DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4592#0212
212 REFLECTIONS.
to have passed through the land. Nor is the route
eastward unfrequented. Near Mount Hor we saw a
large party of merchants with camels and stores, on
their way from Gaza to Maan. Not only so, but in
a literal sense the wild Arabs are passing through the
land continually. The whole passage, then, is but po-
etic imagery, descriptive, in the most lively terms, of
the fallen and desolate condition of Idumea. God for-
bid that I should weaken the force of prophecy, by
any remarks of mine; but I do not see the necessity
of observing the strictest literalism in applying high
poetic imagery.
The ruins of Petra teach a far more impressive les-
son than is to be found in searching after those mi-
nute literalities. We see in her present condition, not
only the accomplishment of all the denunciations
against Edom, but a warning of the certainty with
which all God's righteous denunciations against sin,
will be fulfilled. Here, if we read the lesson right,
every fragment of that desolated city will appear to
address us with the solemn admonition: "Think ye
that they were sinners above all men, because they
suffered these things 1 I tell you nay, but except ye
repent, ye shall all likewise perish!"
Eight hundred years before Christ, Amaziah, the
king of Judea, " slew of Edom, in the Valley of Salt,
ten thousand, and took Selah (the Hebrew name of
Petra) by war." About five hundred years after this,
the city was already known to the Greeks as Petra.
It had then passed into the hands of the Nabathcans,
and had become a place of trade. Sometime after
this, the kingdom of Arabia Petoea was known—hav-
to have passed through the land. Nor is the route
eastward unfrequented. Near Mount Hor we saw a
large party of merchants with camels and stores, on
their way from Gaza to Maan. Not only so, but in
a literal sense the wild Arabs are passing through the
land continually. The whole passage, then, is but po-
etic imagery, descriptive, in the most lively terms, of
the fallen and desolate condition of Idumea. God for-
bid that I should weaken the force of prophecy, by
any remarks of mine; but I do not see the necessity
of observing the strictest literalism in applying high
poetic imagery.
The ruins of Petra teach a far more impressive les-
son than is to be found in searching after those mi-
nute literalities. We see in her present condition, not
only the accomplishment of all the denunciations
against Edom, but a warning of the certainty with
which all God's righteous denunciations against sin,
will be fulfilled. Here, if we read the lesson right,
every fragment of that desolated city will appear to
address us with the solemn admonition: "Think ye
that they were sinners above all men, because they
suffered these things 1 I tell you nay, but except ye
repent, ye shall all likewise perish!"
Eight hundred years before Christ, Amaziah, the
king of Judea, " slew of Edom, in the Valley of Salt,
ten thousand, and took Selah (the Hebrew name of
Petra) by war." About five hundred years after this,
the city was already known to the Greeks as Petra.
It had then passed into the hands of the Nabathcans,
and had become a place of trade. Sometime after
this, the kingdom of Arabia Petoea was known—hav-