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PETRA

Volume 16 · 245 words · 1823 Edition

(Cæsar, Lucian), a town of Greece, on the coast of Illyricum, near Dyrrhachium, and not far from the mouth of the river Panyasus.—Another Petra, (Livy); a town of Medica, a district of Thrace, lying towards Macedonia; but in what part of Macedonia, he does not say.

Petra (Ptolemy), Petraea (Silius Italicus), Petrina (Italicus), in both which last urbs is understood; an inland town of Sicily, to the south-west of Enyrum. Now Petraeia (Cluverius).

Petra Jecketael (2 Kings xiv.), a town of the Amalekites; near the Adscensus Scorpionis (Judges i.) and the valley of Salt in the south of Judea; afterwards in the possession of the Edomites, after destroying the Amalekites.

Petra Reccem, or Rekem, so called from Rekem king of the Midianites, slain by the Israelites (Num. xxxi.). Formerly called Arce, now Petra; the capital of Arabia Petraea (Josephus). Ptolemy places it in Long. 66. 45. from the Fortunate islands, and Lat. 30. 20. It declines therefore 80 miles to the south of the parallel of Jerusalem, and 36 miles, more or less, from its meridian to the east. Josephus says, that the mountain on which Aaron died stood near Petra; which Strabo calls the capital of the Nabataei; at the distance of three or four days journey from Jericho. This Petra seems to be the Sela of Isaiah xvi. 1. and xlii. 11. the Hebrew name of Petra, "a rock:" Though some imagine Petra to be no older than the time of the Macedonians.