SEIRAH (se'i-rah). See SEIRATH. SEIRATH (sE'i-rath), (Heb. has-seh-ee raw', with the definite article, the hairy). The place where Ehud hid after the murder of Eglon (Judg. and where he gathered his country men before the attack on the Moabites at Jericho (Judg. iii:27).
SELA (se'la) or SELAH (Heb. seh'lah, rock, 2 Kings xiv:7; Gr. Il&pa, the rock, Petra, which has the same signification as Selah; some times plural, at 1117pat, the rocks), the metropolis of the Edomites in Mount Seir.
(1) History. In the Jewish history it is re corded that Amaziah, king of Judah, 'slew of Edom in the valley of Salt ten thousand, and took Selah by war, and called the name of it Joktheel unto this day' (2 Kings xiv :7). This name seems, however, to have passed away with the Hebrew rule over Edom, for no further trace of it is to be found, and it is still called Selah by Isaiah (xvi:1). These are all the certain notices of the place in Scripture ; for it may well be doubted whether it is designated in Judg. i :36 and Is. xlii :it, as some suppose. We next meet with it as the Petra of the Greek writers, which is merely a translation of the native name Selah. The earliest notice of it under that name by them is connected with the fact that Antigonus, one of Alexander's successors, sent two expeditions against the Nabatlizeans in Petra (Diod. Sic. xix. 94-93). For points of history not immediately connected with the city, see EDOM ITES ; NEM TOTH. It was not until the reports concerning the wonderful remains in \Vady Musa had been verified by Burckhardt that the latter traveler first ventured to assume the identity of the site with that of the ancient capital of Arabia Petra. (Leake's Preface to Burckhardt's Travels in Syria, pp. vii-ix ; Robinson's Palestine, ii, 576 579: (2) Present Condition. The ruined city lies in a narrow valley, surrounded by lofty, and, for the most part, perfectly precipitous mountains. Those which form its southern limit are not so steep as to be impassable ; and it is over these, or rather through them, along an abrupt and diffi cult ravine, that travelers from Sinai or Egypt usually wind their laborious way into the scene of magnificent desolation. The ancient and more
interesting entrance is on the eastern side, through the deep narrow gorge of \Vady Syke. It is not easy to determine the precise limits of the ancient city, though the precipitous mountains by which the site is encompassed mark with perfect dis tinctness the boundaries beyond which it never could have extended. The sides of the valley are walled up by perpendicular rocks, from four hundred to six or seven hundred feet high. The northern and southern barriers are neither so lofty nor so steep, and they both admit of the passage of camels.
(3) Imposing Ruins. The chief public build ings occupied the banks of the river and the high ground further south, as their ruins sufficiently show. One sumptuous edifice remains standing, though in an imperfect and dilapidated state. It is an imposing ruin, though not of the purest style of architecture, and is the more striking as the only edifice now standing in Petra.
In various parts of the valley are other piles of ruins—columns and hewn stones—parts, no doubt of important public buildings. They indi cate the great wealth and magnificence of this ancient capital, as well as its unparalleled calami ties. These sumptuous edifices occupied what may be called the central parts of Petra. A large surface on the north side of the river is covered with substructions, which probably belonged to private habitations.
The mountain torrents which, at times, sweep over the lower parts of the ancient site, have un dermined many foundations, and carried away many a chiseled stone, and worn many a finished specimen of sculpture into unshapely masses. The soft texture of the rock seconds the destructive agencies of the elements. Even the accumula tions of rubbish, which mark the site of all other decayed cities, have mostly disappeared, and the extent which was covered with human habitations can only be determined by the broken pottery scattered over the surface, or mingled with the sand—the universal, and, it would seem, an in- perishable memorial of populous cities that exist no longer.