a court-yard, enclosed by a mud wall. In winter, they and their cattle may be said to live together, the part of the dwelling allotted to themselves being only raised two feet above that in which they lodge their beasts-(dwellings and cottages for shepherds, and folds for flocks). Except the environs of these villages all the rest of the country is a desert, and abandoned to the Bedouin Arabs, who feed their flocks on it."e The remnant shall perish the land of the Philistines shall be destroyed that there shall be no inhabitant, and the sea-coast shall be dwellings and cottages for shepherds, and folds for flocks. It is "The ruins of white marble sometimes found at Gaza, prove that it was formerly the abode of luxury and opulence. It has shared in the general destruction; and, notwithstanding its proud title of the capital of Palestine, it is now no more than a defenceless village," (baldness has come upon it,)" peopled by, at most, only two thousand inhabitants."f" forsaken and bereaved of its king. "The sea-coast, by which it was formerly washed, is every day removing farther from the deserted ruins of Ashkelon."g It shall be a desolation. Ashkelon shall not be inhabited. "Amidst the various successive ruins, those of Edzoud (Ashdod), so powerful under the Philistines, are now remarkable for their scorpions.' The inhabitants shall be cut off from Ashdod. Although the Christian traveller must yield the palm to Volney, as the topographer of Prophecy, e Volney's Travels, vol. ii. pp. 335, 336. f Ibid. p. 340. g lbid. 338. h Had Volney been a believer; had he "sought out of the book of the Lord and read ;" and had he applied all the facts which he knew in illustration of the prophecies, how completely would he have proved their inspiration. But it is well for the cause of truth that such a witness was himself an unbeliever; for his evidence, in many an instance, comes so very close to the predictions, that his testimony in the L and although supplementary evidence be not requisite, yet a place is here willingly given to the following just observations. Ashkelon was one of the proudest satrapies of the lords of the Philistines; now there is not an inhabitant within its walls; and the prophecy of Zechariah is fulfilled. The king shall perish from Gaza, and Ashkelon shall not be inhabited. When the prophecy was uttered, both cities were in an equally flourishing condition; and nothing but the prescience of heaven could pronounce on which of the two, and in what manner the vial of its wrath should be poured out. Gaza is truly without a king. The lofty towers of Ashkelon lie scattered on the ground, and the ruins within its walls do not shelter a human being. How is the wrath of man made to praise his Creator! Hath he not said, and shall he not do it? The oracle was delivered by the mouth of the prophet more than five hundred years before the Christian era, and we beheld its accomplishment eighteen hundred years after that event."i Cogent and just as the reasoning is, the facts stated by Volney give wider scope for an irresistible argument. The fate of one city is not only distinguished from that of another; but the varied aspect of the. country itself, the dwellings and cottages for shepherds in one part, and that very region named, the rest of the land destroyed and uninhabited, a desert, and abandoned to the flocks of the wandering Arabs; Gaza, bereaved of a king, a defenceless village, destirelation of positive facts would have been utterly discredited, and held as purposely adapted to the very words of prophecy, by those who otherwise lent a greedy ear to his utterance of some of the wildest fancies and most gross untruths that ever emanated from the mind of man, or ever entered into a deceitful heart. He who so artfully could pervert the truth, falls the victim of facts stated by himself. i Richardson's Travels, vol. ii. p. 204. tute of all its fortifications; Ashkelon, a desolation, and without an inhabitant; the inhabitants also cut off from Ashdod, as reptiles tenanted it instead of men -form in each instance a specific prediction, and a recorded fact, and present such a view of the existing state of Philistia, as renders it difficult to determine, from the strictest accordance that prevails between both, whether the inspired penman or the defamer of Scripture gives the more vivid description. Nor is there any obscurity whatever, in any one of the circumstances, or in any part of the proof. The coincidence is too glaring, even for wilful blindness not to discern; and to all, the least versed in general history, the priority of the predictions to the events is equally obvious. And such was the natural fertility of the country, and such was the strength and celebrity of the cities, that no conjecture possessing the least shadow of plausibility can be formed in what manner any of these events could possibly have been thought of, even for many centuries after the vision and prophecy" were sealed. After that period, Gaza defied the power of Alexander the Great, and withstood for two months a hard-pressed siege. The army, with which he soon afterwards overthrew the Persian empire, having there, as well as at Tyre, been checked or delayed in the first flush of conquest, and he himself having been twice wounded in desperate attempts to storm the city, the proud and enraged king of Macedon, with all the cruelty of a brutish heart, and boasting of himself as a second Achilles, dragged at his chariot-wheels the intrepid general, who had defended it, twice around the walls of Gaza.k Ashkelon was no less celebrated for the excellence of its wines, than for the strength of its fortifications. And of Ashdod, it is related k Quintus Curtius, lib. iv. cap. xxvi. m by an eminent ancient historian, not only that it was a great city, but that it withstood the longest siege recorded in history, (it may almost be said, either of prior or of later date,) having been besieged for the space of twenty-nine years by Psammetticus, king of Egypt. Strabo, after the commencement of the Christian era, classes its citizens among the chief inhabitants of Syria. Each of these cities, Gaza, Ashkelon, and Ashdod, was the see of a bishop from the days of Constantine to the invasion of the Saracens. And, as a decisive proof of their existence as cities long subsequent to the delivery of the predictions, it may further be remarked, that different coins of each of these very cities are extant, and are copied and described in several accounts of ancient coins." The once princely magnificence of Gaza is still attested by the ruins of white marble;" and the house of the present Aga is composed of fragments of ancient columns, cornices, &c.; and in the court-yard, and immured in the wall, are shafts and capitals of gra nite columns.° In short, cottages for shepherds, and folds for flocks, partially scattered along the sea-coasts, are now truly the best substitutes for populous cities, that the once powerful realm of Philistia can produce; and the remnant of that land, which gave titles and grandeur to the lords of the Philistines, is destroyed. Gaza, the chief of its satrapies, "the abode of luxury and opulence," now bereaved of its king and bald of all its fortifications, is the defenceless residence of a subsidiary ruler of a devastated province; and, in kindred degradation, ornaments of its once splendid edifices are now bedded in a wall that forms an enclosure for beasts. m Herodot. Hist. lib. ii. cap. clvii. A handful of men could now take unobstructed possession of that place, where a strong city opposed the entrance, and defied, for a time, the power of the conqueror of the world. The walls, the dwellings, and the people of Ashkelon have all perished; and though its name was, in the time of the crusades, shouted in triumph throughout every land in Europe, it is now literally without an inhabitant. And Ashdod, which withstood a siege treble the duration of that of Troy, and thus outrivalled far the boast of Alexander at Gaza, has, in verification of " the word of God, which is sharper than any two-edged sword,” been cut off, and has fallen before it to nothing. There is yet another city which was noted by the prophets, the very want of any information respecting which, and the absence of its name from several modern maps of Palestine, while the sites of other ruined cities are marked, are really the best confirmation of the truth of the prophecy that could possibly be given. Ekron shall be rooted up. It is rooted up. It was one of the chief cities of the Philistines; but though Gaza still subsists, and while Ashkelon and Ashdod retain their names in their ruins, the very name of Ekron is missing.P The wonderful contrast in each particular, whether in respect to the land, or to the cities of the Philistines, is the exact counterpart of the literal predic p In the map prefixed to Dr. Shaw's Travels, Akron is indeed marked; but it is placed close upon the sea-coast, whereas Ekron was situated in the interior, and was at least ten miles distant. Shaw did not visit the spot. Dr. Richardson passed some ruins near to Ashdod, and conjectures that they were probably Ekron. But neither does the site of them correspond with that of Ekron, which, according to Eusebius, lay between Ashdod and Jamnia, towards the east or inland. (Vide Relandi Palæst. p. 77.) Any diversity of opinion respecting its site is not the least conclusive proof that it is rooted up. |