: so that thou didst not 
 lay these things to thy heart, neither didst remember the 
 latter end of it. 1 
 
 The temples of Babylon were rifled of their idols by 
 Xerxes the king of Persia, till the weight of these in gold 
 amounted to 400,000 pounds. Ptolemy Euergetes hav- 
 ing extended his conquests beyond the Euphrates, took 
 with him from the conquered provinces, on his sudden 
 recall and hasty return into Egypt, 2500 idols, some of 
 which Cambyses the son of Cyrus, who reigned at Baby- 
 lon, had previously taken from the Egyptians. When 
 Babylon was exhausted by Seleucia, 40 miles distant, and 
 many of the Babylonians removed to that city; and also 
 when many of them at a later period were commanded, 
 together with all their households {vavoixievg), to depart to 
 1 Isaiah xlvii. 2, 3, 7. 
 
BABYLON. 
 
 437 
 
 Media — it may be presumed that their household gods, 
 though a hindrance rather than a help, thus formed, 
 time after time, a portion of their household effects; and 
 that when their temples were finally burned, many of the 
 idols were carried away by the idolatrous Babylonians, 
 condemned to perpetual slavery and banishment, in their 
 weary pilgrimage to the far distant land of their enemies. 
 A nd thus it was written : Their idols were upon the leasts, 
 and upon the cattle, your carriages were heavy loaden; 
 they are a burden to the weary beast. They stoop; they 
 bow down together; they could not deliver the burden; 
 
 But themselves are gone into captivity. 1 Media, from 
 the first, was called to besiege Babylon; for the device 
 of the Lord was against Babylon to destroy it. And in 
 the latter end, 308 years after the siege, and 582 years 
 after the date of the prophecy, the enslaved Babylonians 
 did go to Media into captivity. 
 
 Himerus, an Hyrcanian by birth, was but a youth, if 
 not a boy, the floridness of whose juvenile looks (flore 
 pueritim) was, together with the casual absence of the 
 king, the cause of his sudden elevation to that power 
 which, forgetful of his former state, he so greatly abused 
 as to excel all tyrants in cruelty. And while the full 
 measure of his severities, of which none were omitted, 
 was the cup of indignation prepared for the Babylonians, 
 it may be said also of him, — Surely the least of the flock 
 shall draw them out; surely he shall make their habita- 
 tion desolate with them? His youth, and elevation to 
 power from such a cause, may mark him out as the least 
 of the flock; and in fiilfiUing the counsel that the Lord 
 had taken against Babylon, surely he at once drew them 
 out, and made their habitation desolate with them. 
 
 1 Isaiah xlvi. 1, 2. 3 Jeremiah 1. 45. 
 
BABYLON. 
 
 He sent them forth from Babylon, together with all 
 their households; many of the Babylonians had previously 
 removed with all their effects to Seleucia — They shall re- 
 move, they shall depart, both man and beast. 1 
 
 The temple of Belus, first built to bind the human race 
 to the plains of Shinar, and the other temples of their 
 gods, and many of their fine houses, while yet undemo- 
 lished, may have long tended to keep the lingering Ba- 
 bylonians within the precincts of the devoted city. But 
 the judgment of God rested on the most magnificent of 
 their temples, as well as on the proud idolaters and their 
 senseless idols: and the soothsayers, the star-gazers, and 
 the monthly prognosticators, could not stand up and save 
 them from the things that were to come upon them; and 
 the time was come when the temples of the Babylonians 
 could no longer be their trust or their resort, and when 
 their efforts to save them or their habitations would be in 
 vain. For it is expressly related that Himerus set fire 
 to the forum and some of the temples, and destroyed the 
 fairest part of the city — Behold they shall be as stubble, 
 the fire shall burn them; they shall not deliver themselves 
 from the power of the flame. 2 The people shall labour in 
 vain, and the folk in the fire, and they shall be weary * 
 Bel boweth down; Nebo stoopeth; I will punish Bel in 
 Babylon; and the nations shall not flow together any 
 more unto him.* 
 
 It is the vengeance of the Lord: take vengeance upon 
 her: as she hath done, do unto her. 5 — Woe unto them! 
 for their day is come, the time of their visitation. The 
 voice of them that flee and escape out of the land of Ba- 
 bylon, to declare in Zion the vengeance of the Lord our 
 
 1 Jeremiah L 3. 2 Isaiah xl. 13, 14. 3 Jeremiah li. 58. 
 4 Isaiah xlvi. 1. 5 Ibid. 1. 15. 
 
BABYLON. 
 
 439 
 
 God, the vengeance of his temple — Recompense her ox- 
 cording to her work; according to all that she hath done, 
 do unto her; for she hath been proud against the Lord, 
 against the Holy One of Israel. 1 — _Z~ will render unto 
 Babylon, and to all the inhabitants of Chaldea, all their 
 evil that they have done in Zion in your sight, saith the 
 Lord — The Lord God of recompenses shall surely re- 
 quite. 2 The facts relative to the siege of Jerusalem and 
 the captivity of the Jews, thus take the place of predic- 
 tions; and a parallel may at length be drawn between 
 what the Babylonians did, and what they suffered. 
 
 Bands of the Chaldees, and bands of the Syrians, and 
 bands of the Moabites, and bands of the children of Am- 
 mon came up against Judah to destroy it. 3 And so soon as 
 the time of recompenses began, an assembly of great na- 
 tions gathered together out of all the countries from 
 Egypt to the bounds of the Caspian, and from Lydia to 
 the Persian gulph, came up against Babylon. 
 
 Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came, he, and all his 
 host against Jerusalem, and pitched against it; and they 
 built forts against it round about, and the city was besieg- 
 ed. 1 Cyrus, having prepared the nations against Baby- 
 lon, encamped against it round about, built forts against 
 it, 5 and laid siege to the city, which had long been the 
 terror of the nations. 
 
 The Chaldeans took Zedekiah, the king of Judah, and 
 gave judgment upon him, and slew his sons the princes 
 OF judah before his face; and the captain of the Baby- 
 lonish guard took the chief priest and the second priest, 
 and the officer that was set over the men of war, and five 
 
 1 Jeremiah 1. 27, 28, 29. 2 Ibid. li. 24, 56. 3 2 Kings xxiv. 2. 
 4 2 Kings xxv. 1, 2. 5 Xen. Cyr. lib. vii. c. v. p. 433. 
 
4:40 
 
 BABYLON. 
 
 men of them that were in the kings presence, and the 
 principal scribe, which mustered the people of the land, 
 and threescore others, and brought them to the king of 
 Babylon, and the king of Babylon smote them and slew 
 them. 1 And in the night in which Babylon was taken, 
 the king, together with many of his nobles, was slain. 
 Nor was the slaughter of the chief rulers of Israel left 
 unavenged, when Darius, as Herodotus relates, impaled 
 3000 of the chief nobility of Babylon. 2 
 
 All the army of the Chaldeans brake down the walls of 
 Jerusalem round about, 3 and thus Darius brake down the 
 wall of Babylon. 
 
 Nebuchadnezzar carried the vessels of the house of the 
 Lord to Babylon, and put them in his temple at Babylon 
 — and all the vessels great and small, and the treasures 
 of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king and 
 of his princes, all these he brought to Babylon? — The 
 treasures of the temple of Belus became the property of 
 Cyrus, and Darius and Xerxes, devoted Magians or wor- 
 shippers of fire, began and carried on against it the re- 
 venges of the temple of Jerusalem, till all its treasures 
 were exhausted, and all its idols broken, and all that Bel 
 had swallowed up was brought forth out of his mouth. 
 
 Nebuzaradan, a captain of the guard, a servant of 
 the king of Babylon, came unto Jerusalem, and he burned 
 the house of the Lord and the king's house, and all the 
 houses of Jerusalem, and eveby great man's house 
 bubned he with fibe. 5 Himerus, a deputy and ser- 
 
 1 2 Kings xxv. 6, 7, 18-21. 
 
 2 '0 Aaguog ruiv uvdguv rovg xogupdiovg noChiGra ig r^iff^iXioug 
 3 2 Kings xxv. 10. 4 2 Chron. xxxvi. 7, 18. 5 2 Kings xxv. 8, 9. 
 
BABYLON. 
 
 441 
 
 vant of the king of Parthia, set fire to the forum and 
 some of the temples of Babylon, and destroyed the best 
 or fairest parts of the city. 
 
 The people (of Judah) transgressed very much, they 
 mocked the messengers of the Lord — therefore he brought 
 upon them the king of the Chcddees, and he gave all into 
 his hands. 1 The captive Jews were servants to Nebuch- 
 adnezzar and his sons. The poorest only of the people 
 of the land were left to be vine-dressers and husbandmen, 
 and to serve the king of Babylon. And when the con- 
 querors became the conquered, Cyrus held all the proper- 
 ty and the persons of the Babylonians, as given unto him. 2 
 Having taken Babylon, Cyrus commanded the Babylo- 
 nians, on pain of death, to deliver up their arms; enacted 
 that they should cultivate the land, and pay tribute, and 
 serve those to whom they were respectively given, and 
 he ordered the Persians, and their allies, to speak as 
 masters or lords to those whom they had received. 3 Ad- 
 dressing his assembled chiefs, he maintained that all 
 were theirs by right of conquest, as by an eternal law, 
 and that they had entered into the possession of a large 
 and fertile country, and of a people to cultivate it for 
 their use. Successive rulers held them in the same de- 
 pendant state, and revolt from oppression finally entailed 
 a servitude as heavy and grievous as that which they had 
 formerly exacted. 
 
 The Babylonians had made the Jews to serve in a hard 
 bondage, and showed them no mercy, but laid their yoke 
 very heavily upon them. i Cyrus reduced the Babylonians 
 to the most abject state, to secure their submission. 5 
 
 1 2 Chron. xxxvi. 14, 16, 17. 2 Jer. Hi. 16. Xen. Cyr. 
 
 lib. vii. c. v. pp. 440, 441. 3 lb. pp. 452, 453. 
 
 4 Isa. xiv. 3, Ibid, xlvii. 6. 5 Xen. Cyr. lib. vii. p. 451. 
 
442 
 
 BABYLON. 
 
 Darius after their rebellion tyrannised over them more 
 cruelly than before. The cruelties exercised by the idol- 
 aters against the worshippers of the God of Israel were 
 retaliated on themselves by the worshippers of fire, and 
 enemies of idolatry. And while no mercy was shown un- 
 to Israel, Himerus, excelling all known tyrants in cruelties, 
 exercised them all, and omitted no sort of punishment, 
 or showed no mercy to the inhabitants of Babylon. 
 
 Babylon that led Judah captive, and smote the people 
 in wrath with a continual stroke, and that ruled the na- 
 tions in anger, became the victim of the wrath it had pro- 
 voked, and was smitten with a continual stroke, and long 
 continued to be the threshing floor of the nations, though 
 400 years had elapsed from its subjection to Cyrus till 
 its enslaved citizens, in token of the vengeance of the 
 temple of the Lord, went forth into captivity dazzled and 
 distressed by the blaze of the temples of Babylon. 
 
 The " golden city," which once triumphed over Jeru- 
 salem, thus gradually verged, for centuries, towards po- 
 verty and desolation. — Notwithstanding that Cyrus re- 
 sided chiefly at Babylon, and sought to reform the go- 
 vernment and remodel the manners of the Babylonians, 
 the succeeding kings of Persia preferred, as the seat of 
 empire, Susa, Persepolis, or Ecbatana, situated in their 
 own country; and in like manner the successors of Alex- 
 ander did not attempt to complete his purpose of restor- 
 ing Babylon to its pre-eminence and glory; but, after the 
 subdivision of his mighty empire, the very kings of Assy- 
 ria, during their temporary residence even in Chaldea, 
 deserted Babylon, and dwelt in Seleucia. And thus the 
 foreign inhabitants, first Persians, and afterwards Greeks, 
 imitating their sovereigns by deserting Babylon, acted as 
 if they verily had said, — Forsake her, and let us go every 
 
CHALDEA. 
 
 man unto his own country: for her judgment is reached 
 unto heaven, and is lifted up even to the skies. Babylon 
 shall he as a chased roe, and as a sheep that no man 
 taketh up; they shall every man turn to his own people, 
 and flee every one into his own land. 
 
 Babylon laid Jerusalem in heaps, and Babylon lies in 
 heaps to this day. 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 THE LAND OF CHALDEA. 
 
 Kindred judgments — the issue of common crimes — 
 rested on the land of Chaldea, as well as on its doomed 
 metropolis; and the tracing of their fulfilment may best 
 lead to the view of the utter desolation of fallen Babylon. 
 
 They come from a far country, from the end of the 
 earth, to destroy the whole land. Many nations and great 
 kings shall serve themselves of thee also, §c. The Persians, 
 the Macedonians, the Parthians, the Komans, the Sara- 
 cens, and the Turks, are the chief of the many nations 
 who have unscrupulously and unsparingly served them- 
 selves of the land of the Chaldeans : and Cyrus and Da- 
 rius, kings of Persia; Alexander the Great, and Seleucus, 
 king of Assyria; Demetrius and Antiochus the Great; 
 Trajan, Severus, Julian, and Heraclius, emperors of Eome: 
 the victorious Omar, the successor of Mahomet; — Hola- 
 gou and Tamerlane, are great kings, who successively 
 subdued or desolated Chaldea, or exacted from it tribute 
 to such an extent, as scarcely any other country ever paid 
 to a single conquerer. And, though the names of some 
 
4:4:4: 
 
 CHALDEA. 
 
 of these nations were unknown to the Babylonians, and : 
 unheard of in the world at the time of the prophecy, most 
 of these many nations and great kings need now hut to 
 he named, to show that, in local relation to Chaldea, they 
 came from the utmost border, from the coasts of the earth. 
 
 They are ceuel both in anger and fierce wrath to lay 
 the land desolate, &c. The Persians vied with the 
 Parthians in cruelty and fierceness against resisting and 
 against subjugated enemies. Three thousand Babylo- 
 nians were at once impaled by order of Darius. Conquest 
 was the object, and kindness was not in the nature of the 
 Macedonian conquerors of Babylon. The possession of 
 Chaldea was contested between Antigonus and Seleucus, 
 and ruler rose against ruler. After its long subjection 
 to the Seleucidae, the proverbially cruel Parthians held 
 Babylonia in bondage. In the second century of the Chris- 
 tian era, the Bomans, coming from afar, still maintain- 
 ed the character of the cruel and fierce desolators of Chal- 
 dea, and were thus the unconscious instruments of the 
 fulfilment of other prophecies. " Under the reign of 
 Marcus, the Boman generals penetrated as far as Ctesi- 
 phon and Seleucia. They were received as friends by 
 the Greek colony; they attacked as enemies the seat of 
 the Parthian kings, yet both cities experienced the same 
 treatment. The sack and conflagration of Seleucia, with 
 the massacre of three hundred thousand of the inhabi- 
 tants, tarnished the glory of the Boman triumph. Seleu- 
 cia sunk under the fatal blow; but Ctesiphon, in about 
 thirty-three years, had sufficiently recovered its strength 
 to maintain an obstinate siege against the emperor Se- 
 verus." 1 Ctesiphon was thrice besieged and thrice taken 
 1 Gibbon, vol. i. c. viii. p. 333. 
 
CHALDEA. 
 
 445 
 
 by the predecessors of Julian. And when attacked by- 
 Julian the anger of that Eoman emperor and that of his 
 army was not moderated, nor their cruelty abated, by the 
 effectual resistance of the citizens of Ctesiphon against 
 sixty thousand besiegers. " The fields of Assyria were 
 devoted by Julian to the calamities of war; and the phi- 
 losopher retaliated on a guiltless people the acts of rapine 
 and cruelty which had been committed by their haughty 
 master in the Eoman provinces, — the Persians beheld 
 from the walls of Ctesiphon the desolation of the adjacent 
 country." 1 With such violence did he wreak his ven- 
 geance on the inhabitants of Chaldea, that their fierce 
 wrath was conjoined with the cruelty of their enemies to 
 lay the land desolate. " The extensive region that lies 
 between the river Tigris and the mountains of Media, was 
 filled with villages and towns; and the fertile soil, for the 
 most part, was in a very improved state of cultivation. — 
 But on the approach of the Eomans, this rich and smil- 
 ing prospect was instantly blasted. Wherever they moved, 
 the inhabitants deserted the open villages, and took shel- 
 ter in the fortified towns; the cattle were driven away; 
 the grass and ripe corn were consumed with fiee; and as 
 soon as the flames had subsided which interrupted the 
 march of Julian, he beheld the melancholy face of a 
 smoking and naked deseet." 2 But (( the second city 
 of the province, large, populous, and well fortified," in 
 vain resisted a fierce and desperate assault; and a large 
 breach having been made by a battering-ram in the walls, 
 " the soldiers of Julian rushed impetuously into the town, 
 and after the full gratification of every military appetite, 
 Perisabor was eeduced to ashes; and the engines which 
 
 1 Gibbon, vol. iv. c. xxiv. pp. 169, 185. 
 
 2 Ibid. pp. 191, 192. 
 
446 
 
 CHALDEA. 
 
 assaulted the citadel were planted on the ruins of the 
 smoking houses." 1 When, in after ages, the Romans, 
 under Heraclius, penetrated to the royal seat of Desta- 
 gered, and spread over Chaldea to the gates of Ctesiphon, 
 " whatever could not be easily transported, they con- 
 sumed with fire, that Chosroes might feel the anguish of 
 those wounds which he had so often inflicted on the pro- 
 vinces of the empire; and justice might allow the excuse," 
 says Gibbon, " if the desolation had been confined to the 
 works of regal luxury, if national hatred, military licence, 
 and religious zeal, had not wasted with equal rage the 
 habitations and the temples of the guiltless subjects," 2 
 The fierce Abassides, proverbially reckless of committing 
 murder, which was the very work that their missionaries 
 went forth to execute, long reigned over Chaldea; and 
 Bagdad, its new capital, distant about fifteen miles from 
 Seleucia and Ctesiphon, was their imperial seat for five 
 hundred years. 3 " Their daggers, their only arms, were 
 broken by the sword of Holagou, and except the word 
 assassin, not a vestige is left of the enemies of mankind"* 
 — for again and again has it proved true of the land of 
 Chaldea — I will destroy the sinners thereof out of it. The 
 Mogul Tartars succeeded as the guilty possessors and 
 cruel desolaters of the land of Babylon. " Bagdad, af- 
 ter a siege of two months, was stormed and sacked by 
 the Moguls, under Holagou Khan, the grandson of Ghen- 
 gis Khan." 5 And Tamerlane, another great king, "re- 
 duced to his obedience the whole course of the Tigris and 
 Euphrates, from the mouth to the sources of these rivers; 
 and he erected on the ruins of Bagdad a pyramid of ninety 
 
 1 Gibbon, vol, iv. c. xxiv. p. 170. 
 
 2 Ibid. vol. viii. c. xlvi. p. 253. 3 Ibid. vol. x. c. lii. p. 35. 
 
 4 Ibid. vol. xi. c. lxiv. p. 417. 3 Ibid. vol. xi. c. lxiv. p. 418. 
 
CHALDEA. 
 
 thousand heads." 1 Finally, not with abated, but if pos- 
 sible, with increasing, or with more persevering cruelty, 
 the Turks, aided by Saracens, Coords, and Tartars, have 
 become the weapons of the indignation of the Lord, brought 
 forth out of his armoury which he hath opened; for — 
 fearful as a token of judgment, and clear as the testimony 
 of truth — this is the work of the Lord God of Hosts in the 
 land of the Chaldeans. — Waste and utterly destroy after 
 them. A sword is upon the Chaldeans. A sound of 
 hattle is in the land, and of great destruction. I will 
 kindle a eibe in his cities, and it shall devoue all 
 eound about him. A sound of great destruction Com- 
 eth from the land of the Chaldeans. 
 
 And Chaldea shall be a spoil; all that spoil her shall 
 be satisfied, saith the Lord. Come against her from 
 the utmost border, open her storehouses. A swoed is up- 
 on her treasures, and they shall be robbed. 0 thou that 
 dwellest upon many waters, abundant in treasures, thine 
 end is come, and the measure of thy covetousness. On taking 
 Babylon suddenly by surprise, Cyrus became immediately 
 possessed of the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches 
 of secret places. On his first publicly appearing in Ba- 
 bylon, all the officers of his army, both of the Persians 
 and allies, according to his command, wore very splendid 
 robes, those belonging to the superior officers being of 
 various colours, all of the finest and brightest dye, and 
 richly embroidered with gold and silver; and thus the 
 hidden riches of secret places were openly displayed. And 
 when the treasures of Babylon became the spoil of an- 
 other great king, Alexander gave six minx (about L.15) 
 to each Macedonian horseman, to each Macedonian soldier 
 and foreign horseman two minae (L.5.) and to every 
 1 Gibbon, vol. xii. c. lxv. pp. 9-24. 
 
44:8 
 
 CHALDEA. 
 
 other man in his army, a donation equal to two months* 
 pay. Demetrius ordered his soldiers to plunder the land 
 of Babylon for their own use. 1 But it is not in these 
 instances alone that Chaldea has been a spoil, and that 
 all who spoil her have been satisfied. It was the abun- 
 dance of her treasures which brought successive spolia- 
 tors. Many nations came from afar, and though they 
 returned to their own country, (as in formerly besieging 
 Babylon, so in continuing to despoil the land of Chaldea,) 
 none returned in vain. From the richness of the coun- 
 try new treasures were speedily stored up, till again the 
 sword came upon them, and they were robbed. The prey 
 of the Persians and of the Greeks for nearly two cen- 
 turies after the death of Alexander, Chaldea became 
 afterwards the prey chiefly of the Parthians, for an equal 
 period, till a greater nation, the Bomans, came from the 
 coasts of the earth to pillage it. To be restrained from 
 dominion and from plunder, was the exciting cause, and 
 often the shameless plea, of the anger and fierce wrath of 
 these famed but cruel conquerors of the world. Yet 
 within the provinces of their empire, it was their practice, 
 on the submission of the inhabitants, to protect and not 
 to destroy. But Chaldea, from its extreme distance, 
 never having yielded permanently to their yoke, and the 
 limits of their empire having been fixed by Hadrian on 
 the western side of the Euphrates, or on the very borders 
 of Chaldea, that hapless country obtained not their pro- 
 tection, though repeatedly the scene of ruthless spoliation 
 by the Bomans. The authority of Gibbon, in elucida- 
 tion of Scripture, cannot be here distrusted any more 
 than of heathen historians. To use his words, " that a 
 hundred thousand captives, and a rich booty, rewarded the 
 1 Plutarch, Life of Demetrius. 
 
CHALDEA. 
 
 4:4:9 
 
 fatigues of the Eoman soldiers/' 1 when Ctesiphon was 
 taken, in the second century, by the Eomans. " The city 
 opened its gates to Cassius, the Eoman general; but 
 nevertheless Cassius ordered the inhabitants, to the num- 
 ber of four hundred thousand souls, to be inhumanly mas- 
 sacred, and the city to be utterly demolished." 2 Even 
 Julian, who, in the fourth century, was forced to raise 
 the siege of Ctesiphon, came not in vain to Chaldea, and 
 failed not to take of it a spoil; nor, though an apos- 
 tate, did he fail to verify by his acts the truth which he 
 denied. After having given Perisabor to the flames, 
 " the plentiful magazines of corn, of arms, and of splen- 
 did furniture, were partly distributed among the troops, 
 and partly reserved for the public service; the useless 
 stores were destroyed by fire, or thrown into the streams 
 of the Euphrates." 3 Having also rewarded his army 
 with a hundred pieces of silver to each soldier, he thus 
 stimulated them (when still dissatisfied) to light for greater 
 spoil — " Eiches are the object of your desires; those 
 riches are in the hands of the Persians; and the spoils of 
 this fruitful country are proposed as the prize of your 
 valour and discipline . " 4 The enemy being defeated after 
 an arduous conflict, " the spoil was such as might be ex- 
 pected from the riches and luxury of an oriental camp ; 
 large quantities of silver and gold, splendid arms and 
 trappings, and beds and tables of massy silver." 6 
 
 When the Eomans, under Heraclius, ravaged Chaldea, 
 " though much of the treasure had been removed from 
 Destagered, and much had been expended, the remaining 
 
 1 Gibbon, vol. i. c. viii. p. 334. 
 
 2 Universal Hist. vol. xv. p. 216. 
 
 3 Gibbon, vol. iv. c. xxiv. p. 171. 
 
 4 Ibid. p. 176. 5 Ibid. vol. iv. c. xxiv. p. 184. 
 
 2g 
 
450 
 
 CHALDEA. 
 
 wealth appears to have exceeded their hopes, and even to 
 have satiated their avarice." 
 
 While the deeds of Julian and the words of Gibbon 
 show how Chaldea was spoiled — how a sword continued 
 to be on her treasures — and how, year after year, and 
 age after age, there was rumour on rumour, and violence 
 in her land, and that all that spoil her woidd be satisfied 
 — more full illustrations remain to be given of the truth 
 of the same prophetic word. And as one painter of great 
 power may cope with another, by drawing as closely to 
 the life as he, though the features be different, so Gib- 
 bon's description of the sack of Ctesiphon, as previously 
 he had described the sack and conflagration of Seleucia, 
 (cities, each of which may aptly be called " the daughter 
 of Babylon," having been, like it, the capital of Chal- 
 dea,) is written as if, by the most graphic representation 
 of facts, he had been aspiring to rival Volney as an illus- 
 trator of Scripture prophecy. " The capital was taken 
 by assault; and the disorderly resistance of the people 
 gave a keener edge to the sabres of the Moslems, who 
 shouted with religious transport, ' This is the white palace 
 of Chosroes; this is the promise of the apostle of God.' 
 The naked robbers of the desert were suddenly enriched 
 beyond the measure of their hope or knowledge. Each 
 chamber revealed a new treasure, secreted with art, or 
 ostentatiously displayed; the gold and siher, the various 
 wardrobes and precious furniture, surpassed (says Abul- 
 feda) the estimate of fancy or numbers; and another his- 
 torian defines the untold and almost infinite mass by the 
 fabulous computation of three thousand of thousands of 
 thousands of pieces of gold. — One of the apartments of 
 the palace was decorated with a carpet of silk sixty cu- 
 1 Gibbon, vol. viii. c. xlvi. p. 252. 
 
CHALDEA. 
 
 451 
 
 bits in length, and as many in breadth, (90 feet); a para- 
 dise, or garden, was depicted on the ground; the flowers, 
 fruits, and shrubs were imitated by the figures of the 
 gold embroidery, and the colours of the precious stones; 
 and the ample square was encircled by a variegated and 
 verdant border. The rigid Omar divided the prize among 
 his brethren of Medina; the picture was destroyed; but 
 such was the intrinsic value of the materials, that the 
 share of Ah alone was sold for 20,000 drachms. A 
 mule that carried away the tiara and cuirass, the belt 
 and bracelets of Chosroes, was overtaken by the pursuers; 
 the gorgeous trophy was presented to the commander of 
 the faithful, and the gravest of his companions conde- 
 scended to smile when they beheld the white beard, hairy 
 arms, and uncouth figure of the veteran who was invest- 
 ed with the spoil of the great king" 1 
 
 Eecent evidence is not wanting to show, that, where- 
 ever a treasure is to be found, a sword, in the hand of a 
 fierce enemy, is upon it, and spoliation has not ceased in 
 the land of Chaldea. 
 
 " On the west of Hillah, there are two towns, which, 
 in the eyes of the Persians and all the Shiites, are ren- 
 dered sacred by the memory of two of the greatest mar- 
 tyrs of that sect, These are Meshed Ah and Meshed 
 Housein, lately filled with riches, accumulated by the 
 devotion of the Persians, but carried off by the ferocious 
 Wahabees to the middle of their deserts." 2 
 
 And, after the incessant spoliation of ages, now that 
 the end is come of the treasures of Chaldea, the earth 
 itself fails not to disclose its hidden treasures, so as to 
 
 1 Gibbon, vol. ix. c. li. pp. 370 3 371. 
 
 2 Malte-Bruu's Geog. vol. ii. p. 119. Buckingham's Travels in 
 Mesopotamia, vol. ii. p. 246. 
 
452 
 
 CHALDEA. 
 
 testify that they once were abundant. In proof of this an 
 instance may be given. At the rnins of Hoomania, near 
 to those of Ctesiphon, pieces of silver having (on the 5th 
 of March 1812) been accidentally discovered, edging out 
 of the bank of the Tigris, "on examination, there were 
 found and brought away," by persons sent for that pur- 
 pose by the pasha of Bagdad's officers, " between six and 
 seven hundred ingots of silver, each measuring from one 
 to one and a half feet in length; and an earthen jar, 
 containing upwards of two thousand Athenian coins, all 
 of silver. Many were purchased at the time by the late 
 Mr Eich, formerly the East India Company's resident at 
 Bagdad, and are now in his valuable collection, since 
 bought by government, and deposited in the British Mu- 
 seum." 1 Amidst the ruins of Ctesiphon, " the natives 
 often pick up coins of gold, silver, and copper, for which 
 they always find a ready sale in Bagdad. Indeed, some 
 of the wealthy Turks and Armenians, who are collecting 
 for several French and German consuls, hire people to 
 go and search for coins, medals, and antique gems; and 
 I am assured they never return to their employers empty- 
 handed;" 2 — as if all who spoil Chaldea shall be satisfied, 
 till even the ruins be spoiled unto the uttermost. 
 
 The past history of the land of the Chaldeans may be 
 briefly closed in the language of prophecy; for the pro- 
 phets in their visions, saw it as it is; although historians 
 knew not, even after its grandeur was partially gone, how 
 to tell of its fertility, which they witnessed, and hope to 
 be believed. Those who recorded the word that the Lord 
 spake against Babylon, and against the land of the Chal- 
 
 1 Captain Mignan's Travels, p. 53. 2 Ibid. p. 74. 
 
CIIALDEA. 
 
 453 
 
 deans, had no such fear, though two thousand four hun- 
 dred years have elapsed since they described what is now 
 only at last to be seen. 
 
 i" will punish the land of the Chaldeans, and will make 
 it perpetual desolations: cut off the sower from Babylon, 
 and him that handleth the sickle in the time of harvest. 
 A drought is on the waters, and they shall be dried up. 
 Behold the hindermost of the nations, a dry land and a 
 desert. Her cities are a desolation, a dry land and a 
 wilderness, a land where no man dwelleth, neither doth 
 son of man pass thereby. I will send unto Babylon fan- 
 ners that shall fan her, and empty her land. The land 
 shall tremble and sorrow; for every purpose of the Lord 
 shall be performed against Babylon, to make the land of 
 Babylon a desolation without an inhabitant. 
 
 The land of the Chaldeans was to be made perpetual 
 or long continued desolations. — Eavaged and spoiled for 
 ages, the Chaldees' excellency finally disappeared, and 
 the land became desolate, as still it remains. Bauwolff, 
 who passed through it in 1574, describes the country as 
 bare, and " so dry and barren that it cannot be tilled." 1 
 And the most recent travellers all concur in describing 
 it in similar terms. 
 
 The land of Babylon was to be fanned and emptied — 
 to be a dry land, a wilderness, and a desert, <$fc. — On 
 the one side, near to the site of Opis, " the country all 
 around appears to be one wide desert of sandy and bar- 
 ren soil, thinly scattered over with brushwood and tufts 
 of reedy grass." 2 On the other, between Bussorah and 
 Bagdad, " immediately on either bank of the Tigris, is 
 the untrodden desert. The absence of all cultivation, — 
 
 1 Rauwolff's Travels, in Ray's Collection of Travels, 1693, p. 164. 
 
 2 Buckingham's Travels in Mesopotamia, vol. ii. p. 155. 
 
4:54 
 
 CHALDEA. 
 
 the sterile, arid, and wild character of the whole scene, 
 formed a contrast to the rich and dehghtful accounts de- 
 lineated in Scripture. The natives, in travelling over 
 these pathless deserts, are compelled to explore their way 
 hy the stars." 1 " The face of the country is open and 
 flat, presenting to the eye one vast level plain where no- 
 thing is to he seen hut here and there a herd of half- 
 wild camels. This immense tract is very rarely diversi- 
 fied with any trees of moderate growth, but is an immense 
 wild bounded only by the horizon." 2 In the interme- 
 diate region, " the whole extent from the foot of the wall 
 of Bagdad is a barren waste without a blade of vegeta- 
 tion of any description;" on leaving the gates, the tra- 
 veller has before him " the prospect of a bare desert, — 
 a flat and barren country. — The whole country between 
 Bagdad and Hillah is a perfectly flat and (with the excep- 
 tion of a few spots as you approach the latter place) un- 
 cidtivated waste." 3 " That it was at some former period 
 in a far different state, is evident from the number of 
 canals by which it is traversed, now dry and neglected; 
 and the quantity of heaps of earth covered with fragments 
 of brick and broken tiles, which are seen in every direc- 
 tion, — the indisputable traces of former population. At 
 present the only inhabitants of the tract are the Sobeide 
 Arabs."* " Around as far as the eye can reach, is a 
 trackless desert." 5 " The abundance of the country has 
 vanished as clean away as if the ( besom of destruction' 
 
 1 Mignan's Travels, p. 5. 
 
 2 Ibid. pp. 31, 32. Keppel's Nar. vol. i. p. 260. Buckingham's 
 Travels, p. 242. Kinnier's Memoirs of Persia, p. 279. 
 
 3 Rich's Memoir, p. 4. 
 
 4 Transactions of the Literary Society at Bombay, vol. i. pp. 123. 
 138. Captain Frederick on the State of Babylon. 
 
 5 Keppel's Narrative, p. 87. 
 
CHALDEA. 
 
 455 
 
 had swept it from north to south ; the whole land from 
 the outskirts of Babylon to the farthest stretch of sight 
 lying a melancholy waste. Not a habitable spot appears 
 for countless miles." 1 The land of Babylon is desolate 
 without an inhabitant. The Arabs traverse it; and every 
 man met with in the desert is looked on as an enemy. 
 Wild beasts have now their home in the land of Chal- 
 dea; but the traveller is less afraid of them, — even of 
 the lion, — than of "the wilder animal, the desert Arab." 
 The country is frequently " totally impassable." " Those 
 splendid accounts of the Babylonian lands, yielding crops 
 of grain two or three hundred fold, compared with the 
 modern face of the country, afford a remarkable proof of 
 the singular desolation to which it has been subjected. 
 The canals at present can only be traced by their decay- 
 ed banks." 2 
 
 " The soil of the desert," says Captain Mignan, who 
 traversed it on foot, and who, in a single day, crossed 
 forty ancient water courses, "consists of a hard clay, 
 mixed with sand, which at noon becomes so heated with 
 the sun's rays, that I found it too hot to walk over it with 
 any degree of comfort. Those who have crossed those 
 desert wilds, are already acquainted with their dreary 
 tediousness even on horseback; what it is on foot they can 
 easily imagine." 3 
 
 Where astronomers first registered eclipses, and marked 
 the motions of the planetary bodies, the natives, as in the 
 deserts of Africa, or as the mariner without a compass on 
 the pathless ocean, can now direct their course only by 
 the stars, over the pathless desert of Chaldea. Where 
 cultivation reached its utmost height, and where two hun- 
 
 1 Sir R. K. Porter's Travels in Babylonia, &c. vol. ii. p. 185. 
 
 2 Mignan's Travels, p. 2. 3 Ibid. pp. 2, 31-34. 
 
456 
 
 CHALDEA. 
 
 dred fold was stated as the common produce, there is now 
 one wide and uncultivated waste; and the sower and reap- 
 er are cut off from the land of Babylon. Where abun- 
 dant stores and treasures were laid up, and annually re- 
 newed and increased, fanners have fanned, and spoilers 
 have spoiled them till they have emptied the land. Where 
 labourers, shaded by pahn-trees a hundred feet high, ir- 
 rigated the fields till all was plentifully watered from nu- 
 merous canals, the wanderer, without an object on which 
 to fix his eye, but " stinted and short lived shrubs," can 
 scarcely set his foot without pain, after the noon-day heat, 
 on the " arid and parched ground," in plodding his weary 
 way through a desert, a dry land, and a wilderness. 
 Where there were crowded thoroughfares from city to city, 
 there is now " silence and solitude;" for the ancient cities 
 of Chaldea are desolations, — where no man dwelleth, nei- 
 ther doth any son of man pass thereby. 1 
 
 1 Sin has wrought desolation in Chaldea, as finally, if unrepent- 
 ed of, it must in any and in every land. But justice shall yet 
 dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness remain in the fruitful 
 field: and — not in Judea alone, on the restoration and conversion 
 of all the house of Israel, but throughout all nations when enlight- 
 ened by the word of God, and renewed by his Spirit, moved by 
 whom the prophets spake, — the work of righteousness shall be 
 peace; and the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance for 
 ever. (Isa. xxxii. 15-17.) And it is pleasing to pause for a mo- 
 ment, and to turn from the direful retrospect of sin, judgment, 
 and desolation, which the past history of Chaldea holds up to view, 
 to a word of Scripture, (one word, if rightly interpreted, is enough,) 
 which, like a bright star in the east, shines as the harbinger of a 
 brighter day, after the long night of darkness which has rested on 
 that land which was full of wickedness, and therefore has been 
 emptied in judgment. And seemingly commencing convulsions, 
 in the war and the trial of principles, throughout the wide world, 
 that must come, — the rising " hurricane" which, controlled by the 
 Lord, shall yet sweep every moral " pestilence" from the earth, 
 
CHALDEA. 
 
 457 
 
 Her cities are desolations. The course of the Tigris 
 through Babylonia, instead of being adorned, as of old, 
 with cities and towns, is marked with the sites of " ancient 
 ruins." 1 Sitace, Sabata, Narisa, Fuchera, Sendia "no 
 longer exist." 2 A succession of multitudinal mounds, 
 crossed at right angles by others, mark the supposed site 
 of Artemita, or Destagered. Its once luxuriant gardens 
 are covered with grass; and a higher mound distinguishes 
 "the royal residence" from the ancient streets. 3 Exten- 
 sive ridges and mounds (near to Houmania,) varying in 
 height and extent, are seen branching in every direc- 
 tion."* A wall, with sixteen bastions, is the only memo- 
 rial of Apollonia. 5 The once magnificent Seleucia is now 
 a scene of desolation. There is not a single building, but 
 the country is strewed for miles with fragments of decay- 
 seem, in their beginning, to betoken that the time may not be 
 distant, when the effect of the vision shall be seen. Then said I 
 to the angel that talked with me, (Zechariah v. 10. 11,) whither do 
 these bear the ephah ? And he said unto me, To build it an house 
 in the land of Shinar; and it shall be established, and set there on 
 its own base, — in the land of Shinar, but it is not said, in the city 
 of Babylon. Building, establishing, and setting, all appear to be 
 significative of a blessing — of reconstruction on a new base, and 
 not reducible to heaps; and though the previous vision be of judg- 
 ment, he whose name is The Branch, is immediately after spoken 
 of; and., in " building the temple of the Lord," his office is re- 
 demption. But without a metaphor, it is said, and, without a 
 doubt, it shall prove true — All the ends of the earth shall see the 
 salvation of the Lord. The whole earth shall rejoice, — the wil- 
 derness and the solitary places shall be glad for them; and the 
 desert shall rejoice, and blosom as the rose. 
 
 1 See Chart prefixed to Major Keppel's Narrative. 
 
 2 Plan of the Environs of Babylon, &c. in Major Kennel's Geo- 
 graphy of Herodotus, p. 335. 
 
 3 Keppel's Narrative, vol. i. p. 267. 
 
 4 Mignan's Travels, p. 49. 5 Keppel, p. 276. 
 
458 
 
 CHALDEA. 
 
 ed buildings. " As far," says Major Keppel, " as the 
 eye could reach, the horizon presented a broken line of 
 mounds; the whole of this place was a desert flat." 1 On 
 the opposite bank of the Tigris, where Ctesiphon its rival 
 stood, besides fragments of walls and broken masses of 
 brick- work, and remains of vast structures encumbered 
 with heaps of earth, there is one magnificent monument 
 of antiquity, " in a remarkably perfect state of preserva- 
 tion," " a large and noble pile of building, the front of 
 which presents to view a wall three hundred feet in length, 
 adorned with four rows of arched recesses, with a central 
 arch, in span eighty- six feet, and above an hundred feet 
 high, supported by walls sixteen feet thick, and leading to 
 a hall which extends to the depth of one hundred and 
 fifty-six feet," the width of the building. A great part 
 of the back wall and of the roof is broken down; but 
 that which remains "still appears much larger than 
 Westminster Abbey." 3 It is supposed to have been the 
 lofty palace of Chosroes; but there desolation now reigns. 
 " On the site of Ctesiphon, the smallest insect under hea- 
 ven would not find a single blade of grass wherein to hide 
 itself, nor one drop of water to allay its thirst." 4 In the 
 rear of the palace, and attached to it, are mounds two 
 miles in circumference, indicating the utter desolation of 
 buildings, formed to minister to luxury. But, in the 
 words of Captain Mignan, " such is the extent of the ir- 
 regular mounds and hillocks that overspread the sites of 
 these renowned cities, that it would occupy some months 
 to take the bearings and dimensions of each with accu- 
 
 "6 
 
 racy. 
 
 1 Keppel's Narrative, p. 125. 2 Ibid. p. 130. 
 
 3 Mignan's Travels, p. 79. 
 
 4 Buckingham, p. 441. 5 Mignan's Travels, p. 81. 
 
CHALDEA. 
 
 459 
 
 While the ancient cities of Chaldea are thus desolate, 
 the sites of others cannot be discovered, or have not been 
 visited, as none pass thereby; the more modern cities, 
 which flourished under the empire of Califs, " are all in 
 ruins." 1 The second Bagdad has not indeed yet shared 
 the fate of the first. And Hillah — a town of compara- 
 tively modern date, near to the site of Babylon, but in 
 the gardens of which there is not the least vestige of ruins 
 — yet exists. But the former, " ransacked by massacre, 
 devastation, and oppression, during several hundred 
 years," has been " gradually reduced from being a rich 
 and powerful city, to a state of comparative poverty, and 
 the feeblest means of defence." 2 And of the inhabitants 
 of the latter, about eight or ten thousand, it is said that 
 if any thing could identify the modern inhabitants of Hil- 
 lah as the descendants of the ancient Babylonians, it 
 would be their extreme profligacy, for which they are no- 
 torious even amongst their immoral neighbours." 3 They 
 give no sign of repentance and reformation to warrant the 
 hope that judgment, so long continued upon others, will 
 cease from them; or that they are the people that shall 
 escape. Twenty years have not passed since towns in 
 Chaldea have been ravaged and pillaged by the Waha- 
 bees; and so lately as 1823, the town of Shehreban " was 
 sacked and ruined by the Coords," and reduced to deso- 
 lation. 4 Indications of ruined cities, whether of a remote 
 or more recent period, abound throughout the land. The 
 process of destruction is still completing. Gardens which 
 studded the banks of the Tigris have very recently disap- 
 
 1 Mignan's Travels, p. 82. 
 
 2 Sir R, K. Porter's Travels, vol. ii. pp. 265, 266. 
 
 3 Keppel's Narrative, vol. i. pp. 182, 183. 
 
 4 Keppel's Narrative, pp. 272, 278. 
 
460 
 
 BABYLON. 
 
 peared, and mingled with the desert, — and concerning 
 the cities also of Chaldea, the word is true that they are 
 desolations. For " the whole country is strewed over 
 with the debris of Grecian, Koman, and Arabian towns, 
 confounded in the same mass of rubbish." 1 
 
 But while these lie in indiscriminate ruins, the chief of 
 the cities of Chaldea, the first in name and in power that 
 ever existed in the world, bears many a defined mark of 
 the judgments of Heaven. 
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 FALLEN BABYLON. 
 
 The progressive and predicted decline of Babylon the 
 Great, till it ceased to be a city, has already been briefly 
 detailed. About the beginning of the Christian era a 
 small portion of it was inhabited, and the far greater part 
 was cultivated. 2 It diminished as Seleucia increased, 
 and the latter became the greater city. In the second 
 century nothing but the walls remained. It became gra- 
 dually a great desert; and in the fourth century, its walls, 
 repaired for that purpose, formed an enclosure for wild 
 beasts, and Babylon was converted into a field for the 
 chase — a hunting-place for the pastime of the Persian 
 monarchs. The name and the remnant were cut off from 
 Babylon; and there is a blank, during the interval of many 
 ages, in the history of its mutilated remains and of its 
 mouldering decay. It remained long in the possession of 
 
 1 Malte-Brun's Geography, vol. ii. p. 119. 
 
 2 Diod. Sic. torn. ii. p. 35. 
 
BABYLON. 
 
 461 
 
 the Saracens; and abundant evidence has since been 
 given, that every feature of its prophesied desolation is 
 now distinctly visible, for the most ancient historians bore 
 not a clearer testimony to facts confirmatory of the pro- 
 phecies relative to its first siege and capture by Cyrus, 
 than the latest travellers bear to the fulfilment of those 
 which refer to its final and permanent ruin. The iden- 
 tity of its site has been completely established. 1 And 
 the truth of every general and every particular predic- 
 tion is now so clearly demonstrated, that a simple exhi- 
 bition of the facts precludes the possibility of any cavil, 
 and supersedes the necessity of any reasoning on the sub- 
 ject. 
 
 It is not merely the general desolation of Babylon — 
 however much that alone would have surpassed all human 
 foresight — which the Lord declared by the mouth of his 
 prophets. In their vision, they saw not more clearly, 
 nor defined more precisely, the future history of Baby- 
 lon, from the height of its glory to the oblivion of its 
 name, than they saw and depicted fallen Babylon, as 
 now it lies, and as, in the nineteenth century of the 
 Christian era, it has for the first time been fully describ- 
 ed. 2 And now when an end has come upon Babylon, 
 after a long succession of ages has wrought out its utter 
 
 1 Rennell's Geography of Herodotus, p. 349. Keppel's Narra- 
 tive, p. 171. 
 
 2 Niebuhr, Ives, Irwin, Ottar, Evirs, Thevenot, Delia Valle, 
 Texeira, Edrisi, Abulfeda. and Balbi, were consulted by Major 
 Rennell; to these may now be added, Mr Rich, Sir Robert Ker 
 Porter, Captain Frederick, the Hon. Major Keppel, Colonel Ken- 
 nier, Mr Buckingham, and Captain Mignan, — most of whom were 
 accompanied by others. 
 
4:62 
 
 BABYLON. 
 
 desolation, both the pen and the pencil of travellers, who 
 have traversed and inspected its ruins, must be combined, 
 in order to delineate what the word of God, by the pro- 
 phets, told from the beginning that that end would be. 
 
 Truth ever scorns the discordant and encumbering aid 
 of error: but to diverge in the least from the most pre- 
 cise facts, would here weaken and destroy the argument ; 
 for the predictions correspond not closely with any thing, 
 except alone with the express and literal reality. To 
 swerve from it is, in the same degree, to vary from them: 
 and any misrepresentation would be no less hurtful than 
 iniquitous. But the actual fact renders any exaggera- 
 tion impossible, and any fiction poor. Fancy could not 
 have feigned a contrast more complete, nor a destruction 
 greater than that which has come from the Almighty up- 
 on Babylon. And though the greatest city on which the 
 sun ever shone be now a desolate wilderness, there is 
 scarcely any spot on earth more clearly defined — and 
 none could be more accurately delineated by the hands of 
 a draftsman — than the scene of Babylon's desolation is 
 set before us in the very words of the prophets; and no 
 words could now be chosen like unto those, which for two 
 thousand five hundred years have been its "burden" — 
 the burden which now it bears. 
 
 Such is the multiplicity of prophecies and the accumu- 
 lation of facts, that the very abundance of evidence in- 
 creases the difficulty of arranging them, in a condensed 
 form, and thus appropriating its specific fulfilment to each 
 precise and separate prediction ; and many of them may 
 be viewed connectedly. All who have visited Babylon 
 concur in acknowledging or testifying that the desolation 
 is exactly such as was foretold. They, in general, apply 
 
BABYLON. 
 
 463 
 
 the more prominent predictions; and, in minute details, 
 they sometimes unconsciously adopt, without any allusion 
 or reference, the words of inspiration. 
 
 Babylon is wholly desolate. It has become heaps — 
 it is cut down to the ground — brought down to the grave 
 — trodden on — uninhabited — its foundations fallen — its 
 walls thrown down, and utterly broken — its loftiest edi- 
 fices rolled down from the rocks — the golden city has 
 ceased — the worms are spread under it, and the worms 
 cover it, &c. There the Arabian pitches not his tent; 
 there the shepherds make not their folds; but wild beasts 
 of the desert He there, and their houses are full of dole- 
 ful creatures, and owls dwell there, &c. It is a posses- 
 sion for the bittern, and a dwelling-place for dragons — 
 a wilderness, a dry land and a desert — a burnt mountain 
 — pools of water — spoiled — empty — nothing left— utterly 
 destroyed — every one that goeth by it is astonished, &c, 
 &c, &c. 
 
 Babylon shall become heaps. Babylon the glory of 
 kingdoms is now the greatest of ruins. "Immense tumuli 
 of temples, palaces, and human habitations of every de- 
 scription," are everywhere seen, and form " long and 
 varied fines of ruins," which in some places " rather re- 
 semble natural hills than mounds which cover the remains 
 of great and splendid edifices. "i Those buildings which 
 were once the labour of slaves and the pride of kings, are 
 now mis-shapen heaps of rubbish. " The whole face of 
 the country is covered with vestiges of building, in some 
 places consisting of brick-walls surprisingly fresh, in 
 others, merely a vast succession of mounds of rubbish, 
 of such indeterminate figures, variety, and extent, as to 
 involve the person who should have formed any theory in 
 
 1 Porter's Travels, vol. ii. pp. 294, 297. 
 
464 
 
 BABYLON. 
 
 inextricable confusion." 1 " Long mounds running from 
 north to south, are crossed by others from east to west;" 
 and are only distinguished by their form, direction, and 
 number, from the decayed banks of canals. " The greater 
 part of the mounds are certainly the remains of buildings, 
 originally disposed in streets, and crossing each other at 
 right angles." 2 The more distinct and prominent of 
 these " heaps" are double, or lie in parallel lines, each 
 exceeding twenty feet, and " are intersected by cross pas- 
 sages, in such a manner as to place beyond a doubt the 
 fact of their being rows of houses or streets fallen into 
 decay." 3 Such was the form of the streets of Babylon, 
 leading towards the gates; and such are now the lines of 
 its heaps. " There are also, in some places, two hollow 
 channels, and three mounds, running parallel to each 
 other for a considerable distance, the central mound be- 
 ing, in such cases, a broader and flatter mass than the 
 other two, as if there had been two streets going parallel 
 to each other, the central range of houses which divided 
 them being twice the size of the others, from their being 
 double residences, with a front and door of entrance to 
 face each aveuue." " Irregular hillocks and mounds, 
 formed over masses of ruins, present at every step me- 
 morials of the past." 5 
 
 From the temple of Belus and the two royal palaces, to 
 the streets of the city and single dwellings, all have be- 
 come heaps; and the only difference or gradation now is 
 from the vast and solid masses of ruins which look like 
 mountains, to the slight mound that is scarcely elevated 
 
 1 Rich's Memoirs, p. 2. 
 
 2 Buckingham's Travels in Mesopotamia, vol. ii. p. 298. 
 
 3 Ibid. p. 299. * Ibid. p. 299. 
 5 Mignan's Travels, vol. ii. p. 116. 
 
OF BABYLON. 
 
 465 
 
 above the plain. Babylon is fallen, literally fallen to 
 such a degree that those who stand on its site and look 
 on numerous parallel mounds, with a hoUow space be- 
 tween, are sometimes at a loss to distinguish between the 
 remains of a street or a canal, or to tell where the crowds 
 frequented, or where the waters flowed. Babylon is fall- 
 en, till its ruins cannot fall lower than they lie. It is 
 cut down to the ground. Her foundations are fallen; 
 and the ruins rest not on them. Its palaces, temples, 
 streets, and houses, lie " buried in shapeless heaps." 1 
 And " the view of Babylon," as taken from the spot, is 
 truly a picture of utter desolation, presenting its heaps to 
 the eye, and showing how, as if literaUy buried under 
 them, Babylon is brought down to the grave. 
 
 Cast her up as heaps. Mr Eich, in describing a grand 
 heap of ruins, the shape of which is nearly a square of 
 seven hundred yards in length and breadth, states that 
 the workmen pierce into it in every direction, in search 
 of bricks, "hollowing out deep ravines and pits, and 
 throwing up the rubbish in heaps on the surface." 2 " The 
 summit of the Kasr," (supposed to have been the lesser 
 palace,) is in like manner "covered witb heaps of rub- 
 bish:' 
 
 Let nothing of her be left. « Vast heaps constitute all 
 that now remains of ancient Babylon." 3 All its gran- 
 deur is departed; all its treasures have been spoiled; all 
 its excellence has utterly vanished ; the very heaps are 
 searched for bricks when nothing else can be found; even 
 these are not left wherever they can be taken away, and 
 Babylon has for ages been « a quarry above ground," 
 
 1 Porter's Travels, p. 294. 2 Rich > a Memoirs, p. 22. 
 
 3 Keppel's Narrative, p. 196. 
 
 2 H 
 
466 
 
 THE DESOLATION 
 
 ready to the hand of every successive despoiler. With- 
 out the most remote allusion to this prophecy, Captain 
 Mignan describes a mound attached to the palace, ninety 
 yards in breadth by half that height, the whole of which 
 is deeply furrowed in the same manner as the generality 
 of the mounds. " The ground is extremely soft, and tire- 
 some to walk over, and appears completely exhausted of 
 all its building materials: nothing now is left save one 
 towering hill, the earth of which is mixed with fragments 
 of broken brick, red varnished pottery, tile, bitumen, mor- 
 tar, glass, shells, and pieces of mother of pearl," 1 — worth- 
 less fragments, of no value to the poorest. From thence 
 shall she be taken — let nothing of her be left. One tra- 
 veller, towards the end of last century, passed over the 
 site of ancient Babylon, without being conscious of hav- 
 ing traversed it. 2 
 
 Bbaylon shall be pools of water. While the workmen 
 cast her up as heaps in piling up the rubbish while exca- 
 vating for bricks, that they may take them from thence, 
 and that nothing may be left, they labour more than tre- 
 bly in the fulfilment of prophecy, for the numerous and 
 deep excavations form pools of water, on the overflowing 
 of the Euphrates, and, annually filled, they are not dried 
 up throughout the year. " Deep cavities are also formed 
 by the Arabs, when digging for hidden treasure." 3 " The 
 ground is sometimes covered with pools of water in the 
 hollows." 
 
 1 Mignan's Travels, pp. 190, 200. 
 
 2 Transactions of the Literary Society at Bombay, vol. i. p. 130. 
 Note, Cunningham's Journey to India, 1785. 
 
 3 Mignan's Travels, p. 213. 
 
 4 Buckingham's Travels, vol. ii. p. 296. Keppel's Travels, vol. i. 
 p. 125. 
 
OF BABYLON. 
 
 467 
 
 Sit on the dust, sit on the ground, 0 daughter of the 
 Chaldeans. The surface of the mounds which form all 
 that remains of Babylon, consists of decomposed build- 
 ings, reduced to dust ; and over all the ancient streets 
 and habitations, there is literally nothing but the dust or 
 the ground on which to sit. 
 
 Thy nakedness shall he uncovered. " Our path," 
 says Captain Mignan, " lay through the great mass of 
 ruined heaps on the site of ' shrunken Babylon.' And I 
 am perfectly incapable of conveying an adequate idea of 
 the dreary, lonely nakedness that appeared before me." 1 
 
 Sit thou silent, and get thee into darkness. There, 
 reigns throughout the ruins " a silence profound as the 
 grave. "2 Babylon is now a " silent scene, a sublime so- 
 litude." 3 
 
 It shall never be inhabited, nor dwelt in from genera- 
 tion to generation. From Eauwolff's testimony it ap- 
 pears that in the sixteenth century " there was not a 
 house to be seen." 4 And now "the eye wanders over a 
 barren desert in which the ruins are nearly the only in- 
 dication that it ever had been inhabited." " It is im- 
 possible," adds Major Keppel, " to behold this scene and 
 not to be reminded how exactly the predictions of Isaiah 
 and Jeremiah have been fulfilled, even in the appearance 
 Babylon was doomed to present, that she should never be 
 inhabited; that the ' Arabian should not pitch his tent 
 there;' that she should ' become heaps;' that her cities 
 should be ' a desolation, a dry land, and a wilderness.'" 5 
 "Babylon is spurned alike by the heel of the Ottomans, 
 the Israelites, and the sons of Ishmael." 6 It is "a 
 
 1 Mignan's Travels, p. 116. 
 
 2 Porter's Travels, vol. ii. p. 294. 3 jb. p 407 t Ib m> 
 5 Keppel's Narrative, vol. i. p. 107. e j b $34 
 
468 
 
 THE DESOLATION 
 
 tenanthss and desolate metropolis." 1 It shall not be in- 
 habited but be wholly desolate. 
 
 Neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there; neither 
 shall the shepherds make their folds there. It was pro- 
 phesied of Amnion that it should be a stable for camels 
 and a couching-place for flocks; and of Philistia, that it 
 should be cottages for shepherds, and a pasture for flocks. 
 But Babylon was to be visited with a far greater desola- 
 tion, and to become unfit or unsuiting even for such a pur- 
 pose. And that neither a tent would be pitched there, 
 even by an Arab, nor a fold made by a shepherd, implies 
 the last degree of solitude and desolation. " It is com- 
 mon in these parts for shepherds to make use of ruined 
 edifices to shelter their flocks in." 2 But Babylon is an 
 exception. Instead of taking the bricks/rom thence, the 
 shepherd might with facility erect a defence from wild 
 beasts, and make a fold for his flock amidst the heaps of 
 Babylon; and the Arab who fearlessly traverses it by 
 day, might pitch his tent by night. But neither the one 
 nor the other could now be persuaded to remain a single 
 night among the ruins. The superstitious dread of evil 
 spirits, far more than the natural terror of the wild beasts, 
 effectually prevents them. Captain Mignan was accom- 
 panied by six Arabs, completely armed, but he " could not 
 induce them to remain towards night, from the appre- 
 hension of evil spirits. It is impossible to eradicate this 
 idea from the minds of these people, who are very deeply 
 imbued with superstition." And when the sun sunk behind 
 the Mujelibe, and the moon would have still lighted his 
 way among the ruins, it was with infinite regret that he 
 obeyed " the summons of his guides." 3 " All the people 
 of the country assert that it is extremely dangerous to 
 J Mignan's Travels, p. 108. 3 lb. p. 235. 3 lb. pp. 201, 235. 
 
OF BABYLON. 
 
 469 
 
 approach this mound after night-fall, on account of the 
 multitude of evil spirits hy which it is haunted." 1 Nei- 
 ther shall the Arabian pitch tent there; neither shall the 
 shepherds make their folds there. But 
 
 Wild beasts of the desert shall lie there, and their 
 houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and owls shall 
 dwell there, and satyrs (goats) shall dance there, &c. 
 " There are many dens of wild beasts in various parts. 
 There are quantities of porcupine quills" (kephud?). And 
 while the lower excavations are often pools of water, " in 
 most of the cavities are numbers of bats and owls."' 2, 
 " These soutterains (caverns,) over which the chambers of 
 majesty may have been spread, are now the refuge of 
 jackalls and other savage animals. The mouths of their 
 entrances are strewed with the bones of sheep and goats: 
 and the loathsome smell that issues from most of them is 
 sufficient warning not to proceed into the den." 3 The 
 king of the forest now ranges over the site of that Baby- 
 lon which Nebuchadnezzar built for his own glory. And 
 the temple of Belus, the greatest work of man, is now 
 like unto a natural den of lions. '* Two or three majes- 
 tic lions" were seen upon its heights, by Sir Robert Ker 
 Porter, as he was approaching it ; and " the broad prints 
 of their feet were left plain in the clayey soil." 4 Major 
 Keppel saw there a similar foot-print of a lion. It is 
 also the unmolested retreat of jackalls, hyenas, and other 
 noxious animals. 5 Wild beasts are " numerous" at the 
 Mujelibe, as well as on Birs Nimrood. " The mound 
 was full of large holes; we entered some of them, and 
 found them strewed with the carcases and skeletons of 
 
 1 Rich's Mem. p. 27. Buckingham's Travels, v. ii. p. 397. 
 
 2 Ibid. p. 30. 3 Sir R. K. Porter's Travels, vol. ii. p. 342. 
 * Ibid. p. 387. 5 Kinnier's Memoirs, p. 279. 
 
470 
 
 THE DESOLATION 
 
 animals recently killed. The ordure of wild beasts was 
 so strong that prudence got the better of curiosity, for we 
 had no doubt as to the savage nature of the inhabitants. 
 Our guides, indeed, told us that all the ruins abounded 
 in lions and Other wild beasts; so literally has the Divine 
 prediction been fulfilled, that wild beasts of the desert 
 should lie there, and their houses be full of doleful crea- 
 tures; that the wild beast of the islands shall cry in their 
 desolate houses." 1 
 
 The sea is come upon Babylon. She is covered with 
 the multitude of the waves thereof. The traces of the 
 western bank of the Euphrates are now no longer discer- 
 nible. The river overflows unrestrained; and very ruins, 
 " with every appearance of the embankment," have been 
 swept away. " The ground there is low and marshy, and 
 presents not the slightest vestige of former buildings, of 
 any description whatever." 2 " Morasses and ponds track- 
 ed the ground in various parts. For a long time after 
 the general subsiding of the Euphrates, great part of this 
 plain is little better than a swamp," &c. 3 " The ruins of 
 Babylon are then inundated, so as to render many parts 
 of them inaccessible, by converting the valleys among 
 them into morasses." 4 But while Babylon is thus co- 
 vered with the multitude of waves and the waters come 
 upon it, yet, in striking contrast and seeming contradic- 
 tion to such a feature of desolation, (like the formation of 
 pools of water from the casting up of heaps,) at all times 
 the elevated sun-burnt ruins, which the waters do not 
 overflow, and generally throughout the year, the " dry 
 
 1 Keppel's Narrative, vol. i. pp. 179, 180. 
 
 2 Buckingham's Travels, vol. ii. p. 278. 
 
 3 Sir K. K. Porter's Travels, vol. ii. pp. 389, 390. 
 
 4 Rich's Memoir, p. 13. 
 
OF BABYLON. 
 
 471 
 
 waste, and parched and burning plain/' 1 on which the 
 heaps of Babylon lie, equally prove that it is a desert, 
 a dry land, and a wilderness. One part, even on the 
 western side of the river, is " low and marshy, and another 
 an arid desert." 2 
 
 It shall never be inhabited. It shall be utterly desolate. 
 " Euins composed, like those of Babylon, of heaps of rub- 
 bish impregnated with nitre, cannot be cultivated." 3 
 " The decomposing materials of a Babylonian structure 
 doom the earth on which they perish to everlasting steri- 
 lity. — On this part of the plain, both where traces of build- 
 ings were left, and where none had stood, all seemed 
 equally naked of vegetation; the whole ground appearing 
 as if it had been washed over and over again, by the com- 
 ing and receding waters, till every bit of genial soil was 
 swept away; its half-clay, half-sandy surface being left in 
 ridgy streaks, like what is often seen on the flat shores of 
 the sea after the retreating of the tide." 4 Babylon, which 
 in its pride did say, I shall be a lady for ever, is no more 
 called the lady of kingdoms, but is desolate for ever. 
 
 Bel boweth down. The temple of Belus or Baal, here 
 evidently spoken of, was a stadium, or furlong in height, 
 computed by Major Bennell at five hundred, and by Pri- 
 deaux at six hundred feet. By the lowest computation 
 it was higher than the greatest pyramids. The highest of 
 the heaps which now constitute fallen Babylon, is the Birs 
 Nimrood, generally supposed to have been the temple of 
 Belus. The heap occupies a larger space of ground than 
 that on which the temple stood, having spread in felling 
 
 1 Buckingham's Travels, vol. ii. pp. 302, 305. 
 
 2 Mignan's Travels, p. 139, Plan. 3 Rich's Memoir, p. 16. 
 4 Sir R. K. Porter's Travels, vol. ii. p. 392. 
 
472 
 
 THE DESOLATION 
 
 down, beyond its original base. It rests not now upon 
 its ancient foundations, but lies upon the earth, an enor- 
 mous mass of ruin. " At first sight it presents the ap- 
 pearance of a hill, with a castle at the top," 1 so as not 
 only to deceive the eye in beholding it at a distance, or 
 in looking on its picture; but, " incredible as it may seem, 
 the ruins on the summit of it are actually those spoken of 
 by Pere Emmanuel, who takes no sort of notice of the 
 prodigious mound on which they are elevated. It is al- 
 most needless to observe, that the whole of the mound is 
 itself a ruin;" 2 and it is altogether needless to add another 
 word, to show that it is bowed down, as may be seen by 
 the sketch here inserted, of the comparative ancient and 
 modern height annexed to the Plan of Birs Nimrood, in 
 Sir Eobert Ker Porter's Travels. 3 
 
 ELEVATION OF BIRS NIMROOD (NORTH FACE) ACCORDING TO STRABO 
 AND HERODOTUS. 
 
 The dotted lines 
 show the present 
 remains. 
 
 'Jet* 
 
 PLAN OF BIRS NIMROOD. 
 
 Bel is confounded. Originally constructed of eight 
 successive towers, one rising above another, it is now 
 
 1 Mignan's Travels, p. 192. 
 
 2 Rkh'a Memoir, p. 37. 3 Vol. ii. p. 323. 
 
OF BABYLON. 
 
 473 
 
 consolidated into one irregular hill, presenting a different 
 aspect and of different altitudes on every side, — a con- 
 fused and misshapen mass. " The eastern face presents 
 two stages of hill; the first showing an elevation of ahout 
 sixty feet cloven in the middle into a deep ravine, and 
 intersected in all directions by furrows channelled there 
 by the descending rains of succeeding ages. The sum- 
 mit of this first stage stretches in rather a flattened sweep 
 to the base of the second ascent, which springs out of the 
 first in a steep and abrupt conical form, terminated on the 
 top by a solitary standing fragment of brick- work, like 
 the ruin of a tower. From the foundation of the whole 
 pile to the base of this piece of ruin, measures about two 
 hundred feet, and from the bottom of the ruin to its shat- 
 tered top are thirty-five feet. On the western side, the 
 entire mass rises at once from the plain in one stupend- 
 ous, though irregular, pyramidal hill, broken, in the slopes 
 of its sweeping acclivities, by the devastations of time and 
 rougher destruction. The southern and northern fronts 
 are particularly abrupt." 1 Such, and so confounded is now 
 the temple of Belus. 
 
 / will stretch out mine hand upon thee, and roll thee 
 down from the rocks, and will make thee a burnt moun- 
 tain. On the summits of the hill are " immense frag- 
 ments of brick- work of no determinate figures, tumbled 
 together, and converted into solid vitrified masses." 2 
 " Some of these huge fragments measured twelve feet in 
 height, by twenty-four in circumference; and from the 
 circumstance of the standing brick- work having remained 
 in a perfect state, the change exhibited in these is only 
 
 1 Sir R. K. Porter's Travels, vol. ii. p. 310. 
 
 2 Rich's Memoirs, p. 36. 8 Mignan's Travels, p. 207. 
 
474: 
 
 THE DESOLATION 
 
 accountable from their having been exposed to the fiercest 
 fire, or rather, scathed by lightning" 1 " They are com- 
 pletely molten — a strong presumption that fire was used 
 in the destruction of the tower, which in part resembles 
 what the Scriptures prophesied it should become, ' a 
 burnt mountain.' In the denunciation respecting Baby- 
 lon, fire is particularly mentioned as an agent against it. 
 To this Jeremiah evidently alludes, when he says that it 
 should be, ' as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomor- 
 rah,' on which cities it is said, ' the Lord rained brim- 
 stone and fire.' — ' Her high gates shall be burnt with fire, 
 and the people shall labour in vain, and the folk in the 
 fire, and they shall be weary."' 2 "In many of these 
 immense unshapen masses, might be traced the gradual 
 effects of the consuming power, which had produced so 
 remarkable an appearance; exhibiting parts burnt to that 
 variegated dark hue, seen in the vitrified matter lying 
 about in glass manufactories; while, through the whole 
 of these awful testimonies of the fire, (whatever fire it was !) 
 which, doubtless, hurled them from their original eleva- 
 tion," {I will roll thee down from the rocks,) " the regu- 
 lar fines of the cement are visible, and so hardened in 
 common with the bricks, that when masses are struck 
 they ring like glass. On examining the base of the 
 standing wall, contiguous to these huge transmuted sub- 
 stances, it is found tolerably free from any similar changes, 
 in short, quite in its original state; hence," continues Sir 
 Eobert Ker Porter, " I draw the conclusion, that the 
 consuming power acted from above, and that the scatter- 
 ed ruin fell from some higher point than the summit of 
 the present standing fragment. The heat of the fire 
 1 Mignan's Travels, p. 207. Keppel's Narrative, pp. 194, 195. 
 
OF BABYLON. 
 
 475 
 
 which produced such amazing effects, must have hurned 
 with the force of the strongest furnace; and from the ge- 
 neral appearance of the cleft in the wall, and these vitri- 
 fied masses, I should he induced to attribute the catas- 
 trophe to lightning from heaven. Euins, by the explo- 
 sion of consumable matter, would have exhibited very dif- 
 ferent appearances." 1 
 
 " The fallen masses bear evident proof of the operation 
 of fire having been continued on them, as well after they 
 were broken down as before, since every part of their sur- 
 face has been so equally exposed to it, that many of them 
 have acquired a rounded form, and in none can the place 
 of separation from its adjoining one be traced by any ap- 
 pearance of superior freshness, or any exemption from the 
 influence of destroying flame." 2 
 
 The high gates of the temple of Belus, which were 
 standing in the time of Herodotus, have been burnt with 
 fire; the vitrified masses, which fell when Bel bowed down, 
 rest on the top of its stupendous ruins. The hand of the 
 Lord has been stretched upon it; it has been rolled down 
 from the rocks, and has been made a burnt mountain, — 
 of which it was further prophesied, 
 
 They shall not take of thee a stone for a corner, nor 
 a stone for foundations, but thou shalt be desolate for ever, 
 saith the Lord. The old wastes of Zion shall be built ; 
 its former desolations shall be raised up; and Jerusalem 
 shall be inhabited again in her own place, even in Jeru- 
 salem. But it shall not be with Bel as with Zion, nor 
 with Babylon as with Jerusalem. For as the " heaps of 
 rubbish, impregnated with nitre," which cover the site of 
 
 1 Sir Robert Ker Porter's Travels, vol. ii. pp. 312, 313. 
 
 2 Buckingham's Travels, vol. ii. p. 375. 
 
476 
 
 THE DESOLATION 
 
 Babylon, "cannot be cultivated/' 1 so tbe vitrified masses 
 on the summit of Birs Nimrood cannot be rebuilt. 
 Though still they be of the hardest substance, and inde- 
 structible by the elements, and though once they formed 
 the highest pinnacles of Belus, yet incapable of being 
 hewn into any regular form, they neither are, nor can now 
 be taken for a comer or for foundations. And the bricks 
 on the solid fragments of wall, which rest on the summit, 
 though neither scathed nor molten, are so firmly cement- 
 ed, that according to Mr Bich, " it is nearly impossible 
 to detach any of them whole;" 2 or, as Captain Mignan 
 still more forcibly states, " they are so firmly cemented, 
 that it is utterly impossible to detach any of them." 3 
 " My most violent attempts," says Sir Robert Ker Por- 
 ter, " could not separate them;" 4 and Mr Buckingham, 
 in assigning reasons for lessening the wonder at the total 
 disappearance of the walls at this distant period, and 
 speaking of the Birs Nimrood generally, observes, that, 
 " the burnt bricks (the only ones sought after) which are 
 found in the Mujelibe, the Kasr, and the Birs Nimrood, 
 the only three great monuments in which there are any 
 traces of their having been used, are so difficult, in the 
 two last indeed so impossible, to be extracted whole, from 
 the tenacity of the cement in which they are laid, that 
 they could never have been resorted to while any consi- 
 derable portion of the walls existed to furnish an easier 
 supply; even now, though some portion of the mounds on 
 the eastern bank of the river" (the Birs is on the western 
 side) " are occasionally dug into for bricks, they are not 
 extracted without a comparatively great expense, and very 
 
 1 Rich's Memoirs, p. 16. 2 Ibid. p. 36. 
 
 3 Mignan's Travels, p. 206. 4 Travels, vol. ii. p. 311. 
 
OF BABYLON. 
 
 477 
 
 few of them whole, in proportion to the great number of 
 fragments that come up with them. 1 Around the tower 
 there is not a single whole brick to be seen. 2 
 
 These united testimonies, given without allusion to the 
 prediction, afford a better than any conjectural commen- 
 tary, such as previously was given without reference to 
 these facts. 
 
 While of Babylon, in general, it is said that it would 
 be taken from thence; and while, in many places, nothing 
 is left, yet, of the burnt mountain, which forms an accu- 
 mulation of ruins enough in magnitude to build a city, 
 men do not take a stone for foundations nor a stone for 
 a corner. Having undergone the action of the fiercest 
 fire, and being completely molten, the masses on the 
 summit of Bel, on which the hand of the Lord has been 
 stretched, cannot be reduced into any other form or sub- 
 stance, nor be built up again by the hand of man. And 
 the tower of Babel, afterwards the temple of Belus, which 
 witnessed the first dispersion of mankind, shall itself be 
 witnessed by the latest generation, even as now it stands 
 desolate for ever, — an indestructible monument of human 
 pride and folly, and of divine judgment and truth. The 
 greatest of the ruins, as once of the edifices of Babylon, 
 is rolled down into a vast, indiscriminate, cloven, con- 
 founded, useless, and blasted mass, from which fragments 
 might be hurled with as little injury to the ruined heap, 
 as from a bare and rocky mountain's side. Such is the 
 triumph of the word of the living God over the proudest 
 of the temples of Baal. 
 
 Merodach is broken in pieces. Merodach was a name 
 
 1 Buckingham's Travels, vol. ii. p. 332. 
 
 2 Porter's Travels, vol. ii. p. 329. 
 
478 
 
 THE DESOLATION 
 
 or title common to the princes and kings of Babylon, of 
 which, in the brief Scriptural references to their history, 
 two instances are recorded, viz. Merodach-Baladan the 
 son of Baladan, king of Babylon, who exercised the office 
 of government, and Evil-Merodach, who lived in the days 
 of J eremiah. From Merodach being here associated with 
 Bel, or the temple of Belus, and from the similarity of 
 their judgments — the one bowed down and confounded, 
 and the other broken in pieces — it may reasonably be in- 
 ferred that some other famous Babylonian building is here 
 also denoted ; while, at the same time, the express identity 
 of the name with that of the kings of Babylon, and even 
 with Evil-Merodach, then residing there, it may with 
 equal reason be inferred that, under the name of Mero- 
 dach, the palace is spoken of by the prophet. And next 
 to the idolatrous temple, as the seat of false worship which 
 corrupted and destroyed the nations, it may well be ima- 
 gined that the royal residence of the despot who oppressed 
 the people of Israel, and made the earth to tremble, would 
 be selected as the marked object of the righteous judg- 
 ments of God. And secondary only to the Birs Nimrood, 
 in the greatness of its ruins, is the Mujelibe or Makloube, 
 generally understood and described by travellers as the 
 remains of the chief palace of Babylon. 
 
 The palace of the king of Babylon almost vied with the 
 great temple of their god. And there is now some con- 
 troversy, in which of the principal mountainous heaps the 
 one or the other lies buried. But the utter desolation 
 of both leaves no room for any debate on the question, — 
 which of the twain is bowed down and confounded, and 
 which of them is broken in pieces. 
 
 The two palaces, or castles of Babylon were strongly 
 
m I 
 t i 
 
 s i 
 
 &3 I 
 
OF BABYLON. 
 
 479 
 
 fortified. And the larger was surrounded by three walls 
 of great extent. 1 When the city was suddenly taken by 
 Demetrius, he seized on one of the castles by surprise, and 
 displaced its garrison by seven thousand of his own troops, 
 whom he stationed within it. 2 Of the other he could not 
 make himself master. Their extent and strength, at a 
 period of three hundred years after the delivery of the 
 prophecy, are thus sufficiently demonstrated. The soli- 
 dity of the structure of the greater, as well as of the les- 
 ser palace, might have warranted the belief of its un- 
 broken durability for ages. And never was there a 
 building whose splendour and magnificence were in greater 
 contrast to its present desolation. The vestiges of the 
 walls which surrounded it are still to be seen, and serve 
 with other circumstances to identify it with the Mujelibe, 
 as the name Merodach is identified with the palace. It 
 is broken in pieces, and hence its name Mujelibe, signi- 
 fying overturned, or turned upside down. Its circum- 
 ference is about half a mile; its height one hundred and 
 forty feet. But it is " a mass of confusion, none of its 
 members being distinguishable. " 3 The existence of cham- 
 bers, passages, and cellars, of different forms and sizes, 
 and built of different materials, has been fully ascertained. 4 
 It is the receptacle of wild beasts, and full of doleful 
 fereatures: wild beasts cry in the desolate houses, and 
 dragons in the pleasant palaces; " venomous reptiles 
 being very numerous throughout the ruins." 6 "All the 
 sides are worn into furrows by the weather, and in some 
 places where several channels of rain have united together, 
 
 1 Diodor. Sic. lib. ii. p. 29. Herod, lib. i. cap. ckxxi. 
 
 2 Plutarch's Life of Demetrius. 
 
 3 Delia Valle. See Univ. Hist. vol. i. p. 135. Buckingham's 
 Travels, vol. ii. p. 273. 
 
 4 Ibid - P- 274. 5 Mignan's Travels, p. 168. 
 
480 
 
 THE DESOLATION 
 
 these furrows are of great depth, and penetrate a consi- 
 derable way into the mound, "i <* The sides of the ruin 
 exhibit hollows worn partly by the weather." 2 It is brought 
 down to the grave, to the sides of the pit. 
 
 They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and 
 consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth 
 to tremble, that did shake kingdoms ? Narrowly to look 
 on and to consider even the view of the Mujelibe, is to 
 see what the palace of Babylon, in which kings, proud as 
 " Lucifer," boasted of exalting themselves above the 
 " stars of God," has now become, and how, cut down to 
 the ground, it is broken in pieces.* 
 
 " On pacing over the loose stones and fragments of 
 brick- work which lay scattered through the immense fa- 
 bric, and surveying the sublimity of the ruins," says Cap- 
 tain Mignan, " I naturally recurred to the time when 
 these walls stood proudly in their original splendour, — 
 when the halls were the scenes of festive magnificence, 
 and when they resounded to the voices of those whom 
 
 1 Rich's Memoirs, p. 29. 2 Mignan's Travels, p. 167. 
 
 3 By the kindness of Sir Robert Ker Porter's family, in his ab- 
 sence abroad, the author was presented with the original drawings 
 of the Birs Nimrood and Mujelibe, for engravings, as here inserted. 
 His Travels in Persia, Babylonia, <Scc. contain four views of each, 
 which show how, on every side, they are bowed down and broken in 
 pieces. Small engravings of them are also inserted in Mines de 
 V Orient, Vienne; in Rich's Memoirs on the Ruins of Babylon, and 
 in Mr Buckingham's Travels. There is a view of each in Captain 
 Mignan's Travels. The curious reader may contrast the Mujelibe 
 with Martin's splendid picture of " Belshazzar's Feast." The place, 
 no longer a palace, is the same. Every child is familiar with the 
 common picture of the temple of Belus, the ancient magnificence 
 of which could not well be exaggerated, any more than the faint- 
 est resemblance to its ancient splendour could be recognised in 
 what it now is — the Birs Nimrood. 
 
OF BABYLON". 
 
 481 
 
 death has long since swept from the earth. This very 
 pile was once the seat of luxury and vice; now abandoned 
 to decay, and exhibiting a melancholy instance of the re- 
 tribution of Heaven. It stands alone; — the solitary habi- 
 tation of the goat-herd marks not the forsaken site." 1 
 Thy pomp is brought down to the grave, and the noise of 
 thy viols; the worms are spread under thee, and the worms 
 cover thee. 
 
 Thou art cast out of thy grave like an abominable 
 branch, and as the raiment of those that are slain, thrust 
 through with a sword, that go down to the stones of the pit; 
 as a carcass trodden under feet. " Several deep excava- 
 tions have been made in different places, into the sides of 
 the Mujelibe: some probably by the wearing of the sea- 
 sons; but many others have been dug up by the rapacity 
 of the Turks, tearing up its bowels in search of hidden 
 treasure," — as if the palace of Babylon were cast out of 
 its grave. " Several penetrate very far into the body of 
 the structure," till it has become as the raiment of those 
 that are slain, thrust through with a sword. " And some, 
 it is likely, have never yet been explored, the wild beasts 
 of the desert literally keeping guard over them." 2 " The 
 mound was full of large holes" 3 — thrust through. 
 
 Near to the Mujelibe, on the supposed site of the hang- 
 ing gardens, which were situated within the walls of the 
 palace, " the ruins are so perforated, in consequence of 
 the digging for bricks, that the original design is entirely 
 lost. All that could favour any conjecture of gardens 
 built on terraces, are two subterranean passages. There 
 can be no doubt that both passages are of vast extent; 
 
 1 Mignan's Travels, pp. 172, 173. 
 
 2 Sir R. K. Porter's Travels, vol. ii. p. 343. 
 
 3 Keppel's Travels, vol. i. p. 179. 
 
 2i 
 
482 
 
 THE DESOLATION 
 
 they are lined with bricks laid in with bitumen and co- 
 vered over with large masses of stone. This is nearly the 
 only place where stone is observable." 1 Arches built up- 
 on arches raised the hanging gardens from terrace to 
 terrace, till the highest was on a level with the top of the 
 city walls. Now they are cast out like an abominable 
 branch — and subterranean passages are disclosed, — down 
 to the stones of the pit. 
 
 As a carcass trodden under feet. The streets of Baby- 
 lon were parallel, crossed by others at right angles, and 
 abounded with houses three and four stories high; 2 and 
 none can now traverse the site of Babylon, or find any 
 other path, without treading them under foot. The tra- 
 veller directs his course to the highest mounds; and there 
 are none, whether temples or palaces, that are not trod- 
 den on. The Mujelibe " rises in a steep ascent, over 
 which the passengers can only go up by the winding 
 paths worn by frequent visits to the ruined edifice. "s 
 
 Her idols are confounded, her images are broken in 
 pieces: all the graven images of her gods he hath brok- 
 en unto the ground. " This place," says Beauchamp, 
 quoted by Major Bennel, " and the mount of Babel, are 
 commonly called by the Arabs Makloube, that is, turned 
 topsy-turvy. I was informed by the master-mason, em- 
 ployed to dig for bricks, that the places from which he 
 procured them were large thick walls, and sometimes 
 chambers. He has frequently found earthen vessels, en- 
 graved marbles, and about eight years ago, a statue as 
 large as life, which he threw among the rubbish. On one 
 wall of the chamber, he found the figure of a cow, and of 
 the sun and moon, formed of varnished bricks. Some- 
 
 1 Keppel's Travels, vol. i. p. 205. 2 Herod, lib. i. cap. clxxx. 
 3 Buckingham's Travels, vol. ii. p. 258. 
 
OF BABYLON. 
 
 483 
 
 times idols of clay are found, representing human figures." 1 
 " Small figures of brass or copper are found at Baby- 
 lon." 2 " Bronze antiquities, generally much corroded 
 with rust, but exhibiting small figures of men and ani- 
 mals, are often found among the ruins," 3 or broken unto 
 the ground. 
 
 The broad walls of Babylon shall be utterly broken. 
 They were so broad, that, as ancient historians relate, six 
 chariots could be driven on them abreast ; or a chariot 
 and four horses might pass and turn. They existed, as 
 walls, for more than a thousand years after the prophecy 
 was delivered ; and long after the sentence of utter de- 
 struction had gone forth against them, they were num- 
 bered among "the seven wonders of the world." And 
 what can be more wonderful now, or what could have 
 been more inconceivable by man, when Babylon was in 
 its strength and glory, than that the broad walls of Ba- 
 bylon should be so utterly broken, that it cannot be de- 
 termined with certainty that even the slightest vestige of 
 them exists? 
 
 "All accounts agree," says Mr Eich, "in the height 
 of the walls, which was fifty cubits, having been reduced 
 to these dimensions from the prodigious height of three 
 hundred and fifty feet," (formerly stated, by the lowest 
 computation of the length of the cubit, at three hundred 
 feet,) " by Darius Hystaspes, after the rebellion of the 
 town, in order to render it less defensible. I have not 
 been fortunate enough to discover the least trace of them 
 in any part of the ruins at Hillah; which is rather an 
 unaccountable circumstance, considering that they sur- 
 vived the final ruin of the town, long after which they 
 
 1 Rennel's Geography of Herodotus, p. 362. 
 
 2 Rich's Second Memoir, p. 58. 3 Mignan's Travels, p. 229. 
 
484: 
 
 THE DESOLATION 
 
 served as an enclosure for a park; in which compara- 
 tively perfect state St Jerome informs us they remained 
 in his time." 1 
 
 In the sixteenth century they were seen for the last 
 time by an European traveller, (so far as the author has 
 been able to trace,) before they were finally so utterly 
 broken as totally to disappear. And it is interesting to 
 mark both the time and the manner in which the walls of 
 Babylon, like the city of which they were the impregna- 
 ble yet unavailing defence, were brought down to the 
 grave, to be seen no more. 
 
 " The mean while," as KauwolfT describes them, " when 
 we were lodged there, I considered and viewed this ascent, 
 and found that there were two behind one another," 
 (Herodotus states that there was both an inner, or infe- 
 rior, and outer wall) 2 " distinguished by a ditch, and ex- 
 tending themselves like unto two parallel walls a great 
 way about, and that they were open in some places, where 
 one may go through like gates; wherefore I believe that 
 they were the wall of the old town that went about them; 
 and that the places where they were open have been an- 
 ciently the gates (whereof there were one hundred) of 
 that town. And this the rather because I saw in some 
 places under the sand (wherewith the two ascents were 
 almost covered) the old wall plainly appear." 3 
 
 The cities of Seleucia, Ctesiphon, Destagered, Kufa, 
 and anciently many others in the vicinity, together with 
 the more modern towns of Mesched Ali, Mesched Hus- 
 sein, and Hillah, "with towns, villages, and caravan- 
 saries without number;" 4 have, in all probability, been 
 
 1 Rich's Memoirs, pp. 43, 44. 
 
 2 Lib. i. c. 181. 3 Ray's Collection of Travels, pp. 177, 178. 
 4 Sir R. K. Porter's Travels, vol. ii. p. 338. 
 
OF BABYLON. 
 
 485 
 
 chiefly built out of the walls of Babylon. Like the city j 
 the walls have been taken from thence, till none of them 
 are left. The rains of many hundred years, and the wa- 
 ters coming upon them annually by the overflowing of 
 the Euphrates, have also, in all likelihood, washed down 
 the dust and rubbish from the broken and dilapidated 
 walls into the ditch from which they were originally 
 taken, till at last the sand of the parched desert has 
 smoothed them into a plain, and added the place where 
 they stood to the wilderness, so that the broad walls of 
 Babylon are utterly broken. And now, as the subjoined 
 evidence, supplementary of what has already been adduced, 
 fully proves, — it may verily be said that the loftiest wall 
 ever built by man, as well as the " greatest city on which 
 the sun ever shone," which these walls surrounded, and 
 the most fertile of countries, of which Babylon the great 
 was the capital and the glory, — have all been swept by 
 the Lord of Hosts with the besom of destruction. 
 
 A chapter of sixty pages in length, of Mr Bucking- 
 ham's Travels in Mesopotamia, is entitled, " Search after 
 the wall of Babylon." After a long and fruitless search, 
 he discovered on the eastern boundary of the ruins, on 
 the summit of an oval mound from seventy to eighty feet 
 in height, and from three to four hundred feet in circum- 
 ference, " a mass of solid wall, about thirty feet in length, 
 by twelve or fifteen in thickness, yet evidently once of 
 much greater dimensions each way, the work being, in 
 its present state, broken and incomplete in every part:" 1 
 and this heap of ruin and fragment of wall he conjectured 
 to be a part — the only part, if such it be, that can be 
 discovered — of the walls of Babylon, so utterly are they 
 1 Buckingham's Travels, vol. ii. pp. 206, 307. 
 
486 
 
 THE DESOLATION 
 
 broken. Beyond this there is not even a pretension to 
 the discovery of any part of them. 
 
 Captain Frederick, of whose journey it was the -"prin- 
 cipal object to search for the remains of the wall and 
 ditch that had compassed Babylon," states, that neither 
 of these has been seen by any modern traveller. " All 
 my inquiries among the Arabs," he adds, "on this sub- 
 ject, completely failed in producing the smallest effect. 
 Within the space of twenty-one miles in length, along 
 the banks of the Euphrates, and twelve miles across its 
 breadth, I was unable to perceive anything that could 
 admit of my imagining that either a wall or a ditch had 
 existed within this extensive area. If any remains do 
 exist of the walls, they must have been of greater cir- 
 cumference than is allowed by modern geographers. I 
 may possibly have been deceived ; but I spared no pains 
 to prevent it. I never was employed in riding and walk- 
 ing less than eight hours for six successive days, and up- 
 wards of twelve on the seventh." 1 
 
 Major Keppel relates, that he and the party who ac- 
 companied him, " in common with other travellers, had 
 totally failed in discovering any trace of the city walls;" 
 and he adds, " the Divine predictions against Babylon 
 have been so literally fulfilled in the appearance of the 
 ruins, that I am disposed to give the fullest signification 
 to the words of Jeremiah — the broad walls of Babylon 
 shall be utterly broken."'* 
 
 Babylon shall be an astonishment — Every one that go- 
 eth by Babylon shall be astonished. It is impossible to 
 
 1 Transactions of the Literary Society, Bombay, vol. i. pp. 130 
 131. 
 
 2 Keppel's Narrative, vol. i. p. 175. Jer. li. 58. 
 
OF BABYLON. 
 
 487 
 
 think on what Babylon was, and to he an eye-witness of 
 what it is, without astonishment. On first entering its 
 ruins, Sir Eohert Ker Porter thus expresses his feelings: 
 " I could not but feel an indescribable awe in thus pas- 
 sing, as it were, into the gates of fallen Babylon." 1 " I 
 cannot portray," says Captain Mignan, ff the overpower- 
 ing sensation of reverential awe that possessed my mind, 
 while contemplating the extent and magnitude of ruin 
 and devastation on every side." 2 
 
 How is the hammer of the whole earth cut asimder ! 
 How is Babylon become a desolation among the nations ! 
 The following interesting description has lately been 
 given from the spot. After speaking of the ruined em- 
 bankment, divided and subdivided again and again, like 
 a sort of tangled net- work, over the apparently intermi- 
 nable ground — of large and wide-spreading morasses — 
 of ancient foundations — and of chains of undulated heaps 
 — Sir Eobert Ker Porter emphatically adds; — " The 
 whole view was particularly solemn. The majestic stream 
 of the Euphrates wandering in solitude, like a pilgrim 
 monarch through the silent ruins of his devastated king- 
 dom, still appeared a noble river under all the disadvan- 
 tages of its desert- tracked course. Its banks were hoary 
 with reeds; and the grey osier willows were yet there on 
 which the captives of Israel hung up their harps, and, 
 while Jerusalem was not, refused to be comforted. But 
 how has the rest of the scene changed since then ! At 
 that time those broken hills were palaces — those long 
 undulating mounds, streets — this vast solitude filled 
 with the busy subjects of the proud daughter of the 
 East. — Now wasted with misery, her habitations are 
 
 1 Sir Robert Ker Porter's Travels, vol. ii. p. 294. 
 
 2 Mignan's Travels, p. 117. 
 
488 
 
 THE DESOLATION 
 
 not to be found, and for herself, the worm is spread over 
 her." 1 
 
 From palaces converted into broken hills; — from streets 
 to long lines of heaps; — from the throne of the world to 
 sitting on the dust; — from the hum of mighty Babylon 
 to the death-like silence that rests upon the grave to 
 winch it is brought down; — from the great storehouse of 
 the world, where treasures were gathered from every 
 quarter, and the prison-house of the captive Jews, where, 
 not loosed to return homewards, they served in a hard 
 bondage, to Babylon the spoil of many nations, itself 
 taken from thence, and nothing left; — from a vast metro- 
 polis, the place of palaces, and the glory of kingdoms, 
 whither multitudes ever flowed, to a dreaded and shunned 
 spot, not inhabited nor dwelt in from generation to gene- 
 ration, where even the Arabian, though the son of the 
 desert, pitches not his tent, and where the shepherds 
 make not their folds; — from the treasures of darkness, 
 and hidden riches of secret places, to the taking away of 
 bricks, and to an uncovered nakedness; from making the 
 earth to tremble, and shaking kingdoms, to being cast 
 out of the grave like an abominable branch; — from the 
 many nations and great kings from the coasts of the earth, 
 that have so often come up against Babylon, to the work- 
 men that still cast her up as heaps, and add to the num- 
 ber of pools in her ruins; — from the immense artificial 
 lake, many miles in circmnference, by means of which the 
 annual rising of the Euphrates was regulated and restrained, 
 to those pools of water, a few yards round, dug by the work- 
 men, and filled by the river; — from the first and greatest 
 of temples, to a burnt mountain desolate for ever; — from 
 the golden image, forty feet in height, which stood on the 
 1 Sir Robert Ker Porter's Travels, vol. ii. p. 237. 
 
OF BABYLON. 
 
 m 
 
 top of the temple of Belus, to all the graven images of 
 her gods that are broken unto the ground and mingled 
 with the dust; — from the splendid and luxurious festivals 
 of Babylonian monarchs, the noise of the viols, the pomp 
 of Belshazzar's feast, and the godless revelry of a thou- 
 sand lords drinking out of the golden vessels that had been 
 taken from Zion, to the cry of wild beasts, the creeping 
 of doleful creatures, of which their desolate houses and 
 pleasant palaces are full, the nestling of owls in cavities, 
 the dancing of wild goats on the ruinous mound as on a 
 rock, and the dwelling-place of dragons, and of venomous 
 reptiles; — from arch upon arch, and terrace upon terrace, 
 till the hanging gardens of Babylon rose like a mountain, 
 down to the stones of the pit, now disclosed to view; — 
 from the palaces of princes who sat on the mount of the 
 congregation, and thought in the pride of their heart to 
 exalt themselves above the stars of God, to heaps cut 
 down to the ground, perforated as the raiment of those 
 that are slain, and as a carcase trodden under feet; — from 
 the broad walls of Babylon, in all their height, as Cyrus 
 camped against them round about, seeking in vain a sin- 
 gle point where congregated nations could scale the walls 
 or force an opening, to the untraceable spot on which they 
 stood, where there is nothing left to turn aside, or impede 
 in their course, the worms that cover it; and finally, from 
 Babylon the great, the wonder of the world, to fallen 
 Babylon, the astonishment of all who go by it; in extremes 
 like these, whatever changes they involve, and by what- 
 ever instrumentality they may have been wrought out, 
 there is not to this hour, in this most marvellous history 
 of Babylon, a single fact that may not most appropriately 
 be ranked under a prediction, and that does not tally en- 
 tirely with its express and precise fulfilment, while at the 
 
290 
 
 THE DESOLATION 
 
 same time they all united show, as may now he seen — 
 reading the judgments to the very letter, and looking to 
 the facts as they are, — the destruction which has come 
 from the Almighty upon Babylon. 
 
 Has not every purpose of the Lord been performed 
 against Babylon? And having so clear illustrations of the 
 facts before us, what mortal shall give a negative answer 
 to the question, subjoined by their omniscient Author to 
 these very prophecies? — " Who hath declared this from 
 ancient time? Who hath told it from that time? Have 
 not I the Lord? and there is no God beside me; — declar- 
 ing the end from the beginning, and from ancient times 
 the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall 
 stand, and I will do all my pleasure." 1 Is it possible that 
 there can be any attestation of the truth of prophecy, if 
 it be not witnessed here? Is there any spot on earth 
 which has undergone a more complete transformation? 
 " The records of the human race," it has been said with 
 truth, " do not present a contrast more striking than that 
 between the primeval magnificence of Babylon, and its 
 long desolation." 2 Its ruins have of late been carefully 
 and scrupulously examined by different natives of Britain, 
 of unimpeached veracity, and the result of every research 
 is a more striking demonstration of the literal accomplish- 
 ment of every prediction. How few spots are there on 
 earth of which we have so clear and faithful a picture, as 
 prophecy gave of fallen Babylon at a time when no spot 
 on earth resembled it less than its present desolate soli- 
 tary site ! Or could any prophecies respecting any single 
 place have been more precise or wonderful, or numerous, 
 or true, — or more gradually accomplished throughout 
 many generations? Or what other spot is there on earth 
 1 Isa. xlv. 21; xlvi. 10. 2 Edinburgh Review, No. i. p. 439. 
 
OF BABYLON. 
 
 491 
 
 of which all these prophecies would he precisely descrip- 
 tive? And when they look at what Bahylon was, and 
 what it is, and perceive the minute realization of them 
 all — may not nations learn wisdom — may not tyrants 
 tremhle — and may not sceptics think? 
 
 But smitten by a continual stroke as Babylon and the 
 land of the Chaldeans have been, the time is not yet 
 come — if aught of judgment remains to be fulfilled — of 
 which the prophet speaks: — " The Lord will have mercy 
 on Jacob, and will yet choose Israel, and set them in their 
 own land. And it shall come to pass in the day that the 
 Lord shall give thee rest from thy sorrow, and from thy 
 fear, and from the hard bondage wherein thou wast made 
 to serve, that thou shalt take up this proverb against the 
 king of Babylon, and say, How hath the oppressor ceased! 
 the golden city ceased! 1 
 
 1 Isaiah xiv. 1, 3, 4. 
 
492 
 
 TYRE. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 TYRE. 
 
 Tyre was the most celebrated city of Phoenicia, and 
 the ancient emporium of the world. Its colonies were 
 numerous and extensive. " It was the theatre of an im- 
 mense commerce and navigation, the nursery of arts and 
 science, and the city of perhaps the most industrious and 
 active people ever known." 1 In the period of their great- 
 est splendour and perfect independence, Tyre stood at the 
 head of the Phoenician cities. 2 The kingdom of Carthage, 
 the rival of Eome, was one of the colonies of Tyre. While 
 this mart of nations was in the height of its opulence and 
 power, and at least one hundred and twenty-five years be- 
 fore the destruction of old Tyre, Isaiah pronounced its 
 irrevocable fall. The pride and wickedness of the Ty- 
 rians, their exultation over the calamities of the Israelites, 
 and their cruelty in selling them to slavery, are assigned 
 as the reasons of the judgments that were to overtake 
 them, or as the causes of the revelation of the destiny of 
 their city. And the whole fate of Tyre was foretold. 
 
 Ezekiel's description of the commerce, riches, and pride 
 
 1 Volney's Travels, vol. ii. p. 210. Steph. Die. p. 2039. Mar- 
 shami Can. Chron. p. 304, &c. Strabo, Bochart, &c. 
 a Heeren's Researches, vol. ii. p. 17. 
 
TYRE. 
 
 4:93 
 
 of Tyre, the ancient Queen of the Ocean, is designated by 
 Volney, a valuable historical fragment: and he cites the 
 words, as he terms it, "in all their prophetic enthusi- 
 asm." But the prophet denounced its doom before he 
 described its splendour and power; and he traced its fu- 
 ture history, with all the precision of truth, till the city 
 that was perfect in beauty became a place whereon fishers 
 spread their nets, till the stones and timber of its superb 
 dwellings were cast into the midst of the waters; and the 
 very dust was scraped from off the place where the princely 
 merchants gloried in their pride, and heaped up their sil- 
 ver and their gold. The marvellous facts which Ezekiel 
 and other prophets foretold, give, to unobservant minds, 
 the semblance of enthusiasm to their unerring words. 
 And confessedly faithful to the facts, as was 1 the histo- 
 rical fragment,' so also is the prophecy which contrasts 
 with it, as exhibiting the entire reversal of Tyrian mag- 
 nificence : and the prophetic history of the downfall and 
 ruin of Tyre may be read more fully and clearly in the 
 words of Ezekiel, than its history, prior to its celebrated 
 siege by Alexander the Great, has been recorded, in the 
 extant works of profane writers. 
 
 Ezekiel's "historical fragment" begins by declaring, 
 " The word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of 
 man, because that Tyrus hath said against Jerusalem, 
 Aha, she is broken that was the gates of the people; she is 
 turned unto me; I shall be replenished, now she is laid 
 waste. Therefore, thus saith the Lord God, behold lam 
 against thee, 0 Tyrus, and will cause many nations to 
 come up against thee, as the sea causeth his waves to come 
 up. And they shall destroy the walls of Tyrus, and 
 break down her towers; I will also scrape her dust from 
 her, and make her like the top of a rock. It shall be a 
 
4:94: 
 
 TYEE. 
 
 place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea; 
 for I have spoken it, saith the Lord God; and it shall be- 
 come a spoil to the nations, fyc.i 
 
 The first of the many nations that came up against 
 Tyre was the Chaldeans or Babylonians, under Nebuchad- 
 nezzar. History, without explicitly recording the facts 
 or the result of the siege, relates little else than its dura- 
 tion for thirteen years. The length alone of the siege 
 accords with the historical narration given by Ezekiel at 
 a subsequent period, that Nebuchadnezzar, king of Baby- 
 lon, caused his army to serve a great service against 
 Tyrus, till every head was bald, and every shoulder was 
 peeled; yet had he no wages nor his army for Tyrus, for 
 the service that he had served against it. 
 
 The vision of the prophet " tarried," but did not fail. 
 It reached, with equal clearness, throughout all future 
 ages. And the time is not yet come respecting which 
 Tyre is finally spoken of in the word of the Lord. But 
 from the height of its dignity, to the depth of its debase- 
 ment, a " fragment" of the book of the prophetic Scrip- 
 tures marked out its fate. The confederate Greeks, 
 under their " great king," came up against Tyrus, at an 
 interval of two hundred and seventy years, after its siege 
 by Nebuchadnezzar. And restricting the illustration of 
 the prophecies to recorded and indisputable facts, which 
 are notorious in history, the most unexceptionable testi- 
 mony is supplied by Arrian and Quintus Curtius, whose 
 names are associated with the history of Alexander and 
 the siege of Tyre, 2 as those of Herodotus "and Xenophon 
 with that of Cyrus and the capture of Babylon. 
 
 1 Ezek. xxvi. 1-5. 
 
 2 See Prideaux, Rollin, Bishop Newton, &c. on the fulfilment of 
 the prophecies concerning Tyre. 
 
TYKE. 
 
 495 
 
 One of the most singular events in history was the 
 manner in which the siege of Tyre was conducted by 
 Alexander the Great. Irritated that a single city should 
 alone oppose his victorious march, enraged at the murder 
 of some of his soldiers, and fearful for his fame — even his 
 army's despairing of success could not deter him from the 
 siege. And Tyre was taken in a manner, the success of 
 which was more wonderful than the design was daring; 
 for it was surrounded by a wall one hundred aud fifty feet 
 in height, and situated on an island half a mile distant 
 from the shore. A mound was formed from the conti- 
 nent to the island ; and the ruins of old Tyre, 1 afforded 
 ready materials for the purpose. Such was the work, 
 that the attempt at first defeated the power of an Alex- 
 ander. The enemy consumed and the storm destroyed 
 it. But its remains, buried beneath the water, formed a 
 barrier which rendered successful bis renewed efforts. A 
 vast mass of additional matter was requisite. The soil 
 and the very rubbish were gathered and heaped. And 
 the mighty conqueror, who afterwards failed in raising 
 again any of the ruins of Babylon, cast those of Tyre in- 
 to the sea, and took her very dust 2 from off her. He 
 left not the remnant of a ruin ; and the site of ancient 
 Tyre is now unknown, 3 or undiscoverable by any of its 
 ruins. Who then taught the prophets to say of Tyre — 
 " They shall lay thy stones and thy timber, and thy dust, 
 in the midst of the water. I will also sceape hee dust 
 
 1 " Magna vis saxorum ad manum erat. Tyro vetere prjebente." 
 (Quintus Curtius, lib. iv. cap. ix.; See Prideaux, Kollin, Bishop 
 Newton, &c. 
 
 2 " Htjmtts aggerabatur.'' (Ibid. cap. xi.) The soil was heaped up. 
 
 3 Pococke's Description of the East, b. i. ch. xx. Bishop New- 
 ton. Volney's Travels, vol. ii. 212. Buckingham's Travels, p. 46. 
 
4:96 
 
 TYEE. 
 
 from her. I will make thee a terror, and thou shall he 
 no more. Thou shalt be sought for, yet thou shalt never 
 be found again." 1 
 
 Where ancient Tyre flourished in its greatness and 
 pride, not a city, nor town, nor village now stands; and 
 not a house is to he seen over the wide extended space, 
 hut a few hovels near a copious fountain, that springs 
 forth as pure and full as ever. Tyre, on the continent, 
 as it existed in the days of the prophets, in all its mag- 
 nificence and wealth, has wholly vanished, and scarcely a 
 vestige of it remains, hut a fragment of a ruined aque- 
 duct. It is no more. It may be sought for, but it can- 
 not be found. The stones and the timber that formed it, 
 and even its very dust, lie, where the first great king of 
 Grecia cast it, in the midst of the waters. It is trodden 
 under foot by every one who now passes over the bare 
 and unobstructed path to the ancient island to which it 
 still unites the shore, now forming a peninsula. The neck 
 of land thus constructed in verification of the prophetic 
 word, is also, according to it, bare like the top of a rock, 
 and forms on both sides a beach ever washed by the sea. 
 The fishers of the modern village on the ancient island, 
 literally spread their nets on the sand which covers the 
 surface of the mound, which forms on either side a place 
 for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea. In pass- 
 ing along the shore, once that of the island, the writer, 
 on reaching the south-western extremity of the mound, 
 came suddenly on five or six fishermen, sitting on some 
 prostrate columns, with their nets spread on the sand, at 
 a short distance before them, upon the side of the mole 
 in the midst of the sea. On our return some of them had 
 gone away, but the nets were still there; and ere they 
 1 Ezek. xxvi. 4, 12, 21. 
 
TYKE. 
 
 could be represented on a daguerreotype plate, it was ne- 
 cessary for the fishermen who remained, to draw their nets 
 a little way along the side of the mole to a ruin, at the base 
 of which lay two granite columns on one side, and three 
 on the other, and to raise the end of the nets as seen in 
 the plate. The very city that was cast into the sea, now 
 buried in the waters, having thus served the conqueror's 
 purpose in passing to the previously insular Tyre, has be- 
 come a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the 
 sea. Thus it is written, in the continuous words of the 
 Lord, They shall destroy the walls of Tyrus, and break 
 down her towers; I will also scrape her dust from her, 
 and make her like the top of a rock. It shall be a place 
 for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea; for I 
 have spoken it, saith the Lord God} It is written also, in 
 the same chapter, of the city or Tyrus on the continent, 
 which was besieged by Nebuchadnezzar, And they shall 
 make a spoil of thy riches, and make a prey of thy mer- 
 chandise; and they shall break down thy walls, and de- 
 stroy thy pleasant houses : and they shall lay thy stones 
 and thy timber and thy dust in the midst of the water. 
 And I will cause the noise of thy songs to cease; and the 
 sound of thy harps shall be no more heard. And I will 
 make thee like the top of a rock: thou shalt be a place to 
 spread nets upon; thou shalt be built no more; for I the 
 Lord have spoken it, saith the Lord God. 2 They shall 
 lament over thee, saying, What city is like Tyrus, like the 
 destroyed in the midst of the sea.* And surely the fate 
 of ancient Tyrus is altogether without a parallel. 
 
 After the capture of insular Tyre, the conqueror or- 
 dered it to be set on fire. Fifteen thousand of the Tyrians 
 escaped in ships. And exclusive of multitudes that were 
 
 1 Ezek. xxvi. i, 5. 2 Ibid. 12, H. 3 Ezek. xxvii. 32. 
 
 2K 
 
498 
 
 TYRE. 
 
 cruelly slain, thirty thousand were sold into slavery. 1 Each 
 of these facts had been announced for centuries: — Be- 
 hold the Lord will cast her out — he will smite her power 
 in tJie sea, and she shall be devoured with fire? — / will 
 bring forth a fire from the midst of thee — / will bring 
 thee to ashes upon the earth? Pass ye over to Tarshish 
 — pass over to Ghittim? The isles that are in the sea 
 shall be troubled at thy departure. 5 — Thou shalt die the 
 death of them that are slain in the midst of the sea? The 
 children of Israel also, and the children of Judah have 
 ye sold — I will return the recompence upon your own 
 head. 1 
 
 Tyre, on the island, though deprived of its former in- 
 habitants, soon revived as a city, and greatly regained its 
 commerce. It was populous and flourishing at the be- 
 ginning of the Christian era. It contained many disci- 
 ples of Jesus, in the days of the apostles. An elegant 
 temple and many churches were afterwards built there. 
 It was the see of the first archbishop under the patriarch 
 of Jerusalem. In the seventh century Tyre was taken 
 by the Saracens; in the twelfth by the Crusaders, at which 
 period it was a great commercial city. The Mamelukes 
 succeeded as its masters; and it remained for three hun- 
 dred years in the possession of the Turks. But it was 
 not excluded from among the multitude of cities and of 
 countries whose ruin and devastation, as accomplished by 
 the cruelties and ravages of Turkish barbarity and des- 
 potism, were foretold nearly two thousand years before 
 the existence of that nation of plunderers. And although 
 it has more lately, by a brief respite from the greatest 
 
 1 Rollin, Bishop Newton, &c. 
 
 2 Zech. ix. 4. 3 Ezek. xxviii. 18. 4 Isa. xxiii. 6, 12. 
 5 Ezek. xxvi. 18. 6 Ezek. xxviii. 8. 7 Joel iii. 6, 8. 
 
TYRE. 
 
 499 
 
 oppression, risen somewhat from its ruins, the last of the 
 predictions respecting it has been literally fulfilled, accord- 
 ing to the testimony of many witnesses. But that of 
 Maundrell, Shaw, Volney, and Bruce, may suffice. 
 
 " You find here no similitude of that glory for which 
 it was so renowned in ancient times. You see nothing 
 here hut a mere Babel of broken walls, pillars, vaults, 
 &c. Its present inhabitants are only a few poor wretches, 
 harbouring themselves in the vaults, and subsisting chiefly 
 upon fishing, who seem to be preserved in this place by 
 Divine providence, as a visible argument how God hath 
 fulfilled his word concerning Tyre . " 1 "The port of Tyre, 
 small as it is at present, is choked up to that degree with 
 sand and rubbish, that the boats of those fishermen who 
 now and then visit this once renowned emporium, and 
 dry their nets upon its rocks and ruins, can with great 
 difficulty only be admitted." 2 And even Volney, after 
 quoting the description of the greatness of Tyre, and the 
 general description of the destruction of the city, and the 
 annihilation of its commerce, acknowledges that "the 
 vicissitudes of time, or rather the barbarism of the Greeks 
 of the Lower Empire and the Mahometans, have accom- 
 plished this prediction. Instead of that ancient commerce, 
 so active and so extensive, Sour, (Tyre,) reduced to a 
 miserable village, has no other trade than the exporta- 
 tion of a few sacks of corn and raw cotton : nor any mer- 
 chant but a single Greek factor, in the service of the 
 French of Saide, who scarcely makes sufficient profit to 
 maintain his family." But though he overlooks the ful- 
 filment of minuter prophecies, he relates facts more va- 
 
 1 Maundrell's Journey from Aleppo to Jerusalem, p. 82. Pri- 
 deaux, Lowth, Univ. Hist., Bishop Newton. 
 
 2 Shaw's Travels, vol. ii. p. 31. Bishop Newton, &c. 
 
500 
 
 TYRE. 
 
 luable than any opinion, and more corroborative of their 
 truth : — " The whole village of Tyre contains only fifty or 
 sixty poor families, who live obscurely on the produce of 
 their little ground and a trifling fishery. The houses 
 they occupy are no longer, as in the time of Strabo, edifices 
 of three or four stories high, — but wretched huts, ready 
 to crumble into ruins." 1 Bruce describes Tyre as "a 
 rock whereon fishers dry their nets." 
 
 After the days of Yolney, there were again some 
 houses of two or three stories in new Tyre; but these, 
 like the town and fortress of Safed, and the walls of Ti- 
 berias, fell in the earthquake in the year 1834. On our 
 visiting it, ten years thereafter, we sought in vain through- 
 out its few miserable shops, unworthy of the name of 
 bazaars, for any thing that could be purchased to be car- 
 ried away, as a memorial of Tyre. Tyrus, a merchant 
 of the people of many isles, that said, I am of perfect 
 beauty, with its benches of ivory, and fine linen, with 
 broidered work from Egypt, and shields and helmets up- 
 on its walls round about, and horns of ebony and ivory, 
 whose fairs were replenished with emeralds, purple, and 
 broidered work, and cored, and agate, and balm, and 
 while wool, and cassia, and calamus, and precious clothes 
 for chariots, and chests of rich apparel, and bright iron 
 and white wool, and the chief of all spices, and with all 
 precious stones, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the 
 beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, 
 and the carbuncle, and gold, and all sorts of merchandise, 
 has now nothing to supply: and a poor village of humble 
 fishermen still spread their nets where the queen of the 
 sea. was enthroned in her beauty and pride. 
 
 Of Tyre it was written, Thou hast defiled thy sanctu- 
 1 Volney's Travels, vol. ii. p. 212. 
 
TYRE. 
 
 501 
 
 aries by the multitude of thine iniquities: and in the ruins 
 of Tyre its sanctuaries have their place. Of the cele- 
 brated temple of Hercules, not a vestige remains, and its 
 site is unknown. In Christian times, the comparatively 
 modern city could boast of many churches, and a magni- 
 ficent cathedral, which, as its remains show, was about 
 two hundred and thirty feet in length. All ruined as it 
 is, see plate, it shows, no less than any other in the land, 
 that the sanctuaries have been destroyed, and the altars 
 overthrown, and that the holy places are to this day de- 
 filed. In the days of Alexander the Great, the wall of 
 insular Tyre, ere he broke it down, was a hundred and 
 fifty feet in height. Now, the ruins of the cathedral may 
 be seen as they tower over the lowly wall of a miserable 
 village, that now but only serves to defend from wander- 
 ing Arabs the humble fishermen who ply their predicted 
 task, where the conqueror of the world laboured long and 
 hard to accomplish his, erever he could reach the now 
 broken wall, the ancient girdle of an isle, or cast down 
 one of the columns on which the wretched representatives 
 of the princely Tyrians sit and watch their outspread 
 nets. 
 
 It matters not by what means these " prophecies have 
 been verified;" for the means were as inscrutable, and as 
 impossible to have been foreseen by man, as the event. 
 The fact is beyond a doubt that they have been literally 
 fulfilled, and therefore the prophecies are true. They 
 may be overlooked, but no ingenuity can pervert them. 
 No facts could have been more unlikely or striking, and 
 no predictions respecting them could have been more 
 clear. 
 
502 
 
 EGYPT. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 EGYPT. 
 
 Egypt was one of the most ancient and one of the 
 mightiest of kingdoms, and the researches of the travel- 
 ler are still directed to explore the unparalleled memo- 
 rials of its power. No nation, whether of ancient or of 
 modern times, has ever erected such great and durable 
 monuments. While the vestiges of other ancient mo- 
 narchies can hardly be found amidst the mouldered ruins 
 of their cities, those artificial mountains, visible at the 
 distance of thirty miles, the pyramids of Egypt, without 
 a record of their date, have withstood, unimpaired, all the 
 ravages of time. The dynasty of Egypt takes prece- 
 dence, in antiquity, of every other. No country ever 
 produced so long a catalogue of kings. The learning of 
 the Egyptians was proverbial. The number of their 
 cities, 1 and the population of their country, as recorded by 
 ancient historians, almost surpass credibility. Nature 
 and art united in rendering it a most fertile region. It 
 was called the granary of the world. It was divided in- 
 to several kingdoms, and their power often extended over 
 many of the surrounding countries. 2 Yet the knowledge 
 
 1 Twenty thousand. (Herod, lib. ii. cap. clxxvii.) 
 
 2 Marshami Can. Chron. pp. 239, 242. 
 
EGYPT. 
 
 503 
 
 of all its greatness and glory deterred not the Jewish 
 prophets from declaring, that Egypt shall become a base 
 kingdom, and never exalt itself any more above the 
 nations. And the literal fulfilment of every prophecy af- 
 fords as clear a demonstration as can possibly be given, 
 that each and all of them are the dictates of inspiration. 
 
 Egypt was the theme of many prophecies, which were 
 fulfilled in ancient times; and it bears to the present day, 
 as it has borne throughout many ages, every mark with 
 which prophecy had stamped its destiny: — 
 
 " They shall be a base kingdom. It shall be the 
 basest of kingdoms. Neither shall it exalt itself any 
 more above the nations: for I will diminish them, that 
 they shall no more rule over the nations. 1 The pride ol 
 her power shall come down. And they shall be desolate 
 in the midst of the countries that are desolate, and her 
 cities shall be in the midst of the cities that are wasted. 
 I will make the land of Egypt desolate, and the country 
 shall be destitute of that whereof it was full. I will sell 
 the land into the hand of the wicked. I will make the 
 land waste, and all that is therein, by the hand of stran- 
 gers. I the Lord have spoken it. And there shall be 
 no more a prince of the land of Egypt." 2 
 
 Egypt became entirely subject to the Persians about 
 three hundred and fifty years previous to the Christian 
 era. It was afterwards subdued by the Macedonians, 
 and was governed by the Ptolemies for the space of two 
 hundred and ninety-four years, until, about thirty years 
 before Christ, it became a province of the Eoman em- 
 pire. It continued long in subjection to the Eomans — 
 tributary first to Rome, and afterwards to Constantinople. 
 It was transferred, A. d. 641, to the dominion of the Sa- 
 
 1 Ezek. xxix. U, 15. 2 Ibid. xxx. 6, 7, 12, 13; xxxii, 15. 
 
504: 
 
 EGYPT. 
 
 racens. In 1250 the Mamelukes deposed their rulers, 
 and usurped the command of Egypt. A mode of govern- 
 ment the most singular and surprising that ever existed 
 on earth, was established and maintained. Each succes- 
 sive ruler was raised to supreme authority, from being a 
 stranger and a slave: no son of the former ruler, no na- 
 tive of Egypt succeeding to the sovereignty; but a chief 
 was chosen from among a new race of imported slaves. 
 When Egypt became tributary to the Turks in 1517, the 
 Mamelukes retained much of their power, and every 
 pasha was an oppressor and a stranger. During all these 
 ages, every attempt to emancipate the country, or to 
 create a prince of the land of Egypt, has proved abor- 
 tive, and has often been fatal to the aspirant. Though 
 the facts relative to Egypt form too prominent a feature 
 in the history of the world to admit of contradiction or 
 doubt, yet the description of the fate of that country, and 
 of the form of its government, shall be left to the testi- 
 mony of those whose authority no infidel will question, 
 and whom no man can accuse of adapting their descrip- 
 tions to the predictions of the event. Gibbon and Vol- 
 ney are again our witnesses of the facts. 
 
 " Such is the state of Egypt. Deprived twenty- three 
 centuries ago of her natural proprietors, she has seen her 
 fertile fields successively a prey to the Persians, the Ma- 
 cedonians, the Eomans, the Greeks, the Arabs, the 
 Georgians, and, at length, the race of Tartars distinguish- 
 ed by the name of Ottoman Turks. The Mamelukes, 
 purchased as slaves and introduced as soldiers, soon 
 usurped the power, and elected a leader. If their first 
 establishment was a singular event, their continuance is 
 not less extraordinary. They are replaced by slaves 
 brought from their original country. The system of op- 
 
EGYPT. 
 
 505 
 
 pression is methodical. Every thing the traveller sees or 
 hears, reminds him he is in the country of slavery and 
 tyranny." 1 "A more unjust and absurd constitution 
 cannot be devised than that which condemns the natives 
 of a country to perpetual servitude, under the arbitrary 
 dominion of strangers and slaves. Yet such has been the 
 state of Egypt above five hundred years. The most 
 illustrious sultans of the Baharite and Borgite dynasties 
 were themselves promoted from the Tartar and Circassian 
 bands; and the four and twenty Beys, or military chiefs, 
 have ever been succeeded, not by their sons, but by their 
 servants." 2 These are the words of Volney and Gibbon; — 
 and what did the ancient prophets foretell? " I will lay the 
 land waste, and all that is therein, by the hands of stran- 
 gers. I the Lord have spoken it. And there shall be no 
 more a prince of the land of Egypt. The sceptre of Egypt 
 shall depart away. ' ' The prophecy adds, — ' ' they shall be a 
 base kingdom; it shall be the basest of kingdoms. After the 
 lapse of two thousand and four hundred years from the 
 date of this prophecy, a scoffer at religion, but an eye- 
 witness of the facts, thus describes the self- same spot : — 
 " In Egypt there is no middle class, neither nobility, 
 clergy, merchants, landholders. An universal air of 
 misery, manifest in all the traveller meets, points out to 
 him the rapacity of oppression and the distrust attendant 
 upon slavery. The profound ignorance of the inhabitants 
 equally prevents them from perceiving the causes of their 
 evils, or applying the necessary remedies. Ignorance, 
 diffused through every class, extends its effects to every 
 species of moral and physical knowledge. Nothing is 
 talked of but intestine troubles, the public misery, pecu- 
 
 1 Volney's Travels, vol. i. pp. 74, 103, 110, 198. 
 
 2 Gibbon's History, vol. xi. c. lix. p. 164 
 
506 
 
 EGYPT. 
 
 niary extortions, bastinadoes, and murders. Justice her- 
 self puts to death without formality." 1 Other travellers 
 describe the most execrable vices as common, and repre- 
 sent the moral character of the people as corrupted to 
 the core. As a token of the desolation of the country, 
 mud- walled cottages are now the only habitations where 
 the ruins of temples and palaces abound. Egypt is sur- 
 rounded by the dominions of the Turks and of the Arabs; 
 and the prophecy is literally true which marked it in the 
 midst of desolation : — They shall be desolate in the midst 
 of the countries that are desolate, and her cities shall be 
 in the midst of the cities that are wasted" The systema- 
 tic oppression, extortion, and plunder, which have so long 
 prevailed, and the price paid for his authority and power 
 by every Turkish pasha, have rendered the country deso- 
 late of that whereof it was full, and still show both how 
 it has been wasted by the hand of strangers, and how it 
 has been sold into the hand of the wicked. 
 
 The waters shall fail from the sea, and the rivers shall 
 be wasted and dried up. And they shall turn the rivers 
 far away, and the brooks of defence shall be emptied and 
 dried up : the reeds and fags shall wither. The paper 
 reeds by the brooks, by the mouth of the brooks, and every 
 thing sown by the brooks shall wither, and be driven away, 
 and shall not be, 2 fyc. I will make the rivers dry, — and I 
 will make the land wasted §c. — Son of man, speak unto 
 Pharaoh king of Egypt, and to his multitude : Whom art 
 thou like in thy greatness? The waters made him great, 
 the deep set him up on high, with her rivers running round 
 about his plants, and sent out her little rivers unto all the 
 trees of the field. Therefore his height was exalted above 
 
 1 Volney's Travels, vol. i. pp. 190, 198. 
 
 2 Isaiah xix. 5-7. 3 Ezek. xxx. 12. 
 
EGYPT. 
 
 507 
 
 all the trees of the field, and his boughs were multiplied, 
 and his branches became long, because of the multitude 
 of waters, when he shot forth. Thus was he fair in his 
 greatness, in the length of his branches; for his root was 
 by great waters, &c. I have driven him out for his 
 wickedness. Thou shalt lie in the midst of the uncir- 
 cnmcised, with them that be slain by the sword. This 
 is Pharaoh and all his multitude, saith the Lord God. 1 
 
 The turning far away of the rivers, or of the ancient 
 branches of the Nile from their course, and the drying 
 up of the canals, and consequent emptying of the brooks, 
 which spread fecundity over Egypt, may be ranked among 
 the immediate and most influential causes of the desola- 
 tion which has spread over the far greater part of Egypt. 
 Wherever, on the banks of the Nile, irrigation is prac- 
 tised, and the little rivers run about the plants, and are 
 sent out unto all the trees of the field, the wonderful 
 luxuriance of the irrigation may well astonish a European: 
 and the sickly green-house plants of our cold and com- 
 paratively sunless clime, assume a gigantic form. And 
 partial and narrow as these rich fringes now are, advan- 
 cing hills of sand, (through the sloping sides of which the 
 stems, and upper branches, and topmost twigs of trees 
 buried, or being buried, may be seen as marking the 
 progress of yet unstayed desolation,) in some places, as at 
 Eosetta, threaten destruction, like that of the felon con- 
 demned to stand on the brink of the rising tide. But 
 over great part of Egypt desolation has done its perfect 
 work. The streams of the Nile are now circumscribed 
 within narrow limits to what formerly they were. On the 
 western side of Egypt, as seen in Heath's plan of Egypt, 
 1 Ezek. xxxi. 2, 4, 5, 7, 11, 18. 
 
508 
 
 EGYPT. 
 
 an " ancient bed of the river Nile, now dry, and called 
 by tbe natives Bellomah," is distant eighty miles from the 
 nearest branch of that river. The intermediate space, of 
 greater length than breadth, is marked as " immense 
 sandy plains;" and a long canal which partly intersected 
 it, is now * dry, except at the time of the inundation." 
 Along the sea-coast the land is level and destitute of trees. 
 And on the eastern side of Egypt, " the Pelusian branch 
 of the Nile is choked up," and the plain in which it 
 flowed, except in a few stagnant pools, is undistinguished 
 from the sandy desert which now surrounds it on every 
 side. In the intermediate space, and even within the far 
 narrower limits now occupied by the streams of the Nile, 
 the dry lines of the rivers and canals are to be seen, and 
 the desert covers many extensive regions which once 
 raised Egypt among the chief of the kingdoms. With 
 the exception of the environs of Eosetta and Damietta, 
 and of a few miserable villages, in traversing the once 
 rich Delta of Egypt from one side to another, the travel- 
 ler, as the writer witnessed, passes through a desert; and 
 where streams once ran about the plants, and the little 
 rivers were sent out among the trees of the field, water 
 skins are a necessary equipage of a traveller, and can only 
 be filled anew, after a journey of eight or ten hours, or of 
 a longer period, and sometimes, too, at an unwholesome 
 stagnant well, of the like of which the cattle in this coun- 
 try would not drink. Assuredly the desert has spread 
 over a large portion of the once fertile land of Egypt. 
 The land is waste, and every thing is withered, where the 
 rivers have been turned far away, and the brooks are 
 emptied and dried up. 
 
 The most recent travellers in Egypt, as in other coun- 
 
EGYPT. 
 
 509 
 
 tries, now see and acknowledge the marvellous fulfilment 
 of the prophecies. 
 
 " Long," says Lord Lindsay, " did we gaze on the 
 scene around and below us, (temple of Carnac at Thebes) 
 — utter, awful desolation ! Truly, indeed, has No been 
 'rent asunder.' The towers of the second, or eastern 
 propylon are mere heaps of stones, ' poured down,' — as 
 prophecy and modern travellers describe the foundations 
 of Samaria — into the court on one side, and the great 
 hall on the other; giant columns have been swept away 
 
 like reeds before the mighty avalanche," &c. « Ke- 
 
 turning to the great obelisk, and seating myself on the 
 broken shaft of its prostrate companion, I spent some de- 
 lightful moments in musing over the scene of ruins scat- 
 tered around me, so visibly smitten by the hand of God, 
 in fulfilment of the prophecies that describe No- Amnion 
 as the scene of desolation I then beheld her. The hand 
 of the true Jove Ammon, Ael-Amunah, the God of Truth, 
 has indeed ' executed judgments on all the gods of Egypt,' 
 but especially on his spurious representative, the idol of 
 this most stupendous of earthly temples; silence reigns 
 in its courts; the ' multitude of No' has been cut off; 
 Pathros is ' desolate;'— the land of Ham is still the basest 
 of kingdoms, — so sure is the word of prophecy, so visible 
 
 its accomplishment !" " We have spent the whole day 
 
 in visiting the site of Memphis and the pyramids of 
 Dashour and Sacara. Mounds and embankments, a few 
 broken stones, and two collossal statues, disinterred a few 
 years ago by our friend Caviglia, are the solitary remains 
 of the ancient capital of Lower Egypt. We rode for 
 miles through groves of palm and acacia, cultivated fields, 
 and wastes of sand, over what we knew must be the site 
 of Memphis, but every other vestige of her ancient gran- 
 
510 
 
 EGYPT. 
 
 deur has disappeared. Noph is indeed ' waste and deso- 
 late.'" 1 
 
 " Thus saith the Lord God, I will also destroy the idols, 
 arid I will cause tlieir images to cease out of Noph. — 
 And I will make Pathros desolate, and will set fire in 
 Zoan (marg. Tanis,) and will execute judgments in No, 
 and I will pour my fury upon Sin, the strength of Egypt; 
 and will cut off the multitude of No. And I will set 
 fire in Egypt: Sin shall have great pain, and No shall be 
 rent asunder, and Noph shall have distresses daily. The 
 young men of Avon (Heliopolis,) and of Phiheseth (Pelu- 
 sium,) shall fall by the sword: and these cities shall go 
 into captivity. At Tehaphnehes also the day shall be 
 darkened, when I shall break there the yokes of Egypt; 
 and the pomp of her strength shall cease in her. — Thus 
 will I execute judgments in Egijpt; and they shall know 
 that I am the Lord." 2 
 
 Though Herodotus numbered the cities of Egypt by 
 thousands, yet all those which existed in the days of the 
 prophets have long been in ruins. Egypt, of old exceed- 
 ingly rich and populous, is now, except where still par- 
 tially watered by the Nile and cultivated, bare and depo- 
 pulated. Its two great cities, Cairo and Alexandria, are 
 bordered by the desert. And with the exception of 
 Eosetta and Damietta, and a few miserable villages, not 
 a single town is to be met with, in traversing Lower Egypt 
 from Alexandria to El Arish, or from one extremity to 
 the other. Thebes, once famed for its hundred gates, 
 may be called, from the magnificence of its remains, the 
 metropolis of ruins. The mummies, so abimdant at Mem- 
 phis, remain, though the city has perished ; and the hu- 
 
 1 Lord Lindsay's Travels, vol. i. pp. 185-189. 
 
 2 Ezek. xxx. 13-19. 
 
EGYPT. 
 
 511 
 
 man forms which once peopled it, have retained their 
 perfect structure long after its palaces and temples have 
 mouldered into indistinguishable heaps. Heliopolis has 
 now a single erect obelisk to tell that the mounds around 
 it were once the " city of the sun." A single street, 
 with its central square, of the city of Alexandria, built 
 after the era of the prophets, occupied a greater space 
 than the modern city.; 1 "At Bubastus, now Tel Basta, 
 the Phibeseth of Scripture, are lofty mounds, and some 
 remains of the ancient city of Pasht. Many other mounds, 
 in various parts of the Delta, mark the sites of ancient 
 towns." 2 The author, in hastily passing through Egypt, 
 heard of ruins in various directions, and passed over those 
 of Zoan, 3 of which, besides the general desolation that 
 was to come on the cities of Egypt, the prophet said, I 
 will set afire in Zoan. As the Lord wrought wonders of 
 old in the fields of Zoan, so that city (the locality of which 
 is undoubted,) now bears in its ruins the proof of its an- 
 cient greatness, and the marks of its prophetic fate. The 
 remains of Zoan being little known, as only partially de- 
 scribed by travellers, may be more particularly noticed. 
 
 San, or, as pronounced by the Arabs on the spot, 
 Zaan, a small fishing village, built of mud and brick, 
 some of the dwellings consisting of the former and some 
 of the latter, is the only representative of this seat of 
 Pharaoh's glory. In its immediate vicinity, but raised 
 considerably above the plain, are the ruins of the ancient 
 city. These, in general, where not buried under sand, 
 consist of large heaps of debris, formed of earth, broken 
 
 1 See Heath's Plan of Alexandria. 
 
 2 Wilkinson's Thebes, p. 347. 
 
 3 Arriving late in the day at San (Zoan) my friend the Rev. 
 Andrew Bonar first directed my attention to these ruins. 
 
512 
 
 EGYPT. 
 
 bricks, and tiles in great abundance. The cbief remains, 
 all fallen, and lying almost in straight lines, seem tobave 
 belonged to tbe same range of grand and public edifices. 
 On the remote extremity from the village, high sandy 
 mounds render any ruins or buildings invisible, if ever, 
 as in all likelihood, they have existed there. Two frag- 
 ments of obelisks, the one twenty-seven, the other six- 
 teen feet long, first appear above the sand. At the 
 distance of sixty yards, upwards of twenty large blocks of 
 granite, evidently some portion of an ancient building, 
 lie on the ground, and nearly the same number at a far- 
 ther similar distance. Besides these last, there are bro- 
 ken fragments of obelisks, covered with rubbish, and a 
 stone figure or image, in a sitting position, eleven feet 
 in height, resting on a block five feet high, and four 
 broad, but lying nearly horizontally, with the head in- 
 clined downwards, as if licking the dust. About thirty- 
 six yards farther on, in the same direction, are three 
 broken obelisks, of one of which, the top or upper part, 
 which has been broken off, is twenty-four feet long, lying 
 horizontally, while the lower part, in two other fragments, 
 dips obliquely into the sand. The second obelisk, lying 
 near it, is hid at both extremities, and broken in the mid- 
 dle : though above thirty feet long, it is evident that only 
 a portion of it is seen, the narrowest part of which that is 
 visible, is four feet in diameter. The third is evidently in 
 an unfinished state. And this is a token, among other 
 proofs, that the Lord has been a swift messenger against 
 Egypt, and that his judgments have come upon it sud- 
 denly. At a farther distance of fifty yards, two other 
 obelisks lie contiguous; and at a little distance from these, 
 in a single spot, from seventy to eighty large stones or 
 blocks of granite are crowded together (some of them six 
 
EGYPT. 
 
 513 
 
 feet by four,) most of which are partly hid in the ground, 
 and some scattered around. Fragments of ruins he over 
 a large extent, and among these many vitrified pieces, 
 larger than those on Gaza, are to be found, clearly indi- 
 cating that the Lord hath set fire in Zoan. 
 
 Can any words be more free from ambiguity, or could 
 any events be more wonderful in their nature, or more 
 unlikely or impossible to have been foreseen by man, than 
 these prophecies concerning Egypt? The long fine of 
 its kings commenced with the first ages of the world, and, 
 while it was yet unbroken, its final termination was re- 
 vealed. The very attempt once made by infidels to 
 show, from the recorded number of its monarchs and the 
 duration of their reigns, that Egypt was a kingdom pre- 
 vious to the Mosaic era of the deluge, places the wonder- 
 ful nature of these predictions respecting it in the most 
 striking view. And the previous experience of two thou- 
 sand years, during which period Egypt had never been 
 without a prince of its own, seemed to preclude the pos- 
 sibility of those predicted events which the experience of 
 the last two thousand years has amply verified. Though 
 it had often tyrannized over Judea and the neighbouring 
 nations, the Jewish prophets foretold that its own sceptre 
 should depart away; and that that country of kings (for 
 the numbers of its contemporary as well as successive 
 monarchs may warrant the appellation) would never have 
 a prince of its own ; and that it would be laid waste by 
 the hand of strangers. They foretold that it should be 
 a base kingdom, the basest of kingdoms; that it should 
 be desolate itself, and surrounded by desolation ; and that 
 it should never exalt itself any more above the nations. 
 They describe its ignominious subjection and unparalleled 
 baseness, notwithstanding that its past and present dege- 
 
 2l 
 
514 
 
 EGYPT. 
 
 neracy bears not a more remote resemblance to the for- 
 mer greatness and pride of its power than the frailty of 
 its mud-walled fabrics now bears to tbe stability of its 
 imperishable pyramids. Such prophecies, accomplished 
 in such a manner, prove, without a comment, that they 
 must be the revelation of the omniscient Euler of the uni - 
 verse. 1 
 
 On a review of the prophecies relative to Nineveh, Ba- 
 bylon, Tyre, and Egypt, may we not, by the plainest in- 
 duction from indisputable facts, conclude that the fate of 
 these cities and countries, as well as of the land of J udea 
 and the adjoining territories, demonstrates the truth of all 
 the prophecies respecting them? and that these prophe- 
 cies, ratified by the events, give the most powerful of tes- 
 timonies to the truth of the Christian religion? The 
 desolation was the work of man, and was effected by the 
 enemies of Christianity; and would have been the same 
 
 1 Egypt has, indeed, lately risen, under its present spirited but 
 despotic pasha, who is both an oppressor and a stranger, to a de- 
 gree of political importance and power unknown to it for many 
 past centuries. Yet this fact, instead of militating against the 
 truth of prophecy, may, possibly at no distant period, serve to 
 illustrate another prediction, which implies that, however base and 
 degraded it might continue to be throughout many generations, 
 it would, notwithstanding, have strength sufficient to be looked 
 to for aid or protection, even at the time of the restoration of the 
 Jews to Judea, who will seek " to strengthen themselves in the 
 strength of Pharaoh, and trust in the shadow of Egypt." Other 
 prophecies respecting it await their fulfilment. Yet, whatever its 
 present apparent strength may be, it is still but " the shadow of 
 Egypt." (Isa. xxx. 2; xxxi. 1.) The whole earth shall yet re- 
 joice; and Egypt shall not be for ever base. The Lord shall smite 
 Egypt; he shall smite and heal it; and they shall return to the 
 Lord, and he shall be entreated of them, and shall heal them. In 
 that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt, and with Assyria, 
 even a blessing in the midst of the land, &c. (Isa. xix. 19-25.) 
 
EGYPT. 
 
 515 
 
 as it is, though not a single prophecy had been uttered. 
 It is the prediction of these facts, in all their particulars, 
 infinitely surpassing human foresight, which is the work 
 of God alone. And the ruin of these empires, while it 
 substantiates the truth of every iota of these predictions, 
 is thus a miraculous confirmation and proof of the inspira- 
 tion of the Scriptures. By what fatality is it, then, that 
 infidels should have chosen for the display of their power 
 this very field, where, without conjuring, as they have 
 done, a lying spirit from the ruins, they might have read 
 the fulfilment of the prophecies on every spot? Instead 
 of disproving the truth of every religion, the greater these 
 ruins are, the more strongly do they authenticate the 
 Scriptural prophecies; and it is not, at least, on this 
 stronghold of faith that the standard of infidelity can be 
 erected. Every fact related by Volney is a witness against 
 all his speculation ; and out of his own mouth is he con- 
 demned. Can any purposed deception be more glaring 
 or great, than to overlook all these prophecies, and to 
 raise an argument against the truth of Christianity from 
 the very facts by which they have been fulfilled? Or can 
 any evidence of divine inspiration be more convincing and 
 clear, than to view, in conjunction, all these marvellous 
 predictions, and their exact completion? 
 
516 
 
 THE ARABS. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE ARABS. 
 
 The history of the Arabs, so opposite in many respects 
 to that of the Jews, but as singular as theirs, was con- 
 cisely and clearly foretold. It was prophesied concern- 
 ing Ishmael : — " He will be a wild man ; his hand will 
 be against every man, and every man's hand against 
 him : and he shall dwell in the presence of all his bre- 
 thren. I will make him fruitful, and multiply him ex- 
 ceedingly; and I will make him a great nation." 1 The 
 fate of Ishmael is here identified with that of his descen- 
 dants; and the same character is common to them both. 
 The historical evidence of the fact, the universal tradi- 
 tion, and constant boast of the Arabs themselves, their 
 language, and the preservation for many ages of an ori- 
 ginal rite, derived from him as their primogenitor, con- 
 firm the truth of their descent from Ishmael. The ful- 
 filment of the prediction is obvious. Even Gibbon, while 
 he attempts, from the exceptions which he specifies, to 
 evade the force of the fact, that the Arabs have main- 
 tained a perpetual independence, acknowledges that these 
 exceptions are temporary and local; that the body of the 
 nation has escaped the yoke of the most powerful mo- 
 1 Genesis xvi. 12; xvii. 20. 
 
THE ARABS. 
 
 517 
 
 narchies; and that " the arms of Sesostris and Cyrus, of 
 Pompey and Trajan, could never achieve the conquest of 
 Arabia." 1 But even the exceptions which he specifies, 
 though they were justly stated, and though not coupled 
 with such admissions as invalidate them, would not de- 
 tract from the truth of the prophecy. The independence 
 of the Arabs was proverbial in ancient as well as in mo- 
 dern times; arid the present existence, as a free and inde- 
 pendent nation, of a people who derive their descent from 
 so high antiquity, demonstrates that they have never been 
 wholly subdued, as all the nations around them have un- 
 questionably been ; and that they have ever dwelt in the 
 presence of their brethren. They not only subsist un- 
 conquered to this day, but the prophesied and primitive 
 wildness of their race, and their hostility to all, remain 
 unsubdued and unaltered. " They are a wild people; 
 their hand is against every man, and every mans hand 
 is against them." In the words of Gibbon, which strik- 
 ingly assimilate with those of the prophecy, they are 
 "armed against mankind." Plundering is their profes- 
 sion. Their alliance is never courted, and can never be 
 obtained; and all that the Turks, or Persians, or any of 
 their neighbours, can stipulate for from them, is a partial 
 and purchased forbearance. Even the British, who have 
 established a residence in almost every country, have en- 
 tered the territories of the descendants of Ishmael to 
 accomplish only the premeditated destruction of a fort, 
 and to retire. It cannot be alleged, with truth, that 
 their peculiar character and manner, and its uninterrupt- 
 ed permanency, are the necessary result of the nature of 
 their country. They have continued wild or uncivilized, 
 
 1 Gibbon's Hist. vol. ix. e. 1. p. 230. 
 
518 
 
 THE ARABS. 
 
 and have retained their habits of hostility towards all the 
 rest of the human race, though they possessed for three 
 hundred years countries the most opposite in their nature 
 from the mountains of Arabia, The greatest part of the 
 temperate zone was included within the limits of the Ara- 
 bian conquests; and their empire extended from the con- 
 fines of India to the shores of the Atlantic/ and embraced 
 a wider range of territory than ever was possessed by the 
 Romans, those boasted masters of the world. The pe- 
 riod of their conquest and dominion was sufficient, under 
 such circumstances, to have changed the manners of any 
 people : but, whether in the land of Shinar or in the val- 
 leys of Spain, on the banks of the Tigris or the Tagus, in 
 Araby the blessed, or Araby the barren, the posterity of 
 Ishmael have ever maintained their prophetic character ; 
 they have remained, under every change of condition, a 
 wild people; their hand has still been against every man, 
 and every man's hand against them. 
 
 The natural reflection of a recent traveller, on examin- 
 ing the peculiarities of an Arab tribe, of which he was an 
 eye-witness, may suffice, without any art of controversy, 
 for the illustration of this prophecy: — " On the smallest 
 computation, such must have been the manners of those 
 people for more than three thousand years; thus in all 
 things verifying the prediction given of Ishmael at his 
 birth, that he, in his posterity, should be a wild man, and 
 always continue to be so, though they shall dwell for ever 
 in the presence of their brethren. And that an acute 
 and active people, surrounded for ages by polished and 
 luxurious nations, should, from their earliest to their lat- 
 est times, be still found a wild people, dwelling in the 
 1 Gibbon, vol. ix. c. li. p. 501 — vol. x. c. lii. p. 2. 
 
THE ARABS. 
 
 519 
 
 presence of all their brethren, (as we may call those na- 
 tions,) unsubdued and unchangeable, is indeed a standing 
 miracle, — one of those mysterious facts which establish 
 the truth of prophecy." 1 
 
 1 Sir R. K. Porter's Travels, p. 304. 
 
520 
 
 AFRICANS, ETC. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 SLAVERY OF THE AFRICANS — EUROPEAN COLONIES IN 
 ASIA. 
 
 Not only do the different countries and cities, which 
 form the subjects of prophecy, exhibit to this day their 
 predicted fate, but there is also a prophecy recorded as 
 delivered in an age coeval with the deluge, when the mem- 
 bers of a single family included the whole of the human 
 race, the fulfilment of which is conspicuous even at the 
 present time. And while the fate of the Jews and of the 
 Arabs, throughout many ages, has confirmed, in every in- 
 stance in which the period of their prediction is already 
 past, the prophecies relative to the descendants of Isaac 
 and of Ishmael, — existing facts, which are prominent fea- 
 tures in the history of the world, are equally corrobora- 
 tive of the predictions respecting the sons of Noah. The 
 unnatural conduct of Ham, and the dutiful and respectful 
 behaviour of Shem and Japheth towards their aged father, 
 gave rise to the prediction of the future fate of their pos- 
 terity, without being at all assigned as the cause of that 
 fate. But whatever was the occasion on which it was de- 
 livered, the truth of the prophecy must be tried by its 
 completion: — " Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants 
 shall he be unto his brethren. Blessed be the Lord God 
 
AFRICANS, ETC. 
 
 521 
 
 of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant. God shall 
 enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; 
 and Canaan shall be his servant." 1 
 
 The historical part of Scripture, by its describing so 
 particularly the respective settlements of the descendants 
 of Noah, " after their generations in their nations," af- 
 fords to this day, the means of trying the truth of the 
 prediction, and of ascertaining whether the prophetic cha- 
 racter, as given by the patriarch of the post-diluvian 
 world, be still applicable to the inhabitants of the different 
 regions of the earth which were peopled by the posterity 
 of Shem, of Ham, and of Japheth. The isles of the Gen- 
 tiles, 2 or the countries beyond the Mediterranean, to which 
 they passed by sea, viz. those of Europe, were divided by 
 the sons of Japheth. The descendants of Ham inhabited 
 Africa and the south-western parts of Asia. The families 
 of the Canaanites were spread abroad. The border of 
 the Canaanites was from Sidon. z The city of Tyre was 
 called the daughter of Sidon; and Carthage, the most ce- 
 lebrated city of Africa, was peopled from Tyre. And the 
 dwellings of the sons of Shem were unto the east* or Asia. 
 The particular allotment, or portion of each, " after their 
 families, after their tongues, in their countries, and in 
 their nations," 5 is distinctly specified. And although the 
 different nations descended from any one of the sons of 
 Noah, have intermingled with each other, and undergone 
 many revolutions, yet the three great divisions of the 
 world have remained distinct, as separately peopled and 
 possessed by the posterity of each of the sons of Noah. 
 On this subject the earliest commentators are agreed; be- 
 fore the existence of those facts which give to the prophecy 
 
 1 Gen. ix. 25, 26, 27. 2 Gen. x. 5. 3 lb. x. 6, 18, 19. 
 4 lb. x. 30. 5 lb. 31, 32.— See Mede, Die. L. p. 277, &c. 
 
522 
 
 AFEICANS, ETC. 
 
 its fullest illustration. The facts themselves, hy which 
 the prediction is verified, are so notorious and so appli- 
 cable, that the most brief and simple statement may suf- 
 fice. Before the propagation of Christianity, which first 
 spoke peace to earth, taught a law of universal love, and 
 called all men brethren, slavery everywhere prevailed, 
 and the greater part of the human race, throughout all 
 the world, were born to slavery, and unredeemed for life. 
 Man can now boast of a nobler birthright. But though 
 long banished from almost all Europe, slavery still lingers 
 in Africa. That country is distinguished above every 
 other as the land of slavery. Slaves at home, and trans- 
 ported for slavery, the poor Africans, the descendants of 
 Ham, are the servant of servants, or slaves to others. 
 Yet so unlikely was this fact to have been foreseen by man, 
 that, for centuries after the close of the Old Testament 
 history, the inhabitants of Africa disputed with the Eo- 
 mans the empire of the world. But Hannibal, who was 
 once almost master of Rome and of Europe, was forced 
 to yield to and own the fate of Carthage. 1 
 
 " God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the 
 tents of Shem." Some of the ablest interpreters of pro- 
 phecy, of a former age, conceived that this prediction was 
 fulfilled, not only by the conquests which the Macedonians 
 and the Romans obtained over many of the countries of 
 Asia, but that the promise or blessing of enlargement to 
 Japheth was also verified in a metaphorical sense, by the 
 extension of the knowledge of true religion to the nations 
 of Europe. But it stands not now in need of any ques- 
 tionable interpretation, having received a literal accom- 
 plishment. What is at present the relative situation or 
 connexion of the inhabitants of Europe and of Asia, the 
 1 Livii Hist. lib. xxvii. c. 51. Mede, ibid. 
 
AFRICANS, ETC. 
 
 523 
 
 descendants of Japheth and of Shem? May not the for- 
 mer be said literally to dwell in the tents of the latter? Or 
 what simile, drawn from the simplicity of primeval ages, 
 could be more strikingly graphic of the numerous and ex- 
 tensive European colonies in Asia? And how much have 
 the posterity of Japheth been enlarged within the regions 
 of the posterity of Shem ? In how many of their ancient 
 cities do they dwell? How many settlements have they 
 established? — while there is not a single spot in Europe 
 the colony or the property of any of the nations whom 
 the Scriptures represent as descended from Shem, or who 
 inhabit any part of that quarter of the world which they 
 possessed. And it may be said, in reference to our own 
 island, and to the immense extent of the British Asiatic 
 dominions, that the natives of the isles of the Gentiles dwell 
 in the tents of the East! From whence, then, could such 
 a prophecy have emanated, but from inspiration by Him 
 whose presence and whose prescience are alike unlimit- 
 ed by space or by time? 
 
 Whatever events the prophecies reveal, they never sanc- 
 tion any iniquity or evil. The wrath of man worketh not 
 the righteousness of God, though it be made to praise 
 him. And any defence or attempted justification of sla- 
 very, or of man having any moral right of property in 
 man, must be sought in vain from the fulfilment of this 
 prediction. Nebuchadnezzar was the guilty instrument 
 of righteous judgments; and although, in the execution of 
 these, he was the servant of the Lord, it was his own gain 
 and glory which he sought, and after having subdued na- 
 tions not a few, he was driven from men, and had his 
 dwelling with the beasts. Never were judgments more 
 clearly marked than those which have rested on the Jews 
 in every country under heaven. Yet he that toucheth 
 
524: 
 
 ALBICANS, ETC. 
 
 them toucheth the apple of his eye : and the year of re- 
 compences for the controversy of Zion shall be the day of 
 the Lord's vengeance, when he will plead with all flesh 
 for his people and for his heritage. And if these exam- 
 ples suffice not to show that it is a wresting of Scripture 
 to their destruction, for any to seek from them the vindi- 
 cation of slavery, because Canaan was to be the servant 
 of servants unto his brethren, yet they who profess to look 
 here to the Holy Scriptures for a warrant, because that 
 fact was foretold, should remember, that though Christ 
 was delivered into the hands of his enemies " by the de- 
 terminate counsel and foreknowledge of God, it was by 
 wicked hands that he was crucified and slain." God hath 
 made of one flesh all the nations of the earth. And, 
 were the gospel universally and rightly appealed to, no 
 other bond would be known among men but that of 
 Christian brotherhood. 
 
THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA. 
 
 525 
 
 CHAPTEE XVI. 
 
 THE SEVEN CHUECHES OF ASIA. 
 
 Incomplete as has been the view given in the forego- 
 ing pages of the Evidence of Prophecy, yet do not the 
 joint clearness of the prophecies themselves, and the pro- 
 fusion of precise facts which show their literal fulfilment, 
 bid defiance to the most subtle sceptic to forge or feign 
 the shadow of a just reason to prove how they could all 
 have been spoken, except by inspiration of God? The sure 
 word of prophecy has indeed unfolded many a desolation 
 which has come upon the earth ; but while it thus reveals 
 the operation, in some of its bearings, of the " mystery of 
 iniquity," it forms itself a part of the " mystery of godli- 
 ness :" and it is no less the testimony of Jesus, because 
 it shows, as far as earthly ruins can reveal, the progress 
 and the issue of the dominion of " other lords" over the 
 hearts of the children of men. The sins of men have 
 caused, and the cruelty of men has effected, the dire de- 
 solations which the word of God foretold. Signs and 
 tokens of his judgments there indeed have been, but they 
 are never to be found but where iniquity first prevailed. 
 And though all other warnings were to fail, the sight of 
 his past judgments, and the sounding of those that are to 
 
526 
 
 THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA. 
 
 come, might teach the unrepenting and unconverted sin- 
 ner to give heed to the threatenings of his word and to 
 the terrors of the Lord, and to try his ways and turn un- 
 to God, while space for repentance may be found, ere, as 
 death leaves him, judgment shall find him. And may 
 not the desolations which God has wrought upon the 
 earth, and that accredit his word, wherein life and immor- 
 tality are brought to light, teach the man whose God is 
 the world, to cease to account it worthy of his worship 
 and of his love, and to abjure that " covetousness, which 
 is idolatry," till the idol of mammon in the temple within 
 shall fall, as fell the image of Dagon before the ark of 
 the Lord, in which "the testimony" was kept? 
 
 But naming, as millions do, the name of Christ, with- 
 out departing from iniquity, there is another warning 
 voice that may come more closely to them all. And it 
 is not only from the desolate regions where heathens 
 dwelt, which show how holy men of old spake as they 
 were moved by the Holy Ghost; but also from the ruins 
 of some of the cities where churches were formed by 
 apostles, and where the religion of Jesus once existed in 
 its purity, that all may learn to know that God is no re- 
 specter of persons, and that he will by no means clear the 
 guilty. " He that hath an ear, let him hear what the 
 Spirit saith unto the churches." 
 
 What church could rightfully claim or ever seek a higher 
 title than that which is given in Scripture to the seven 
 churches of Asia, the angels of which were the seven 
 stars in the right hand of Him who is the first and the 
 last, of Him that liveth and was dead and is alive for 
 evermore, and that hath the keys of hell and of death; 
 and which themselves were the seven golden candlesticks 
 
THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA. 
 
 527 
 
 in the midst of which he walked? And who that hath 
 an ear to hear, may not humbly hear and greatly profit by 
 what the Spirit said unto them? 1 
 
 The Church of Ephesus, after a commendation of 
 their first works, to which they were commanded to re- 
 turn, were accused of having left their first love, and 
 threatened with the removal of their candlestick out of 
 its place, except they should repent. 2 Ephesus is situat- 
 ed nearly fifty miles north of Smyrna. It was the me- 
 tropolis of Ionia, and a great and opulent city, and, 
 (according to Strabo) the great emporium of Asia Minor. 
 It was chiefly famous for the temple of Diana, " whom 
 all Asia worshipped," which was adorned with one hun- 
 dred and twenty-seven columns of Parian marble, each 
 of a single shaft, and sixty feet high, and which formed 
 one of the seven wonders of the world. The remains of 
 its magnificent theatre, in which it is said that twenty 
 thousand people could easily have been seated, are yet 
 to be seen. 3 But " a few heaps of stone, and some mi- 
 serable mud cottages, occasionally tenanted by Turks, 
 without one Christian residing there, are all the remains 
 of ancient Ephesus." 4 — It is, as described by different 
 travellers, a solemn and most forlorn spot. The epistle 
 to the Ephesians is read throughout the world : but there 
 is none in Ephesus to read it now. They left their first 
 love ; they returned not to their first works. Their can- 
 dlestick has been removed out of its place; and the great 
 city of Ephesus is no more. 
 
 The Church op Smyrna was approved of as " rich," 
 and no judgment was denounced against it. They were 
 warned of a tribulation of ten days, (the ten years' perse- 
 
 1 Rev. ii. and iii. 2 Rev y 5 * Acts xix. 29. 
 
 4 Arundel's Visit to the Seven Churches of Asia, p. 27. 
 
528 
 
 THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA. 
 
 cution by Dioclesian,) and were enjoined to be faithful 
 unto death, and they would receive a crown of life. And, 
 unlike to the fate of the more famous city of Ephesus, 
 Smyrna is still a large city, containing nearly one hun- 
 dred thousand inhabitants, with several Greek churches; 
 and an English and other Christian ministers have resid- > 
 ed in it. The light has indeed become dim, but the can- 
 dlestick has not been wholly removed out of its place. 
 
 The Chuech oe Pergamos is commended for holding 
 fast the name of the Lord, and not denying his faith, 
 during a time of persecution, and in the midst of a wick- 
 ed city. But there were some in it who held doctrines, 
 and did deeds, which the Lord hated. Against them He 
 was to fight with the sword of his mouth; and all were 
 called to repent. But it is not said as of Ephesus, that 
 their candlestick would be removed out of its place. 2 Per- 
 gamos is situated to the north of Smyrna, at a distance of 
 nearly sixty-four miles, and " was formerly the metropo- 
 lis of Hellespontic Mysia." It still contains at least 
 fifteen thousand inhabitants, of whom fifteen hundred are 
 Greeks, and two hundred Armenians, each of whom has 
 a church. 
 
 In the Church of Thyatira, like that of Pergamos, 
 some tares were soon mingled with the wheat. He who 
 hath eyes like unto a flame of fire, discerned both. Yet 
 happily for the souls of the people, more than for the 
 safety of the city, the general character of that church, 
 as it then existed, is thus described : " I know thy works, 
 and charity, and service, and faith, and thy patience, and 
 thy works; and the last to be more than the first." But 
 against those — for such there were among them, who had 
 committed fornication, and eaten things sacrificed unto 
 
 1 Rev. ii. 8, 11. 2 Rev. ii. 12-16. 3 Ibid. ii. 19. 
 
THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA. 
 
 529 
 
 idols, to whom the Lord gave space to repent of their 
 fornication, and they repented not — great tribulation was 
 denounced ; and to every one of them was to be given 
 according to their works. These, thus warned while on 
 earth in vain, have long since passed, whither all are daily 
 hastening, to the place where no repentance can be found, 
 and no work be done. " But unto the rest in Thyatira, 
 (as many as have not known the depths of Satan) I will 
 put upon you, saith the Lord, none other burden." 1 There 
 were those in Thyatira who could save a city. It still 
 exists, while greater cities have fallen. Mr Hartley, who 
 visited it in 1826, describes it as "embosomed in cy- 
 presses and poplars." The Greeks are said to occupy 
 three hundred houses, and the Armenians thirty. Each 
 of them has a church. 
 
 The Church oe Sardis differed from the churches of 
 Pergamos and Thyatira. They had not denied the faith; 
 but the Lord had a few things against them, for there 
 were some evil doers among them, and on those if they 
 repented not, judgment was to rest. But in Sardis, great 
 though the city was, and founded though the church had 
 been by an apostle, there were only a few names which 
 had not defiled their garments. And to that church the 
 Spirit said, " I know thy works, that thou hast a name 
 that thou livest and art dead." But the Lord is long- 
 suffering, not willing that any should perish, but that all 
 should come to repentance. And the church of Sardis 
 was thus warned, " Be watchful, and strengthen the things 
 which remain, that are ready to die; for I have not found 
 thy works perfect before God. Eemember, therefore, 
 how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast and re- 
 pent. If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on 
 1 Rev. ii. 24. . ■ 
 
 2 M 
 
530 THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA. 
 
 thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I shall 
 come upon thee." 1 The state of Sardis now is a token 
 that the warning was given in vain ; and shows that the 
 threatenings of the Lord, when disregarded, become cer- 
 tain judgments. Sardis, the capital of Lydia, was a great 
 and renowned city, where the wealth of Crcesus, its king, 
 was accumulated, and became even a proverb. But now 
 a few wretched mud huts, " scattered among the ruins," 
 are the only dwellings in Sardis, and form the lowly home 
 of Turkish herdsmen, who are its only inhabitants. As 
 the seat of a Christian church, it has lost — all it bad to 
 lose — the name. " No Christians reside on the spot." 
 
 « And to the angel of the Church in Philadelphia 
 write, These things saith He that is holy, He that is true, 
 He that hath the key of David, He that openeth and no 
 man shutteth, and shutteth and no man openeth ; I know 
 thy works; behold I have set before thee an open door, 
 and no man can shut it ; for thou hast a little strength, 
 and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name. — 
 Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also 
 will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall 
 come upon all the world." 2 The promises of the Lord 
 are as sure as his threatenings. Philadelphia alone long 
 withstood the power of the Turks, and in the words of 
 Gibbon, " at length capitulated with the proudest of the 
 Ottomans. Among the Greek colonies and churches of 
 Asia," he adds, "Philadelphia is still erect; a column in 
 a scene of ruins." 3 u It is indeed an interesting circum- 
 stance," says Mr Hartley, "to find Christianity more 
 flourishing here than in many other parts of the Turkish 
 empire: there is still a numerous Christian population; 
 
 » Uev. iii. 2, 3. 2 Ibid. iii. 7, 8, 10. 
 
 3 Gibbon, vol. xi. ch. Ixiv. p. 427. 
 
THE SEVEN CHUECHES OF ASIA. 
 
 531 
 
 they occupy three hundred houses. Divine service is 
 performed every Sunday in five churches." Nor is it 
 less interesting, in these eventful times, and notwithstand- 
 ing the general degeneracy of the Greek church, to learn 
 that the present bishop of Philadelphia accounts " the 
 Bible the only foundation of all religious belief;" and 
 that he admits that " abuses have entered into the church, 
 which former ages might endure; but the present must 
 put them down." 1 From the prevailing iniquities of men 
 many a sign has been given how terrible are the judg- 
 ments of God. But from the fidelity of the church in 
 Philadelphia of old in keeping his word, a name and me- 
 morial of his faithfulness has been left on earth, while the 
 higher glories, promised to those that overcame, shall be 
 ratified in heaven ; and towards them, but not them only, 
 shall the glorified Kedeemer confirm the truth of his bless- 
 ed words, " Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in 
 the temple of my God;" even as assuredly as Philadel- 
 phia, when all else fell around it, " stood erect," our ene- 
 mies themselves being judges, " a column in a scene of 
 ruins." 
 
 « And unto the angel of the Church of the Laodi- 
 CEANS write, These things saith the Amen, the faithful 
 and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God; 
 I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot; I 
 would thou wert cold or hot, So then because thou 'art 
 lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out 
 of my mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich and in- 
 creased with goods, and have need of nothing ; andknow- 
 est not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, 
 and blind, and naked; I counsel thee to buy of me gold 
 tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich ; and white 
 1 Missionary Register, June 1827. 
 
532 
 
 THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA. 
 
 raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame 
 of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes 
 with eye-salve, that thou mayest see." 1 All the other 
 churches were found worthy of some commendation ; and 
 there was some blessing in them all. The chinch of 
 Ephesus had laboured and had not fainted, though she 
 had forsaken her first love; and the threatened punish- 
 ment, except she repented, was the removal of her can- 
 dlestick out of its place. A faithless and wicked few 
 polluted the churches of Pergamos and Thyatira by their 
 doctrines or by their lives; but the body was sound, and 
 the churches had a portion in Christ. Even in Sardis, 
 though it was dead, there was life in a few, who had not 
 defiled their garments; "and they shall walk with me in 
 white," saith the Lord, " for they are worthy." 
 
 But in what the Spirit said to the church in Laodicea, 
 there was not one word of approval: it was lukewarm, 
 without exception; and therefore it was wholly loathed. 
 The religion of Jesus had become to them as an ordinary 
 matter. They would attend to it just as they did to other 
 things, which they loved as well. The sacrifice of the 
 Son of God upon the cross was nothing thought of more 
 than a common gift by man. They were not constrain- 
 ed by the love of Christ more than by other feelings. 
 They could repeat the words of the first great command- 
 ment of the law, and of the second that is like unto it ; 
 but they showed no sign that the one or the other was 
 truly a law to them. There was no Dorcas among them, 
 who, out of pure Christian love, made clothes for the 
 poor. There was no Philemon to whom it could be said, 
 " The church in thy house," and who could look on a 
 Christian servant as a " brother beloved." There was 
 1 Rev. iii. 14-18. 
 
THE SEVEN CHUKCHES OE ASIA. 
 
 533 
 
 no servant who looked to the eye of his Father in heaven 
 more than to that of his master on earth, and to the re- 
 compense of eternal reward more than to the hireling 
 wages of a day; and who, by showing all good fidelity, 
 sought to adorn the doctrine of God his Saviour in all 
 things. There was nothing done as every thing should 
 be, heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men. 
 
 They neither felt nor lived as if they knew that what- 
 soever is not of faith is sin. Their lukewarmness was 
 worse, for it rendered their state more hopeless than if 
 they had been cold. For sooner would a man in Sardis 
 have felt that the chill of death was upon him, and have 
 cried out for life, and called to the physician, than would 
 a man of Laodicea, who could calmly count his even pulse, 
 and think his life secure, while death was preying on his 
 vitals. The character of lukewarm Christians, a self- 
 contradicting name, is the same in every age. Such was 
 the church of the Laodiceans. — But what is that city 
 now, or how is it changed from what it was ! 
 
 Laodicea was the metropolis of the Greater Phrygia; 
 and, as heathen writers attest, it was an extensive and 
 very celebrated city. Instead of then verging to its de- 
 cline, it arose to its eminence only about the beginning 
 of the Christian era. " It was the mother-church of 
 sixteen bishoprics. Its three theatres, and the immense 
 circus, which was capable of containing upwards of thirty 
 thousand spectators, the spacious remains of which (with 
 other ruins buried under ruins) are yet to be seen, give 
 proof of the greatness of its ancient wealth and population, 
 and indicate too strongly, that in the city where Chris- 
 tians were rebuked, without exception, for their lukewarm- 
 ness, there were multitudes who were lovers of pleasure 
 more than lovers of God. The amphitheatre was built 
 
534 
 
 THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA. 
 
 after the Apocalypse was written, and the warning of the 
 Spirit had been given to the church of the Laodiceans to 
 be zealous and repent; but whatever they there may 
 have heard or beheld, their hearts would neither have 
 been quickened to a renewed zeal for the service and 
 glory of God, nor turned to a deeper sorrow for sin, and 
 to a repentance not to be repented of. But the fate of 
 Laodicea, though opposite, has been no less marked than 
 that of Philadelphia. There are no sights of grandeur, 
 nor scenes of temptation around it now. Its own tragedy 
 may be briefly told. It was lukewarm and neither cold 
 nor hot, and therefore it was loathsome in the sight of 
 God. It was loved, and rebuked, and chastened in vain. 
 And it has been blotted from the world. It is now as 
 desolate as its inhabitants were destitute of the fear and 
 the love of God, and as the church of the Laodiceans was 
 devoid of true faith in the Saviour, and zeal in his ser- 
 vice. It is, as described in his Travels by Dr Smith, 
 " utterly desolated, and without any inhabitant, except 
 wolves, and jackals, and foxes." 1 It can boast of no 
 human inhabitants, except occasionally when wandering 
 Turkomans pitch their tents in its spacious amphitheatre. 
 The " finest sculptured fragments" are to be seen at a 
 considerable depth, in excavations which have been made 
 among the ruins f and Colonel Leake observes, 3 " there 
 are few ancient cities more likely than Laodicea to pre- 
 serve many curious remains of antiquity beneath the sur- 
 face of the soil; its opulence, and the earthquakes to 
 which it was subject, rendering it probable that valuable 
 works of art were often there buried beneath the ruins of 
 
 1 See Smith's Survey of the Seven Churches in Calmet's Diet. 
 Fragments, 320. Bishop Newton, &c. 
 
 2 Arundel's Travels, p. 85. 3 Journal, p. 252. 
 
THE SEVEN CHUECHES OF ASIA. 
 
 535 
 
 the public and private edifices." A fearful significancy 
 is thus given to the terrific denunciation, " Because thou 
 art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee 
 out of my mouth." 
 
 " He that hath ears to hear, let him hear what the 
 Spirit saith unto the churches." The Spirit searcheth 
 all things, yea the deep things of God. Each church, 
 and each individual therein was weighed in the balance 
 of the sanctuary according to their works. Each was 
 approved of according to its character, or rebuked and 
 warned according to its deeds. Was the church itself 
 pure, the diseased members alone were to be cut off. 
 Was the. church itself dead, yet the few names, in which 
 there was life, were all written before God, and not one 
 of those who overcame would be blotted out of the book 
 of life. All the seven churches were severally exhorted 
 by the Spirit according to their need. The faith deli- 
 vered to the saints was preached unto them all; and all, 
 as Christian churches, possessed the means of salvation. 
 The Son of man walked in the midst of them, beholding 
 those who were, and those who were not Ms. 
 
 By the preaching of the gospel, and by the written 
 word, every man in each of the churches was warned, 
 and every man was taught in all wisdom, that every man 
 might be presented perfect in Christ Jesus. And in what 
 the Spirit said unto each and all of the churches, which 
 he that hath ears to hear was commanded to hear, the 
 promise of everlasting blessedness, under a variety of the 
 most glorious representations, was given without excep- 
 tion, restriction, or reservation to him that overcometh. 
 The language of love, as well as of remonstrance and 
 rebuke, was urged even on the lukewarm Laodiceans. 
 And if any Christian fell, it was from his own resisting 
 
536 
 
 THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA. 
 
 and quenching the Spirit; from his choosing other lords 
 than J esus to have dominion over him ; from his luke- 
 warmness, deadness, and virtual denial of the faith; and 
 from his own wilful rejection of freely-offered and dearly- 
 purchased grace; sufficient, if sought and cherished, and 
 zealously used, to have enabled him to overcome and 
 triumph in that warfare against spiritual wickedness to 
 which Christ hath called his disciples; and in which, as 
 the finisher of their faith, he is able to make the Christian 
 more than conqueror. 
 
 But if such, as the Spirit described them and knew 
 them, to be, were the churches and Christians then, what 
 are the churches, and what are Christians now? Or, 
 rather, we would ask of the reader, what is your own 
 hope towards God, and what the work of your faith ? If, 
 while Christianity was in its prime, and when its divine 
 truths had scarcely ceased to reach the ears of believers 
 from the lips of Apostles, on whose heads the Spirit had 
 visibly descended, and cloven tongues, like as of fire, had 
 sat ; if even at that time, one of the seven churches of 
 Asia had already departed from its first love; if two others 
 were partially polluted by the errors in doctrine, and 
 evils in the practice, of some of their members; if an- 
 other had only a few names that were worthy, and yet 
 another none; and if they, who formed the last and worst 
 of these, thought themselves rich and increased with 
 goods, and that they had need of nothing ; and knew not, 
 that, being lukewarm, they were wretched, and misera- 
 ble, and poor, and blind, and naked ; have you an ear to 
 hear, or a heart to understand such knowledge? and do 
 you, professing yourself a Christian, as they also did, see 
 no cause or warning here to question and examine your- 
 self — even as the same Spirit would search and try you — 
 
THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA. 
 
 537 
 
 of your works, and charity, and service, and faith and pa- 
 tience, and thy works, and the last more than the first? 
 
 What is your labour of love, or wherein do you labour 
 at all for his name's sake, by whose name you are call- 
 ed? What trials does your faith patiently endure, what 
 temptations does it triumphantly overcome? Is Christ 
 in you the hope of glory, and is your heart purified through 
 that blessed hope? To a church, we trust, you belong : but 
 whose is the kingdom within you? What principles ever 
 actuate you which Christ and his Apostles taught? Where, 
 
 in your affections and life, are the fruits of the Spirit 
 
 love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, 
 faith, meekness, temperance? Turn the precepts of the 
 gospel into questions, and ask thus, what the Spirit would 
 say unto you, as he said unto the churches? 
 
 What the Spirit said unto primitive and apostolic 
 churches, over which " the beloved disciple" personally 
 presided, may suffice to prove that none who have left 
 their first love, if ever they have truly felt the love of 
 Jesus — that none who are guilty of seducing others into 
 sin and uncleanness— that none who have a name that 
 they live and are dead — and that none who are luke- 
 warm, are worthy members of any Christian communion; 
 and that, while such they continue, no Christian commu- 
 nion can be profitable to them. But unto them is " space 
 to repent" given. And to them the word and Spirit 
 speak in entreaties, encouragements, exhortations, and 
 warnings; that they may turn from their sins to the Sa- 
 viour, and that they may live and not die. But were 
 there one name in Sodom, or a few in Sardis, that are 
 the Lord's, he knows and names them every one; and 
 precious in his sight is the death of his saints. Some, on 
 the other hand, may be sunk into the depths of Satan, 
 
538 
 
 THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA. 
 
 though in outward fellowship with a church, were such to 
 be found, as pure as once was that of Thyatira. What- 
 ever, therefore, the profession of your faith may be, seek 
 the kingdom of God and his righteousness; that kingdom 
 which is righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy 
 Ghost, and that righteousness which is through faith in 
 Christ, who gave himself for the church, that he might 
 sanctify and cleanse it. And whatever dangers may 
 then encompass you around, fear not — only believe; all 
 things are possible to him that believe th. 
 
 It was by keeping the word of the Lord, and not de- 
 nying his faith, by hearing what the Spirit said, that the 
 Church of Philadelphia held fast what they had, and no 
 man took their crown, though situated directly between 
 the church of Laodicea, which was lukewarm, and Sardis 
 which was dead. And dead as Sardis was, the Lord had 
 a few names in it which had not defiled their garments — 
 Christians, worthy of the name, who lived, as you your- 
 self should ever live, in the faith of the Lord Jesus — 
 dead unto sin, and alive unto righteousness: while all 
 around them, though naming the name of Jesus, were 
 dead in trespasses and sins. Try your faith by its fruits; 
 judge yourselves that you be not judged; examine your- 
 selves whether you be in the faith; prove your own 
 selves; and, with the whole counsel of God, as revealed 
 in the gospel, open to your view, let the rule of your self- 
 scrutiny be what the Spirit said unto the churches. 
 
 If you have seen any wonderful things out of the law 
 of the Lord, and have looked, though from afar off, on 
 the judgments of God that have come upon the earth, 
 lay not aside the thought of these things when you now 
 lay down this little book. Treat them not as if they 
 were an idle tale, or as if you yourself were not to be a 
 
THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA. 
 
 539 
 
 witness — and more than a witness — of a far greater judg- 
 ment which shall be brought nigh unto you, and shall be 
 your own. 
 
 If, in traversing some of the plainest paths of the field 
 of prophecy, you have been led by a way which you knew 
 not of before, let that path lead you to the well of living 
 waters, which springeth up into everlasting life to every 
 one that thirsts after it and drinks. Let the words of 
 our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ be to you this well- 
 spring of the Christian life. Let the word of God en- 
 lighten your eyes, and it will also rejoice your heart. 
 Search the Scriptures, in them are no lying divinations; 
 they testify of Jesus, and in them you will find eternal 
 life. Pray for the teaching and the aid of that Spirit by 
 whose inspiration they were given. And above all Chris- 
 tian virtues, that may bear witness of your faith, put on 
 charity, love to God, and love to man, the warp and woof 
 of the Christian's new vesture without a seam ; which is 
 the fruit of the Spirit, the end of the commandment, the 
 fulfilling of the law, the bond of perfectness, and a bet- 
 ter gift, and a more excellent way than speaking with 
 tongues, or interpreting or prophesying; and without 
 which you would be as nothing, though you understood 
 all mystery and all knowledge. From the want of this 
 the earth has been covered with ruins. Let it be yours, 
 and, however poor may be your earthly portion, it will be 
 infinitely more profitable to you than all the kingdoms of 
 the world, and all their glory. Prophecies shall fail; 
 tongues shall cease; knowledge shall vanish away; the 
 earth and the works that are therein shall be burned up; 
 but charity never faileth. 
 
 If you have kept the word of the Lord, and have not 
 denied his name, hold that fast which thou hast, that no 
 
540 
 
 THE SEVEN CHURCHES OE ASIA. 
 
 man take thy crown. But if heretofore you have been 
 lukewarm, and destitute of Christian faith, and zeal, and 
 hope, and love, it would be vain, in closing a chapter on 
 such a subject, to leave you with any mortal admonition; 
 hear what the Spirit saith, and harden not your heart 
 against the heavenly counsel, and the glorious encour- 
 agement given unto you by that Jesus, of whom all the 
 prophets bear witness, and unto whom all things are now 
 committed by the Father: —"I counsel thee to buy of 
 me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich ; and 
 white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the 
 shame of thy nakedness do not appear, and anoint thine 
 eyes with eye- salve that thou mayest see. As many as 
 I love I rebuke and chasten ; be zealous, therefore, and 
 repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock : if any 
 man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to 
 him, and will sup with him, and he with me. To him 
 that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, 
 even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father 
 in his throne. He that hath an ear, let him hear what 
 the Spirit saith unto the churches." 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 541 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 The whole of the preceding brief and imperfect sketch 
 forms little else than an enumeration of some of the more 
 striking prophecies, and of facts which demonstrate their 
 fulfilment; and a recapitulation of all the particulars would 
 be an unnecessary repetition. The numerous obscure 
 prophecies, which contain much and striking evidence, 
 have hitherto been omitted, that the charge of ambiguity, 
 too generally and indiscriminately attached to them all, 
 might be proved to be unfounded. But, having seen, in 
 hundreds of instances, that prophecies which were plainly 
 delivered, have been as clearly fulfilled, comprehending 
 all in a single argument, and leaving the decision to the 
 enemies of Christianity, or to those who are weak in 
 the faith, and appealing to their reason without bespeaking 
 their favour, — may it not, in the first instance, be asked 
 if it be an easy task which is assigned them, to disprove 
 even this part of the positive evidence to the truth of 
 the religion of Jesus? If they have ever staggered at 
 the promises or threatenings of the Scriptures because of 
 unbelief — discrediting all revelation from on high — can 
 they not-liere discern supernatural evidence in confirma- 
 tion of supernatural truths? May not sight lead them to 
 faith? Must they not concede that the Christian has some 
 reason for the hope that is in him? And may they not, 
 at the very least, be led from thence to the calm and un- 
 
54:2 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 prejudiced investigation, not only of the other prophecies, 
 but of all the evidence which Christianity presents? 
 
 It cannot he alleged, with truth, that the prophecies 
 which have been selected are ambiguous; that they bear 
 the character of those auguries which issued from the 
 cloud that always overhung the temple of Apollo, or of 
 those pretended inspirations which emanated from the cave 
 of Hera. It cannot be denied, that they were all pro- 
 nounced hundreds or thousands of years before the events, 
 which even at the present day demonstrate their fulfilment, 
 though every other oracle has ceased for ages to appeal 
 to a single fact. And the historical and geographical 
 facts, which were so clearly foretold, are, in general, of so 
 wonderful a nature, that the language of prophecy, though 
 expressive of literal truth, seems at first sight to be hy- 
 perbolical; and the prophecies of Isaiah, in particular, 
 have been charged with being " full of extravagant me- 
 taphor;" 1 the more extravagant the metaphor, or the 
 
 1 Were it not for the impiety with which they are conjoined, 
 the remarks of Paine on the prophecies would, to those who have 
 studied them at all, be sufficiently amusing. He characterises the 
 book of Isaiah as " one continued bombastical rant, full of extra- 
 vagant metaphor, without application, and destitute of meaning." 
 The predictions respecting Babylon, Moab, &c. are forsooth com- 
 pared " to the story of the Knight of the Burning Mountain, the 
 story of Cinderella," and such like. Isaiah, in short, " was a lying 
 prophet and impostor." And " what can we say," he asks, " of 
 these prophets, but that they were all impostors and liars?" Such 
 words are not merely harmless; they may be also useful, as they 
 show, that while every possible corroboration from history, fact, 
 reason, and even the unconscious testimony of infidels themselves, 
 is given to the truth of the prophecies, nothing can be alleged on 
 the other hand but what in the sight of all men manifestly is 
 " bombastical rant, and extravagant metaphor, without applica- 
 tion, and destitute of meaning." And since both speak not the 
 truth, who is the liar'? Isaiah the prophet, or Paine the infidel? 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 543 
 
 more remarkable the predicted fact, the farther are the 
 prophecies removed from all possibility of their having 
 been the words of human invention. 
 
 The following comprehensive and luminous statement of 
 the argument, extracted from a review of a former edition 
 of this treatise, is here so apposite, that no apology need 
 be offered for inserting it at length. 
 
 " This geographical argument (viz. the fulfilment of 
 those prophecies which describe the future fate of parti- 
 cular nations, and the future aspect of their countries,) 
 has always appeared to us one of the most impregnable 
 strongholds of Christian prophecy; or rather, one of the 
 most resistless and wide-ranging instruments of aggres- 
 sive evidence. There is no obscurity in the language of 
 the prophet. There is no variety of opinion with regard 
 to the object in his view. There is no denying of the 
 change which he predicts. There is no challenging of the 
 witnesses who prove the facts of the case. The former 
 glory of these regions and kingdoms is recorded by an- 
 cient heathen historians, who knew nothing of the fall 
 foretold. Their present state is described by recent and 
 often infidel travellers, who knew often as little of the pre- 
 dictions which they were verifying by their narratives. It 
 is not a particular event which has passed away, or a par- 
 ticular character who has perished, for whose era we must 
 
 And " what can we say" of this stanch assertor of rights, but that 
 his right to the title is undisputed, and that these very words of 
 his, were others wanting, must in every " age of reason" rivet to 
 his unblest memory the foul aspersions he so falsely applied 1 Ar- 
 gument in such a case would be an idle waste of words. But while 
 it would be an act of mere prodigality and folly to cast pearls be- 
 fore swine, the filth which they have snorted out may well be cast 
 into their own kennel again, that they and their kind may partake 
 of what pertains to them. 
 
544 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 search in the wide page of history, and of whose descrip- 
 tion we may find so many resemblances as to become per- 
 plexed in our application. The places and the people are 
 named by the prophet, and the state in which they now 
 exist is matter of actual observation. The fulfilment of 
 the prediction is thus inscribed as upon a public monu- 
 ment, which every man who visits the countries in ques- 
 tion may behold with his own eyes; and is expressed in a 
 language so universally intelligible, that every man may be 
 said to read it in his own tongue. To these scenes of 
 Scripture prophecy we may point with triumph as to ocu- 
 lar demonstration; and say to the sceptical inquirer, in 
 the words of the evangelist, ' Come and see.' The mul- 
 titude of travellers who have recently visited the Holy 
 Land and the adjacent regions, have furnished ample and 
 authentic materials for the construction of so irrefragable 
 an argument. Many of these travellers have discovered 
 no intention of advocating by their statements the cause 
 of revealed truth; and some of them have been obviously 
 influenced by hostility to its claims. Yet in spite of these 
 prejudices, and altogether unconsciously on their part, 
 they have recorded the most express confirmation of the 
 Scripture prophecies, frequently employing in their de- 
 scriptions the very language of inspiration, and bringing 
 into view (though evidently without design) those features 
 of the scene which form the precise picture painted in the 
 visions of the prophet." 
 
 Willingly might the Christian here rest his assurance 
 " in the faith once delivered to the saints," and leave to 
 the unbeliever his hopeless creed. But the reasonings of 
 one class of infidels must be combined with the researches 
 of another, to give full force to the Evidence of prophecy ; 
 and they jointly supply both the clearest facts and the 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 545 
 
 strongest arguments, and have made ready the means 
 which need only to be applied for bringing the contro- 
 versy with them, in its various bearings, and in their own 
 words, to a short issue. 
 
 The metaphysical speculations of Hume, 1 and the ma- 
 
 1 It may not be here amiss to allude to that kind and courteous 
 admonition to Christian writers, so meekly given, and with wisdom 
 rivalling its modesty, by this great master of ideal philosophy, in 
 which, in order perhaps to bring their arguments to cope the bet- 
 ter with his own, he prescribes to them, as best suited to their 
 cause, the total rejection of reason ! After quoting a passage from 
 Lord Bacon's works, which has a very different application, he 
 adds, — This method of reasoning (about monsters, magic, and al- 
 chymy, &c.) may serve to confound those dangerous friends or dis- 
 guised enemies of the Christian religion, who have undertaken to de- 
 fend it by the principles of human reason (of whom, by the by, 
 Lord Bacon was one, and Sir Isaac Newton another). Our most 
 holy religion is founded on faith, not on reason; and it is a sure 
 method of exposing it to put it to such a trial as it is by no means 
 fitted to endure. (Hume's Essays, sect. 10, vol. ii. pp. 136-7, edit. 
 Edinb. 1800.) If these words may not justly be retorted against 
 the " unbeliever's creed excluding the epithet of holy; or if Mr 
 David Hume was better acquainted with the principles of the 
 Christian Religion than the Author of it, who appealed to the rea- 
 son of men, and asked them why they did not of themselves judge 
 that which was right, and than the apostles Peter and Paul, who 
 enjoin Christians to try all things, and to hold fast that which is 
 good, and to be able to give an answer to every one that asketh 
 them a reason of the hope that is in them; then the writer of this 
 treatise, having only the hard alternative of being either "a dan- 
 gerous friend or disguised enemy of the Christian religion," would 
 with whatever reluctance, prefer the former, and has to lament 
 the evil he has done, and the " sure method" he has taken " of 
 exposing it." And although he may hope that Christians in their 
 charity will forgive him, he must yet leave to unbelievers the com- 
 fort and the joy of the triumph, which, in the exercise of that rea- 
 son which they have monopolized, these pages must necessarily 
 give them. Or if, on the other hand, in somewhat stricter accord- 
 ance with the truths of Scripture, the author of the essay on 
 
54:6 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 tliematical demonstrations of Laplace, which have been 
 directed against the credibility of the miracles, rest en- 
 tirely on the " Theory of Probability" Assuming its 
 logical and legitimate application to the testimony of any 
 supernatural evidence of a divine revelation, it is argued 
 that the improbabilities of the occurrence of miracles, 
 being contradictory to uniform experience, are so extreme 
 as to destroy entirely the validity of any testimony to 
 their truth which has been transmitted through so many 
 ages. " And upon the whole, we may conclude," says 
 Hume, " that the Christian religion, even at this day, 
 cannot be believed by any reasonable person, without a 
 miracle." What then is the evidence, that, even at this 
 day, there are subsisting miracles which must command 
 the belief of every person to the truth of the Christian 
 religion, who is not so utterly unreasonable, and his mind 
 so steeled against conviction, as not to be persuaded even 
 by miraculous demonstration? And in what better or 
 less exceptionable " method" can this evidence be meted 
 
 Human Nature supplies, by the prefixed words, as clear practical 
 proof, in his " Academical Philosophy," or Scepticism in Theory, 
 that it is one of the characteristics of the heart of man to be de- 
 ceitful above all things, as mere worldly wisdom and infidelity in 
 practice too frequently demonstrate that it is also desperately wick- 
 ed; and if Scripture prophecy can " endure the trial of reason," 
 and its evidence be rejected, — then the disciples of Hume, the 
 traducers of the Christian religion as not founded on reason, 
 holding to " human nature" as of itself it is, and deriding the idea 
 of its proffered ransom from the guilt and rescue from the power 
 of sin, have need, without exhausting their reason in abstract spe- 
 culations, to look to their own harder alternative, and (if both be 
 not possibly conjoined) to choose between the incomparable de- 
 ceitfulness and desperate wickedness of the heart within — evils 
 greater far than all that the Christian can ever fear for himself 
 from all the sneers of the sophist, or the railings of the ungodly. 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 54:7 
 
 out than according to the very " measure of probability" 
 in use with unbelievers; and by means of which they pro- 
 fess to have discovered the deficiency of testimony to the 
 truth of ancient miracles? 
 
 Archimedes demanded only a spot whereon to stand, 
 that he might move the world. If the most reasonable 
 concession from the infidel be not as impossible to be ob- 
 tained as the demand of Archimedes ; and if he will admit 
 either the truth of his own principles, or the force of ma- 
 thematical proof, or if his prejudices be not immoveable 
 as a world, the existing and obvious fulfilment of a mul- 
 tiplicity of prophecies might well excite his attention, and 
 convince him of the truth. 
 
 The doctrine of chances, or calculation of probabilities, 
 has been reduced into a science, and is now in various 
 ways of great practical use, and securely acted upon in 
 the affairs of life. But it is altogether impossible that 
 short-sighted man could select, from the infinite multi- 
 tude of the possible contingencies of distant ages, any 
 one of such particular facts as abound in the prophe- 
 cies; and it is manifest that, upon the principle of proba- 
 bilities, the chance would be incalculable against the suc- 
 cess of the attempt, even in a single instance. Each 
 accomplished prediction is a miracle. But the advocate 
 for Christianity may safely concede much, and reduce his 
 data to the lowest terms. And if the unbeliever reckon 
 not his own cause utterly hopeless, and " by no means 
 fitted to endure the trial of reason," he must grant that 
 there was as great a probability that each prediction 
 would not as that it would have been fulfilled; or that 
 the probabilities were equal for and against the occur- 
 rence of each predicted event. The Christian may fear- 
 lessly descend to meet him even on this very lowly 
 
548 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 ground. And without enumerating all the particulars 
 included in the volume of prophecy respecting the life 
 and character and death of Christ — the nature and ex- 
 tent of Christianity, &c. — the destruction of Jerusalem — 
 the fate of the Jews in every age and nation — the exist- 
 ing state of Judea, of Amnion, Moab, Edom, Philistia, 
 Babylon, Tyre, Egypt, the Arabs, &c. — the church of 
 Eome, and the prophetic history which extends through- 
 out two thousand three hundred years; may it not be 
 assumed (though fewer would suffice, and though incon- 
 testable evidence has been adduced to prove more than 
 double the number) that a hundred different particulars 
 have been foretold and mlfilled? What, then, even up- 
 on these data, is the chance, on a calculation of probabi- 
 lities, that all of them would have proved true — the 
 chance diminishing one-half for every number; or what, in 
 other words, is the hundredth power of two to unity? 1 
 Such is the desperate hazard to which the unbeliever 
 would trust, that even from these premises, it is mathe- 
 matically demonstrable that the number of chances is far 
 greater against him than the number of drops in the 
 ocean, although the whole world were one globe of water. 
 Let the chance at least be counted before it be confided 
 in. But who would risk a single mite against the utmost 
 possible gain, at the stake on which unbelievers here 
 recklessly put to certain peril the interests of eternity? 
 
 But each prediction recorded in Scripture, being a 
 miracle of knowledge, is equal to any miracle of power, 
 and could have emanated only from the Deity. " All 
 
 1 Essai Philosophique sur les Probability's, par M. le Comte La- 
 place. Emmerson on Chances, prop. 3. Hutton's edit, of Oza- 
 nam's Mathemat. Kecr. vol. i. See Gregory's Letters ontlie Chris- 
 tian Religion, p. 124. 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 549 
 
 prophecies are real miracles, and as such only can be ad- 
 mitted as proof of any revelation." 1 They may even he 
 said to he peculiarly adapted, in the present age of ex- 
 tended knowledge and enlightened inquiry, for being " the 
 testimony of Jesus;" and they cannot justly be viewed as 
 of inferior importance or authority to any miracles what- 
 ever. 
 
 Though the founder of a new religion, or the messen- 
 ger of a divine revelation, and his immediate followers, 
 who had to promulgate his doctrine, would give clear and 
 unequivocal proof, by working miracles, that their com- 
 mission was from on high ; yet, the relation between any 
 miraculous event, wrought in after-ages, and a religion 
 previously established, might not be so apparent. Or, 
 even if it were, yet any single and transient act of super- 
 human power being confined to a particular region, and 
 cognizable only by a limited number, the testimony of 
 these witnesses would be regarded only as secondary evi- 
 dence, and could not at least in a Christian land be sub- 
 stantiated by proof so complete as that which was sealed 
 
 1 Hume's Essays, vol. ii. p. 137. This statement of Hume's 
 combined with the manifest truth of prophecy, shows how all his 
 theory against the truth of miracles may easily be overthrown by 
 an admission of his own. Prophecy being true, and uniformity 
 true, and all prophecies being real miracles, miracles are not con- 
 trary to universal, or even in a restricted sense, to uniform expe- 
 rience. They " are rendered probable by so many analogies," 
 (Ibid. p. 134,) that on sufficient testimony they become provable, 
 even upon Hume's own principles, especially when the inspiration 
 of those very Scriptures, which record the disputed miracles, is 
 verified by other miracles, the truth of which is established and 
 experienced. And thus the boldest dogmas of scepticism may not 
 only be braved but reversed; and it is more wonderful that the 
 testimony sealed in blood and rendered credible by miracles equally 
 great, should be false, than that the miracles should be true. 
 
550 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 by the blood of martyrs. And even if perpetual mani- 
 festations of miraculous power (however much men in 
 apparent vindication of their unbelief may unreasonably 
 ask such proof) were submitted to the inspection and ex- 
 perience of each individual in every age, they would only 
 seem to distort the order and frame of nature, and by 
 thus disturbing the regularity and uniformity of her oper- 
 ations, would, from their very frequency, cease to be re- 
 garded as supernatural ; and influenced by the same scep- 
 tical thoughts, those who now demand a sign would then 
 be the first to discredit it. And true to reason and to 
 nature it is, that those who will not believe Moses and 
 the prophets would not be persuaded though one rose 
 from the dead. For the prophecies bear a direct refer- 
 ence to religion that is easily comprehended, and that 
 cannot be misapplied. They have a natural and obvious 
 meaning that may be known and read of all men. " Thus 
 saith the Lord" is their prefix: this is the fact, is their 
 proof. Instead of being weakened by the greatness of 
 their number, the more they are multiplied, or the more 
 frequently that facts formerly unknown, or events yet 
 future, spring up in their verification, their evidence is 
 redoubled, and they are ever permanent and existing wit- 
 nesses that the word is of God. And further, the tes- ; 
 timony which in every passing age confirms their truth, 
 cannot be cavilled at; it is not " diluted by transmission 
 through many ages;" it is borne, not to events in them- 
 selves miraculous, but to natural facts, whether historical 
 or geographical, which have been proved by conclusive 
 evidence, and which in numerous instances still subsist to 
 stand the test of any inquiry. And even many of the 
 facts, (such as the marvellous fate of the expatriated 
 Jews) are witnessed by all, and need no testimony what- 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 551 
 
 ever to declare them. And the records of the prophecies, 
 preserved throughout every age, hy the enemies of Chris- 
 tianity, are in every hand. If, then, no evidence less 
 exceptionable, more conclusive, or more clearly miracu- 
 lous could be given, the disciples of Hume, in resigning 
 an " academic" for a Christian faith, have only to apply 
 aright the words of their master — " a wise man propor- 
 tions his belief to the evidence; and they may thus find 
 — what he in vain thought that he had discovered — an 
 " everlasting check" against "delusion." 2 
 
 It was the boast of Bolingbroke, in summing up his 
 " philosophical" labours, that " he had pushed inquiry as 
 faras the true means of inquiry are open, that is, as far 
 as phenomena could guide him." Christian philosophy 
 asks no more. It lays open the " means of inquiry," and 
 presents, in the fulfilment of many prophecies, " pheno- 
 mena" more wonderful than external nature ever exhi- 
 bited, and demands only integrity of purpose, and that 
 " inquiry be pushed unto the uttermost," that candour 
 and reason may thus guide the impartial inquirer, by the 
 light of positive evidence and miraculous proof, to the 
 conviction and acknowledgment of the inspiration of the 
 Scriptures. 
 
 The argument drawn by Volney from " The Euin of 
 Empires," is completely controverted by facts stated by 
 himself, which, instead of militating against religion, 
 directly establish the truth of prophecy; — and the unsub- 
 stantial fabric which he raised needs no other hand but 
 his own to lay it in the dust. 
 
 But ridicule alone has often supplanted reason, and has 
 been held as a test of the truth, and directed especially 
 against the prophecies. And may not an evidence of 
 
 1 Hume's Essay on Miracles, vol. ii. p. 117. 2 Ibid. p. 116. 
 
552 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 their inspiration be found even in this last retreat of infi- 
 delity? The ruins of the moral world are as obvious in 
 the sight of Omniscience as the ruins of the natural, of 
 cities or of kingdoms: and his word can foretell the one as 
 well as the other. And if those who scoff at religion can 
 perceive no evidence from any historical facts, or any ex- 
 ternal objects, they might look within, and they would 
 find engraven on their own hearts, in characters sufficient- 
 ly legible, a confirmation of the prophecies. And if they 
 substitute railing for reason, and think to mar religion 
 with their mockery, to all others they stand convicted, 
 the living witnesses of the truth. " There shall come in 
 the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and 
 saying, where is the promise of his coming? for, since 
 the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they 
 
 WERE FROM THE BEGINNING OE THE CREATION. For 
 
 this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of 
 God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out 
 of the water and in the water: whereby the world, that 
 then was, being overflowed with water, perished." " There 
 shall be mockers in the last time." 1 
 
 1 2 Peter iii. 3-6. Jude 18. 
 
 The Christian religion has thus to rank among its enemies many 
 false teachers, who were to arise, and who, as characterized in 
 Scripture, speak evil of the things that they understand not, who de- 
 spise government, who are presumptuous and self-willed, who speak 
 great swelling words of vanity, to allure others, promising them li- 
 berty while they themselves are the children of corruption, and foam- 
 ing out their shame. (2 Peter, chap. ii. verses 1, 10, 12, 18, 19.) 
 Blasphemy, obscenity, and unmeaning abuse, are the weapons of 
 their warfare : they seek to debase religion into a conformity with 
 their gross and grovelling imaginations; speaking of things that 
 they know not, they utter great swelling words of vanity, as if, by 
 a mere glance of their jaundiced mental vision, they could com- 
 pass at once the whole of religious truth. But their arguments 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 553 
 
 But if unbelievers lay just claim to wisdom, and make 
 a fair appeal to reason, then, rather than place their se- 
 curity in abstract speculations, and tamper thus with the 
 
 are as weak as their principles are base. And so manifestly does 
 reason disclaim them, that for subverting their false assumptions, 
 it is only necessary, in general, to make the -contradiction as flat 
 as the assertion is positive. As an example, it may be remarked, 
 that in a list of aphorisms which lately issued from the London 
 mart of infidelity, the most specious of the whole was thus ex- 
 pressed, — " All other religions are false, and therefore the Chris- 
 tian religion is false also;" or as the argument may be more logi- 
 cally stated, all other religions are false, and therefore the Chris- 
 tian religion is true. Yet who can look but with sorrow for the 
 fate, as well as disgust and derision at the efforts of such pitiful 
 cavillers, carping at the truth of the Christian religion — like unto 
 foul and small fry (the less dignified the more befitting is the si- 
 mile) nibbling at some weeds that have been cast by human hands 
 upon a rock, and pressing with all their little strength to remove it? 
 
 But there is another and a different class of unbelievers, to 
 whom the words in the text no less strikingly apply; for they may 
 be brought to confute the subtlest arguments of the ingenious 
 sceptic, as well as to condemn the profane mockery of the most 
 senseless railer. The great argument of infidelity, urged so stre- 
 nuously in these last days, against the credibility of miracles, from 
 the inviolability of the laws of nature, could not be more plainly 
 or forcibly stated than in the words of tho apostle, declaring what 
 that argument, the result of modern science, would be. If it had 
 not been urged, a part of Christian evidence, derived from the ful- 
 filment of this prediction, would still have been wanting, and we 
 should still have had to wait for the last argument of infidelity, 
 from whence to draw a new illustration of the truth. But the 
 apostle not only states, he also confutes Avhat scoffers in the last 
 days would say, and not from Scriptural authority, unavailing with 
 them, but on philosophical principles, or from facts of which they 
 are willingly ignorant — viz. the creation of the world, and its hav- 
 ing been overflowed by water, which show that all things were 
 not as they were at the beginning of the creation. Hume, Ben- 
 tham, and Laplace, must yet veil their heads, in the academy as 
 well as in the temple, before the humble fishermen of Galilee. 
 
554 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 immortal hopes of their fellow-men, rather than trust in 
 ridicule as the test of religious truth, and call an assumed 
 and yet unpaid licence to blasphemy by the name of 
 
 And their reasonings need only to be rightly applied, that they 
 may as strongly advocate the undoubted evidence which miracles 
 give, that the doctrine is of God, as the facts attested by Gibbon 
 and Volney demonstrate that the prophecies of Scripture were 
 given by inspiration of God. — But such a subject can only be 
 touched on in a concluding note ; and abundant is the evidence of 
 2orophecy, seeing that it here needs only to be thus noticed. The 
 transference of the leading argument of infidelity, — which a text 
 and a fact may suffice to transfer, — into an additional and funda- 
 mental evidence of the truth, merits a full consideration, more re- 
 cently given by it to the writer, in a Demonstration of the Truth 
 of the Christian Religion. 
 
 In these times of inquiry and discovery, it is pleasing to observe 
 how the progress of science becomes ultimately subservient to the 
 cause of truth. Philosophy begins to confess its great error, and 
 to offer some expiation to religion. And in the short space since 
 the publication of the sixth edition of this treatise, new testimony 
 may now be subjoined to the preceding note, not less important 
 towards the illustration of the evidence of Christianity, than the 
 plates of Petra. The recent origin of man is a fact now univer- 
 sally admitted by geologists; and in a late number of the Edin- 
 burgh Review, (No. civ. p. 396,) it is said, in reference to that 
 fact alone, that " it seems to us to be fatal to the theory 
 which we have presumed to call a misconception of the uniformity 
 of causation, as signifying an unalterable sequence of causes and 
 effects" — or, in other words, that it is a demonstration that all 
 things have not continued as they were from the beginning of the 
 creation. " Certain strata have been identified," continues the 
 Reviewer, " with the period of man's first appearance. We can- 
 not do better than quote from Dr Pritchard's excellent book, Re- 
 searches into the Physical History of Mankind, his comment and 
 application of this fact. ' It is well known that all the strata of 
 which our continents are composed were once a part of the ocean's 
 bed. There is no land in existence that was not formed beneath 
 the surface of the sea, or that has not risen from beneath the 
 water. Mankind had a beginning, since we can now look back 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 555 
 
 liberty, — does it not behove them to look first to the po- 
 sitive evidence and miraculous proof of revelation, to 
 detect its fallacy or own its power, and to quit their frail 
 entrenchments, if, indeed, they find that the standard of 
 Christian faith may, in despite of all their efforts, be fixed 
 upon the proudest towers of infidelity? Let them, in the 
 words of the prophet, bring forth their witnesses, that they 
 may be justified, or let them hear, and say, it is truth. 
 
 But, in conclusion, it may in reason be asked, if there 
 be not something repugnant to the principles of Chris- 
 tianity, in the mind of that man who will not hear Moses 
 and the prophets, and who is slow of heart to believe all 
 that they have spoken, though they afforded the means of 
 detection in every prediction which they uttered, if their 
 prophecies had been false, — though they appealed to a 
 
 to the period when the surface on which they lived began to exist. 
 We have only to go back, in imagination, to that age, to repre- 
 sent to ourselves that there existed nothing on this globe but 
 unformed elements, and that in the next period there had be- 
 gun to breathe, and move in a particular spot, a human creature, 
 and we shall already have admitted, perhaps the most astonishing 
 miracle, recorded in the whole compass of the sacred writings,' '' 
 &c. Thus, in a better and more philosophic spirit, resting on a 
 fact, of which the structure of the earth bears witness, and not on 
 an unwarrantable and false assumption, men, without reference to 
 the prediction, have at last discovered the very argument urged by 
 the apostle in refutation of the sceptical saying of scoffers in the 
 last days. The heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of 
 the water and in the water. The earth at first was without form 
 and void. And since the beginning of the creation man himself 
 was created. An unalterable experience has not therefore to be 
 set up against the testimony of the Christian miracles; for there 
 is experience of the truth of " perhaps the most astonishing mi- 
 racle recorded in the whole compass of the sacred writings." The 
 argument of the scoffers, and its manifest confutation, are alike 
 confirmations of the truth of prophecy, — itself, too, a miracle. 
 
556 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 vast variety of events which distant ages would bring into 
 existence, — though history has answered, and ocular de- 
 monstration has confirmed that appeal, our enemies them- 
 selves being witnesses, — and although there never was any 
 other truth that could be tried by such a test ? Might he not 
 be convinced of a doctrine less moral, or not quite accord- 
 ing to godliness, by evidence less miraculous? Is there no 
 reason to fear that the light of evidence, though sufficient 
 to dispel the cloud upon the understanding, is yet unable 
 to penetrate "the veil upon the heart"? Scepticism at 
 best, is not a subject for boasting. It is easy to exclude 
 the noon- tide light by closing the eyes; and it is easy to 
 resist the clearest truth by hardening the heart against it. 
 And while, on the other hand, there are minds (and New- 
 ton's was among the number) which are differently affected 
 by the Evidence of Prophecy, and which cannot be cal- 
 lous, when touched by the concentrated rays of such light 
 from heaven, whence can this great dissimilarity of sen- 
 timent arise from the same identical and abundant proof? 
 And into what else can the want of conviction be resolved 
 than into the Scriptural solution of the difficulty — an evil 
 heart of unbelief? " They will not come unto the light, 
 because the light would make them free." 
 
 But while the unbeliever rejects the means of con- 
 viction, and rests his hope on the assumed possibility 
 that his tenets may be true, — the positive evidence of 
 Christianity convinces the unprejudiced inquirer, or ra- 
 tional and sincere believer, that it is impossible that his 
 faith can be false. And when he searches out of the 
 book of the Lord, and finds that none of them do fail, he 
 looks on every accomplished prediction, even though it be 
 the effect of the wrath of man, as a witness of God; he 
 knows in whom he believes; he sees the rise and fall of 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 557 
 
 earthly potentates, and the convulsions of kingdoms, tes- 
 tifying of Him who ruleth among the nations, and accre- 
 diting his word; he experiences the conviction that the 
 most delightful of all truth, the hope which perisheth not, 
 is confirmed hy the strongest of all testimony, that Hea- 
 ven itself hath ratified the peace which it hath proclaimed; 
 he rests assured that prophecy came not of old time by 
 the will of man, but that holy men of old spake as they 
 were moved by the Holy Ghost; and, although he knows 
 not the mode of the operations of the Spirit, he sees the 
 demonstration of his power. And " taking heed thus 
 unto the sure word of prophecy until the day dawn 
 and the day-star arise in his heart," the true believer 
 learns, from the things that are. past, the certainty of the 
 things that are to come hereafter : he rests not satisfied 
 with a mere name that he liveth while yet he might be 
 dead; but having obtained that "precious faith," the germ 
 of immortality, which springeth up into eternal life, he 
 experiences the power of the world to come, and unites the 
 practice with the profession of religion; he copies the zeal 
 of those who spend their strength for that which is in vain, 
 and their labour for that which profiteth not, but he di- 
 rects it to the attainment of an uncorruptible inheritance, 
 for he knows that his labour shall not be in vain while he 
 yields obedience to that Word which is the Charter of his 
 Salvation, and which so unequivocally bears the seal and 
 superscription of the King of kings. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 No. I. 
 
 CURSORY REMARKS ON SOME OP THE PROPHECIES OF DANIEL. 
 
 The preceding pages are so far from exhausting the 
 subject, or presenting a complete view of the evidence of 
 prophecy, that they only occupy, for the greater part, a 
 space which writers on prophecy have very sparingly 
 touched. Prophecies fulfilled are the miracles of every 
 age of the church. And while new evidence of the in- 
 spiration of the Scriptures can so abundantly be adduced 
 from geographical facts, discovered in the nineteenth cen- 
 tury of the Christian era, there are other predictions of 
 far more momentous import, which have only partially 
 met their completion, and which the future fate of the 
 world has yet more fully to unseal. Much has been writ- 
 ten on the more obscure prophecies, which have already 
 been fulfilled. And different writers have speculated freely 
 on the mode in which the predicted events, according to 
 their interpretation, are to be brought to pass. But " the 
 times and the seasons the Father hath in his own power." 
 And, without entering into any minute exposition or de- 
 tail, the following remarks may tend, in some measure, to 
 show how the obscurity of the symbolical prophecies, which 
 refer to events already past, is, in some instances at least, 
 greatly over-rated — how the objections of infidels may be 
 obviated, and their very arguments be still farther adduced 
 
560 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 in testimony of the truth of revelation, and how, notwith- 
 standing the obscurity in which these prophecies are in- 
 volved, it may be manifestly discerned in them, that He 
 who ruleth among the nations has revealed his word to 
 mortals, and that each vision depicted there is the glance 
 of Omniscience through the history of man. 
 
 The question respecting the more obscure prophecies 
 which the Christian has to argue with the unbeliever is 
 not — whether the same events might not have been fore- 
 told in a more distinct and definite manner (for the pre- 
 dictions themselves are declared to be sealed, or to remain 
 obscure, till the time of the end, or the period of their com- 
 pletion; and as they refer to the political state of the 
 world, or to the successive governments that were to arise, 
 there are obvious reasons for this purposed obscurity, which 
 apply not to the numerous literal predictions) — but the 
 question is, whether, such as they are, and viewed in con- 
 nexion with other prophecies, they bear not a closer and 
 less convertible similitude to the events of which they 
 were avowedly predictive, than human sagacity could have 
 discerned or invented. 
 
 Although the Divine Mind be perfect in wisdom, yet 
 that wisdom is unsearchable; and the mode of communi- 
 cating any super-human knowledge must not only be re- 
 gulated by the nature of the ultimate design of the special 
 revelation, but be adapted also to the perception, capaci- 
 ties, and habits of thought of the human recipients. In 
 the symbolical predictions of Daniel, both these ends are 
 perfectly attained. The first, as so expressed, required 
 that the prophecy should be sealed for many days, which 
 was therefore conveyed in a figurative manner. And the 
 symbols themselves are such as were adopted in the prac- 
 tice, and familiar to the understanding of men, and when 
 viewed in conjunction with the explanation given by the 
 prophet, they are, after the event, abundantly signifi- 
 cant. It is obvious from history, as well as from ancient 
 coins, that different kingdoms were signified or marked 
 by different emblematical representations. And, notwith- 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 561 
 
 standing the diffusion of knowledge, the same practice is 
 continued to the present day. Instead, therefore, of their 
 being singular or unintelligible, the very method of repre- 
 senting kingdoms is used in these prophetic similitudes, 
 which was then, and still is, common in the world, and 
 which arose perhaps at first from necessity, and was 
 sanctioned afterwards by use. 
 
 Not only is the emblematical representation given, but 
 the significancy of the emblems is also explained. And 
 in relation to the same events, in the cases about to be 
 noticed, two different images or figures are represented 
 to view. An accordance in each particular being requisite 
 to a just historical interpretation of the prophecy, there is 
 thus no possibility of any strained accommodation of the 
 events to the prediction ; and that interpretation, which 
 is just in every particular, must be strictly and exclusively 
 applicable. And such interpretation having been given, 
 instead of their being now chargeable with impenetrable 
 obscurity, it is not perhaps in the power of human language 
 to give a more unequivocal and less ambiguous symbolical 
 representation, which designedly was to be understood 
 only after the event, of the rise of successive governments, 
 than is given in the book of Daniel, by two different fig- 
 ures, accompanied by an explanation of each. 
 
 While the truth of the predictions of Daniel may be 
 investigated in the present day, the undoubted certainty 
 of his inspiration was accredited at the time in a manner 
 at once easy to be understood, and impossible to be con- 
 troverted, and altogether unparalleled in the annals of 
 heathen oracles. 
 
 Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, at that time the 
 most potent monarch in the world, had, in his conquests 
 over the surrounding nations, subjected the Jews to his 
 authority; and, among other tokens of obeisance which he 
 demanded of the king of Judah, he required that certain 
 princes of the children of Israel, high in character and 
 skilful in wisdom, should be sent from Jerusalem, in order 
 to be placed in his household, and to be numbered 
 
 20 
 
562 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 among the magicians and astrologers whom he was 
 wont to consult, and who formed one of the appen- 
 dages of his splendid court. Daniel was one of them. 
 He and his friends of the house of Judah were soon "pre- 
 ferred far beyond all the wise men that were in all the 
 realm." But in the court of a despot the highest subject 
 is a slave. And it soon happened that their lives were in 
 the greatest peril, from which no human prudence could 
 have rescued them. It was the business of every courtier 
 to minister to the will and pleasure of the king, otherwise 
 their lives were in danger of being forfeited at once. And 
 a cause of mental disquietude soon arose in the breast of 
 the king, which his magicians were commanded to remove. 
 His mind had been disturbed by dreams, " his spirit was 
 troubled, and his sleep brake from him," and he whose 
 will would brook no control called his wise men, and com- 
 manded them to make known the dream and the inter- 
 pretation thereof. This was a test which all their preten- 
 sions could not abide, and a difficulty which all their arti- 
 fice could not elude. They asked the king "to make 
 known to them the dream, and they would show him the 
 interpretation." In the latter respect they might easily 
 have practised on the credulity of the monarch, and put his 
 mind at ease. " But the dream had gone from him if 
 recalled to his recollection he would at once recognise it ; 
 and those who pretended in other matters to be astrologers, 
 and magicians, and sorcerers, and who could not then de- 
 ceive him, were commanded to tell the dream itself, and 
 then he should know that they " could also show him the 
 interpretation." Compliance with a demand so unreason- 
 able was impossible for man ; the attempt was utterly hope- 
 less; and "they answered the king and said, there is not 
 a man upon the earth that can show the king's matter; 
 therefore there is no king, lord, nor ruler that asketh such 
 things at any magician, or astrologer, or Chaldean. And 
 it is a rare thing that the king requireth ; and there is 
 none other that can show it before the king except the 
 gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh." These words 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 563 
 
 were true; though they may have been inconsistent with 
 the pretensions of the magicians when they were not s© 
 severely tried. But when the passions are inflamed, the 
 spirit troubled, or pride wounded, reason and truth are 
 alike disregarded; and, however unjustifiable or barbarous 
 the deed, none could gainsay it : and the king being angry 
 and very furious, and having previously told them that 
 there was but one decree for them, commanded to destroy 
 all the wise men of Babylon. All the art of man was 
 baffled; " lying and corrupt words" could be of no avail; 
 something beyond deception, and that could not be accused 
 of it, was necessary here, and wholly unattainable by mor- 
 tal. A fit occasion, combined, as it afterwards proved to be, 
 with the revelation of the future fate of the world, was 
 presented for the display of more than human wisdom. 
 He alone, who knoweth the thoughts and intents of the 
 heart, and who is a discerner of the spirit, could communi- 
 cate to the mind of man that knowledge which the king 
 required. And the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of 
 J acob, who had chosen the children of Israel for his pe- 
 culiar people, that all the families of the earth might fin- 
 ally be blessed in the seed of Abraham, heard the prayers 
 of Daniel, and of the other captive princes of Judah, when 
 innocently condemned to die; and he who turneth the 
 hearts of men as the rivers of water, and who holds in his 
 hands the thoughts of kings as well as of their subjects, 
 was pleased to reveal the secret unto Daniel in a night 
 vision. And it was to God that he expressed his grati- 
 tude, and ascribed all the praise. — " Then Daniel blessed 
 the God of heaven. Blessed be the name of God for ever 
 and ever, for wisdom and might are his. And he changeth 
 the times and the seasons. He removeth kings and set- 
 teth up kings: he giveth wisdom to the wise, and know- 
 ledge to them that know understanding. He revealeth the 
 deep and secret things. He knoweth what is in the dark- 
 ness, and the light dwelleth with him. I thank thee and 
 praise thee, 0 thou God of my fathers, who hast given 
 me wisdom and might, and hast made known unto me 
 
564 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 now what we desired of thee, for thou hast made known 
 arito us the king's matter." And as Daniel thus offered 
 up his praise and gratitude in secret prayer unto God, so 
 he boasted not of himself before the king, nor attributed 
 the knowledge of the secret to his own wisdom, but gave 
 all the glory unto God, declaring that there is a God in 
 heaven that revealeth secrets, and maketh known what 
 
 SHALL BE IN THE LATTER DAYS. (Dan. chap, ii.) 
 
 Daniel told unto the king his dream — the vision of his 
 head upon his bed — and the thoughts that had come into 
 his mind, and that (till Daniel recalled them) had passed 
 from his own remembrance. 
 
 It is impossible to conceive a more discriminating test 
 of superhuman knowledge, or any means by which a 
 stronger impression could have been made upon the mind 
 of the king, of the most positive conviction that Daniel 
 was indeed the prophet of God, and that as he had told 
 him the dream, he had shown also the true interpretation 
 thereof. And as the revealing of the dream afforded this 
 indubitable proof to Nebuchadnezzar, so the dream itself 
 and its interpretation, and the exact completion of this 
 prediction of events then future, give to us in the present 
 day proof as indubitable, that Daniel did make known the 
 dream to Nebuchadnezzar,— that the dream is certain, and 
 the interpretation thereof sure. 
 
 It is as easy for an impartial inquirer in the present day 
 as it was for Nebuchadnezzar to judge of the truth of the 
 words of Daniel. Every word of the prophet would bring 
 back to the mind of the king his own former thoughts, and 
 every part of the prophecy still gives a striking demon- 
 stration that Daniel did indeed reveal what would come to 
 pass thereafter, and what would be in the latter days. 
 And although it was as utterly impossible for Nebu- 
 chadnezzar to know of those future events which Daniel 
 foretold, as it was for the magicians to restore to him his 
 own lost thoughts, yet nothing is now easier than to dis- 
 cern and to apply to each and every part of the prediction 
 its successive and corresponding event. And it was not 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 565 
 
 merely to satisfy the disquietude of Nebuchadnezzar's 
 mind — it was not merely that the life of Daniel and of his 
 fellows might be spared — that a condemned captive be- 
 came thus an inspired prophet, but that the word of God 
 might be ratified by supernatural evidence — that Christ- 
 ians in every age might know in whom they have believed 
 — that the providence of God might finally be manifested 
 over all, and that if the gospel be hid, it may be hid only 
 to them that are lost, who seeing, see not, and who hear- 
 ing, will not understand. 
 
 The only requisite commentary on the predictions is a 
 simple and succinct recapitulation of the events which they 
 avowedly prefigured. The interpretation, which is alike 
 prophetic with the symbolical image, declares, that a king- 
 dom inferior to the Babylonian was immediately to succeed 
 it — that another kingdom o f brass was then to arise, which 
 was to bear rule over all the earth — that the fourth kingdom 
 was to be strong as iron, to break in pieces and subdue all 
 things, or all other kingdoms. The Persian empire was esta- 
 blished on the subversion of the Babylonian — the power 
 or duration of which it did not attain. The Macedo-Gre- 
 cian empire under Alexander the Great, succeeded to the 
 Persian. It is called a kingdom of brass, a metal more 
 justly emblematical of the Grecian than any other — as they 
 were distinguished by their coats of brass, and denomi- 
 niated the brass-clothed Greeks. 1 This empire is described 
 as having ruled over all the earth. It not only surpassed, 
 in the extent of its conquests and dominion, the Baby- 
 lonian and the Persian, but was literally called a univer- 
 sal empire; and its founder is still known to fame, as one 
 of the greatest of conquerors who ever lived. (These empires 
 are more particularly described by Daniel in his subse- 
 quent prophecies.) The next empire which extended its 
 power over these countries was the Roman. It was strong 
 as iron : forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces, and subdueth 
 all, and as iron that breaketh, all these shall it break in pieces 
 
 1 Homeri II. b. 47. 
 
566 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 and bruise. Iron was its appropriate emblem. It was an iron 
 crown which its emperors wore (proverbially the iron crown 
 of Italy;) — and an iron yoke to which it subjected many 
 nations: It bruised all the residue of the former kingdoms, 
 and brake them in pieces. It is impossible, on a retrospect 
 of this history, to give any representations, in so few words, 
 more justly descriptive of the Persian, Grecian, and Roman 
 empires. But the Roman empire itself was broken down 
 — divided into different kingdoms — some of them power- 
 ful and others comparatively weak. The sovereigns of these 
 different kingdoms have been perpetually contracting ma- 
 trimonial alliances with each other; but, notwithstanding 
 this seeming bond of union, they have not united or ad- 
 hered together. The knowledge of these historical truths, 
 familiar to every reader, alone suffices for the elucidation 
 of the prophecy. And whereas thou sawest the feet and 
 toes part of potter s clay and part of iron, the kingdom shall 
 be divided ; but there shall be in it of the strength of the iron, 
 forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay. 
 And as the toes of the feet were part of iron and part of clay, 
 so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly broken. 
 And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they 
 shall mingle themselves with the seed of men: but they shall not 
 cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay. 
 
 To Nebuchadnezzar, who aspired only after human 
 power and glory, the various empires that were in their 
 order to succeed his own, and tyrannise over the world, 
 were represented by a splendid image. But in the pro- 
 phetic vision of the " man of God" they appeared in other 
 colours, and assumed a very different form. And under 
 the appropriate symbol of wild beasts, varying in fierce- 
 ness and cruelty, and distinguished by monstrous peculi- 
 arities, the successive empires of Babylon, Persia, Macedon 
 or Greece, and Rome — the future promoters of idolatry 
 and oppressors of man — were aptly characterized. 
 
 In the vision of the prophet, not only the number of the 
 kingdoms and the order of succession are the same, and 
 also the different characteristic features accordant with 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 567 
 
 those of the preceding symbolical representation, but to the 
 brief outline given in the former, several additional cir- 
 cumstances are annexed, (and in a manner totally at vari- 
 ance with any wild and extravagant fancies arising from 
 mere pretended foreknowledge) the nearer that the vision 
 approaches to "the latter times" it becomes the more 
 copious and the more minutely denned. 
 
 The first kingdom, viz. the Babylonian, then existing, 
 was represented by a lion that had eagle's wings. But 
 although then worthy of such emblems, the wings where- 
 with it was lifted up were to be plucked. " It was to be 
 humbled and subdued, and made to know its human 
 state, 1 — a man's heart (instead of a lion's) was given it. 
 The second kingdom was the Persian; it was noted by 
 historians for its brutal cruelty,— and is prefigured by a 
 bear. This beast raised itself upon one side, the Persians 
 being under the Medes at the fall of Babylon, but presently 
 rising up above them. And it had three ribs in the mouth 
 of it between the teeth of it, signifying the kingdoms of 
 Sardis, Babylon, and Egypt, which were conquered by it, 
 but did not belong to its proper body." 2 The third beast 
 represents the kingdom that was to succeed the Persian, 
 which was the empire of the Greeks, first established over 
 the east by Alexander the Great. It consisted of various 
 nations, far more diversified in their manners and customs 
 than were the Babylonians, Medes and Persians, and was 
 thus spotted like a leopard. The rapidity of its rise and 
 conquests is aptly denoted by itsfour wings, while the 
 four heads are significative of the exact number of king- 
 doms into which it was divided. The fourth empire was 
 the Roman. It was dreadful and terrible, and strong ex- 
 ceedingly, and diverse from all kingdoms. Such was the 
 Roman empire, and such are the very words of the pro- 
 phecy concerning the " fourth kingdom." The beast was 
 terrible; it had great iron teeth, it devoured and brake in 
 pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it. — The 
 
 1 Sir Isaac Newton's Observations on the Prophecies of Daniel, p. 29. 
 
 2 Ibid. 
 
568 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Roman empire was larger, stronger, and more terrible, and 
 of greater duration than any of the former; it was diverse 
 from all kingdoms that were before it; and, on its fall, it 
 was subdivided into a greater number of distinct king- 
 doms. Machiavel (for whose creed the Church of Rome 
 and infidelity can alone contend) who wotted not of the 
 consequences of the historical fact, specifies by name 
 the ten kingdoms into which the Roman empire was di- 
 vided. Some of these kingdoms at length fell, and new ones 
 arose. But, as Sir Isaac Newton remarks, they are still 
 called the ten kings from their first number. And like 
 the ten toes of the image, the fourth beast had ten horns 
 which the prophet interprets kingdoms, (vii. 7, 24.) After 
 these another power, diverse from the first, (vii. 24) and 
 little at its commencement, was to arise, which was to 
 subdue three kings. In this horn were eyes like the eyes 
 of a man, and a mouth speaking very great things, whose 
 look was more stout than his fellows. He was to speak 
 great words against ("by the side of/' or on assumed 
 equality with) the Most High; to wear out the saints of the 
 Most High; and to think to change times and laws, and 
 they were to be given into his hands for a long but yet 
 limited period. The Church of Rome rose to power, di- 
 verse from that of any other, after the dismemberment 
 of the Roman empire. The exarchate of Ravenna, the 
 kingdom of the Lombards, and the state of Rome, were 
 subjected to its temporal as well as spiritual authority, 1 
 and plucked up before it. In this horn were eyes like the 
 eyes of a man. " By its eyes it was a seer, Eviaxovog, a 
 bishop in the literal sense of the word; and this church 
 claims the universal bishopric. With his mouth he spake 
 very great things; gave laws to kings and nations as an 
 oracle, pretends to infallibility, and that his dictates are 
 binding on the whole world/' 2 His look was more stout 
 than his fellows: the pope, as head of the church, has not 
 
 1 Sir Isaac Newton's Observations on the Prophecies of Daniel, p. 73. 
 Bishop Newton's Dissert xiv. 
 8 Sir Isaac Newton on Daniel, p. 75. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 569 
 
 only ever claimed supremacy over every other bishop, but 
 kings have often prostrated themselves before him and 
 done the office of menials. And how closely does the cha- 
 racter of wearing out the saints of the Most High befit the 
 Church of Rome. However much its character may now 
 in reality or in appearance be altered, the time is not dis- 
 tant, when every auto da fe {act of Romish faith) brought 
 the recusants of idolatry — the worshippers of the Most 
 High — to the stake, and by every refinement in cruelty 
 did it try to wear them out. And he shall think to change 
 times and laws; " appointing fasts and feasts, canonizing 
 saints, granting pardons and indulgences for sins, institu- 
 ting new modes of worship, imposing new articles of faith, 
 enjoining new rules of practice, and reversing at pleasure 
 the laws both of God and men/' 1 
 
 The prophetic interpretation of another vision of Daniel 
 now presents such a retrospective view of the history of 
 the East, that scarcely the slightest comment is requisite 
 to show its perfect adaptation to the events. At the time 
 of the end shall be the vision. I will make thee know what 
 shall be in the last end of the indignation, for at the time ap- 
 pointed the end shall be. The ram which thou sawest hav- 
 ing two horns are the kings of Media and Persia. And 
 the rough goat is the king of Grecia : and the great horn 
 that is between His eyes is the first king (Alexander the 
 Great). Now, that being broken, whereas four stood up for 
 it, four kingdoms shall stand up out of the nation, but not 
 in his power (which none of them ever attained.) — And in 
 the latter time of their kingdom, at a distance of time, but 
 prevailing over the same territory,) when the transgressors 
 are come to the full, (Isa. xxiv. 5, 6,) a king of fierce coun- 
 tenance (Mahomet, who proffered only submission or the 
 sword,) and understanding dark sentences (wherewith the 
 Koran pre-eminently abounds,) shall stand up. And his 
 power shall be mighty, but not by his own power (he pos- 
 sessed no hereditary dominion, and arose from nothing). 
 
 1 Bishop Newton, Diss. xiv. 
 
570 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 And he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper, and 
 practise, and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people, 
 or the people of the holy ones (the Christians). And 
 through his policy shall he cause craft to prosper in his 
 hand (by a faith accommodated to the passions of men). 
 And he shall magnify himself in his heart. (" There is no 
 God but one and Mahomet is his prophet.") And by 
 peace shall he destroy many. Such is the intrinsic despot- 
 ism and withering influence of Mahometan government, 
 that under their sway countries naturally the most fertile, 
 and long exuberant in population and produce, have been 
 depopulated and destroyed to a greater degree by peace 
 than any other countries have been by war. He shall 
 stand up against the prince of princes, magnifying him- 
 self even to the prince of the host (calling himself a greater 
 prophet than Christ.) It waxed exceeding great toward 
 the south, and toward the east, and toward the pleasant 
 land (Palestine, the very direction and progress, according 
 to Gibbon, of the greatest and most permanent of the 
 Mahometan conquests.) It cast down of the host and of 
 the stars to the ground (Christian churches) and stamped 
 upon them, and the place of the sanctuary (Jerusalem) was 
 cast down. The vision was for many days. Many days 
 have passed away, and all is accomplished but the last 
 end of the " desolation, which has given the sanctuary to 
 be trodden under foot." 
 
 Looking back then upon those successive empires which 
 are the best known, and have been the most influential 
 on the fate of the world, and comparing the bare predic- 
 tions and the prominent events, is there not visible a chain 
 of prophecy, without a link distorted or broken, stretched 
 by no human hand over the history of man from the days 
 of Nebuchadnezzar to the present hour, and on which the 
 future fate of the world hangs suspended still? And 
 without diverging to other matters, may not the primary 
 question be here reverted to, whether, such as they are, 
 these predictions bear not a closer and less convertible 
 similitude to the events of which they are avowedly pre- 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 571 
 
 dictive, than human sagacity could have discovered or 
 invented? And may not a case be here put, which would 
 try tlie reasoning powers of reckless mockers, and bring 
 this question to the proof? 
 
 Were a despot now troubled at the thought, a thought 
 which no tyrant could brook, that the Bible is the word 
 of God, and that He who is higher than the highest re- 
 gardeth him ; and were he to possess the power, and to 
 congregate around him all the illuminati — the magicians 
 and astrologers — of modern times, and to demand of them 
 the cause why the image of Nebuchadnezzar and the 
 visions of Daniel bear so striking a resemblance to those 
 future kingdoms, and to the latter times of which they 
 were avowedly symbolical; and how, by natural causes 
 and human wisdom alone, the whole history of the Jews 
 to the present hour was written, at the very least, two 
 thousand years ago ; and how all the countries, and all 
 the people, and all the cities of whose destiny they spoke, 
 should accredit, to every jot and to a very tittle, the words 
 of the seers of Israel, and present in their history and 
 fate an exact counterpart of a professedly prophetic deli- 
 neation; and were they further to be debarred from ridi- 
 cule, and bound to reason, and told that " they dared not 
 prepare lying and corrupt words to speak before him," 
 and that " there was but one decree for them," if they 
 did not make good their professed claim to such wisdom, 
 show the sure interpretation of the matter, resolve all his 
 doubts, and restore quietude to his troubled thoughts, such 
 as words of truth like Daniel's gave to the mind of Nebu- 
 chadnezzar; then, verily, much do we fear, would the 
 lives of the philosophes and savans of Europe be in no less 
 jeopardy than were those of their prototypes the wise men 
 and the soothsayers of Babylon. And their poor faith 
 having no treasures in store to repay the life-blood of a 
 single mortal; no hope, though otherwise forfeited, suffi- 
 cient to bribe one solitary martyr to the block ; to what 
 fitter terms than these (if their wisdom on such a trial 
 should fail them) could their blanched and quivering lips, 
 
572 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 long used to mockery before, give utterance at last, — 
 " There is not a man upon earth that can show the king's 
 matter; therefore there is no king, lord, nor ruler that 
 asketh such things at any magician, or astrologer, or 
 Chaldean. And it is a rare thing that the king requireth; 
 and there is none other that can show it before the king 
 except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh." 1 
 
 The frequent perversion of "the truth as it is in Jesus," 
 and the substitution in its stead of the " commandments 
 of men;" the paity animosities, and religious wars and 
 persecutions, so contrary to the spirit of the gospel, which 
 have so long prevailed; the gross impostures, absurd su- 
 perstitions, and impious rites which have often been forced 
 into unnatural alliance with Christianity, and grafted by 
 human hands into the heavenly stock; the domineering 
 spirit of an unholy priesthood; the partial diffusion of the 
 religion of J esus during many ages, and the delusions of 
 a manifest impostor, triumphing over the Christian re- 
 ligion, even in the regions which gave it birth; have all 
 proved stumbling-blocks in the way of many, or a rock of 
 offence on which they have made shipwreck of faith and 
 of a good conscience. Yet all these are but the various 
 combatings of the impure passions, and the worldly-mind- 
 edness of man against a holy and spiritual faith — the 
 workings of a 'predicted "mystery of iniquity:" and not 
 only does the purity of the gospel itself remain unaffected 
 by them all, but its truth, as the inspired word of God, is 
 the more fully established. Even here " GTod has not left 
 himself without a witness;" and " we do well to give heed 
 to the sure word of prophecy, which shineth as a light in 
 a dark place." 
 
 But the church of Christ, though long militant "against 
 spiritual wickedness in high places," shall according to 
 the Scriptures, become even on earth finally triumphant. 
 And it is not merely from the analogy of the truth of the 
 past that the certainty of the events yet future may be 
 
 1 Dan. ii. 10, 11. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 573 
 
 confided in; for there is not wanting, in the actual state 
 of the world, subsisting evidence of the germinating ful- 
 filment of prophecy. The rapid diffusion of knowledge; 
 the numerou sinventions and discoveries in physical sci- 
 ence, and the immense accession they have given to the 
 power of man; the facilities of communication and fre- 
 quencies of intercourse that now prevail throughout the 
 world ; the nature of recent wars — contests for principles 
 rather than for property; the abandonment in different 
 states and kingdoms of the principles and the practice of 
 unrestricted and unmitigated despotism, and the establish- 
 ment of constitutional governments in its stead; the ready 
 expression and powerful efficacy of public opinion, sobered 
 down as it is to the desire of substantial rather than the- 
 oretic liberty, and of its expansion throughout the world, 
 and awed by the remembrance of all the exhibited horrors 
 of anarchy and atheism; the manifold philanthropic and 
 religious associations, so diversified in their objects and 
 active in their operations, for alleviating the miseries, en- 
 lightening the ignorance, and ameliorating the moral con- 
 dition of our species ; and though last, not least of all, the 
 unexampled and astonishing dissemination of the Scrip- 
 tures, and the avidity with which they are sought after in 
 many a land; all these unite in giving the same promise 
 to mortal hope which the words of Scripture impart to 
 religious faith, that the " appointed time," whatever con- 
 vulsions may yet intervene, is approximating, when des- 
 potism and superstition shall come to an end, and when 
 brutal power or governments, fitly symbolized by wild 
 beasts, shall cease to trample on the liberties of man. 
 The powers of darkness are already shaken. He whose 
 " look was more stout than his fellows" has been greatly 
 humbled. His dominion has in part been taken away, and 
 it will be consumed and destroyed until the end. 
 
574 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 No. II. 
 
 PROPHECIES CONCERNING THE FINAL RESTORATION OF THE 
 JEWS, AND THEIR RETURN TO THE LAND OF JUDEA. 
 
 " The Lord thy God will turn thy captivity, and will have 
 compassion upon thee, and will return and gather thee 
 from all the nations whither the Lord thy God hath scat- 
 tered thee. If any of thine be driven out unto the out- 
 most parts of heaven, from thence will the Lord thy God 
 gather thee, and from thence will he fetch thee. And the 
 Lord thy God will bring thee into the land which thy fa- 
 thers possessed, and thou shalt possess it, and he will do 
 thee good, and multiply thee above thy fathers." (Deut. 
 xxx. 3, 4, 5.) " And it shall come to pass that the Lord 
 shall set his hand again the second time, to recover the 
 remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria, 
 and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and 
 from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from 
 the islands of the sea. And he shall set up an ensign for 
 the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and 
 gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four cor- 
 ners of the earth." (Isaiah xi. 11, 12, &c.) "Who are 
 these that fly as a cloud, and as the doves to their win- 
 dows ? Surely the isles shall wait for me, and the ships 
 of Tarshish first, to bring thy sons from far, their silver 
 and their gold with them, unto the name of the Lord thy 
 God, and to the Holy One of Israel, because he hath glo- 
 rified thee. And the sons of strangers shall build up thy 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 575 
 
 walls, and their kings shall minister unto thee ; for in my 
 wrath I smote thee, but in my favour have I had mercy 
 on thee." (Isa. lx. 8-10, &c.) " And they shall build the 
 old wastes, they shall raise up the former desolations, they 
 shall repair the waste cities, the desolations of many gen- 
 erations." (Isa. lxi. 4, &c.) " Thus saith the Lord, If 
 heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of 
 the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the 
 seed of Israel, for all that they have done, saith the Lord. 
 Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that the city shall 
 be built to the Lord, from the tower of Hananeel unto the 
 gate of the corner; and the measuring line shall go over 
 against it ; and it shall not be plucked up nor thrown down 
 any more for ever." (Jer. xxxi. 37, &c.) "But ye, 0 
 mountains of Israel, shall shoot forth your branches and 
 yield your fruit to my people of Israel ; and I will multi- 
 ply men upon you, all the house of Israel, even all of it ; 
 and the cities shall be inhabited, and the wastes shall be 
 builded," &c. " For I will take you (0 house of Israel), 
 from among the heathen, and gather you out of all coun- 
 tries, and will bring you into your own land." (Ezek. 
 xxxvi. 8, 10-24.) "Thus saith the Lord Grod, Behold, I 
 will take the children of Israel from among the heathen, 
 whither they be gone, and will gather them on every side, 
 and bring them into their own land." (Ibid, xxxvii. 21, 
 &c.) " Turn ye to the stronghold, ye prisoners of hope, 
 even to-day do I declare that I will render double unto 
 thee, when I have bent Judah for me, filled the bow with 
 Ephraim, and raised up thy sons, 0 Zion, against thy sons, 
 0 Greece, and made thee as the sword of a mighty man," 
 &c. (Zech. ix. 12, &c.) "Behold the days come, saith 
 the Lord, that the ploughman shall overtake the reaper, 
 and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed ; and the 
 mountains shall drop sweet wine, and all the hills shall 
 melt. And I will bring again the captivity of my people 
 of Israel, and they shall build the waste cities and inhabit 
 them ; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine 
 thereof; they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit 
 
576 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 of them. And I will plant them upon their own land, and 
 they shall be no more pulled up out of their land which 
 I have given them, saith the Lord thy God." (Amos ix. 
 13, 14, 15.) "I will surely assemble, 0 Jacob, all of thee. 
 I will surely gather the remnant of Israel; I will put 
 them together as the sheep of Bozrah, as the flock in the 
 midst of their fold: they shall make great noise by reason 
 of the multitude of men." (Micah ii. 12.) 
 
 These prophecies, exclusive of many others, need no 
 comment. They declare, as clearly as language can, that 
 the Jews shall return to Judea, and be at last permanently 
 re-established in the land of their fathers. The uniform 
 experience of the literal truth of every prediction respect- 
 ing their past history may suffice to give assurance of the 
 certainty of their predicted restoration. And, amidst 
 many signs that the times of the Gentiles are drawing to- 
 wards their fulfilment, many concurring circumstances 
 seem also to be preparing the way of the children of Israel. 
 Scattered as they have been for so many ages through the 
 world, and maintaining still their distinctive character, 
 their whole history forbids the thought that they will ever 
 mingle among the nations, or cease to be, what they have 
 ever been, a peculiar people. But while their history as a 
 nation gave, for the space of many generations, unequi- 
 vocal attestations of an overruling Providence, sustaining 
 the theocracy of the commonwealth of Israel ; and while, 
 during a period of still greater duration, they have been 
 " a people scattered and peeled:" yet after the lapse of so 
 many ages, they are still reserved for illustrating the 
 truth, the mercy, and the glory of the God of Israel; at 
 eventide it shall be light. They now begin, centuries of 
 persecution and spoliation having passed away, to partici- 
 pate, in cases too numerous to be specified, of benefits 
 arising from the altered spirit of the times. And posses- 
 sed, as in an unexampled degree they are, of silver and 
 gold, and of large portions of the public funds of various 
 kingdoms, they may be said, even now, in some manner, 
 to inherit the riches of the Gentiles. And commanding, as 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 577 
 
 in a great measure they do, the rate of exchange through- 
 out Europe, they are entitled, from the present influence 
 of money on the security of governments, and on the art 
 and results of war, to high political consideration ; and the 
 time may not thus be remote, when they shall be raised 
 up as an ensign among the nations. Not naturalized to 
 the isles of the Gentiles, either by law or affection, or 
 bound to any soil by the possession of fixed property 
 which would be of no easy tranference, but ever looking 
 with undiminished love to the land of their fathers, even 
 after an expatriation uninterrupted for nearly eighteen 
 centuries, they are ready — whenever the time shall be ful- 
 filled — to fly thither like a cloud, and like doves to their 
 windows. But to what degree, and in what manner the 
 present convulsions of the Turkish empire, combined with 
 the peculiar, and in many instances, novel condition of 
 the Jews throughout Europe and America, shall be the 
 means of facilitating their eventual restoration to their 
 own land, no mortal can determine. It is enough for 
 Christians to know, that two thousands of years, through 
 nearly which period it has been dormant, can neither ren- 
 der extinct the title nor prescribe the heaven-chartered right 
 of the seed of Abraham to the final and everlasting pos- 
 session of the land of Canaan; that Grod will remember the 
 land and gather together unto it his ancient people ; and 
 that his word concerning Zion, which he hath neither for- 
 gotten nor forsaken, is, / have graven thee upon the palms 
 of my hands, thy walls are continually before me. Thy 
 children shall make haste; thy destroyers, and they that 
 made thee waste, shall go forth of thee, &c. — (Isa. xlix, 16, 
 17, &c.) " And that through all the changes which have 
 happened in the kingdoms of the earth from the days of 
 Moses to the present time, which is more than 3200 years, 
 nothing should have happened to prevent the possibility 
 of the accomplishment of these prophecies, but, on the con- 
 trary, that the state of the Jewish and Christian nations 
 at this day should be such as renders them easily capable, 
 not only of & figurative, but even of a literal completion in 
 
 2 P 
 
578 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 every particular, if the will of Grod be so ; this is a mira- 
 cle, which hath nothing parallel to it in the phenomena of 
 nature/ — Clarke's Evidences. 
 
 No. III. 
 
 ABSTRACT OF PROPHECIES RELATIVE TO THE GREAT APOSTASY. 
 
 Clearly revealed as is the will of Grod in Scripture, and 
 perfectly calculated as is the gospel to effect the happiness 
 of man, and faithful unto the death as many of the primi- 
 tive Christians were, — it is no less manifest that an apos- 
 tasy, or falling away from the faith, was foretold. And 
 who can read the Scriptures with an unbiassed mind, and 
 look to the history of the Christian church, and doubt for 
 a moment that there has been an apostacy, or falling away 
 from the truth and simplicity of the faith as it is in Jesus? 
 Or who, in a like unbiassed manner, can read the prophe- 
 cies respecting that apostacy, and cherish even a momen- 
 tary doubt of their application? 
 
 It would be foreign to the object of this treatise, and it 
 would require a volume rather than a concluding page, to 
 enter at large upon such a subject. But the simple com- 
 parison of a few prominent predictions and undeniable 
 facts, which scarcely need any illustration, may tend to 
 show that much evidence of the inspiration of Scripture 
 may be drawn from the obscure prophecies, and that their 
 obscurity in a great measure vanishes, on the most ' suc- 
 cinct combination of predictions and of facts. 
 
 The coincidence, not in meaning only, but in words, 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 579 
 
 which subsists between the following predictions, strikingly 
 denotes their reference to, or connexion with the same 
 subject. And when viewed as a portraiture of events now 
 past, or still in progress, the apparent obscurity arising 
 from the adoption of symbols, or figurative representa- 
 tions, may be at once removed by merely bearing in mind 
 that in Scripture itself the term beast is explained as de- 
 noting a king, kingdom, or reigning power; and that, in 
 the phraseology of the Old Testament, idolatry, or the 
 worship of false gods, or images, in any form, is uniformly 
 represented as whoredom or fornication. Without strain- 
 ing either a word of sacred writ, or a fact in history, it is 
 left to every unprejudiced reader to determine on whose 
 forehead it is that the marks of apostacy and names of 
 blasphemy are so conspicuously written, that they legiti- 
 mately form a part of the testimony of Jesus. (Rev. xvii.) 
 
 The ''forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain 
 from meats which God hath created to be received with 
 thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth," 
 (1 Tim. iv. 3,) are mentioned literally as prominent marks 
 of the apostacy. And the celibacy of the clergy, both re- 
 gular and secular, and the multiplicity of fasts, appointed 
 and observed by the Church of Rome, are in complete and 
 manifest accordance with the prediction. The former is 
 expressly contrary to the sanction and authority of Scrip- 
 ture, which saith — " a bishop must be blameless, the hus- 
 band of one wife;" — and the reason assigned for the latter, 
 as taught in the first Catechism or abridgment of Christian 
 doctrine, 1 " that by fasting we may satisfy God for our 
 sins," is a monstrous perversion of all Christian doctrine, 
 and shows with how great a falling away from the faith 
 the observance of such " commandments of the church" of 
 Rome is accompanied. 
 
 Giving heed to doctrines of devils — literally of, or con- 
 cerning, demons — a term often applied by Greek writers to 
 those who were canonized or deified after their death, or 
 
 1 Published for the use of the London District, and printed by R. Keating, 
 Brown & Co., London, Printers to the R. R. the Vicars Apostolic, 1812, p. 33. 
 
580 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 who were accounted agents or mediators between gods 
 and men, (1 Tim. iv. 3.) The same word was used by the 
 Athenians, (Acts xvii. 18,) when they accused Paul of be- 
 ing a setter up of strange gods or demons — because he 
 preached unto them Jesus who had been raised from the 
 dead. — But in his estate (or in the stead of God,) shall he 
 honour the God of forces, or, as rendered in the margin, 
 gods protectors, divine guardians, or tutelary saints, (Dan. 
 xi. 38.) The corruption of the pure worship of God, the 
 introduction of demonolatry into the Christian church, 
 and the trusting to other intercessors than the one only 
 Mediator, seem here evidently referred to. It is not need- 
 ful to ask what church, as well as the Grecian, has given 
 heed to doctrines concerning departed mortals, such as were 
 believed on by heathens; or who have canonized dead 
 men, worshipped them in the stead of God, believe on them 
 as strong protectors, address them as intercessors, worship 
 at their shrines, regard their glory, and honour them with 
 gold, silver, and precious stones, and pleasant things, (Dan. 
 xi. 38.) 
 
 Giving heed to seducing spirits, speaking lies in hypocrisy, 
 1 Tim. iv. 1, 2. Whose coming is after the power of Satan, 
 ivith all power, and signs, and lying wonders, and with all 
 deceivableness of unrighteousness, 2Thess. ii. 9, 10. By thy 
 sorceries were all nations deceived, Rev. xviii. 23. The 
 power of working miracles is held by the Church of Rome 
 as a mark of the true church; but the assumption of that 
 power is truly a mark of the great apostacy. And what 
 else are wilful impositions, lying legends, and pretended 
 miracles, the liquefying of the blood of St Januarius, for 
 example, still practised, thrice every year, in a church in 
 Naples, but the deceivableness of unrighteousness ? Or what 
 creed is more common in Rome, to which the pope and the 
 cardinals have given their sanction, than the working of 
 miracles by the images of saints? 
 
 Speaking of the self-same apostacy, it is said by the 
 Apostle Paul, " the day of Christ shall not come, except 
 there come & falling away first, and that man of sin be re- 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 581 
 
 vealed, the son of perdition; who opposeth and exalteth 
 himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped 
 so that he, as Grod, sitteth in the temple of God, showing 
 himself that he is God." (2 Thes. ii. 3, 4.) These words, 
 descriptive of the man of sin, are linked to the description 
 of the little horn in Daniel, (p. 315) not only by a simila- 
 rity of character, but by an identity of fate. And he shall 
 speak great words against the Most High. (Dan. vii. 25. 
 Rev. xiii. 5, 6.) It admits of no question who it is that has 
 exalted himself most highly in the church, that has assum- 
 ed the claim of infallibility, and of titles which pertain to 
 God alone, and to whom " adoration" is paid, when he is 
 enthroned, in the most magnificent temple on earth, as the 
 head of the Church. 
 
 The more closely that the connection is traced between 
 the prophecies of St Paul, Daniel, and St John, they be- 
 come the more copious, discriminative, and defined. The 
 beast having seven heads and ten horns, 1 which was sub- 
 ject to the authority of the great whore, 2 (or idolatrous 
 church,) is evidently connected, in its character, duration, 
 and fate, 3 with the little horn of Daniel's fourth kingdom, 
 or the Roman. The locality or seat of this dominion, di- 
 verse from the former kingdoms, could scarcely be more 
 circumstantially defined. The seven heads are seven moun- 
 tains on which the woman sitteth, (Rev. xvii. 9.) Rome was 
 proverbially the city on seven hills; and there are seven kings; 
 five are fallen and one is (v. 10.) Five forms of govern- 
 ment had before that time fallen, and another then existed. 
 And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings which 
 have received no kingdom as yet. The Roman empire, 
 then entire, was, about the time of the establishment of 
 Popery, divided into ten kingdoms, corresponding with the 
 ten horns of the fourth beast, or the toes of the great 
 image, (pp. 392, 394.) The woman which thou sawest is that 
 great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth. 
 The great city which then reigned over the kings of the 
 
 1 Rev. xiii. 1 ; xvii. 7. 2 Rev. xvii. 15. 
 
 3 Dan. vii. 20. 21, 25. 26. Rev. xiii. 5, 7, 10; xvii. 14. 
 
582 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 earth was Rome. It is all but named. And under a 
 symbol the very name was hid. The beast had a name, a 
 number, and a mark, (Rev. xiii. 18; xv. 2,) and his number 
 is six hundred threescore and six. (Among the Hebrews and 
 Greeks all the letters were numerals, or equivalent to 
 figures, which were not in use among them.) Three dif- 
 ferent designations being given, three corresponsive words, 
 instead of one, as has been generally sought, seem to be 
 required. The beast was first described by Daniel; and 
 in Hebrew characters, Romiith, 1 Roman, agreeing with 
 beast or kingdom, contains the precise number or that of 
 his name; while Lateinos, 2 the number of his name, " which 
 is the number of a man," and Apostates* the mark, the 
 brand of the apostacy, both fatally contain the same pro- 
 phetic number. 
 
 There are other characteristics which need no comment. 
 " Come hither; I will show unto thee the judgment of the 
 great whore that sitteth upon many waters : with whom the 
 kings of the earth have committed fornication. And the in- 
 habitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine 
 of her fornication. The waters which thou sawest where 
 the whore sitteth are peoples, and multitudes, and na- 
 tions, and tongues, Rev. xvii. 1, 2, 15. They shall be 
 given into his hand, Dan. vii. 25. And power was 
 given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations. 
 And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, 
 whose names are not written in the book of life," Rev. 
 
 
 == 200 
 
 2 A L 
 
 = 30 
 
 3 A A = 1 
 
 1 0 
 
 = 6 
 
 a. a 
 
 = 1 
 
 * p = 80 
 
 n m 
 
 = 40 
 
 r t 
 
 = 300 
 
 o o = 70 
 
 » i 
 
 — 10 
 
 s e 
 
 5= 5 
 
 ITT St = 6 
 
 » i 
 
 = 10 
 
 i i 
 
 = 10 
 
 a. a — 1 
 
 T\th 
 
 = 400 
 
 v n 
 
 = 50 
 
 t t = 300 
 
 
 
 o O 
 
 = 70 
 
 jj c = 8 
 
 
 666 
 
 s s 
 
 = 200 
 
 s s ^ 203 
 
 
 
 
 666 
 
 666 
 
 These words have often been applied as denoting the name of the beast; 
 and Dr Clarke, in his commentary, has adduced the term 'H Aunvv f&utriXux 
 — the Latin kingdom, as also containing the exact number 666. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 583 
 
 xiii. 7, 8. The catholic means the universal church. 
 The same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed 
 against them. He shall wear out the saints of the Most 
 High, Dan. vii. 21, 25. It was given unto him to make 
 war with the saints, and to overcome them, Rev. xiii. 7. 
 And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, 
 and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus, Rev. xvii. 6. 
 
 She was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, Rev. 
 xvii. 4, the official clothing of the pope and of the cardi- 
 nals, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, 
 as also they are, and wherewith the decking of their 
 churches, altars, and images did abound. 
 
 We ask not how all the subtlety of J esuitism, or all 
 the deceivableness of unrighteousness can rescue Popery 
 from the grasp of so many prophecies encircling it on 
 every side; it is the purpose of these remarks, as connec- 
 ted with the evidence of prophecy, to show that even the 
 long-continued and wide-spread apostasy from the Chris- 
 tian faith, which has often given a seeming sanction to 
 infidelity, is itself a proof of the inspiration of Scripture'; 
 and that the war which has long been waged against those 
 who kept the commandments of God and had the testi- 
 mony of Jesus only serves the more to confirm the truth 
 of that testimony. 
 
 No. IV. 
 
 NOTE ON IDUMEA. 
 
 In previous editions of this treatise a primary place, in 
 the section on Idumea, was given, as explanatory of the 
 difficulty of access to any knowledge respecting it, to the 
 illustration of the predictions, None shall pass through it 
 
584: 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 for ever and ever, Isa. xxxiv. 10. / will cut of from 
 Mount Seir him that passeth out and him that returneth, 
 Ezek. xxxv. 7. From the remark of Volney that that 
 country had not been visited by any traveller, the write-i 
 was first led to investigate the prophecies concerning Idu- 
 mea, and he deemed the statement a striking corrobora- 
 tion of the prophecy. Till very recently it was actually 
 a region totally unknown and unvisited for many ages. 
 And though the illustration of that prediction be now ex- 
 cluded from the text, as it has in various ways been the sub- 
 ject of cavil, the prediction is too remarkable to pass alto- 
 gether unnoticed. And an observation or two respecting 
 it may tend to show that Edom, however desolate, is yet 
 a field that is fruitful in the elucidations of prophecy. 
 
 1. The prediction is remarkable as referring to Idumea. 
 2. It has been strikingly fulfilled during many past ages. 
 S. Other prophecies imply that Idumea would not always 
 be unvisited, but that the predicted facts would be disclo- 
 sed. 4. The time of the complete fulfilment of the prophecy, 
 as defined by others conjoined with it, is yet to come. 
 5. Idumea shall yet be the scene of other prophecies more 
 marvellous than all which have already been accomplished. 
 
 The prophecy is remarkable as referring to Idumea, 
 The ancient greatness of Idumea must, in no small degree, 
 have resulted from its commerce. Bordering with Arabia 
 on the east, and Egypt on the south-west, and forming 
 from north to south the most direct and most commodious 
 channel of communication between Jerusalem and her de- 
 pendencies on the Red Sea, as well as between Syria and 
 India, through the continuous valleys of El Grhor and El 
 Araba, which terminated on the one extremity at the bor- 
 ders of Judea, and on the other at Elath and Esiongaber, 
 on the Elanitic Gulf of the Red Sea, Idumea may be said 
 to have formed the emporium of the commerce of the east. 
 A Roman road passed directly through Idumea, from 
 Jerusalem to Akaba, and another from Akaba to Moab; 
 and when these roads were made, at a time long posterior 
 
 1 Map in Burckhardt's Travels. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 585 
 
 to the date of the predictions, the conception could not 
 have been formed, or held credible by man, that the per- 
 iod would ever arrive when none would pass through it. 
 In the beginning of the Christian era, long after the date 
 of the prophecy, Strabo relates, that " many Romans and 
 other foreigners" were found at Petra by his friend Ath- 
 enodorus, the philosopher, who visited it. 1 Idumea was 
 the thoroughfare for the commerce of the nations which 
 surrounded it, and of Judea and Phoenicia with India and 
 Arabia; and its "highly frequented marts," as Volney 
 described them, were the centres of intercourse and traffic. 
 
 In striking contrast, and in a manner and to a degree 
 previously inconceivable, the prophecy was fulfilled during 
 many ages. The once central point of commerce has been 
 long an abandoned region. A common thoroughfare in 
 ancient times became a place which none passed through. 
 The capital of Arabia, where many Romans dwelt in the 
 days of Strabo, where a regular government was establish- 
 ed, and a succession of kings resided in their palace, and 
 nobles, whose monuments are princely, were congregated, 
 was long lost to the world, the very existence of its ruins 
 was unknown, even as the inheritance of dragons and a 
 court for owls. The city of excavations where men, in the 
 pride of their hearts, dwelt in the clefts of the rocks, be- 
 came the undisturbed domicile of wild beasts. And the 
 country through which, from end to end, a Roman paved 
 road was formed, was not trodden for centuries, by the 
 foot of a single European. According to Volney, it had 
 not been visited by any traveller. On entering within its 
 borders, Burckhardt (without the slightest allusion to this 
 or any other prediction) testifies, that " for the first time 
 he had ever felt fear during his travels in the desert; 
 that his route was the most dangerous he had ever travelled; 1 
 and that he was without protection in the midst of a des- 
 ert, where no traveller had ever before been seen." Mr 
 J olliffe describes it as one of the wildest and most danger- 
 ous divisions of Arabia, and deemed all research in that 
 
 1 Strabo, p. 779. 2 Burckhardt's Travels in Syria, p. 400. 
 
586 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 quarter impracticable. 1 Seetzen, who penetrated the 
 country in a direct line between the Dead Sea and Mount 
 Sinai, described it as a route never before accomplished. 
 Sir Fred. Henniker, who purposed to undertake the same 
 route, was told by the Cavaliere Frediani, who himself 
 had been compelled to relinquish the design, that it was 
 impracticable, and by the Superior of the convent of 
 Mount Sinai, that it was impossible ; and deceived by his 
 guides, he was led by another route. It was only after 
 a complication of difficulties and dangers, the like of 
 which they never encountered in the whole course of 
 their extensive travels, that Captains Irby and Mangles, 
 accompanied by Mr Bankes and Mr Legh, were per- 
 mitted by the opposing Arabs (who swore that if they 
 should attempt to pass through their territory, they should 
 be shot like dogs) to visit the ruins of Petra, from 
 whence they speedily returned without passing through 
 Idumea. 2 Till within these few years, as Laborde in the 
 first words of his preface relates, this once celebrated coun- 
 try was entirely unknown, only by vague traditions was 
 the existence known of the ruins of a city, surpassing in 
 extent and magnificence those of the famous Palmyra, the 
 queen of deserts; and the inhabitants of the neighbour- 
 hood, in defending its approach, said, like Edom to Israel, 
 thou shalt not pass through. 
 
 Few countries were more frequented than Idumea once 
 was; and few cities ever formed so central a point of so 
 extensive and varied commerce as its capital. But for 
 many centuries past, no country could have been less fre- 
 quented or visited, or more completely shut out from all 
 intercourse with the civilized and commercial world. And 
 this an omniscient God could alone have foreseen and 
 foretold. But though for ages past none have passed 
 through it as of old, the context obviously implies that 
 (as stated in previous editions of this treatise) the world 
 would not be for ever ignorant of its state of desolation, 
 and that it would not remain for ever un visited and un- 
 1 Burckhardt's Travels, p. 421. 2 Letters from Palestine, vol. i. p. 129. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 587 
 
 known, but that some would finally seek out and find, in 
 that land itself, that every other prediction respecting it 
 shall also be fulfilled, and that of all the animals, which 
 are named in the book of the Lord, as possessing it or 
 dwelling there, not one shall be wanting. 
 
 But the time of the complete fulfilment of the prophecy, 
 as defined by others conjoined with it, is yet to come: and 
 Idumea has yet to be the scene of other prophecies more 
 marvellous than all that have already been fulfilled. And 
 in vindicating this prediction, at the illustration of which 
 sceptics have carped, without daring to touch hundreds of 
 others that have been literally and completely fulfilled, 
 the writer, in a few concluding words, may venture to pass 
 for a moment beyond the limits which he had here pre- 
 scribed, and point to one or two of a new series of predic- 
 tions, which have yet to be accomplished. And as the 
 words of Volney first led to the interpretation above given, 
 the sarcasm of other scoffers may perhaps be turned to 
 profitable account. 
 
 The prophecies concerning Idumea, though fewer in 
 number, and not more conclusive than those concerning 
 Babylon, have perhaps excited more general attention and 
 interest than any others. To this the plates of Petra have 
 greatly contributed, and the world is indebted to Count 
 Leon Laborde for those graphic engravings in his original 
 work, which make good the title of Petra to supplant 
 Palmyra as the queen of deserts. The eyes of men are 
 now turned to Edom, the very existence of which seemed 
 previously to have passed into oblivion. And the world 
 may thus be the better prepared for looking to greater 
 things than these ; and for hearing the word of the Lord 
 with which that prophecy begins, in which it is said, none 
 shall pass through Idumea for ever and for ever. Come 
 near, ye nations, to hear; and hearken ye people: let the 
 earth hear and all that is therein: the world, and all 
 things that come forth of it. For the indignation of the 
 Lord is upon all nations, and his fury upon all their 
 armies, he hath utterly destroyed them, he hath delivered 
 
588 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 them to the slaughter, &c. The Lord hath a great sacri- 
 fice in Bozrah, and a great slaughter in the land of Idumea 
 — their land shall be soaked with blood— /or it is the day 
 of the Lord's vengeance, and the year of recompences for 
 the controversy of Zion. And the streams thereof shall 
 be turned into pitch, and the dust thereof into brimstone, 
 and the land thereof shall become burning pitch. It 
 shall not be quenched night nor day; the smoke thereof 
 shall go up for ever: from generation to generation it shall 
 lie waste; none shall pass through it for ever and ever," 
 Isa. xxxiv. 1-10. Immediately affixed to the denuncia- 
 tions against Edom, is a song of joy on the restoration of 
 Israel, when the ransomed of the Lord shall return and 
 come to Zion. The wilderness and the solitary place shall 
 be glad, and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose, 
 Isa. xxxv. 1. And conjoined with the prediction of near- 
 ly similar import, / will cut off from Mount Seir him that 
 passeth out, and him that retumeth, we read in the next 
 words of Ezekiel, (xxxv. 8.) And I will fill his mount- 
 ains with his slain: in thy hills, and in thy valleys, and in 
 in all thy rivers shall they fall that are slain with the 
 sword. I will make myself known among them, when I 
 have judged thee. "When the whole earth rejoiceth, I will 
 make thee desolate, xxxv. 1 1-14. 
 
 The year of recompences for the controversy of Zion — 
 the year of His redeemed — the time when the iniquity of 
 the J ews shall have an end, when the Lord shall be known 
 among them, and the day of the Lord's indignation and 
 vengeance upon all nations, and all their armies, — seem 
 manifestly to refer to a period yet future, and to judg- 
 ments of which Idumea shall yet be the scene. Though 
 many prohpecies have been fulfilled, others have to receive 
 still farther illustration, and some await their accomplish- 
 ment in coming judgments. Past history has no record 
 of the mountains and valleys of Mount Seir being filled 
 with his slain; the ransomed of the Lord have not yet re- 
 turned unto Zion— the whole earth does not yet rejoice, 
 nor is Edom alone desolate. But saviours shall come up 
 
APPENDIX. 589 
 
 on Mount Zion to judge the mount of Esau ; and the king- 
 dom shall be the Lord's. And though the wilderness and 
 the solitary place shall be glad, Edom shall be desolate 
 for ever. Every prediction respecting it shall be fully 
 accomplished. And without a cavil at his word, all flesh 
 shall know that He who declared all these things is the 
 Lord. 
 
 No. V. 
 
 NOTE PREFIXED TO FOURTEENTH EDITION, &C. 
 
 No other apology can be offered to the purchasers of the 
 earlier editions of this treatise, than to repeat, that not- 
 withstanding the omission of those parts to which any 
 doubt could be attached, it has been gradually and repeat- 
 edly enlarged, much beyond the original views of the 
 author, by many new proofs of the literal fulfilment of 
 prophecy, which previously either could not have been 
 adduced, or had escaped his observation. The very recent 
 discovery of some of the facts, the novelty of many of the 
 topics, of the greater part of the authorities, and of many 
 illustrations from ancient writers, rendered the partial and 
 gradual development of the subject excusable if not un- 
 avoidable. To wait till the evidence of prophecy were 
 Complete, so as to be presented in a form aught like per- 
 fect, would be to wait till wars and desolations should 
 cease, the desert blossom like the rose, the whole earth 
 rejoice, and Edom alone be desolate. From ocular demon- 
 stration of the literal fulfilment of many prophecies, it 
 may be said, that "in these latter times/' truth has sprung 
 
590 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 forth from the earth, so that men may see and know that 
 He who of old declared all these things is the Lord. 
 
 To guard against misrepresentations, from which " the 
 cause of truth might suffer loss," the writer is reluctantly 
 constrained to state, that the prophecies concerning the 
 desolation of the countries of Ammon, Moa3, Edom or 
 Idumea, and Philistia, Lebanon, the cities of Samaria, 
 Rabbah-Ammon, (or Philadelphia) all the cities of Moab, 
 Petra, or the capital of Idumea, Gaza, Ashkelon, and 
 Ashdod, were all, for the first time, so far as known, liter- 
 ally illustrated less or more fully, in every edition of this 
 treatise, together with the manifold prophecies which 
 mark the various, discriminating, and characteristic fea- 
 tures of the land of Judea, the general desolation of which, 
 as that of a land smitten with a curse, had long been 
 marked by Christian travellers. On these new topics 
 alone, about eighty separate and distinct prophecies (in- 
 cluding more than two hundred texts) have been set side 
 by side with the facts which form their literal fulfilment. 
 The period of the final and complete accomplishment of 
 these prophecies which refer to modern times, and are 
 associated with events yet to come, was so remote from 
 the era of the prophets, that, not waiting for the end when 
 the word should speak and not lie, the earliest commenta- 
 tors, long followed by others, gave such interpretations 
 of these prophecies as did not tend to remove the doubts 
 of the sceptic, or to shut him up in the faith. But the 
 literal facts supply literal interpretations, neither to be 
 gainsaid nor misunderstood. More than a third part of 
 the volume, — nearly equal to the whole of the first edi- 
 tion, exclusive of those parts of any doubtful import since 
 omitted — is devoted to their illustration. 
 
 Next to these, in the space they occupy, exceeding that al- 
 lotted to all the other local and historical predictions, and se- 
 cond to none of them in importance, are the prophecies con- 
 cerning Babylon. And so little was the writer aware of 
 the extent to which the illustration of them could be adduc- 
 ed that it was stated in the first five editions of this treatise 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 591 
 
 that they "had been so fully illustrated in the learned 
 works of Prideaux (1715) and Bishop Newton (1745,) that 
 it was the more unnecessary to enter into a long detail." 
 In the time of the latter of these celebrated writers — " to 
 whose excellent Dissertations on the Prophecies/' as the 
 author has the pleasure of repeating, "none should be a 
 stranger," — the site of Babylon, now undoubtedly ascer- 
 tained, and minutely described, was, as he states, scarcely 
 known or noticed by travellers. Now, more than thirty 
 prophecies are literally illustrated from numerous de- 
 scriptions by many living eye-witnesses of its actual site. 
 And full as it is of proofs of Scriptural inspiration, now 
 visible in every feature, as if each lineament were traced by 
 the hand of the Almighty, the whole history of the siege, 
 and gradual decline and downfall of that great city, and of 
 the successive spoliation and final desolation of Chaldea, 
 is alike replete with clear and conclusive testimony. And 
 having been led, in the words of the prophet, to look nar- 
 rowly on Babylon, a multiplicity of illustrations have been 
 adduced from historical as well as geographical facts, sim- 
 ply by showing how, in ancient as in modern times, they 
 are the exact counterpart of literal and special predictions. 
 Instead of six prophetic "circumstances of the siege," 
 specified by Newton, and frequently, during the last two 
 centuries, illustrated by his predecessors, from the self-same 
 facts related by Herodotus and Xenophon, prophecies, 
 multiplied more than five-fold, equalling in number and 
 minuteness those which at this hour depict Babylon in its 
 desolation, may now be seen to be alike discriminately and 
 graphically descriptive of the first siege of Babylon and its 
 attendant circumstances, as related by the same heathen 
 historians, especially Xenophon. And it will be further seen, 
 that the prophecies concerning the desolation of Babylon 
 were not only in a few instances gradually and successively 
 fulfilled, as briefly noticed in the earliest editions; but that 
 the long intervening period abounds with proofs, supplied 
 by profane writers, and by Gibbon, that the fate of Babylon 
 and of the land of the Chaldeans, from age to age, may be 
 
592 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 said to have been also circumstantially predicted. And 
 now, at last, by realizing the very things which the prophet 
 foretold, the history of the successive sieges, downfall, and 
 ruin of the great city which held the Jewish nation cap- 
 tive, and of the devastations and desolation of the land of 
 Chaldea, is a continued commentary, carried on for 2300 
 years, and either penned by heathens, and sceptics, or 
 set openly before us — in which we see that, from first 
 to last, all the evil that was written against Babylon has 
 come upon it, and that the purposes have been perform- 
 ed which the Lord purposed against the land of the Chal- 
 deans. In confirmation of this, an hundred prophecies 
 have been illustrated, of which sixty refer to historical, 
 and forty to geographical facts — the part of the section 
 relating to the former, having been enlarged ten-fold, and 
 the whole having been now extended from little more than 
 twelve to upwards of ninety more closely printed pages. 
 Yet the writer will not venture to say, as he formerly spoke 
 of other works than his own, that the subject has in any 
 manner been " fully illustrated." 
 
 "While literal prophecies, on different subjects, and in a 
 vast variety of instances, are thus ultimately seen to be a 
 continued series of literal facts, they form a sure word, 
 which, like a light that shineth in a dark place, irradiates 
 a portion of the otherwise dark and inscrutable history 
 of man. But the spirit of prophecy has ever been faithful 
 to its charge, and has not at any time left the word of Grod 
 without a witness. It can scarcely need to be told that 
 there are prophecies on various subjects, of which the sig- 
 nificancy has never been misunderstood nor the applica- 
 tion been doubted. The commandment came from the 
 mouth of Jesus to " search the Scriptures," for they testi- 
 fy of him: and the subject of the fulfilment, in his persons 
 of manifold prophecies concerning the Messiah, though 
 " not considered" in Bishop Newton's work, " has been, 
 amply discussed by many able divines." The prophecies 
 concerning the Destruction of Jerusalem, as in like 
 manner uniformly stated, "have been frequently and fully 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 593 
 
 illustrated." And from the days of Eusebius, if not from 
 an earlier period, the Jewish general being the Christian's 
 witness in confirmation of the prophecies of Jesus, Jose- 
 phus's history of the siege of J erusalem has, for more than 
 fifteen hundred years, been the common text-booh of all 
 writers on the subject, especially during the last two cen- 
 turies, besides foreign writers, of Jackson, (1623,) Poole, 
 Patrick, Tillotson, Whitby, Whiston, Doddridge, Pearce, 
 Bishop Newton, Lardner, &c. (See note, p. 55.) The con- 
 clusiveness of the evidence, and the want of any ambigu- 
 ity in the literal predictions, may be seen from the uni- 
 formity and frequent sameness of the illustrations which 
 prevail among all writers on the subject; application of 
 the same facts to the same prophecies, being, on compar- 
 ing them, clear and unavoidable, even as repeatedly denot- 
 ed by the index. " The Jews" form a prophetic theme, of 
 which, as of the former, no Christian can well be ignorant, 
 which was often alluded to by the fathers, and which, as 
 demanding the widest range of proof, has been so abun- 
 dantly exemplified in every country and in every age 
 since their dispersion, that a large treatise, embodying 
 their history, would be still requisite for its illustration, 
 notwithstanding the researches of Jackson, Tillemont, 
 Patrick, &c. So ample is the testimony, that in seeking 
 out facts from original authorities, most of which are new, 
 a greater number of volumes was consulted on the subject 
 than that of the pages containing the following brief and 
 most inadequate summary of their prophetic history as 
 hitherto fulfilled. 
 
 Only a like space of twenty-five pages is occupied in the 
 previous editions, with all the other subjects pertaining to 
 heathen cities, countries, or nations, none of which have 
 been new topics among Christian writers for more than a 
 century. 
 
 Before any Christian commentary was written, Jose- 
 phus cited the prophecies of Nahum against Nineveh, 
 and stated that they had all been fulfilled in its destruction. 
 Unlike to Babylon, it fell at once ; and the literal predic- 
 
 2 Q 
 
594 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 tions respecting the manner of its overthrow are few, 
 scarcely occupying, together with their illustration, two 
 pages of this treatise. The subject, however limited, was 
 previously illustrated by Poole, Prideaux, Rollin, in the 
 Universal History, and particularly in Bishop Newton's 
 Dissertations, referred to in every edition. The present 
 edition contains a view of the supposed site of Nineveh, 
 opposite to Mosul, which the writer has been kindly per- 
 mitted to insert, from the new work of the able and la- 
 mented Mr Rich on Koordistan and Nineveh. For con- 
 secutive illustration of the prophecies concerning Tyre, 
 the reader may be referred to Prideaux, Rollin, Lowth, 
 the Universal History, and to Bishop Newton, alike uni- 
 formly referred to. The prophecies concerning Egypt and 
 the Arabs, in ten of these pages, derive their literal 
 illustration, in ancient as in modern times, from the 
 new and unexceptionable authorities, Gibbon and Volney. 
 The prophecy concerning the Slavery of the Africans, 
 and the European Colonies in Asia, which was ably 
 illustrated 160 years ago by Mede, has, within half that 
 period past received additional confirmation by the vastly 
 increased extent of the British colonies in Asia, by which 
 the first prophecy after the deluge continues to be literally 
 illustrated at the present hour. 
 
 Bacon, treating of the Advancement of Learning, or of 
 the Sciences, in a celebrated passage repeatedly quoted by 
 Christian writers, justly states that the prophecies have 
 certain degrees of accomplishment throughout different 
 ages of the world, or " a growing accomplishment through- 
 out many ages." The evidences of Christianity have kept 
 pace with the rapid advancement of the sciences; and as 
 the time of the " full completion of the divine prophecies" 
 draws nigh, not only have new proofs arisen, but light has 
 been thereby thrown upon the past ; and from the "two rela- 
 tives, the prophecy and its accomplishment," of which Ba- 
 con speaks, abundant demonstrations are educed, which, 
 on the principles of his own inductive philosophy, give 
 prophecy a place among "the exact sciences," even as it 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 595 
 
 shall finally and universally be seen, that God has magni- 
 fied his word above all his name. 
 
 It is chiefly during the last two centuries past, which 
 have witnessed in many respects the origin and advance- 
 ment of the sciences, that the various literal prophecies, 
 relative to once renowned cities and kingdoms, have be- 
 gun to be fully elucidated. Ancient heathens as well as 
 modern infidels, led captive in the cause of truth, yield 
 the tribute of their united testimony in illustrating the 
 word which abideth for ever. Nothing can more clearly 
 show the unsuspicious, as well as conclusive quality of 
 their testimony, than that proofs of Scriptural inspiration, 
 hid for ages, should come forth at last, in the seventeenth, 
 eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries of our era, with all 
 the freshness of a discovery and all the force of a demon- 
 stration, by simply affixing the words of heathen historians 
 to those of Jewish prophets. Such is the triumph of truth, 
 that, long free to the use of all, these pagan authors — 
 whose testimony is doubly valuable as exhibiting both the 
 ancient state of these cities and countries prior and pos- 
 terior to the age of the prophets and the earliest of the 
 facts which bear witness to their inspiration, — have be- 
 come so entirely the common property of Christian writers 
 on the respective subjects, that, like Josephus for a longer 
 period, they have been repeatedly and directly referred to, 
 by one author after another, in illustration of the same 
 predictions by the same prominent facts. But without 
 any " latitude of interpretation/' too long recognized and 
 acted on, the more closely that the " language of prophecy 
 is pressed/' and the more minutely that the facts are ap- 
 plied, in strictly literal interpretation, the proofs come out 
 the more full and clear, that from first to last, the Scrip- 
 tures have been fulfilled even to a jot or tittle. The evi- 
 dence, when thus looked for, presents itself to view; and 
 all that is requisite is to seek for the counterpart of a 
 prophecy in the historical fact, or in noting any peculiar 
 event, to seek the prediction out of the book of the Lord. 
 In the progress by this inquiry of these means, new illus- 
 
596 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 trations from ancient historical facts have not unfrequent- 
 ly come into view. And the advancement of the science, 
 even in this respect where not the least surprising, has not 
 hitherto ceased. Exclusive of those recently or newly ad- 
 ded, the earlier editions, from the sixth, contain a hundred 
 additional references, not in Bishop Newton's work, to the 
 same authorities common to him and his predecessors, and 
 nearly an equal number to other authorities besides modern 
 travellers, forming conjointly— instead of there being none, 
 as has been recklessly stated— wore than a third part of 
 the total number of references in the whole volume. But 
 exclusive of all these, the main design of the essay, as the 
 title bears, is to show the literal fulfilment of prophecy 
 from the discoveries of recent travellers. And from them 
 alone the "greater part" of the illustrations have been 
 adduced, as three hundred references may testify. 
 
 No misrepresentations, however great, could justify 
 boastings, to rejoice in which is evil. But every reader 
 has a right to be well assured that full confidence may 
 justly be placed in the facts and illustrations on which the 
 evidence depends. On this account alone the preceding 
 statements have reluctantly been extorted from the writer 
 of these pages. And if he has been enabled not only to 
 add an " atom to the mass of evidence" which he esteemed 
 of far more worth than all his labour, but, according to 
 the testimony of no partial witness in his favour, " to ac- 
 cumulate a mass of geographical evidence," and also to 
 add many new illustrations from ancient historical facts, 
 he trusts that he has only been the more and more deeply 
 impressed with a sense of his own nothingness, as, whether 
 from the works of ancient heathens or of modern sceptics, 
 there successively rose before him the palpable demon- 
 strations of the omniscience of Jehovah. And if any orie 
 should be profited by the perusal of these pages, he is en- 
 treated to give all the glory to God. that the gain may be 
 his own. 
 
INDEX TO TEXTS. 
 
 GENESIS. 
 
 ix. 25, 26, 27. p. 521. 
 
 x. 5, 6,18,19,30,31,32. p. 521. 
 
 — 14. p. 26. 
 xiii. 18. p. 228. 
 
 xvi. 12. p. 516. 
 
 xvii. 6. p. 26. 
 
 — 20. p. 516. 
 
 xviii. 1, 33. p. 228. 
 xxiii. 2, 18-20. p. 228. 
 xxvii. 39. p. 295. 
 
 xxxvi. 31-43. p. 295. 
 
 xxxvii. 14. p. 228. 
 xlix. 10. p. 18. 
 
 EXODUS. 
 
 xi. 5. p. 435. 
 xxiii. 31. p. 357. 
 
 LEVITICUS. 
 
 xix. 9, 10. p. 214. 
 xxiii. 22. p. 214. 
 
 xxvi. 18, 21, 24. p. 100. 
 
 — 19, 20, 32, 34. p. 235. 
 • — 22. p. 184, 186. 
 
 — 30. p. 57. 
 
 — 30, 31. p. 196. 
 
 — 31-33. p. 117, 132. 
 
 — 31-34, 43. p. 101. 
 
 — 33, 34. p. 162. 
 
 — 33, 36-39, 44. p. 74, 
 
 — 43. p. 164. 
 
 NUMBERS. 
 
 xiii. 22. p. 228. 
 xxiv. 15-19. p. 357. 
 
 — 17. p. 44. 
 
 DEUTERONOMY. 
 
 iii. 2. p. 130. 
 
 iii. 48. p. 118. 
 
 iv. 27. p. 74. 
 xviii. 15, 18. p. 17. 
 
 — 18, 19. p. 37. 
 xxiv. 19-21. p. 214. 
 
 xxviii. 25. p. 74. 
 
 — 28, 29, p. 92. 
 
 — 28, 29, 32, 33, 36, 37. p. 75. 
 
 — 42. p. 188. 
 
 — 43. p. 80. 
 
 — 45, 46, 63-67. p. 75. 
 
 — 47, 48, 59. p. 75. 
 
 — 49-52. p. 54. 
 
 — 53-57. p. 56. 
 
 — 62. p. 57. 
 
 xxix. 22, 24, 27. p. 101, 197. 
 
 — 25. p. 198. 
 
 — 27. p. 109. 
 
 — 28. p. 79. 
 
 xxx. 3, 4, 5. p. 574. 
 
 JOSHUA. 
 
 xi. 5. p. 153. 
 
 — 10, 13. p. 151. 
 
598 
 
 INDEX TO TEXTS. 
 
 xiii. 1-3. p. 360. 
 
 xv. 20-63. p. 118. 
 
 — 45-47. p. 360. 
 xxiv. 13. p. 117. 
 
 JUDGES. 
 
 iv. 2, 3. p. 151. 
 
 xvi. 21. p. 435. 
 
 2 SAMUEL. 
 
 ii. 11. p. 228. 
 vii. 12, 16. p. 26. 
 
 1 KINGS. 
 
 ix. 15. p. 151. 
 
 xvi. 24. p. 245. 
 
 2 KINGS. 
 
 vi. 25. p. 56. 
 
 xiv. 7. p. 298. 
 
 xvii. 5, 6. p. 248. 
 
 xxiv. 2. p. 439. 
 
 xxv. 1, 2. p. 439. 
 
 — 6, 7, 18-21. p. 440. 
 
 — 8, 9, 10. p. 440. 
 
 2 CHRONICLES. 
 
 xxxvi. 7, 18. p. 440. 
 
 — 14, 16, 17. p. 441. 
 
 — 22, 23. p. 426. 
 
 EZRA. 
 
 i. 1, 2. p. 426. 
 
 PSALMS. 
 
 ii. p. 31. 
 
 — 2. p. 41. 
 
 — 8. p. 44. 
 xvi. 10. p. 28. 
 
 xxii. 1, 6, 7, 16, 18. p. 31. 
 
 — 16, 18. p. 28. 
 
 — 27. p. 44. 
 
 xxxv. 7, 11, 12. p. 31. 
 xlv. 2. p. 28. 
 lxviii. 30-34. p. 271. 
 lxix. 20, 21. p. 31. 
 lxxii. 17, 8. p. 44. 
 lxxx. 13. p. 188. 
 lxxxix. 3, 4. p. 26. 
 cii. 13. p. 260. 
 cix. 2, 3, 5, 25. p. 31. 
 cxviii. 12. p. 31. 
 
 — 26. p. 18. 
 
 ISAIAH. 
 
 i. 7, 9, 30. p. 101. 
 
 — 27. p. 260. 
 
 — 30. p. 170. 
 
 ii. 2. p. 45. 
 
 — 2, 3. p. 260. 
 
 — 17, 18. p. 42. 
 
 iii. 4, 12. p. 92. 
 
 v. 6, 9, 10, 17. p. 102. 
 
 vi. 10-12. p. 77. 
 
 — 11. p. 79, 117. 
 
 — 11-13. p. 102, 209. 
 
 — 13. p. 231. 
 
 vii. 9. p. 246. 
 
 viii. 14. p. 41. 
 
 ix. 1, 2. p. 27. 
 
 — 6, 7. p. 37. 
 
 x. 23. p. 102. 
 
 — 33, 34. p. 241. 
 
 xi. 1. p. 25. 
 
 — 1, 3, 4. p. 37. 
 
 — 2. p. 28. 
 
 — 10. p. 42; 11, 12, p. 574. 
 
 xiii. 4, 5, 9, 14, 15, 17-22. p. 402. 
 
 — 11. p. 435. 
 
 xiv. 3. p. 441. 
 
 — 4, 11, 15, 19, 22, 23. p. 402. 
 
 xvi. 2. p. 289. 
 
 xvii. 2. p. 280 
 
 — 3-6. p. 237. 
 
 — 4-6. p. 102. 
 
 — 7. p. 234. 
 
 — 9. p. 209. 
 xix. 5-7. p. 503. 
 
 — 19-25. p. 514. 
 xxi. 9. p. 402. 
 
INDEX TO TEXTS. 
 
 599 
 
 xxiv. 1, 3-11, 13. p. 103. 
 
 — 1, 23. p. 108. 
 
 — 3. p. 57. 
 
 — 3-11, 13. p. 208. 
 
 — 5. p. 196, 200, 569. 
 
 — 7, 9. p. 204, 206. 
 
 — 8. p. 203. 
 
 — 25. p. 198. 
 
 xxv. 7. p. 45. 
 
 xxvi. 1, 4, 5. p. 150. 
 
 — 11. p. 234. 
 
 xxvii. 10, 11. p. 103. 
 
 — 11. p. 179. 
 
 xxviii. 1-4. p. 247. 
 
 — 5. p. 254. 
 
 xxx. 2. p. 514. 
 
 — 20. p. 91. 
 
 xxxi. 1. p. 514. 
 
 xxxii. 10, 12-14. p. 208. 
 
 — 10-15. p. 104. 
 
 — 13-15. p. 117. 
 
 — 14. p. 196. 
 
 — 14, 15, 16. p. 149. 
 
 — 15-17. p. 107, 456. 
 
 xxxiii. 8, 9. p. 104, 184, 208. 
 
 — 9. p. 173, 240. 
 
 xxxiv. 1-10. p. 588; 8. p. 260. 
 
 — 11, 13-17. p. 341. 
 
 — 10. p. 584. 
 
 xxxv. 1. p. 45, 357, 588. 
 
 — 4. p. 18. 
 
 — 5, 6. p. 30. 
 xl. 5. p. 44. 
 
 — 11. p. 28. 
 xlii. 1. p. 31. 
 
 — 2. p. 29. 
 
 — 3. p. 28. 
 
 — 4. p. 45. 
 
 — 6. p. 37. 
 
 xliv. 24, 27, 28. p. 402. 
 xlv. 1. p. 403. 
 
 — 1-4. p. 422. 
 
 — 1, 13. p. 425. 
 xlvi. 1. p. 403. 
 
 — 1, 2. p. 437. 
 
 — 1, 13, 14. p. 438. 
 xlvii. 1, 2. p. 435. 
 
 — 1, 5, 7-11. p. 403. 
 
 — 2, 3, 7. p. 436. 
 
 xlvii. 6. p. 441. 
 xlix. 6. p. 31, 37, 44. 
 
 — 7. p. 29. 
 
 — 7, 23. p. 42. 
 
 — 16. p. 577. 
 
 — 17. p. 108. 
 1. 4, 6, p. 28. 
 
 — 5, 6, 7. p. 29. 
 Hi. 7. p. 38. 
 
 — 10. p. 45. 
 
 — 13, 15. p. 31. 
 liii. p. 31. 
 
 — 2. p. 27. 
 
 — 7. p. 29. 
 
 — 9. p. 28. 
 
 liv. 1, 3, 5. p. 45. 
 lv. 3, 5. p. 37, 42. 
 
 — 7. p. 39. 
 lvi. 6-8. p. 37. 
 
 lviii. 12. p. 109, 290. 
 lix. 20. p. 18. 
 lx. 3. p. 42. 
 
 — 5. p. 45. 
 
 — 8. p. 91, 575. 
 
 — 9. p. 95. 
 
 — 10. p. 125, 575. 
 
 — 14. p. 260. 
 
 — 18. p. 149. 
 lxi. 1. p. 38. 
 
 — 2, 3. p. 39. 
 
 — 4. p. 108, 125, 132, 290, 
 575. 
 
 — 6. p. 95. 
 lxii. 2. p. 42. 
 
 — 4. p. 108. 
 
 — 11. p. 18. 
 lxv. 1. p. 45. 
 
 JEREMIAH. 
 
 iv. 20, 26-28. p. 104. 
 
 — 26. p. 165. 
 
 — 26, 27. p. 210. 
 
 — 29. p. 79. 
 
 viii. 3. p. 77. 
 
 ix. 15, 16. p. 76. 
 xii. 4. p. 171. 
 
 — 4, 7, 10-13. p. 105. 
 
 — 10, p. 169, 170. 
 
600 
 
 INDEX TO TEXTS. 
 
 xv. 4, 7. p. 76. 
 
 xvi. 13. p. 76. 
 xix. 8. p. 105. 
 
 xxiii. 5, 6. p. 26. 
 
 xxiv. 9, 10. p. 76. 
 
 xxv. 12-14. p. 403. 
 
 xxvi. 18. p. 57, 259. 
 
 xxix. 18. p. 76. 
 
 xxx. 11. p. 210. 
 
 xxxi. 5, 6. p. 254. 
 
 — 10. p. 77. 
 
 — 31, 33, 34. p. 37. 
 
 — 34. p. 39. 
 
 — 37. p. 575. 
 xlvi. 27, 28. p. 77. 
 
 — 29. p. 210. 
 xlvii. 4-7. p. 362. 
 
 xlviii. 1, 2, 8, 9, 11, 12, 17, 18, 
 20-25, 28, 29, 33, 34, 38, 39, 
 42. p. 280. 
 
 — 39. p. 289. 
 
 — 47. p. 290. 
 xlix. 2. p. 265. 
 
 — 6. p. 290. 
 
 — 7, 10, 12, 13, 15-18. p. 292. 
 
 — 17. p. 334. 
 
 — 33. p. 150. 
 
 1. 1, 2, 3. p. 404. 
 
 — 3. p. 438. 
 
 — 9-13. p. 404. 
 
 — 15. p. 438. 
 
 — 15, 16. p. 404. 
 
 — 19, 20. p. 178. 
 
 — 21-26. p. 405. 
 
 — 27-29. p. 439. 
 
 — 28-32. p. 405. 
 
 — 35-46. p. 406. 
 
 — 44. p. 433. 
 
 — 45. p. 439. 
 
 li. 2, 4, 8, 9. p. 407. 
 
 — 8, 9. p. 432. 
 
 — 11, 13, 14. p. 407. 
 
 — 24, 56. p. 439. 
 
 — 25, 27-33. p. 408. 
 
 — 36, 37, 39, 41-44, 46, 47. 
 p. 408. 
 
 — 44. p. 438. 
 
 — 44, 47, 52. p. 432. 
 
 li. 57, 58, 63, 64. p. 409. 
 — 58. p. 438. 
 Hi. 16. p. 441. 
 
 EZEKIEL. 
 
 v. 10. p. 76. 
 
 — 14, 17. p. 186. 
 
 vi. 3, 6, 14. p. 105. 
 
 — 5. p. 57. 
 
 — 6, p. 132. 
 
 vii. 7, 9, 15. p. 59. 
 
 — 19. p. 76. 
 
 — 21, 22. p. 168. 
 
 — 24. p. 105, 194. 
 xii. 15. p. 76. 
 
 — 19. p. 105. 
 
 xx. 24, 25. p. 16. 
 
 xxi. 32. p. 265. 
 
 xxv. 2, 5, 7, 10. p. 
 
 — 13. p. 292. 
 
 — 15-17. p. 362. 
 
 xxvi. 4, 5, 12, 14. p. 497. 
 
 xxix. 14, 15. p. 503. 
 
 xxx. 6, 7, 12, 13. p. 503. 
 
 — 12. p. 506. 
 
 — 13. p. 510. 
 
 xxxi. p. 507. 
 
 — 18. p. 241. 
 
 xxxii. 15. p. 503. 
 
 xxxiv. 23, 25. p. 37. 
 
 xxxv. p. 314. 
 
 — 1, 4, 7, 9, 14, 15. p. 292. 
 
 — 7. p. 584. 
 
 — 8. p. 588. 
 
 — 9. p. 334. 
 
 — 11, 12, 13, 14. p. 588. 
 
 — 14. p. 557. 
 
 xxxvi. 1-15. p. 115. 
 
 — 8, 10. p. 108, 575. 
 
 — 24. p. 575. 
 
 — 25. p. 42. 
 
 — 35, 38. p. 132. 
 
 — 33, 36. p. 290. 
 
 xxxvii. 21. p. 108, 575. 
 
 — 22-26. p. 37. 
 
 xxxviii. 8. p. 108. 
 
INDEX TO TEXTS. 
 
 DANIEL. 
 
 ii. p. 564. 
 
 — 10, 11. p. 572. 
 
 vii. 7, 24. p. 568. 
 
 — 20, 21, 25, 26. p. 581. 
 
 — 21, 25. p. 583. 
 
 — 25. p. 581, 582. 
 
 viii. p. 569. 
 
 ix. 24, 25. p. 2 J, 39. 
 
 — 25, 26. p. 18. 
 
 — 26, 27. p. 21, 31, 108. 
 xi. 38. p. 580. 
 
 HOSEA. 
 
 i. 4. p. 247. 
 
 — 10. p. 45. 
 
 ii. 6, 10, 12. p. 247. 
 
 — 11, 12. p. 253. 
 
 — 14, 15, 19. p. 245. 
 
 iii. 4, 5. p, 77. 
 v. 5. p. 247. 
 
 ix. 9, 11. p. 247. 
 
 — 17. p. 77. 
 
 x. 5, 7. p. 247. 
 xiii. 16. p. 247. 
 
 JOEL. 
 
 i. 2, 4, 10, 12. p. 106. 
 
 — 3, 4. p. 188. 
 
 — 6, 7, 12. p. 176. 
 
 ii. 25, 26. p. 106. 
 
 iii. 18. p. 224. 
 
 — 19. p. 292. 
 
 AMOS. 
 
 i. 5. p. 240. 
 
 — 6, 7, 8. p. 262. 
 
 — 11. p. 292. 
 
 iii. 14, 15. p. 156. 
 
 iv. 13. p. 232. 
 
 v. 3. p. 232. 
 
 — 3, 5. p. 106. 
 
 — 4, 5. p.. 156. 
 
 vi. 1-7. p. 248. 
 
 vii. 8, 9. p. 106. 
 ix. 4, 9. p. 77. 
 
 ix. 11, 12. p. 357. 
 — 13-15. p. 576. 
 
 OBAMAH. 
 
 1, 3, 8, 17, 18. p. 293. 
 
 15. p. 254. 
 
 17, 19, 21. p. 357. 
 
 MICA II. 
 
 i. 1, 5, 6. p. 248. 
 
 — 6. p. 106, 244. 
 
 ii. 12. p. 576. 
 
 iii. 12. p. 57, 259. 
 
 iv. 1. p. 45. 
 
 — 1, 2. p. 260. 
 
 v. 2. p. 26. . 
 vii. 14. p. 178. 
 
 NAHUM. 
 
 i. 8. p. 387. 
 
 — 8, 9. p. 389. 
 
 — 8-14. p. 393. 
 
 — 10. p. 388, 395. 
 
 — 14. p. 394. 
 
 ii. 8. p. 387. 
 
 — 8-13. p. 388. 
 
 — 9. p. 388. 
 
 — 10. p. 389. 
 
 iii. 6. p. 39#. 
 
 — 13-15. p. 395. 
 
 — 15. p. 388. 
 
 HABAKKUK. 
 
 ii. 3, 4. p. 357. 
 
 ZEPIIANIAH. 
 
 ii. 4-7. p. 362. 
 
 — 9. p. 265, 280, 290. 
 
 — 13, 14, 15. p. 389. 
 
 HAGGAI. 
 
 ii. 7, 9. p. 20. 
 
602 
 
 INDEX TO TEXTS. 
 
 ZEOHARTAH. 
 V. 10, 11. p. 457. 
 
 ix. 5-8. p. 363. 
 
 — 9, p. 18, 28, 41. 
 
 — 12. p. 575. 
 
 x. 10. p. 95. 
 
 xi. 1, 2. p. 241. 
 
 — 12. p. 28. 
 
 xii. 10. p. 31. 
 
 xiii. 2. p. 42. 
 
 — 7. p. 31. 
 
 MALACHT. 
 
 i. 3, 4. p. 293. 
 
 — 4-8, 11. p. 356. 
 
 iii. 1. p. 18, 19. 
 
 iv. 4. p. 107. 
 
 MATTHEW. 
 
 iv. 15, 16. p. 27. 
 
 ix. 33. p. 30. 
 
 x. 17. p. 41. 
 
 xi. 5. p. 20. 
 
 — 20-23. p. 157. 
 xiii. 44-46. p. 4. 
 xvi. 18. p. 41. 
 
 xxi. 18, 19, 33, 34. p. 59. 
 
 xxii. 1-7. p. 59. 
 
 xxiii. 29, 32, 34, 36-39, p. 62. 
 
 xxiv. p. 61. 
 
 — 14. p. 41. 
 
 xxv. 14-30. p. 59. 
 xxviii. 19. p. 41. 
 
 MARK. 
 
 xi. 12-20. p. 59. 
 xiii. p. 61. 
 
 LUKE. 
 
 xiii. 6-9. p. 59. 
 
 xiv. 16-24. p. 59. 
 xvi. 31. p. 9. 
 
 xix. 41-44. p. 62. 
 
 xx. 9-18. p. 59. 
 
 xxi. p. 61. 
 
 xxi. 24. p. 108. 
 xxiii. 27-31. p. 59. 
 
 ACTS. 
 
 viii. 26. p. 376. 
 xv. 10. p. 16. 
 xvii. 18. p. 580. 
 xix. 29. p. 527. 
 
 1 THESSALONIANS. 
 
 v. 21. p. 3. 
 
 2 THESSALONIANS. 
 
 ii. 3, 4. p. 581. 
 — 9, 10. p. 580. 
 
 1 TIMOTHY. 
 
 iv. 1-4. p. 580. 
 
 1 PETER. 
 
 iii. 15. p. 3. 
 
 2 PETER. 
 
 ii. 1, 10, 12, 18, 19, p. 552. 
 
 iii. 3-6. p. 552. 
 
 JUDE. 
 
 18. p. 552. 
 
 REVELATION. 
 
 ii. 5. p. 527. 
 
 — 8-11, 12-16, 19. p. 528. 
 
 — 24. p. 529. 
 
 iii. 2, 3, 7, 8, 10. p. 530. 
 
 — 14-18. p. 532. 
 xiii. 1, 5, 7. p. 581. 
 
 — 7, 8. p. 583. 
 
 — 18, p. 582. 
 xv. 2. p. 582. 
 
 xvii. 1, 2, 15. p. 582. 
 
 — 4, 6. p. 583. 
 
 — 7, 14, 15. p. 581. 
 
 — 9, 10. p. 581. 
 
 — 17. p. 579. 
 
 xviii. 23. p. 580.