@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 27:4,25,2 6< /A>). 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.