"I am G.o.d, and there is none like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand." Isa. 46:9, 10.
By this means G.o.d has borne witness of Himself through the ages, that it might be known that the Most High rules above all the kingdoms of men, and that men might recognize His purpose to put an end to sin and bring eternal salvation to His people. "I have spoken it," He declares, "I will also bring it to pa.s.s; I have purposed it, I will also do it."
The fulfilment of the word of prophecy in history is a fascinating story. To the Lord, the future is an open book, even as the present. The word is spoken, telling of the event to come; it is written on the parchment scroll by the prophet"s pen. Time pa.s.ses; centuries come and go. Then, when the hour of the prophecy arrives, lo, there appears the fulfilment. And it is seen in matters pertaining to individuals, as well as in the affairs of cities and empires.
The Word Fulfilled after Long Waiting
In the dream divinely given to the lad Joseph, it was plainly foretold that his brothers would one day come as suppliants before him. His father rebuked him for telling the dream, saying, "Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee to the earth?" Gen. 37:10. The brothers sold the lad into slavery, to be well rid of him. Yet twenty years later, all unconscious of his ident.i.ty, these same brethren presented themselves before the prime minister of Egypt, and "fell before him on the ground." Gen. 44:14.
Again: the wicked stronghold of Jericho had been utterly destroyed.
Joshua declared:
"Cursed be the man ... that riseth up and buildeth this city Jericho: he shall lay the foundation thereof in his first-born, and in his youngest son shall he set up the gates of it." Joshua 6:26.
The hands of angels had thrown down its walls, and its ruin was to stand as a memorial. More than five hundred years later, when the apostate Ahab was ruling, and Israel and Judah had departed from the Lord, Hiel the Bethelite set out to rebuild Jericho. "He laid the foundation thereof in Abiram his first-born."
But accident and death may come at any time. The work on the walls went on, no one thinking of the neglected Scriptures with their warning of long ago. So the full account runs:
"He laid the foundation thereof in Abiram his first-born, and set up the gates thereof in his youngest son Segub, according to the word of the Lord, which He spake by Joshua the son of Nun." 1 Kings 16:34.
The fate of some of the mightiest cities the world ever saw has borne testimony through the centuries to the fulfilment of the prophetic word.
The Witness of Nineveh
Nineveh was founded by Nimrod. He built not only his capital here by the Tigris, but other towns round about, conceiving first of all the idea of grouping the capital and its suburbs into one great city, the "Greater Nineveh," as we would say in these days of Greater London and Greater New York. At the dawn of history Nineveh was "a great city." Gen. 10:11, 12. In Jonah"s day it was an "exceeding great city."[A] Sennacherib, of the Bible story, was its beautifier. Rawlinson says:
"The great palace which he raised at Nineveh surpa.s.sed in size and splendor all earlier edifices."--_"Second Monarchy," chap.
9._
A description is preserved on the clay cylinder in the king"s own words:
"For the wonderment of mult.i.tudes of men I raised its head--"the palace which has no rival"
I called its name."--_Taylor Cylinder, "Records of the Past."
Vol. XII, part 1_.
At the preaching of Jonah the city had repented; but in later years pride of conquest and luxury and wealth were filling it with blood. The prophet Nahum warned it of certain doom, appealing to those who had any fear of G.o.d to turn to Him. The message was:
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SITE OF NINEVEH
"How is she become a desolation!" Zeph. 2:15.]
"The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; and He knoweth them that trust in Him." Nahum 1:7.
Some, no doubt, heeded the warning and turned to G.o.d for refuge. But the city"s life of sin ran on. Then the prophet Zephaniah spoke the word, just as the stroke was to fall:
"Woe to her that is filthy and polluted, to the oppressing city! She obeyed not the voice; she received not correction; she trusted not in the Lord; she drew not near to her G.o.d." Zeph. 3:1, 2.
Prophecies uttered against the mighty city had declared:
"He will make an utter end of the place thereof." "The palace shall be dissolved ["molten," margin]." "She is empty, and void, and waste."
Nahum 1:8; 2:6, 10. "How is she become a desolation, a place for beasts to lie down in!" Zeph. 2:15.
The Medes and the Babylonians overthrew Nineveh. The king immolated himself in his burning ("molten") palace. Nineveh became a desolation.
Describing a battle that took place there in the seventh century of our era, between the Romans and the Persians, the historian Gibbon bears testimony to the fact that it has indeed become "empty, and void, and waste:"
"Eastward of the Tigris, at the end of the bridge of Mosul, the great Nineveh had formerly been erected: the city, and even the ruins of the city, had long since disappeared; the vacant place afforded a s.p.a.cious field for the operations of the two armies."--_"The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," chap. 46, par. 24._
And to this day, the site of Nineveh is pointed out across the river from Mosul, only mounds of ruins, these almost obliterated by the drifting sands of centuries. The word spoken is fulfilled, though at the time it was spoken it little seemed to proud and prosperous Nineveh that such a fate could ever be hers.
"Before me rise the walls Of the t.i.tanic city,--brazen gates, Towers, temples, palaces enormous piled,-- Imperial Nineveh, the earthly queen!
In all her golden pomp I see her now, Her swarming streets, her splendid festivals.
"Again I look,--and lo!...
Her walls are gone, her palaces are dust,-- The desert is around her, and within Like shadows have the mighty pa.s.sed away."
From Nineveh"s mounds we seem to hear a voice that says: "All flesh is as gra.s.s, and all the glory of man as the flower of gra.s.s. The gra.s.s withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: but the word of the Lord endureth forever." 1 Peter 1:24, 25.
The Burden of Tyre
[Ill.u.s.tration: TYRE BY THE SEA
"They shall destroy the walls of Tyrus, and break down her towers." Eze.
26:4.]
Tyre was the greatest maritime city of antiquity. Its inhabitants, the Phoenicians, traded in the ports of all the known world. Ezekiel describes the heart of the seas as its borders. "Thy builders have perfected thy beauty," he says. He tells how all countries traded in its marts and contributed to its wealth. And then, obeying the word of the Lord, the prophet bears a message of rebuke and warning,--"the burden of Tyre,"--and p.r.o.nounces the coming judgment:
"Thus saith the Lord G.o.d: Behold, I am against thee, O Tyrus, and will cause many nations to come up against thee.... And they shall destroy the walls of Tyrus, and break down her towers: I will also sc.r.a.pe her dust from her, and make her like the top of a rock. It shall be a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord G.o.d." Eze. 26:3-5.
The accounts of travelers bear witness that the prophecy has been fulfilled. As to the site of the island city of Ezekiel"s day, Bruce, nearly a century ago, said that he found it a "rock whereon fishers dry their nets." (See "Keith on the Prophecies," p. 329.)
In more recent times, Dr. W.M. Thomson found the whole region of Tyre suggestive only of departed glory:
"There is nothing here, certainly, of that which led Joshua to call it "the strong city" more than three thousand years ago (Joshua 19:29),--nothing of that mighty metropolis which baffled the proud Nebuchadnezzar and all his power for thirteen years, until "every head" in his army "was made bald, and every shoulder was peeled," in the hard service against Tyrus (Eze.
29:18),--nothing in this wretched roadstead and empty harbor to remind one of the times when merry mariners did sing in her markets--no visible trace of those towering ramparts which so long resisted the utmost efforts of the great Alexander. All have vanished utterly like a troubled dream, and Tyre has sunk under the burden of prophecy.... As she is now, and has long been, Tyre is G.o.d"s witness; but great, powerful, and populous, she would be the infidel"s boast. This, however, she cannot be.
Tyre will never rise from her dust to falsify the voice of prophecy.
"Dim is her glory, gone her fame, Her boasted wealth has fled; On her proud rock, alas! her shame, The fisher"s net is spread.
The Tyrian harp has slumbered long, And Tyria"s mirth is low; The timbrel, dulcimer, and song Are hushed, or wake to woe."
--_"The Land and the Book," Vol. II, pp. 626, 627._
The Desolation of Babylon