Ezekiel 27:17

The food of Hiram's country — the wheat his merchants traded in — came from Palestine (Ezek. 27:17). It is the Lord's land that supplies the things we need to live.

The gum of the balsam bush, with great healing power. Gilead was known for producing it. Scripture uses it as a proverb for the healing God had for His people if they truly turned to Him. Jer. 8:22; Jer. 46:11; Jer. 51:8. Merchants carried it into Egypt and elsewhere. Gen. 37:25; Ezek. 27:17.

But Judah too is here in line with the rest. Judah too will trade away her wheat of Minnith (her own "portion") and her good things of honey and oil and balm. It takes little skill to read the meaning. We need not dwell on the sad sight of the people of God trading away what is their own portion — and again, for what?

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 that she is laid waste." In the same way 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 was known in Tyre. There a man could satisfy the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life.

But as the civilized world came up out of image-worship, trade caught it like a net. It grew aware of the riches that commerce would build up. Satan uses Tyre — envious of Jerusalem at first, later her rival — to display the glory and riches of the world, and so Tyre becomes an instrument against God. By means of commerce Satan tries to make the curse ineffective. Thorns and thistles the earth was to bring forth, and man to eat bread in the sweat of his brow. Satan would get around that sentence 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 Tyre's goods over them. Trade in itself was not sin; we read that in the coming day her merchandise will be used for the Lord (Isa. 23:17-18).

The spirit of money rules the age. Under its influence men twist the truth, and it becomes the professed faith of greedy men who suppose that gain is godliness. From such we turn away. We look at the testimony of our Lord and find that the cares and riches of this world, which commerce increases, are weeds that choke the good seed.

The description of her great trade reminds us of the coming world-system described in the last book of the Bible, Revelation. Babylon the Great will be a world center of both religion and trade. Her commerce is just like the commerce of Tyre (Rev. 18:12-13).