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nearer to the south than the north side of the valley. The river itself is a fine clear stream full of small fish. It is called Moiet Amman, and has its source in a pond a few hundred paces from the south-west end of the town. Burckhardt was informed that it disappears underground three times before it reaches the river Zerka, to which it contributes its waters. On each side of this stream there are remains of some of the noblest edifices in all Syria; but being mostly of Roman origin, as indicated by their style of architecture, they are not of such Scriptural interest as to require any detailed notice. The most important is a magnificent theatre, on the south side of the stream, the largest of which any trace has been found in Syria; but which the natives regard as having been the royal palace. It is still in very good condition, forming indeed an unusually perfect monument of Roman luxury. There are also remains of several temples in various stages of decay, and of other public buildings, the precise character of which has not yet been determined. They appear to be mostly of the Corinthian order, and in some instances the shafts are at least five feet in diameter. Thus, as a whole, is Rabbah, with its marked standing ruins, interspersed with prostrate shafts and capitals, and with only the foundations and stone door-posts of its dwellings remaining, 'a desolate heap;' yet not so wholly extinct but that the Bedouin, who alone frequents its desolations, can stable his cattle in its temples and palaces, fulfilling the Divine prediction that the proud Rabbah should be a stable for camels.' Ezek. xxv. 5.

13. Bozrah shall become a desolation, a reproach, a waste, and a curse.'-See the note on Isa. xxxiv. 6. Since writing that, we have had the satisfaction of finding the conjecture with which it concludes confirmed by Calmet in his note on the present text. He says that we do not know the situation of the Bozrah of Edom, unless it be the same which is sometimes mentioned as belonging to Moab. He observes that the dominion of the Edomites extended to the place where the Bostres of Arabia (that is, in the Hauran) is usually fixed; and conjectures that it was probably occupied by both Moabites and Edomites, and is therefore said sometimes to belong to the one and sometimes to the other. The Bozrah in view was certainly near the frontier which separated the children of Lot and Esau, and hence arises the probability of joint occupation. Perhaps it was a neutral town, or the authority over it fluctuated; and other circumstances may be

conceived, but not ascertained, which explain the difficulty better than the supposition of a second town of note, bearing the same name and mentioned with similar circumstances. We shall therefore take the Bozrah of the Hauran to be that of the present text; and if we should be in error, it does not much matter, for if there were two places of the name, this was doubtless one of the two, and the desolation of both is, in that case, equally foretold in Jeremiah. We do however feel more assured that this Bozrah was the city of Edom, than that there was not another in the land of Moab, and concerning which we possess no information. There is an instructive passage in the apocryphal book of 1 Maccabees, bearing on the subject. In chap. v. we are told that it was determined that Judas, then in Galilee, should go at the head of 8000 men into Gilead. Accordingly he and his brother Jonathan crossed the Jordan and travelled three days' journey in the wilderness, where they met with the Nabathites,' who came to them in a peaceable manner, and told them of all that had previously happened in Gilead, and how that some Jews were kept confined in 'Bosora' and five other cities strong and great,' which were then in possession of the Greek kings of Syria. He immediately marched to Bosora, and having taken it, destroyed it with fire. All these circumstances no doubt refer to the Bozrah of Edom; and the indications clearly point to the town in the Hauran-such as its distance from the Jordan, and the passage through Gilead to arrive at it. We see also, that after the three days, he came among the Nabathites, a people incorporated with the Edomites; and the particular notice that they came in a friendly manner seems to prove this; as the same chapter begins with a statement that Judas had avenged the ill-treatment the Jews received from the Edomites. But those inhabiting this quarter behaved well; probably because they felt there the bitterness of the Syrian yoke, and regretted to see Bozrah and their other towns in the possession of Antiochus.

Bozrah (or, as it is now spelled by different travellers, Boszra, Bosra, Bostra, Botzra) is situated in the open plain in the southern part of the district called the Hauran. Under the Romans it was the capital of Arabia Provincia, and is now, including its ruins, the largest town of the Hauran. It is of an oval shape (Burckhardt: Buckingham says an irregular square), and the circumference around the walls is about three miles. Many parts

of the thick wall, which, in olden times, gave it the reputation of great strength, still remain entire. It is certain that nothing among the ruins is of Scriptural antiquity; as indeed we have just seen that the place was destroyed by Judas Maccabæus. All the remains appear to be Roman and Mohammedan, and therefore require to be only briefly noticed. They consist of a temple situated on the side of a long street which intersected the whole towntwo triumphal arches-some fine detached columns, standing, and many others scattered on the ground-a rotunda, which is supposed to have been a Greek church -an old mosque of the earliest age of Mohammedanism. In the Roman remains, the Corinthian order prevails, as usual. There is also a large castle of Saracenic origin, supposed to be of the time of the Crusades, and which still occasionally receives a garrison from Damascus to protect the harvest of the Hauran against the incursions of the Bedouins. In the eastern quarters of the town there is a very extensive reservoir, the work of the Saracens, for watering the pilgrim caravan to Mecca. The south and south-east quarters of the site are covered with ruins of private buildings, the walls of many of which are still standing, but most of the roofs have fallen in. Burckhardt says: Of the vineyards, for which Boszra was celebrated even in the days of Moses, and which are commemorated by the Greek medals of ΚΟΛΩΝΙΑ ΒΟΣTPHE, not a vestige remains. There is scarcely a tree in the neighbourhood of the town; and the twelve or fifteen families who now inhabit it cultivate nothing but wheat, barley, horse-beans, and a little dhourra. A number of fine rose-trees grow wild among the ruins of the town.' The small population here mentioned had increased when Buckingham was there; but, as he says of this and other places similarly circumstanced, the population continually

*This is a mistake; he must mean Isaiah (lxiii. 1-3); and this shews that he (a very good authority) considered this the Bozrah of Edom.

changes, and the sites are often wholly forsaken. A few settlers, driven from other places, come and occupy the habitable houses, which have no owners; they increase for the time in which a little quiet is allowed them; but ere long, the incursions of the Bedouins and the exactions of the governors drive them away to seek other homes. In time others come and occupy their vacated seats, and are at last obliged to withdraw in their turn. Such knots of insecure settlers on the ruined site of Bozrah, do not certainly redeem its desolate character, but serve all the more to render it a desolation, a reproach, and a

waste.'

15. I will make thee small among the heathen, and despised among men.'-In illustration of this, among other facts, the curious one has been adduced, that when Mr. Bankes applied at Constantinople to have Kerak and Wady Musa inserted in his firman, the answer was returned that they knew of no such place within the Grand Signior's dominions.

16. O thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, that holdest the height of the hill: though thou shouldest make thy nest as high as the eagle,' etc.-The chief seat of the Edomites is doubtless here principally referred to, and in that they are described as dwelling in the clefts of the rock. How remarkably this applies to Petra will be seen from the various engravings which, in the course of this work, we have given from the magnificent volume of Laborde, as well as from the note to 2 Kings xiv. 7. The object of that note was however rather to identify the site than to furnish the descriptive information which it seemed best to reserve to illustrate the present text, in which the chief place of Edom is so remarkably indicated and characterized.

Irby and Mangles, and the English editor of Laborde, have between them collected the notices of Petra contained in ancient writers, and which remarkably correspond not only with the situation and appearance of Petra, but with the few intimations on the subject which the Scriptures

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The Entrance to a Tomb is shewn on the left, and the remains of an Amphitheatre in the distance.

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contain, and which describe it as a rock, and that rock as containing habitations, and 'sepulchres on high.'

Pliny (Hist. Nat. vi. 28) says that the Nabatæi inhabited a city called Petra, which was situated in a valley somewhat less than two miles in extent,* surrounded by inaccessible mountains, and intersected by a river. Strabo also says that the capital of the Nabatæi, which was called Petra, lay in a spot in itself plain and level, but was enclosed on all sides by a barrier of rocks and precipices. Within, it was furnished with springs of excellent quality, for the supply of water and the irrigation of gardens; but beyond the confining hills, the precincts were in a great measure desert, particularly in the direction towards Judæa. It was three or four days' journey from Jericho. Strabo considered the Nabatæi the same people with the Idumæans. Captain Mangles, in his remarks on these accounts, furnishes a good general idea of the site. It will be seen that these two geographers, in characterizing the position of the city, not only agree with one another, but will be found sufficiently conformable to the reality, though, strictly speaking, the situation can neither be called a valley, with Pliny, nor a plain, with Strabo; yet it is certainly both low in position and level in surface, when compared with the crags and precipices that surround it. It is an area in the bosom of a mountain, swelling into mounds and intersected with gullies; but the whole ground is of such a nature as may be conveniently built upon, and has neither ascent nor descent inconveniently steep.' It is not difficult to comprehend how such a situation should, in that region, have been considered highly advantageous for the foundation of a city. Laborde says: In the remote ages, when men were engaged in perpetual wars, and plunder was the order of the day, it was no small advantage to a community to find a position which presented a considerable

He uses the general term, 'paulo minus II MP. amplitudinis; but he must mean the circumference, and so Irby and Mangles and also Laborde's editor understand.

surface, enriched by abundant streams, and hemmed in by a girdle of rocks, to which there was no ingress except from a ravine so narrow that a few men stationed on the top of the mountain might prevent an enemy, however numerous, from effecting an entrance into the town. When the Nabathæans grew to be a powerful people, the importance of this position became more obvious, as they had to guard themselves not only against the jealousy of the neighbouring tribes, but also against the desire of conquest which animated more distant nations.' It is doubtless to the advantages of its position that we must attribute the very singular character which this city offers. To realise these advantages, it was necessary that the inhabitants should confine their town within this hollow; but as its base was of very limited extent for a metropolitan city, they were almost driven to the resource which they adopted, of excavating the sides of the enclosing rocks, and forming there temples, tombs, and habitations; and as ages passed and population increased, these became so multiplied as to give to the site that peculiar character which it now exhibits, and which for countless ages yet to come it is likely to maintain. Probably there were many natural caves which were first occupied, and which suggested the idea of forming others by art, when no more of them remained unappropriated. There is no reason to suppose that these excavations received at once the highly-enriched character which a great number of them now bear. The inhabitants, in the first instance, probably formed simple cavities, to which the more refined and luxurious people of a later age added the ornamental and magnificent façades, sculptured out of the surface of the rock, of which many examples have been given in our different engravings, and which impress so distinct a character upon the desolated city of Edom. No doubt, however, many of the caverns were formed in these comparatively late times, and in which the ornamental frontispieces formed part of the original design. Thus it is that while constructed towns of much later date, are now reduced to heaps and scattered fragments, or are even covered by mould over

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PETRA.-The Ancient Tomb now called 'Khasne Pharaon,' or Pharaoh's Treasury.

which the plough passes and the harvest grows-the tombs, temples, and dwellings of Petra, carved in the living rock, remain for the most part entire and beautiful, unbroken, and even unstained, by the ages which have passed since the town was the seat of that luxury and wealth which the commerce of many nations brought into its hollow valley.

A detailed description of any of these excavations and the noble fronts which many of them offer, could not be suitably introduced in this place; and the impression on the subject which it might be desirable the reader should realize, will be better given by the engravings we have formerly given, and by those which we now introduce, than by any quantity of written description. That which we now add, as well as what we have already stated, has rather in view the general aspect of the scene than the particular objects which it includes. Our first cut shews a pass, beyond which appears the theatre, the whole of which, with the ascending rows of seats, is cut in the solid rock. Speaking of this, Mangles says, 'This pass conducts to the theatre, and here the ruins of the city burst on the view in full grandeur, shut it on the opposite side by craggy precipices, from which numerous ravines and valleys branch out in all directions; the sides of the valleys covered with an endless variety of excavated tombs and private dwellings (Isa. xlix. 16) presented the most singular scene we ever beheld; and we must despair to give the reader an idea of the singular effect of rocks, tinted with the most extraordinary hues, whose summits present us with nature in her most savage and romantic aspects, while their bases were worked out with all the symmetry and regularity of art, with colonnades and pediments, and ranges of corridors adhering to their perpendicular surface. To this the reflections of Laborde, marking, as they do, the fulfilment of the doom denounced by the prophets, form a marked sequel :- What a people must they have not been who first opened the mountain to stamp upon it the seal of their energy and genius! What a climate, too, which gilds with its light the graceful forms of a great variety of sculptures, without suffering its winters to crumble their sharp edges, or to reduce in the least their high reliefs! Silence reigns all around, save where the solitary owl now and then utters his plaintive cry. The Arab passes through the scene with perfect indifference, scarcely deigning to look at works executed with so much ability, or to meditate, except with contempt, on an object which he in vain seeks to compre hend.' The writer of this passage has, without intending it, made every word it contains replete with meaning for the illustration of prophecy.

As sepulchres are more frequently than dwellings excavated in the sides of mountains, we suspect that too large a proportion of those in Petra have been regarded as tombs. That a great number of them were destined for sepulchres is perfectly clear: but that many were used for habitations is allowed by Mangles and Laborde. The former, after quoting the Nubian geographer, who states that the houses of Petra were cut in the rock, says:'That this was not universally true is evident from the great quantity of stones employed in the lesser kinds of edifices which are scattered over the whole site; but it is also true that there are grottoes in great numbers which are certainly not sepulchres.' Of these he particularly mentions one which presents a front of four windows with a large and lofty doorway in the centre, but the front of which is without ornamental sculptures. The door and three of the windows open into a large apartment, sixty feet in length and of proportionate breadth; while the fourth window belongs to a smaller apartment, apparently for sleeping, which is not brought down to the level of the floor of the great chamber, but has below it another small apartment, which receives light only from the door. Of the constructed edifices in the open area itself, very little of a definite shape now remains, and the ruin into which these houses have fallen furnishes a marked and instructive contrast to the comparatively perfect condition of the surrounding works in the rock. There is however

one interesting mass, which, though greatly ruined, towers above the general wreck, and affords us information as to the form and style of the constructed edifices, and we have therefore made it the subject of our second engraving. In the foreground are the remains of an archway of very florid architecture, with pilasters having panels, enriched with foliage, etc., in the manner of Palmyra. The arch was the introduction to the great pile of building standing nearly at right angles to it. This building has a door on one side, on the three others it was decorated with a frieze of triglyphs and large flowers in the metopes. Beams of wood are let in at intervals between the courses of the masonry, and continue to this day-a strong proof of the dryness of the climate. The front had a portico of four columns. This part is much ruined. The interior of the edifice was divided into three parallel chambers, and there seem to have been several stories. Laborde calls it a temple; but Mangles, whose description we have followed, thinks from the interior construction that it was rather a palace or some private edifice. The Græco-Roman character exhibited in this and in broken portions of other ruins, indicating a later date than the time of the prophets, is a corroboration of prophecy; for it was foretold that God would destroy and make desolate not only that which Edom had already built, but that which it should build in future times:-Though thou make thy nest as high as the eagle, I will bring thee down.'-'They shall build, but I will throw down.' In reference to this passage, and to Obadiah, v. 3, it is well observed by Dr. Olin (Travels in the East, ii. 15), that although cited usually with particular reference to Petra, these texts should be understood in a more extended application. They are, no doubt, strikingly descriptive of the situation of Petra in a deep fissure of the mountain, and at the same line elevated three thousand feet above the level of the sea, and not less than two thousand perhaps above Wady Arabah. But they are equally applicable to the whole region of Mount Seir, in reference to which they seem to have been used, at least by Obadiah. The deep valleys, bounded by high steep cliffs, which pervade every part of the country, and which must always have contained the chief part of the population, are well described as "clefts of the rocks, and heights of the hills," as "high

habitations."

17. Edom shall be a desolation,' etc.-We may here quote Burckhardt (Travels in Syria, p. 442):- The whole plain presented to the view an expanse of shifting sands, whose surface was broken by innumerable undulations and low hills.....And the Arabs told me that the valleys continue to present the same appearance beyond the latitude of Wady Musa (Petra). In some parts of the valley the sand is very deep, and there is not the slightest appearance of a road, or of any work of human art. A few trees grow among the sand-hills, but the depth of sand precludes all vegetation of herbage. The sand which thus covers the ancient cultivated soil appears to have been brought from the shores of the Red Sea by the south winds.'

With reference to the above and other prophecies of similar import, Dr. Olin remarks:-'Such was the language uttered by the Jewish prophets while this doomed region was yet prosperous and powerful. It portrays a state of desolation and ruin the most absolute and irretrievable, such as probably no portion of the globe once fertile and populous now exhibits. These fearful denunciations and their fulfilment furnish an invulnerable argument in favour of the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures; and the present state of this once rich and beautiful region is a terrible monument of the divine displeasure against wickedness and idolatry.'

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20. He shall make their habitations desolate.'—As we here and in Isaiah pointed out many of the minute coincidences between the prophecies concerning Edom and their fulfilment, we feel the more bound to put on record our conviction that the eagerness for illustrative points has been carried by some pious and able writers into a degree of extravagance and minuteness of detail against

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