ANCIENT KINGS OF ARABIA. 151 



only as the grace of Idumsea, in which its former 

 wealth and splendour lie interred. The state of 

 desolation into which it has long fallen is not only 

 the work of time but the fulfilment of prophecy, 

 which foretold that wisdom and understanding should 

 perish out of Mount Seir ; that Edom should be a 

 wilderness ; its cities a perpetual waste, the abode 

 of every unclean beast. " Thorns shall come up in 

 her palaces, nettles and brambles in the fortresses 

 thereof; the cormorant and the bittern shall possess 

 it, and it shall be an habitation of dragons, and a 

 court for owls. The wild beasts of the desert shall 

 also meet with the wild beasts of the island, and the 

 satyr shall cry to his fellow ; there shall the vultures 

 also be gathered, every one with her mate ; there 

 shall the screech-owl make her nest and lay, and 

 find for herself 'a place of rest." (Isaiah xxxiv. 

 5, 10, 17.) Nowhere is there a more striking and 

 visible demonstration of the truth of these divine 

 predictions than among the fallen columns and de- 

 serted palaces of Petra. The dwellers in the clefts 

 of the rocks are brought low ; the princes of Edom 

 are as nothing ; its eighteen cities are swept away, 

 or reduced to empty chambers and naked walls ; and 

 the territory of the descendants of Esau affords as 

 miraculous a proof of the inspiration of Scripture 

 history as the fate of the children of Israel.* 



* Keith's E\fidence of Prophecy. 



