WILLIAM ALDIS WRIGHT, M. A.—The date of this book is given in the inscription; namely, the reign of Josiah, from 642 to 611 B. C. This date accords fully with internal indications.—Smith's Dict., 3617.
Ashkelon and Ekron
PROF. J. L. PORTER, M. A.—The whole site of Ascalon was before us. Not a house nor a fragment of a house remains standing. Not a foundation of temple or palace can be traced entire. One-half of it is occupied with miniature fields, and vineyards, and fig-orchards; rubbish-mounds here and there among them, and great heaps of hewn stones, and broken shafts, and sculptured slabs of granite and marble. The rude fences exhibit similar painful evidences of ancient wealth and magnificence. The other half of the site was still more fearfully desolate. It is so thickly covered with drift sand, that not a heap of rubbish, not a vestige-of a ruin remains visible, save here and there where the top of column rises like a tombstone above the smooth surface. The sand is fast advancing; it has already covered some of the highest fragments of the southern and western wall, and ere a quarter of a century has passed, the site of Ascalon will have been blotted out forever.—Dismounting I took out my Bible and rear the doom pronounced upon Ascalon by the prophets Zechariah and Zephaniah —"Askelon shall not be inhabited "—"Askelon shall be a desolation." Ascalon is a desolation; it shall not be, CANNOT BE, inhabited! As we stood there and looked, we said to each other, "The eye of the Omniscient God alone could have foreseen such a doom as this."—Giant Cities of Bashan, p. 207.
And Ekron shall be rooted up.
PROF. J. L. PORTER, M. A.—Akîr (Ekron) is a wretched village containing some forty or fifty hovels; its narrow lanes 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 scattered here and there round the houses. Yet this is all that marks the site and bears the name of the royal city of Ekron. There is not a solitary vestige of royalty there now. With feelings it would be difficult to describe, we took out our Bibles again, and read the doom pronounced upon it by the Hebrew prophet while it yet stood in all the pride of its strength and beauty.-Giant Cities of Bashan, p. 195.
Coast of Philistia
PROF. J. LESLIE PORTER, M. A.—Still we rode on eastward over the undulating, desolate plain. Our course lay along the southern border of Philistia, where the plain has been overrun for many a century by the wandering Ishmaelites of Et-Tih, and where extensive cultivation and settled habitation are alike impossible. In our ride of more than thirty miles, that day, we did not meet a human being; and from the moment we left the fields of Gaza till we passed in among the rocky spurs of the hills of Judah, we did not see a single sign of human life. We saw many towns and villages in ruins-white mounds of rubbish on the gray plain.—Giant Cities of Bashan, p. 213.
Moab and Ammon
Zeph. 2:99Therefore as I live, saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Surely Moab shall be as Sodom, and the children of Ammon as Gomorrah, even the breeding of nettles, and saltpits, and a perpetual desolation: the residue of my people shall spoil them, and the remnant of my people shall possess them. (Zephaniah 2:9).—Surely Moab shall be as Sodom, and the children of Ammon as Gomorrah, even the breeding of nettles, and salt pits, and a perpetual desolation.
SEETZEN. —All this country, formerly so populous and flourishing, is now changed into a vast desert.... 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.—Travels, p. 34, 37.
BURCKHARDT.—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 appears that the mode of building was very solid, all the remains being formed of large stones. In the vicinity of Ammon there is a fertile plain interspersed with low hills, which for the greater part are covered with ruins.—Travels in Syria, p. 355, 364.
Desolation of Nineveh
Zeph. it: 13, 14.—And he will stretch out his hand against the north, and destroy Assyria; and will make Nineveh a desolation, and dry like a wilderness. And flocks shall lie down in the midst of her, all the beasts of the nations: both the cormorant and the bittern shall lodge in the upper lintels of it; their voice shall sing in the windows; desolation shall be in the thresholds: for he shall uncover the cedar work.
AUSTEN HENRY LAYARD, D. C. L.—" He will make. Nineveh a desolation, and dry like a wilderness:"—The canals which once fertilized the soil are now dry. Except when the earth is green, after the periodical rains, the site of the city, as well as the surrounding country, is an arid yellow waste. Flocks of sheep and herds of camels may be seen seeking scanty pasture amongst the mounds. From the unwholesome swamp within the ruins of Khorsabad, and from the reedy banks of the little streams that flow by Kouyunjik and Nimroud may be heard the croak of the cormorant and the bittern. The cedar-wood which adorned the ceilings of the palaces has been uncovered by modern explorers; and in the deserted halls the hyena, the wolf, the fox, and the jackal, now lie down.—Smith's Dict. of Bible, p. 2168.
For he shall uncover the cedar work.
IDEM.—Standing one day on a distant part of the mound, I smelt the sweet smell of burning cedar. The Arab workmen, excavating in the small temple, had dug out a beam, and, the weather being cold, had at once made a fire to warm themselves. The wood was cedar; probably one of the very beams mentioned in the inscription as brought from the forests of Lebanon by the king who built the edifice. After a lapse of nearly 3,000 years, it had retained its original fragrance. Many other such beams were discovered, and the greater part of the rubbish in which the ruin was buried consisted of charcoal of the same wood. It is likely that the whole superstructure, as well as the roof and floor of the building, like those of the temple and palace of Solomon, were of this precious material.—Nin. and Bab., p. 308.
AUSTEN HENRY LAYARD, D. C. L.—(Of the wealth, luxury, magnificence and power of Nineveh, which prompted to this proud presumptuous speech, the following eloquent description of this explorer of one of her palaces, may serve to convey some idea):—The interior of the Assyrian palace must have been as magnificent as imposing. I have led the reader through its ruins, and he may judge of the impression its halls were calculated to make upon one who, in the days of old, entered for the first time the abode of the Assyrian kings. He was ushered in through the portal, guarded by the colossal lions or bulls of white alabaster. In the first hall, he found himself surrounded by the sculptured records of the empire. Battles, sieges, triumphs, the exploits of the chase, the ceremonies of religion, were portrayed on the walls—sculptured in alabaster, and painted in gorgeous colors. Under each picture were engraved, in characters filled up with bright copper, inscriptions describing the scenes represented. Above the sculptures were painted other events-the king, attended by his eunuchs and warriors, receiving his prisoners, entering into alliances with other monarchs, or performing some sacred duty. These representations were enclosed in colored borders of elaborate and elegant design. The emblematic tree, winged bulls, and monstrous animals were conspicuous among the ornaments. At the upper end of the hall was the colossal figure of the king, in adoration before the Supreme Deity, or receiving from his eunuch the holy cup. He was attended by warriors bearing his arms, and by the priests or presiding divinities. His robes, and those of his followers, were adorned with groups of figures, animals, and flowers, all painted with brilliant colors.—The stranger trod upon alabaster slabs, each bearing an inscription recording the titles, genealogy and achievements of the great king. Several doorways, formed by gigantic winged lions or bulls, or by the figures of guardian deities, led into other apartments, which again opened into more distant halls. In each were new sculptures. On the walls of some were processions of colossal figures—armed men and eunuchs following the king, warriors laden with spoil, leading prisoners, or bearing presents and offerings to the gods. On the walls of others were portrayed the winged priests, or presiding divinities, standing before the sacred trees. The ceilings above him were divided into square compartments, painted with flowers or the figures of animals. Some were inlaid with ivory, each compartment being surrounded by elegant borders and moldings. The beams, as well as the sides of the chambers, may have been gilded, or even plated with gold and silver; and the rarest woods, in which the cedar was conspicuous, were used for the wood-work. Square openings in the ceilings of the chambers admitted the light of day. A pleasing shadow was thrown over the sculptured walls, and gave a majestic expression to the human features of the colossal forms which guarded the entrances. Through these apertures was seen the bright blue of an eastern sky, enclosed in a frame, on which were painted, in vivid colors, the winged circle, in the midst of elegant ornaments, and the graceful forms of ideal animals.—" This is the rejoicing city that dwelt carelessly, that said in her heart, I am, and there is none besides me." —Nineveh and its Remains, Vol. II., p. 262.
How is she become a desolation, a place for beasts to lie down in.
BISHOP NEWTON.—What probability was there that such a capital, the capital of a great kingdom, a city which was sixty miles in compass, a city which contained so many thousand inhabitants, a city which had walls, according to Diodorus Siculus, a hundred feet high, and so thick that three chariots could go abreast upon them, and fifteen hundred towers at proper distances in the walls of two hundred feet in height: what probability was there, I say, that such a city should ever be totally destroyed? and yet so totally was it destroyed, that (for many centuries) the place was hardly known on which it stood.—"Verily this is the word that the Lord hath spoken, Verily there is a God who judgeth in the earth."— Dissertations, p. 126.