At the sound of the cry of your pilots the countryside shakes,
The lament over Tyre pictures the city as a magnificent trading ship. Here the ship goes down and the shore hears it: the pilots scream, and the mainland itself trembles.
The Ship That Founders
These closing verses picture a shipwreck. One commentator names the storm:
William KellyBut no fullness from outside, no glory even in the heart of the seas, could resist the word of Jehovah. The day of Tyre was come. "Your rowers have brought you out into the high seas. The east wind has wrecked you in the heart of the seas." The prophet's description of Tyre's ruin begins at verse 26. We return to the earlier picture. Tyre is a ship that founders at sea. Nebuchadnezzar is the east wind that upset her.
Another writer follows the wreck to the point where nothing can be done:
Numerical Bible NotesTyre is made very glorious for the present, but in the middle of what is the very image of instability, "in the heart of the seas." … Now comes the end of all this glory. The very hands whose power carried the good ship on bring her into great waters, and there the east wind of adversity breaks her helplessly. No skilful handling helps any more. No one can try to stop the leaks any more.
A Cry With Nowhere to Land
The word behind "countryside" also covers the open ground on the mainland — the very places that might give a wrecked ship refuge. That ground is shaking too. The same writer draws out what that closes off:
Numerical Bible NotesThe cry of the pilots is only one of despair. The open places of the land that might give her refuge are themselves shaking, and shut out hope. Those who stand far off in fear at her judgment only recall the glory of the past, like people who would gladly refuse to believe it is past… Where shall anyone find a security that Tyre has not found?
Slow to Build, Quick to Fall
How long Tyre took to rise, and how fast she fell, is part of the point:
William KellyTyre had risen slowly to this immense and concentrated trade. How quickly it all fell to ruin when Nebuchadnezzar struck the first blow, and beyond all recovery when Alexander the Great struck the last!
Why the Shaking Spread So Far
The shaking reached far beyond Tyre's own coast. What Tyre was to the ancient world, and how long she held out, explains that reach:
Tyre and the Tyrians formed the centre of the trade of the ancient world. It was the marketplace of all the goods and luxuries of that day, the link through "the ships of Tarshish" between the west and the east. So its fall was bound to hurt people everywhere on the earth. It hurt them all the more because trading rivals were fewer then than now. Yet even today, would the fall of the proudest seat of modern commerce not be felt to the ends of the earth? We know from elsewhere that the siege lasted an unusually long time, thirteen years… but the moral effect of the fall was all the greater. So Tyre and Sidon remained the proverbial and most striking warning of divine judgment, as we may gather from our Lord's reference to them.
after_note: DISCUSS
The World in a Single Picture
Writers read Tyre as a picture of something larger than one trading city:
W. T. P. WolstonEzekiel 27 describes the grandeur and worldwide trading connections of Tyre, and then announces that on "the day of your fall" all her former friends "hiss at you; you have come to a dreadful end and shall be no more forever." Such is the world and its end, as unreliable as the waters that carried Tyre's ships. Tyre represents the commercial glory of the world which passes away.
A Judgment Still Ahead
William Kelly ends the chapter looking forward:
William KellyThis bitter and widespread mourning may remind the reader of another city in the book of Revelation. That city is far more corrupt, because it is the corruption of what was beyond comparison more excellent in New Testament times. Its judgment is still delayed, but it will surely come, for strong is the Lord God who judges her.
Summary
- Wreck. The lament draws Tyre as a ship, not a fortress. The east wind that breaks her is Nebuchadnezzar; Alexander struck the last blow later.
- Cry. The pilots' shout carries only despair. Even the open ground that might have offered refuge is shaking, so there is no security anywhere that Tyre had not already found.
- Shake. Tyre was the marketplace linking east and west, so her fall hurt people everywhere — as the fall of any great trading centre would today.
- Vanish. Built slowly, ruined quickly. Tyre stands for the world's commercial glory, as unreliable as the water that carried her ships.
- Warning. In this widespread mourning commentators hear an echo of a judgment still to come on a later, more corrupt city. It is delayed, not cancelled.