"There is one fact," says Fraser, "in connection with the most remarkable of these relics (the Birs Nimrod), which we can not dismiss without a few more observations. All travelers who have ascended the Birs have taken notice of the singular heaps of brick-work scattered on the summit of this mound, at the foot of the remnant of the wall still standing. To the writer they appeared the most striking of all the ruins. That they have undergone the most violent action of fire is evident from the complete vitrification which has taken place in many of the masses. Yet how a heat sufficient to produce such an effect could have been applied at such a height from the ground is unaccountable. They now lie on a spot elevated two hundred feet above the plain, and must have fallen from some much more lofty position, for the structure which still remains, and of which they may be supposed originally to have formed a part, bears no marks of fire. The building originally can not have contained any great proportion of combustible materials, and to produce so intense a heat by substances carried to such an elevation would have been almost impossible, for want of space to pile them on. Nothing, we should be inclined to say, short of the most powerful action of electric fire, could have produced the complete, yet circumscribed, fusion which is here observed. Although fused into a solid mass, the courses of bricks are still visible, identifying them with the standing pile above, but so hardened by the power of heat, that it is almost impossible to break off the smallest piece; and, though porous in texture, and full of air-holes and cavities, like other bricks, they require, on being submitted to the stone-cutter's lathe, the same machinery as is used to dress the hardest pebbles."[103]
The doom of Nineveh, the great rival and predecessor of Babylon, was also predicted as the result of two apparently contradictory agencies—an overrunning flood and a consuming fire. But both these antagonistic elements conspired to devour her. The river, with an overrunning flood, swept away a large portion of the walls. The besiegers entered through the breach, and set the city on fire. The charcoal, burnt beans, and slabs of half-calcined alabaster, in the British Museum, demonstrate the fulfillment of the prediction.
Egypt was to be reduced to slavery and degradation. Babylonia to utter barrenness and desolation; but a different and still more incredible doom is pronounced in the Bible upon Judea and its people. The land was to be emptied of its people, and remain uncultivated, retaining all its former fertility, while the people were to be scattered over all the earth, yet never to lose their distinct nationality, nor be amalgamated with their neighbors: "I will make your cities waste, and bring your sanctuaries unto desolation, and I will not smell the savor of your sweet odors. And I will bring the land into desolation: and your enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished at it. And I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you: and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste. Then shall the land enjoy her Sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate, and ye be in your enemies' land; even then shall the land rest, and enjoy her Sabbaths."[104] "Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate, and the Lord have removed men far away, and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land. But yet in it shall be a tenth, and it shall return, and shall be eaten: as a teil-tree, and as an oak, whose substance is in them, when they cast their leaves."[105] "The generation to come, of your children that shall rise up after you, and the stranger that shall come from a far land, shall say, * * * Wherefore hath the Lord done thus unto this land? What meaneth the heat of this great anger?"[106]
It is superfluous to adduce proof of the undeniable and acknowledged fulfillment of these predictions, but as an example of the way in which God causes scoffers to fulfill the prophecies, let us again hear Volney: "I journeyed in the empire of the Ottomans, and traversed the provinces which were formerly the kingdoms of Egypt and Syria. I enumerated the kingdoms of Damascus and Idumea, of Jerusalem and Samaria. This Syria, said I to myself, now almost depopulated, then contained a hundred flourishing cities, and abounded with towns, villages, and hamlets. What has become of so many productions of the hand of man? What has become of those ages of abundance and of life? Great God! from whence proceed such melancholy revolutions? For what cause is the fortune of these countries so strikingly changed? Why are so many cities destroyed? Why is not that ancient population reproduced and perpetuated? A mysterious God exercises his incomprehensible judgments. He has doubtless pronounced a secret malediction against the earth. He has struck with a curse the present race of men in revenge of past generations."[107] The malediction is no secret to any who will read the twenty ninth chapter of Deuteronomy; nor is the avenging of the quarrel of God's covenant confined to the sins of past generations. The philosopher who would understand the fates of cities and empires should read the prophecies.
The Word of God specifies no less distinctly and definitely the destiny of the Jewish than of the Babylonian capital, but fixes on a widely different kind of destruction. Babylon was never to be built again, but devoted to solitude; busy Tyre to become a place for spreading nets; the caravans, which once brought the wealth of India through Petra, were to cease, and the doom was to "cut off him that passeth by and him that returneth." But Jerusalem, it was predicted, should long feel the miseries of a multitude of oppressors, should never enjoy the luxury of a solitary woe, but "be trodden down of the Gentiles."[108] Saracens, Tartars, Turks, and Crusaders, Gentiles from every nation of the earth, fulfilled the prediction of old, even as hosts of pilgrims from all parts of the earth do at this day.
So minute and specific are the predictions of Scripture, that the fate of particular buildings is accurately defined. One temple to the living God, and only one, raised its walls in this world, which he had made for his worship. Its frequenters perverted it from its proper use of leading them to confess their sinfulness, to seek pardon through the promised Savior to whom its ceremonies pointed, and to learn to be holy, as the God of that temple was holy. They hoped that the holiness of the place would screen them in the indulgence of pride, formality, and wickedness. The temple of the Lord, instead of the Lord of the temple, was the object of their veneration. But the doom went forth. "Therefore for your sakes shall Zion be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become as heaps, and the mountain of the house like the high places of the forest." History has preserved, and the Jews to this day curse the name of the soldier, Terentius Rufus, who plowed up the foundations of the temple. It long continued in this state. But the Emperor Julian the Apostate conceived the idea of falsifying the prediction of Jesus, "Behold your house is left unto you desolate,"[109] and sent his friend Alypius, with a Roman army, and abundant treasure, to rebuild it. The Jews flocked from all parts to assist in the work. Spades and pickaxes of silver were provided by the vanity of the rich, and the rubbish was transported in mantles of silk and purple. But they were obliged to desist from the attempt, for "horrible balls of fire breaking out from the foundations with repeated attacks, rendered the place inaccessible to the scorched workmen, and the element driving them to a distance from time to time, the enterprise was dropped."[110] Such is the testimony of a heathen, confirmed by Jews and Christians. The inclosures of the mosque of Omar, forbidding them all access to the spot on which it stood, leave it desolate to the Jews to this day. I have seen them (in 1872) kissing a few large stones, supposed to belong to its foundations or sub-structures, from the outside; for which miserable privilege they were obliged to pay their oppressors. On approaching the spot from the Zion gate, right across Mount Zion to the temple ruins, our way lay through a plowed field of young barley, and gardens of cauliflowers hedged with enormous rows of cactus. To this day Zion is plowed as a field.
4. No sane man can believe that such minute and accurate predictions of various and improbable events could be the result of human calculations; yet there is another feature of the Bible prophesies still farther removed beyond the reach of human sagacity, and that is, remarkable and unaccountable preservation amidst the general ruin. If, as skeptics allege, destruction is the natural and inevitable doom, then preservation is supernatural and miraculous—a miracle of divine power controlling nature; and its prediction is a miracle of divine wisdom. Now the prophecies of the Bible contain several very definite, and widely different predictions of the preservation of people and cities from the general destruction. We shall refer in this case also to those of whose fulfillment there can be no manner of doubt, for the facts are palpable and undeniable at the present day.
The prediction of the character and fate of the Arabs stands out a remarkable contrast to the predictions of the destruction of the surrounding nations. Of their ancestor, Ishmael, it was predicted: "He will be a wild man; his hand shall be against every man, and every man's hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren."[111] The nomad and warlike habits of the sons of Ishmael are here distinctly predicted; and the singular anomaly which exempts them alone, of all the people of the earth, from the law, "They that take the sword, shall perish by the sword." The unconquered Arab laughs alike at the Persian, Greek, Roman, Turkish, and French invaders of his deserts, levies tribute on all who enter his territory, and dwells to-day, a free man, in the presence of all his brethren, as God foretold.
Of the Israelitish nation God predicted, that it should be a peculiar, distinct people, separate from the other nations of the world: "Lo, the people shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations."[112] In apparent contradiction to this separation, he further threatened to punish them for their sins, by dispersing them over the world: "I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you."[113] "For lo, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the last grain fall upon the earth."[114] It was further threatened, as if to make sure of their national destruction: "And among these nations shalt thou find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest: but the Lord shall give thee there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind: and thy life shall hang in doubt before thee; and thou shalt fear day and night, and shall have none assurance of thy life."[115] Contrary to all appearances, and in spite of all this dispersion and persecution, it is predicted that Israel shall still exist as a nation, and be restored to the favor of God, and that prosperity which ever accompanies it: "And yet for all that, when they be in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly, and to break my covenant with them: for I am the Lord their God."[116]