The prophecies of the scriptures are frequently predictions at once unexampled and unparalleled. Nations could not perish before they had grown, nor empires be destroyed till they had accumulated. Babylon, Nineveh, Damascus and Tyre had been growing and flourishing for a thousand years, at the time that Jonah, Micah, Hosea and Isaiah pronounced their sentences against them. At that time, mankind had not yet seen a ruined empire. Judging from the past they had no reason to expect anything else than prosperity concerning these cities; yet the prophets pronounced desolation and solitude against these cities which were then the capitals of nations more populous than this continent at the present time, and displayed buildings, a sight of whose crumbling ruins is deemed sufficient recompense for the perils of a journey of ten thousand miles. Every church, hall, school-house, theatre and hospital of Salt Lake City could have been conveniently arranged in the basement of the great temple of Belus. On the first floor there was room enough for the whole adult population of Utah to assemble, while the remaining seven stories would have still been open for the accomodation of the citizens of Babylon. When the prophets wrote their predictions, the walls of Babylon had been raised to the hight of three hundred and fifty feet, and made broad enough for six chariots to drive upon them abreast. From its hundred brazen gates issued the armies which trampled under foot the liberties of mankind, and presented their lives to the nod of a despot, who slew whom he would, and whom he would, allowed to live. Twenty years' provisions were collected within its walls, and the world would not believe that an enemy could enter its gates. Nevertheless, the prophets of God pronounced against it a doom of destruction as extraordinary as the pride and wickedness which procured it. Tyre, the London of Asia, was to "become a place for the spreading of nets" (Ezekiel xxvi 5), The infidel, Volney, tells us that, "Its commerce has declined to a trifling, fishery;" but even that implies some few resident inhabitants. Rabbah of Ammon was to become, "A stable for camels and couching place for flocks" (Ezekiel xxv, 5). Lord Lindsay reports that, he "could not sleep amidst its ruins for the bleating of sheep in the sheep-folds and the braying of camels in its ruins." Yet sheep-folds imply that their Arab owners would occasionally reside near its ruins. But desolation, solitude and utter abandonment to the wild beast of the desert is the clearly-predicted doom of the ancient world's proud capital: "Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in, from generation to generation: neither shall the Arabian pitch his tent there; neither shall the shepherds make their folds there. But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there, and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there. And the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in their pleasant palaces" (Isaiah xiii, 19 22).
Every traveler attests the fulfillment of this strange prediction. "It is a tenantless and desolate ruin," says Mignon, who, though fully armed and attended by six Arabs, could not be induced by any reward to pass the night among its ruins, from his apprehension of evil spirits. So completely fulfilled is the prophecy, "The Arabian shall not pitch his tent there." The same voice that called camels and flocks to the palaces of Rabbah, summoned a very different class of tenants for the palaces of Babylon. Rabbah was to be a sheep-fold, Babylon a menagerie of wild beasts—a very specific difference and very improbable. However, after it was destroyed and deserted, one of the Persian kings repaired its walls, converted it into a vast hunting ground and stocked it with various kinds of wild beasts; and to this day the apes of the Spice Islands, and the lions of the African wilds meet in its ruins and howl their testimony to the truth of God's word. Only a few years ago. Sir R. K. Porter and Dr. Rich, saw two majestic lions in the "Mujelibe" or ruins of the palace.
The nations selected as examples of divine justice are as various as their sentences are different—covering a space as long as from New York to San Francisco and climes as various as those between Canada and Cuba; peopled by men of every shade of color and degree of capacity from the negro servant of servants, to the builders of the Coliseum and the pyramids. The prophecies describe in their own expressive symbols, the nations yet unfounded and kings unborn, who should ignorantly execute the judgments of God. They also predict the future of over thirty states—no two of which are alike.
If, for instance, a prophet should declare that New York should be overturned and become a little fishing village—that Philadelphia should become a swamp and never be inhabited—that New Orleans should become a dry, barren desert, and Chicago be utterly consumed with fire and never be rebuilt—that learning should depart from Boston and no travelers should pass through it any more—that New England should become the basest of the nations and no native American ever be president of the Union, but that it should be a spoil and a prey to the most savage tribes—that the Russians should tread Washington under foot for a thousand years, but that God would preserve Pittsburg and Salt Lake City in the midst of destruction; then, if all these things should come to pass, would any man dare to say that the prophet spake the dictates of human sagacity, or the calculations of human reason, and was not inspired by the Spirit of God?
Such was the character of the prophecies concerning the geographical, political, social and religious condition of the greatest nations of antiquity.
Considering the modes of ancient warfare, Egypt was one of the most defensible countries in the world. Bounded on the south by high mountains, on the east by the Red Sea, on the west by the trackless, burning desert, she was able to defend the mouths of her river with a powerful navy, to drown an invading army every year by the inundation of the Nile. Egypt had not only maintained her independence, but extended her conquests for a thousand years. She had given learning, art, science and idolatry to half the world and had not yet risen to the hight of her fame or extent of her influence until many years after the predictions against her were uttered. Yet it was prophesied, "I will make the rivers dry, and sell the land into the hand of the wicked; and I will make the land waste and all that is therein by the hand of strangers. I, the Lord, have spoken it. Thus saith the Lord God, I will also destroy the idols, and I will cause the images to cease out of Noph, and there shall be no more a prince of the land of Egypt."
[SPHYNX AND PYRAMIDS]
The infidel, Volney, thus relates the fulfillment of these predictions:
"Such is the state of Egypt. Deprived twenty-three centuries ago of her natural properties, she has seen her fertile fields successively a prey to the Persians, the Macedonians, the Romans, the Greeks, the Arabs, the Georgians and at length the race of Tartars distinguished by the name of Ottoman Turks. The Mamelukes purchased as slaves, and introduced as soldiers, soon usurped the power and selected a leader. If their first establishment was a singular event, their continuance is no less extraordinary; they are replaced by slaves, brought from their original country." (Volney's Travels, Vol. I, page 74).