Idumæa, had once been, but no one had ever heard or imagined that the remains of any such place were in existence, till Burckhardt stumbled upon a desolate city exhibiting the most curious remains of art. It stands in a narrow valley, surrounded by enormous perpendicular rocks, in the clefts of which have been wrought caves or chambers which Burckhardt-who seems to have known, and certainly to have thought, nothing about the Idumæan prophecies-calls sepulchres; subsequent travellers see that many of them were residences. These excavations are found at all heights -from the level of the valley up to an elevation in the clefts of the rock which appears utterly inaccessible O thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, that holdest the height of the hill; though thou shouldst build thy nest as high as the eagle, I will bring thee down." After Burckhardt, Messrs. Bankes and Legh, and Captains Irby and Mangles, in 1818, made a joint excursion to this scene of wonders, this monumental miracle. The account of the country through which they passed, and the toils and the perils they encountered, are a striking commentary on several points of the prophecy, which we have not room to extract; but the wonder of wonders is the city of Petra itself, situated in a defile now called Wady Mousa, to which, with great difficulty and danger, they penetrated, and where they were permitted to make a sojourn so short and so anxious that, though it gratified in a high degree, it also disappointed their curiosity. Burckhardt had already given a cursory account of this extraordinary place, with its sepulchres, colonnades, pyramids, mausoleums, and a theatre, with all its benches, capable of containing 3000 spectators, all cut out of the rock; while the ground was covered with heaps of huge stones strewed over the foundations of long lines of buildings, fragments of columns, and vestiges of paved streets-(the lines of confusion, and the stones of emptiness). Mr. Legh's account, published by Dr. Macmichael, and that of Captains Irby and Mangles, more than confirm all this 'On entering the pass which conducts to the theatre of Petra, they remark:-"The ruins of the city here burst on the view, in their full grandeur, shut in on the opposite side by barren craggy precipices from which numerous ravines and valleys branch out in all directions; the sides of the mountains covered with an endless variety of excavated tombs and private dwellings, (0 thou that dwellest in the clefts of THE ROCK, &c.-Jer. xlix. 16,) presented altogether the most singular scene we ever beheld." 'A narrow and circuitous defile, surrounded on each side by precipitous or perpendicular rocks, varying from four hundred to seven hundred feet in altitude, and forming, for two miles, "a sort of subterranean passage," opens on the east the way to the ruins of Petra. The rocks, or or rather hills, then diverge on either side, and leave an oblong space, where once stood the metropolis of Edom, deceived by its terribleness, where now lies a waste of ruins, encircled on every side, save on the north-east alone, by stupendous cliffs, which still show how the pride and labour of art tried there to vie with the sublimity of nature. Tombs present themselves, not only in every avenue to the city, and upon every precipice that surrounds it, but even intermixed almost promiscuously with its public and domestic edifices; the natural features of the defile grew more and more imposing at every step, and the excavations and sculpture more frequent on both sides, till it presented at last a continued street of tombs. The base of the cliffs wrought out in all the symmetry and regularity of art, with colonnades, and pedestals, and ranges of corridors adhering to the perpendicular surface; flights of steps chiselled out of the rock; grottos in great numbers, which are certainly not sepulchral; some excavated residences of large dimensions, (in one of which is a single chamber, sixty feet in length, and of a breadth proportioned ;) many other dwellings of inferior note, particularly abundant in one defile leading to the city, the steep sides of which contain a sort of excavated suburb, accessible by flights of steps; niches, sometimes thirty feet in excavated height, with altars for votive offerings, or with pyramids, columns, or obelisks; a bridge across a chasm now apparently inaccessible; some small pyramids hewn out of the rock on the summit of the heights; horizontal grooves, for the conveyance of water, cut in the face of the rock, and even across the architectural fronts of some of the excavations; and, in short, "the rocks hollowed out into innume rable chambers of different dimensions, whose entrances are variously, richly, and often fantastically decorated with every imaginable order of architecture "all united, not only form one of the most singular scenes that the eye of man ever looked upon, or the imagination painted-a group of wonders perhaps unparalleled in their kind—but also give indubitable proof, both that in the land of Edom there was a city where human ingenuity, and energy, and power, must have been exerted for many ages, and to so great a degree as to have well entitled it to be noted for its strength or terribleness, and that the description given of it by the prophets of Israel was as strictly literal as the prediction respecting it is true. "The barren state of the country, together with the desolate condition of the city, without a single human being living near it, seem," in the words of those who were spectators of the scene, "strongly to verify the judgment denounced against it." O thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, &c. also Edom shall be a desolation, &c.'-Irby and Mangles, p. 405; Keith, pp. 186-190. Nor are there wanting some slighter touches to complete the prophetic picture— The screaming of the eagles, hawks, and owls, which were soaring above their heads in considerable numbers, seemingly annoyed at any one one approaching their lonely habitation, added much to the singularity of the scene. The fields in the immediate vicinity of Edom are, according to the observation of Burckhardt, "frequented by an immense number of crows."-Keith, p. 205. In short, there seems to be hardly an expression, however vague or metaphorical it may have appeared in the long series of Idumæan prophecy, which has not received from the concurrent testimony of all the travellers (the earlier of whom had no idea. whatsoever that they were commenting a prophecy) a confirmation, conclusive in all its great features, and so exceedingly curious and accurate in some even of the smallest details and most literal expressions that though we should not rely on such verbal coincidences, we cannot but admit that they are really wonderful. while Dr. Keith was exhibiting in his later editions these extraordinary corroborations of his views, he received from Paris— ('O! would,' as he says, that that city would give heed to the truth which it thus affords the means of confirming!')—he received the six first livraisons of the Voyage de l'Arabie Pétrée, par MM. Léon de Laborde et Linant *, illustrated with splendid engravings of the ruins of Petra, But 'In which,' as Dr. Keith truly observes, by merely affixing a text, the beauties of art become immediately subservient to the interests of religion. Where, very recently, it was difficult, if not impossible, to ascertain a single fact, and where only indirect evidence could be obtained, men may now, as it were, look upon Idumæa, and see how the lines of confusion and the stones of emptiness have been stretched over it. And we may now, in like manner, look upon the ruins of the chief city of Edom, of which the very existence was, till lately, altogether unknown. All the plates attest its vast magnificence, and the almost incredible and inconceivable labour, continued as it must have been from age to age, prior to the days of Moses and later than the Christian era-by which so great a multiplicity of dwellings, tombs, and temples were excavated from the rock.'-pp. 192, 193. We have ourselves examined this work, and profess ourselves, however struck with the beauty and curiosity of the scenes which it represents, to be still more delighted with this revival of the lost capital of Idumæa, and the unexpected and decisive, and we may add, eternal proof that is thus established of that one of the prophecies, which twenty years ago was perhaps the least intelligible even to the learned. We cannot refrain from adding two or three small instances in which this last publication corroborates * 6 Voyage de l'Arabie Pétrée. Par MM. Léon de Laborde et Linant. Folio. Livraisons 1. to XII. Paris.' We have heard that a translation of this work is now in the press. The reader will also find two very beautiful engravings of the ruins of Petra in Finden's Landscape Illustrations of the Bible, or in the Biblical Keepsake for 1834, pp. 39 and 101. the the prophecies in circumstances which had not occurred to former travellers, nor of course to Dr. Keith. The prophet had, as a contrast to the predicted desolation, recorded the antecedent civil organization of Edom: They shall call the nobles thereof to the kingdom, but none shall be there, and all her princes shall be nothing.' Now M. Laborde, not dreaming of this text, proves from profane history that in this capital there existed a king and ministers, princes and nobles, and a government so regular as even to have raised and paid a kind of subsidiary force; in short, the kingdom presented a long-established civil and military organization.'-Intr. p. 8. The vague text, I shall make thee despised among men,' does not seem to have occurred to M. Laborde, when he makes the following involuntary commentary upon it: The Arabs give to one of these ruins a ridiculous and indecent name—an insult which is of a piece with the general destruction to prove the fragility of human works, there was only wanted, in addition to the injuries of time, the derision of men.'p. 55. Dr. Keith, with an overabundant anxiety that every, even the smallest detail of the fulfilment of all the prophecies should be visible even to this day, was a little disconcerted that the travellers did not see 'nettles and brambles in the palaces,' but he consoled himself, in lieu of a direct and literal fulfilment,' with the observation that the thorny branches of the talh-tree are very abundant in Idumæa. We think Dr. Keith need not have been so anxious on this point, which might have been safely taken for granted; but we are glad to be able to afford him direct and literal evidence from M. Laborde's late livraisons, that these ruined palaces are overgrown with nettles and brambles.'-pp. 55-58. These are trivial matters compared with the great features of the case, but they are still curious and interesting. But there is one much more important circumstance which has occurred to us, and which seems to carry the evidence to the highest possible point of satisfaction-the works, as Dr. Keith hints, and as appears in the plates, are evidently the works of many ages, from the primitive dwellers in the rock down to the days of Adrian; and perhaps some sceptic may say that works of the days of Adrian would rather impugn the prophecy, whose completion might have been expected at an earlier period. The objection would not be worth much-for it is clear that whatever intermediate vicissitudes the city and nation may have suffered-and the prophecies point to many-the final fulfilment could only be appropriated to the period when Edom was finally abandoned to a perpetual desolation from which her cities should not return,-(Ezek. ib.) When they should call their nobles and there should be none, and all her princes be nothing.—(Is. ib.) When there should be no civil government government and when there should not be even left a straggling inhabitant of the waste; when no man should abide therein, neither shall a son of man dwell in it.'—(Jer. ib.) And when the whole site should exhibit nothing but the lines of confusion and the stones of emptiness.”— (Is. ib.) But there is another striking prophecy, which clears away every vestige of difficulty by distinctly predicting those vicissitudes, and the obstinate endeavour of the Edomites to defeat the prediction by continuing to restore and adorn their city; 'Whereas Edom saith "We are impoverished but we will return and build the desolate places;" thus said the Lord of Hosts: THEY SHALL BUILD, BUT I WILL THROW DOWN! and YOUR EYES SHALL SEE, and you shall say, The Lord will be magnified from the borders of Israel!Malachi i. 3, 4. Is not this almost more wonderful than all that has preceded? The later architecture is thus not merely accounted for, but absolutely predicted, and we are told that the day should come when our eyes should see this, and that the Lord should be magnified— not from Israel, but-from the borders of Israel-the borders of Israel! where exactly this wonderful city stood. What human ingenuity, what human sagacity-even if we had been aware of the general state of Edom-could, prior to the discovery of these comparatively modern architectural remains, have affixed any definite or even rational meaning to these predictions of Malachi? Is not this, according to Mr. Hume's own principle, a miracle?— have we not here that unexpected kind of physical demonstration, the falsehood of which appears to human reason to be absolutely impossible? Surely the Lord is magnified from the borders of Israel! Here we are obliged to close our too loose and imperfect remarks on this amazing discovery. We had intended to have given a more detailed account of the splendid work of M. Léon Laborde, and to have taken notice of several other recent Illustrations' of biblical scenery and events. This article has, however, already gone to a length that warns us to desist, and we therefore reserve the continuation of the subject to another, but we hope early, opportunity. ART. VII.—1. An Essay, Religious and Political, on Ecclesiastical Finance, as regards the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland. By the Rev. David O. Croly, Parish Priest of Ovens and Aglis. Third Edition. Cork, 1834. 2. Autobiography of a Dissenting Minister. London. 1834. 3. Letters to a Dissenting Minister of the Congregational Inde pendent |