Ezekiel 26:9

Machines for discharging missiles. Engines of war were battering rams.

Another city in the west has an exceptional importance: the renowned city of Tyre. It drew down on itself Jehovah's displeasure and judgment. The lesson is all the more serious because Tyre does not appear to have been driven by simple hostility against Israel. Instead it was commercial greed, which saw a chance for advantage in the disasters of the chosen people. This lured the city into opposition to Israel, and Jehovah resented it. For His chastening of His people is no licence for the selfish covetousness that would profit by their troubles or downfall.

The blow has fallen on Jerusalem, and Tyre is quite ready to take advantage of it. She is proud of her position and counts on her many sources of strength. So she can sit apart, hoping to profit by what she does not fear. But, as God declares to her, it is only an empty dream. She has seen many nations coming again and again to replenish her. Now those same nations have come up against her with the unstoppable force of the waves of the sea. They rise above her defences, destroy her walls, and break down her towers. She who has so often profited from the plunder of the nations shall in turn be plunder for the nations.

First comes the instrument of Tyre's destruction: Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon. But we must not confuse this with the full end which Jehovah Himself makes of her, as in the fourteenth verse. The siege by Nebuchadrezzar was the beginning of the end. There was a revival after this, however, and another siege by the Greek king Alexander. This broke her strength, although the remnant of a city remained for a long time. It wasted and dried up more and more until the end came. Today nothing is left but a bare rock, used only for spreading nets.

Meanwhile no resistance could succeed. It only made the destruction of those who opposed more complete. As the prophet speaks here, their sins had already made the breach in Tyre for him.

In constructing this causeway, Alexander made use of the ruins of the old city. He laid the stones, the timber and the very dust of the destroyed city into the sea. That causeway accomplished the utter ruin of the wealthy city. And so Ezekiel's prophecy was fulfilled.

The opposition that Tyre showed has carried on into modern times. The commerce so famous in that city has spread its wings over the cities of our day. They follow in the steps of Tyre. With the same unrighteousness, they await the same doom. The present age may not show the same arrogance as the prince of Tyre and the king of Babylon. But the world's commerce in the hands of Satan leads to it.

Man may be forced to accept the sentence of condemnation on himself. He must also accept the passing away of all the false glory which he would like to make real, but cannot. The sentence of God is on it; but, as He says here, that He may set true glory in the land of the living.