Ezekiel 27:13

From verse 12 we enter on her foreign trade, beginning with Tarshish itself and ending with its ships in verse 25... In verse 13 we have quite a different class of merchandise... Here we stretch to the far east from the west.

Son of Japheth. His descendants are thought to have settled on the south-east side of the Euxine, or Black Sea, and went by the name Tibareni. They sent slaves and brass to Tyre. Their descendants with Rosh and Meshech will be among the enemies of the Jews in a future day, and will be destroyed.

So we find these three sellers here with their vessels of brass and their human merchandise too. We will see how prominent they are in the great alliance against Jehovah and Israel that Ezekiel speaks of later.

Tyre is the merchant above all; his stated aim is even to serve. No doubt his first aim is to serve himself. He does not have the true spirit of service for God. He finds in man's need the chance for his own gain, and that is the cause of his judgment here... Gaining riches from the need of others is a habit that hardens the heart — that hardly needs saying. So it is with Tyre here, and for this she is judged.

God said of them, "You have taken my silver and my gold, and have carried my rich treasures into your temples," and they had sold the people of Judah to the Greeks. Joel 3:5-6.

As the civilized world climbed out of the swamp of idol-worship, trade caught it in its net, and it became aware of the riches that commerce would pile up. Satan uses Tyre to display the glory and riches of the world, so she becomes a tool against God... The earth was to bring forth thorns and thistles, and man was to eat his bread by the sweat of his brow. Satan would set that sentence aside by gathering the different products of the earth and filling the eye and mind with them. He would try to hide the thorns by spreading a carpet of Tyrian goods over them.

The description of her great commerce reminds us of that coming world-system as described in the last book of the Bible, the Revelation. Babylon the Great will be both an ecclesiastical and commercial world center. Her commerce is just like the commerce of Tyrus (Rev. 18:12-13).

Everything was merchandise to her... And if the bodies and the souls of men could add to this enjoyment in any way, they too would be traded. Everything then becomes a matter of gain, of pleasure, and of the commerce of this world... Nothing is sadder than to see everything turned into a matter of selling and buying. This is the end of everything in this world, and everything gives way when gain is the question... There is reason to fear that the hearts of Christians may be carried away by these principles, for the principles of the world take hold of Christian hearts, up to a point.