and shout aloud over you and cry out bitterly. They cast dust on their heads and wallow in ashes;
Ezekiel 27 pictures Tyre as a great trading ship, and verse 30 is the sound she makes as she sinks. The question is not whether the loss was real, but what this grief was worth — and whether it changed anyone.
A Fall as Fast as the Rise
The mourners cry because something enormous has ended, and ended fast.
William KellyTyre had risen slowly to this huge and concentrated trade. How quickly it all fell to ruin! Nebuchadnezzar struck the first blow, and then, beyond all recovery, Alexander the Great struck the last.
The men in verse 30 are her own sailors and pilots. They have come down from their ships and now stand on land, crying out over the city that once paid them.
Dust, Ashes, and the Body of Grief
Dust on the head and ashes on the body were not private feelings. They belonged to a recognised public display of grief.
Morrish Bible DictionaryIt was the habit of the Hebrews, as it still is in the East, to make a great show of their mourning. They would beat their breasts, cover their heads, fast, put dust and ashes on their heads, neglect their hair, wear dull-coloured garments, tear their clothes, wear sackcloth, and so on… At a death, professional mourners were hired, mostly women. Musicians also came, and played mournful tunes… God does not want those who have lost someone to be without feeling. The Lord wept at the grave of Lazarus, but He would have reality in all things. He had to say to His people, "Rend your hearts and not your garments."
Every outward sign of sorrow is present at Tyre's funeral. Whether anything inward matched it is another matter.
Wealth Built on Water
The lament is loud because the loss was total, and it was total because of where the wealth sat.
Numerical Bible NotesIt is all the fruit of a spirit away from God. That spirit searches the earth for whatever it can make a profit from, and even so it can give no satisfaction. All of it is tied together like their bales of goods, and this makes Tyre very glorious for the present — but in the middle of what is the very picture of instability, "in the heart of the seas."… The very hands whose power carried the good ship along bring her into great waters, and there the east wind of trouble breaks her helplessly "in the heart of the seas." No skilful management helps any more. Where will anyone find a security that Tyre has not found?
The sea that carried her wealth swallowed it.
Grief That Judges Nothing
The same wail goes up at the fall of Babylon. One writer asks what the mourners there were really weighing.
J. G. BellettThe kings of the earth, the merchants, and the sailors mourn the fall of Babylon, and we are not surprised. They judged Babylon in relation to themselves — they had lived in luxury with her. How could they have the eye-salve to know her, and to see her with the mind of heaven? God "remembered her iniquities," but they remembered her as the city "where all who had ships at sea grew rich by her wealth." So they mourn when heaven rejoices.
Dust on the head is not repentance. A man can wail over a lost market with more passion than he ever felt over his own sin.
Tyre and Every City Like Her
Commentators read Tyre as more than one ancient port.
W. T. P. WolstonSuch is the world and its end, as changeable as the waters that carried Tyre's ships. Tyre represents the commercial glory of the world, which passes away.
The same trade turns up again at the end of the Bible:
Arno Clemens GaebeleinThe description of her great commerce reminds us of that coming world-system described in the last book of the Bible, Revelation. Babylon the Great will be both a religious and a commercial world centre. Her commerce is just like the commerce of Tyre.
Summary
- Built — Tyre gathered her glory slowly from the whole earth, and shipping alone held it together.
- Unstable — that glory sat "in the heart of the seas," the very picture of instability. The safest-looking wealth had no floor under it.
- Broken — what took centuries to rise fell in two blows: Nebuchadnezzar's first, and Alexander's last, beyond recovery.
- Mourned — the dust and ashes of verse 30 were the accepted public signs of grief, but God asks for torn hearts, not torn clothes.
- Unlearned — the mourners judged the city by what she had been worth to them, not by her sin. The same lament returns over Babylon.