Thus saith the Lord Jehovah to Tyre Shall not the isles shake at the sound of thy fall, when the wounded groan, when the slaughter is made in the midst of thee?
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
And all the princes of the sea shall come down from their thrones, and lay aside their robes, and put off their broidered garments they shall clothe themselves with trembling, they shall sit upon the ground, and shall tremble [every] moment, and be astonied because of thee.
Ezekiel 26 announces the fall of Tyre, the great trading city. This verse turns to the shock that fall sends through her trading partners, and it raises two questions. Who are the "princes of the sea," and why does one city's collapse leave them all shaking?
Tyre sat at the centre of the ancient world's commerce, and the men who ruled that commerce ranked with kings. One writer gathers the picture the prophets give of her:
Part of the city of Tyre (which means rock) stood on an island off the mainland in the Mediterranean Sea. It was an ancient Phoenician city... It had a wonderful commerce... It was home to seafaring men. The prophet Isaiah describes this wealthy and influential city as "the crowning city, whose merchants are princes, whose traders are the honourable of the earth" (Isa. 23:8). We read in the next chapter how Syria, Persia, Egypt, Spain, Greece and every part of the ancient world laid their finest and most precious things at the feet of Tyre. She sat enthroned on ivory, covered with blue and purple, from the isles of Elishah.
(Isaiah 23:8 in the ESV reads: "the bestower of crowns, whose merchants were princes, whose traders were the honored of the earth.")
So the thrones and robes here are not mere imagery. They belonged to real men who had grown rich on Tyre's trade.
The mourning here is not sympathy but fear. Tyre's fall shook every nation that traded with her.
Further, the moral effect was immense among the nations... The trading powers would especially feel the utter ruin of a city so renowned and strong in the sea. The prophet accordingly names the isles as troubled at Tyre's departure. For many of the wealthy fled, as the rest remained to be destroyed.
Another writer puts that fear into a single question:
Where shall any find a security that Tyre has not found?
Tyre's sin was quieter than war. She saw a neighbour's ruin as an opening in the market.
Tyre is above all the merchant. His declared aim is even to serve. No doubt his aim is first of all to serve himself. He has not the true spirit of service for God. He finds in the need of man the opportunity for his own gain, and this is what we find as the cause of his judgment here... She says against Jerusalem: "Aha, she is broken, the gate of the peoples; she is turned to me. I shall be replenished now that she is laid waste." How naturally we understand it! How common is such rejoicing on the part of merchants at all times! The habitual gaining of riches from the need of others hardens the heart.
So the thrones come down because the heart had grown hard.
The prophecy waited a long time for its fulfilment:
The literal fulfilment of this prophecy came about 240 years later. Alexander the Great came against the city built on the island. After seven months he took the city by means of a causeway, which let his forces enter. In building this causeway, Alexander made use of the ruins of the old city. He laid the stones, timber and the very dust of the destroyed city into the sea to build the causeway, and that causeway brought the utter ruin of the wealthy city.
Everyone present at such a collapse feels its message. Almost no one keeps it.
The lessons of such a fall need hardly be dwelt on. Everyone standing in the presence of such a fall feels them. But they are unwelcome, so people dismiss them as quickly as possible. The lessons of God's school are too humbling for man to welcome... The sentence of God is on it; but, as He says here, that He may set true glory in the land of the living... All this has indeed to pass away. What can be shaken must be removed, so that what cannot be shaken may remain. Our kingdom is in what cannot be shaken.
- Thrones. The mourners are real rulers — merchants who ranked as princes, "enthroned on ivory" by Tyre's trade.
- Trade. Their grief is commercial, not moral. The trading powers "would especially feel the utter ruin of a city so renowned and strong in the sea."
- Terror. Fear strips off the robes. It leaves one question for every watching ruler: "Where shall any find a security that Tyre has not found?"
- Tyre's sin. She fell for profiting off a neighbour's ruin. Gaining "from the need of others" had hardened her heart.
- Transfer. God removes the glory that can be shaken and sets true glory in its place. Most people dismiss that lesson "as quickly as possible."
And they shall take up a lamentation for thee, and say to thee, How hast thou perished, that wast inhabited from the seas, O renowned city, which wast strong in the sea, -- she and her inhabitants, who caused their terror to be on all them that dwell therein!
Tyre was the great trading port of the ancient world, and this verse is the funeral song sung over her ruin. The mourners are not her enemies but the trading powers that grew rich alongside her — so why does the fall of one rich city matter so much to God?
The shock ran along the trade routes Tyre herself had built.
The trading powers would especially feel the utter ruin of a city so renowned and strong in the sea. The prophecy names the coastlands too as troubled at Tyre's departure. For many of the wealthy fled, while the rest remained to be destroyed.
Tyre's own name carries the boast behind "strong in the sea." God answers that boast by taking the name at face value.
Tyre means "a rock." This island city stood on a rock. For its own purposes it did not need the power to produce goods where it stood. It needed a good gathering point where traders could bring the products of other regions and exchange them. With such vast resources, Tyre might well look on itself as a rock that could not be shaken... But God takes up its character in its final result, and declares that it shall be a rock — a rock and nothing more — "a bare rock," or "cliff," as the word He uses means.
Tyre had not marched against Israel. Her offence was quieter, and commentators find it more searching for that reason.
The lesson is all the more serious because Tyre does not appear to have been driven by plain hostility against Israel. Her motive was commercial greed. She saw a chance for profit in the disasters of God's chosen people. This drew the city into an opposition to Israel that the Lord resented. When God chastens His people, that is no licence for the selfish greed that would profit from their troubles or their downfall.
Another writer sees Tyre as the merchant in his purest form — a servant of everyone, and of himself first.
Tyre is the merchant through and through; his professed aim is even to serve. No doubt his aim is first of all to serve himself. He does not have the true spirit of service for God. Instead he finds in the need of others the opportunity for his own gain. That is what we find here as the cause of his judgment... The habitual gathering of riches out of other people's need hardens the heart; there is hardly need to say it.
Two cities stood as rivals. In one, people knew God; the other offered everything a person could want without Him.
Ezekiel 26:2 shows that Tyre, the merchant city of the world, was the rival of Jerusalem, the city of God: "I shall be replenished, now she is laid waste." So Babylon (compare Ezekiel 27 with Revelation 18) is the rival of the new Jerusalem. God was known in the palaces of Jerusalem. In Tyre it was the god of this world. There a person could satisfy the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life.
The same kind of commerce appears once more at the end of the Bible:
The description of her great commerce reminds us of that coming world-system described in the last book of the Bible, Revelation. Babylon the Great will be both a religious and a commercial world centre. Her commerce is just like the commerce of Tyre.
Everyone standing at the graveside of a great city feels the point. Almost no one keeps it.
The lessons of such a fall hardly need to be spelled out. Everyone who stands in front of them feels them at once. But the lessons are unwelcome, so people dismiss them as fast as they can. The lessons of God's school are too humbling for man to welcome... What can be shaken is to be removed, so that what cannot be shaken may remain, and our kingdom is in what cannot be shaken.
- Rock — Tyre's name meant "rock," and she thought herself unshakable. God's sentence leaves her a bare rock and nothing more.
- Greed — God judged her not for armies but for seeking profit from Jerusalem's ruin. Getting rich from other people's need hardens the heart.
- Renown — her fame rested on trade. The powers that mourn her are the powers that grew rich trading with her.
- Rival — in Jerusalem people knew God. Tyre offered every desire without Him. That same rivalry returns in Babylon the Great.
- Removal — the mourners feel the lesson and drop it fast. What can be shaken must go, so that what cannot be shaken may remain.
Now shall the isles tremble in the day of thy fall; and the isles that are in the sea shall be troubled at thy departure.
Ezekiel 26 ends with the whole trading world watching one city sink. Verse 18 is the sound of that shock reaching the coastlands, and it raises a question: why should the fall of one harbour town make distant islands tremble?
Tyre was not an inland fortress but a sea power, and that explains why its collapse travelled by water.
The city of Tyrus (which means rock) was partly built on an island off the mainland in the Mediterranean Sea. Scripture first mentions this ancient Phoenician city in Joshua 19:29, where it calls it "the strong city." It had a wonderful trade, and chapter twenty-seven describes that trade in its variety. Seafaring men lived there, and the prophet Isaiah describes this wealthy and influential city as "the crowning city, whose merchants are princes, whose traders are the honored of the earth."
The verse names the coastlands — older translations say "isles" — because they had the most to lose. Trade was their lifeline, and Tyre was the hub.
The trading powers would feel most keenly the utter ruin of a city so famous and so strong at sea. So the prophecy names the isles as troubled at Tyre's departure. Many of the wealthy fled, while the rest stayed behind to be destroyed.
Tyre was more than one city. It was the hub that linked east and west.
This city is the picture of the world's commercial glory: wealthy, corrupt, and self-confident. Nebuchadnezzar took it after a long siege, though he did not destroy it… Tyre and the Tyrians were the centre of the trade of the ancient world. They were the storehouse of all the goods and luxuries of that day, and the link through "the ships of Tarshish" between the west and the east. So its fall was bound to be felt painfully by people everywhere.
Tyre's judgment had a stated cause. She read Jerusalem's ruin as her own business opportunity.
Tyre is a merchant at heart, and he even claims that his object is to serve. No doubt his aim is first of all to serve himself. He has not the true spirit of service for God. Instead he finds in the need of man the opportunity for his own gain, and this is the cause of his judgment here… She says against Jerusalem: "Aha, she is broken, the gate of the peoples; she is turned to me. I shall be replenished now that she is laid waste." How easily we understand it! How common such rejoicing among merchants has always been! The habit of gaining riches from the need of others hardens the heart, as hardly needs saying.
The verse speaks of a fixed day, and history supplied it. One writer names the conqueror who carried the sentence out.
That godless city… represents the world with its riches and lusts. It hated God and God's people, and was glad at Israel's fall, because that left her freer to indulge her own selfishness… Alexander the Great was the one who carried this prediction out (332 B.C.).
Travellers who came to the site long afterwards described what they found.
They have said they are sure that the waves of the sea now roll where the vast and magnificent palaces of Tyrian wealth and luxury once stood. The monuments of commercial enterprise and prosperity have been overwhelmed by the storm of God's anger, and are as if they had never been… Its people now are only a few poor souls sheltering in the vaults and living mainly by fishing. God's Providence seems to keep them in the place as a visible argument of how God has fulfilled His word concerning Tyre.
People feel the lesson of such a fall without wanting to learn it.
The lessons of such a fall hardly need to be dwelt on. Everyone who stands in front of them feels them at once, and then dismisses them as fast as possible, because they are unwelcome. The lessons of God's school are too humbling for man to welcome… God's sentence is on that false glory; but it falls, as He says here, so that He may set true glory in the land of the living… What can be shaken is to be removed, so that what cannot be shaken may remain. Our kingdom is in what cannot be shaken.
Writers see this scene repeated on a world scale in Revelation.
A comparison with Revelation 18 will bring out the striking correspondence. When finally Babylon the Great falls — that coming religious-commercial world-system, with Rome as a centre — her fall and desolation will surely be greater than the fall of Tyrus.
- Cause — Tyre profited from Jerusalem's ruin. The habit of gaining from the need of others hardens the heart.
- Fall — one day ended what generations had built. The sea that carried her trade now rolls over her palaces.
- Reach — the coastlands tremble because their trade ran through her. Everyone who depended on Tyre felt her fall.
- Evidence — Alexander carried out the sentence, and a few fishermen living in the ruins became the standing argument that God keeps His word.
- Result — all that can be shaken goes, so that true glory may stand. Build on the kingdom that cannot be shaken.
For thus saith the Lord Jehovah When I shall make thee a desolate city, like the cities that are not inhabited; when I bring up the deep upon thee, and the great waters cover thee
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
then will I bring thee down, with them that go down to the pit, to the people of old time, and will cause thee to dwell in the lower parts of the earth, in places desolate of old, with them that go down to the pit, that thou be not inhabited; and I will set glory in the land of the living.
Ezekiel's word against Tyre ends with the world's great trading city sinking out of sight, down among the dead of ages past, while God sets glory somewhere else. Two questions shape the verse: what is this "pit," and whose is the "land of the living"?
Tyre was a rich trading city built out on an island. The sentence is that no one will live there again. One commentator sets that against every reason to expect a rebuild:
The destruction of Tyre was to be complete. Whatever the importance of its position — and its past success seemed to invite the rebuilding of such a commercial centre — all hope on man's part would be vain, for the Lord says, "I will make you terrors, and you shall be no more. Though you are sought for, you shall never be found again, says the Lord Jehovah."
The fulfilment came long after Ezekiel spoke:
About 240 years later, this prophecy came literally true. Alexander the Great came against the city built on the island. After seven months he took it by building a causeway, which let his forces enter. To build it, Alexander used the ruins of the old city. He laid the stones, timber and the very dust of the destroyed city into the sea.
Tyre watched a trade rival fall and counted her gain:
Jerusalem has been judged — Jerusalem, in many ways a centre of attraction for the people around, "the gate of the peoples," as Tyre calls her. The rejoicing at her fall is Canaanite enough. She says against Jerusalem: "Aha, she is broken, the gate of the peoples; she is turned to me. I shall be replenished now that she is laid waste." How naturally we understand it! How common such rejoicing is among merchants at all times! Habitually getting rich out of the need of others hardens the heart. So it was with Tyre, and for this she is judged.
These are the Bible's words for the unseen state of the dead. Scripture leaves them vague, and Ezekiel uses them more than any other book:
Scripture is vague about Sheol. Sight stops at the grave, and all is dark and silent beyond… Some uses of "lower parts of the earth" belong to Sheol, and some to the earth itself: Psalm 63:9; 139:15; Isaiah 44:23. The phrase is most common in Ezekiel (Ezek. 26:20; 31:14, 16, 18; 32:18, 24).
The same scene opens out later in Ezekiel. It shows what "those who go down to the pit" means for a proud nation:
Here judgment sweeps them off the earth after long patience and sends the boastful down to the pit. There lie the fairest, without a token of relationship to God, "with the uncircumcised." There lie Assyria, Elam, Meshech and Tubal, Edom, Sidon and other nations north of Palestine. They lie in helpless weakness and humiliation, ashamed of the might they were once so proud of.
The verse turns from the grave to a living land. Older translations read "I shall set glory in the land of the living"; the ESV has "I will set beauty." Either way, the clause points away from Tyre:
The last sentence of verse 20, "And I shall set glory in the land of the living," means the coming glory of the earthly Zion, the glory in store for Israel.
So the ruin serves a purpose beyond punishment. God clears away what man calls glory to make room for something that lasts:
The sentence of God is upon it; but, as He says here, so that He may set true glory in the land of the living. The earth today is little like this. It is more like a graveyard of the dead… All this has to pass away. Everything that can be shaken must go, so that what cannot be shaken may remain. Our kingdom is in what cannot be shaken.
Tyre stands against Jerusalem all through the chapter. One writer traces the same rivalry to the end of the Bible:
Ezekiel 26:2 shows that Tyre, the merchant city of the world, was the rival of Jerusalem, the city of God. So Babylon (compare Ezek. 27 with Rev. 18) is the rival of the new Jerusalem. God was known in the palaces of Jerusalem — the god of this world in Tyre. There a man could satisfy the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life.
- Cause — gain. Tyre profited from a neighbour's ruin. Getting rich from other people's need hardened her heart, and for this she is judged.
- Sentence — the pit. She goes down among the dead of long ago, to the "lower parts of the earth." There proud powers lie stripped of the strength they boasted in.
- Proof — history. Alexander finished the work, sweeping the city's own stones, timber and dust into the sea.
- Contrast — glory relocated. Tyre loses her glory, but glory itself is not lost. God sets it in the land of the living — the coming glory of Zion and Israel.
- Lesson — what cannot be shaken. False glory goes so that true glory can stand. Tyre is the merchant city of the world, Jerusalem the city of God — and only one of them has a future.
And I will make thee a terror, and thou shalt be no [more]; and thou shalt be sought for, and shalt never be found again, for ever, saith the Lord Jehovah.
Ezekiel 26 ends with God's last word over Tyre, a rich trading city on the coast north of Israel. Two questions press: why is a trading city judged so completely, and did it really happen?
Tyre sat where trade gathers, so an ordinary ruin would have invited rebuilding. One writer weighs that against the sentence itself.
The destruction of Tyre was to be complete. Its position was important, and its past success seemed to invite the rebuilding of such a commercial centre. Even so, all hope on man's part would be vain, for the Lord says, "I will bring you to a dreadful end, and you shall be no more. Though you be sought for, you will never be found again, declares the Lord GOD." … Such would be the doom of those who meddle with Israel even in their desolation, for their own lust of gain.
The charge against Tyre was not conquest or cruelty. One writer points to what Tyre said when her neighbour fell.
Jerusalem has been judged — Jerusalem, in many ways a centre of attraction for the people around, "the gate of the peoples," as Tyre calls her. Tyre says against Jerusalem: "Aha, she is broken, the gate of the peoples; she is turned to me. I shall be replenished now that she is laid waste." There is little need to say that the habit of gaining riches from other people's need hardens the heart. So it was with Tyre here, and for this she is judged.
One writer traces how the judgment fell, and the detail of the final stroke is striking.
This great judgment was not carried out all at once. Nebuchadnezzar came against her first. He besieged Tyre on the mainland and took the city after thirteen years. Tyre's fleet protected the part of the city built on the island in the sea, and that part escaped… Centuries passed, and it seemed as if Ezekiel's prophecy about Tyre's complete overthrow would stay unfulfilled. About 240 years later the literal fulfilment came. Alexander the Great came against the city built on the island. After seven months the city was taken by means of a causeway, which let Alexander's forces enter. In building this causeway Alexander used the ruins of the old city. The stones, timber and the very dust of the destroyed city were laid into the sea… The work was done so completely that no one will ever be able to identify its exact site.
Travellers went to see the place. One writer reports what they found, down to the people still living there.
They are convinced that the waves of the sea now roll where the vast and magnificent palaces of Tyrian wealth and luxury once stood. The monuments of commercial enterprise and prosperity have been overwhelmed by the storm of divine indignation, and are as if they had never been… Its present inhabitants are only a few poor people sheltering in the vaults and living mainly by fishing. Divine Providence seems to keep them there as a visible argument of how God has fulfilled His word about Tyre — that it should be "like the top of a rock; you shall be a place to spread nets upon."
There is a purpose behind the tearing down. One writer draws out the lesson, and it reaches past Tyre.
The lessons of God's school are too humbling for man to welcome. He may have to accept the sentence of condemnation on himself, and the passing away of all the false glory he would like to make true, but cannot. The sentence of God is on that glory. But, as He says here, it falls so that He may set true glory in the land of the living… All this has indeed to pass away. What can be shaken is to be removed, so that what cannot be shaken may remain, and our kingdom is in what cannot be shaken.
Tyre is gone, but one writer sees her trade repeated in a city still to come.
The description of her great commerce reminds us of a coming world-system. The last book of the Bible, Revelation, describes it. Babylon the Great will be a world centre for both religion and trade. Her commerce is just like the commerce of Tyre (Rev. 18:12-13).
- Cause. Tyre cheered when Jerusalem fell and counted her own gain. Riches taken from other people's need hardened her, and that is the sin named in the judgment.
- Sentence. The end is not damage but erasure. Tyre would not be rebuilt and would not even be found again, however good the site looked to traders.
- Fulfilment. Nebuchadnezzar began it. Alexander finished it by dumping the old city's stones, timber and dust into the sea.
- Evidence. Fishermen spreading nets on bare rock became the standing proof that God's word about Tyre came true to the letter.
- Purpose. God removes false glory to set true glory in the land of the living. What can be shaken goes, so the kingdom that cannot be shaken remains.