There is, and that land is Idumea. The territory of the descendants of
Esau affords as miraculous a demonstration of the inspiration of the
Scriptures as the fate of the children of Israel. A single extract from
the Travels of Volney will be found to be equally illustrative of the
prophecy and of the fact: “This country has not been visited by any
traveller, but it well merits such an attention; for, from the report of
the Arabs of Bakir, and the inhabitants of Gaza, who frequently go to
Maan and Karak, on the road of the pilgrims, there are, to the
south-east of the lake Asphaltites, (Dead Sea,) within three days’
journey, upward of thirty ruined towns absolutely deserted. Several of
them have large edifices, with columns that may have belonged to the
ancient temples, or at least to Greek churches. The Arabs sometimes make
use of them to fold their cattle in; but in general avoid them on
account of the enormous scorpions with which they swarm. We cannot be
surprised at these traces of ancient population, when we recollect that
this was the country of the Nabatheans, the most powerful of the Arabs,
and of the Idumeans, who, at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem,
were almost as numerous as the Jews, as appears from Josephus, who
informs us, that on the first rumour of the march of Titus against
Jerusalem, thirty thousand Idumeans instantly assembled, and threw
themselves into that city for its defence. It appears that, beside the
advantages of being under a tolerably good government, these districts
enjoyed a considerable share of the commerce of Arabia and India, which
increased their industry and population. We know that as far back as the
time of Solomon, the cities of Astioum Gaber (Ezion Geber) and Ailah
(Eloth) were highly frequented marts. These towns were situated on the
adjacent gulf of the Red Sea, where we still find the latter yet
retaining its name, and perhaps the former in that of El Akaba, or ‘the
end of the sea.’ These two places are in the hands of the Bedouins, who,
being destitute of a navy and commerce, do not inhabit them. But the
pilgrims report that there is at El Akaba a wretched fort. The Idumeans,
from whom the Jews only took their ports at intervals, must have found
in them a great source of wealth and population. It even appears that
the Idumeans rivalled the Tyrians, who also possessed a town, the name
of which is unknown, on the coast of Hedjaz, in the desert of Tih, and
the city of Faran, and, without doubt, El-Tor, which served it by way of
port. From this place the caravans might reach Palestine and Judea,
(through Idumea,) in eight or ten days. This route, which is longer than
that from Suez to Cairo, is infinitely shorter than that from Aleppo to
Bassorah.” Evidence, which must have been undesigned, which cannot be
suspected of partiality, and which no illustration can strengthen, and
no ingenuity pervert, is thus borne to the truth of the most wonderful
prophecies. That the Idumeans were a populous and powerful nation long
posterior to the delivery of the prophecies; that they possessed a
tolerably good government, even in the estimation of Volney; that Idumea
contained many cities; that these cities are now absolutely deserted;
and that their ruins swarm with enormous scorpions; that it was a
commercial nation, and possessed highly frequented marts; that it forms
a shorter route than the ordinary one to India; and yet that it had not
been visited by any traveller; are facts all recorded, and proved by
this able but unconscious commentator.
3. A greater contrast cannot be imagined than the ancient and present
state of Idumea. It was a kingdom previous to Israel, having been
governed first by dukes or princes, afterward by eight successive kings,
and again by dukes, before there reigned any king over the children of
Israel, Gen. xxxvi, 31, &c. Its fertility and early cultivation are
implied not only in the blessings of Esau, whose dwelling was to be the
fatness of the earth, and of the dew of heaven from above; but also in
the condition proposed by Moses to the Edomites, when he solicited a
passage for the Israelites through their borders, that “they would not
pass through the fields nor through the vineyards;” and also in the
great wealth, especially in the multitudes of flocks and herds, recorded
as possessed by an individual inhabitant of that country, at a period,
in all probability even more remote, Gen. xxvii, 39; Num. xx, 17; Job
xlii, 12. The Idumeans were, without doubt, both an opulent and a
powerful people. They often contended with the Israelites, and entered
into a league with their other enemies against them. In the reign of
David they were indeed subdued and greatly oppressed, and many of them
even dispersed throughout the neighbouring countries, particularly
Phenicia and Egypt. But during the decline of the kingdom of Judah, and
for many years previous to its extinction, they encroached upon the
territories of the Jews, and extended their dominion over the
south-western part of Judea.
4. There is a prediction which, being peculiarly remarkable as
applicable to Idumea, and bearing reference to a circumstance
explanatory of the difficulty of access to any knowledge respecting it,
is entitled, in the first instance, to notice: “None shall pass through
it for ever and ever. I will cut off from Mount Seir him that passeth
out, and him that returneth,” Isa. xxxiv, 10; Ezek. xxxv, 7. The ancient
greatness of Idumea must, in no small degree, have resulted from its
commerce. Bordering with Arabia on the east, and Egypt on the southwest,
and forming from north to south the most direct and most commodious
channel of communication between Jerusalem and her dependencies on the
Red Sea, as well as between Syria and India, through the continuous
valleys of El Ghor, and El Araba, which terminated on the one extremity
at the borders of Judea, and on the other at Elath and Ezion Geber on
the Elanitic gulf of the Red Sea, Idumea may be said to have formed the
emporium of the commerce of the east. A Roman road passed directly
through Idumea, from Jerusalem to Akaba, and another from Akaba to Moab;
and when these roads were made, at a time long posterior to the date of
the predictions, the conception could not have been formed, or held
credible by man, that the period would ever arrive when none would pass
through it. Above seven hundred years after the date of the prophecy,
Strabo relates that many Romans and other foreigners were found at Petra
by his friend Athenodorus, the philosopher, who visited it. The
prediction is yet more surprising when viewed in conjunction with
another, which implies that travellers would “pass by” Idumea: “Every
one that goeth by shall be astonished.” And the Hadj routes (routes of
the pilgrims) from Damascus and from Cairo to Mecca, the one on the east
and the other toward the south of Idumea, along the whole of its extent,
go by it, or touch partially on its borders, without passing through it.
The truth of the prophecy, though hemmed in thus by apparent
impossibilities and contradictions, and with extreme probability of its
fallacy in every view that could have been visible to man, may yet be
tried.
5. “Edom shall be a desolation. From generation to generation it shall
lie waste,” &c. Judea, Ammon, and Moab, exhibit so abundantly the
remains and the means of an exuberant fertility, that the wonder arises
in the reflecting mind, how the barbarity of man could have so
effectually counteracted for so many generations the prodigality of
nature. But such is Edom’s desolation, that the first sentiment of
astonishment on the contemplation of it is, how a wide extended region,
now diversified by the strongest features of desert wildness, could ever
have been adorned with cities, or tenanted for ages by a powerful and
opulent people. Its present aspect would belie its ancient history, were
not that history corroborated by “the many vestiges of former
cultivation,” by the remains of walls and paved roads, and by the ruins
of cities still existing in this ruined country. The total cessation of
its commerce; the artificial irrigation of its valleys wholly neglected;
the destruction of all the cities, and the continued spoliation of the
country by the Arabs, while aught remained that they could destroy; the
permanent exposure, for ages, of the soil unsheltered by its ancient
groves, and unprotected by any covering from the scorching rays of the
sun; the unobstructed encroachments of the desert, and of the drifted
sands from the borders of the Red Sea; the consequent absorption of the
water of the springs and streamlets during summer,--are causes which
have all combined their baneful operation in rendering Edom “most
desolate, the desolation of desolations.” Volney’s account is
sufficiently descriptive of the desolation which now reigns over Idumea;
and the information which Seetzen derived at Jerusalem respecting it is
of similar import. He was told, that at the distance of two days’
journey and a half from Hebron, he would find considerable ruins of the
ancient city of Abde, and that for all the rest of the journey he would
see no place of habitation; he would meet only with a few tribes of
wandering Arabs. From the borders of Edom, Captains Irby and Mangles
beheld a boundless extent of desert view, which they had hardly ever
seen equalled for singularity and grandeur. And the following extract,
descriptive of what Burckhardt actually witnessed in the different parts
of Edom, cannot be more graphically abbreviated than in the words of the
prophet. Of its eastern boundary, and of the adjoining part of Arabia
Petrea, strictly so called, Burckhardt writes: “It might, with truth, be
called Petrea, not only on account of its rocky mountains, but also of
the elevated plain already described, which is so much covered with
stones, especially flints, that it may with great propriety be called a
stony desert, although susceptible of culture; in many places it is
overgrown with wild herbs, and must once have been thickly inhabited;
for the traces of many towns and villages are met with on both sides of
the Hadj road between Maan and Akaba, as well as between Maan and the
plains of the Hauran, in which direction are also many springs. At
present all this country is a desert, and Maan (Teman) is the only
inhabited place in it: ‘I will stretch out my hand against thee, O Mount
Seir, and will make thee most desolate. I will stretch out my hand upon
Edom, and will make it desolate from Teman.’” In the interior of Idumea,
where the ruins of some of its ancient cities are still visible, and in
the extensive valley which reaches from the Red to the Dead Sea, the
appearance of which must now be totally and sadly changed from what it
was, “the whole plain presented to the view an expanse of shifting
sands, whose surface was broken by innumerable undulations and low
hills. The sand appears to have been brought from the shores of the Red
Sea, by the southern winds; and the Arabs told me that the valleys
continue to present the same appearance beyond the latitude of Wady
Mousa. In some parts of the valley the sand is very deep, and there is
not the slightest appearance of a road, or of any work of human art. A
few trees grow among the sand hills, but the depth of sand precludes all
vegetation of herbage.” “If grape gatherers come to thee, would not they
leave some gleaning grapes? If thieves by night, they will destroy till
they have enough; but I have made Esau bare. Edom shall be a desolate
wilderness.” “On ascending the western plain,” continues Mr. Burckhardt,
“on a higher level than that of Arabia, we had before us an immense
expanse of dreary country, entirely covered with black flints, with here
and there some hilly chain rising from the plain.” “I will stretch out
upon Idumea the line of confusion, and the stones of emptiness.” Such is
the present desolate aspect of one of the most fertile countries of
ancient times! So visibly even now does the withering curse of an
offended God rest upon it!
EGG, ביצים, Deut. xxii, 6; Job xxxix, 14; Isaiah x, 14; lix, 5; ὠὸν,
Luke xi, 12. Eggs are considered as a very great delicacy in the east,
and are served up with fish and honey at their entertainments. As a
desirable article of food, the egg is mentioned, Luke xi, 12: “If a son
ask for an egg, will his father offer him a scorpion?” It has been
remarked that the body of the scorpion is very like an egg, as its head
can scarcely be distinguished, especially if it be of the white kind,
which is the first species mentioned by Ælian, Avicenna, and others.
Bochart has produced testimonies to prove that the scorpions in Judea
were about the bigness of an egg. So the similitude is preserved between
the thing asked, and the thing given.
EGLON, a king of Moab, who oppressed the Israelites, and was slain by
Ehud, Judges iii, 14, 21. It is thought to have been a common name of
the kings of Moab, as Abimelech was of the Philistines.
EGYPT, a country of Africa, called also in the Hebrew Scriptures the
land of Mizraim, and the land of Ham; by the Turks and Arabs, Masr and
Misr; and by the native Egyptians, Chemi, or the land of Ham. Mr. Faber
derives the name from Ai-Capht, or the land of the Caphtorim; from
which, also, the modern Egyptians derive their name of Cophts. Egypt was
first peopled after the deluge by Mizraim, or Mizr, the son of Ham, who
is supposed to be the same with Menes, recorded in Egyptian history as
the first king. Every thing relating to the subsequent history and
condition of this country, for many ages, is involved in fable. Nor have
we any clear information from Heathen writers, until the time of Cyrus,
and his son Cambyses, when the line of Egyptian princes ceased in
agreement with prophecies to that effect. Manetho, the Egyptian
historian, has given a list of thirty dynasties, which, if successive,
make a period of five thousand three hundred years to the time of
Alexander, or three thousand two hundred and eighty-two years more than
the real time, according to the Mosaic chronology. But this is a
manifest forgery, which has, nevertheless, been appealed to by infidel
writers, as authority against the veracity of the Mosaic history. The
truth is, that this pretended succession of princes, if all of them can
be supposed to have existed at all, constituted several distinct
dynasties, ruling in different cities at the same time: thus these were
the kingdoms of Thebes, Thin, Memphis, and Tanis. See WRITING.
2. In the time of Moses we find Egypt renowned for learning; for he was
instructed “in all its wisdom;” and it is one of the commendations of
Solomon, at a later period, that he excelled in knowledge “all the
wisdom of the children of the east country, and all the wisdom of
Egypt.” Astronomy, which probably, like that of the Chaldeans,
comprehended also judicial astrology, physics, agriculture,
jurisprudence, medicine, architecture, painting, and sculpture, were the
principal sciences and arts; to which were added, and that by their
wisest men, the study of divination, magic, and enchantments. They had
also their consulters with familiar spirits, and necromancers, those who
had, or pretended to have, intercourse with the infernal deities, and
the spirits of the dead, and delivered responses to inquirers. Of all
this knowledge, good and evil, and of a monstrous system of idolatry,
Egypt was the polluted fountain to the surrounding nations; but in that
country itself it appears to have degenerated into the most absurd and
debased forms. Among nations who are not blessed by divine revelation,
the luminaries of heaven are the first objects of worship. Diodorus
Siculus, mentioning the Egyptians, informs us, that “the first men,
looking up to the world above them, and, struck with admiration at the
nature of the universe, supposed the sun and moon to be the principal
and eternal gods.” This, which may be called the natural superstition of
mankind, we can trace in the annals of the west, as well as of the east;
among the inhabitants of the new world, as well as of the old. The sun
and moon, under the names of Isis and Osiris, were the chief objects of
adoration among the Egyptians. But the earliest times had a purer faith.
The following inscription, engraven in hieroglyphics in the temple of
Neith, the Egyptian Minerva, conveys the most sublime idea of the Deity
which unenlightened reason could form: “I am that which is, was, and
shall be: no mortal hath lifted up my veil: the offspring of my power is
the sun.” A similar inscription still remains at Capua, on the temple of
Isis: “Thou art one, and from thee all things proceed.” Plutarch also
informs us, that the inhabitants of Thebais worshipped only the immortal
and supreme God, whom they called Eneph. According to the Egyptian
cosmogony, all things sprung from _athor_, or night, by which they
denoted the darkness of chaos before the creation. Sanchoniathon
relates, that, “from the breath of gods and the void were mortals
created.” This theology differs little from that of Moses, who says,
“The earth was without form, and void; darkness was upon the face of the
deep; and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”
3. A superstitious reverence for certain animals, as propitious or
hurtful to the human race, was not peculiar to the Egyptians. The cow
has been venerated in India from the most remote antiquity. The serpent
has been the object of religious respect to one half of the nations of
the known world. The Romans had sacred animals, which they kept in their
temples, and distinguished with peculiar honours. We need not therefore
be surprised that a nation so superstitious as the Egyptians should
honour, with peculiar marks of respect, the ichneumon, the ibis, the
dog, the falcon, the wolf, and the crocodile. These they entertained at
great expense, and with much magnificence. Lands were set apart for
their maintenance; persons of the highest rank were employed in feeding
and attending them; rich carpets were spread in their apartments; and
the pomp at their funerals corresponded to the profusion and luxury
which attended them while alive. What chiefly tended to favour the
progress of animal worship in Egypt, was the language of hieroglyphics.
In the hieroglyphic inscriptions on their temples, and public edifices,
animals, and even vegetables, were the symbols of the gods whom they
worshipped. In the midst of innumerable superstitions, the theology of
Egypt contained the two great principles of religion, the existence of a
supreme Being, and the immortality of the soul. The first is proved by
the inscription on the temple of Minerva; the second, by the care with
which dead bodies were embalmed, and the prayer recited at the hour of
death, by an Egyptian, expressing his desire to be received to the
presence of the deities.
4. The opulence of Egypt was for ages increased by the large share it
had in the commerce with the east; by its own favourable position,
making it the connecting link of intercourse between the eastern and
western nations; and especially by its own remarkable fertility,
particularly in corn, so that it was, in times of scarcity, the granary
of the world. Its extraordinary fertility was owing to the periodical
inundation of the Nile; and sufficient proofs of the ancient accounts
which we have of its productiveness are afforded to this day. The Rev.
Mr. Jowett has given a striking example of the extraordinary fertility
of the soil of Egypt, which is alluded to in Genesis xli, 47: “The earth
brought forth by handfuls.” “I picked up at random,” says Mr. Jowett, “a
few stalks out of the thick corn fields. We counted the number of stalks
which sprouted from single grains of seed; carefully pulling to pieces
each root, in order to see that it was but one plant. The first had
seven stalks, the next three, the next nine, then eighteen, then
fourteen. Each stalk would have been an ear.”
5. The architecture of the early Egyptians, at least that of their
cities and dwellings, was rude and simple: they could indeed boast of
little in either external elegance or internal comfort, since Herodotus
informs us that men and beasts lived together. The materials of their
structure were bricks of clay, bound together with chopped straw, and
baked in the sun. Such were the bricks which the Israelites were
employed in making, and of which the cities of Pithom and Rameses were
built. Their composition was necessarily perishable, and explains why it
is that no remains of the ancient cities of Egypt are to be found. They
would indeed last longer in the dry climate of this country than in any
other; but even here they must gradually decay and crumble to dust, and
the cities so constructed become heaps. Of precisely the same materials
are the villages of Egypt built at this day. “Village after village,”
says Mr. Jowett, speaking of Tentyra, “built of unburnt brick, crumbling
into ruins, and giving place to new habitations, have raised the earth,
in some parts, nearly to the level of the summit of the temple. In every
part of Egypt, we find the towns built in this manner, upon the ruins,
or rather the rubbish, of the former habitations. The expression in
Jeremiah xxx, 18, literally applies to Egypt, in the meanest sense: ‘The
city shall be builded upon her own heap.’ And the expression in Job xv,
28, might be illustrated by many of these deserted hovels: ‘He dwelleth
in desolate cities, and in houses which no man inhabiteth, which are
ready to become heaps.’ Still more touching is the allusion, in Job iv,
19, where the perishing generations of men are fitly compared to
habitations of the frailest materials, built upon the heap of similar
dwelling-places, now reduced to rubbish: ‘How much less in them that
dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust!’”
6. The splendid temples of Egypt were not built, in all probability,
till after the time of Solomon; for the recent progress made in the
decyphering of hieroglyphics has disappointed the antiquaries as to the
antiquity of these stupendous fabrics. It is well observed by Dr.
Shuckford, that temples made no great figure in Homer’s time. If they
had, he would not have lost such an opportunity of exerting his genius
on so grand a subject, as Virgil has done in his description of the
temple built by Dido at Carthage. The first Heathen temples were
probably nothing more than mean buildings, which served merely as a
shelter from the weather: of which kind was, probably, the house of the
Philistine god Dagon. But when the fame of Solomon’s temple had reached
other countries, it excited them to imitate its splendour; and nation
vied with nation in the structures erected to their several deities. All
were, however, outdone, at least in massiveness and durability, by the
Egyptians; the architectural design of whose temples, as well as that of
the Grecian edifices, was borrowed from the stems and branches of the
grove temples.