2 Because that Tyre hath said of Jerusalem: Aha, she hath been broken, the doors of the peoples, She hath turned round unto me, I am filled -- she hath been laid waste,
The Burden of Tyre. Howl, ye ships of Tarshish, For it hath been destroyed, Without house, without entrance, From the land of Chittim it was revealed to them. Be silent, ye inhabitants of the isle, Trader of Zidon, passing the sea, they filled thee. And in many waters `is' the seed of Sihor, The harvest of the brook `is' her increase, And she is a mart of nations. Be ashamed, O Zidon; for the sea spake, The strength of the sea, saying: `I have not been pained, nor have I brought forth, Nor have I nourished young men, `nor' brought up virgins.' As `at' the report of Egypt they are pained, So `at' the report of Tyre. Pass over to Tarshish, howl, ye inhabitants of the isle, Is this your exulting one? From the days of old `is' her antiquity, Carry her do her own feet afar off to sojourn. Who hath counselled this against Tyre, The crowning one, whose traders `are' princes, Her merchants the honoured of earth?' Jehovah of Hosts hath counselled it, To pollute the excellency of all beauty, To make light all the honoured of earth. Pass through thy land as a brook, Daughter of Tarshish, there is no more a girdle. His hand He hath stretched out over the sea, He hath caused kingdoms to tremble, Jehovah hath charged concerning the merchant one, To destroy her strong places. And He saith, `Thou dost not add any more to exult, O oppressed one, virgin daughter of Zidon, To Chittim arise, pass over, Even there -- there is no rest for thee.' Lo, the land of the Chaldeans -- this people was not, Asshur founded it for the Ziim, They raised its watch-towers, They lifted up her palaces, -- He hath appointed her for a ruin! Howl, ye ships of Tarshish, For your strength hath been destroyed. And it hath come to pass, in that day, That forgotten is Tyre seventy years, According to the days of one king. At the end of seventy years there is to Tyre as the song of the harlot. Take a harp, go round the city, O forgotten harlot, play well, Multiply song that thou mayest be remembered. And it hath come to pass, At the end of seventy years Jehovah inspecteth Tyre, And she hath repented of her gift, That she committed fornication With all kingdoms of the earth on the face of the ground. And her merchandise and her gift have been holy to Jehovah, Not treasured up nor stored, For to those sitting before Jehovah is her merchandise, To eat to satiety, and for a lasting covering!
`Son of man, set thy face unto the sons of Ammon, and prophesy against them; and thou hast said to the sons of Ammon: Hear ye a word of the Lord Jehovah: Thus said the Lord Jehovah: Because of thy saying, Aha, to My sanctuary, Because it hath been polluted, And unto the ground of Israel, Because it hath been desolate, And unto the house of Judah, Because they have gone into a removal:
And there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation of those under the heaven, and the rumour of this having come, the multitude came together, and was confounded, because they were each one hearing them speaking in his proper dialect, and they were all amazed, and did wonder, saying one unto another, `Lo, are not all these who are speaking Galileans? and how do we hear, each in our proper dialect, in which we were born? Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and those dwelling in Mesopotamia, in Judea also, and Cappadocia, Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia also, and Pamphylia, Egypt, and the parts of Libya, that `are' along Cyrene, and the strangers of Rome, both Jews and proselytes,
And also Hamath doth border thereon, Tyre and Zidon, for -- very wise! And Tyre doth build a bulwark to herself, And doth heap silver as dust, And gold as mire of out-places. Lo, the Lord doth dispossess her, And He hath smitten in the sea her force, And she with fire is consumed.
Thus said Jehovah: For three transgressions of Tyre, And for four, I do not reverse it, Because of their delivering up a complete captivity to Edom, And they remembered not the brotherly covenant, And I have sent a fire against the wall of Tyre, And it hath consumed her palaces.
And there is a word of Jehovah unto me, saying: `And thou, son of man, lift up concerning Tyre a lamentation, and thou hast said to Tyre: O dweller on the entrances of the sea, Merchant of the peoples unto many isles, Thus said the Lord Jehovah: O Tyre, thou -- thou hast said: I `am' the perfection of beauty. In the heart of the seas `are' thy borders, Thy builders have perfected thy beauty. Of firs of Senir they have built to thee all thy double-boarded ships, Of cedars of Lebanon they have taken to make a mast for thee, Of oaks of Bashan they made thine oars, Thy bench they have made of ivory, A branch of Ashurim from isles of Chittim. Of fine linen with embroidery from Egypt hath been thy sail, To be to thee for an ensign, Of blue and purple from isles of Elishah hath been thy covering. Inhabitants of Zidon and Arvad have been rowers to thee, Thy wise men, O Tyre, have been in thee, They `are' thy pilots. Elders of Gebal and its wise men have been in thee, Strengthening thy breach; All ships of the sea and their mariners, Have been in thee, to trade `with' thy merchandise. Persian and Lud and Phut Have been in thy forces -- thy men of war. Shield and helmet they hung up in thee, They -- they have given out thine honour. The sons of Arvad, and thy force, `Are' on thy walls round about, And short swordsmen in thy towers have been, Their shields they have hung up on thy walls round about, They -- they have perfected thy beauty. Tarshish `is' thy merchant, Because of the abundance of all wealth, For silver, iron, tin, and lead, They have given out thy remnants. Javan, Tubal, and Meshech -- they `are' thy merchants, For persons of men, and vessels of brass, They have given out thy merchandise. They of the house of Togarmah, `For' horses, and riding steeds, and mules, They have given out thy remnants. Sons of Dedan `are' thy merchants, Many isles `are' the mart of thy hand, Horns of ivory and ebony they sent back thy reward. Aram `is' thy merchant, Because of the abundance of thy works, For emerald, purple, and embroidery, And fine linen, and coral, and agate, They have given out thy remnants. Judah and the land of Israel -- they `are' thy merchants, For wheat of Minnith, and Pannag, And honey, and oil, and balm, They have given out thy merchandise. Damascus `is' thy merchant, For the abundance of thy works, Because of the abundance of all wealth, For wine of Helbon, and white wool. Vedan and Javan go about with thy remnants, They have given shining iron, cassia, and cane, In thy merchandise it hath been. Dedan `is' thy merchant, For clothes of freedom for riding. Arabia, and all princes of Kedar, They `are' the traders of thy hand, For lambs, and rams, and he-goats, In these thy merchants. Merchants of Sheba and Raamah -- they `are' thy merchants, For the chief of all spices, And for every precious stone, and gold, They have given out thy remnants. Haran, and Canneh, and Eden, merchants of Sheba, Asshur -- Chilmad -- `are' thy merchants, They `are' thy merchants for perfect things, For wrappings of blue, and embroidery, And for treasuries of rich apparel, With cords bound and girded, for thy merchandise, Ships of Tarshish `are' thy double walls of thy merchandise, And thou art filled and honoured greatly, In the heart of the seas. Into great waters have they brought thee, Those rowing thee, The east wind hath broken thee in the heart of the seas. Thy wealth and thy remnants, Thy merchandise, thy mariners, And thy pilots, strengtheners of thy breach, And the traders of thy merchandise, And all thy men of war, who `are' in thee, And in all thine assembly that `is' in thy midst, Fall into the heart of the seas in the day of thy fall, At the voice of the cry of thy pilots shake do the suburbs.
For, lo, Thine enemies do roar, And those hating Thee have lifted up the head, Against Thy people they take crafty counsel, And consult against Thy hidden ones. They have said, `Come, And we cut them off from `being' a nation, And the name of Israel is not remembered any more.'
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible » Commentary on Ezekiel 26
Commentary on Ezekiel 26 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 26
Eze 26:1-21. The Judgment on Tyre through Nebuchadnezzar (TWENTY-SIXTH THROUGH Twenty-eighth Chapters).
In the twenty-sixth chapter, Ezekiel sets forth:—(1) Tyre's sin; (2) its doom; (3) the instruments executing it; (4) the effects produced on other nations by her downfall. In the twenty-seventh chapter, a lamentation over the fall of such earthly splendor. In the twenty-eighth chapter, an elegy addressed to the king, on the humiliation of his sacrilegious pride. Ezekiel, in his prophecies as to the heathen, exhibits the dark side only; because he views them simply in their hostility to the people of God, who shall outlive them all. Isaiah (Isa 23:1-18), on the other hand, at the close of judgments, holds out the prospect of blessing, when Tyre should turn to the Lord.
1. The specification of the date, which had been omitted in the case of the four preceding objects of judgment, marks the greater weight attached to the fall of Tyre.
eleventh year—namely, after the carrying away of Jehoiachin, the year of the fall of Jerusalem. The number of the month is, however, omitted, and the day only given. As the month of the taking of Jerusalem was regarded as one of particular note, namely, the fourth month, also the fifth, on which it was actually destroyed (Jer 52:6, 12, 13), Rabbi David reasonably supposes that Tyre uttered her taunt at the close of the fourth month, as her nearness to Jerusalem enabled her to hear of its fall very soon, and that Ezekiel met it with his threat against herself on "the first day" of the fifth month.
2. Tyre—(Jos 19:29; 2Sa 24:7), literally, meaning "the rock-city," Zor; a name applying to the island Tyre, called New Tyre, rather than Old Tyre on the mainland. They were half a mile apart. "New Tyre," a century and a half before the fall of Jerusalem, had successfully resisted Shalmaneser of Assyria, for five years besieging it (Menander, from the Tyrian archives, quoted by Josephus, Antiquities, 9.14. 2). It was the stronger and more important of the two cities, and is the one chiefly, though not exclusively, here meant. Tyre was originally a colony of Zidon. Nebuchadnezzar's siege of it lasted thirteen years (Eze 29:18; Isa 23:1-18). Though no profane author mentions his having succeeded in the siege, Jerome states he read the fact in Assyrian histories.
Aha!—exultation over a fallen rival (Ps 35:21, 25).
she … that was the gates—that is, the single gate composed of two folding doors. Hence the verb is singular. "Gates" were the place of resort for traffic and public business: so here it expresses a mart of commerce frequented by merchants. Tyre regards Jerusalem not as an open enemy, for her territory being the narrow, long strip of land north of Philistia, between Mount Lebanon and the sea, her interest was to cultivate friendly relations with the Jews, on whom she was dependent for corn (Eze 27:17; 1Ki 5:9; Ac 12:20). But Jerusalem had intercepted some of the inland traffic which she wished to monopolize to herself; so, in her intensely selfish worldly-mindedness, she exulted heartlessly over the fall of Jerusalem as her own gain. Hence she incurred the wrath of God as pre-eminently the world's representative in its ambition, selfishness, and pride, in defiance of the will of God (Isa 23:9).
she is turned unto me—that is, the mart of corn, wine, oil, balsam, &c., which she once was, is transferred to me. The caravans from Palmyra, Petra, and the East will no longer be intercepted by the market ("the gates") of Jerusalem, but will come to me.
3, 4. nations … as the sea … waves—In striking contrast to the boasting of Tyre, God threatens to bring against her Babylon's army levied from "many nations," even as the Mediterranean waves that dashed against her rock-founded city on all sides.
scrape her dust … make her … top of … rock—or, "a bare rock" [Grotius]. The soil which the Tyrians had brought together upon the rock on which they built their city, I will scrape so clean away as to leave no dust, but only the bare rock as it was. An awful contrast to her expectation of filling herself with all the wealth of the East now that Jerusalem has fallen.
5. in the midst of the sea—plainly referring to New Tyre (Eze 27:32).
6. her daughters … in the field—The surrounding villages, dependent on her in the open country, shall share the fate of the mother city.
7. from the north—the original locality of the Chaldeans; also, the direction by which they entered Palestine, taking the route of Riblah and Hamath on the Orontes, in preference to that across the desert between Babylon and Judea.
king of kings—so called because of the many kings who owned allegiance to him (2Ki 18:28). God had delegated to him the universal earth-empire which is His (Da 2:47). The Son of God alone has the right and title inherently, and shall assume it when the world kings shall have been fully proved as abusers of the trust (1Ti 6:15; Re 17:12-14; 19:15, 16). Ezekiel's prophecy was not based on conjecture from the past, for Shalmaneser, with all the might of the Assyrian empire, had failed in his siege of Tyre. Yet Nebuchadnezzar was to succeed. Josephus tells us that Nebuchadnezzar began the siege in the seventh year of Ithobal's reign, king of Tyre.
9. engines of war—literally, "an apparatus for striking." "He shall apply the stroke of the battering-ram against thy walls." Havernick translates, "His enginery of destruction"; literally, the "destruction (not merely the stroke) of his enginery."
axes—literally, "swords."
10. dust—So thick shall be the "dust" stirred up by the immense numbers of "horses," that it shall "cover" the whole city as a cloud.
horses … chariots—As in Eze 26:3-5, New Tyre on the insular rock in the sea (compare Isa 23:2, 4, 6) is referred to; so here, in Eze 26:9-11, Old Tyre on the mainland. Both are included in the prophecies under one name.
wheels—Fairbairn thinks that here, and in Eze 23:24, as "the wheels" are distinct from the "chariots," some wheelwork for riding on, or for the operations of the siege, are meant.
11. thy strong garrisons—literally, "the statutes of thy strength"; so the forts which are "monuments of thy strength." Maurer understands, in stricter agreement with the literal meaning, "the statues" or "obelisks erected in honor of the idols, the tutelary gods of Tyre," as Melecarte, answering to the Grecian Hercules, whose temple stood in Old Tyre (compare Jer 43:13, Margin).
12. lay thy stones … timber … in … midst of … water—referring to the insular New Tyre (Eze 26:3, 5; Eze 27:4, 25, 26). When its lofty buildings and towers fall, surrounded as it was with the sea which entered its double harbor and washed its ramparts, the "stones … timbers … and dust" appropriately are described as thrown down "in the midst of the water." Though Ezekiel attributes the capture of Tyre to Nebuchadnezzar (see on Eze 29:18), yet it does not follow that the final destruction of it described is attributed by him to the same monarch. The overthrow of Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar was the first link in the long chain of evil—the first deadly blow which prepared for, and was the earnest of, the final doom. The change in this verse from the individual conqueror "he," to the general "they," marks that what he did was not the whole, but only paved the way for others to complete the work begun by him. It was to be a progressive work until she was utterly destroyed. Thus the words here answer exactly to what Alexander did. With the "stones, timber," and rubbish of Old Tyre, he built a causeway in seven months to New Tyre on the island and so took it [Curtius, 4, 2], 322 B.C.
13. Instead of the joyousness of thy prosperity, a death-like silence shall reign (Isa 24:8; Jer 7:34).
14. He concludes in nearly the same words as he began (Eze 26:4, 5).
built no more—fulfilled as to the mainland Tyre, under Nebuchadnezzar. The insular Tyre recovered partly, after seventy years (Isa 23:17, 18), but again suffered under Alexander, then under Antigonus, then under the Saracens at the beginning of the fourteenth century. Now its harbors are choked with sand, precluding all hope of future restoration, "not one entire house is left, and only a few fishermen take shelter in the vaults" [Maundrell]. So accurately has God's word come to pass.
15-21. The impression which the overthrow of Tyre produced on other maritime nations and upon her own colonies, for example, Utica, Carthage, and Tartessus or Tarshish in Spain.
isles—maritime lands. Even mighty Carthage used to send a yearly offering to the temple of Hercules at Tyre: and the mother city gave high priests to her colonies. Hence the consternation at her fall felt in the widely scattered dependencies with which she was so closely connected by the ties of religion, as well as commercial intercourse.
shake—metaphorically: "be agitated" (Jer 49:21).
16. come down from their thrones … upon the ground—"the throne of the mourners" (Job 2:13; Jon 3:6).
princes of the sea—are the merchant rulers of Carthage and other colonies of Tyre, who had made themselves rich and powerful by trading on the sea (Isa 23:8).
clothe … with trembling—Hebrew, "tremblings." Compare Eze 7:27, "clothed with desolation"; Ps 132:18. In a public calamity the garment was changed for a mourning garb.
17. inhabited of seafaring men—that is, which was frequented by merchants of various sea-bordering lands [Grotius]. Fairbairn translates with Peschito, "Thou inhabitant of the seas" (the Hebrew literal meaning). Tyre rose as it were out of the seas as if she got thence her inhabitants, being peopled so closely down to the waters. So Venice was called "the bride of the sea."
strong in the sea—through her insular position.
cause their terror to be on all that haunt it—namely, the sea. The Hebrew is rather, "they put their terror upon all her (the city's) inhabitants," that is, they make the name of every Tyrian to be feared [Fairbairn].
18. thy departure—Isa 23:6, 12 predicts that the Tyrians, in consequence of the siege, should pass over the Mediterranean to the lands bordering on it ("Chittim," "Tarshish," &c.). So Ezekiel here. Accordingly Jerome says that he read in Assyrian histories that, "when the Tyrians saw no hope of escaping, they fled to Carthage or some islands of the Ionian and Ægean Seas" [Bishop Newton]. (See on Eze 29:18). Grotius explains "departure," that is, "in the day when hostages shall be carried away from thee to Babylon." The parallelism to "thy fall" makes me think "departure" must mean "thy end" in general, but with an included allusion to the "departure" of most of her people to her colonies at the fall of the city.
19. great waters—appropriate metaphor of the Babylonian hosts, which literally, by breaking down insular Tyre's ramparts, caused the sea to "cover" part of her.
20. the pit—Tyre's disappearance is compared to that of the dead placed in their sepulchres and no more seen among the living (compare Eze 32:18, 23; Isa 14:11, 15, 19).
I shall set glory in the land—In contrast to Tyre consigned to the "pit" of death, I shall set glory (that is, My presence symbolized by the Shekinah cloud, the antitype to which shall be Messiah, "the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father," Joh 1:14; Isa 4:2, 5; Zec 6:13) in Judah.
of the living—as opposed to Tyre consigned to the "pit" of death. Judea is to be the land of national and spiritual life, being restored after its captivity (Eze 47:9). Fairbairn loses the antithesis by applying the negative to both clauses, "and that thou be not set as a glory in the land of the living."
21. terror—an example of judgment calculated to terrify all evildoers.
thou shall be no more—Not that there was to be no more a Tyre, but she was no more to be the Tyre that once was: her glory and name were to be no more. As, to Old Tyre, the prophecy was literally fulfilled, not a vestige of it being left.