Just what hands constructed these noble temples and tombs it is not at this time possible to say. The Nabataeans were incapable of producing this kind of work, nor would they have invested the time. The bodies of the departed were spread upon the field as fertilizer or buried in the most indescribably filthy pits of their day and time. The Semitic peoples who preceded them, however, have left this record in stone as a testimony to their reverence for the dead. What the future will yield in the hoped-for excavations of Petra, no one is able to say. If, however, a spade is never sunk into soil and no more appears to the gaze of man than is seen by the casual traveler today, we have sufficient to call forth a doxology from the hearts of those who love and reverence the Word of God. We cannot refrain from commenting again and again upon the marvelous manner in which the Author of this Great Book has cared for His own case. The consternation and defeat of the critics have been complete in this instance. What a quaint conceit it is in our generation to note that God is so firm in His promised defense of His Book, that He will move to crush the enemies of the Word even if it is necessary to smite their fallacious fancy with a carved mountain of stone! CHAPTER IX The Brazen Shields of Rehoboam In the logical presentation of this subject, we now come to that period of history in which the pharaohs, who are named by name in the Scriptures and are thus identified beyond question, make their contribution to the evidence which sustains the record of the Bible. Laying aside controversial discussions as to the identity of the various pharaohs who preceded, we note that the first of Egypt’s many monarchs to appear under his personal name in the Word of God is Shishak the 1st. His name appears on the monuments of Egypt as Shashanq the 1st, but his own records identify him as the “Shishak” of I Kings 14, and II Chronicles 12. The outstanding accomplishments of his entire reign seem to have been the invasion of Palestine and the capture of Jerusalem. In the account which this monarch left in the priceless writings at Karnak, the most noteworthy is the story told on the second pylon of the main temple, where the conqueror has given a list of all the towns and villages which he overthrew in Palestine. To this he added a record of the gold and silver ornaments that he carried away from Jerusalem. He specifically noted the bucklers and shields of Solomon and also the golden quivers which Solomon’s father had captured from the king of Zobah.