Ezekiel 27:21

Son of Ishmael, and founder of an important tribe living in the north-west of Arabia, though the name is probably also used for Arabs generally. The references to lambs, rams, goats, flocks, camels, tents, and tent-curtains show that Scripture is describing a wandering people. Yet it also mentions their "villages." God pronounced judgments against them.

From verse 12 we enter upon her foreign trade, beginning with Tarshish itself and ending with its ships in verse 25.

What can be said of it for edification, which all Scripture is to serve? Is it a mere catalogue? Is it only a historical record of where she found the goods she traded, and of the goods themselves? Little else seems ever to have been made of it, but are we not warranted to seek for something more? The difficulties here are certainly greater than elsewhere. Many readers shrink from allegory, and they will surely call any interpretation offered fanciful.

The word ereb, "evening," links the meanings of Arabia and Kedar, "darkness." Evening is the time of darkness, and so of mixture, when the shapes of darkness are out. Naturally enough the two peoples sell sheep and lambs, though they may often quite rightly sell goats also.

Tyre is essentially the merchantman; his professed object even is 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 man the opportunity for his own gain. This is what we find as the cause of his judgment here. Gaining riches over and over from the need of others hardens the heart, there is little need to say. As we plainly see, Tyre is the world of money, and we need not wonder at the large place it has in Ezekiel's prophecy.

The civilised world came up out of the mire of image-worship. Then the net of trade caught it, and it became conscious of the riches that would pile up by commerce. Tyre is used by Satan to show the glory and riches of the world, and so 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 by the sweat of his brow. Satan would get around that sentence by bringing together the different products of the earth, filling the eye and mind with them. He would seek to hide the thorns by spreading a carpet of Tyre's merchandise over them. Not that her merchandise was in itself sin.

Tyre typifies the commercial expansion and glory of the world. Nebuchadnezzar carried out judgment upon Tyre. A revival of Tyre is also predicted. When the King appears, surrounded by His own, "The people of Tyre will seek your favor with gifts." Isaiah's vision shows the same thing: "her merchandise and her wages will be holy to the LORD."