and he briefly enumerates those remains of ancient greatness and splendour which are most distinguishable amid its ruins. 66 Although this town has been destroyed and deserted for many ages, I still found there some remarkable ruins, which attest its ancient splendour. Such as, 1st, A square building, very highly ornamented, which has been perhaps a mausoleum. 2d, The ruins of a large palace. 3d, A magnificent amphitheatre of immense size, and well preserved, with a peristyle of Corinthian pillars without pedestals. 4th, A temple with a great number of columns. 5th, The ruins of a large church, perhaps the see of a bishop in the time of the Greek emperors. 6th, The remains of a temple with columns set in a circular form, and which are of an extraordinary size. 7th, The remains of the ancient wall, with many other edifices." Burckhardt, who afterward visited the spot, describes it with greater minuteness. He gives a plan of the ruins; and particularly noted the ruins of many temples, of a spacious church, a curved wall, a high arched bridge, the banks and bed of the river still partially paved; a large theatre with successive tiers of apartments excavated in the rocky side of a hill; Corinthian columns fifteen feet high; the castle, a very extensive building, the walls of which are thick, and denote a remote antiquity; many cisterns and vaults; and a plain covered with the decayed ruins of private buildings;t-monuments of ancient splendour standing amid a desolate heap. МОАВ. The prophecies concerning Moab are more numerous and not less remarkable. Those of them which met their completion in ancient time, and which related to particular events in the history of the Moabites, and to the result of their conflicts with the Jews or any of the neighbouring states, however necessary they may have been at the time for strengthening the faith or supporting the courage of the children of Israel, need not now be adduced in evidence of inspiration; for there are abundant predictions which refer so clearly to decisive and un and the Dead Sea, by M. Seetzen, Conseiler d'Ambassade de S. M. l'Empereur de Russia, p. 35, 36. *Seetzen's Travels, p. 35, 36. † Burckhardt's Travels in Syria, p. 358, &c. questionable facts, that there is scarcely a single feature peculiar to the land of Moab, as it now exists, which was not marked by the prophets in their delineation of the low estate to which, from the height of its wickedness and haughtiness, it was finally to be brought down. 66 Against Moab, thus saith the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, Wo unto Nebo! for it is spoiled; Kiriathaim is confounded and taken; Misgab is confounded and dismayed. There shall be no more praise of Moab.-And the spoiler shall come upon every city, and no city shall escape; the valley also shall perish, and the plain shall be destroyed, as the Lord hath spoken. Give wings unto Moab, that it may flee and get away: for the cities thereof shall be desolate, without any to dwell therein.— Moab hath been at ease from his youth, and he hath settled on his lees; and hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel, neither hath he gone into captivity. Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I will send unto him wanderers, that shall cause him to wander.-How is the strong staff broken, and the beautiful rod!—Thou daughter that dost inhabit Dibon, come down from thy glory and sit in thirst; for the spoiler of Moab shall come upon thee, and he shall destroy thy strongholds. Moab is confounded, for it is broken down. Moab is spoiled. And judgment is come upon the plain country; upon Holon, and upon Jahazah, and upon Mephaath, and upon Dibon, and upon Nebo, and upon Bethdiblathaim; upon Kiriathaim, Bethgamul, Bethmeon, and upon Kerioth, and upon Bozrah, and upon all the cities of the land of Moab, far and near. The horn of Moab is cut off, and his arm is broken, saith the Lord. O ye that dwell in Moab, leave the cities and dwell in the rock; and be like the dove that maketh her nest in the sides of the hole's mouth. We have heard of the pride of Moab (he is exceeding proud), his loftiness, and his arrogancy, and his pride, and the haughtiness of his heart.—And joy and gladness is taken from the plentiful field, and from the land of Moab. I have caused wine to fail from the winepresses. None shall tread with shouting; their shouting shall be no shouting. From the city of Heshbon, even unto Elealeh, and even unto Jahaz, have they uttered their voice from Zoar even unto Horonaim; the waters also of Nimrim shall be desolate. I have broken Moab like a vessel wherein is no pleasure. They shall cry, How is it broken down! And Moab shall be de stroyed from being a people, because he hath magnified himself against the Lord. The cities of Aroer are forsaken; they shall be for flocks, which shall lie down, and none shall make them afraid. Moab shall be a perpetual desolation." 99* The land of Moab lay to the east and south-east of Judea, and bordered on the east, north-east, and partly on the south of the Dead Sea. Its early history is nearly analogous to that of Ammon; and the soil, though perhaps more diversified, is, in many places where the desert and plains of salt have not encroached on its borders, of equal fertility. There are manifest and abundant vestiges of its ancient greatness. "The whole of the plains are covered with the sites of towns, on every eminence or spot convenient for the construction of one. And as the land is capable of rich cultivation, there can be no doubt that the country now so deserted once presented a continued picture of plenty and fertility."t The form of fields is still visible; and there are the remains of Roman highways, which in some places are completely paved, and on which there are milestones of the times of Trajan, Marcus Aurelius, and Severus, with the number of the miles legible upon them. Wherever any spot is cultivated the corn is luxuriant: and the riches of the soil cannot perhaps be more clearly illustrated than by the fact, that one grain of Heshbon wheat exceeds in dimensions two of the ordinary sort, and more than double the number of grains grow on the stalk. The frequency and almost, in many instances, the close vicinity of the sites of the ancient towns, " prove that the population of the country was formerly proportioned to its natural fertility." Such evidence may surely suffice to prove, that the country was well cultivated and peopled at a period so long posterior to the date of the predictions, that no cause less than supernatural could have existed at the time when they were delivered, which could have authorized the assertion with the least probability or apparent possibility of its truth, that Moab would ever have been reduced to that state of great and permanent desolation in which it has continued for so many ages, and which vindicates and ratifies to this hour the truth of the scriptural prophecies. * Jer. xlviii. 1, 2, 8, 9, 11, 12, 18-28, 29-42. Is. xvii. 2. Zeph. ii. 9. Ibid. p. 377, 378, 456, 460. The cities of Moab were to be desolate without any to dwell therein; no city was to escape. Moab was to flee away. And the cities of Moab have all disappeared. Their place, together with the adjoining part of Idumea, is characterized, in the map of Volney's Travels, by the ruins of towns. His information respecting these ruins was derived from some of the wandering Arabs; and its accuracy has been fully corroborated by the testimony of different European travellers of high respectability and undoubted veracity, who have since visited this devastated region. The whole country abounds with ruins. And Burckhardt, who encountered many difficulties in so desolate and dangerous a land, thus records the brief history of a few of them: "The ruins of Eleale, Heshbon, Meon, Medaba, Dibon, Aroer, still subsist to illustrate the history of the Beni Israel."* And it might with equal truth have been added, that they still subsist to confirm the inspiration of the Jewish Scripture, or to prove that the seers of Israel were the prophets of God, for the desolation of each of these very cities was the theme of a prediction. Every thing worthy of observation respecting them has been detailed, not only in Burckhardt's Travels in Syria, but also by Seetzen, and, more recently, by Captains Irby and Mangles, who, along with Mr. Bankes and Mr. Legh, visited this deserted district. The predicted judgment has fallen with such truth upon these cities, and upon all the cities of the land of Moab far and near, and they are so utterly broken down, that even the prying curiosity of such indefatigable travellers could discover among a multiplicity of ruins only a few remains so entire as to be worthy of particular notice. The subjoined description is drawn from their united testimony.-Among the ruins of El Aal (Eleale) are a number of large cisterns, fragments of buildings, and foundations of houses.t At Heshban (Heshbon) are the ruins of a large ancient town, together with the remains of a temple, and some edifices. A few broken shafts of columns are still standing; and there are a number of deep wells cut in the rock. The ruins of Medaba are about two miles in circumference. There are many remains of the walls of private houses constructed with blocks of silex, but not a single edifice is standing. The chief object of interest is an immense *Burckhardt's Travels in Nubia, Introduction, p. + Burck. Travels in Syria, p. 365. 38. + Ibid. tank or cistern of hewn stones, "which, as there is no stream at Medaba," Burckhardt remarks, "might still be of use to the Bedouins, were the surrounding ground cleared of the rubbish to allow the water to flow into it; but such an undertaking is far beyond the views of the wandering Arabs." There is also the foundation of a temple built with large stones, and apparently of great antiquity, with two columns near it.* The ruins of Diban (Dibon) situated in the midst of a fine plain, are of considerable extent, but present nothing of interest.† The neighbouring hot wells, and the similarity of the name, identify the ruins of Myoun with Meon, or Beth Meon of Scripture. Of this ancient city, as well as of Araayr (Aroer), nothing is now remarkable but what is common to them with all the cities of Moab-their entire desolation. The extent of the ruins of Rabba (Rabbath Moab), formerly the residence of the kings of Moab, sufficiently proves its ancient importance, though no other object can be particularized among the ruins except the remains of a palace or temple, some of the walls of which are still standing; a gate belonging to another building; and an insulated altar. There are many remains of private buildings, but none entire. There being no springs on the spot, the town had two birkets, the largest of which is cut entirely out of the rocky ground, together with many cisterns. Mount Nebo was completely barren when Burckhardt passed over it, and the site of the ancient city had not been ascertained. Nebo is spoiled. While the ruins of all these cities still retain their ancient names, and are the most conspicuous amid the wide scene of general desolation, and while each of them was in like manner particularized in the visions of the prophet, they yet formed but a small number of the cities of Moab and the rest are also, in similar verification of the prophecies, desolate, without any to dwell therein. None of the ancient cities of Moab now exist as tenanted by men. Kerek, which neither bears any resemblance in name to any of the cities of Moab which are mentioned as existing in the time of the Israelites, nor *Burck, p. 366. Seetzen's Travels, p. 37. Captains Irby and Mangles's Travels, p. 471. † Captains Irby and Mangles's Travels, p. 462. Seetzen's Travels, p. 38. Burckhardt's Travels, p. 365. Irby and Mangles's Travels, p. 464. Seetzen's Travels, p. 39. Burckhardt's Travels, p. 377. Burckhardt's Travels, p. 370. |