I- ■ \ X>'^X OP THK University of California. ("rlF^X OK Mrs. SARAH P. WALSWORTH. Received October, 1894. /Accessions No . SJ^l^ • Cla&s No. M N Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2008 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/evidenceoftruthoOOkeitrich EVIDENCE OF THE TRUTH OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION DERIVED FROM THE LITERAL FULFILMENT OP PROPHECY; PABTIOULARLY AS ILLUSTRATED BY THE HISTORY OF THE JEWS, AND BT THE ■ *. ' n DISCOVERIES OF RECENT TRAVELLERS. ALEXANDER KEITH, D.D. f| MINISTER OP ST. C Y RUS/ K I NC AB D I N E S H IBB, AUTHOR OF THE SiaNS OF THE TIMES, AND DEMONSTRATION OP THB TRUTH OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. Opinionum commenta dies delet, Natturn Judicia conflrmat. Cieero. PHILADELPHIA: PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION. [tJjriVBESITT] (3T//0I fjifj^i PEEFACE. The following pages are presented to the public, in the hope that they may not be altogether unproductive of good. The idea of the propriety of such a publication was first suggested to the writer in consequence of a conversation with a person who disbelieved the truth of Christianity, but whose mind seemed to be considerably affected, even by a slight alius on to the argument from Prophecy. Having endeavoured in vain to obtain, for his perusal, any concise treati' e on the Prophecies, con- sidered exclusively as a matter of evidence — and having failed in soliciting others to undertake the work, who were far better qualified for the execution of it — the writer was induced to make the attempt, and to en- deavour to bring the object into view. In the following Essay the argument is brought within narrow limits. Those prophecies are not included which were fulfilled previously to the era of the last of the pro- phets, or of which the meaning is obscure, or the appli- cation doubtful. And the only question to be resolved is — Whether there be any clear predictions, literally ac- complished, which, from their nature and their number, demonstrate that the Scriptures are the dictates of in- spiration, or that the Spirit of Prophecy is the testimony of Jesus. The researches of travellers in Palestine have been so abundant, and the prophecies thereby verified are so numerous and distinct, that no labour is requisite for 3 4 PREFACE. elucidating their truth, but to examine and compare the predictions and the events ; and the literal prophecies need no other interpretation than the literal facts. Though well aware that any one who seeks to illus- trate the external evidence of the truth of Christianity- may be said to stand only at the outer porch of the temple of Christian faith, yet the writer of these pages humbly hopes that he may be permitted to point to a way, with- out a stumbling-block, by which some who may be merely the proselytes of the gate, or others who would pass altogether by, may be enabled to enter into that edifice of divine architecture, fitly framed together, which is filled with all the riches of mercy, with all the beauties of holiness, and with all the light of truth. The author having recently visited* some of the scenes of scriptural prophecy, the present edition is considera- bly enlarged. Lord Claud Hamilton, who travelled at the same time in the East, and traversed regions which the writer did not visit, having kindly given the use of his valuable journal, his descriptions of Petra and Ammon enhance the value of the treatise, and will be read with much interest. > Together with the Rev. Dr. Black, the Rev. Robert M. M'Cheyne, and the Rev. Andrew Bonar, being a Deputation from the Church of Scotland to Palestine and other countries, to make inquiry re- specting the Jews. CONTENTS. Page Chap. I. Introduction 7 Chap. II. Prophecies concerning Christ and the Chris- tian Religion 19 Chap. III. The Destruction of Jerusalem 51 Chap. IV. The Jews 68 Chap. V. Judea 89 Ammon .^ . . 150 Moab 161 Edom, or Idumea • . • 172 Philistia, Gaza, &c 222 Chap. VI. Nineveh 237 Babylon 243 Tyre 324 Egypt 330 Chap. VII. The Arabs 342 The Africans 345 Chap. VIII. The Seven Churches of Asia 349 Conclusion 362 Appendix 377 LIST OF ENGRAVINGS. North-east View of Petra, Frontispiece. Pag« Views of the Exterior and Interior of Tombs . . . 190, 191 El Deir ib. Corinthian Columns in Petra 194 Tomb in Petra 198 BirsNimrood 304 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 dan- ger 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 dif- ficult ; and it can never, in any case, be attained till all direct and positive evidence to the contrary be com- pletely destroyed. And this, at least, must be done before it can be proved that Christianity is not true. Without this careful and candid examination, all gratui- tous assumptions and fanciful speculations, all hypotheti- cal reasonings or analogical inferences, that seem to militate against the truth of religion, may be totally erroneous ; and though they may tend to excite a trans- ient doubt, they cannot justify a settled unbelief. Being exclusively regarded, or being united to a misappre- hension 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 cre- dentials, — as it courts and commands the most trying 7 8 INTRODUCTION. scrutiny, that scrutiny the unbehever is bound, upon his own principles, to en^ge 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 mira- cles 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; pos- sessed the firmest conviction of the truth ; were distin- guished by their virtues, as well as by their profession, according to the testimony even of their enemies ;^ che- rished 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 confir- mation to the truth of Christianity, while they have often been the plea of infidels against it. Yet religion and human nature are still the same as they were when men were first called Christians, and when the believers in ' Plinii Epist. lib. x. ep. 97 ; Tertul. Ap. c. 2 ; Gibbon, c. 15, vol, ii. p. 315, 317, edit. Lond. 1815. INTRODUCTION. » Jesus dishonoured not his name. But they sought more than a passive and unexamining belief. They knew in whom they beUeved ; 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 accompanying fruits. And as a mean of destroying the distinction, 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 to 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." 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 w411 be his belief. Knowledge is the fruit of mental labour, the food and the feast of the mind. In the pursuit of know- ledge, the greater the excellence of the subject of inquiry, the deeper ought to be the interest, the more ardent the investigation, 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 per- tains to eternity, which leads not merely to the contem- plation of the works of the great Architect of the universe, but seeks also to discover an accredited re- velation of his will and a way to his favour, and which rests not in its progress 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." And it is delightful to have every doubt removed by the positive proof of the truth of Christianity, — to feel that conviction of its certainty, which infidelity can never impart to her votaries, — and to receive that 10 INTRODUCTION. 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 un- beheving mind. Instead of being a mere prejudice of education, which may be easily shaken, belief, thus founded on reason, becomes fixed and immovable; and all the scoffin^s of the scorner, and speculations of the infidel, lie as lightly on the mind, or pass as imper- ceptibly over it, and make as little impression 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 of a part implies no disparagement to the whole. Ample means for the confirmation of our fkith 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 precepts, 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 respecting 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 #L. INTRODUCTION. 11 Christian religion was speedily propagated throughout the whole extent of the Roman 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 at- tributed them to the agency of evil spirits. Yet all this accumulation of evidence is disregarded, and every tes- timony 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 sup- phes that evidence which the enemies of religion, or those who are weak in the faith, would require, which applies to the present time, and which stands not in need of any testimony, — which is always attainable by the researches of the inquisitive, and often obvious to the notice of all, — and which past, present, and coming events alike unite in verifying ; — it aflfords an increasing evidence, and receives additional attestations in each succeeding age. But, while some subterfuge has been sought for evading the force of the internal evidence, and the con- viction 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 Testament Avill suflSce 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 pro- phecies, and of their adaptation to the facts they predict — must strike the mind of the most careless inquirer 12 INTRODUCTION. with an apprehension that they are the dictates of Om- niscience. But many of the prophecies are as explicit and direct as it is possible that they could have been ; and, as history confirms their truth, so they sometimes 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 king- doms, had been more explicit than it is, it would have appeared to encroach on the Tree agency of man ; — it would have been a communication of the foreknowledge of events which men would have grossly abused and perverted to other purposes rather than to the establish- ment 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 pre- dicted, 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 instrumental in their fulfilment were utterly ignorant of their existence, that the prophecies are as descriptive as history itself. But whenever the knowledge of future events would have proved prejudi- cial 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 picture may best be seen from the proper point of observation, the period of their completion. Prophecy must thus, in many in- stances, have that darkness which is impenetrable at first, as well as that light 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 fulfilment of the whole series with which it is connected. But the gene- ral and often sole objection against the evidence fi:om the prophecies, that they are all vague and ambiguous, INTRODUCTION. 13 may best be answered and set aside by a simple exhibition of those numerous and distinct predictions which have been Hterally accompHshed ; and therefore to this hmited view of them the following pages shall chiefly be con- fined. 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 exclusively 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 inter- position of the Most High than that which prophecy affords. Of all the attributes of the God of the uni- verse, his prescience has bewildered and baffled the most all the powers of human perception ; and an evi- dence of the exercise of this perfection in the revelation of what the infinite Mind alone could make known, is the seal of God, which can never be counterfeited, aflfixed to the truth which it attests. Whether that evi- dence has been aflforded, is a matter of investigation ; but if it has unquestionably been given, the effect of superhuman agency is apparent, 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 fore- told 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 prophecies impart is a sign and a wonder to every age : no clearer testimony or greater assurance of the truth can be given ; and if men do not beUeve Moses and the prophets, neither would they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead. Even if one were to rise from the dead, evidence of the fact must precede conviction : and if 2 14 INTRODUCTION. the mind be satisfied of the truth of prophecy, the result, in either case, is the same. The voice of Om- nipotence 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 instruction. They were essential to the constitution of the Jewish state ; the possession of them was a great cause of the peculiarities of that people ; and they con- tain their moral and their civil law, and their history, as well as the prophecies, 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.* 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 received 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 unaltered, in a more remarkable degree, and with more scrupulous care, than any other compositions whatever.^ And the antiquity ' Josephus c. Apion. 2 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 letters 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, shows that INTRODUCTION. 15 and authenticity of them rest so little on Christian testi- mony 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 language in which the Old Testament Scriptures were originally written, had ceased to be spoken before the coming 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 sometimes delivered by a succession of prophets. Some- times the same prophecy concerning any city or nation gradually meets its fulfilment during a long protracted period, where the truth of the prediction must be unfold- ed by degrees. They are, in general, so interwoven with the history of the Jews ; so casually introduced in their application to the surrounding nations ; so frequently concealed in their purport, even from the honoured but unconscious organs of their communication, and pre- serving throughout so entire a consistency ; so diflferent 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 complete when compared and combined ; so apparently unconnected 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 incoherent and detached pretensions to the Jews were religiously careful to preserve the literal sense of Scripture. — (Allen's Modern Judaism; Simon, Crit. Hist. 6, SB.'i 16 INTRODUCTION. 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 ^;losed their eyes, can forbear from feeling and from perceiving them to be cre- dentials of the truth, clear as light from heaven. To justify their pretensions to their contemporaries, the prophets referred, on particular occasions, to some ap- proaching 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 dis- tinguished in their own age from false prophets, if their predictions were then true : and they ventured to raise, 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 desola- tion 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 charac- ter, that time would infallibly refute or realize them. Religion 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 withholds this inquiry, and who will not be impartially guided by its result, is not only reckless of his fate, but devoid of that of which he prides himself the most, — even of all true liberality of sentiment : he is the bigot INTRODUCTION. l^ of infidelity, who will not believe the truth because it is the truth. It is incontestable, that, in a variety of ways, a mar- vellous change has taken place in the religious and politi- cal state of the world since the prophecies were delivered. A system of rehgion, 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 beUeved on him, is so completely without a parallel, that it has often attracted the admiration ana excited the astonishment of infidels ; and one of them even asks, if it be possible that the sacred Personage, whose his- tory the Scripture contains, should be himself a mere man , and acknowledges that the fiction of such a character is more inconceivable than the reality.^ He possessed no temporal power, — he inculcated every virtue, — his life was spotless and perfect as his doctrine, — he was put to death as a cri- minal. His religion was rapidly propagated, — his follow- ers were persecuted, but their cause prevailed. The purity of his doctrine was maintained for a time, but it was afterwards corrupted. Yet Christianity has effected a great change. Since its establishment, 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 regard to the political changes or revolutions of states, since the prophecies concerning them were delivered, — Jerusalem was destroyed and laid waste by the Romans : the land of Palestine, and the surrounding countries, ' Rousseau's Emilius, vol. ii. p. 215, quoted in Brewster's Testi- monies, p. 133. 2* 18 INTRODUCTION. are now thinly inhabited, and, in comparison of their former fertiUty, 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, has long ceased to be a kingdom : Nineveh is no more : Babylon is now a ruin : the Persian empire succeeded to the Babylonian : the Grecian empire succeeded to the Persian, and the Roman to the Grecian : the old Roman empire has been divided into several kingdoms : Rome 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 to Asia, and are enlarging there : the Turkish empire attained to great power ; it continued to rise for the space of several centuries, but it paused in its progress, has since decayed, and now evidently verges to its fall. These form some of the most promi- nent 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 warrant- ably conclude that they could only have been revealed by the Ruler among the nations, and that they afford more than human testimony of the truth of Christianity. 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 suflftcient to illustrate the truth of Christianity. And, if one unbeliever be led the first step to a full and candid investigation of the truth,— if OF THE COMING OF A SAVIOUR. 19 one doubting mind be convinced, — if one Christian be confirmed more strongly in his belief, — if one ray of the hope of better things to come arise from hence, to enli- ven a single sorrowing heart, — if one atom be added to the mass of evidence, the author of this little work will neither have lost his reward nor spent his labour in vain. CHAPTER II. PROPHECIES CONCERNING CHRIST AND THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 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 designed, it acknowledged that it was it- self only preparatory to a future, a better, and perfect revelation. It was professedly adapted and limited to one particular people ; — it was confined, in many of its institutions, to the land of Judea ; its morality was in- complete ; — its ritual observances were numerous, oppres- sive, and devoid of any inherent merit ;^ and being partial, imperfect, and temporary, and full of promises of better things to come, for which it was the only means of pre- paring the way, it was evidently intended 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 was founded ' "Because they had not executed my judgments, but had de- spised my statutes, and had polluted my Sabbaths, and their eyes were after their fathers' idols ; wherefore I gave them also sta- tutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they should not live." (Ezek. xx. 24, 25 ; Acts xv. 10.) 20 OF THE COfMING upon this promise, and although the accomplishment of it v/as 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 uni- versal belief of the Jews. From the commencement to the conclusion of the Scriptures of the Old Testament, it is predicted or prefigured. They represent the first act of divine justice, which was exercised on the primo- genitors of the human race, as mingled with divine mercy. Before their seclusion 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, pro- phesied of another lawgiver that God was to raise up in a future age.* And while these early and general pre- dictions 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 irreconcilable, 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 Redeemer shall come to Zion — the Lord cometh — the messenger of the covenant, he shall come — blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord,^ are expres- sions that occur throughout the prophecies. These unequivocally speak of the coming of a Saviour. But » Deut. xviii. 15, 18. 3 Zech. ix. 9 ; Isa. lix. 20 ; Isa. Ixii. 11; Mai. iii. 1; Isa. xxxv. 4 ; Ps. cxviiJ. 26 ; Dan. ix. 26, 26. OF A SAVIOUR. 21 were every other proof wanting, the prophecy of Daniel is sufficient incontrovertibly 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 confirmed by the belief of the Jews in every age. It is 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 coming, the expectation of the Messiah still forms a bond of union which no distance can dissolve, and which no earthly power can 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 imper- fect and, incomplete ; but it is here given, as it may serve, to the general reader, to exhibit the connection between the Old and the New Testament, and as of it- self it may be deemed 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 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 num- ber of concurring circumstances, that fix it to the very date of the advent of Christ. The last blessing of Ja- cob 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 con- X 22 THE TIME OF THE cemiog Judah: "The sceptre shall not depart fh)m Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shi- loh come ; and unto him shall the gathering of the peo- ple be.'" The date fixed by this prophecy for the coming of Shiloh, or the Saviour, was not to exceed the time that the descendants of Judah were to continue a united people — that a king should reign among them — that they should be governed by their own laws, and that their judges were to be from among their brethren. The prophecy 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 messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in ; behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts."* No words can be more expressive of the coming of the promised Messiah; and they as clearly imply his ap- pearance 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, whether of ancient or modern times, look for a messenger to prepare the way of the Lord, immediately before his coming. The long succession of prophets had drawn to a close ; and the concluding words of the Old Testament, subjoined to an admonition to remember the law of Moses, import that the next prophet would be the harbinger 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 nations 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 ; and in this place will I give peace."'' The contrast which the prophet had just > Gen. xlix. 10. 2 Mai. in. 1. ^ Hag. ii. 7, 9. BIRTH OF CHRIST. 23 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 nothing ; the solemn manner of its introduction, *•• Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens and the earth ;" the excellency of the latter house excelling that of gold and silver ; the expression so characteristic of the Messiah, the " desire of all nations ;" and the bless- ing of peace that was to accompany his coming, all tend to 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 Tes- tament, during the time of the continuance of the kingdom of Judah, previous to the demolition of the temple, and immediately subsequent to the next prophet. But the time is rendered yet more definite. In the pro- phecies of Daniel, the kingdom of the Messiah is not only foretold as commencing in the time of the fourth monarchy or Roman empire ; but the express number of years that were to precede his coming is plainly inti- mated : " Seventy weeks are determined upon thy peo- ple, 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 understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem, unto the Messiah the Prince, shall be seven weeks and threescore and two weeks."* Computation by weeks of years was common among the Jews, 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 ; so entirely is all ambiguity done away. The plainest inference may be drawn from these pro- ^ ' Dan. ix. 24, 25. 24 THE TIME OF THE 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 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 Messiah;* and while they refer to different contingent and unconnected events, utterly undeterminable and inconceivable by all human sagacity ; — accord in perfect unison to a single precise period, where all their differ- ent 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 extinct or dispersed among the nations. 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 admiration of the Ro- mans, and might have stood for ages. But in a short space, all these concurring testimonies to the time of the advent of the Messiah 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 ba- nished, Coponius was appointed procurator, and the kingdom of Judea, the last remnant of the greatness of Israel, was debased into a part of the province of Syria.* The sceptre was smitten from the hands of the tribe of Judah ; the crown fell from their heads ; their glory departed ; and soon after the death of Christ, of their temple one stone was not left upon another ; their com- monwealth itself became as complete a ruin, and was broken in pieces ; and they have ever since been scat- tered throughout the world, a name, but not a nation. After the lapse of nearly four hundred years posterior to ' Grotius de Verit. 1. v. c. xiv ; Opera, torn. iv. p. 80, ed. Lond. 1679. Pearson on the Creed, art. ii. 2 Joseph. Antiq. lib. xvii. c. 16, (al. 13.) xviii. 1. BIRTH OF CHRIST. 25 the time of Malachi, another prophet appeared, who was the herald of the Messiah. And the testimony of Jose- phus confirms the account given in Scripture of John the Baptist/ Every mark that denoted the time of the coming of the Messiah, was erased soon after the cruci- fixion of Christ, and could never afterwards be renewed. And, with respect to the prophecies of Daniel, it is remarkable, at this remote period, how little discrepancj of opinion has existed among the most learned men, as to the space from the time of the passing out of the edict to rebuild Jerusalem, after the Babylonish captivity, to the commencement of the Christian era, and the subse- quent events foretold in the prophecy. Our design pre- cludes detail : but the minute coincidence of the narrative of the New Testament and the history of the Jews, wdth the subdivisions of time which it enumerates, are addi- tional attestations of its general accuracy as applicable to Christ. This coincidence is the more striking, as it is unnoticed by the relaters of the facts which establish it, and it has been left, without the possibility of any adap- tation of the events, to the discovery of modem chronolo- gists. The following observations of Dr. Samuel Clarke, partly communicated to him, as he acknowledges, by Sir Isaac Newton, elucidate this prophecy so clearly, that every reader will forgive their insertion : — " When the angel says to Daniel, Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people, Sfc. ; 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. JYabon. 290, to ann. JYabon. 780,) should be precisely 490 (seventy weeks of) years ? When the angel tells Daniel, that in threescore and twa 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 Mes- siah the Prince when he should come to reign ;) was ' Joseph. Antiq. lib. xviii. c. 5, (6,) 2. 3 26 THE PLACE OF this written after the event ? Or can it reasoiiably be ascribed to chance, that from the 28th year of Artax- erxes, when the walls were finished, to the birth of Christ, (from ann. JVabon. 311 to 745,) should be pre- cisely 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. Dom. 33) to the command ^iven first to Peter to preach to Cornelius and the Gentiles, {ann. Dom. 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 overs^preading of abominations he shall make it dJesolate ; was this written after the Q.Ye.ni ? 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. Dom. 70, should be half a septenary of years, or three years and a half?"* 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 Jews, but among all the eastern nations, in consequence of these prophe- cies ; that it afterwards 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 testifying the antiquity of the prophecies, and their acknowledged reference to that period.^ Even the Jews, ' Clarke's Works, fol. edit. vol. ii. p. 721. 2 "PIuribuspersuasioinerat,an' Isa. i. 5, 7. CHARACTER OF CHRIST. 31 virtues are thus represented in the prophecies, as character- istic of the Messiah ; and how apphcable are- they all to Christ alone, and how clearly imbodied in his character ! His wisdom and knowledge — his speaking as never man spake — the general meekness of his manner and mildness of his conversation — his perfect candour and unsullied purity — his righteousness — his kindness and compassion — his genuine humility — his peaceable disposition — his unrepining patience — his invincible courage — his more than heroic resolution, and more than human forbearance — his unfaltering trust in God, and complete resignation to his will, are all portrayed in the liveliest, the most affecting, and expressive terms ; and among all who ever breathed the breath of life, they can be applied to Christ alone. ^ Mahomet pretended to receive a divine warrant to sanction 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 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 prophetic character of the promised Saviour ! The internal evi dences are here combined 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. "2 The history of Jesus shows how such acts of mercy formed the frequent exercise of his power * ' See Barrow on the Creed, p. 19. 2 Isa. XXXV. 5, 6. 32 DEATH OF CHRIST. at his word the blind received their sight, the lame walked, the deaf heard, and the dumb spake.* The death of Christ was as unparalleled as his lifiB: 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 witii 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 lifting up of the brazen serpent in the wilderness, by lookmg upon which the people were healed, — and many ritual observances of the Jews, — prefigure the manner of Christ's death, and the sacrifice which was to be made for sin ; but many express decla- rations abound in the prophecies, that Christ was indeed to suffer. Exclusive of the repeated declarations in the Psalms,^ of afflictions which apply literally to him, and are interwoven with allusions to the Messiah's kingdom, the prophet Daniel,^ in limiting the time of his coming, directly affirms that the Messiah was to be cut off"; and in the same manifest allusion, Zechariah uses these em- phatic words : " Awake, O sword, against my Shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, saith the Lord of Hosts: smite the Shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered. I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication : and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him."* But Isaiah, who describes with eloquence worthy of a prophet, the glories of the kingdom that was to come, characterizes, with the accuracy of an historian, the humiliation, the trials, and the agonies which were to precede the triumphs of the Redeemer of a world ; and the history of Christ foons, to the very letter, the com- ' Matt ix. 33, xi. 5. 2 Ps. ii., xxii. 1, 6, 7, 16, 18, xxxv. 7, 11, 12, Ixix. 20, 21, cix. 2. 3, 5, 25, cxviii. 12. 3 Dan. ix. 26. < Zech. xiii. 7, xii. 10. DEATH OF CHRIST. 33 mentary and the completion of his every prediction. In a single passage,' — the connection of which is uninter- rupted, 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,^) are so minutely foretold, that no illustration is requisite to show that they testify of Jesus. Of the multitude of parallel passages in the New Testament, a few of the most obvious may be here sub- joined 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." Ji man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. Jesus wept at the grave of Lazarus ; he mourned over Jerusalem ; he felt the ingratitude and the cruelty of men ; he bore the con- tradiction of sinners against himself: and these are ex- pressions 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 Barabbas : 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 was 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 crucified in the flower of his age. He made his grave (or his grave was ap- ' Isa. lii. 13 — 15, and chap. iii. 2 Isa. xlii. 1, xlix. 6. 34 DEATH OF CHRIST. pointed) 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 among the transgressors. Barabbas was pre- ferred 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 wa^ 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 his 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 ambi- guity, the dignity of his person, the incredulity of the Jews, the innocence of the sufferer, the cause of his sufferings, and his consequent exaltation, are all parti- cularly marked, and are equally applicable to the doc- trine of the gospel. He shall be 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 assigned as the reason of the unbelief of the Jews, and it was the very reason which they themselves assigned. The prediction points out the procuring cause of his sufferings. He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows. " 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 Taare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead unto sin, should live unto righteousness ; by whose stripes we are DEATH OF CHRIST. 35 healed." All we, like sheep, have gone astray ; we have turned every one to his own icay ; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. " All flesh have sinned, ye were as sheep going astray, but ye are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls." He hath done no violence ; neither was tJiere any deceit in his mouth : Thou shall 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 to the Messiah It describes both his debasement and his dignity — his rejection by the Jew^s — his humihty, his affliction, and his agony — his magnanimity and his charity — how his words were disbelieved — how his state was lowly — how his sorrow was severe — how he t>pened not his mouth but to make intercession for the transgressors. In diametrical opposition to every dispensation of Provi- dence which is registered in the records of the Jews, it represents spotless innocence suffering by the appoint- ment of Heaven, death as the issue of perfect obedience, his righteous servant as forsaken of God, and one who was perfectly immaculate, bearing the chastisement of many guilty, — sprinkling many nations from their ini- quity, 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 exposition of it sufficed at once for the conversion of the eunuch of Ethiopia ; and, without the aid of an apostle, it can boast in more modem times of a nobler trophy of its truth, in a vic- tory 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 36 NATURE OF THE the advocates of impurity, and of the enemies of the Christian faith.* Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suf- fer, 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 indubitable 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 interpretation, but apply in the plainest, sim- plest, and most literal manner, to the history of the suf- ferings 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 evemgelists, of the life and death of Christ ; in the testimony of heathen authors^ which has been frequently quoted, but never refuted ; and in the arguments of the first opposers of Christianity, from the mean condition of its author, and the manner of his death ; we have now greater evidence of the fulfilment of all these prophecies, than could have been conceived possible at so great a distance of time. But the prophecies farther present us with the cha- racter 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 ' Burnet's Life of the Earl of Rochester, pp. 70, 71. . 2 «< Auctor nominis ejus Christus, Tiberio imperitante, per prccuratorem Pentium Pilatum supplicio adfectus erat." — (Tacit. Annal. lib. xv. cap. xliv.) CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 37 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 re- quire it of him. Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given ; and the government shall 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 kingdom, 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 hearing of his ears ; but with righteous- ness 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 live ; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David. Behold, I have given him for a witness to the people, a leader and commander to the people. I will set up one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them ; and I w411 make with them a covenant of peace, and it shall be an everlasting covenant ; and I will set my sanctuary in the midst of them : one king shall be king to them all ; neither shall they defile themselves any more with their idols. They shall have one shepherd. They shall also walk in my judgments, and my servant David shall be their prince forever. Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant ; — and this shall 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 4 38 NATURE OF THE they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord ; for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the ^eatest of them, saith the Lord ; for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more."* A future and perfect revelation of the divine will is thus explicitly foretold. That these promised blessings were to extend beyond the confines of Judea, is expressly and frequently predicted : — " It fs a Hght thing that thou shouldst be my servant, to raise up the tribes of Jacob, 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. ^ While many of the prophecies which are descriptive of the glories of the reign of the Messiah, refer to its universal extension, and to the final restoration of the Jews, they detail and define, at the same time, the na- ture and the blessings of the gospel ; and no better description or definition could now be given of the doc- trine of Christ, and of the conditions which he hath proposed for the acceptance of man, than those very prophecies which were delivered 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 similar terms do the prophecies of old describe the new law that was to be 1 Deut. xviii. 18, 19; Isa. iy. 6, 7, xi. 1, 3, 4, xlii. 6, Iv. 3,4; Ezek. xxxiv. 23, 25, xxxviL 22—26; Jer. xxxi.31, 33, 34. " Isa. xlix. 6, Ivi. 6—8. CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 39 revealed, and the advent of the Saviour that was to come : — " Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion : shout, O 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 publish- eth salvation/ 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."^ Having read these words out of the law, in the synagogue, Jesus said, " This day is this Scripture fulfilled." He was a teacher of righteousness and of peace, and in him alone it could have been fulfilled. The same character of joy, indicative of the kingdom of the Messiah, is also given by different prophets. He was to finish transgres- sion, to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation fof iniquity ; to sprinkle clean water upon the people of God, to sprinkle many nations, to save them from their uncleanness, and to open a fountain for sin and for un- cleanness. " 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 Messiah was to be anointed to comfort all that mourn, to appoint 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.^ And in the gospel of peace these promised blessings are realized. 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 prophecy. 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 religion of Jesus, pure from the lips of its author and the pen of his aposdes, is ' Isa. Hi. 7. 2 isa.lxi. 1. 3 Dan. ix. 24 ; Isa. Iv. 7 ; Jer. xxxi. 34 ; Isa. Ixi. 1— .3. 40 PROPAGATION AND EXTENT calculated to diffuse universal happiness; tends effect- ually to promote the moral culture and the civilization of humanity ; ameliorates the condition and perfects the nature of man. It is a doctrine of righteousness, a per- fect rule of duty : it abolishes idolatry, and teaches all to worship God only : it is full of promises to all who obey it : it reveals the method of reconciliation for ini- quity, and imparts the means lo 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 confirmation 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 expe- rience 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, vi- cious, and cruel system of religion that existed in the world when these prophecies were delivered, its supe- riority must be apparent, and its unrivalled excellence must be acknowledged. 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 honour than the humiliation of bowing down in adoration to stocks and stones, and sometimes even to the beasts. Sacrifices were every- where offered up, and human victims often bled, when the doctrine of reconciliation for iniquity was unknown. And we have only to look beyond the boundaries of Christianity, — to Ashantee, or to India, or to China, — to behold the most revolting of spectacles in the religious rites and practices of man. Regarding 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 im- OF CHRISTIANITY. 41 parts, have been amply verified by the peace-speaking gospel of Jesus. But, in ascertaining the accomplishment of ancient predictions, in evidence of the truth, the unbeliever is not solicited to relinquish one iota of his skepticism 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 gospel 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 before it ; that kings have become subject to it and supported it ; that it has already continued for many ages, and that it has been propagated throughout many countries, are facts clearly foretold and literally fulfilled. " Out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem ; and he shall judge among the nations.* He shall be for a sanctuary ; but for a stone of stumbling, and for a rock of oflfence, to both the houses of Israel ; for a gin and 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. "^ In like manner, Christ frequently foretold the persecution that awaited his followers, and the final success of the gospel, in defiance of all opposition.^ " The Lord alone shall be exalted in that day, and the idols he shall utterly abolish ; — 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 remembered.'* 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 bright- ness of thy rising. Kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers.^ The gentiles ' Isa. ii. 3, 4 ; Micah iv. 2. 2 jga. viii. 14 ; Ps. ii. 2. 3 Matt. X. 17, xvi. 18, xxiv. 14, xxviii. 19. •* Isa. ii. 17, 18 ; Ezek. xxxvi. 25 ; Zech. xiii. 2. * Isa. xlix. 7, 23, Ix. 3. 4* 42 PROPAGATION AND EXTENT shall see thy righteousness : — a people that knew me not shall be called after my name. In that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of tlie 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."^ At die time the prophecies were delivered, there was not a vestige in the world of that spiritual kingdom and pure religion which they unequivocally represent as extending in succeeding ages, not only throughout the narrow bounds of the land of Judea, and those countries which alone the prophets knew, but over the gentile nations also, even to the uttermost ends of the earth. None are now ignorant of the facts, that a system of religion 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 persecuted at first, and rejected by the Jews, it has spread throughout many nations, and extended to those who 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 com- mencement 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 Rome, the law which hath come out from Jerusa- lem hath taken, by its influence, 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 ^he 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 ' Isa. Ixii. 2, xi. 10, Iv. 3, 5. OF CHRISTIANITY. 43 from one extremity of the globe to another, — and behold the extinction of idolatry, and the abolition of every barbarous and cruel rite, by the humanizing influence of the gospel. But it was at a time when no dir-ne light dawned upon the world, save obscurely on the land of Judea alone ; when all the surrounding nations, in re- spect 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 revelation, as the only safe and certain guide ;* 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 uphfted in the land of Judea, and it spoke of a brighter day that was to dawn upon the world. It was indeed a light shining in a dark place. And from whence could that hght have emanated but from heaven? A Messiah was promised, a Prince of peace was to ap- pear, a stone was to be cut without hands, that should break in pieces and consume 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 forever ; 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 ' Plato in Phaedone et in Alcibiade ii. 44 PROPAGATION AND EXTENT 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 remember and turn unto the Lord ; and all the kindreds of the nations shall wor ship before thee.* I will give thee for a light to the gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth. The glory of thfe Lord shall be revealed ; and all flesh shall see it together ; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.^ 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 judgment in the earth ; and the isles shall wait for his law.*"* He will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the veil that is spread over all nations."* I am sought of them that asked not for me ; I am found of them that sought me not ; I said, Behold me, behold me, unto a nation that was not called by my name.* '^ It shall come to pass, in the last days," say both Isaiah and Micah in the same words, " that the moun- tain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it.^ 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.^ The abundance of the sea shall be converted unto thee ; the forces of the gentiles shall come unto thee.^ Sing, 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 married wife (more gentiles than Jews.) 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 gentiles: for thy Maker is ' Num. xxiv. 17 ; Ps. Ixxii. 17, 8, ii. 8, xxii. 27. 2 Isa. xlix. 6, xl. 5. 3 Isa. lii. 10, xlii. 4. * Isa. xxv. 7. ^ Isa. Ixv. 1. 6 Isa. ii. 2 ; Micah iv. 1. ' Hosea i. 10. a isa. ix. 5. OF CHRISTIANITY. 45 thine husband : the Lord of hosts is his name ; the God of the whole earth shall he be called.* The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad ; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose.^ 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 same auspicious import : — and we have not merely to consider what part of them may yet remain to be fulfilled, but how much has already been accomplished, of which no surmise could have been formed, and of which all the wisdom of short-sighted mortals could not have war- ranted a thought. All of them were delivered many ages before the existence of that religion whose progress they minutely describe ; and, when we compare the present state of any country where the gospel is pro- fessed in its purity, with its state at that period when the Sun of righteousness began to rise upon it, we see light pervading the regions of darkness, and ignorance and barbarism yielding to knowledge and moral culti- vation. In opposition to all human probability, and to human wisdom and power, the gospel of Jesus, propa- gated at first by a few fishermen of Galilee, has razed every heathen temple from its foundation, has over- thrown 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 persecution, of opposi- tion the most powerful and violent, of the direct attacks of avowed, and the insidious designs of disguised ene- mies ; — 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 centuries con- firms every ancient prediction, and verifies, to this hour, the declaration of its author, — " the gates of hell shal) not prevail against it." How is it possible that it could have been conceived that such a religion would hav* 1 Isa. liv. 1—3, 5. 2 isa. xxxv. 1 46 PROPAGATION AND EXTENT been characterized in all its parts — would have been instituted — opposed — established — propagated through- out tlie world — embraced by so many nations — pro- tected at last by princes and kings — and received as the rule of faith and the will of God ? How could all tliese things, and many more respecting it, have been foretold, as they unquestionably were, many centuries before the author of Christianity appeared, if these pro- phecies be not an attestation from on high that every prediction and its completion is the work of God and not of man ? What uninspired mortal could have de- scribed 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 reUgion 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, pre- dicted the rise of a religion which could boast of no such toleration, but which was to reveal the will and incul- cate 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 means of reconciliation for iniquity, to be understood by all from the simplicity of its pre- cepts, 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 degrada- tion, and yet they predicted the final abolition and ex- tinction both of polytheism and of idolatry. The Jewish dispensation was local, and Jews prophesied of a reli- gion beginning fi-om Jerusalem, which was to extend to OF CHRISTIANITY. 47 the uttermost parts of the earth. So utterly unUkely and incredible were the prophecies either to have been fore- told 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 progress of Christianity is at least astonish- ing ; as the fulfilment of many prophecies, it is evidently miraculous.* The prophesied 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 unto them that dwell on 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 be liever in a new religion everywhere spoken against and persecuted. They were uttered at a time when their truth could not possibly have been realized to the de- gree which it actually 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 many countries which the gospel has now reached were then undiscovered. And, multi- plied as books now are, more than at any former period of the history of man, — extensive as the range of com- merce is, beyond what Tyre, or Carthage, or Rome could have ever boasted, — the dissemination of the Scriptures surpasses both the one and the other : they 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 combination known, and all their wonderful effects distinctly de. scribed for many centuries prior to their existence, or to the com- mencement of the period of their alleged operation? 48 PROPAGATION AND EXTENT have penetrated regions unknown to any work of human genius, and untouched even by the ardour of commer- cial 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 unexam- pled 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 more than one hundred and fifty languages and dia- lects, which are prevalent in countries from the one ex- tremity 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 ac- complished, 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 to the Christian religion, that they include predictions relative to many of the doc- trines of the gospel which are subjects of pure revelation, or which 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 crite- rions 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 w^onderful they appear, they were by so much the more unlikely or inconceivable to have been foretold by man, and to have been afterwards imbodied m a system of religion. OF CHRISTIANITY. 49 It IS? also evident that there are many prophecies ap- plicable 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 mortal 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 ob- scured the divine nature of the expected reign of the Messiah. It was only after the resurrection of Christ, as the Scripture informs us, that their understandings were opened to know the prophecies. But while the accomplishment of many of these predictions is thus unnoticed in the New Testament, the fulfilment 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 unde- signed 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 seen how the former is a transcript of the latter, we may draw the legitimate conclusion, that the spirit of pro- phecy is indeed the testimony of Jesus. And may it not, on a review of the whole, be war- rantably asserted, that the time and place of the birth of Christ, the tribe and the family from which he was descended, the manner of his life, his character, his miracles, his sufferings and his death ; the nature of his 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 extended to the gentiles, that idolatry would give way before it, that kings would sulDmit to its author- ity, 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 .? 5 50 PROPAGATION OF CHRISTIANITY. Why, then, were so many prophecies dehvered? 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, undisputed 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 multiplicity of facts predicted that are appU- cable to Christ and to him alone ? Why, but that all this mighty preparation might usher in the gospel of righteousness ; and that, like all the works of the Al- mighty, his word through Jesus Christ might never be left without a witness of his wisdom and his power? And if the prophecies which testify of the gospel and its Author display, from the slight glance which has here been given of them, any traces of the finger of God, how strong must be the conviction 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. 51 CHAPTER 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 de- nounces grievous judgments that would overtake them for the breach of it. The history of the Jews in each suc- ceeding 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 con- tains predictions, 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 government, foretold, notwithstanding the interven- tion of so many ages, the manner of its overthrow. While they were wandering 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 tri- umphant, they were about to possess it, he represented the scene of desolation that it would exhibit 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 descendants 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 52 DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. years : " The Lord shall bring a nation against thee from far, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flieth ; a nation whose tongue thou shalt not un- derstand ; 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 c6rn, 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."^ Each particular of this prophecy, though it be only intro- ductory to others, has met its full completion. The remote situation of the Romans, the rapidity of their march, the very emblem of their arms, their unknown Icmguage and warlike appearance, the indiscriminate cruelty and unsparing pillage which they exercised towards the persons and the property of the Jews, could scarcely have been represented in more descriptive terms.* Vespasian, Adrian, and Julius Severus re- moved with part of their armies from Britain to Palestine, the extreme points of the Roman world. The eagle was the standard of their armies, and the utmost activity and expedition were displayed in the reduction of Judea. They were a nation of fierce countenance, a race dis- tinct from the effeminate Asiatic troops. At Gadara and Gamala, throughout many parts of the Roman empire, and, in repeated instances, at Jerusalem itself, the slaughter of the Jews was indiscriminate, without dis- tinction of age or sex. The inhabitants were enslaved and banished, all their possessions confiscated, and the kingdom of Israel, humbled at first into a province of the Roman 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 foundation. But the prophet ' Deut. xxvii. 49 — 52. 2 See Jackson, Poole, Patrick, Whiston, Bishop Newton, &,c. DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 53 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 straitness where- with thine enemies shall distress thee ; so that the man that is tender among you, and very delicate, his eyes shall be evil toward his brother, and toward the wife of his bosom, and tow^ard the remnant of his children which 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 distress 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 delicateriess and ten- derness, her eye shall be evil toward the husband of her bosom, and toward her son, and toward her daughter, and toward her young one, and toward her children which she shall bear : for she shall eat them for want of all things secretly in the siege and straitness where- with thine enemy shall distress thee in thy gates. "^ No commentator, nor careful readev of Scripture and of Jewish history, could fail to observe the repeated in- stances of the fulfilment of this striking and awful pre- diction. 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.^ When Ne- buchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem, 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 calamities 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 this case despised. Child- ren snatched the food out of the very mouths of their ' Deut. xxviii. 53—57. 2 2 Kings vi. 35. 5* 54 DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. fathers; and even mothers, overcoming 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 shadow of food, a con- test arose ; and the nearest relatives struggled with each other for the miserable means of subsistence.* He adds a most revolting detail.* While, in all these cases, the eve of man was thus evil towards his brother, in the siege and in the straitness wherewith their enemies dis- tressed them ; the unparalleled inhuman compact be- tween 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 sod- den their own children, they were their meat in 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 suffering city with horror,) which are all recorded as facts, without the least allusion to the prediction, — too faithfully realize, to the very letter, the dread denuncia- tions of the prophet. When any well-authenticated facts, of so singular and appalling a nature, were pre- dicted for ages, they could not possibly have been revealed but by inspiration from that Omniscience which alone can foresee 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 their power would be broken, that their cities would be laid waste, that they would be destroyed and brought to naught, plucked from off the land, sold for slaves, and that none would buy them ; that their high places were to be desolate, and their bones to be scattered around their altars ; that Jerusalem was to be encamped round about, ' Joseph. Hist. lib. v. c. x. § 3. — lib. vi. c. iii. § 3. Quoted by Eusebius, a. n. 315. — Ecc. Hist. lib. iii. c. vi. p. 95, 97. Patrick, &c. 2 Joseph, ibid, vi c. iii. § 4. DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 55 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."* These predictions, which are recorded in the Penta- teuch, and in the subsequent prophecies, accord with the minute prophetic narrative which Jesus gave of the siege and destruction of Jerusalem. Any adequate de- lineation 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 unimpeachable testimony of impartial historians, that it is merely necessary, for the elucidation of its truth, to compare the prophetic description with the historical fact.2 ' Lev. xxvi. 30, &c. ; Deut. xxviii. 62, &c. ; Isa. xxiv. 3 ; Ezek. vi. 5 ; Micah iii. 12 ; Jer. xxvi. 18 ; Ezek. vii. 7 — 9, 15. 2 " 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 won- derful instance of the care of Providence for the Christian church, that he, an eyewitness, and in these things of so great credit, should (especially in such an extraordinary manner) be pre- served, 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 prophecies were quoted and illustrated by Eusebius above 1500 years ago, lib. iv. c. v. — ix. p. 92 — 102, edit. Cantab. 1720. After giving a tragic summary, from the 5th and 6th books of Jose- phus's history of the miseries sustained from famine during the siege, he emphatically and justly states, that if any one compare the words of Christ with Josephus's narrative of the whole war 56 DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 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 dis- ciples 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 testi- mony 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 dissemi- nated so extensively and rapidly, that any deceit must have been instantaneously 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 remained unchallenged by Julian, by- Porphyry, or by Celsus. The authenticity of the pro- phecy thus rests on sure grounds, and the facts in which it received its accomplishment are incontestable. Jose- he cannot but admire the wonderful prescience and prophecy of Christ, and confess that 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 Chris- tian," at all versed 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, Jackson, Poole, Patrick, Tillotson, Whitby, Abbadie, Whiston, Doddridge, Pearce, Bishop Newton, Lardner, &c., 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 Doddridge, as well as by many preceding writers ; and in this brief and most imperfect summary, these authorities were consulted from the first. ^ MalU 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. DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 57 phus was one of the most distinguished generals in the commencement of the Jewish war ; he was an eye-wit- ness of the facts which he records ; he appeals to Ves- pasian 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 care- fulness with which he avoids the mention of the name of Christ, in the history of the Jewish war, is not less remarkable than the great precision with which he de- scribes the events that verify his predictions. 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 buildings 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 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 na- tion, and kingdom against kingdom ; and great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences, and fearful sights ; and great signs shall there be from heaven. All these things are the beginning of sorrows. But, before all these things, 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 58 DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. orethren, 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 encompassed with armies, and the abomina- tion of desolation 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 any thing 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 vengeance. But wo unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days; for there shall 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 fi:om the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be ; and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the time of the Gentiles be fiilfilled. This generation shall not pass away till all these things be done."^ " Wo unto you, scribes and Pharisees ; fill ye up the 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. Jerusalem, 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 deso- late. For I say unto you. Ye shall not see me hence- ' Matt. xxiv. ; Mark xiii. ; Luke xxi. DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 59 forth till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.^ " 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 knewest not the time of thy visitation. "^ 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 ap- peared. Simon Magus boasted that he was some great one. Dositheus, the Samaritan, pretended that he was the lawgiver prophesied of by Moses. Theudas, pro- mising the performance of a miracle, persuaded a great multitude to follow him to Jordan, and deceived many.^ The country was filled with impostors and deceivers, w^ho induced the people to follow them into the wilder- ness ;'' — their credulity became the punishment of their previous skepticism, 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 ru- mours of wars ; nation rose against nation^ and kingdom against kingdom. The Jews resisted the erection of the statue of CaHgula in the temple ; and such was the dread of Roman resentment, that the fields remained uncultivated. At Caesarea, the Jews and Syrians contended for the mastery of the city. Twenty thousand of the former were put to death, and the rest were expelled. Every ' Matt, xxiii. 29, 32, 34, 36—39. 2 Luke xix. 41 — 44. 3 Joseph. Ant. lib. xx. cap. v. § 1. Quoted by Grotius, Whitby &c. &c. '' Joseph. Ant. lib. xx. cap. viii. quoted by Grotius, &e. 30 DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. city in Syria was then divided into two armies, and multitudes were slaughtered/ Alexandria and Damas- cus presented a similar scene of bloodshed. About fifty thousand of the Jews fell in the former, and ten thousand in the latter." The Jewish nation rebelled against the Romans ; Italy was convulsed with conten- tions for the empire; and, as ^ proof of the troublous and warlike character of the period, within the brief space of two years, four emperors, Nero, Galba, Otho, and Vitellius, suffered death. There were famines, pes- tilenceSy and earthqua/ces in divers places. In the reign of Claudius Caesar there were different famines. They continued to be severe for several years throughout the land of Judea. Pestilence succeeded them. In the same reign there were earthquakes at Rome, at Apamea, and at Crete. In that of Nero there was* an earthquake in Campania, and another in which Laodicea, Hierapo- lis, and Colosse were overthrown ; and others are re- corded to have happened in various places, before the destruction of the city of Jerusalem.^ " The constitu- tion of nature," says the Jewish historian,* " was con- founded for the destruction of men, and one might easily conjecture that no common calamities were portended." ^nd there were fearful sights and signs from heaven. Tacitus and Josephus agree in relating and in describ- ing events so surprising and supernatural, that their nar- rative perfectly accords with the previous prediction.* And the fact cannot be disputed, that, whatever these sights were, the minds of men were impressed with the ' Joseph. Ant. Hist. lib. ii. cap. xviii. §§ 1, 2. Tillotson, Bishop Newton, &c. 2 Ibid. lib. ii. c. xviii. §§ 7, 8, c. xx. § 2. Ibid. 3 Suet. Vit. Claud, cap. xviii. ; Tac. Ann. lib. xii. c. xliii., lib. xiv. c. xxvii. ; Jos. lib. iv. c. iv. Grotius, Whitby, &c. * Jos. Ibid. Whitby, Newton, Scott's Commentary. * "Evenerant prodigia, quae neque hostiis neque votis piare fas habel gens superstitioni obnoxia, religionibus adversa. Visas per coelum concurrere acies, rutilantia arma, et subito nubium igne collucere templum. Expassae repente delubri fores, et audita major humana vox, excedere deos; simul ingens motus exceden- lium." (Tacit. Hist. lib. v. cap. xiii.) Whitby, &c. DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 61 idea that they were indeed signs from heaven : and even this could never have been foreseen by man. There is surely something at least unaccountable in their predic tion, and in their relation by historians, unprejudiced and unfriendly to the cause which their testimony sup- ports. The disciples of Jesus were persecuted, imprisoned, afflicted, and hated of all nations, for his name^s sake, and many of them were put to death. Peter, Simon, and Jude were crucified.^ Paul was beheaded; Mat- thew, Thomas, James, Matthias, Mark, and Luke, were put to death in different countries, and in various man- ners. There was a war against the very name. They were accused of hatred to the human race. The preju- dices 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, accused the innocent but hated Christians of that atrocious deed, and inflicted upon them the most excruciating tortures.^ He made their sufferings a spectacle and a sport to the Romans. To compensate for his disappointment in not trampling on the ashes of Rome, 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 war- rant for that selection, and sufficed to sanction the in- fliction of unheard-of barbarities. Many shall be offended 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 ap- peared 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 ' Cave's Lives of the Apostles ; Dupin. 2 Tacit. Annal. lib. xv. cap. xliv. Whitby, &c. 6 62 DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. persecution. In the age of the apostles, epistles were addressed to Christians at Rome, Corinth, Ephesus, Philippi, Colosse, Thessalonica, and in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. After Christ deUvered this prophecy, he was in a little time forsaken by all his disciples, and put to death as a criminal. At their first assembly, they were a little flock, the number of the names together being about a hundred and twenty. And, unpromismg as the prospect was, a few fishermen of Galilee, aided afterwards by a tent-maker of Tarsus, circumscribed not their labours, in the preaching of the gospel, by the boundaries of the Roman empire. Could the reception or the fate of Christ himself have warranted 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 ap- proaching ruin are given as a warning to depart from it. Jerusalem was encompassed with armies. The Roman 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 im- plied the impossibility of escape, and the warning would have been in vain. Yet the words of Jesus did not deceive his disciples. Cestius Gallus, the Roman gene- ral, 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.* Anu he attributes it to the just vengeance of God, 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 departed from the city, as fi:om ' Joseph, lib. ii. cap. xix. xx. Grotius, &c. &c. DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 63 a sinking vessel ; and how, upon the approach of Ves- pasian afterwards, multitudes fled from Jericho into the mountainous country. Thither, and to the city of Pella, fled all the disciples of Jesus :^ and, amidst all the suc- ceeding calamities, not a hair of their Iieads did perish. There shall be great tribulation, such as was not from, the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor shall ever be. There shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people. T/iese are the days of vengeance. Such are some of the words of Jesus, relative to the destruc- tion of Jerusalem ; and all the previous prophecies re- garding it were of the same sad import. The particulars of the siege are all related by Josephus, and form a de- tail of miseries that admit not of exaggeration ; and which he repeatedly declares, in terms that entirely ac- cord with the language of prophecy, are altogether un- equalled in the history of the world. No general de- scription can give a just idea of calamities the most terrible that ever nation suffered. The Jews had assem- bled in their city from all the surrounding country, to keep the feast of unleavened bread. It was crowded with inhabitants, 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 destruction. Before any external enemy ap- peared, 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 into three factions. On the extirpation of one of these, each of the others contended for the mas- tery. The most ferocious and frantic, the robbers or zealots, as they are indiscriminately called, prevailed at last. They entered the temple, under the pretence of off*ering sacrifices, and carried concealed weapons for the purpose of assassination. They slew the priests at the very altar ; and their blood, instead of that of the vic- ' Epiphanius in Hseres. Nazar. cap. vii. ; Eusebii Ec, Hist. lib. iii. cap. V. Whitby, Doddridge, &c. 64 DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. tims 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 en- tered, every article of subsistence 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 habi- tations for the living were converted 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 tliem and offered them all hei 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 Roman soldiers unremittingly besieged them ; they encompassed Jerusalem 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 commands, 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 thou- sand victims were enveloped in its blaze. The whole city, full of the famished dying, and of the murdered dead, presented no picture but that of despair, no scene but of horror. The aqueducts and the city sewers were crowded as the last refuge of the hopeless. Two thou^ sand were found dead there, and many were dragged from thence and slain. The Roman soldiers put all in- discriminately to death, and ceased not till they became faint and weary and overpowered with the work of de- struction. 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 checked but for a moment by the red streamlets in every street. Jerusalem DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 65 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 concentrated a mass of misery ? Could any prophecy be more faithfully and awfully fulfilled ? The prospect of his own crucifixion, 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 condohng 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 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 be done in the dry?" No impostor ever betrayed such feelings as a man, nor predicted events so unHkely, astonishing, and true, as an attestation of a divine com- mission. 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 in- strument of executing the sentence of the divine justice. And their own historian asserts, in conformity with every declaration of Scripture upon the subject, that the iniqui- ties of the Jews were as unparalleled as their punishment All these prophecies, of which we have been review- ing the accomplishment, were delivered in a time of per- 6* 66 DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. feet peace, when the Jews retained their own laws, and enjoyed the protection, as they were subject to the au- thority, of the Roman empire, then in the zenith of its power. The wonder excited in the minds of his disci- ples 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 Cfhrists 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 disci- ples ; the apostasy of many ; the propagation of the gos- pel ; 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 miseries of all ; the entire destruction of the city ; the shortening of their sufferings, that still more 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 but He who discerns futurity could have foretold and described all these things ; and their complete and literal fulfilment shows them to be indubitably the reve- lation 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 were 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 verified. Titus commanded the whole city and temple to be razed from the foundation. The soldiers were not then disobedient to their general. Avarice com- bined with duty and with resentment : the altar, the tem- ple, 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 DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 67 the city was afterwards ploughed over by Terentius Ru- fus. In the siege, and in the previous and subsequent destruction of the cities and villages of Judea, according to the specified enumeration of Josephus, about one mil- 'lion 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 sport, to contend with wild beasts, and otherwise to be put to death.* 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 hath scattered them through- out the world. Many prophecies respecting them yet remain to be considered, and much of their history is yel untold. The prophecies are as clear as the facts are visible. ' Tacitus, who flourished about thirty years after the destruction of Jerusalem, speaks of the strength of the fortifications of that city, the immense riches and strength of the temple, the factions that raged during the siege, as well as of the prodigies that pre- ceded 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 resist- ance of the Jews during the siege, the destruction of the temple by fire. It is recorded by Maimonides, and in the Jewish Talmud, (as cited by Basnage and Lardner,) that Terentius Rufus, an ofli- cer in the Roman army, tore up with a ploughshare the foundations of the temple. The triumphal arch of Titus, commemorative 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. 68 THE JEWS. CHAPTER 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 Ruler 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. Mo- ses professed to look through the glass of ages; the revolution of many centuries has brought the object immediately before us : we may scrutinize the features of futurity 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 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 THE JEWS. 69 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.^ 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.^ The Lord shall cause thee to be smitten 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. » 'I'he 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 prosper 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 peo- ple. 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 op- pressed and crushed always ; so that thou shalt be mad for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see. The Lord shall bring thee unto a nation which neither thou nor thy fathers have known ; — and thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb, and a by- word, among all na- tions whither the Lord shall lead thee.^ Because thou servedst not the Lord thy God with joyfulness and with gladness of heart for the abundance of all things ; there- fore shalt thou serve thine enemies which the Lord shall send against thee, in hunger, and in thirst, and in naked- ness, 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 con- tinuance.^ All these curses shall come upon thee, and shall pursue thee, and overtake thee ; — and they shall be 1 Lev. xxvi. 33, 36—39, 44. 2 Dgut. iv. 27. 3 Deut. xxviii. 25. 4 Deut. xxviii. 28, 29, 32, 33, 36, 37. « Deut. xxviii. 47, 48, 59 70 THE JEWS. 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 destroy 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."* The writings of all the succeeding prophets abound with similar predictions. " I will cause them to be 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.^ I will deliver them to be 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.^ 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 astonish- ment, and a hissing, and a reproach, among all the nations whither I have driven them.'* I will execute judgments in thee, and the whole remnant of thee will » Deut. xxviii. 45, 46, 63—67. 2 Jer. xv. 4, xvi. 13, ix. 15, 16. ' Jer. xxiv. 9, 10. ^ jer. xv. 7, xxix. 18. THE JEWS. 71 I scatter into all the winds.* I will scatter them among the nations, and disperse them in the countries.^ 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.^ I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, 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 I have driven them, saith the Lord of hosts. They shall be wanderers among the nations.'' 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 desolate, and the Lord have removed men far away, and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land.^ 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.^ But fear not thou, my servant Jacob, and be not dismayed, O Israel ; for, behold, I will save thee from afar off, and thy seed from the land of their captivity. — I will make a full 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.'^ The children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and with- > Ezck. V. 10. 2 Ezek. xii. 15. 3 Ezek. vii. 19. '^ Amos ix. 9 ; Jer, viii. 3 ; Hos. ix. 17. * Isa. vi. 10—12. . 6 Amos ix. 4 ; Jer. xxxi. 10. ^ Jer. xlvi. 27, 28. ^72 THE JEWS. out an ephod, and without a teraphim. Afterward shal; the children of Israel return, and seek the Lord theii God, and David their king ; and shall fear the Lord and his goodness in the latter days."'' 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 the continuance of their dispersion'; their persecutions, their blindness, their sufferings, their feebleness, their fearful- ness, 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 unextinguishable existence, and unlimited diffusion of their race. They were to be plucked from off their own land^ smitten before their enemies^ consumed from off t/ieir own land, and left few in number. The Romans 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 w^hich 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 over- throw, however great. Unparalleled as were the miseries which they had suffered in the slaughter of their kindred, the loss of their property and their homes, the annihilation of their power, the destruction of their capital city, and the devastation 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 impostor, 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 Romans, which had everywhere ' Hosea iii. 4, 5. THE JEWS. 73 crushed them, and to rescue themselves and their coun- try from ruin. A war which their enthusiasm and desperation aUke protracted for two years, and in 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 entire discomfiture and final banishment. They were so beset on every side, and cut down in detached por- tions by the Roman soldiers, that, in the words of a heathen historian, very few of them escaped. Fifty of their strongholds were razed from the ground, and their cities sacked and consumed by fire ; Judea was laid waste and left as a desert.^ 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 reference to the Jews, met its full completion, which yet they survive, to await in every country, when exiles from their own, an accumulation of almost unceasing calamities, protracted throughout many succeeding ages. The cities shall he wasted with- out inhabitant. Every city shall he forsaken, and not a man dwell therein. They were rooted out of their land in anger, and in wrath, and in great indignation.^ A pubHc edict of the emperor Adrian rendered it a capital crime for a Jew to set a foot in Jerusalem ;^ and pro- hibited them from viewing it even at a distance. Hea- thens, Christians, and Mahometans have alternately possessed Judea. It has been a 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 return, 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 many nations, ' Dion Cassius, lib. Ixix. Jackson, Patrick, Basnage, &c. 2 Isaiah vi. 11 ; Jer. iv. 29 ; Deut. xxix. 28. 3 Tertul. Ap. c. xxi. p. 51 ; Ibid. Adv. Judosos, c. xiii. p. 146, ed. Paris, 1608. Basnage's Continuation of Josephus, b. vi. c. 9, § 27. 7 74 THE JEWS. in so long a period, the Jews alone have not only ever been aliens in the land of their fathers, but 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. Benjamin of Tudela, who travelled in the twelfth century through great part of Europe and of Asia, tbund the Jews everywhere oppressed, particularly in Jhe Holy Land. And to this day, (while the Jews who .•eside in Palestine, or who resort thither in old age, that cheir bones may not be laid in a foreign land, are alike ill-treated and abused by Greeks, Armenians, and Eu- ropeans,*) the haughty deportment of the despotic Mus- sulman, 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 shall 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 be- hold. 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 kingdoms of the earth ; the whole remnant of them has been scattered into all the winds : they have been dis- persed throughout all countries, and sfted 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 moun- tains, nor rivers, nor deserts, nor oceans, which are the boundaries of other nations, have terminated their wan- derings. They abound in Poland, in Holland, in Russia, and in Turkey. In Germany, Spain, Italy, France, and Britain, they are more thinly scattered. In Persia, ' General Straton's MS. Journal. ^ Deut. xxviii. 43. THE JEWS. ^O 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.* From Moscow to Lisbon, from Japan to Britain, from Borneo to Archangel, from Hindostan 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 dis- pute, or too notorious for contradiction, may be added a description of them all in the very terms of the pro- phecy. 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 infinitely 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 burnt without con- suming. The Jews have been driven from all places of the world, which has only served to disperse them in all parts of the universe. They have, from age to age, run through misery and persecution, and torrents of their own blood. "^ Their banishment from Judea was only the prelude to their expulsion from city to city, and from kingdom to kingdom. Their dispersion over the globe is an irrefragable evidence of this, and many re- cords remain that amply corroborate the fact. Not only did the first and second centuries of the Christian era • ' Lyon's Travels in Africa, p. 146. '^ Basnage, b. vi. c. i. § 1 ; Jortin's Remarks on Eccl. Hist. vol. ii. p. 181, &c. 7(J THE JEWS. 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. Revolt 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, whither they carried, in terror to their kindred, the mark of their suffering and infamy. In the fifth century they were expelled from Alexamdria, which had long been one of their safest places of resort. Justinian, from whose principles of legislation a wiser and more hu- mane policy ought to have emanated, yielded to none of his predecessors in hostility and severity ag*ainst them. He abolished their synagogues, prohibited them even from entering into caves for the exercise of their worship, rendered their testimony inadmissible, and de- prived them of the natural right of bequeathing their property : and when such oppressive enactments led to insurrectionary movements among the Jews, their pro- perty was confiscated, many of them were beheaded, and so bloody an execution of them prevailed, that, eis is expressly related, " all the Jews of that country trem- bled ;"^ a trembling heart was given them. In the reign of the tyremt Phocas, a general sedition broke out among the Jews in Syria. They and their enemies fought with equal desperation. They obtained the mastery in An- tioch ; but a momentary victory only led to a deeper humiliation, and to the infliction of more aggravated cruelties than before. They were soon subdued and taken captive ; many of them were maimed, otliers exe- cuted, and all the survivors were banished from the city. Gregory the Great afforded them a temporary respite fi-om oppression, which only rendered their ' Basnags's Hist. b. v^i. c. xxi. § 9. THE JEWS. 77 spoliation more complete, and their suffeiing 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 dominions, and by finally expeUing them from the 'empire, exerted so effectually against them his influence in other countries, that they suffered under a general and simultaneous persecution from Asia to the furthest ex- tremities of Europe/ In Spain, -conversion, imprison- ment, 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 misbeUeving Jews. He set an early ex- ample of persecution against them, which the Mahome- tans have not yet ceased to imitate. In the third year of the Hegira, he besieged the castles which they pos- sessed in the Hegiasa, compelled those who had fled to them for refuge and defence to an unconditional surren- der, banished them the country, and parted their pro- perty among his Mussulmans. He dissipated a second time their recombined strength, massacred many of them, and imposed upon the remnant a permanent tri- bute. The church of Rome ever ranked and treated them as heretics. The canons of different councils pro- nounced excommunication against those who should favour or uphold the Jews against Christians ; enjoined all Christians neither to eat nor to hold any commerce with them ; prohibited them from bearing public oflSces or having Christian slaves ; appointed them to be dis- tinguished by a mark; decreed that their children should be taken from them, and brought up in monasteries ; ' Basnage's Hist. b. vi. c. xxi. § 17. 7* 78 THE JEWS. and, what is equally descriptive of the low estimation ir 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.* Hallaun's account of the Jews, during the mid- dle £iges, is short, but significant. " They were every- where the objects of popular iriSult and oppression, fre- quently 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 face every Easter. At Beziers they were at- tacked with stones from Palm-Sunday to Easter, an anniversary of insult and cruelty generally productive of bloodshed, and to which the populace were regu- larly 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 tolertmce was borne by this extraordinary people with an invincible perseverance, and a talent of accumu- lating riches, which kept pace with the exactions of their plunderers. Philip Augustus released all Chris- tians in his dominions from their debts to the Jews, reserving a fifth part to himself. He afterwards expelled the whole nation from France."^ St. Louis twice ba- nished, and twice recalled them ; and Charles VI. finally expelled them from France. From that country, ac- cording to Mezeray, they were seven times banished. They were expelled from Spain ; and by the lowest computation, one hundred and seventy thousand fami- • Dupin^s Ecc. Hist. Canons of different councils; Toledo, a., v. 633 ; Meaux, 845 ; Paris, 846 ; Pavia, 850 ; Metz, Coyaco, 1050 ; Rouen, 1074; Ravenna, 1311; Saltzburgh, 1420. 2 Hallam, vol. i. pp. 233, 234. THE JEWS. 79 lies departed from that kingdom.^ " 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 Jew^s were renewed at each crusade."^ 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, 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 fortress in Palestine, and where nearly one thousand perished in a similar manner,^ 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 slaughtered at once, their houses to be plun- dered, and their synagogue to be burned. Richard, John, and Henry 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 enor- mous, and his oppression so grievous, that, in the words of the historian, he reduced the miserable wretches to desire leave to depart the kingdom ;* but even self-ba- nishment was denied them. Edward I. completed their misery, seized on all their property, and banished them 1 Basnage, b. vii. c. xxi. Bishop Newton, 2 Gibbon's Hist. vol. xi. c. Iviii. p. 26. 3 Basnage, b. vii. c. x. sect. 20 ; Joseph, b. vii. c. viii ix. Bp. Newton ; Rapin's Hist, of England, vol. iii. p. 97. * Rapin's History of England, vol. iii. p. 405. ^0 THE JEWS. the kingdom. Above fifteen thousand Jews were render, ?.d 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 un- equivocal attempt at legislatioft in France was an ordi- nance 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.* 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 countries they have ever been subject to persecution, contempt, and every abuse. They are in general con- fined to one particular quarter of every city, (as they for- merly 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 Uve 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."^ They cannot appear in public, much less perform their religious ceremonies, without being treated with scorn and contempt.^ The revenues of the prince of Bokhara are derived from a tribute paid by five hun- dred families of Jews, who are assessed according to the means of each. In Zante they exist in miserable indi- gence, and are exposed to considerable oppression."* At Tripoli, when any criminal is condemned to death, the first Jew who happens to be at hand is compelled to become the executioner ; a degradation to the children of Israel to which no Moor is ever subjected.* In Egypt ' Articles xii. xiii. * 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. * Lyon's Travels, p. 16. THE JEWS. 81 they are despised and persecuted incessantly/ In Arabia they are treated with more contempt than in Turkey.^ The remark is common to the most recent travellers both •in Asia and Africa,^ that the Jews themselves are asto- nished, and the natives indignant, at any act of kindness, or even of justice, that is performed towards any of this " despised nation" and persecuted people. In Southey's Letters from Spain and Portugal, this remarkable testi- mony is borne respecting them ; " Till within the last fifty years the burning of a Jew formed the highest de- light 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 se- vere 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,^ restraining the Jews from all traffic throughout the interior government of Russia. They are absolutely prohibited, on pain of immediate banishment, from " offering any article to sale,"^ whether in public or private, either by themselves or by others. They are not allowed to reside, even for a limited period, in any of the cities of Russia, without an express permission from government, which is granted only in cases where their services are necessary or directly 1 Denon's Travels in Egypt, vol. i. p. 213. 2 Niebuhr's Travels, vol", i. p. 408. 3 Morier's Travels in Persia, p. 266 • Lyon's Travels in Africa, p. 32. 4 1 6th November, 1797. 25th February, 1823. 8th June, 1826. (August or November) 1827. * Ukase, quoted from "The World," of date 31st October, 1827 lb. article viii. 82 THE JEWS. beneficial to the state. A refusal to depart, when they become obnoxious to so rigid a law, subjects them to be treated as vagi*ants ; and none are suffered to protect or to shelter them. Though the observance of such edicts must, in numerous instances, leave them destitute of any means of support, yet their breach or neglect 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 greatest 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 the last Russian ukase respecting them bears, " amenable to the laws as the abettors of vagrants," and, as in numberless instances besides, no man shall save them. While the recent ameliorated condition of the Jews in the more civilized countries of Europe begins to give promise of the dawn of that day when the cup of trem- bling 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. The latest testimony from Turkey bears that " it is impossible to express the con- temptuous 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 out- cast and wandering race of Israel. Nor dare the op- pressed party revenge himself even upon this puny enemy, whom his very name suffices to raise up against him."* 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 amusements, insulting and tor- menting a Jew. / will give children to be tJieir princes , ' The City of the Sultan, and the Domestic Manners of the Turks in 1836, by Miss Pardoe, vol. ii. p. 362, 363. THE JEWS. 83 and babes shall rule over them. Ms for my people, child- ren are their oppressors ^ 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 dis- tinctly 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 suffering Messiah ; that they would be smitten with blind- ness 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.^ And the great body of the Jewish nation has continued long to reject Christian- ity. They retain the prophecies, but discern not their 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 ceremo- nies 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 » Isa. iii. 4, 12. 2 Deut. xxviii. 29. 84 THE JEWS. drawn from their own authorities.' No words can more strikingly or justly represent the contrast between their irrational tenets, their degraded religion, their supersti- tious observances, and the dictates of enlightened reason, and of the gospel which they vilify, than the emphatic description, l^twy grope at noon-day, as tlie blind gropeth in darkness. And if any other instances be wanting of the prediction of events infinitely exceeding human fore- sight, the dispositions of all nations respecting them are revealed as explicitly as their own. That the Jews have been a proverb, an astonishment, a by-word, a taunt, and a hissing among all nations, — though one of the most wonderful of facts, unparalleled in the whole history of mankind, and as inconceivable in its prediction as miracu- lous in its accoipplishment, — is a truth that stands not in need of any illustration or proof, and of which witnesses could be found in every country under heaven. Many prophecies concerning the Jews, of more propitious im- port, that yet remain to be accomplished, are reserved for testimonies to future generations, if not to the present.^ 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 Egyp- tians, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Romans, though some of the 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 » See Allen's Modem Judaism. The Edinburgh Encyclopedia, art. Jews. ' See Appendix, No. II. THE JEWS. 85 brought into their own land, to dwell forever 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 descendants of any but of Abraham alone, it could not now possibly have been realized, as there exists not on earth the known and acknowledged pos- terity of any other individual, or almost 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 expe- rienced 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 finding no ease among them all, they should have with- stood eighteen centuries of almost unremitted persecu- tion ; and that after so many generations have elapsed, they should still retain their distinctive form, or, as it may be called, their individuality of character, is assured- ly the most marvellous event that is recorded in the his- tory of nations; 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 that, after the endurance of such manifold 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 wealth ; 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 v)ith them, and eat- ing the riches of the gentiles ;^ and also that, though cap- tives or fugitives " few in number," and the miserable remnant of an extinguished kingdom at the time they were " scattered abroad," they should be to this hour a 1 Isa. Ix. 9, Ixi. 6. 8 Ob THE JEWS. 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 tlie land shall he too narrow by reason of the inhabitants^ and that place shall not be found for than ;* 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 cen- turies after their dispersion, they had become extinct as a people ; even if they had been 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 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 pro- duced these very prophecies as fatal to the idea of the inspiration 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 occurred among any people, form the ordinary narrative of their history, and fuHil literally the prophe- cio^s concerning them, may not the believer challenge his adversary to the production of such credentials of the feith that is in him *:? They present an unbroken chain of evidence, each link a prophecy and a fact, extending > Isa. xlix. 19 ; Zech. x. 10. THE JEWS. 87 throughout a multitude of generations, and not yet termi- nated. 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 impossible 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 instrumentality of the enemies of Christianity. Whoever seeks a miracle, may here behold a sign and a w^onder, than which there cannot be a greater. And the Christian may bid defiance to all the assaults of his enemies from this stronghold of Christianity, impenetra- ble and impregnable on every side. The prophecies concerning the Jews are as clear as a narrative of the events. They are ancient as the oldest 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 exhibited a parallel to the events. And the facts are visible, and present, and applicable even to a hair-breadth. Could Moses, as an uninspired mortal, have described the history, the fate, the dispersion, the treatment, the dispositions of the Israelites to the present day, or for three thousand two hundred years, seeing that he was astonished, 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 diflferent 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 are 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 concep- 88 THE JEWS. tion, it feels that they are dark as death to mortal ken. And, viewing only the dispersion of the Jews, and some of its attendant circumstances ; how their city was laid desolate ; their temple, which formed the constant place of 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 despoiled, 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 everywhere 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, un- changed, the extinction of many nations, and the con- vulsions of all ; robbed of their silver and of their gold, though cleaving to the love of them still, as the stum- bling-block of their iniquity; often bereaved 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 DOW could mortal man, overlooking a hundred succes- sive generations, have foretold any one of these wonders that are now conspicuous in thest latter times ? Who JTJDEA. oy 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. CHAPTER V. PROPHECIES CONCERNING THE LAND OF JUDEA AND CIRCUMJACENT COUNTRIES. The writings of the Jewish prophets not only de- scribed the fate of that people for many generations subsequent to the latest period to which the most un- yielding skepticism can pretend to affix the date of these predictions ; but while the cities were teeming with in- habitants, and the land flowing with abundance, for cen- turies before Judea ceased to count its millions, they foretold the long reign of desolation that would ensue. The land is a witness 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 w^hat it now is : and it is necessary only to compare the predictions them- selves with that proof of their fiilfilment which, were 90 JUDEA. 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."* And in the greatest of the denunciations which were to fill up the measure of their punishments, the long-continued desolation of their country is ranked among the worst and latest of their woes ; and the prophecies respecting it which admit of a literal interpretation, and which have been literally 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 de- solate, 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 desolate without them.^ So that the genera- tion 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.'^ Your country is desolate, your cities are burnt with fire ; ^our 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 • Levit. xxvii. 18, 21, 24. 2 Levit. xxvi. 31--34-, 43. 3 Deut. xxix. 23, 24, 27 JTJDEA. ^1 have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah/ Ye shall be as an oak whose leaf fadeih, and as a garden that hath no water.^ I will lay my vineyard waste. Of a truth many houses shall be desolate, even great and fair, without inhabitant. Yea, ten acres oi 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.^ 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 w^hen they cast their leaves.^ The Lord God of hosts shall make a consumption, even de- termined, in the midst of all the land.^ 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 Rephaim. Yet gleaning-grapes shall be left in it, as the shaking of an olive-tree, two or three berries in the top of the uppermost bough, four or five in the outmost fruitful branches thereof, saith the Lord God of Israel.* Behold, the Lord maketh the earth^ (the land) empty, 1 Isa. i. 7—9. 2 isa, i. 30. « Isa. v. 6, 9, 10, 17. '• Isa. vi. 11 — 13. * Isa. x. 23. ^ jga. xvii. 4—6. 7 The twent5^-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 trans- lation is here rendered earth, is, in subsequent verses of the same chapter, also translated land; evidently implying the land of 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." 92 JUDEA. • and maketh it waste, and tumeth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof. The land shall be utterly emptied, and utterly spoiled : for the Lord hath spoken this word. The earth (land) moum- eth and fadeth away ; it is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting cove- nant. Therefore hath the curse devoured 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.* Yet the defenced city shall be desolate, and the habitation forsaken, and left like a wilderness: 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.^ 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 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 ' Isa. xxiv. 1, 3—11, 13. 2 Isa. xxvii. 10, 11. JUDEA. 93 upon us from on high, and the wilderness be a fruitful field, and the fruitfril field be counted for a forest.* The highways lie waste, the wayfaring man ceaseth ; he hath broken the covenant, he hath despised the cities, he re- gardeth no man. The earth mourneth and languisheth ; Lebanon is ashamed and hewn down ; Sharon is like a wilderness ; and Bashan and Carmel shake off their fruits.* Destruction upon destruction is cried ; for the whole land is spoiled. I beheld, and lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness, 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.^ 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 lefl mine heritage. Many pastors have destroyed my vineyard, they have trodden my portion 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 spoilers are come upon all high places through the wilderness ; — no flesh shall have peace. They have sown wheat, but shall reap thorns ; they have put themselves to pain, but shall not profit ; and they shall be ashamed of your revenues, because of the fierce anger of the Lord.* 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 bring a sword upon you, and I will destroy your high places. In all your dwelling-places the cities shall be laid waste, and the high places shall be desolate, that your altars may be laid waste and made desolate. I will stretch out my hand upon them, and make the land more desolate than the wilderness towards Diblath, in all their habitations.* ' Isa. xxxii. 10—15. 2 isa. xxxiii. 8, 9. 3 Jer. iv. 20, 26—28. "■ Jer. xii. 4,7, 10—13. 5 Ezek. vi. 3, 6, 14. 94 JUDEA. I will bring the worst of the heathen, and they shall pos- sess their houses: I will also make tlie 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 carefulness, and drink their water with astonishjnent, that her land may be desolate from all that is therein, because of the vio- lence of all them that dwell therein. Every one that passe th thereby shall be astonished.* 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 children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation. That which the palmer- worm hath left hath tjie locusts 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. The field is wasted, the land moum- eth, 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 be ashamed." The city that went out by a thousand shall leave an hundred, and that which went forth by an hundred shall leave ten, to the house of Israel. Seek not Bethel ; Bethel shall come to nought.^ 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 shkll be laid waste.** I 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 dis- cover the foundations thereof."^ 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 1 Ezek. vii. 24, xii. 19; Jer. xix. 8. 2 Joel i. 2—4, 10, 12, ii. 25, 26. ^ Amos v. 3, 6. < Amos vii. 8, 9. * Micah i. 6. JUDEA 95 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 unre- pented wickedness of the people, fell upon them and their land with stricter truth, and, as foretold, with seven- fold severity. Moses and all the prophets set blessings and curses before 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 disregarded. The word of God, which is a perfect work, abideth for ever : and it returns not to him void, but fulfils 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 speaking, even then, of repealed judgments, closes the Jewish Scriptures with this last command, " Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments ;"^ and, affixed to the command to remem- ber 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 transgressing 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 com- mensurate with the dispersion of the Jews, and termi- nating with their final restoration. So long as they be ' Mai. iv. 4. % JUDEA. in their enemies' land, their own land lieth desolate. The judgments were not to be removed from it " until the Spirit be poured (upon the Jews) from on high, and the wilderness be a fruitful field."' 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 abroad, and ere the time come when he shall reign in Jerusalem before his ancients gloriously." An- nunciations of a future and final restoration, almost uni- formly 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 mountains of Israel, which have been always waste, shall be no more desolate, nor the people termed for- saken any more.' After the Messiah was to be cut off, and the sacrifice and oblation to cease, the ensuing deso- lations were to reach even to the consumTnation, and till that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.* And Jerusalem, as Jesus hath declared, shall be trodden down of the gentiles, till the times of the gentiles be fulfilled.* 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. Anc while the Jews are not yet gathered from all the nations nor planted in their own ' Isa. xxxii. 15. 2 isa. xxiv. 1, 23. 3 Isa. Ixi. 4 ; Ezek. xxxvi. 8, 10, xxxv v 21, xxxviii. 8 ; Isa, Ixii. 4. < Dan. ix. 27. ^ Luke xxi. 24. JUDEA. 97 land to be no more pulled out of it ;* nor its destroyers and they that laid it waste, gone forth from it f nor the old waste places built, nor the foundations of many generations raised up, nor the land brought back from desolation,^ — 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 that which was determined has been poured upon the desolate, and that all the curses that are written in the book of the Lord have been brought upon the land.** 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 possibility of the existence of so numerous a popula- tion as can accord with scriptural history, and by repre- senting it as a region singularly unproductive and irre- claimable/ But though they have voluntarily aban- ^ Amos ix. 14, 15. 2 Isa. xlix. 17. 3 Isa. Iviii. 12. " Deut. xxix. 27. 5 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 I'Asie. 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, maybe given in answer 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 altar of wit had not been too common an act of his devotion to the chief god of his idolatry. " Corpora hominum salubria et ferentia laborum ; 9 98 JUDEA. doned this indefensible assumption, they have left to the believer the fruits of their concession ; they have given the most unsuspicious testimony to the confirma- tion 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 ; tjie 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 fertile 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 popu- lation in a country flowing with food ; and that, if any history recorded its greatness, or any prophecies revealed 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 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 perverted views both of the nature and effects of Christianity, have proved greatly instrumental in sub- verting the faith of many, who, unguarded by any posi- rari imbres, uber solum. Exuberant fruges nostrum ad morem ; prtBterque eas balsamum et palmce. — Magna pars Judaeae vicis disper- gitur; habent et oppida. Hiersolyma genti caput. lUic immensse opulentioe templum, et primis munimentis urbs." (Taciti Hist. lib. V. cap. vi. viii. Rel. Pales.) " Ultima Syriarum est Palsestina, per intervalla magna protenta, cultis abundans terris et nitidis, et civitates habens quasdam egregias, nuUam sibi cedentem, sed sibi vicissim velut ad perpendiculum aemulas." (Ammianus Mar- cellinus, lib. xiv. cap. viii. § 11, ibid.) "Nee 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. 99 tive evidence, gave heed to such seductive doctrines. There needs not to be any better witness of facts con- firmatory of the prophecies, 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 different 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 advantages of climate and soil, it is not astonishing that Syria should always have been esteemed a most delicious country, and that the Greeks and Romans ranked it among the most beautiful of their provinces, and even thought it not inferior to Egypt. "^ After having assigned several just and sufficient reasons to account for the large popu- lation of Judea in ancient times, in contradiction to those who were skeptical of the fact, he adds : " Admitting only what is conformable to experience and nature, there is nothing to contradict the great population of high antiquity. Without appealing to the positive testi- mony of history, there are innumerable monuments which depose in favour of the fact. Such are the pro- digious quantity of ruins dispersed over the plains, and even in the mountains, at this day deserted. On the remote parts of Cannel 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 wdth terraces, which prove that they were anciently better cultivated, and consequently much more populous than in our days."^ • Volney's Travels in Egypt and Syria, vol. i. pp. 316, 321 English translation, Lond. 1787. 2 Volney's Travels in Egypt and Syria, vol. ii. p. 368. 100 JUDEA. " 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 propagation of men and animals. From the age of David to that of Heraclius the country was overspread with ancient and flourishing cities ; the inhabitants were numerous and wealthy." Such evidence has merely been selected as the most unsuspicious, though that of many others might also be adduced. The country in the immediate vicinity of Jerusalem is indeed rocky, as Strabo represents it, and apparently sterile, and is now, in general, perfectly barren : ^' but even the sides of the most barren mountains in the neighbourhood of Jerusa- lem had been rendered fertile, by being divided into terraces, Hke steps rising one above another, where soil has been accumulated with astonishing labour."* " In any part of Judea," Dr. Clarke adds, " the effects of a beneficial change of government are soon witnessed, in the conversion of desolated plains into fertile fields. Under a wise and beneficent government, the produce 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."* 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 whereon to rest an argu- ' Clarke's Travels, vol. ii. p. 520. General Straton describes ihese terraces as resembling the gradus of a theatre, and particu- larly marked them as vestiges of ancient "luxuriance." 3 Clarke's Travels, vol. ii. p. 521. JUDEA. 101 ment 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 remarked, that the extent of the present and long-fixed 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 possibihty of so " astonishing" a contrast, the more wonderful are the prophecies which revealed it all, the more completely are they accredited as a voice from heaven, and the argument of the infidel leads the more directly to proof against himself. Such is " the positive testimony 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 an- other, and of the consonance of that change with the dictates of prophecy. Having recently visited the land of Judea, the writer may confidently affirm that it sets before the eyes of every beholder, who knows the Bible, and can exercise his reason, a threefold 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 cultivation, as show to a demonstration, that the ancient fertility 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 capabiHty, as if it had never been laid waste, of blooming forth anew in all its beauty, 9* 102 JUDEA. and bearing its fruits in all their profiision, till its moun- tains 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 con- cerning it, the prophets ever looked. The people that have been scattered throughout the world shall finally be 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 desolation. But notwithstanding the blasphemies that have been spoken against the mountains of Israel, no man who has stood in 3ie midst of them could fail to see that they lie 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. Prophecy 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 ye are an infamy of the people: therefore, ye mountains of Israel, hear the words of the Lord God ; Thus saith the word of 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 residue of the heathen that are round about, 8^c. Ye, mountains of Israel, shall yield your fruit to my people Israel. And I vnll 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 shall thou bear the reproach of the people any more. Ezek. xxxvi. 1 — 15. The mockery of mis- judging scoffers, and the blasphemies from the lips of talkers, uttered in purposed refutation of the truth of the JUDEA. 103 word of God, are turned into a testimony against them- selves. And while the extent of the predicted desola- tion 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 lips 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 region 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 sug- gestion of experience and of reason, must have been altogether inconceivable by man. But the land was to he 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 ex- tortions and oppression, impoverished the country. The Romans 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 Ara- bian 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 Om- miades; wrested from the califs by their rebellious governors ; taken from them by the Turcoman soldiery ; invaded by the European Crusaders ; retaken by the Mamelouks of Egypt, and ravaged by Tamerlane and his Tartars, it has at length fallen into the hands of the Ottoman Turks. "^ It has been overthrown by strangers ^ ' Volney's Travels, vol. i. p. 367. 104 JUDEA. trodden under foot: destruction has come upon destruc- tion. The cities were to he laid waste. By the concurring testimony of all travellers, Judea may now be called a field of ruins. Columns, the memorials of ancient mag- nificence, now covered with rubbish, and buried under ru\ns, may be found in all Syria. ^ From Mount Tabor is beheld an immensity of plains, interspersed with ham- lets, fortresses, and heaps of ruins. The buildings on that mountain were destroyed and laid waste by the sultan of Egypt in 1290, and the accumulated vestiges of successive forts and ruins are now mingled in one common and extensive desolation.^ Of the celebrated cities Capernaum, Bethsaida, Gadara, Tarichea, and Chorazin, nothing remains but shapeless ruins.^ Some vestiges of Emmaus may still be seen. Cana is a very paltry village. The ruins of Tekoa present only the foundations of some considerable buildings." The city of Nain is now a hamlet. The ruins of the ancient Sapphura announce the previous existence of a large city ; and its name is still preserved in the appellation of a miserable village called Sephoury.* Loudd (the ancient Lydda) and Diospolis appear like a place lately ravaged by fire and sword, and are one continued heap of rubbish and ruins.^ Ramla, the ancient Arimathea, is in almost as ruinous a state. Nothing but rubbish is to be found within its boundaries. In the adjacent country there are found at every step 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 circumference.^ Csesarea can no longer excite the envy of a conqueror, and has long ' Mariti's Travels, vol. ii. p. 141. 2 Buckingham's Travels in Palestine, p. 107; Marili's Travels, vol. ii. p. 177. 3 Ibid. Wilson's Travels, p. 237. < Macmichael's Journey to Constantinople, p. 196. « Clarke's Travels, vol. ii. p. 401. 6 Volney's Travels, vol. ii. pp. 332—334. 7 Ibid. vol. ii. p. 334. JUDEA. 105 been abandoned to silent desolation.^ The city of Tibe- rias is now almost abandoned, and its subsistence pre- carious ; of the towns that bordered on its lake there are no traces left.^ Zabulon, once the rival of Tyre and Sidon, is a heap of ruins. A few shapeless stones, unworthy the attention of the traveller, mark the site of the Saffre.^ The ruins of Jericho, covering no less than a square mile, are surrounded with complete desolation ; and there is not a tree of any description, either of palm or balsam, and scarcely any verdure or bushes to be seen about the site of this abandoned city.'' Bethel has come to nought. The ruins of Sarepta, and of several large cities in its vicinity, are now " mere rubbish, and are only distinguishable as the sites of towns by heaps of dilapidated stones and fragments of columns."^ But at Dj crash (supposed to be the ruins of Gerasa) are the magnificent remains of a splendid city. The form of streets, once lined with a double row of columns, and covered with pavement still nearly entire, in which are the mark of the chariot wheels, and on each side of which is an elevated pathway ; two theatres, and two grand temples, built of marble, and others of inferior note ; baths ; a bridge ; a cemetery, with many sarco- phagi, which surrounded the city ; a triumphal arch ; a large cistern ; a picturesque tomb fronted with columns, and an aqueduct overgrown with wood ; and upwards of two hundred and thirty columns still standing amidst deserted ruins without a city to adorn : all combine in presenting to the view of the traveller, in the estimation of those who were successively eye-witnesses of them both, " a much finer mass of ruins" than even that of the boasted Palmyra.^ But how marvellously are the 1 Captain Light's Travels, p. 204 ; Buckingham's Travels, p. 126. 2 Captain Light's Travels, p. 204. 3 Mariti's Travels, vol. ii. pp. 158—169. * Buckingham's Travels, p. 300. * Captains Irby and Mangles's Travels, p. 199. 6 Irby and Mangles's Travels, pp. 317, 318. The ruins of Djerash were first discovered by Seetzen, in 1806. 106 JtDEA. predictions of their desolation verified, when, in general, nothing but ruins form the most distinguished rem- nants of the cities of Israel ; and when the multitude of its towns are almost all left, with many a vestige to testify of their number, but without a mark to tell their name. And your land shall he 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, &c. A single reference to the Mosaic law respecting the Sabbatical year, renders the full import of this prediction perfectly mtelligible 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 cultivated like a garden by its patrimo- nial possessor, where every little hill rejoiced in its abundance, where every 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 temperature the same,* and with a soil unchanged save only by neglect, a dire contrast is now and has for a lengthened period of time been displayed by fields untitled 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 "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 They have since been visited by Sheikh Ibrahim (Burckhardt,) Sir William Chatterton, Mr. Bankes, the Hon. Captain Irby, Cap- tain Mangles, Mr. Legh, Mr. Leslie, and Mr. Buckingham. Both Burckhardt and Mr. Buckingham have also given a description of them. Many of the edifices were built long after the period of the prediction ; yet they are not excluded from the sentence of desolation. ' See Brewster's Philosophical Journal, No. xvi. p. 227. JUDEA. 107 promise; it has rested from century to century; and while that marked, and stricken, and scattered race, who pos- sess the recorded promise of the God of Israel as their char- ter to its final and everlasting 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 between 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 re- fusal 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 between 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 uttered and recorded ere the tribes of Israel had ever set a foot in Canaan. The land shall he left of them, and shall enjoy her rest while she lieth desolate without them. 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 val- leys ; 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," bounded by Mount Her- mon, Carmel, and Mount Tabor,* and so extensive as to cover about three hundred square miles, is a solitude,^ almost entirely deserted ; the country is a complete de- sert.^ In the valley of Canaan, formerly a beautiful, 1 General Straton's MS. Travels. 2 Clarke's Travels, vol. ii. p. 497 ; Maundrell's Travels, p. 95. » Burckhardt's Travels in Syria, pp. 334, 343. 108 JUDEA. delicious, and fertile valley, there is not a mark or ves- tige of cultivation.* 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.'' Every ancient landmark is removed. " The art of cultivation," says Volney, " is in the most deplor- aye state, and the countryman must sow with tht musket in his hand ; and no more is sown than is neces- sary for subsistence." " Every day I found fields abandoned by the plough."^ In describing his journey through Galilee, Dr. Clarke remarks, that the earth was covered with such a variety of thistles, that a complete collection of them would be a valuable acquisition to botany.* Six new species of that plant, so significant of wildness, were discovered by himself in a scanty selection. "From Kane-Leban to Beer, amidst the ruins of cities, the country, as far as the eye of the tra- veller can reach, presents nothing to his view but naked rocks, mountains, and precipices, at the sight of which pilgrims are astonished, balked in their expectations, and almost starded in their faith. "^ From the centre of the neighbouring elevations (around Jerusalem) is seen a wild, rugged, and mountainous desert ; no herds depas- turing on the summit, no forests clothing the acclivities, no waters flowing through the valleys ; but one rude scene of savage, melancholy waste, in the midst of which the ancient glory of Judea bows her head in widowed desolation. "« It is needless to multiply quotations to prove the desolation of a country which the Turks have possessed, and which the Arabs have plundered for ages. Enough has been said to prove that the land mourns and is laid waste, and has become as a desolate wilderness. While eye-witnesses in modern times have thus borne ample, uniform, and decisive testimony to the desolation 1 General Straton's MS. 2 Clarke's Travels, vol. ii. pp. 484, 491. • Volney's Travels, vol. ii. p. 413; Volney's Ruins, c. xi. p. 7. * Clarke's Travels, vol. ii. p. 451. « Maundrell's Travels, p. 168. Bp. Newton. 6 JoUiflfe's Letters from Palestine, vol. i. p. 104. JUDEA; 109 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 oppressive bondage, leads, on the part of the miserable peasantry, to a more extended though not improved cultivation of the lands which environ their miserable villages ; and, as described by separate 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. About a sixth part of the plain of Sharon, and about a sixteenth of the far larger plain of Esdraelon is scratched by the plough. The cultivation is everywhere wretched. And though an extensive range of ripened grain may in some places present to view, as 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 not a single shock, as in our less fertile soil and far colder clime, falls heavy into the hands of the reaper. For on closer inspection the ranker weeds are but ill concealed ; the grain is p^uced to less than half of what it seemed : and not unfw^^tly, whenever the cropped ears of the thin barley have been removed, a field of thistles appears in their stead, covering the ground so closely, that they form the most abundant and seem 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 not of irreclaimable barrenness. The marvel is that they should ever have formed a large portion of a glo- rious land, or that those hills should have rejoiced on every or on any side, on which a solemn stillness and gloomy sadness now universally rest. The Christian or the pilgrim Jew may well ask himself, in doubt, Can these be the mountains of Israel } And the skeptic may 10 110 JUDEA. deceitfully think to justify himself in the avennent, apparently warranted 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 lund of wheat, and barley , and vines, and Jig trees, and pomegranates ; a land of oil-olive and honey ; a land wherein Israel ate bread wit/wut 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 ap- parently rational incredulity. But the unquestioned 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 deso- lation 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 ascend- ing, 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 laid desolate, and that the time was, when art, and climate, 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 exten- sive regions, terraced all over, and ever ready for re- newed cultivation, could have lain desolate for so many generations, or how, were the restraining cause removed, they could remain unproductive for a single year. As- cending on the way from Gaza to Jerusalem, between two hills, so as to pass by the lowest level, the writer r JUDEA. Ill 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 contrast rendering each the more astonishing. Mountain after mountain, without exception, is lined throughout, from the base to the summit, with terraces fading only in the distance, all 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 mountains with vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates, and olives, ^nd other fruit»f of which, but in isolated spots hid from the general view, not a vestige remains. C arm el was renowned, even among the mountains of Israel, for its excellency, as denoted by its very name, a fruitful 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 judgments of 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 and take them out thence, &c. Amos ix. 2, 3. Yet the same prophet declared, The top of Carmel shall wither.'*- And it is withered, so that no man could hide himself there : and on looking along its top, a solitary individual may be seen as far as the eye, in an unobstructed view, can reach to discern him. Bashan and Carmel shake off their fruits ; — but Israel shall yet feed on Carmel and Bashan. But yet in it shall he a tenth, and it shall return and shall he eaten ; as a teil tree and an oak, whose substance is in them when they cast their leaves. 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 na- tural fertility that the land has rested for so many gene- ' Amos i. 2. 112 JUDEA. rations. Judea was not forced only by artificial means, or from local £md temporary causes, into a luxuriant cul- tivation, such as a barren country might have been, con- cerning -which it would not have needed a prophet to tell, that if once devastated and abandoned it would ul- timately and permanently revert into its original sterility. Palestine at all times held a fac different rank among the richest countries of the world ; and it was not a bleak and sterile portion of the earth, nor a land which even many ages of desolation and neglect could impoverish, that God gave, in possession and by covenant, to the seed of Abraham. No longer cultivated as a garden, but left like a wilderness, 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 ; all 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 " ancient 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 un- blighted ; tlie substance is in itj 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 return- ing 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 the beginning," whenever the sun of heaven shall shine on it again, and the " holy seed " be prepared for being finally " the substance 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 ol the greatest fecundity Were nature assisted by art, the fruits of the most distant countries might be produced within the distance of twenty leagues."* " Galilee," says Malte-Brun, " would ' Volney's Travels, vol. i. pp. 308, 317. JUDEA. 113 be a paradise, were it inhabited by an industrious people, under an enlightened government. Vine-stocks are to be seen here a foot and a half in diameter."^ / will give it into the hands of strangers for a prey, and unto the wicked of the earth for 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 Strangers. ^^y " When the Ottomans took Syria from the Mamelouks, they considered it as the spoil of a van- quished enemy. According to this law, the life and property of the vanquished belong to the conqueror. The government is far from disapproving of a system of rohhery and plunder which it finds so profitable."^ Many pastors have destroyed my vineyard, they have trodden my portion under foot. The ravages commit- ted even by hosts of enemies are in general only tempo- rary ; or if an invader settle in a conquered country, on becoming the possessor, he cultivates and defends it. And it is the proper office of government to render life and property secure. In neither case has it fared thus with Judea. But besides successive invasions by foreign nations, and the systematic spoliation exercised by a despotic government, other causes have conspired to perpetuate its desolation, and to render abortive the sub- stance that is in it. Among these has chiefly to be num- bered, its being literally trodden underfoot by many pas- tors. Volney devotes a chapter, fifty pages in length, to a description, as he entitles it, " of the pastoral or loan- deling tribes of Syria," chiefly of the Bedouin Arabs, by whom, especially, Judea is incessantly traversed. " The pashalics of Aleppo and Damascus may be com- puted to contain about thirty thousand wandering Turk- men (Turcomans.) All their property consists in cattle." In the same pashalics, the number of the Curds " ex- ' Schultze, in Pallas, cited by Malte-Brun, Geogr. vol. ii. p. 148 2 Volney's Travels, vol. i. p. 356. 3 Ibid. vol. ii. p. 370, 381 10* 114 JUDEA. ceeds twenty thousand tents and huts," or an equal num- ber of armed men. " The Curds are almost everywhere looked upon as robbers. Like the Turkmen, these Curds are joas^ors and wanderers.^ A third wandering people in Syria are the Bedouin Arabs."'' " It often happens that even individuals, turned robbers in order to wiilidraw themselves from the laws or from tyranny, unite and form a little camp, which maintain themselves by 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."^ "It is evident that agriculture must be very precarious in such a country, and that, under 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."'' " The Turk- men, the Curds, and the Bedouins, have no fixed habita- tions, 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 frontier of Syria, and even the plains of Pa- lestine."^ — 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 mu- tual consent, and apportion it in limited districts amon^ 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 striking 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.'' ^ ' Volney's Travels, vol. ii. 370, i. 4, 5. 2 ibid. i. 377. 3 Ibid. ii. 383. -« Ibid. ii. 387. ^ ibid. ii. 367, 368. JUDEA. 115 Ye shall be as a garden that hath no water. How long shall the land mourn^ and the herbs of every field wither, for the wickedriess of them that dwell therein'? — " In all hot countries, wherever there is water, vegetation may be perpetually maintained and made to produce an un- interrupted succession of fruits to flowers, and flowers to fruit."^ " The remains of cisterns are to be 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 necessa- rily created a prodigious fertility under an ardent sun, where a little water was the only requisite to revive the vegetable world.'"' Such labours, with very slight ex- ceptions, 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 flow- ers which decorate the meadows of Normandy and Flanders, nor those clumps of beautiful trees which give such richness and animation to the landscapes of JBur- gundy and Brittany. — The land of Syria has almost always a dusty appearance.^ Had not these countries been ravaged by the hand of wan, they might perhaps at this day have been shaded with forests. That its pro- ductions do not correspond with its natural advantages, is less owing to its physical than political state. "^ " The whole of the mountain (near Tiberias) is covered with dry grass. "^ The forts and towers shall be for dens for ever. At every step we meet with ruins of towers^ dungeons, and castles with fosses — frequently inhabited by jackals, owls, and scorpions. ^^^ The multitude of the city shall be left. The defenced city shall be desolate, and the habitation forsaken. There are f» " prodigious quantity of ruins dispersed over the 1 Volney's Travels, vol. ii. p. 359. 2 Malte-Brun's Geo. vol. ii. pp. 150, 151. 3 Volney's Travels, vol. ii. p. 359. 4 Ibid. pp. 359, 360. ^ Burckhardt's Travels, p. 331. « Volney's Travels, vol. ii. p. 336. 116 JUDEA. plains, and even in the mountains, at this day de- serted.''' There shall the calf feed ^ and there shall he lie dovm and consume the branches thereof A pasture of fiocks. There shall the lambs feed after their manner^ and tlw waste place of the fat ones shall strangers eat. Josephus describes Galilee, of which he- was the governor, as " full of plantations of trees of all sorts, the soil uni- versally rich and fruitful, and all, without the exception i of a single part, cultivated by the inhabitants. More- over," he adds, " the cities He here very thick, and there are very many villages, which are so full of people by the richness of their soil, that the very least of them contained above fifteen thousand inhabitants."^ Such was Galilee, at the commencement of the Christian era, several centuries after the prophecy was delivered ; but now, " the plain of Esdraelon, 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."^ The calf feeds and lies down amidst the ruins of the cities, and consumes, without hinderance, the branches of the trees; and however changed may be 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. The precise and complete contrast between the ancient and existing state of Palestine, as separately described by Jewish and Roman historians and by mo- dern travellers, is so strikingly exemplified in their oppo- site descriptions, that in reference to whatever constituted the beauty and the glory of the country, or the happiness of the people, an entire change is manifest, even in mi- nute circumstances. The universal richness and fruit- fulness of the soil of Galilee, together with its being ' Volney's Travels, vol. ii. p. 368. * Josephus's Wars, book iii. chap. iii. § 2. ' Schulze, quoted by Malte-Brun, vol. ii. p. 148. JUDEA. 117 " full of plantations of all sorts of trees," are repre- sented 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 him as having *^ abundance of trees, full of autumnal fruit, both that which grows wild and that which is the effect of cultiva- tion."^ 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 carefulness with which, when the circulation of the juices seemed to call for it, they gently made an incision in the branches of the bal- sam, with a shell or pointed stone, not venturing to apply a knife. ^ No sign of such art or care is now to be seen throughout the land. The balm tree has disappeared where it long flourished ; and hardier plants have pe- rished 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 medi- cinal 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 destroying, or to make jfires, Yafa hast lost its greatest convenience."^ 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 devastation, and in all its progress, may be read the literal fulfilment of the prophecy, which not only described the desolate cities of Judea as a pasture of flocks, and as places for the calf to feed and lie down, ' Josephus's Wars, book iii. chap. iii. § 4. 2 Taciti Hist. lib. v. cap. vi. 3 Volney's Travels, vol. ii. pp. 332, 333. 118 JUDEA. and consume the branches thereof; but which, with equal truth, also declared, when the houghs thereof are withered, they shall he hroken off"; the women come and set them on Jire. For it is a people of no understanding. " The most simple arts are in a state of barbarism. The sciences are totally unknown."* Upon the land of my people shall come up thorns and briers. " The earth produces only hriers and worm- wood. "^ A thorny shrub, (Merar,) and others of a simi- lar kind, abound throughout the desolated plains and hills of Palestine. Some of the latter are so closely beset, in many places, with thorns, that they can be ascended only with great difficulty : and " the whole district of Tiberias is covered with a thorny shrub. "^ Your highways shall he desolate.''' The highways lie waste; the watfaring man ceaseth.^ So great must have been the intercourse, in ancient times, between the populous and numerous cities of Judea, and so much must that intercourse have been increased by the fre- quent and regular journeyings, from every quarter, of multitudes going up to Jerusalem to worship, in observ- ance of the rites, and in obedience to the precepts of their law, that scarcely any country ever possessed such means of crowded highways, 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, numerous remains of paved ways formed by the Romans at a much later period, and " others evidently not Roman ;"^ but among the pre- cious 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. ' Volney's Travels, p. 442. 2 Volney's Ruins, p. 9. 3 Burckhardt's Travels in Syria, p. 333. < Levii. xxvi. 22. » Isa. xxxiii. 8. 6 General Straton's MS. JUDEA. 119 From these, and from the testimony of Arrian and Dio- dorus Siculus, as well as of Josephus and Eusebius, it appears, as Reland has clearly shown, that in Pales- tine, long after it came mider the power of the Romans, and after it was greatly debased from its ancient glory, there were forty-two different highways, (viae publicse,) all being distinctly specified, which intersected it in various directions ; and the number of miles exceeding eight hundred and eighty.* Yet the prophecy is hterally 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 ne- cessary 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 travellers who are going to the same place, or take advantage 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 extremely bad ; and the inhabitants are so far from levelling them, that they en- deavour to make them more rugged, in order, as they say, to cure the Turks of their desire to introduce their cavalry. It is remarkable that there is not a wagon or cart in all Syria. "^ " There are," continues 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 scor- pions. The keeper of the khan gives the traveller the key and the mat, and he provides himself the rest. He must therefore carry with him his bed, his kitchen uten- sils, and even his provisions ; for frequently not even bread is to be found in the villages."^ " There are no carriages in the country," says another traveller, " under any denomination." "Among the hills of Palestine,""* ' Relandi Palaestina 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, 418, 419. " Wilson's Travels, p. 100. 120 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 farthing, and rob him of his money for the mere plea- sure of doing it."^ In a country where there is a total want of wheel-carriages of every description, ttie high- ways, however excellent and nifmerous they once might have been, must lie waste; and where such dangers have to be encountered at every step, and such priva- tions at every stage, it is not now to be wondered that the wayfaring man ceaseth. But let the disciples of Volney tell by what dictates of human wisdom the whole of his description 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. / will send wild beasts among you which shall devour your cattle /^ / will make you waste ; and I will send upon you evil beasts, &c.^ Palestine, to this day, is over- run by wild beasts. Hyenas, lynxes, wild boars, bears, foxes, wolves, and jackals abound both in the moun- tains and plains. After sunset the Bedouin fires, espe- cially in the south, where flocks abound, are seen blaz- ing at various distances over the face of the country, in order to save the cattle, gathered together, from being devoured by the wild beasts. Sleeping in a tent at Naplose, the author was wakened by the howling 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 adjoin- ing tent. And though detached from the other moun- tains of Judea, and situated on the sea-side, Carmel is still, as it has long been, " a habitation of wild beasts."* The writer was there informed by Lord Rokeby, that one of his servants had seen many hyenas at Jenin, of which he counted sixteen ; and another stated the number was ' Richardson's Travels, vol. ii. p. 225. 2 Deut. xxvi. 22. 3 Ezek. v. 17. * Mariti's Travels, vol. ii. p. 140. JUDEA. 121 immense. And, at the same time, Lord Claude Hamil- ton 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 daytime, the wolf, the fox, the jackal, or the hyena, is occasionally seen (as •nay here be personally testified) by the passing tra- veller. 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 Abra- ham by an everlasting covenant, it may literally be said, The hoar 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 wilder- ness, and sleep in the woods." But to this day the pro- phetic denunciation retains its undiminished as unre- pealed power. 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 subju- gated and despoiled it ; but it has also been the prey of bordering marauders, to whose assaults, till recently and partially checked by the pasha of Egypt, 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 the desert."^ The spoilers shall come from all high places through the wilderness, said the prophet. Pre- cautions against robbers are above all necessary, along the whole frontier of the desert, says Volney. " The Arabs are plunderers of the cultivated lands, and robbers on the high-roads. On the slightest alarm the Arabs cut down their (the peasants') har- vests, seize their flocks, &c. The peasants with good ' Volney's Travels, vol. ii. p. 417. 11 122 JUDEA. cause call them thieves. The Arab makes nis incur- sions against hostile tribes, or seeks plunder in the coun- try or on the highways. He became a robber fron: greediness, and such is in fact his present character. A plunderer rather than a warrior, the Arab attacks only to despoil.* Such is the systematic spoliation and robbery to which the inhabitants of Palestine were subjected for ages. TJie inhabitants of Jerusalem and of the land of Israel shall eat their bread with carefulness, and drink their water loith 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 con- trary, 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 atten- tion of rapacious authority, which would consider an air of satisfaction as a proof of opulence and the signal for extortion. The same dread prevails throughout the vil- lages, where every peasant is afraid of exciting 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 ;"^ or, as the description might appro- priately have been concluded, in the very words of the prophet, " because of the violence of them that dwell therein." They shall be ashamed of i)our revenues. " From the state of the contributions of each pashalic, it appears that ' Volney's Travels, chap, zxiii. 2 Ibid. vol. ii. pp. 477, 478. JUDEA. 123 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 ; wmch 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," (^6312,500 sterling,)^ 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 pil- lage a right, and ail property its own, can extort from impoverished Syria. But, insignificant as this sum is, as the revenues of those extensive territories which in- cluded in ancient 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 state- ment aflfords the obvious means of distinguishing the comparative desolation and poverty of the different pro- vinces of Syria. And the least unproductive of these in revenue, the pashalics of Aleppo and Tripoli, and a con- siderable portion of what now forms the pashalic 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 sul- tan, to two individuals. The very extensive pashalic of Damascus, so unproductive of revenue, includes Jerusalem, and a great proportion of ancient Judea ; so » Volney's Travels, vol. ii. p. 360. 124 JUDEA. that of it, even with greater propriety than of the rest, it may be said, they shall he asJiarmd of your revenues. 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 fulfihnent 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. " / will destroy your high places, and bring your sanc- tuaries into desolation. The palaces shall be forsaken. I will destroy the remnant of the sea-coast. I will make your cities waste. T/ie 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 vnldemess. " The temples are thrown down — the pa- laces demolished — ihe ports filled up — the towns destroyed — and the earth, stripped of inhabitants, seems a dreary hurying-place. ' ' ^ " Good God !" exclaims Volney, " from whence pro- ceed such melancholy revolutions ? For what cause is the fortune of these countries so strikingly changed'^ Why are so many cities 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 Jerusalem and Samaria. This Syria, said / to myself, now almost depopulated, then contained a hundred flou- rishing cities, and abounded with towns, villages, and hamlets. What is become of so many productions of the hands of man ? What is become of those ages of abundance and of life?" &c. 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 understand- ing to the simple. These words, from the lips of a great ' Volney's Ruins, ch. xi. p. 8. JUDEA. 125 advocate of infidelity, proclaim the certainty of the truth which he was too bhnd 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 underfoot, than Volney, the academician, 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 shall rise up after you, and the stranger that shall come from A FAR LAND, shall SAY, whcn they see the plagues of that land, and the sickness which tJie Lord hath laid upon it, Wherefore hath the Lord done this unto the land 9 what meaneth the heat of this great anger ? 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 consequences of the iniquities of the people, not of those only who have been plucked from off it, and scattered throughout the world, but of those also that dwell therein. The ruins of empires originated not from the regard which mortals paid to revealed religion, but from causes diametrically 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 Ro- mans, who were pagan idolaters ; and the devastation, in more recent ages, w^as perpetuated by the Saracens and Turks, believers in the impostor Mahomet, and the desolations were wrought by the enemies of the Mosaic and Christian dispensations. The desolations are not of divine appointment, 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 condition of the people are not less defi- nitely marked than the features of the land that has 11* 126 JUDEA, been smitten witli a curse because of their iniquities And when the unbeliever asks, Wherefore hath the Lora done this unto the land, the seune 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 theii' fathers, &c. The land is defied under the inhabitants thereof 6e- came they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordi- nances, broken the everlasting covenant : therefare hath the curse devoured the earth, &c. These expressive words, while they declare the cause of the judgments and deso- lations, 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 those who dwell therein may be pitied, their degeneracy will not be denied. The ferocity of the Turks, the predatory 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 Chris- tian 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 denominated 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 ex- hibited to human view or in the human form, into one of the most degraded countries of the globe, and, in ap- propriate terms, may well be said to have defied the land. And it has been defiled throughout many an age. The Father of mercies afflicteth not willingly, nor grieves the children of men. Sin is ever the precursor of the actual judgments of Heaven. It was on account of their idolatry and wickedness that the ten tribes were earliest plucked from off the land of Israel. The blood of Jesus, JUDEA. 127 according to their prayer, and the full measure of their iniquity, according to their doings, was upon the Jews and upon their children. Before they were extirpated from that land which their iniquities had defiled, it was drenched with the blood of more than a milHon 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 Chris- tianity, the seeds of its corruption, or perversion, began soon to appear. The moral power of religion decayed, the worship of images prevailed, and the nominal disci- ples of a pure faith " broke the everlasting covenant."* The doctrine of Mahomet — the Koran or the sword — was the scourge and the cure of idolatry ; but all the native impurities of the Mahometan creed succeeded to a grossly corrupted form of Christianity. Since that period, hordes of Saracens, Egyptians, Fatimites, Tar- tars, Mamelukes, Turks, (a combination of names of un- matched 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 hyper- bole, — the worst of the heathen shall possess their houses. And the holy places shall he defiled. " After the final destruction," in the words of Gibbon, "of the stately temple of the Jewish nation 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 vacant space of the lower city was filled with the public and private edifices of the ^lian colony, which spread themselves over the adjacent hill of Calvary. The holy places were polluted with the monu- ments 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 resurrection of Christ."** Omar, on the first conquest of Jerusalem by the Maho- metans, erected a mosque on the site of the temple of Solomon ; and, jealous as the God of Israel is that his ' Isaiah xxiv. 5. 2 Gibbon's Hist. vol. iv. p 100, c. 23. 138 JUDEA. glory be not given to another, the unseemly and violent and bloody contentions among Christian sects around the very sepulchre of the Author of the faith which they dis- honour, bear not a feebler testimony in the present day, than the preceding fact bore, at so remote a period, to the truth of this prediction. The frenzied zeal of cru- sading Christians could not rescue the sepulchre of Christ from the heathen who defiled it, though Europe then poured like a torrent upon Asia. 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 barbarism of Syria," says Volney, " is complete."* " I have often reflected," says Burckhardt, in describing the dishonest conduct of a Greek priest in the Hauran, (but in words that admit of too general an application,) " that if the English pe- nal 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 trans- portation before the end of the first six months."** " Un- der the name of Christianity, every degrading supersti- tion and profane rite, equally remote from the enlightened 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 California or New Holland. A series of legendary traditions, min- gled with remains of Judaism, and the wretched phan- tasies 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. "^ The land is defiled under the inhabitants thereof, because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinances, ' Volney's Travels, vol. ii. p. 442. " 2 Burckhardt's Travels in Syria, p. 89. 3 Clarke's Travels, vol. ii. p. 405. JUDEA. 12a broken the everlasting 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 mihtary despotism, that is, the bulk of the inhabitants are subject to the caprices of a faction of armed men, who dispose of every thing according to their interest and fancy." "In each government the pasha is an absolute despot. In the villages, the inhabitants, limited to the mere necessaries of life, have no arts but those without which they can- not subsist." " There is no safety without the towns, nor security within their precincts ;"^ 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 region. 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 astonishment; but this will be increased, if we compare the present number of inhabitants with that of ancient times. We are informed by the philosophical geo- grapher, Strabo, that the territories of Yamnia and Yop- pa, in Palestine alone, were formerly so populous as to bring forty thousand armed men into the field. At pre- sent 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 coun- try must have contained four millions of inhabitants. If we go still further back into antiquity, we shall find the same populousness among the Philistines, the Phoeni- cians, and in the kingdoms of Samaria and Damascus."^ Though the ancient population of the land of Israel be estimated at the lowest computation, and the existing population be rated at the highest, yet that country does not now contain above a tenth part of the number of in- habitants which it plentifully supported, exclusively from th**'** industry and from the rich resources of its own ' Volney's Travels, vol. ii. pp. 370, 376, 380. 2 Ibid. p. 366. 130 JUDEA. 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 ? Yet in it shall he a tenth. The city that went out by a thbusand shall leave an hundred^ 'and that which went out by an hundred shall leave ten. The present population of Judea has been estimated, without reference to any predic- tion, at a tenth of the number by which it was peopled previous to the dispersion of the Jews. Volney, on a comparative estimate, reduces it even to less. It is im- possible to ascertain the precise proportion. The words of Pierre Bello, quoted by Malte-Brun, 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 main- tained thousands. ^^^ 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 in 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 w^ere 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 iri- strumental; and they are in the right, for such instru- ments as they have, not excepting their flutes, are ' Malte-B run's Geography, vol. ii p. 151. JUDEA. 131 detestable."* The mirth of the tahret 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 avowed unbeliever. All the merry-hearted do sigh ; tJiey shall not drink wine with a song ; all joy is darkened^ the mirth of the land is gone. Their shouting shall he no shouting. " Their performance" (singing) " is accompanied with sighs and gestures. They may be said to excel most in the melancholy strain. To behold an Arab with his head inclined, 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. "^ If any further illustration of the predic- tion be requisite, the same ill-fated narrator of facts ex- hibits anew the visions 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 me- lancholy. They rarely laugh ; and the gaiety of the French appears to them a fit of delirium. When they speak, it is with deliberation, without gesture, and with- out passion ; they listen without interrupting you ; they are silent for whole days together: and by no means pique themselves on supporting conversation. Conti- nually seated, they pass whole days musing, with their legs crossed, their pipes in their mouths, and almost witnout changing their attitude. The orientals, in gene ' Volney's Travels, vol. ii. p. 439. Ibid. pp. 439, 440. 132 JUDEA. ral, have a grave and phlegmatic exterior ; a staid and almost listless deportment ; and a serious, nay^ even sad and melancholy countenance."* Having thus explicitly stated the fact, Volney, by many arguments, equally ju- dicious 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 multiplicity of facts from ancient history which completely disprove 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.^ If the men of these nations were inert," he adds, " what is activity ? If they were active, where then is the in- fluence 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, having 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 obsen^ation, and when the circumstances respecting it are known) in- capable of solution from any natural causes, such as by some conceivable 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 sub- sequent to the period when their full and permanent effect was laid open to the full view of the prophets of Israel. The fact, thus clearly predicted and proved, is not only astonishing as referable to the inhabitants of Judea, and as exhibiting a contrast, than which nothing, of a similar kind, can be more complete ; but it is so very contradictory to the habits of men and the customs ' Volney's Travels, vol. ii. pp. 461, 476. ^ Ibid. p. 464. JUDEA. 133 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 music, exulting in their war-songs, and revelling in their mirth, to the more elegant assemblages of poHshed society, 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 meadows of England, the plains of France, or the valleys of Italy ; the experience of mankind in every clime — except par- tially where the blasting influence of the crescent is felt — proclaims, as untrue to nature, the predicted fact, which actuaHy 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 be bitter unto them that drink it. The more closely that the author of the Ruins 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 prophe- cies respecting them cannot but be divme. " 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 (S3n:ians) are almost strangers to this double enjoyment. Good cheer would infallibly expose them to extortion, and wine to corporeal punish- ment, from the zeal of the police in enforcing the pre- cepts of the Koran. It is with great reluctance the Mahometans tolerate the Christians the use of a liquor they envy them."^ To this statement may be subjoined the more direct, but equally unapplied, testimony of ' Volney's Travels, vol. ii. p. 480. 12 134 JUDEA. recent travellers. " The wines of Jerusalem," says Mr Joliffe, V* are most execrable. In a country where every species of vinous liquor is strictly prohibited by the con current authorities of law and gospel, a single fountain may be considered of infinitely greater value than many wine-presses,"^ Mr. Wilson relates, that the wine drunk in Jerusalem is probably 4he very worst to be met with in any country.^ While the intolerance 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 pro- hibition is enforced, have peculiarly operated against the cultivation of the vine, and turned the treading 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,^ nothing less than the operation of causes unna- tural and extreme as these, could have verified the lan- guage of prophecy. But in this instance, as truly as in every otlier, 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 representa- tion 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. " 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 briers ; yea, upon all the houses of joy in 1 Joliffe's Letters from Palestine, vol. i. p. 184. 2 Wilson's Travels, p. 130. 3 Relandi Palaistina, pp. 381, 79% JUDEA. 135 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.* The highways lie waste; the wayfaring man ceaseth. The earth mourneth and languisheth ; Lebanon is ashamed or hewn down, or withered away ; Sharon is like a wilderness ; and Bashan and Carmel shake off their fruits.^ 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 devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are deso- late, — and few men left. The vine languisheth, all the merry-hearted do sigh. The mirth of tab rets 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 ; — all joy is darkened ; the mirth of the land is gone. 5J3 To this picture of common and general devastation, that no distinguishing feature might be left untouched or untraced by his pencil, the prophet adds : " When thus it shall be in the midst of the land, there shall be as the shaking of an olive tree, and as the gleaning-grapes when the vintage is done.'* The glory of Jacob shall be made thin ; and it shall be as when the harvestman gathereth the corn, and reapeth the ears with his arm : yet gleaning-grapes shall be left in it, as the shaking of an olive tree, two or three berries in the top of the up- permost bough, four or five in the outmost fruitful branches thereof."^ These words imply, as otherwise declared without a metaphor, that a small remnant would be left ; that though Judea should become poor like a field that has been reaped, or like a vine stripped of its fruits, its desolation would not be so complete but that some vestige of its former abundance would be still visi- ble, like the few grains that are left by the reaper when ' Isa.xxxii.lO, 12—14. 2 jsa. xxxiii. 8, 9. 3 Isa. xxiv. 3 — 11. 4 Isa. xxiv. 13. * Isa. xvii.4 — 6. 136 JUDEA. the harvest is past, or the little remaining fruit that hangs on the uppennost branch, or on a neglected bough, after tlie full crop has been gathered, and the vine and the olive have been shaken. And is there yet a gleaning left of all the glory of Israel ? There is ; and there could not be any simile more natural or more expressive of the fact. Napolose (the ancient Sychar or Sichem) is luxuriantly embosomed in the most delightful and fra- grant bowers, half-concealed by rich gardens and by stately trees, collected into groves all around the beau- tiful valley in which it stands.' 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 number of streams that fall from the mountains, traverse it, and water the cot- ton plants that thrive well in this fertile soil.^ The scenery in the plain of Zabulon is, to the full, as delight- ful as in the rich vale upon the south of the Crimea ; — it reminds the traveller of the finest part of Kent and Sur- rey.^ The soil, although stony, is exceedingly rich, but now entirely neglected. But the delightful vale of Za- bulon appears everywhere covered wath spontaneous vegetation, flourishing in the wildest exuberance. Even along the mountains of Gilead, the land, possessing ex- traordinary riches, abounds with the most beautiful pros- pects, is clothed with rich forests, varied with verdant ' Clarke, vol. ii. p. 506. The remark may be interesting to the Christian reader, that, — while Capernaum, the capital of Galilee, which was " exalted unto heaven," or the highest prosperity, when Jesus and his apostles preached there in vain, is brought down to hell, (to hades,) to death, or entire destruction, being no- thing now but shapeless ruins, as Chorazin and Bethsaida also are, — and while Samaria, the capital of the country which bore its name, is cast down into the valley, — Sychar, then one of its infe- rior cities, from which the inhabitants came forth to meet Jesus, and in which many believed in him as the Saviour when they heard his word, is ranked by every traveller who describes it> among the most striking exceptions to the general desolation, which has otherwise left but a remembrance of the cities of Judah of Samaria, and Galilee. 2 Mariti's Travel's, ii. 151. a Clarke, ii. 400. SAMARIA. 137 slopes ; and extensive plains of a fine red soil are now covered with thistles, as the best proof of its fertility/ The valley of St. John's, in the vicinity of Jerusalem, is crowned to the top with olives and vines, while the lower part of the valley bears the milder fig and almond.** Whenever any spot is fixed upon as the residence, and seized as the property, either of a Turkish Aga or of an Arab Sheikh, it enjoys his protection, is made to admi- nister to his wants or to his luxury, and the exuberance and beauty of the land of Canaan soon reappear. But such spots are, in the words of an eye-witness, only " mere sprinklings" in the midst of extensive desolation. And how could it ever have been foreseen, 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 preserv- ing 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 ? Among such a multipHcity of prophecies, where the prediction and the fulfihnent of each is a miracle, it is almost impossible to select any as more amazing than the rest. But that concerning Samaria is not the least remarkable. The city was, for a long period, the capi- tal of the ten tribes of Israel. Herod the Great en- larged and adorned it, and, in honour of Augustus CcBSar, gave it the name of Sebaste. There are many ancient medals which were struck there. ^ 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 unnoticed 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 ' Buckingham's Travels, p. 322. ^ General Straton's MS. Travels. Calmet's Dictionary; Relandi Palaestina, p. 981, 138 SAMARIA. 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." And " this great city is now wholly converted into gar- dens ; 'and all the tokens that remain to testify that there has ever been such a place, are only, on the north side, a large square piazza encompassed with pillars, and on the east some poor remains of a great church." Such was the first notice of that ancient capital given by Maundrell in 1696, and it is confirmed by Mr. Bucking- ham in 1816 : " The relative distance, local position, and unaltered name of Sebaste, leave no doubt as to the identity of its site ; and," he adds, " its local features are equally seen in the threat of Micah."^ Such was the brief notice of the ancient capital of Israel, contained in the previous editions of this treatise. But having visited the interesting spot, the author can- not forbear from glancing at the prophetic history of Samaria, and pointing more minutely to its local features as they are indeed clearly seen in the threatenings of the prophets. 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.^ Few seats of royalty can rival its princely site. In regard at least to its capabili- ties 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 insulated 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 a royal seat. And judgment-stricken as it is, none can stand on the 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." Napolose has been mistaken by one traveller for ^he ancient Samaria. 2 1 Kings xvi. 34. SAMARIA. 139 uncovered foundations of the vanished city, and look, from among its solitary columns, on the gleamings of its ancient glory all around, without beholding, as it were, in the mind's or in the memory's eye, the once glorious beauty of the city and of 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 plain, where native lovehness in wild luxu- riance 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 portion of the scene of " glorious beauty," which the hanging 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 lean- ness there. But Samaria was as noted for its wickedness as for its beauty ; and therefore it is marked all over with judg- ments. Omri, the king of Israel, and founder of Sama- ria, 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.* Wo to the croim 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 mighty water overflowing, shall cast down to the earth with the hand. The crown of pride, the drunk- ards of Ephraim, shall be trodden under feet : and the glorious beauty which is on the head of the fat valley ' Isa. vii. 9. 140 SAMARIA. shall be a fading flower, and as the hasty fruit before the summer ; which, when he that looketh upon seeth, while it is yet in his hand, he eateth it up.* I will cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel.^ I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and make a wall, that she shall not find her paths.^ The pride of Israel doth testify to his face : therefore shall Israel and Ephraim fall in their iniquity.'* 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 inhabitemts 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 upon the water.^ Samaria shall become desolate : for she hath rebelled against her God.^ 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 plantings 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 the works of the house of Ahab, and ye walk in all their counsels, that I should make you a desolation.^ Wo 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 upori» their couches ; that chant 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.^ The ten tribes, whose capital was Samaria, were the first to go captive. The king of Assyria came up throughout all the land, and went up to Samaria and besieged it three years ; and he took Samaria, and carried Israel away into Assyria. *° And Vie glory of 1 Isa. xxviii. 1 — 4. 2 Hos. i. 4. ^ jjqs. ii. 6. " Hos. V. 5. 5 Hos. ix. 9, 11. ^ Hos. x. 5, 7. ' Hos. xiii. 16. s Micah i. 6, vi. 16. 9 Amos vi. I — 7. »o 2 Kings xvii. 5, 6. SAMARIA. 141 Ephraim flew away 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. Rebuilt and destroyed 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, little more than a century before the Christian era, having, by inflicting injuries on a colony of 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 An- tiochus Cyzicenes, who reigned at Damascus over Coelo- Syria and Phoenicia. Antiochus was defeated, and all his aid was in vain, though he ravaged the land of Israel and of 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 seeth, while it is yet in his hand h£ eateth 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.* Though rebuilt by Gabinius, pro- consul of Syria, and afterwards enlarged and adorned by Herod the Great, neither consul nor king could avert its fate. And now, no city is there, ^' the hill on which stood Samaria" is alone to be seen, bearing in its "fea- tures" the threatenings of the prophets. Behold, the Lord hath a mighty and strong arm, which, as a destroying storm, &c., shall cast down to the earth with the Mnd. — Samaria has been cast down to the earth. The crown of pride has been trodden under foot. Not a ' Joseph, art. xiii. c. x. 2, 3. 142 SAMARU. single portion of a wall of any ancient edifice is stand- ing. There are only the remains of a comparatively modern convent. Samaria is no more. But even there, where it stood in its glory, it has not been suffered to lie. ■ / mil make Samaria as an heap of the field, and as plant- ings of a vineyard. Stones aboiind in the mountainous regions of Israel ; and it is evident, that in the terraced vineyards the stones have been gathered out of the level spaces, which were 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 literally " heaps of the field." The author, on being asked, while 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. Samaria, it is recorded, was utterly demolished, immediately 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 in various places, to form the gardens or patches of cultivated ground pos- sessed by the inhabitants of the wretched village which stands on the extremity of the site of the ancient 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. Of all the glory of the royal «ity of Samaria, nothing greater remains than an heap 9f tlie field. But onlv a small portion of it now rests SAMARIA. 143 where its crown of pride rose high ; for it is farther said, / will pour down the stones tliereof into the valley^ &c. The road which ascends the hill of Samaria is enclosed 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 evi- dently pertained to ancient buildings, for broken capi- tals and. pedestals, 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 va- rious forms, and fragments of columns, whose form or massiveness has stayed their course, manifestly showing that they have been cast down, and could not of them- selves have fallen where they lie. The progress of the stones of Samaria, when cast down hy the hand, or poured down into the valley, may be traced the whole way, from the site of the city on the top of the hill to the very bottom of the valley, where chiefly they abound, either partially strewed over it, or gathered into heaps among the trees, that the beasts of the field may the more freely eat. And I will discover the foundations tliereof. Some columns now stand alone, without princely buildings, or any others, to adorn, of which the only vestige is their foundations. These are indeed discovered and laid bare. Every stone, even to the foundations, has been cast down to the earth, and has been either thrown into a heap, as of the field, or poured down into the valley. With not the wreck of a ruin, or any stones to cover them, the foundations alone remain. But these, in re- spect chiefly to the principal buildings, near the now monumental columns, are most distinctly seen. They lie in lines of ridges, slightly raised above the level of the ground, the foundations of the walls being undoubt- edly and most easily traced, though overgrown with grass ; while, in other instances, the foundations of Sa- 144 SAMARIA. maria are as plainly seen as when they were first laid, in the long parallel lines of the walls of the then future, now vanished edifices, in which unholy men of Israel kept the statutes of Omri, and broke the commandments of their God ; chanted 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, while those very judgments were sounding in their ears, which that mountain itself has not heard in vain. In those days of Baalim, wherein Israel burnt incense to them, and decked herself with jewels, and went after her lovers, and forgat the Lord, the citizens of her adopt- ed and illegitimate capital, the kine 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 wo 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 beasts of the field shall eat them.^''^ 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 on the opposite hills ; and on the grassy mounds, — rising one above another, that girt the lower part of the hill of Sa- maria, and abound also on those that adjoin it, retaining the form of terraced 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 the crown of pride. 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, ' Hosea ii. 1 1. JERUSALEM. 145 and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her, and I will give 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 judg- ment, and in loving-kindness, and in mercies, and in faithfulness.* Thou shalt yet plant vines upon the mountains of Samaria, O 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." The house of Jacob shall pos- sess the fields of Samaria."^ And, while the crown of pride has been trodden under foot, 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, — 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 destiny 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 time jof the gentiles should be fulfilled. The time of the gen- tiles is 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 ' Hosea ii. 14, 15, 19. 2 jgr. xxxi. 5, 6. 3 Obad. 19. 4 Isa. xxviii. 5. 13 146 JERUSALEM. it from their affections ; they perform their devotions witV. their faces towards it, as if it were the object of their worship as well as of their love ; and although their de- sire to return be so strong, fixed, and indelible, that every Jew, in every generation, counts himself an exile ; yet thiey 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 frustrate the counsel that professed to be of God. Julian, the emperor of the Romans, not only permitted but invited 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 begun 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 enemies ; 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 Rome from building a temple at Jerusalem, when every Jew was zealous for the work ? Nothing appeared against it but a single sentence 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 thwaited in oppos- ing it ? And why did not Julian, with all his inveterate enmity and laborious opposition to Christianity, execute a work so easy and desirable ? A heathen historian re- lates, that fearful balls of fire, bursting from the earth, sometimes burned the workmen, rendered the place in- accessible, and caused them to desist from the under- taking.* The same narrative is attested by others. 1 "Imperii sui memoriara magnitudine operum gestiens propa- gare, ambitiosum quondam apud Hierosolymam templum, quod, post multa et interneciva certamina obsidente Vespasiano, pos- JERUSALEM. 147 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. And an eminent modern traveller, who visited, and who minutely exa- mined the spot, testifies that " there seems every reason for believing, that in the reticulated remains still visible on the site of the temple, is seen a standing memorial of Julian's discomfiture."^ While destitute of this addi- tional confirmation of its truth, the historical evidence was too strong even for the skepticism of Gibbon alto- gether to gainsay ; and brought him to the acknowledg- ment that such authority must astonish an incredulous mind. Even independently of the miraculous interposi- tion, the fulfilment is the same. The attempt was made avowedly, and it was abandoned without any apparent 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 Ju- dea. 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 Jerusalem but by bribery or by stealth. It was a spot unlawful for them to touch. In the crusades, all the power of Europe was employed to rescue Jerusalem from the heathens, but equally in vain. It has been trodden down for nearly eighteen centuries by its successive mas- teaque Tito, cegre est expugnatum, instaurare sumptibus cogitabat immodicis; negotiumque maturandum Alypio dederat Antiochen- si, qui olim Britannias curaverat pro prcefectis. Cum itaque rei eidem instaret Alypius, juvaretque provincise rector, metuendi globi flammarum, prope fundamenta, crebris assuitibus erumpen- tes, fecere locum exustis aliquoties operantibus inaccessum ; hoc- que modo, elemento destinatius repellente, cessavit inceptum." (Ammian. Marcell. lib. xxii. cap. i. § 2, 3. Grot, de Ver. &c. Ru- fini Hist, Eccles. lib. i. c. xxxvii. Socrat. lib. ii. c. xvii. Theo- doret. lib. iii. c. xvii. Sozomen. lib. v. c. xxi. Cassiodor. Hist. Tripart. lib. vi. c. xliii. Nicephor. Callis. lib. x. c. xxxii. Greg Nazianz. in Julian. Orat. ii. Chrysostom. de L. Bab. Mart, et con- tra Judaeos, iii. p. 491. Lind. — Vide Am. Mar. tom. iii. p. 2.) ' Clarke's Travels, vol. ii. note 1, at the end of the volume. 148 JERUSALEM. ters ; by Romans, Grecians, Persians, Saracens, Mame- lukes, 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 shpuld be banished from their OAvn 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 likely, or is it credible, or who can foretell, that the present inha- bitants of any country upon earth shall be banished into all nations, — retain their distinctive character, — meet with an unparalleled fate, — continue a people, — without a government and without a country, — and remain for an indefinite period, exceeding seventeen hundred years, till the fulfilment of a prescribed event to be accom- plished after so many generations ? Must not the know- ledge 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 ; and he loved the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Judah. But while the land has been defiled, and the people have been scat- tered abroad, and Jerusalem has been trodden down of the gentiles, Zion also has been filled with judgment ! Togefher with the other holy places, it has been defiled. The abomination of desolation was set up in the holy place. The monuments of idolatry occupied the place of the sanctuary of the Lord. And the mosque of Omar was built where the temple of Solomon had stood. " A ploughshare was drawn over the consecrated ground ;" and to this day Zion, as was foretold, is ploughed over as afield, " At the time when I visited this sacred ground," says Dr. Richardson, " one part of it supported a crop JERUSALEM. 149 of barley, another was undergoing tfie 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 in- stance of the special fulfilment of prophecy ; therefore shall Zion for your sakes be ploughed as a feld.^^ Mic. iii. 12 ; Jer. xxvi. 18.^ But though a ploughshare did pass over the conse- crated ground, as a sign of perpetual interdiction, Zion shall be redeemed with judgment, and they that return of her with righteousness. The Lord is jealous for Zion : and will return unto it. There is a coming year of re- compenses for the controversy of Zion. Thou, O 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 regard the prayer of the destitute, and not despise their prayer. This shall he 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 Rome, 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 them- selves 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. Ix. 14, &c. But the prophecies are not confined to the land of Judea ; they are equally unlimited in their range over space as over time. After a lapse of many ages, the countries around Judea are now beginning to be known. ' Richardson's Travels, p. .349. 13* 150 AMMON. And each succeeding traveller, in the communication of new discoveries concerning them, is gradually unfold- ing the very description which the prophets gave of their poverty and desolation, at the time of their great pros- perity and luxuriance. The countries of the Ammonites, of the Moabites, of the Edomites, or inhabitants of Idu- mea, 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.* And the territories of the an- cient 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 Chris- tian religion. 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 capi- tal was besieged by the forces of David, and their country rendered tributary. They regained and long maintained their independence, till Jotham, the king of Judah, subdued them, and exacted from them an annual tribute of a hundred talents, and thirty thousand quarters ' Relandi Palaestina Illustrata; D'Anville's Map; Maps in Volney's, Burckhardt's, and Buckingham's Travels ; Wells' Scripture Geography ; Gibbon's History ; Shaw's Travels, &c. AMMON. 151 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 successively oppressed by the Chaldeans, (when some of the earliest prophecies respecting it were ful- filled,) and by the Egyptians and Syrians, Ammon was a highly productive and populous country, when the Romans became masters of all the provinces of Syria ; and several of the ten allied cities, which gave name to the celebrated Decapolis, were included within its boun- daries. Even when first invaded by the Saracens, (a. d. 632,) " this country (including Moab) w^as enriched by the various benefits of trade ; by the vigilance of the emperors it was covered with a line of forts, and the populous cities of Gerasa, Philadelphia, (Ammon,) and Bosra, were secure, at least from a surprise, by the solid structure of their walls. Twelve thousand horse could sally from the gates of Bosra," &c.^ Volney bears wit- ness, " that in the immense plains of the Hauran, ruins are continually to be met with, and that what is said of its actual fertility perfectly corresponds with the idea given of it in the Hebrew writings."^ The fact of its natural fertility is corroborated by every traveller 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 subsistence to the inhabitants of so many towns,"^ as are now visible only 1 Gibbon's Hist. vol. ix. c. 51, p. 383. 2 Volney's Travels, vol. ii. p. 299. 3 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 la- bours. " He was a traveller of no ordinary description, a gen 152 AMMON. in their ruins. While the fruitfulness of the land of Am mon, and the high degree of prosperity and power in which it subsisted, long prior and long subsequent to the date of the predictions, are thus indisputably established by historical evidence, and by existing proofs, the re- searches of recent travellers (who were actuated by the meYe desire of exploring these "regions, 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 deso- lation 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 Rabbah of the Ammonites a stable for camels, and a couching-place for flocks. Behold, I will stretch out mine hand upon thee, and will dehver 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. Rabbah tleman by birth, and a scholar by 'education ; he added to the ordinary acquirements of a traveller, accomplishments which fit- ted 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, laborious, learned, and sensible man, exempt from prejudice, unattached to systems ; detailing what he saw plainly and correctly, and of very prudent and discreet conduct." (Edin- burgh Review, number Ixvii. 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 per- fectly, 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 distinguish- ed from a Mussulman. With what advantage must he travel ! He is by birth a Swiss, but having been educated in England, speaks our language perfectly." AMMON. 153 (the chief city), of the Ammonites shall be a desolate heap. Amraon shall be a perpetual desolation."^ ^mmon was to be delivered to be a spoil to the heathen^ to be destroyed J and to be a perpetual desolation. " All this country, formerly so populous and flourishing, is now changed into a vast desert."^ Ruins are seen in every direction. The country is divided between the Turks and the Arabs, but chiefly possessed by the latter. The extortions of the one, and the depredations of the other, keep it in perpetual desolation, and make it a spoil to the heathen. " The far greater part of the country is uninhabited, being abandoned to the wandering Arabs, and the towns and villages are in a state of total ruin."* " At every step are to be found the vestiges of ancient cities, the remains of many temples, public edifices, and Greek churches."-' The cities are desolate. "Many of the ruins present no objects of any interest. They consist 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 ap- pears 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. "^ 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 resort to the Bedouins, where they pasture their camels and their sheep. "^ " The whole way we traversed," says Seetzen, " we saw villages in ruins, and met numbers of Arabs with their camels," &c. Mr. Buckingham describes a building among the ruins of Ammon, " the masonry of which was evidently con- ' Ezek. XXV. 2, 5, 7, 10, xxi. 32 ; Jer. xlix. 2 ; Zeph. ii. 9. 2 Seetzen's Travels, p. 34. ^ Seetzen's Travels, p. 37 4 Burckhardl's Travels in Nubia, Introd. pp. 37, 38, 44. * Burckhardl's Travels in Syria, pp. 355, 357, 364. 6 Buckingham's Travels in Palestine, &c., p. 329. , 154 AMMON. structed 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 originally open passages, and had arched doorways facing each'Other ; but the first of these was found wholly closed up, and the last was par- tially filled up, leaving only a narrow passage, just suf- ficient for the entrance of one man, and of the goats, which the Arab keepers drive in here occasionally for shelter during the night." He relates that he lay down among flocks of sheep and goats, close beside the ruins of Ammon ; and particularly remarks that, during the night, he was almost entirely prevented from sleeping by the bleating of flocks.* So literally true is it, al- though 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 Scriptures, that the chief city of the Ammonites is a stable for camels^ and a couching place for flocks. The Ammonites shall not he remembered among the nations. While the Jews, who were long their heredi- tary enemies, continue as distinct a people as ever, though dispersed among all nations, no trace of the Am- monites 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 continued a great multitude until the second century of the Christian era.^ Yet they are cut off 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 ; ' Buckingham's Travels among the Arab Tribes, under the title of Ruins of Ammon, pp. 72, 73, &c. 2 Justin Martyr, p. 392, edit. Thirl. AMMON. 155 and the Ammonites are not rem£mbered among the na- tions. Rabbah (Rabbah 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 possibly 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 ex- posed to the atmosphere are all in decay,"* so that they may be said literally to form a desolate heap. The pub- lic edifices, which once strengthened or adorned the city, after a long resistance to decay, are now also deso- late ; and the remains of the most entire among them, subjected 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, which attest the ancient splendour of Ammon, can now, by means of a single act of reflection, or simple process of reasoning, 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. Seetzen, whose indefatigable ardour led him, in defi- ' Burckhardt's Travels in Syria, p. 359, 360. 156 AMMON. ance of danger, the first to explore the countries which lie east of the Jordjin, and east and south of the Dead Sea, or the territories of Ammon, Moab, and Edom. justly characterizes Ainmon as " once the residence of many kings, — an ancient town, which flourished long before the Greeks and Romans, and even before the Hebrews;''* 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 remarkable ruins, which attest its ancient splendour. Such as, 1st, A square building, very highly ornamented, which has been perhaps a mausoleum. 2dly, The ruins of a large palace. 3dly, A magnificent amphitheatre of immense size, and well preserved, with a peristyle of Corinthian pillars without pedestals. 4th, A temple with a great number of co- lumns. 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 extraordinary size. 7th, The remains of the ancient wall,, with many other edifices."^ Burckhardt, who afterwards visited the spot, describes it with greater 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, with successive tiers of apart- ments excavated in the rocky side of a hill ; Corinthian columns, fifteen feet high ; 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 f — monuments of ancient splendour standing amidst a deso- late heap. ' A brief account of the countries adjoining the Lake of Tibe- rias, the Jordan, and the Dead Sea, by M. Seetzen, Conseiller d'Ambassade de S. M. I'Empereur de Russe, p. 35, 36. 2 Seetzen's Travels, pp. 35, 36. ^ Burckhardt's Travels in Syria, p. 3.58, &c. AMMON. 157 More recent travellers, with this treatise in their hands, or with the full knowledge of these prophecies, have visited Ammon ; and the testimony to the predicted facts, first unconsciously given, has been repeated and corroborated by those who have personally testified, as they consciously witnessed, the fulfilment of the pro- phecies. " 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. Rabbah of the Ammonites shall be a desolate heap. Ammon shall be a perpetual desolation. I will make Rabbah of the Am- monites a stable for camels, and a couching place for flocks." And while he was traversing the ruins of the city, the number of goats and sheep which were driven in among them was annoying, however remarkable in fulfilling the prophecies. " The dreariness of its (Ammon's) present aspect," says Lord Lindsay, " 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 abso- lutely covered in every direction with their dung. That morning's ride would have convinced a skeptic. How runs the prophecy ? ' I will make Rabbah a stable for camels,' " &c.* " Ammon is now quite deserted, ex- cept by the Bedouins, who water their flocks at its little river, &c. W'e met sheep and goats by thousands, and camels by hundreds, coming down to drink, all in beau- tiful condition."^ 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 w^hen the Saracens invaded the eastern empire. Its Acropolis, long its chief stronghold, is still con- • Lord Lindsay's Travels, vol. ii. p. 75. 2 j^i^, yoi. ii. p. 117. 14 158 AMMON. spicuous 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, rubbish, and herbage, have grown nearly to their level Thp chief of these ruins are those of a temple, which was once adorned with a portico 'and peristyle of grand Corinthian columns, all now prostrate ; but their massive remains, 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 shelter for flocks, of which there are many. And without the walls, as otherwise within them, nothing re- mains but scattered materials of former habitations, now partially concealed by the flowers and grass. " Leaving the Acropolis, we descended, and, cross- ing the stream, on the northern bank of which, among other remains, are those of an Ionic colonnade, we pro- ceeded to the farthest ruins. The most remote of these is a small theatre, evidently intended for scenic repre- sentations, as the space behind the proscenium was en- closed, and formed part of the building. Three pas- sages remained as perfect as when they were formed, and they opened upon the stage by three arches. There were likewise side entrances, and communicating pas- sages well adapted for theatrical purposes. The prosce- nium was very handsomely ornamented ; above the three arches ran a rich frieze of Corinthian decorations most beautifully carved, 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, halfway up the rows of seats, and two smaller arches, which probably served for entrances to the seats of AMMON. 159 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 edifice : 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 exercises in open air, as, instead of the enclosed passages and covered chambers behind the stage, there is only an open colonnade of handsome Corinthian columns, which extend from one extreme to the other of the rows of seats. Within the colonnade is an exten- sive 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, which runs round the theatre, and opens upon a side staircase, by which means the crowd could be divided ; back staircases also mount from these pas- sages to the upper tier, so as to enable the more humble spectators to gain and leave their seats without incom- moding their richer neighbours below. In the centre of the uppermost bench is excavated 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 octagonal form, has still four of its sides T)eifect, which contain a grand alcove, and threp lesser recesses. A colonnade of large Corinthian pillars was once ranged within it, but what purpose it served, there are no means of ascertaining. Heaps of ruins lie around it in 160 AMMON. bewildering 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 labour would restore some of these build- ings, not to their pristine glory, but to useful dwellings. And, passing from these, other juins are numerous but uninteTesting. But the remains yet standing of one grand temple are sufficient to exhibit its former magnifi- cence, surrounded as it was by lofty columns, some of which are still entire. A noble alcove, richly wrought, containing niches, and supported by pilasters, is yet per- fect, a beautiful specimen of the riches of ornament, and fine finish of the corners. And near to the ruinous town is a Httle fane, square without, but circular within, both sides being most richly decorated with frieze comers and pilasters of the Corinthian order. Four niches within are equally elaborately carved. It is divided into square apartments, each containing a variety of rich and elegant ornaments ; and an open arch, which forms the entrance, has the most beautifully carved ceiling which I ever saw."* Such is now the once royal city of Ammon. Nume- rous 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 purpose 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 crowd- ed by beasts ; and where nobles were before kept from contact with their fellows, the pilgrim traveller in a de- solate land now has cause to complain of the annoyance of flocks. It was not for them that arches, sculptured with exquisite art, and almost unrivalled beauty, were erected ; nor to shelter them that walls which, uninjured, have endured for ages, were built ; nor did stables for ' Iiord Claud Hamilton's Journai. MOAB. 161 camels, and couching-places for flocks, enter into the design of the architects of the palaces, theatres, or tem- ples of Ammon, 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 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 particular events in the history of the Moabites, and to the result of their conflict with the Jews or any of the neighbouring 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 adduced in evidence of inspiration ; for there are abun- dant predictions which refer so clearly to decisive and unquestionable facts, that there is scarcely a single fea- ture peculiar to the land of Moab, as it now exists, which was not marked by the prophets in their delinea- tion 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 14* 163 MOAB. of Israel, Wo unto Nebo ! for it is spoiled ; Kiriathaim is confounded and taken ; Misgab is confounded and dismayed. 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 unto Moab, that it may flee and get away ; for the cities thereof shall be desolate, without any to dwell therein. Moab hath been at ease from his youth, and he hath settled 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 daughter that dost inhabit Dibon, come down from thy glory, and sit in thirst ; for the spoiler of Moab shall come upon thee, and he shall destroy thy strong- holds. 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 Me- phaath, and upon Dibon, and upon Nebo, and upon Beth-diblathaim ; and upon Kiriathaim, and upon Beth- gamul, and upon Bethmeon, and upon Kerioth, and upon Bozrah, and upon 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. 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 desolate. I have broken Moab like a vessel wherein is no pleasure. They MOAB. 163 shall cry, how is it broken down ! And Moab shall be destroyed from being a people, because he hath magni- fied himself against the Lord. The cities of Aroer are forsaken ; they shall be for flocks, which shall he down, and none shall make them afraid. Moab shall be a perpetual desolation."* The land of Moab lay to the east and south-east of Judea, 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 Ammon ; 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 vestiges of its ancient greatness. " The whole of the plains are covered with the sites of towns, on every eminence or spot convenient for the construc- tion of one. And as the land is capable of rich cultiva- tion, there can be no doubt that the country, now so deserted, once presented a continued picture of plenty and fertility. "3 The form of fields is still visible : and there are the remains of Roman highways, which in some places are completely paved, and on which there are mile-stones of the times of Trajan, Marcus AureHus, and Severus, with the number of the miles legible upon them. Wherever any spot is cultivated, the corn is luxuriant ; and the richness of the soil cannot perhaps 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 formerly proportioned to its natural fertility."^ Such evidence may surely suffice to prove, that the country was well cultivated and peopled at a period so long ' Jer. xlviii. 1, 2, 8, 9, 11, 12, 17, 18, 20—25, 28, 29, 33, 34, 38 39, 42 ; Isa. xvii. 2 ; Zeph. ii. 9. 2 Captains Irby and Mangles's Travels, p. 378. 3 Ibid. pp. 377, 378, 456, 460. 164 MOAB. 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 pos- sibility of its truth, that Moab would ever have been re4uced to that state of great and permanent desolation in which it has continued for so many ages, and which vindicates and ratifies to this hour the truth of the scrip- tural prophecies. The cities of Moab were to be desolate without any to dwell therein ; no city loas 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 characterized, 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 devastated region. The whole country abounds with ruins. And Burckhardt, who encountered many diffi- culties in so desolater 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 history of the Beni Israel."^ And it might, with equal truth, have been added, that they still sub- sist to confirm the inspiration of the Jewish Scriptures, or to prove that the seers of Israel were the prophets of God, for the desolation of each of these very cities was the theme of a prediction. Every thing worthy of ob- servation respecting them has been detailed, not only in Burckhardt's Travels in Syria, but also by Seetzen, and, more recently, 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 bi'oken down, that even the prying curiosity of such in- ' Burckhardl's Travels in Nubia, introduction, p. 38. MOAB. 165 defatigable travellers could discover, among a multipli- city of ruins, only a few remains so entire as to be worthy of particular notice. The subjoined description is drawn from their united testimony. — Among the ruins of El Aal (Eleale) are a number of large cisterns, frag- ments 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 stand- ing ; and there are a number of deep wells cut in the rock.* The ruins of Medaba are about two miles in cir- cumference. There are many remains of the walls 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 Medaba," 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 Arabs. ^^ There is also the foundation of a temple built with large stones, and apparently of great antiquity, with two columns near it.2 The ruins of Diban, (Dibon,) situated in the midst of a fine plain, are of considerable extent, but present nothing of interest.^ The neighbouring hot wells, and the similarity of the name, identify the ruins of Myoun with Meonj or Beth-meon of Scripture.'* Of this ancient city, as well as of Araayr, (Aroer,) notliing is now re- markable but what is common to them with all the cities of Moab — their entire desolation. The extent of the ruins of Rabba (Rabbath-Moab,) formerly the residence of the kings of Moab, suflSciently proves its ancient im- portance, though no other object can be particularized ' Burckhardt's Travels in Syria, p. 365. 2 Burckhardt's Travels, p. 366; Seetzen's Travels, p. 37; Cap tains Irby and Mangles's Travels, p. 471. 3 Captains Irby and-Mangles's Travels, p. 462 ; Seetzen's Tra- vels, p. 38. '* Burckhardt's Travels, p. 365 ; Irby and Mangles's Travels, p. 464. 166 MOAB. among the ruins, except the remains of a palace or tem- ple, some of the walls of which are still standing ; a gate belonging to another building ; and an insulated altar. There are many remains of private buildings, but none entire. There being no springs on the spot, the town h^d two birkets, the largest of which is cut entirely out of the rocky ground, together with many cisterns.* Mount JVebo was completely barren when Burckhardt passed over it, and the site of the ancient city had not been ascertained.'' JVebo is spoiled. While the 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 pro- phet, they yet 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. Not 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 re- mote antiquity, is the only nominal town in the whole country ; and, in the words of Seetzen, who visited it, " in its present ruined state it can only he called a ham- let; and the houses have only one floor. "^ But the most populous and fertile province in Europe- (especially any situated in the interior of a country like Moab) is not covered so thickly with towns as Moab is plentifiil m ruins, deserted and desolate though now it be. Burck- hardt enumerates about Jifty ruined sites within its boundaries, many of them extensive. In general they are a broken down and undistinguishable mass of ruins ; and many of them have not been closely inspected. But in some instances, there are the remains of temples, se- pulchral monuments, the ruins of edifices constructed of 1 Seetzen's Travels, p. 39 ; Burckhardt's Travels, p. 377. « Burckhardi's Travels, p. 370. 3 Burckhardt's Travels, p. 338 ; Seetzen's Travels, p. 39. MOAB. 167 very large stones, in one of which buildings " some of the stones are twenty feet in length, and so broad that one constitutes the thickness 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 Moab existed in their prime, and -were at ease, — when arrogance and haughtiness and pride prevailed amongst them, the desolation and total desertion and abandonment of them all must have utterly surpassed all human con- ception. And that such numerous cities, which sub- sisted for many ages — which were diversified in their sites, some of them being built on eminences, and na- turally 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 defi- ciencies of nature, and where immense cisterns were ex- cavated out of the rock, — and which exhibit in their ruins many monuments of ancient prosperity, and many remains easily convertible into present utility, — should have all fled away, all met the same indiscriminate fate, and be all desolate without any to dwell therein^ notwith- standing 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 triumph- antly abide it. They shall cry of Moab, How is it broken down ! The valley also shall perish, and the plain shall be 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 to desolation. The different tribes of Arabs who tra- verse it, not only bear a permanent and habitual hostility to Christians and to Turks, but one tribe is often at va- 168 MOAB. nance and at war with another ; and the regular cultiva- tion 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. Pro- perty is there the creature of power and not of law ; and possession forms no security wh^ere plunder is the prefer- able 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 de- generate 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 territory are now cultivated by Arabs ;" and these only " whenever they have the prospect of being able to secure the harvest against the incursions of enemies."* The Arab herds now roam at freedom over the valleys and the plains ; and " the many vestiges of field enclo- sures"" 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 flocks 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 in- habitants 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. The days come, saith the Lord, that I will send unto him {Moab) 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 » Burckhardt's Travels in Syria, p. 369. 2 Ibid. p. 365. MOAB. 169 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 although the fruitfulness of the soil would abundantly repay 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 re- duced to beggary by their unceasing demands."* 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 holers mouth. In a general description of the condition of the inhabitants of that extensive desert which now" occupies the place of these ancient flourish- ing states, Volney, in plain but unmeant illustration of this prediction, remarks, that " the wretched peasants live in perpetual 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."^ To- wards 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 designates them " the inhabitants of the rocks. "^ And at the distance of a few miles from the ruined site of Heshbon, " there are many artificial caves in a large range of perpendicular cliflfs, in some of which are chambers and small sleeping apartments."* While the 1 Burckhardt's Travels in Syria, p. 381. 2 Volney's Travels, vol. ii. p. 344. 3 Seetzen's Travels, p. 26. See Monthly Review, vol. Ixxi. p. 405. '' Captains Irby and Mangles's Travels, p. 473. 15 170 MOAB. cities are desolate without any to dwell therein, the rocks are tenanted. But whether flocks lie down in the former, loithout 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 transitior\, 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 futurity is as light, and without whom a sparrow cannot fall unto the ground.* And although chargeable with the impropriety of be- ing somewhat out of place, it may not be here altogether improper to remark, that, demonstrative as all these clear predictions and coincident facts are of the inspira- tion 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 ' 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 raa)'^ have met its primary fulfilment in a much earlier age. Yet it is so in- telligible, that the fact, to which it bears an unrestrained applica- tion, may be left as its sole and adequate exposition : and the con- tinued truth of the prophecy greatly strengthens, instead of weak- ening the evidence of its inspiration. And how is Moab broken down and spoiled, when, in lieu of the arrogancy and exceeding pride and haughtiness of its ancient inhabitants, the following description is characteristic of the wanderers who now possess it ! " In the valley of Wale," which is situated in the immediate vicinity of the river .>^rnon, into which the Wale flows, Burckhardt 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 wan- der about in misery, have very few horses, and are not able to feed any flocks of sheep or goats.— Their tents are very miserable ; both men and women go almost naked, the former being only covered round the waist, and the women wearing nothing but a loose shirt hanging in rags about them." Moab shall be a derision. As a wandering bird cast out of the nest, so the daughters of Moab shall be at the fords of ArnxoTx. (iBiarckhardt's Travels, pp. 370, 371; Jer. xlviii. 89 ; Isa. jcvi. 2.) MOAB. Hi 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 denunciation, are the word of that God, who, although he suffers not iniquity to pass un- punished, overrules evil for good, and makes the wrath of man to praise him, and who in the midst of judg- ment can remember mercy. And, reasoning merely from the " uniform 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 per- ceive the full force of the truth derived from experience,* and acknowledge that it would be a rejection of the authority of reason as well as of revelation, to mistrust the truth of that prophetic affirmation of resuscitating and redeeming import, respecting Ammon and Moab, which is the last of the series, and which alone now awaits futurity to stamp it with the brilliant and crown- ing seal of its testimony. " I will bring again the cap- tivity of Moab in the latter days, saith the Lord.^ I will bring again the captivity of the children of Ammon, saith the Lord.^ The remnant of my people shall pos- sess 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."* ' "Being determined by custom to transfer the past, to the future in all our inferences ; where the past has been entirely regular 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. ' Jer. xlix. 6. '' Zeph. ii. 9. * Isa. Ixi. 4, Iviii. 12; Ezek. xxxvi. 33, 36. 172 IDUMEA. IDUMEA. But a heavier and irreversible doom was deiiounced against the land of Edom or Iduinea ; and the testimony of an infidel was the first to show how it has been real- ized. That testimony, as forming an exposition of itself, may, in a primary view of them, be subjoined to the prophecies, and must have its due influence on every unbiassed mind. There are numerous prophecies re- specting Idumea, that bear a literal interpretation, how- ever hyperbolical they may appear. " My sword shall come down upon Idumea, and upon the people of my curse, to judgment. From generation to generation it shall lie waste ; none shall pass through it for ever and ever. But the cormorant and the bittern shall possess it ; the owl also and the raven shall dwell in it : and he shall stretch out upon it the line of confusion, and the stones of emptiness. They shall call the nobles thereof to the kingdom, but none shall be there, and all her princes shall be nothing. And thorns shall come up in her palaces, nettles and brambles in the fortresses thereof; and it shall be a habitation of 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 (or hairy 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 hatch, and gather under her shadow: there shall the vultures also be 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 ^or ever, from generation to generation shall they dwell IDUMEA. 173 therein.* Concerning Edom, thus saith the Lord of hosts, Is wisdom no more in Teman ? is counsel perished from the prudent ? 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 destroy 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 become a desolation, a reproach, a waste, and a curse ; and all the cities thereof shall be perpetual wastes. Lo, I will make thee small among the heathen, and despised among men. Thy terribleness hath deceived thee, and the pride of thine heart, O thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, that boldest 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 ; every one that goeth by shall be astonished, and shall hiss at all the plagues thereof. As in the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the neighbour cities thereof, 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. ^ 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 deso- late. I will lay thy cities waste, and thou shalt be deso- late.'* Thus will I make Mount Seir most desolate, and cut off from it him that passeth out, and him that retum- ' Isa. xxxiv. 5, 10—17. 2 jer. xlix. 7—10, 12, 13, 15—18. 3 Ezek. XXV. 13. ^ Ezek. xxxv. 1—4. 15* 174 IDUMEA. eth.* I will make thee perpetual desolations, and thy cities shall not return.* When the whole earth rejoiceth, I will make thee desolate. Thou shalt be desolate, O Mount Seir, and all Idumea, even all of it ; and they shall know that I am the Lord.^ Edom shall be a deso- late wilderness.'* For three transgressions of Edom, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof.* Thus saith the Lord concerning Edom, I have made thee small among the heathen, thou art greatly despised. Tlie pride of thine heart hath deceived thee, thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, whose habitation is high. Shall I not destroy the wise men out of Edom, and understanding out of the mount of Esau ? The house of Jacob shall possess their possessions, but there shall not be any remaining of the house of Esau.* 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."^ Is there any country, once inhabited and opulent, so utterly desolate? There is, and that land is Idumea. The territory of the descend- ants of Esau affords as miraculous a demonstration of the inspiration of the Scriptures, as the fate of the child- ren 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 hem visited by any traveller, but it well merits such an atten- tion : for from the report of the Arabs of Bakir, and the inhabitants of Gaza, who frequently go to Maan and 1 Ezek. XXXV. 7. 2 Ezek. xxxv. 9. s Ezek. xxxv. 14, 15. " Joel iii. 19. 5 Amos i. 11. e obad. 1— 3, 8, 17, 18. ^ Mai. i. 3, 4. IDUMEA. 175 Karak, on the road of the pilgrims, there are to the south-east of the lake Asphaltites, (Dead Sea,) vnthin three days^ journey, upwards of thirty ruined towns a5- solutely 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 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 Idumeans, who, at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem, were almost as numerous as the Jews, as appears from Josephus, who informs us, that on the first rumour of the march of Titus against Jerusalem, thirty thousand Idumeans instantly assem- bled, 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 situated on the adjacent gulf of the Red 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 possessed a town, the name of which is unknown, on the coast of Hedjaz, in the desert of Tih, and the city of Faran, and, without doubt, El-Tor, which served it by way of port. From this place, the caravans might reach ' This fort is at present in the possession of the Pasha of Egypt 176 IDUMEA. Palestine and Judea" (through Idumea) " in eight or ten days. This route, which is no longer than that frora Suez to Cairo, is infinitely shorter than that from Aleppo to Bassorah."^ Evidence, which must have been unde- signed, which cannot 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 posterior to the delivery of the pro- phecies : that they possessed a tolerably good govern- ment, (even in the estimation of Volney ;) that Idumea contained many cities ; that these cities are now abso- lutely deserted, and that their ruins swarm with enor- mous scorpions ; that it was a commercial nation, and possessed highly frequented marts ; that it forms a shorter route than an ordinary one to India, and yet that it had not been visited by any traveller ; are facts all recorded, or proved to a wish, by this able but unconscious com- mentator.^ 1 Volney's Travels, vol. ii. pp. 344 — 346. 3 None shall pass through it for ever and ever. This prophecy has been understood in its most literal and absolute sense as affirming that in all time to come no one should ever be able to pass through this land ; but even those who adopt this interpretation must ne- cessarily admit that it is subject to certain limitations. When taken in its most literal sense, it can be viewed only as referring to strangers, and not to the natives of the desert, who have been in the habit from time immemorial of traversing the country ; but even in this limited sense the interpretation, we conceive, is very unsafe, and not quite tenable consistently with events which have already taken place. We grant that for many ages Edom re- mained unvisited ; her sands were trodden only by the foot of the Bedouin, and the eye of the stranger never beheld the illustrious monuments which her dark mountains conceal. The gates of the country, though standing wide open, appeared to be as com- pletely barred against the natives of other lands, as if the same sword which guarded of old the doors of Eden had flamed before the mountain passes of Seir. But now these gates have been entered, the country has been explored and traversed in every direction, and even the veil of Wady Mousa has been lifted up, and the monuments of that mysterious valley revealed to the eyes of Europe. Nevertheless, the prediction of the prophet has re- ceived a striking fulfilment. Amid the mountains of Edom stood IDUMEA. VT7 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 a city which, in ancient times, was the centre of the trade of the world. To this city the eastern tribes transported the merchan- dise of India and Arabia; and from this point it was again sent forth to the nations of the west. To this trade, and the great and continual intercourse which it occasioned between all countries and Edom, the prophet unquestionably refers. His prediction, " I will cut off from it him that passeth out and him that returneth," simply imports, we conceive, the entire annihilation of that traffic. And never did prophecy receive a more striking fulfilment. We have already contemplated the small beginnings from which arose the magnificent commerce of Idumea. The early Edomite freighted his bark with the produce of Arabia, and having launched it on the bosom of the Red Sea, guided it along the shore to Ethiopia and Egypt, whence he returned laden with such neces- saries as his own country did not supply. This trade gradually increased, till at last, as Strabo informs us, armies of camels were employed in conveying it through Edom to the Mediterranean. At that time Edom was the great thoroughfare of the world. Petra was the mart of nations. To this city long lines of caravans might be seen directing their course from the Persian gulf, from all points of Arabia, and from the shores of the Red Sea ; here they all met, and deposited their wares ; which other caravans conveyed to the shores of the Mediterranean, over whose waters they were transported to the nations of the west. Under the reign of the Greeks, the commerce of Idumea appears to have reached its height, and the vast wealth which it poured into the country is attested by the numbers of its people and the splendours of its capital. The conquests of the Romans, which opened new chan- nels of trade, disturbed the commercial relations of Idumea. The traffic of the Persian gulf, which now began to ascend the Euphrates, was carried across the Desert at a much higher point than Petra. Palmyra rose with unrivalled splendour in the midst of sands ; and from this period, the Nabathean trade began rapidly to decline, their capital to be deserted, and their people to return to their former pastoral and wandering habits. The discoveries of the Portuguese gave the death-blow to their commerce. The merchandise of India is now carried into Europe by sea ; and many centuries have elapsed since a single caravan or a solitary trader was seen passing out or returning to this land. Who but Omniscience could have foreseen the discoveries to which future ages were lo give birth, and the effects these discoveries were to produce in opening new channels of trade, and filling with deso- lation and silence the ancient and once crowded thoroughfare of Edom 1 And when we think that there is not the least likeliho«.4 of the commerce of the world ever reverting to its old channel, 178 IDUMEA. reigned any king over the children of Israel.^ Its fer- tility and early cultivation 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 Edomites, when he solicited a passage for. the Israelites through their borders, " that they would not pass through the fields or through the vineyards ;'' and also in the great wealth, especially in the multitudes of flocks and herds, recorded as possessed by an individual inhabitant of that country, at a period, in all probability, even more re- mote.^ The Iduraeans were, without doubt, both an opulent and a powerful people. They often contended with the Israelites, 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 dispersed throughout the neighbour- ing countries, particularly 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 do- minion over the south-western part of Judea. Though no excellence whatever be now attached to its name, which exists only in past history, Idumea, including perhaps Judea, as Reland has shown, was then not with- out the praise of the first of Roman poets. Primus Idumceas 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 abunjdance of its flocks, or the excellence of its palm trees. The celebrated cit}' of we see that Jehovah has not only fulfilled the prediction in cut- ting off from Edom him that passeth out, and him that returneth, but that, in all time to come, none shall pass through it for ever and ever. — Wy lie's Modern Jvdea. 1 Genesis xxxvi. 31 — 43. 3 Gen. xxvii. 39; Num. xx. 17; Job xlii. 12. IDUMEA. , 179 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 Edomites. There is distinct and positive evidence that it was a city of Edom,* and the metropolis of the Naba- theans,'' whom Strabo expressly identifies with the Idu- means — possessors of the same country, and subject to the same laws.^ " Petra," to use the words of Dr. Vin- cent, by whom the state of its ancient commerce was described before its ruins were discovered, " is the capi- tal 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."* " The caravans, in all ages, from Minea, in the interior of Arabia, and from Gerrha on the Gulf of Persia, 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 seem's again to have branched out into every direc- tion, to Egypt, Palestine, and Syria, through Arsinoe, Gaza, Tyre, Jerusalem, Damascus, and a variety of sub- ordinate 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 in- troduced 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 this commerce, Petra* was the point to which all ' Petra being afterwards more particularly noticed, some quota- tions from ancient authors respecting it may here be subjoined. UtrgA TToxK iv yn ESw/uc t»? Agct^uts. (Eusebii Onomast.) " Petra civitas Arabise in terra Edom." Hieron. torn. iii. p. 59. Vide Relandi Palestina, tom. 1, p. 70. ^ M»T^o7ro\is Jt Tcev tin^ATcucev uttiv « TliTgct x-ctKovfAiVn. — Strabo, lib. xvi. p. 779, edit. Paris, 1620, ed. Falc. p. 1106. 3 NctjiaTcuot Amos ix. 11, 12; Ezek. xxxv. 11, 14. 2 Strabo, p. 779. ^ Burckhardt's Travels, p. 438. 4 Irby and Mangles's Travels, p. 417; Macmichael's Journey, pp. 202, 234. IDUMEA. 206 rienced by Burckhardt, " are a very bad people, and notorious robbers, and are at war with all others."* Such evidence, all undesignedly given, clearly shows that in truth Edom is called the border of wickedness. Thorns shall come up in her palaces^ nettles and bram- bles in the fortresses thereof In lieu of any direct and explicit statement in corroboration of the literal fulfil- ment of this prediction, it may be worthy of observation, that the camels of the Bedouins feed upon the thorny branches of the Talh (gum arabic) tree, of which they are extremely fond ; that the large thorns of these trees are a great annoyance to them, and to their cattle : and that they are so abundant in different parts of Idumea, that each Bedouin carries in his girdle a pair of small pincers to extract the thorns from his feet.^ Direct evi- dence may now be adduced (13th edit.) from the last pub- lished livraisons of M. Laborde. In describing the exist- ing state of Petra, he states, that the thorns rise to the same height with the columns ; creeping and" prickly plants hide the remains of the works of man ; the thorn, or bramble, reaches the top of the monuments, grows on their cornices, and conceals the base of the columns. But the precise fact has still more recently (23d edit.) been ascertained or confirmed, after a special examination on the spot, and with a direct reference to the prediction. " A square palace, near to the triumphal arch, is the only edifice of masonry standing. I entered it," writes Lord Claud Hamilton, " and examined the interior. The wooden joists still remain in the walls, apparently strong and sound. The usual arrangement of chambers exists, but only the lofty walls and partitions remain. The ground is strewed with fragments of the roof, hewn stone, and portions of the cornice, amongst which num- bers of thistles, prickly plants, and nettles grow. At first, I was not certain about the nettles ; but wishing to ascer- tain their identity, I put my hand to them, and thought they had not the force of English nettles, yet they gave ' Pococke's Description of the East, vol. i. p. 136. 2 Burckhardt's Travels in Syria, p. 446. 18 206 IDUMEA. a pungent feeling, 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 weakened them." Thus there were nettles in the only palace that the proud city of Petra contains ertect. ^ Thorns come up in her palaces, nettles and brambles in the fortresses thereof. I will make thee small among tJie nations, thou art greatly despised. Though the border of wickedness, and the retreat of a horde of thieves, who are distinguished as peculiarly savage even among the wild Arabs, and thus an object of dread as well as of astonishment to those who pass thereby, yet, contrasted with what it was, or reckoned 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 ragged 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 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 to- wards the southwest 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 heavy dews of night, was the scanty branches of the Talh trees. The subsistence of the Bedouins is often as precEirious as their habitations are mean ; the flocks they tend, oi IDUMEA. 207 which they pillage from more fertile regions, are their only possessions ; and in that land where commerce 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 wandering tenants of a desert. Edom is small among the nations ; and how greatly is it despised, when the public authorities at Con- stantinople 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 Teman9 is understanding perished from the pru- dent ? 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 pre- scription of many ages abrogate its right — might lay claim to the title of having been the first seat of learning, as well as the 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 prophets, the first of modern philosophers thus speaks of the wisdom of the Edomites in the earliest ages. " The Egyptians having learned the sJdll of the Edomites, began 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 beginning to astronomy and navigation."^ "It seems that letters, and astronomy, and the trade of car- penters, were invented by the merchants of the Red Sea, and that they were propagated from Arabia Petraea into Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Asia Minor, and Europe."^ While the philosopher may thus think of Edom with re- spect, neither the admirer of genius, the man of feeling, nor the child of devotion will, even to this day, seek ' Sir Isaac Newton's Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms, p. 208 2 Ibid. p. 312. 208 IDUMEA. from any Igind a richer treasure of plaintive poetry, of impassioned eloquence, 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 inner writhings of his mind, of the frailties of his frame, and of the dissolution of his earthly com- forts and endearments : all that mortal can discern, by meditating on the ways, and contemplating the works of God, of the omniscience and omnipotence of the Most High, and of the inscrutable dispensations of his provi- dence: all that knowledge which could first tell, in written word, of Arcturus, and Orion, and Pleiades ; and all that devotedness of soul, and immortality of hope, which — with patience that faltered not even when the heart was bruised, and almost broken, and the body co- vered 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 con- sider 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 " afterwards command the guardian of the trea- sure to set the whole before him."* In Teman, which yet maintains a precarious existence, the inhabitants pos- ' Burckhardt's Travels, p. 439. IDUMEA. ^ 209 sess 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 com- forter," and was overmastered in argument by a kins- man stricken with affliction, yet no Temanite can now discourse with either the wisdom or the pathos of Elir phaz of old. Wisdom is no more in Teman, and under- standing has perished out of tlie mount of Esau. 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 inhabited by man ; there still are tenants who hold possession of it, to whom it is abandoned by man, and to whom it was decreed by a voice more than mortal. " 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 hatch, and gather under her shadow; there shall the vultures also be 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 w^ant 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 they dwell therein."^ Such is the precision of the prophecies, so remote are they from all ambiguity of meaning, and so distinct are the events which they detail, that it is almost unneces- sary to remark that the different animals here enumerated were not all in the same manner, or in the same degree, to be possessors of Edom. Some of them were to rest, ' Isa. xxxiv. 11, 13—17. 18* Sid IDUMEA. to meet, to be gathered there ; the owl and the raven were to dwell in it, and it was to be a habitation for dragons ; while of the cormorant and bittern, it is em- phatically said, that they were to possess it. And is it not somewhat beyond a mere fortuitous coincidence, im- perfect as the information is f^specting Edom, that, in " seeliing out" proof concerning these animals, and whether none of them do fail, the most decisive evi- dence should, in the first instance, be unconsciously communicated from the boundaries of Edom, of the one which is first noted in the prediction, and which was to possess the land? It will at once be conceded, that in whatever country any particular animal is unknown, no proper translation of its name can -there be given ; and that for the purpose of designating or identifying it, reference must be had to the original name, and to the natural history of the country in which it is known. And, without any ambiguity or perplexity arising from the translation of the word, or any need of tracing it through any other languages to ascertain its import, the identical word of the original, with scarcely the slightest variation, (and that only the want of the final vowel in the Hebrew word, vowels in that language being often supplied in the enunciation or by points,) is, from the affinity of the Hebrew and Arabic, used on the very spot by the Arabs, to denote the very bird which may literally be said to possess the land. While in the last inhabited village of Moab, and close upon the borders of Edom, Burckhardt noted the animals which frequented the neighbouring territory, in which he distinctly specifies Shera, the land of the Edomites ; and he relates that " the bird katta* is met with in immense numbers. They fly in such large flocks that the Arab boys often kill two or three of them at a time, merely by throwing a stick ^mong them."^ If any objector be here inclined o say, that it is not to be wondered at that any par- • riNp kath, a species of partridge. It is sometimes written in :he original, katha. Onkel, Nnp, vide Simonis Lexicon, p. 1393. 2 Burckhardt's Travels in Syria, p. 406. IDUMEA. 211 ticular bird should be found in any given country, that it might continue to remain for a term of ages, and that such a surmise would not exceed the natural proba- bilities of the case ; the fact may be freely admitted as applicable, perhaps, to most countries of the globe. But who ever, elsewhere, saw any wild bird in any country in flocks so immensely numerous that two or three of them could be killed by the single throw of a stick from the hand of a boy ; and that this could be stated, not as a forcible and perhaps false illustration to denote their number, nor as a wonderful chance or unusual incident, but as a fact of frequent occurrence ? Who ever, else- where, heard of such a fact, not as happening merely on a sea-rock, the resort of myriads of birds, or their tem- porary resting-place when exhausted in their flight, but in an extensive country, their permanent abode ? Or if, among the manifold discoveries of travellers in modern times, it were really related that such occupants of a country are to be found, or that a corresponding fact exists in any other region of the earth which was once tenanted by man, who can also "find" in the records of a high antiquity the prediction that declared it ? Of what country now inhabited could the same fact be now with certainty foretold ? and where is the seer who can discern the vision, fix on the spot over the world's sur- face, and select, from the whole winged tribe, the name of the first in order, and the greatest in number, of the future and chief possessors of the land ? Of the bittern (kephud) as a joint possessor with the katta of Idumea, evidence has not been given or ascer- tained : — but numerous as the facts have been which modern discoveries have consigned over to the service of revelation, that word of truth which fears no investi- gation can appeal to other facts, unknown to history, and still undiscovered, but registered in prophecy, and thert long since revealed.* * Of the different animals, respecting which it is said, in tho judfjments denounced against Idumea, "No one of these shall fail," the first in order are the riNp kath and iMip kqihud, or, as read 212 IDUMEA. The owl also, and the raven, (or crow,) shall dwell in it. The owl and raven do dwell in it. Captain Man- wilh thB points, kippod, translated in our yersion, the cormorant and the bittern. It has long been my opinion, as intimated in previous editions, that -wop is the hedgehog or the porcupine, ai stated by Bochart, who calls* the one a species of the other. And as, from the similarity of the Hebrew and Ara- bic names, the kath may be identified with the kattay so also may the kephud with kunfud, the Arabic name of the hedgehog or porcupine. In Bochart's (Bocharti Opera, tom. iii. p. 1035— 1038, cap. xxxvi.) learned investigation or treatise on the name, he states that the word kunphud includes both, as is clear from Avicenna, who mentions the porcupine as one of the species. In Damir, whom he also quotes, the female hedgehog is called the mother of the porcupine, and the porcupine is called the large hedgehog. The Sepluagint and Vulgate translate the word t^^'^t and ericius the hedgehog. That the kunphud is the hedgehog, no one, says Bochart, will deny who will read Damir, where kmiphud is named abussuchi, the father of spines ; and ankado, i. e. a decorti- cator, or peeler; and alasaiso, because it wanders in the night; hence the proverb among the Arabs, — a greater night wanderer than the kunphud. That the kippod (or kephud) of the Hebrews, — the kuphad of the Chaldeans, — and the kunphud of the Arabs, says Bochart, are the same animal, will be acknowledged by every one who has any knowledge of this language. Lowth calls it the porcupine. Gesenius and Parkhurst translate the word, the hedgehog. Being persuaded that such was the significancy of the word, on passing within two days' journey of Petra, accompanied by an Arab guide who had repeatedly visited it, I made special inquiry, wherever opportunity offered, in passing through the desert, and at Jerusalem and Hebron, whether hedgehogs or porcupines are to be found in Idumea. Different Arabs who were questioned concerning it, knew the kunphud well. The guide described it as an animal with four feet, and a small head, which creeps into holes among the ruins, and is covered with very strong hair. Ac- cording to his account, they abound in Wady Mousa; but are not to be seen in the day-time, as they come forth only at night, and thus they may have been unnoticed by travellers. He said that some of them, carried from Wady Mousa, would likely be found in Hebron. On inquiry at that town, I was informed that the Arabs caught them among the ruins of Wady Mousa, by putting cloaks over their holes during night, and catching them on their return ; and that the reason why they caught and carried them to Hebron was, that their blood was accounted a cure for sore eyes. There being none of them at that time in Hebron, M. Elias, a Greek Christian, offered to send to Petra for some of them, and to forward them for me to Jerusalem. But the evidence of their IDUMEA. 213 gles relates, that while he and his fellow-travellers were examining the ruins and contemplating the sublime scenery of Petra, " the screaming of the eagles, hawks, and owls, who were soaring above their heads in con- siderable numbers, seemingly annoyed at any one ap- proaching their lonely habitation, added much to the singularity of the scene." " The' fields of Tafyle," situated in the immediate vicinity of Edom, are, accord- ing to the observations of Burckhardt, "frequented by an immense number of crows."* " I expected," says Seetzen, (alluding to his purposed tour through Idumea, and to the information he had received from the Arabs,) " to make several discoveries in mineralogy, as well as in the animals and vegetables of the country, on the manna of the desert, the ravens,"^ &c. It shall he a habitation for dragons {serpents.) I laid his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness. The evidence, though derived from testimony, and not from personal observation, of two travellers of so con- trary characters and views as Shaw and Volney, is so accordant and apposite, that it may well be sustained in lieu of more direct proof. The former represents the land of Edom, and the wilderness of which it now forms part, as abounding with a variety of lizards and vipers which are very dangerous and troublesome.^ And the narrative given by Volney, already quoted, is equally decisive as to the fact. The Arabs, in general, avoid the ruins of the cities of Idumea, " on account being actually taken in Edom would have rested merely on the testimony of the Arab bearer, and would scarcely have been satisfactory. An English traveller stated that he saw a dead por- cupine in a valley near to Petra. Though not amounting to a full elucidation, as required in the text, these circumstances, to which others might be added, are worthy of notice, as they may lead to farther inquiry, and complete the proof, that the kephud, like the katta, with its almost unchanged name, possesses Edom, and has its habitation in the midst of the ruins of Petra, and that no one of these do fail. ' Burckhardt's Travels, p. 405. 2 Seetzen's Travels, p. 46. 3 Shaw's Travels, vol. ii. pp. 105, 338. 214 IDUMEA. of tJie enormous scorpions with which they swarms Its cities thus deserted by man, and abandoned to their un- disturbed and hereditary possession, Edom may be justly called the inheritance of dragons. The wild beasts of the desert shall also meet vnth the wild: beasts of the island, (or -the borders of the sea.) Instead of these words of the English version, Parkhurst renders the former the ravenous birds inhabiting the toil- derness. The interpretation was given long before the fact to which it refers was made known. But it has now been ascertained (and without any allusion, on the other hand, to the prediction) that eagles,* hawks, and ravens, all ravenous birds, are common in Edom, and do not fail to illustrate the prediction as thus translated. But when animals from different regions are said to meet, the prophecy thus implying that some of them at least did not properly pertain to the country, would seem to require some further verification. And of all the won- derful 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 pass here unnoted. It is recorded in an ancient chronicle, that the emperor Decius caused fierce lions and lionesses to be transported from [the deserts of] Africa to the borders of Palestine and Arabia, in order that, propagating there, they might act as an annoy- ance and a barrier to the barbarous Saracens.^ Between Arabia and Palestine Jies the doomed and execrated land of Edom. And may it not thus be added, that a cause so unnatural and unforeseen would greatly tend to the destruction of the flocks, and to the desolation of all the adjoining territory, and seem to be as if the king of the forest was to take possession of it for his subjects ? And may it not be even literally said, that the wild beasts of ' Burckhardt's Travels, p. 405. 2 'O avToc AuKio? /ict^c, a he-goat, is from t^^xjuc, rough, on ac- count 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.) 3 Burckhardt's Travels in Syria. 216 IDUMEA. them and remained longer on the spot, relate in a like in- cidental manner, that at night the screech-owl was heard above the rest. There she rests, and finds for herself a place of rest. And as each or any of these is known to man, and can 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 scream- ing 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 tJiey are gathered together, every one vnth her mate. But the evidence respecting all the animals specified in the prophecy, as the future possessors of Edom, is not yet complete, and is difficult to be ascertained. And, in words that seem to indicate this very difficulty, it is still reserved for future travellers to disclose the facts ; and for future inquirers, whether Christian or infidel, to seek out of the book of the Lord and read ; and to " find that no one of these do fail." Yet, recent as the disclo- sure of any information respecting them has been, and offered, as it now for the first time is, for the considera- tion of every candid mind, the positive terms and single- ness of object of the prophecies themselves, and the undesigned and decisive evidence, 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 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 could not easily have been dislodged, there scarcely could have been a question, even among its enemies, to what jaeop/g that country would eventually belong. And it never could have been thought of by any native of another IDUMEA. 217 land, as the Jewish prophets were, nor by any unin- spired mortal whatever, that a kingdom, which had pre viously subsisted so long, (and in which princes ceasea not to reign, commence 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 indestructi- ble 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 generation to generation. There shall not he any remaining of the house of Esau. Edom shall he 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 subsequent history to have been foreseen by man. The Idumeans were soon after mingled wdth the Nabatheans. 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 outcast from Syria, among whose kingdoms it had long been numbered, was united to Arabia Petraea.* 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 pos- terity 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 ' Origen, lib. iii. in Job. 19 SIS IDUMEA. period of nearly equal duration has proved, been cut off for ever ; and while Jews are in eveiy land, there is not any remaining, on any spot of 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 Christian era ; successive kings and princes reigned in Petra ; and magnificent tombs and temples, whose empty chambers and naked walls of wonderful archi- tecture 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 great- ness lost, that there is no record of antiquity that can so clearly show us what once it was, in the days of its power, as we can now read in the page of prophecy, its existing desolation. But in that place where kings kept their court, and where nobles assembled, where manifest proofs of ancient opulence are concentrated, where princely mausoleums, retaining 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 complete, so neither is the time of the final IDUMEA. 219 judgments on the land yet fully come. Judea, Ammon, and Moab, according 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 recompenses 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 therein. 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 skeptic, who possesses such redundant credulity as to think, that all the predic- tions respecting Edom, and all others recorded in Scrip- ture, and realized by facts, were the mere hap-hazard results of fortuitous conjectures. And he who thus, without reflecting 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 belief. Or if such, after all, must needs be his philosophical creed, and his rational con- viction ! 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 ene- mies of the gospel, whether hypocrites 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 220 IDUMEA. the conviction which in the former case he so readily cherishes, is totally destitute of £my 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 Scrip- ture, till "experience," personaVthough it be, should prove them to be as true as the past, and a compulsory and un- changeable but unredeeming faith be grafted on despair ? Or if less proof can possibly suffice, let him timely read and examine, and disprove also, all the credentials of revelation, before he account the believer credulous, or the unbeliever wise ; or else let him abandon the thought that the unrepented 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 warn- ing lost) shall not finally forbid that Edom stand alone, the seared and blasted monument of the judgments of Heaven. A w^ord 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 supe- rior knowledge were unaccompanied by religious princi- ples, would all mechanical and physical science eventu- ally prove, but the same, in kind, as the wisdom of the wise men of Edom ? And were they to perfect in astro- nomy, 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 accountable beings, if their own hearts were not con- formed to the divine will ; and what would all their la- bour be at last, but strength spent for naught ? For were they to raise column above column, and again to hew a zity out of the cliffs of the rock, let but such another ^ord of that God, whom they seek not to know, go forth IDUMEA. 221 against it, and all their mechanical ingenuity and labour would just end in forming — that which Petra is, and which Rome itself is destined to be — " a cage of every unclean and 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 know- ledge 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 dwell- ings 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 occu- pants of the immortal spirit, than are the owls amid the palaces of Edom ; and where all those sinful passions, which rested on the things which were seen, shall be like unto the scorpions which hold Edom as their heritage for ever, and which none can now scare away from among the wild vines that are there entwined around the broken altars, where false gods were worshipped. 19* 222 PHILISTIA. PHILISTIA. The land of the Philistines bordered on the west and south-west of Judea, and lies on the south-east point oi the Mediterranean Sea. The country to the north of Gaza is very fertile, and long after the Christian era it possessed a very numerous population, and strongly for- tified cities. No human probability could possibly have existed, in the time of the prophets, or at a much more recent date, of its eventual desolation. But it has belied, for many ages, every promise which the fertility of its soil, and the excellence both of its climate and situation gave, for many preceding centuries, of its permanency as a rich and well-cultivated region. And 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 natural suggestion, as they are descriptive of what Philistia now actually is. " I will stretch out my hand upon the Philistines, and destroy the remnant of the sea-coasts."^ "Baldness is come upon Gaza ; Ashkelon is cut off with the remnant of their valley."^ "Thus saith the Lord, For three transgressions of Gaza, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof. I will send a fire upon the wall of Gaza, which shall devour the palaces thereof. And I will cut off the inhabitant from Ashdod, and him that holdeth the sceptre from Ashkelon ; and I will turn my hand against Ekron ; and the remnant of the Philistines shall perish, saith the Lord God."^ " For Ashkelon shall be a desolation, and Ekron shall be rooted up. Canaan, the land of the Philistines, I will even destroy thee, that there shall be no inhabitant ; and the sea-coasts shall be dwellings and cottages for shepherds, and folds for • Ezek. XXV. 16 2 jer. xlvii. 6. ' Amos L fi- 7. 8. PHILISTIA. 223 flocks."' " The king shall perish from Gaza, and Ash- kelon shall not be inhabited."^ The land of the Philistines was to he destroyed. It partakes of the general desolation common to it with Judea and other neighbouring states. While ruins are to be found in all Syria, they are particularly abundant along the sea-coasts, which formed, on the south, the realm of the Philistines. But its aspect presents some existing peculiarities, which travellers fail not to particu- larize, 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 authenticated 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 gene- ralizes his observations, and marks the peculiar features of the different districts of Syria, with greater acuteness and perspicuity than any other traveller whatever, is the ever-ready purveyor of evidence in all the cases which came within the range of his topographical description of the wide field of prophecy ; while, at the same time, from his known, open, and zealous hostility to the Chris- tian cause, his testimony is alike decisive and unques- tionable ; and the vindication of the truth of the follow- ing predictions may safely be committed to this redoubted champion of infidelity. The sea-coast shall he 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 he forsaken. The king shall perish from Gaza. I will cut of the inhabitants from Ashdod. Ashkelon shall he a desolation ; it shall he cut off" with the remnant of the valley ; it shall not he inhabited. " In the plain between Ramla and Gaza," (the very plain of the Philistines ' Zeph. ii. 4, 5, 6. 2 Zech. ix. 5. 224 PHILISTIA. along the sea-coast) " we met with a number of villages, badly built of dri«d mud, and which, like the inhabit- ants, exhibit every mark of poverty and wretchedness. The houses, on a nearer view, are only so many huts, (cottages,) sometimes detached, at others ranged in the forni of cells, around a courtyard, 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 shep- herds, and folds for fiocks.) Except the environs of these villages, all the rest of the country is a desert, and abandoned to the Bedouin Arabs, who feed their flocks on it."* The remnant shall perish ; the land of the Philistines shall be destroyed that there shall be no in- habitant, and the sea-coast shall be dwellings and cot- tages for shepherds, and folds for flocks. "The ruins of white marble sometimes found at Gaza, prove that it was formerly the abode of luxury and opu- lence. It has vshared in the general destruction ; and, notwithstanding its proud title of the capital of Pales- tine, it is now no more than a defenceless village," (baldness has come upon it,) " peopled by, at most, only two thousand inhabitants."^ It vi 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."-^ It shall be a desolation. Ashke- lon shall not be iJihabited. " Amidst the various suc- cessive ruins, those of Edzoud, (Ashdod,) so powerful under the Philistines, are now remarkable for their scor- pions."* The inhabitants shall be cut off" from Ashdod. Although the Christian traveller must yield the palm to Volney,* as the topographer of prophecy, and although 1 Volney's Travels, vol. ii. pp. 335, 336. 2 ibj^. p. 340. 3 Ibid. vol. ii. p. 338. "^ Ibid. * 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 evi- PHILISTIA. as© 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 ful- filled. The king shall perish from Gaza, and Ashkelon shall not be 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 Chris- tian era, and we behold its accomplishment eighteen hun- dred vears after that event." years JH 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 ; Ash- kelon, a desolation, and without an inhabitant ; the in- habitants also cut off" from Ashdod, as reptiles tenanted it instead of men, — form in each instance a specific predic- dence, in many an instance, comes so very close to the predic- tions, 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 greed)- ear to his utterance of some of the wildest fancies and most gross untruths that ever emanated from the mind of man, or ever en- tered into a deceitful heart. He who so artfully could pervert the truth, falls the victim of facts stated by himself. ' Richardson's Travels, vol. ii. p. 204. 236 PHILISTIA. tion, and a recorded fact, and present such a view of the existing state of Philistia, as renders it difficult to deter- mine, from the strictest accordance that prevails between Doth, 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 circum- stances, 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 history, the priority of the predictions to the events is equally obvious. And such was the natural fertility of the country, and such was the strength and celebrity of the cities, that no con- jecture 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 afterwards over- threw the Persian empire, having there, as well as at Tyre, been checked or delayed in the first flush of con- quest, and he himself having, been twice wounded in desperate attempts to storm the city, the proud and en- raged king of Macedon, with all the cruelty of a brutish heart, and boasting of himself as a second Achilles, dragged at his chariot-wheels the intrepid general who had defended it, twice around the walls of Gaza.* Ash- kelon was no less celebrated for the excellence of its wines than for the strength of its fortifications. ^ And of Ashdod, it is related by an eminent ancient historian, not only 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 Psammetichus, king of Egypt.^ Strabo, after the commencement of the Chris- tian era, classes its citizens among the chief inhabitants ' Quintus Curtius, lib. iv. cap. xxvi. 2 Relandi Palaest. pp. 341, 586. 3 Herodot. Hist. lib. ii. cap. clvii. PHILISTIA. 227 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 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.* The once princely magnifi- cence of Gaza is still attested by the " ruins of white marble ;" and the house of the present Aga is composed of fragments of ancient columns, cornices, &c. ; and in the court-yard, and immured in the wall, are shafts and capitals of granite columns. '^ 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 remTiant of that land, which gave titles and grandeur to the lords of the Philisrines, is destroyed. Gaza, the chief of its satrapies, " the abode of luxury and opulence," now bereaved of its Icing, and bald of all its fortifications, is the defenceless residence of a subsidiary ruler of a de- vastated province ; and, in kindred degradation, orna- ments 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 de- fied 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 inha- bitant. And Ashdod, 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 has fallen before it to nothing. ' Relandi Palaest. pp. 595, 609, 797. 2 General Straton's MS. GAZA. There is yet another city which was noted by the pro- phets, the very want of any information respecting which, and the absence of its name from several modern mapp of Palestine, while the sites of other ruined cities arc marked, are really the best confirmation of the truth of the prophecy that could possibly be given. Ekron shall he rooted up. It is rooted up. It was one of the chief cities of the Philistines ; but though Gaza still subsists, and while Ashkelon and Ashdod retain their names in their ruins, the very name of Ekron is missing.* 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, having the testimony of Volney to all the facts, and also indisputable 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. Of the truth of the prophecies concerning tenantless Ashkelon and uprooted Ekron, 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 re- maining town in Philistia, 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 in- habitants. But, as in some other instances, the author has been dnven from a comparatively vague or unde- fined to a strictly literal interpretation. 1 In the map prefixed to Dr. Sliaw's Travels, Akron is indeed marked ; but it is placed close upon the sea-coast, whereas Ekron was situated in the interior, and was at least ten miles distant. Shaw did not visit the spot. Dr. Richardson passed some ruins near to Ashdod, and conjectures that they were probably Ekron, But neither does the site of them correspond with that of Ekron, which, according to Eusebius, lay between Ashdod and Jamnia, towards the east or inland. (Vide Relandi Palaest. p. 77.) Any diversity of opinion respecting its site is not the least conclusive proof that it is rooted up. GAZA. 229 Baldness shall come upon Gaza. It shall be forsaken. The writer, after having unconsciously rested a night on the site of ancient Gaza, 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 pre- valent 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 imagining that any clearer illustration could be given, and ignorant or forgetful at the time of any historical tes- timony that the site of modern differed from that of an- cient 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 every traveller in the east, as clearly indicating the site of an ancient city, are abundant, but most minute. Innumerable fragments of broken pottery, pieces of glass, (some of which were beautifully painted,) of polished marble, and fused stones, as if they had come forth from a furnace, lie thickly spread in every level and hollow place not buried under sand, at a considerable elevation and various distances, on a space more than two miles in length, and nearly a mile in breadth. These obvious indications of the site of an ancient city, recurring over a wide extent, are so abundant, that the number of dif- ferent places in which they profusely lie can scarcely be reckoned under fifty, yet uncovered by the sand, which not unfrequently surmounts them on every side. They generally occupy a level space, far firmer than the sur- rounding 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, ex- tends, on the west and west-south-west, from the environs of the modern Gaza nearly to the sea. 20 230 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, its perfect baldness shows how truly that word of 'the Lord rests upon it. The writer looked in vain 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 vici- nity, 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 geographer Strabo, who lived at the commencement of the Christian era, in describing the coast of Syria, re- ' cords : " Afterwards is the port of Gaza, and at the dis- tance of seven furlongs the city, formerly illustrious, which was destroyed by Alexander, and remaining desert. ^''^ The distance of seven stadia from the shore would have formed about the centre of the ancient city, as now seen by its rubbish. But the modern town Hes at the distance of about three miles. 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 century, scarcely a vestige existed of the ancient city, and that ' EiS* Tav T^Atuy ?J(juiv 7rx»a-iov vTri^jctiTcu h kai « mKii h hrra. a-raiJioic, Wo^of Trent y4V0fxiv>i, KArtTTrtterjum / Cm AXt^rtv/gow, k Nahum ii. 6, 8, i. 8. 2 Diod. Sic. lib. ii. pp. 81, 84. Univ. Hist. vol. iv. pp. 305—308. 3 Nahum i. 10. 4 Nahum ii. 9. * Diod. p. 87. " The two armies," says Rollin, after quoting this prophecy, "enriched themselves with the spoils of Nineveh." Vol. ii. p. 103. Bishop Newton. 6 Nahum iii. 15. 7 See Bishop Newton's Dissertation ix. Nmeveh, 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 the 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.^ahum ii. 8 — 13; and he adds, that the prophet foretold many other things which it was unnecessary for him to repeat, and 240 ^ NINEVEH. The utter and perpetual destruction and desolation oi Nineveh were foretold : " The Lord will make an uttei 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 destroy Assyria, and will make Nineveh a desolation, and dry like a wilderness. How is she become a deso- lation, a place for beasts to lie down in !"* In the second century, Lucian, a native of a city on the banks of the Euphrates, testified that Nineveh was utterly perished ; that there was no vestige of it remaining ; and that none could tell where once it was situate.' 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 which were all fulfilled after the lapse of a hundred and fifteen years." Ant. lib. ix. c. xi. § 3. Jerome, (a. b. 392,) in his preface to the book of Jonah, relates, that both Hebrew and Greek histo- rians recorded its overthrow. (Tom. vL c. 399, 390, ed. VeneU 1768.) And in his commentary on Nahum, he repeatedly refers to its capture and spoliation by the Chaldeans, or Babylonians, in illustration of the prophecy. Ibid. c. 534, 555, &c. In like man- ner, Cyril of Alexandria, (a. d. 412,) in his commentary on the 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 Nine- veh 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,) Rollin's Ancient History, (a. I). 1730,) The Universal History, (a. d. 1747,) and Bishop Newton's Dissertations on the Prophecies, (a. d. 1754,) 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. ' Nahum i. 8, 9, ii. 10 ; Zeph. ii. 13, 14, 15. * Bochart, Marsham, Calmet, Bishop Newton, &c. NINEVEH. 241 of an ancient city, opposite to Mosul, which have been described as such by travellers, be indeed those of an- cient Nineveh. The name, however, was attached to the spot by the inhabitants of the country in the begin- ning of the seventh century. The battle of Nineveh decided the fate of Chosroes. Its locality is thus de- scribed by Gibbon : — " The Romans 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 deci- sive battle. Eastward of the Tigris, at the end of the bridge of Mosul, the great JVineveh 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,"* The great city had become "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 ob- server," says Rich, who was himself a most careful observer, " 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 de- termined ; but that they are all of the same age and character does not admit of a doubt. "^ " Pottery, and other Babylonian fragments" — " fragments of cuneiform inscriptions on stone, similar in every respect to those got at Babylon,"^ are found in the mounds that consti- tute 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 (be- fore whom all the inhabitants of the earth are as grass- hoppers) by Nahum was — " Make thyself many as the canker-worm, make thyself many as the locusts. Thou 1 Hist. vol. viii. pp. 250, 251, c. 46. * Rich's Residence in Koordistan and Nineveh, vol. ii. p. 44. 3 Ibid, p. 38, 85. 21 242 NINEVEH. hast multiplied tliy 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 grass- hoppers 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 rather 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 Nine- veh, and the oblivion which passed over it, for many an age, conjoined with the meagerness of evidence to iden- tify 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 con- tinued for many centuries to be the capital of Assyria, — the " principal mounds," few in number, in many places overgrown with grass, " resemble the mounds left by en- trenchments and fortifications of ancient Roman 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,"^ show that Nineveh is left without one monument of roy- alty, without any token or memorial of its ancient splen- dour and magnificence ; and so entirely are the very ves- tiges 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."^ " The coun- try," *' this uneven country," are epithets descriptive of its supposed site. " In such a country it is not easy to • Buckingham's Travels in Mesopotamia, vol. ii. 49, 61, 62. ' Rich's Residence in Koordistan, vol. ii. p. 53. BABYLON. 243 say what are ruins and what are not ; what is art con- verted 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."* 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,^ could it be known where the nobles of Nineveh were. " The name of Nineveh," said Volney, " seems to be threatened with the same oblivion which has overtaken its greatness."'' The Lord hath given a commandment concerning thee, that no more of thy name be sown. I will make thy grave, for thou art vile. Dar/cness 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 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. ^ Its walls, which were reckoned among the wonders of the world, appeared rather like the bulwarks ' Rich's Residence in Koordistan, vol. ii. p. 57. 2 Ibid. p. 62. 3 Ibid. p. 59. 4 Ruins, c. 8. * Nahum i. 8, U. * Plinii Hist. Nat. lib. v. cap. xxvi. 244 hkBYLOV. of nature than the workmanship of man.* The temple of Belus, half a mile in circumference and a furlong in height ; the hanging gardens, which, piled in successive terraces, towered as high as the walls; the embank- ments which restrained the Euphrates ; the hundred brazen gates ; and the adjoining artificial lake ; all dis- played many of the mightiest works of mortals concen- trated in a single point." Yet, while in the plenitude of its power, and, according to the most accurate chro- nologers, 160 years before the foot of an enemy had entered it, the voice of prophecy pronounced the doom of the mighty and unconquered Babylon. A succession of ages brought it gradually to the dust ; and the grada- tion of its fall is marked till it sunk at last into utter desolation. At a time when nothing but magnificence was around Babylon the great, fallen Babylon was deli- neated exactly as every traveller now describes its ruins. And the prophecies concerning it may be viewed con- ' The extent of the walls of Babylon is variously stated, by Herodotus 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 dif- ferent testimony of Ctesias and Clitarchus, both of whom visited Babylon, 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 accu- racy of the last three 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 measure- ment having been the outside of the trench, and not immediately of the wall. And thus the various statements may be brought nearly to correspond. Major Rennel, estimating the stadium at 491 feet, computes 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 recon- ciled on the supposition that they refer to different periods. He- rodotus states the height to have been 200 cubits, or 300 feet, and -he breadth 50 cubits, 75 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. 2 Herod, lib. i. c. clxxviii ; Diodor. Sic. lib. ii. p. 26. (Calmet.) Plin. lib. V. xxvi. ; Quintus Curtius, lib. v. c. iv. See Prideaux, RoUin, ice. BABYLON. 245 nectedly 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/ cor- responded, if that of any country could vie, with the greatness of Babylon. It was the most fertile region of the whole east.^ Babylonia was one vast plain, adorned and enriched by the Euphrates and the Tigris, from 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,^ gi^ij^g 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 ex- presses his own consciousness that his description of what he actually saw would appear to be improbable, and to exceed belief. In his estimation, as well as in that of Strabo and of Pliny, (the three best ancient authori- ties that can be given,) Babylonia was of all countries the most fertile in corn, the soil never producing less, as he relates, than two hundredfold, an amount, in our colder regions, scarcely credible, though Strabo, the first of ancient geographers, agrees with the " father of history" in recording that it reached even to three hun- dred, the grain, too, being of prodigious size.* After being subjected to Persia, the government of Chaidea was accounted the noblest in the Persian empire.* Be- sides supplying horses for military service, it maintained about seventeen thousand horses for the sovereign's use. And, exclusive of monthly subsidies, the supply from 1 Strabo, lib. xvi. p. 743. 2 " Agrum totius orientis fertilissimum." (Plin. Hist. Nat. lib. V. c. xxvi.) 3 Herod, lib. i. c. cxcii. ^ Herod, lib. i. c. cxcii ; Strabo, lib. xvi. p. 742. * Herod, lib. i. c. cxcii. 21* 246 BABYLON. 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 extended from the Hellespont to In- dia.^ Herodotus incidentally mentions that there were four great towns in the vicinity 'of Babylon. Such was the " Chaldee's excellency," that it de- parted not on the first conquest, nor on the final extinction of its capital, but one metropolis of Assyria arose after another 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.^ The Parthian kings transferred the seat of empire to Ctesiphon, on the opposite bank of the Tigris, where they resided in win- ter ; and that city, formerly a village, became great and powerful.' Six centuries after the latest of the predic- tions, Chaldea could also boast of other great cities,^ such as Artemita and Sitacene, besides many towns. When invaded by Julian, it was, as described by Gib- bon, a " fruitful and pleasant country." And, at a period equally distant from the time of the prophets and fi-om 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 adja- cent pastures," in the words of Gibbon, " were covered with flocks and herds ; the paradise, or park, was re- plenished with pheasants, peacocks, ostriches, roebucks, and wild boars ; and the noble game of lions and tigers was sometimes turned loose for the golden pleasures of the chase. Nine hundred and sixty elephants were Herod, lib. i. c. cxcii. ' Plin. lib. vi. c. xxvi. * Strabo, lib. xvi. p. 743. < Strabo, lib. xvi. p. 744. BABYLON. 247 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 suc- cessively 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 a hundred subterranean vaults."* " In the eighth century the town of Samarah, Horounieh, and Djasserik, formed, so to speak, one street of twenty-eight miles. "^ Chaldea, with its rich soil and warm climate, and intersected by the Tigris and Euphrates, was one of the last countries m 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 culti- vation."^ Manifold are the prophecies respecting Babylon and the land of the Chaldeans ; and the long lapse of ages has served to confirai 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, 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 wick- edness. So debasing and iDrutifying was their idolatry, — or so much did they render the name of religion sub- servient to their passions, — that practices the most abominable, which were universal among them, formed ' Gibbon's History, vol. viii. c. 46, p. 227, 228. 2 Malte-Brun's Geography, vol. ii. p. 119. Historical documents 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) lo many of the splendid descriptions which abound in the other- wise fictitious narratives of the Arabian Nights' Entertainments. 3 Bombay Philosophical Transactions, vol. i. p. 124. 248 BABYLON. the very observance of some of their religious rites, of which even heathen writers could not speak but in terms of indignation and abhorrence. Though enriched with a prodigality of blessings, the glory of God was not re- garded 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 continued though diversified crimes, the wreck, the ruin, and utter desolation which the word of God (for whose word but his ?) thus told from the begin- ning that the event would be. " The burden of Babylon, which Isaiah the son of Amos did see. The noise of a multitude in the moun- tains, 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 one into 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 them, which shall not regard silver ; and as for gold, they shall not delight in it. Their bows 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' excel- lency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Go- morrah. 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 lie there ; and their houses shall be full of doleful crea- tures ; and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance BABYLON. 249 there. And the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in their pleasant pa- laces."^ " 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 possession 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."^ " Thus saith the Lord that saith unto 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-leaved gates ; and the gates shall not be shut."* " Bel boweth down,"^ &c. "- Come down and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon ; sit on the ground : there is no throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans. Sit thou silent, and get thee into darkness, O 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 en- chantments. 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 1 Isa. xiii. 1,4, 5, 9, 14—22. 2 isa. xiv. 4, 11, 15, 19, 22, 23. ^ Isa. xxi. 9. * Isa. xhv. 27, 28, xlv. 1. « Isa. xlvi. 1. 250 BABYLON. upon thee ; thou shalt not be able to put it off: and desolation shall come upon thee suddenly, which thou shalt not know."* " 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."^ " The word that the Lord spake against Babylon, and against the land of the Chaldeans, by Jeremiah the pro- phet. Declare ye among the nations, and publish, and set up a standard ; publish, and conceal not ; say, Baby- lon 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."^ " 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."'* " Her foundations are fallen, her walls are thrown down ; for it is the vengeance of the Lord ; take vengeance upon 'ler ; as she hath done, do unto her. Cut off the sower Tom Babylon, and him that handleth the sickle in the dme of harvest : for fear of the oppressing sword they ' Isa. xlvii. 1, 5, 7—11. ? Jer. xxv. 12—14. » Jei. 1. 1 2, 3. < Jer. 1. 9, 10, 12, 18. BABYLON. 251 shall turn every one to his people, and they shall flee every one to his own land."' " Go up against the land of JVIerathaim, 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 become a desolation among the nations ! I have laid a snare for thee, and thou art also taken, Babylon, and thou wast not aware ; thou art found, and also caught, because 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."^ " 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 Babylon : all ye that bend the bow, camp against her round about : let none thereof escape : recompense her according 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. There- fore 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, 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 jjjjjj j>3 ic^ 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 all 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 « Jer. 1. 15, 16. -' Jer. 1. 21—26. 3^Jer. 1. 28—32. 252 BABYLON. 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 the desert, with the wild beasts of the islands, shall dwell there, and the owls shall dwell therein ; and it shall be no more inhabited fo'r ever ; neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation. As God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and the neighboui cities thereof, saith the Lord ; so shall no man abide there, neither shall any son of man dwell therein. Be- hold, 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, 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.* 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 brigantine : and spare ye not her young men ; destroy ye utterly all her host. Thus the slain shall fall in the land of the Chaldeans, and they that are thrust through in her streets, &c. Babylon is suddenly 1 Jer. 1. 35—46. BABYLON. 253 fallen and destroyed : howl for her ; take balm for her pain, if so 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.* The Lord hath raised up the spirit of the kings of the Medes; for his device is against Babylon to destroy it, &c. thou that dwellest upon many waters, abun- dant 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 caterpillars ; and they shall lift up a shout against thee.^ Behold, I am against thee, O 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 I 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 sor- row ; for every purpose of the Lord shall be performed against Babylon, to make the land of Babylon a desola- tion without an inhabitant. The mighty men of Baby- lon 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 show the king of Babylon that his city is taken at one end, and that the passages are stopped. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing-floor : it is time to thresh her ; yet a little while, and the time of her harvest shall come.^ I will dry up her sea, and make her springs dry. And Babylon shall become heaps, a dweUing-place for dragons, an astonishment, » Jer. li. 2, 4, 8, 9. 2 jgr. li. H, 13, 14. 3 Jer. li. 25, 27—33. 22 254 BABYLON. and an hissing, without an inhabitant. In their heat I will make their feasts, that they may sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake. How is the praise of the whole earth surprised ! How is Babylon become an astonish- ment 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, nei- ther 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 na- tions 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, behold, 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.* 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 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 Babylon sink, and shall not rise from the evil that I will bring upon her."* The enemies who were to besiege Babylon — the cow- ardice 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, Elam (or Persia) besiege, Media ! The ' Jer. li. 36, 37, 39, 41—44, 46, 47. 2Jer.li. 67, 58,63,64. BABYLON. 255 Lord hath raised up the spirit of the kings of the Medes, for his device is against Babylon to destroy it.^ The kings of Persia and Media, prompted by a common interest, freely entered into a league against Babylon, and with one accord intrusted the command of their united armies to Cyrus,^ the relative and eventually the successor of them both. But the taking of Babylon was not reserved 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, Mimii, and Asche- naz. Lo, I will raise, and cause to come up against Babylon, an assembly of great notions from the north country, &c.^ Cyrus subdued the Armenians, who had revolted against Media, spared their king, bound them over anew to their allegiance, by kindness rather than by force, and incorporated their army with his own.* He adopted the Hyrcanians, who had rebelled against Baby- lon, as allies and confederates with the Medes and Per- sians.* He conquered the united forces of the Babylo- nians and Lydians, took Sardis, with Croesus and all his wealth, spared his life, after he was at the stake, restored to him his family and his household, received him into the number of his counsellors and friends, and thus pre- pared the Lydians, over whom he reigned, and who were formerly combined with Babylon, for coming up against it.^ He overthrew also the Phrygians and Cappadocians, and added their armies in like manner to his accumu- lating forces.'' And by successive alHances and con- quests, by proclaiming liberty to the slaves, by a humane policy, consummate skill, a pure and noble disinterested- 1 Jackson (Dr. Thos.), Grotius, Poole, Prideaux, Lowth, Rollin, Bishop Newton, &c. &c. 2 Xenoph. Cyrop. lib. i. c. v. p. 53, ed. Hutch. Glasg. 1821. ^ Jackson, Grotius, Poole, &c. «&c. '' Xenoph. Cyrop. lib. iii. c. i. p. 156. « Ibid. lib. iv. c. ii. pp. 215, 217. s Ibid lib. V. c. ii. pp. 408 — 416. ^ Ibid. lib. vii. c. iv. pp. 427, 428. 266 BABYLON. ness, 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 thus a standard was set up against' Babylon in many a land, kingdo-ms were summoned, prepared, and gathered toge- ther against her ; and an assernhly of great nations from the north, — including Ararat and Minni, or the greater and lesser Armenia, and Aschenaz, or according to Bochart, Phrygia, — loere raised up and caused to come against Babylon. Without their aid, and before they were sub- jected to his authority, he had attempted in vain to con- quer Babylon ; but when he had prepared and gathered them together, it was taken, though by artifice 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 multitude 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 the hope of discovering some point not utterly impregnable, 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.^ They camped against it round about. They put themselves in array against Baby- Ion round about. Fnistrated in the attempt to discover, throughout the whole