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A Book That Tells What the Future HoldsAwake!—1980 | May 8
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A ‘Wonder of the Ancient World’—Its Doom Foretold
Over 35 centuries ago a small nation in the Middle East sat on the center of the main land trade routes between the East and the West. Edom, with its capital Petra, controlled a great flow of rich cargoes and travelers. Petra was located in the desert but surrounded by “inaccessible mountains.” In the city, jutting 1,000 feet (305 m) straight up, was an “exceedingly strong” mountain fortress that reportedly ‘one man could hold against an army.’
While the city held this seemingly unconquerable position, Bible prophets foretold: “‘O you who are residing in the retreats of the crag, . . . Although you build your nest high up just like an eagle, down from there I shall bring you,’ is the utterance of Jehovah. ‘And Edom must become an object of astonishment. . . . no man will dwell there.’” “From generation to generation she will be parched [a desolate waste]; forever and ever no one will be passing across her.”—Jer. 49:16-18; Isa. 34:5, 10.
Despite having the best natural defenses of any city in the world, Petra was captured, and the remaining Edomites were driven out. In time the Edomites disappeared from history. But the land did not become a desolate waste with ‘no man dwelling there.’ Rather, the new inhabitants (the Nabataeans) brought Petra to its greatest power. Tolls from the rich caravans filled it with great wealth. Exquisite buildings and architecture were carved into the rose-colored rock. The city became one of the ‘wonders of the ancient world.’ Yet suddenly the trade routes shifted, no one any longer crossed through the land, and the city died. The 1,000-year-old Bible prophecy came true. As one who visited the ruins declared: “I would that the skeptic could stand as I did, among the ruins of this city among the rocks, and there open the sacred Book and read the words of the inspired penman, written when this desolate place was one of the greatest cities in the world.”
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A Book That Tells What the Future HoldsAwake!—1980 | May 8
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[Box/Picture on page 17]
The Prophecy
“‘O you who are residing in the retreats of the crag, . . . Although you build your nest high up just like an eagle, down from there I shall bring you,’ is the utterance of Jehovah. ‘And Edom must become an object of astonishment . . . no man will dwell there.’”—Jer. 49:16-18.
Its Fulfillment
What is the condition of ancient Edom today? “Around us were the desolation of ages; the dwellings and edifices of the ancient city [Petra, the former capital city, carved out of the mountain crag] crumbled and strewed in the dust.”—Edward Robinson, in “Biblical Researches in Palestine.”
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