While the fruitfulness of the land of Ammon, and the high degree of prosperity and power in which it subsisted, long prior and long subsequent to the date of the predictions, are thus indisputably established by historical evidence, and by existing proofs, the researches of recent travellers (who were actuated by the mere desire of exploring these regions and obtaining geographical information) have made known its present aspect; and testimony the most clear, unexceptionable, and conclusive, has been borne to the state of dire desolation to which it is, and has long been reduced. It was prophesied concerning AMMON, "Son of man, set thy face against the Ammonites, and prophesy against them. I will make Rabbah of the alluded to in all his writings, seems to have been wholly foreign to his view. "He was a traveller of no ordinary description, a gentleman by birth, and a scholar by education; he added to the ordinary acquirements of a traveller, accomplishments which fitted him for any society. His description of the countries through which he passed, his narrative of incidents, his transactions with the natives, are all placed before us with equal clearness and simplicity. In every page they will find that ardour of research, that patience of investigation, that passionate pursuit after truth, for which he was eminently distinguished." (Quarterly Review, vol. xxii. p. 437.) "He appears, from his books and letters, to have been a modest, laborious, learned, and sensible man; exempt from prejudice, unattached to systems; detailing what he saw plainly and correctly, and of very prudent and discreet conduct." (Edinburgh Review, number lxvii. p. 109.) The following extract from General Straton's manuscript travels was written at Cairo, and is the more valuable, as containing the result of personal knowledge and observation. "Burckhardt speaks Arabic perfectly, has adopted the costume, and goes to the religious places of worship, has been at Mecca; in short, follows in every thing the Turkish manners and customs, and he is not to be distinguished from a Mussulman. With what advantage must he travel! He is by birth a Swiss, but having been educated in England, speaks our language perfectly." Ammonites a stable for camels and a couching-place for flocks. Behold, I will stretch out my hand upon thee, and deliver thee for a spoil to the heathen ; I will cut thee off from the people, and cause thee to perish out of the countries; I will destroy thee. The Ammonites shall not be remembered among the nations. Rabbah (the chief city) of the Ammonites shall be a desolate heap. Ammon shall be a perpetual desolation."b с Ammon was to be delivered to be a spoil to the heathen, to be destroyed, and to be a perpetual desolation. "All this country, formerly so populous and flourishing, is now changed into a vast desert." Ruins are seen in every direction. The country is divided between the Turks and the Arabs, but chiefly possessed by the latter. The extortions of the one, and the depredations of the other, keep it in perpetual desolation and make it a spoil to the heathen. "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."d" At every step are to be found the vestiges of ancient cities, the remains of many temples, public edifices, and Greek churches." The cities are desolate. 66 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."f b Ezek. xxv. 2, 5, 7, 10; xxi. 32. Jer. xlix. 2. Zeph. ii. 9. • Seetzen's Travels, p. 34. a Ibid. p. 37. Burckhardt's Travels in Nubia, introd. pp. 37, 38, 44. f Burckhardt's Travels in Syria, pp. 355, 357, 364. e On While the country is thus despoiled and desolate, there are valleys and tracts throughout it, which " are covered with a fine coat of verdant pasture, and are places of resort to the Bedouins, where they pasture their camels and their sheep." "The whole way we traversed," says Seetzen, "we saw villages in ruins, and met numbers of Arabs with their camels," &c. Mr. Buckingham describes a building among the ruins of Ammon, "the masonry of which was evidently constructed of materials gathered from the ruins of other and older buildings on the spot. entering it at the south end," he adds, "we came to an open square court, with arched recesses on each side, the sides nearly facing the cardinal points. The recesses in the northern and southern wall were originally open passages, and had arched door-ways facing each other; but the first of these was found wholly closed up, and the last was partially filled up, leaving only a narrow passage, just sufficient for the entrance of one man and of the goats, which the Arab keepers drive in here occasionally for shelter during the night." He relates that he lay down among flocks of sheep and goats, close beside the ruins of Ammon; and particularly remarks that, during the night, he was almost entirely prevented from sleeping by the bleating of flocks. h So literally true is it, although Seetzen, and Burckhardt, and Buckingham, who relate the facts, make no reference or allusion whatever to any of the prophecies, and travelled for a different object than the elucidation of the Scriptures, that the chief city of the Ammonites is a stable for camels, and a couching-place for flocks. The Ammonites shall not be remembered among the nations. While the Jews, who were long their here 8 Buckingham's Travels in Palestine, &c. p. 329. h Buckingham's Travels among the Arab Tribes, under the title of Ruins of Ammon, pp. 72, 73, &c. ditary enemies, continue as distinct a people as ever, though dispersed among all nations, no trace of the Ammonites remains, none are now designated by their name, nor do any claim descent from them. They did exist, however, long after the time when the eventual annihilation of their race was foretold, for they retained their name, and continued a great multitude until the second century of the Christian era. Yet they are cut off from the people. Ammon has perished out of the countries; it is destroyed. No people is attached to its soil; none regard it as their country and adopt its name: and the Ammonites are not remembered among the nations. Rabbah (Rabbah Ammon, the chief city of Ammon,) shall be a desolate heap. Situated as it was, on each side of the borders of a plentiful stream,-encircled by a fruitful region,-strong by nature and fortified by art, nothing could have justified the suspicion, or warranted the conjecture in the mind of an uninspired mortal, that the royal city of Ammon, whatever disasters might possibly befall it in the fate of war or change of masters, would ever undergo so total a transmutation as to become a desolate heap. But although, in addition to such tokens of its continuance as a city, more than a thousand years had given uninterrupted experience of its stability, ere the prophets of Israel denounced its fate; yet a period of equal length has now marked it out, as it exists to this day, a desolate heap, a perpetual or permanent desolation. Its ancient name is still preserved by the Arabs; and its site is now covered with the ruins of private buildings, nothing of them remaining except the foundations and some of the door-posts. The buildings, exposed to the atmosphere, are all in decay," so that i Justin Martyr, p. 392, edit. Thirl. i they may be said literally to form a desolate heap. The public edifices, which once strengthened or adorned the city, after a long resistance to decay, are now also desolate; and the remains of the most entire among them, subjected as they are to the abuse and spoliation of the wild Arabs, can be adapted to no better object than a stable for camels. Yet these broken walls and ruined palaces, which attest the ancient splendour of Ammon, can now, by means of a single act of reflection, or simple process of reason, be made subservient to a far nobler purpose than the most magnificent edifices on earth can be, when they are contemplated as monuments on which the historic and prophetic truth of Scripture is blended in one bright inscription. A minute detail of them may not therefore be uninteresting. Seetzen, whose indefatigable ardour led him, in defiance of danger, the first to explore the countries which lie east of the Jordan, and east and south of the Dead Sea, or the territories of Ammon, Moab, and Edom, justly characterizes Ammon as "once the residence of many kings,-an ancient town which flourished long before the Greeks and Romans, and even before the Hebrews ;" and he briefly enumerates those remains of ancient greatness and splendour which are most distinguishable amidst its ruins. "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. 2dly, The ruins of a large palace. 3dly, A magnificent amphitheatre of immense size, and well preserved, with a peristyle of A brief account of the countries adjoining the Lake of Tiberias, the Jordan, and the Dead Sea, by M. Seetzen, Conseiller d'Ambassade de S. M. l'Empereur de Russe, pp. 35, 36.20 |