Travelling in Jordan: Petra. Part four

Petra is associated by virtually all people with the Nabataeans, but in actuality Petra has a much longer history. In place of Petra at some point in history there stretched the lands of Edom.

The beginning of the Kingdom of Edom’s formation takes us back to the family of patriarch Isaac, who had two sons – Esau, the elder son, and Jacob, the younger son. Strife for the birthright led to a lasting enmity between these flesh brothers. And even the restoration of peace many years later could not make up the impaired relationships. The opposition between the two sons of patriarch Isaac was so great that they could no longer live together, and Esau then decided to move his camp with his family and servants to the south (Genesis 36:6-8).

After a long journey, a majestic mountainous range (Seir) rose before their eyes, in which they discovered a narrow pathway. After rushing into this passage and following its many winding turns, they eventually came out on the mountainous plateau with a magnificent view that opened from it on the valleys lying below. When they saw this, they realized that no better place could be found for a city to be built.

At that time, this land was owned by the tribe of the Horims, who lived in the caves; they were almost completely wiped out by the invading Edomites (Genesis 14:6; Deuteronomy 2:12, 22). The remaining Horims for some time still dragged out a miserable existence in the caves and among the deserts.

Having become the masters lording over these rocks, the Edomites started building a city, which after a short time received the name Selah (in Old Hebrew), or Petra (in Greek), meaning in both languages the rock. This city became the centre of the Kingdom of Edom, which was originally ruled by some elders, – a union of several families, and tribes, each one of them with their own tribal city, until around the 16th century BCE it turned into a monarchy. The historic records brought to us the names of the first kings of Edom: Bela, Jobab, Husham, Gadad, Samlah, Shaul, Baal-Hanan, and Hadad.

Petra was truly an outstanding city, and its main, fundamental distinction from the other cities was not only the fact that it was lying on an elevation almost 700 meters above the surrounding area, but also the fact that virtually all its houses, palaces, and temples were hewn in a solid rock, cutting into the rock for the depth of 5, 10, 15, and 26 meters.

And if today we could travel back in time to the Petra of those distant days, no doubt, we would have been stunned by its beauty and splendour that even nowadays can be obviously seen in its majestic ruins. But if we were to get to know the habits and the way of life of this city closer, our original fascination would have given way to astonishment first, and then – to disgust.

The first thing that would have surprised us would be the means Petra existed on, and the sources of income that the Kingdom of Edom had. And the first item of these was the plundering raids on the surrounding peoples. The dwellers of Edom did not like to openly announce wars and engage in combat activities. They carried out their military operations under the cover of the night or in the way of “simple” predatory incursions, looting and returning with the spoils under the protection of the inapproachable rocks of Petra. The second item of profits was driving people into slavery. At that time, the slave trade was one of the most significant sources of income – that is why the rulers of Edom primarily counted on the slave trade. The third item of income was reselling people. Because of its advantageous geographic location – and Edom was situated on the crossroads of the routes going from Egypt to Babylon, and from Arabia to Phoenicia – the rulers of Edom created in their capital one of the largest slave markets in the ancient world. The walls of Petra’s houses and temples remember the tears of a thousand-year long tragedy, when a mother could be sold to Babylon, and her child – to Egypt.

Yes, slave trade had a major part in the economy of the nations of the Ancient World, and, in the first place, – in the economy of Greece and Rome. But in no other country, besides Petra, was it the major and virtually the unique fundamental item of income. Petra was growing rich, making its fortune on the tears and sufferings of other people. The Idumeans always had an especially intense hatred for the Jews: when they captured some Jews, they would ruthlessly torture and humiliate them; they also directly participated in the devastation of Jerusalem under Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BCE, committing unprecedented atrocities toward the defeated Jews.

The Fourth item of this kingdom’s income was collecting the taxes from the merchants’ caravans. We have already pointed out that Petra had a very advantageous geographical location, and thus it was a necessary transit point for hundreds and hundreds of merchants’ caravans, collecting the taxes from them for the right to do the trade and stay overnight.

The Fifth item of income of this rocky kingdom was rather a peculiar one. Let’s suppose that some trading caravan approached the gates of the city at night. Having paid the due tax, the merchants came in to spend the night, and early in the morning they left the city to continue their journey. But when they just barely drove away from Petra, they were attacked by some unknown robbers, who plundered their goods. At the same time, the merchants could never suppose that these robbers were the last night’s guards of Petra, who stood in the gates and collected the taxes from them. Neither could they suppose that it was the rulers of Edom themselves who sent these guards in highwaymen’s disguise. In this way the ancient kingdom forced the money out of the merchants twice: the first time by officially collecting the taxes from them, and the second time – by robbing them in the disguise of the highwaymen. Virtually, the kingdom of Edom by itself did not produce anything, and it lived off the robberies and violence, maintaining the parasitical way of life. No wonder that in the history it is often called the state of pirates, or the pirate kingdom.

But if we could come to Edom in those years, even more we would have been stunned by its terrible religion. The history preserved for us the names of some of the gods of that ancient state and its successors: god Dushara, the tribal god Shai al-Qaum, the goddess of fate Manawat, god Qaus (his cult is believed to be the oldest, sprouting from the first descendants of Esau), god of the heavens Baalshamin, goddess al-Kutba, goddess of love Al-Uzzá.

Along with that, it is worthy to notice that for a long time, as it becomes clear from the historic sources, the concept of the One God had been still preserved, although in a distorted form, whose name the nations inhabiting Petra in the ancient times did not use in vain, keeping the charge of the third commandment of the Law of God, which existed in those days in the oral form: “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that takes his name in vain” (Exodus 20:7), and who was called the Great God. Traces of monotheism could be clearly found with the wise men of Edom, who had their own special school in a little town of Teman, near Petra.

Here the traces of the original monotheism are distinctly seen, which was confessed by the family of Esau, son of Patriarch Isaac, and then forgotten, distorted, and eventually absolutely replaced by the brutal and beastly pagan beliefs. Among these cults, the chief and most popular one was the cult of the sun god. The altar of the latter is on the top of the ZibbAttufMountain, rising over Petra; this place is also otherwise known as the Robinson’s High Place.

The steep stairs led to the very top of the rock and stopped at the platform cut in the rock. Above, there was one more platform, where a huge altar was made in the ancient times, and where terrible human sacrifices were offered. The ancient engineers thought everything through to the smallest detail, including the gutters in which the human blood streamed down.

This altar was the place of worship to the sun god “who throughout many centuries posed a challenge to the true God. The red steps of Petra remain as symbols of the devilish worship full of passions that evoked one of the strongest and most sobering prophecies.” This is how professor Henry Morton, one of the well-known English travelers of the middle of the 20th century, describes this place: “My own feeling is that there is something vaguely sinister about Petra. One comes across the ghosts of red staircases leading up into the towering crags, stairs cut… up the sides of mountains, that disappear beneath a chaos of fallen rocks to emerge again and lead up and ever upward, tracing a ghostly red path to “the high places of Baal.” It is, to me, extraordinary that anyone can look on Petra purely as a piece of landscape or as a curiosity, for to my way of thinking the whole place even now reeks of Baal. On the top of the mountain above the Sik I came to the chief “high place.” The summit had been hacked smooth. A pool for ablutions had been cut in the rock. Two lonely and significant obelisks watch over the… altars, one an altar of slaying and the other an altar of burning. This “high place” is so well preserved, so clear in intention, that if the priests and priestesses of Petra could come back they would be able to hold an orgy under the moon without the knowledge that the shadow of centuries has ever fallen on their altars.”

Let us consider this fact thoughtfully – for over one thousand years virtually every day on the altars of Petra at least one human being was sacrificed. For one thousand years, on the red stairs of a huge staircase of Edom’s capital in the company of priests another victim was ascending, fully realizing that with every step, every flight of the staircase he or she is drawing near to meet their dreadful death. And while the doomed person was slowly going up to the altar of death, at the foot of the staircase hundreds of excited dwellers of the city were crowding in restless religious ecstasy, waiting for the moment when the blood of the next victim would flow from the stairs and they would fill the ringing sky with their wild victorious cries. It lasted for many long centuries. Having distorted the idea of worshipping God, all civilizations of the ancient world worshipped evil in its various forms, taking this worship of their own to the extremes of sadism and perversion.

Throughout centuries, the Old Testament prophets addressed to the Edomites their call to repent, a call to turn from their evil works, but the Edomites would trample the most basic human values underfoot more and more.

“And the Lord said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger” (Genesis 25:23).

“Edom’s streams will be turned into pitch, her dust into burning sulfur; her land will become blazing pitch!” “The desert owl and screech owl will possess it; the great owl and the raven will nest there. God will stretch out over Edom the measuring line of chaos and the plumb line of desolation. Her nobles will have nothing there to be called a kingdom, all her princes will vanish away. Thorns will overrun her citadels, nettles and brambles her strongholds. She will become a haunt for jackals, a home for owls.” (Isaiah 34:9, 11-13).

“But I have made Esau bare, I have uncovered his secret places, and he shall not be able to hide himself: his seed is spoiled, and his brethren, and his neighbours, and he is not.” “Also Edom shall be a desolation: every one that goes by it shall be astonished, and shall hiss at all the plagues thereof. As in the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighbour cities thereof, says the Lord, no man shall abide there, neither shall a son of man dwell in it.” (Jeremiah 49:10, 17-18).

“Therefore thus says the Lord God; I will also stretch out Mine hand upon Edom, and will cut off man and beast from it; and I will make it desolate from Teman; and they of Dedan shall fall by the sword. And I will lay My vengeance upon Edom by the hand of My people Israel: and they shall do in Edom according to Mine anger and according to My fury; and they shall know My vengeance, says the Lord God.” (Ezekiel 25:13-14).

“That they may possess the remnant of Edom, and of all the heathen, which are called by My name, says the Lord that doeth this.” (Amos 9:12).

“And the house of Jacob shall be a fire, and the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau for stubble, and they shall kindle in them, and devour them; and there shall not be any remaining of the house of Esau; for the Lord hath spoken it. And they of the south shall possess the mount of Esau.” (Obadiah 1:18-19).

This material is taken from the article by professor A. A. Oparin (Ukraine) “Ancient Petra: Tombs. Altars. Sacrifices.” published in “The World Questions Review” magazine on April 3, 2013.