THE FACT OF PKEDICTION. 



67 



phenomena utterly new to liistory seems to l)e equally 

 unquestionable. 



The above are a few of what I may call the central prophecies 

 of the Old Testament. There are many others at which the 

 limits of the present paper forbid us even to glance. I shall 

 mention, however, three others which will show the wide range 

 and astonishing accuracy of Scripture prophecy, and which inten- 

 sify the demand for a calm and philosophic discussion of these 

 surprising phenomena. Egypt, Israel's ancient oppressor, is 

 frequently the subject of prophetic messages. Eeginald Stuart 

 Poole in his article on Egypt in Smith's Dictionary of the Bible 

 (First Edition) says : " It would not be within the province of this 

 article to enter upon a general consideration of the prophecies 

 relating to Egypt: we must, however, draw the reader's 

 attention to their remarkable fulfilment. The visitor to the 

 country needs not to be reminded of them : everywhere he is 

 struck with the precision with which they have come to pass. 

 We have already spoken of the physical changes which have 

 verified to the letter the words of Isaiah. In like manner we 

 recognize, for instance, in the singular disappearance of the 

 City of Memphis and its temples, in a country where several 

 primeval towns yet stand, and scarce any ancient site is 

 unmarked by temples, the fulfilment of the words of Jeremiah : 

 ' N'oph shall be w^aste and desolate without an inhabitant ' 

 (xlvi, 19), and those of Ezekiel : ' Tims saith the Lord God : I 

 will also destroy the idols, and I will cause [their] images to 

 cease out of Noph' (xxx, 13). Not less signally are the words 

 immediately following the last quotation — ' And there shall be 

 no more a prince of the land of Egypt ' (I.e.) — fulfilled in the 

 history of the country, for from the second Persian conquest, 

 more than 2,000 years ago, until our own days, not one native 

 ruler has occupied the throne."* 



One point in these manifold predictions concerning Egypt 

 may be taken as a sample. After describing a 40 years' 

 captivity of the people and their return at the end of that time 

 the propliecy continues : " And they shall be there a base 

 kingdom. It shall be the basest of the kingdoms ; neither shall 

 it exalt itself any more above the nations ; for I will diminish 

 tliem, that they shall no more rule over the nations" (Ezekiel 

 xxix, 14, 15). 



The boldness of this prediction will be remarked. It is not 

 a venture at a description of a more or less probable event, but 



* Vol. i, p. 512. 



F 2 



