Then all the princes of the sea will step down from their thrones and remove their robes and strip off their embroidered garments. They will clothe themselves with trembling; they will sit on the ground and tremble every moment and be appalled at you.
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?
Who the princes of the sea were
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:
Arno Clemens GaebeleinPart 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.
Why the whole coastline trembles
The mourning here is not sympathy but fear. Tyre's fall shook every nation that traded with her.
William KellyFurther, 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:
F. W. GrantWhere shall any find a security that Tyre has not found?
Why Tyre was judged
Tyre's sin was quieter than war. She saw a neighbour's ruin as an opening in the market.
F. W. GrantTyre 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 fulfilment of the prophecy
The prophecy waited a long time for its fulfilment:
Arno Clemens GaebeleinThe 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.
The lesson men avoid
Everyone present at such a collapse feels its message. Almost no one keeps it.
F. W. GrantThe 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.
Summary
- 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."