How is the city of praise forsaken,[239] The city of joy! Her young men shall fall in the streets, All the warriors shall be put to silence in that day." We are moved to sympathy with the feelings of Hamath and Arpad, when they heard the evil tidings, and were filled with sorrow, "like the sea that cannot rest." Yet even here this most uncompromising of prophets may teach us, after his fashion, wholesome though perhaps unwelcome truths. We are reminded how often the mystic glamour of romance has served to veil cruelty and corruption, and how little picturesque scenery and interesting associations can do of themselves to promote a noble life. Feudal castles, with their massive grandeur, were the strongholds of avarice and cruelty; and ancient abbeys which, even in decay, are like a dream of fairyland, were sometimes the home of abominable corruption. FOOTNOTES: [236] 2 Kings xvi. 9. [237] Ezek. xxvii. 18. [238] Joel iii. 4. [239] So Giesebrecht, with most of the ancient versions. A.V., R.V., with Masoretic Text, "not forsaken ... my joy," possibly meaning, "Why did not the inhabitants forsake the doomed city?" CHAPTER XXIII _KEDAR AND HAZOR_ xlix. 28-33. "Concerning Kedar, and the kingdoms of Hazor which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon smote."--JER. xlix. 28. From an immemorial seat of human culture, an "eternal city" which antedates Rome by centuries, if not millenniums, we turn to those Arab tribes whose national life and habits were as ancient and have been as persistent as the streets of Damascus. While Damascus has almost always been in the forefront of history, the Arab tribes--except in the time of Mohammed and the early Caliphs--have seldom played a more important part than that of frontier marauders. Hence, apart from a few casual references, the only other passage in the Old Testament which deals, at any length, with Kedar is the parallel prophecy of Isaiah. And yet Kedar was the great northern tribe, which ranged the deserts between Palestine and the Euphrates, and which must have had closer relations with Judah than most Arab peoples.