The seeker after certainty in religion will be grateful for the multiplicity, as well as for the minuteness and distinctness, of Scripture prophecy. One or two lights in a chamber may not entirely sweep away its gloom. But the remedy is simple. The lights have only to be multiplied and the place will at last be brighter than the day could make it. When the first of those proofs from fulfilled prophecy are read, the darkness of the heart, though smitten, may not be dispersed. The very marvelousness of the evidence awakens suspicion. It seems too wonderful, it appears to give too ready and too full a satisfaction, to be true. The whisper may be heard, when the first cry of wonder has died away, that we are mistaking for design what is after all the work of chance; or that what has astonished us is an enthusiastic reading of the words of Scripture, which sober inspection will not confirm. The best answer to all this is to show how wide is the field which the fulfillments of prophecy cover; and that the soberest investigation cannot be blind to the fact that the pages of Scripture are studded with predictions, as the heaven with stars, or the earth with flowers—predictions that have been, and are being, slowly but surely fulfilled. The remedy here, too, is to multiply the lights till in the brightening splendor no room is left for the shadow of doubt.
We have already noticed the prediction regarding Egypt that it should “be desolate in the midst of the countries that are desolate.” On the west, and on the south we have seen how fully the prophecy has been fulfilled. Let us now turn to the only other side on which Egypt was bounded by other lands. Traveling eastward from Egypt, and crossing the desert of Sinai, we come to what was the ancient Idumea, or Edom, the possession of the children of Esau. The wilderness is bounded on the east by the Wadi Arabah, a long and wide valley which extends from the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Akabah, and on the eastern side of that valley rises like a mighty wall the mountain range of Seir. The Edomites and the Israelites had sprung from the same stock, the one being the descendants of Esau, the other the children of Jacob. The latter were not permitted to forget the claims of brotherhood being forbidden to dispossess either the Edomites or the Moabites. But, from the time the Israelites sought a passage to the land promised to their fathers, till Jerusalem was laid in ashes and Judah was carried captive to Babylon, there was neither goodwill nor peace between these common descendants of Abraham. “Moses sent messengers from Kadesh unto the king of Edom, Thus saith thy brother Israel, Thou knowest all the travail that hath befallen us: how our fathers went down into Egypt, and we dwelt in Egypt a long time; and the Egyptians evil entreated us, and our fathers: and when we cried unto the Lord, He heard our voice, and sent an angel, and brought us forth out of Egypt; and, behold, we are in Kadesh, a city in the uttermost of thy border: let us pass, I pray thee, through thy land” (Num. 20:14-1714And Moses sent messengers from Kadesh unto the king of Edom, Thus saith thy brother Israel, Thou knowest all the travail that hath befallen us: 15How our fathers went down into Egypt, and we have dwelt in Egypt a long time; and the Egyptians vexed us, and our fathers: 16And when we cried unto the Lord, he heard our voice, and sent an angel, and hath brought us forth out of Egypt: and, behold, we are in Kadesh, a city in the uttermost of thy border: 17Let us pass, I pray thee, through thy country: we will not pass through the fields, or through the vineyards, neither will we drink of the water of the wells: we will go by the king's high way, we will not turn to the right hand nor to the left, until we have passed thy borders. (Numbers 20:14‑17)).
To this appeal the only answer was a drawn sword. The Edomites massed their forces on their western frontier, and the Israelites were compelled to choose another way. The enmity did not end there. Edom watched his opportunity, and, springing from his mountain lair, again and again drank blood. When Israel was weak and oppressed, it could always reckon that in him it had one foe more. “He did pursue his brother with the sword, and did cast off all pity, and his anger did tear perpetually, and he kept his wrath forever” (Amos 1:1111Thus saith the Lord; For three transgressions of Edom, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because he did pursue his brother with the sword, and did cast off all pity, and his anger did tear perpetually, and he kept his wrath for ever: (Amos 1:11)). In that last sore distress Judah had no more bitter and insulting foe than Edom. The Psalmist cries, “Remember, O Lord, against the children of Edom, the day of Jerusalem; who said, Rase it, rase it, even to the foundation thereof” (Psa. 137:77Remember, O Lord, the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem; who said, Rase it, rase it, even to the foundation thereof. (Psalm 137:7)). For the man who is deaf to the pleadings of brotherhood and of pity the Scripture has its threatenings. It has also its judgments for nations. “Thus saith the Lord God: Behold, I am against thee, O mount Seir.... because thou hast had a perpetual enmity, and hast given over the children of Israel to the power of the sword in the time of their calamity, in the time of the iniquity of the end: therefore as I live, saith the Lord God, I will prepare thee unto blood, and blood shall pursue thee... Thus will I make mount Seir an astonishment and a desolation; and I will cut off from it him that passeth through and him that returneth” (Ezek. 35:3-73And say unto it, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, O mount Seir, I am against thee, and I will stretch out mine hand against thee, and I will make thee most desolate. 4I will lay thy cities waste, and thou shalt be desolate, and thou shalt know that I am the Lord. 5Because thou hast had a perpetual hatred, and hast shed the blood of the children of Israel by the force of the sword in the time of their calamity, in the time that their iniquity had an end: 6Therefore, as I live, saith the Lord God, I will prepare thee unto blood, and blood shall pursue thee: sith thou hast not hated blood, even blood shall pursue thee. 7Thus will I make mount Seir most desolate, and cut off from it him that passeth out and him that returneth. (Ezekiel 35:3‑7)).
In this and other predictions we are presented with another prophetic picture. No forecast could have been made whose fulfillment seemed less likely. When the words were penned, and for ages afterward, Edom was strong and populous. The number of ruined towns and cities show that the land was thickly peopled; while there are numerous indications, both in the vestiges of ancient cultivation and in the present condition of the soil, that the language of Scripture has not exaggerated its great fertility. “The whole of the fine plains in this quarter” (the neighborhood of Kerak) “are covered with sites of towns on every eminence or spot convenient for the construction of one, and all the land is capable of rich cultivation: there can be little doubt that this country, now so deserted, once presented a continued picture of plenty and fertility.” Wherever springs “are met with,” says Burckhardt, “vegetation readily takes place, even among barren sand and rocks.” He speaks in warm terms of the superiority of the climate, of the purity of the air, and the refreshing breezes, and remarks that in no other part of Syria had he met so few invalids. Speaking of the plains at the foot of mount Hor Dean Stanley says: “Instead of the absolute nakedness of the Sinaitic valleys, we found ourselves walking on grass sprinkled with flowers, and the level platforms on each side were filled with sprouting corn.” Petra, the great rock city, the Selah of the Scripture (2 Kings 14:77He slew of Edom in the valley of salt ten thousand, and took Selah by war, and called the name of it Joktheel unto this day. (2 Kings 14:7)), and the capital of Edom, was a place of immense strength, and one of the wonders of the world. The country was enriched by the gains of a large and lucrative trade. To Petra the caravans from the east and the south turned as to a common center; and from it the trade branched out again to Egypt, Palestine and Syria. In the time of our Lord, Idumea was still populous, and these prophecies were unfulfilled. Judgments had indeed fallen upon the land. It stood written in Ezekiel: “I will lay My vengeance upon Edom by the hand of My people Israel; and they shall do in Edom according to Mine anger and according to My fury.” The words were fulfilled in the time of the Maccabees. They were conquered by Hyrcanus in 129 B. C., and being compelled either to adopt the Jewish religion or to leave the country, they chose rather to part with their idolatry. But the sun of Edom did not go down at once in blood and darkness. Herod, an Idumean by descent, sat upon the throne of Israel. When the Roman armies were closing around Jerusalem, an Idumean army threw itself into the devoted city, and shared with the Jews the toils and the sufferings of that terrible siege. The prosperity of Petra, and of Edom generally, continued long after Zion’s fall. From the fourth to the sixth century Petra was the seat of one of the three metropolitan sees of Palestine, and the names of its bishops appear from time to time in the records of the Councils. An Arab host was led by Mohammed in person against the south of Idumea in 630. In 636 it was conquered, along with the rent of Syria, by the Mohammedan forces. With this last notice Edom, even then fertile and populous, passes from the page of history for more than four and a half centuries. The Crusaders invaded the country in 1100, but were finally driven out before the end of the twelfth century. And then the curtain, raised as it were for a moment, fell again only to be drawn aside in what we may name our own times.
Let us now return to the picture presented in the mirror of prophecy. We notice first of all that
ITS COMMERCE WAS TO CEASE.
“I will cut off from it him that passeth through, and him that returneth” (Ezek. 35:77Thus will I make mount Seir most desolate, and cut off from it him that passeth out and him that returneth. (Ezekiel 35:7)). It was famed, as we have seen, for its trade. Petra was the terminus, Strabo tells us, of one of the great commercial routes of Asia. It was the market of the Arabians for their spice and frankincense. A great fair was held in its neighborhood, which on one occasion Demetrius Poliorcetes, incited by the value of the merchandise brought together for sale, attempted to surprise, but failed. Such was the Edom, not only of the prophet’s day, but of the first ages of the Christian era. And now that the curtain is lifted there is no more awful testimony to the sureness of God’s word than this land presents. The desolation is appalling. Its commerce has utterly passed away. We do not know the story, but the great market of Petra has long since ceased to exist. Edom is no longer sought by those who desire to sell or by those who desire to buy. None go forth from it laden with the merchandise which once made its name famous in the earth. No echo of its once noisy traffic breaks the brooding silence of death. “Him that passeth through and him that returneth” God’s hand has alike “cut off.”
Another prophecy declared that
THE RACE OF THE EDOMITES SHOULD BECOME EXTINCT.
“There shall not be any remaining to the house of Esau” (Obadiah, 18). That they were not extinct in the year 70 of our era we know, for they made common cause with their Jewish kindred in the defense of Jerusalem. They were afterward Christianized with the Christianity characteristic of the Greek Empire, and which received its fitting judgment at the hands of the Arab hordes. With the Mohammedan invasion the Idumeans pass from sight, and now, when we search for them, they cannot be found. The doom has fallen; the nation is extinct; there is “none remaining to the house of Esau.” Dr. Wilson found among the Arabs a tribe (the fellahin of the Wadi Musa), whom he suspected to be descendants of the ancient masters of the country. He learned, on inquiry, that they claimed indeed to be descendants of the Beni-Israel, that is, of Jewish settlers or refugees; but no mention was made of any connection with Esau. The very name has been forgotten.
Then we are told that
THEIR LAND WAS TO BE A DESOLATION.
“Thus saith the Lord God: Behold I am against thee, O mount Seir, and I will stretch out Mine hand against thee, and I will make thee a desolation and an astonishment. I will lay thy cities waste and thou shall be desolate.... Thou shalt be desolate, O mount Seir, and all Edom, even all of it” (Ezek. 35:3, 4, 153And say unto it, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, O mount Seir, I am against thee, and I will stretch out mine hand against thee, and I will make thee most desolate. 4I will lay thy cities waste, and thou shalt be desolate, and thou shalt know that I am the Lord. (Ezekiel 35:3‑4)
15As thou didst rejoice at the inheritance of the house of Israel, because it was desolate, so will I do unto thee: thou shalt be desolate, O mount Seir, and all Idumea, even all of it: and they shall know that I am the Lord. (Ezekiel 35:15)). This doom too has been accomplished. Volney was the first to call attention to the country, recording the information given him by Arabs, that within three days’ journey upwards of thirty ruined towns, absolutely deserted, were to be met with. It was first explored by Burckhardt, and since his time many travelers have made us familiar with the wonders of Petra and the general aspect of Edom. Its cities are laid waste. Even from Petra with its rock-hewn dwellings, fit, as Miss Martineau has said, to receive a multitude today, every inhabitant has long since departed. And the entire land is now, as it has been for ages, a desolation. Here and there a cultivated patch is seen, sown by the Bedouin; but as a solitary cry in its desert silence makes the awful stillness more deeply felt, so those few green spots oppress the heart with a deeper sense of the terribleness of Edam’s judgment. The terraces, which of old clad the mountain sides with beauty and fruitfulness, are in ruins. Their walls lie scattered in fragments upon the ground, and the rains are year by year washing down the remnants of the soil from the rocks. The town of Maan, on the east of Edom, alone has escaped the general desolation. It owes its exemption to the possession of some springs, and to its lying upon the route of the Mohammedan pilgrimage to Mecca. This Maan is the The man mentioned by Eusebius, and the Teman of Scripture. Can any one fail to be struck with the coincidence that it was from this point the desolation was to begin, and, as it were, overflow the entire land? The prophet wrote as the word of the living God, “I will make it desolate from Teman” (Ezek. 25:1313Therefore thus saith the Lord God; I will also stretch out mine hand upon Edom, and will cut off man and beast from it; and I will make it desolate from Teman; and they of Dedan shall fall by the sword. (Ezekiel 25:13)); and in the end of days come like an answering testimony these words of Burckhardt: “At present all this country is a desert, and Maan is the only inhabited place in it!”
Edom has not yet touched its lowest depth. Not only is it written, “I will make thee perpetual desolations and thy cities shall not be inhabited” (Ezek. 35:99I will make thee perpetual desolations, and thy cities shall not return: and ye shall know that I am the Lord. (Ezekiel 35:9)), and that “from generation to generation it shall lie waste, none shall pass through it forever and ever” (Isa. 34:1010It shall not be quenched night nor day; the smoke thereof shall go up for ever: from generation to generation it shall lie waste; none shall pass through it for ever and ever. (Isaiah 34:10)); but it has also been said, “As in the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighbor cities thereof, saith the Lord, no man shall dwell there, neither shall any son of man sojourn there.” These last words are not yet fulfilled. The solitude is broken here and there by fellaheen in the north and by Arabs in the south. But her deserted capital, her ruined cities, her lost people, are the pledge that these words too will find their fulfillment, and that the time will surely come when no man shall dwell there nor any son of man sojourn therein.
Let us now pass from Idumea to the southern part of the seacoast of Palestine, the ancient land of the Philistines. The scanty notices of this people, supplied by ancient history and the recently deciphered monuments of Egypt and Assyria, agree with those of Scripture in representing them as an enterprising and martial race. More than 1,200 years before the Christian era we find them engaged in a successful war with the Sidonians, and about the same time they, in conjunction with other Mediterranean nations, attacked the naval forces of Egypt. Every reader of the Old Testament is acquainted with their persistent hostility towards the Israelites, a hostility which seems to have culminated in the hour of Israel’s deepest distress, when her armies were defeated and dispersed, her strongholds taken, and the majority of her people carried captive to Babylonia. When the doom was pronounced against Edom, Philistia was not forgotten. “Thus saith the Lord God: Because the Philistines have dealt by revenge, and taken vengeance with despite of soul to destroy it with perpetual enmity; therefore thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I will stretch out mine hand upon the Philistines, and I will cut off the Cherethites, and destroy the remnant of the sea-coast” (Ezek. 25:15, 1615Thus saith the Lord God; Because the Philistines have dealt by revenge, and have taken vengeance with a despiteful heart, to destroy it for the old hatred; 16Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I will stretch out mine hand upon the Philistines, and I will cut off the Cherethims, and destroy the remnant of the sea coast. (Ezekiel 25:15‑16)); “Gather yourselves together, yea gather together O nation that hath no shame.... Woe unto the inhabitants of the seacoast, the nation of the Cherethites! The word of the Lord is against you, O Canaan, the land of the Philistines: I will destroy thee that there shall be no inhabitant. And the seacoast shall be pastures, with cottages for shepherds and folds’ for flocks” (Zeph. 2:1, 5, 61Gather yourselves together, yea, gather together, O nation not desired; (Zephaniah 2:1)
5Woe unto the inhabitants of the sea coast, the nation of the Cherethites! the word of the Lord is against you; O Canaan, the land of the Philistines, I will even destroy thee, that there shall be no inhabitant. 6And the sea coast shall be dwellings and cottages for shepherds, and folds for flocks. (Zephaniah 2:5‑6)).
Let us look, then, at this other picture drawn by the pen of prophecy. We note first of all that upon this race, which like that of Esau sought to blot out Israel, there also rests
THE DOOM OF EXTINCTION.
The Cherethites were to be cut off, and even the remnant of the seacoast was to be destroyed. In the face of the desolation which has descended on all these lands, it may seem as if there was nothing wonderful in this prediction. We may regard it as an inevitable feature in their decay that their ancient peoples should pass away and leave no trace. But their kindred, the Egyptians, have not perished, nor have the Israelites, though bereft of a home for eighteen centuries, ceased to exist. Even the Amorites, more ancient foes of Israel, have descendants who can still be distinguished among the Arabs of Mount Seir. The Philistines— so powerful of old that the Greeks have applied their name to the whole country and called it Palestine— the land of tile Philistines—these might also have endured either in Philistia or elsewhere. But its plains will be searched in vain for the descendants of its ancient and war-like masters. Their merchantmen no longer plow the sea or crowd their ports. No more do the hosts sweep out from under the frowning battlements of their own mighty cities to defend the land, or to carry fire and sword into the country of the foe. The strife, which of old stained with blood those hills and plains, still adds to their misery; but none of that once proud and mighty race have part in it, nor are there any, however lowly, who, there or elsewhere, bear their name. The Cherethites have been cut off: the remnant of the seacoast has perished.
Then this land also was to be
A DESOLATION.
It extended from Jaffa to Gaza, being bounded on the north by the Plain of Sharon, on the west by the Mediterranean, on the south by the desert, and on the east by the hills of Judah. It contained the five great cities of Ekron, Ashdod, Ascalon, Gath, and Gaza. We find the names of its strong cities appearing in the stories inscribed on the monuments which tell of the Assyrian and Egyptian invasions of Syria. Ashdod defied the might of Egypt for 29 years—the longest siege on record. Though one wave after another had passed over Philistia, as over the rest of Syria—though Persian, and Egyptian, and Greek, and Roman had wasted with fire and sword, the country remained great and populous, and still possessed her great cities long after the beginning of the Christian era. Even in the twelfth century the word was still unfulfilled. The country was then full of strong cities which were taken and retaken during the wars of the crusades. But during the last six centuries the judgment has slowly but surely fallen; it is deepening even now. “Gath has entirely disappeared.” Ascalon is now “without inhabitant.” “Akir,” the ancient Ekron, “is a wretched village, containing some 40 or 50 mud hovels; its narrow lanes are encumbered with heaps of rubbish and filth. It stands on a bare slope, and the ground immediately around it has a dreary and desolate look, heightened by a few stunted trees here and there round the houses. Yet this is all that marks the site and bears the name of the royal city of Ekron.” Gaza, not the Gaza of the Philistines as we shall afterward see, is still the seat of a considerable population. It forms the first resting-place on the caravan route from Egypt, and has about 15,000 inhabitants. But notwithstanding its position it has hardly retained the shadow of its ancient strength and greatness. “The town resembles a cluster of large villages. The principal one stands on the top of a low hill, and the others lie on the plain at its base. The hill appears to be composed, in a great measure, of the accumulated ruins of successive cities. We can see portions of massive walls and the ends of old columns cropping up everywhere from the rubbish. There are no walls or defenses of any kind.” The once mighty Ashdod is a village “wretched in the extreme.” “The temples, palaces, and houses are all gone.” “All that is left is a confused group of mud hovels.”
Nor is it that the population of the country has merely changed its dwelling-places. With the exceptions named and a few more it has ceased to exist. “Along the whole sea-board are white, sandy downs. Within these is the broad undulating plain with its rich deep soil and low mounds at intervals over whose summits the gray ruins of great cities are now strewn in the dust.... Ruins were visible everywhere; but the villages were few, small, and far between.” The depopulation of the country is largely due to “the insecurity of these parts at the present day from the unchecked incursions of the Bedouin tribes.” Many of the people whose fields are on the plains of Philistia, have, for security, fixed their dwellings on the hillsides of Judah. The word, in short, has been fulfilled, which said, “O Canaan, the land of the Philistines, I will destroy thee that there shall be no inhabitant” (Zeph. 2:55Woe unto the inhabitants of the sea coast, the nation of the Cherethites! the word of the Lord is against you; O Canaan, the land of the Philistines, I will even destroy thee, that there shall be no inhabitant. (Zephaniah 2:5)). The population, which even now could be sustained by its exuberant fertility, has long since passed away. No invading host need dread the resistance of Philistia. It has ceased to defend itself even from the inroads of the robbers of the desert.
But it will be said the words “there shall be no inhabitant” are not literally fulfilled, and the present condition of the country sprinkled as it is with its miserable villages does not answer to the picture which is mirrored in the prophecy. This seeming difficulty, however, only brings out the more the wonderful accuracy with which the present condition of Philistia was portrayed. Philistia as it then was, a land of great cities, famed for its wealth and splendor, its wisdom and martial prowess, its armies and navies, its nobles and warriors, its merchants and artificers, was to be destroyed. And all have passed away. We look in vain for the Philistia of the past. Some ruins of its cities remain, but not a vestige of what was once its strength and glory can now be found. Yet, though the land was to be bereft of those inhabitants, it was not to be tenantless. The prophecy reads, “I will destroy thee that there shall be no inhabitant. And the sea-coast shall be pastures, with cottages for shepherds and folds for flocks” (Zeph. 2:5, 65Woe unto the inhabitants of the sea coast, the nation of the Cherethites! the word of the Lord is against you; O Canaan, the land of the Philistines, I will even destroy thee, that there shall be no inhabitant. 6And the sea coast shall be dwellings and cottages for shepherds, and folds for flocks. (Zephaniah 2:5‑6)).
The former life was to be replaced by this. And here our attention is called to two other predictions. Though the aspect of the country was to be changed,
ITS FRUITFULNESS WAS TO REMAIN.
“The sea-coast shall be for pastures.” It is to attract and sustain its new possessors. This is perhaps the most striking feature of the country. One traveler calls it “the garden of Palestine.” All travelers speak of its rich corn fields. “The most striking and characteristic feature of Philistia,” says Stanley, “is its immense plain of corn fields, stretching from the edge of the sandy tract right up to the very wall of the hills of Judah, which look down its whole length from north to south. These rich fields must have been the great source at once of the power and the wealth of Philistia, and of the unceasing efforts of Israel to master the territory. It was in fact a little Egypt. . . . As these plains form the point of junction and contrast with the hills of Judah on the west, so they form a point of junction and similarity with the wide pastures of the desert on the south.” The “plain,” says another, “now opened up before us, rolling away to the southern horizon in graceful undulations, clothed with a rich mantle of green and gold—harvest field and pasture land.... The plain was all astir with bands of reapers, men and women.... Leaving this low-lying plain we ascended the bleak downs where vast flocks of sheep and camels were browsing; and away on our left, nearly a mile distant, we saw the black tents of their Arab owners.” He speaks of “the noble plain” in the neighborhood of the ancient Ashdod, “stretching away to the foot of Judah’s mountains, here and there cultivated, but mostly neglected and desolate, yet all naturally rich as in the palmiest days of Philistia’s power.”
The fertility of the land, therefore, remains, and the words which describe
THE PRESENT ASPECT OF THE LAND AND THE PURPOSE IT SERVES
are also fulfilled. The seacoast has literally become “pastures and cottages for shepherds, and folds for flocks.” Volney thus describes the country as he found it in 1785— “In the plain between Ramla and Gaza we met with a number of villages badly built of dried mud, and which, like the inhabitants, exhibit every mark of poverty and wretchedness. The houses, on a nearer view, are only so many huts, sometimes Referring to the detached, at others ranged in the form 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 themselves being only raised about two feet above that in which they lodge their beasts. 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.” What the country then was it still remains. Dr. Thomson gives the following graphic description of a large village in one of the most flourishing districts. After riding for nearly two hours “through an ocean of ripe wheat,” he came to Mesmia just as the sun set. “There I pitched for the night. It is a large agricultural village, mud hovels packed together like stacks in a barnyard, and nearly concealed by vast mounds of manure on all sides of it. During the night a dense fog settled down flat upon the face of the plain, through which you could not see ten steps, and the scene in the morning was extraordinary and highly exciting. Before it was light the village was all abuzz like a beehive. Forth issued party after party driving camels, horses, mules, donkeys, cows, sheep, goats, and even poultry before them. To everybody and thing there was a separate call, and the roar and uproar was prodigious.” Referring to the Temple of
Dagon, one of the glories of ancient Ashdod, Porter says: “Not a vestige of the temple is there now. Along the southerly declivity old building stones with fragments of columns and sculptured capitals are piled up in the fences of little fields, and in the walls of goat and sheep pens, showing how time and God’s unchangeableness have converted prophecy into history: ‘and the sea-coast shall be dwellings, and cottages for shepherds and folds for flocks.’”
We may notice in connection with this country some startling instances of the minute fulfillment of prophecy. They are presented in the diverse fates of three of its great cities. The prophet Zechariah declares, “Ashkelon shall not be inhabited” (ix. 5); and Zephaniah, “Ashkelon” shall be “a desolation” (2: 4). The latter prophet immediately after the prediction we have just noticed, continues: “And the coast shall be for the remnant of the house of Judah; they shall feed their flocks thereupon: in the houses of Ashkelon shall they lie down in the evening: for the Lord their God shall visit them, and turn away their captivity.” It would seem, therefore, that though the inhabitant should cease from Ascalon, the place should remain even till the ingathering of Israel. What, then, is the fact? Till nearly the end of the thirteenth century Ascalon retained its strength and greatness, when its fortifications were demolished by the Sultan Bibars, and its harbor was filled up with stones. The walls present evidence of their having been rebuilt, and it was held by a Turkish garrison so late as the beginning of the seventeenth century. Since that time it has been totally deserted. The modern village is to the north of the old site, and not even those who own orchards within the walls plant their dwellings there. The walls of the town, with their ruined towers and battlements, still remain, and in this respect Ascalon stands alone among the ancient cities of Philistia. “The topography of this place,” writes Dr. Thomson, “is very peculiar. A lofty and abrupt ridge begins near the shore, runs up eastward, bends round to the south, then to the west, and finally northwest to the sea again, forming an irregular amphitheater. On the top of this ridge ran the wall, which was defended at its salient angles by strong towers. The specimens which still exist show that it was very high and thick.... The position is one of the fairest along this part of the Mediterranean coast.... The walls must have been blown to pieces by powder, for not even earthquakes could toss these gigantic masses of masonry into such extraordinary attitudes. No site in this country has so deeply impressed my mind with sadness.” Ascalon is a desolation, but it waits to render a final service. Ibrahim Pasha in 1840 cleared part of the ruins to bivouac the Egyptian troops, and in so doing uncovered no fewer than 20 wells of water. The cleared space has since been occupied as gardens, and Dr. Thomson says: “Ashkelon will surely be rebuilt at some future day of prosperity for this unhappy land. The position is altogether too advantageous to allow it into to sink into total neglect.”
In the same prediction of Zephaniah we read: “Ekron” (more correctly Akkaron) “shall be ROOTED UP” (2:4). The words are unusual and striking, yet few would think of laying special stress upon them. Let the event instruct us. The site is still called Akir, and there still remain upon it a few inhabitants. But round the small village no mounds are seen such as mark the sites of other ancient cities. Ekron has literally been rooted up. The place where it once stood is now plowed fields, and the only evidence that a city ever existed there is found in the stones of handmills and the ancient cisterns which are occasionally met with by the cultivators.
It is also said in Zephaniah, “Gaza shall be forsaken” (2:4); and in Jeremiah, “Baldness is come upon Gaza” (47:5). There is still a town of this name, as we have seen, which has at present a population of about fifteen thousand. Dr. Keith, in the earlier editions of his large and valuable work on Prophecy, found this a difficulty. It seemed plain that either the time had not yet come for the fulfillment of the predictions, or that the language of the prophets was not to be taken quite literally, and that the once great city of Gaza might be regarded as offering in its present fallen condition a comparatively close fulfillment. But meanwhile the prophecies had been so fully accomplished that the ancient Gaza could lift no protest against the mistake which was being made. The modern town is not built, as Dr. Keith afterward discovered, on the site of the old, and is therefore not the subject of the prophecies. The great Gaza of the Philistines lay two miles nearer the shore, and is now a series of sandhills, covered with minute but manifold remains. It is so forsaken that there is not a single hut resting upon its site. It is so bald that neither pillar nor standing stone marks the place where the city stood, nor is there a single blade of grass on which the weary eye can rest.
Every one will feel how startlingly clear and minute these prophetic pictures are. Were they mere descriptions we should admire their accuracy and happy fitness of expression. But our wonder is intensified as we mark how accurately the fate of those three allied cities is discriminated. The description of Ascalon, desolate and tenantless, awaiting a day of restoration when it may receive wanderers to its shelter, can be applied to neither Ekron nor Gaza. Gaza though forsaken and bald, has not been rooted up. Its mounds remain, bald though they are; their stones are sometimes quarried to meet the wants of the neighboring town, and it is possible that the foundations of the ancient city may yet be laid bare. Only to Ekron does that briefest but truest of all possible descriptions apply—it alone has been “rooted up.” The traveler who would today apply these words for the first time, we should judge to be possessed of clear observation, and of that rarer penetration and sympathy of genius which grasp to its inmost depths the thing with which they deal. Add to this, what we know, that the words stood upon the page of Scripture for long centuries before any sign appeared of their fulfillment, and then say what we are to think of such things. Very high claims have been made on behalf of the Scriptures; but if we test them by these three words, we think the highest claim of all will be amply sustained.