Page 11 - Good News July 2007 paper

Petra, a prosperous Edomite city around derness, into her place, where she is
the time of the birth of Christ, and later the nourished for a time, and times, and half a
Nabatean capital, is only a few miles from time, from the face of the serpent.”
Israel’s border. As one of the ancient (Revelation 12:6,14).
wonders of the world, its buildings were What causes their flight? The Bible talks of
hewn out of solid rose-red rock and the city the “abomination of desolation” by the
was practically impregnable. The one Antichrist, when he sets up an idol to
narrow canyon-like entrance to Petra, himself in Israel’s rebuilt Temple. This will
which was also called Bozrah (meaning cause the “woman” (Israel’s remnant) to
“sheepfold”), could easily be protected by flee to a desolate place.
a small force of soldiers. “When ye therefore shall see the
God said that He would lay the cities of abomination of desolation, spoken of by
Edom waste. The city of Bozrah/Petra, in Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place,
the southern desert of modern-day Jordan, (whoso readeth, let him understand:) Then
is one of these broken-down cities. let them which be in Judaea flee into the
“For I have sworn by myself, saith the mountains: Let him which is on the
LORD, that Bozrah shall become a housetop not come down to take any thing
desolation, a reproach, a waste, and a out of his house: Neither let him which is in
curse; and all the cities thereof shall be the field return back to take his clothes.
perpetual wastes. I have heard a rumour And woe unto them that are with child, and
from the LORD, and an ambassador is sent to them that give suck in those days! But
unto the heathen, saying, Gather ye pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, Petra was first established sometime around the 6th
together, and come against her, and rise up neither on the sabbath day: For then shall century BC, by the Nabataean Arabs, a nomadic tribe
to the battle” (Jeremiah 49:13-14). be great tribulation, such as was not since who settled in the area and laid the foundations of a
In this lonely habitation for eagles, hawks, the beginning of the world to this time, no, commercial empire that extended into Syria. Despite
lizards, and serpents, Petra’s magnificent nor ever shall be” (Matthew 24:15-21). successive attempts by the Seleucid king Antigonus,
structures - a 4 000-seat theatre, altars, “And he shall confirm the covenant with the Roman emperor Pompey, and Herod the Great to
temples, and monuments - are decaying many for one week: and in the midst of the bring Petra under the control of their respective
empires, Petra remained largely in Nabataean hands
and crumbling. But some Bible scholars week he shall cause the sacrifice and the until around 100 AD, when the Romans took over. It
believe the remnant of Israel will be cared oblation to cease, and for the over- was still inhabited during the Byzantine period, when
for in this mysterious city for 1 260 days spreading of abominations he shall make it
the former Roman empire moved its focus east to
during the Great Tribulation. desolate, even until the consummation, Constantinople, but declined in importance thereafter.
“And the woman fled into the wilderness, and that determined shall be poured upon The Crusaders constructed a fort there in the 12th
where she hath a place prepared of God, the desolate” (Daniel 9:27). century, but soon withdrew, leaving Petra to the local
that they should feed her there a thousand Could mysterious Petra, laid waste by God, people until the early 19th century, when it was visited
two hundred and threescore days. And to be saved for His purposes in the End by the Swiss explorer Johann Ludwig Burckhardt.
the woman were given two wings of a great Times? http://www.raingod.com/angus/Gallery/Photos/
eagle, that she might fly into the wil- www.thekingiscoming.com MiddleEast/Jordan/Petra/index.html