In your market these traded with you in choice garments, in clothes of blue and embroidered work, and in carpets of colored material, bound with cords and made secure.
This verse closes the long list of nations that brought goods to Tyre. It ends with cloth: fine robes, blue fabric, embroidery, and coloured carpets tied in bundles for shipping. Why does a prophecy list a city's wardrobe? And what becomes of all those roped-up bales?
The last traders named
One writer takes the places listed here — Haran, Canneh, Eden, Asshur, Chilmad — for what their names mean. The picture is of people who have drifted from what God revealed:
Numerical Bible NotesNext, and really last in this list, we have Haran, "the parched," "the dry." But he is linked with Kanneh, "the firm," "the upright," and also with Eden, the place of "delight" lost from earth. For these are still only the merchants of Sheba, doing his work. They do it with Asshur, the Shemite, who has lost his place in connection with the revelation of God and is wandering among the twisted traditions of men. They do it with Chilmad too, whose name appears to mean the "would-be learner." Their trade is in rich clothing. That clothing does away with the nakedness of the fall — no, it covers it over with ornament. And they made much of it, as we see from the packed bales named here.
Showy goods from the east
Read as plain history, this part of the list names the inland trade routes and the luxury goods that came down them:
William KellyNext we find the Mesopotamian traders. From these eastern sources they had the most showy goods: purple, damask, and embroidery. The list winds up with the ships of Tarshish, the great means of transport for the ancient world.
The word behind "embroidered work" is riqmah. It means cloth "varied by needlework or by different colours." Israel used the same word for the coloured needlework in the tent of worship and in the priests' clothing.
A shop for every desire
Put the whole chapter's list of goods together and you get one market where nothing was missing:
H. L. RossierIn Scripture, Tyre is a picture of the world with all its riches and desirable things… Precious woods which the Sidonians were expert at working, ivory and ebony, fine linen, white wool, embroidered work, blue and purple, silver, iron, tin, lead… gold in great abundance, spices, oil and wheat, flocks beyond counting… Everything the human heart could desire on earth could be obtained there.
A carpet over the thorns
After Adam's sin the ground came under a curse. Thorns and sweat became the terms of life on it. One writer sees the trade of Tyre as an effort to cancel that sentence with decoration:
The Bible TreasuryBy means of commerce Satan tries to make the curse ineffective. The earth was to bring forth thorns and thistles, and man was 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 Tyrian goods over them.
The same writer does not treat trade itself as evil:
The Bible TreasuryNot that her merchandise was in itself sin. We read that in the coming day it is to be used for the Lord (Isaiah 23:17-18). Her hatred of Jerusalem was no greater than that of Edom or of any of the Gentile cities. But the principle of her opposition was more subtle, and it had a stronger hold on the greedy leanings of fallen nature.
Selling against giving
Everything in this chapter changes hands at a price. The same commentator who traced the names says that selling marks out who stands behind the trade. God works the other way:
Numerical Bible NotesYou can know Satan by the fact that he sells these things. He does not buy them, he did not come by them honestly, and he will not enrich anyone with them. All through, he is only the captor, and in his method, the deceiver. God does not sell; He gives. Or He invites you to buy — that is, to come to His terms about what is to be your own. Even then He is careful to assure us that it is "without money and without price."
Bales bound for the deep
The goods in this verse were roped together for the voyage. That binding pictures the whole business:
Numerical Bible NotesIt is all the fruit of a spirit away from God. That spirit searches the earth for whatever it can make gain of, and still it can yield no satisfaction. So everything is tied together like their bales of merchandise. This makes Tyre very glorious for the present — but it sits in the middle of the very image of instability, "in the heart of the seas."
Summary
- Covering. The trade here is rich clothing. It does not remove the nakedness of the fall; it covers it with ornament.
- Carpet. Trade is not sin in itself. Here it spreads a carpet over the thorns of the curse, which are still there.
- Catalogue. Tyre pictures the world: one market holding everything the human heart could desire on earth.
- Cost. All of it is sold, and the seller enriches no one; God does not sell — He gives, without money and without price.
- Collapse. The bales are roped together, and so is the whole venture — glorious for now, but built in the heart of the seas.