And they will raise a lamentation over you and say to you, “‘How you have perished, you who were inhabited from the seas, O city renowned, who was mighty on the sea; she and her inhabitants imposed their terror on all her inhabitants!
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 Mourners Are Fellow Traders
The shock ran along the trade routes Tyre herself had built.
William KellyThe 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.
A City Named "Rock"
Tyre's own name carries the boast behind "strong in the sea." God answers that boast by taking the name at face value.
Numerical Bible NotesTyre 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.
The Sin That Brought Her Down
Tyre had not marched against Israel. Her offence was quieter, and commentators find it more searching for that reason.
William KellyThe 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.
Numerical Bible NotesTyre 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, Two Glories
Two cities stood as rivals. In one, people knew God; the other offered everything a person could want without Him.
Morrish Bible DictionaryEzekiel 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:
Arno Clemens GaebeleinThe 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.
Why the Lesson Is Unwelcome
Everyone standing at the graveside of a great city feels the point. Almost no one keeps it.
Numerical Bible NotesThe 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.
Summary
- 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.