Ezekiel 27:6

This lament soon turns into an allegory. It speaks to Tyre as a person. It pictures her position vividly, and her self-satisfaction too. From verse 4 on, a ship stands for the city, and the figure suits the particular character of Tyre very well.

The ship here stands as a picture of Tyre. It is a most natural figure, and we still use it when we speak of the "ship of state." When we do, we think of the power and skill that human effort must pour into making it prosper, catching favourable winds and steering clear of shoals and rocks... We may say that man has been working at this ship ever since, doing his best to perfect its beauty... The ship embodies in itself the restless, ever-craving spirit of man, the untiring energy that works in him.

From Bashan come the oars. In those days they were the one driving force a crew could really trust. Their strength does not come from God but from man's own energy — "well fed," as people said of everything that came out of Bashan. It is no surprise to find human energy stressed like this, so near the start.

The oaks of Bashan stand as a symbol of great strength and height, which God brings down in His judgement.

After the oars comes the rudder, which is probably what the word means, though there is some doubt... Steering a ship matters more than anything else on board. If there are lessons everywhere here, there must be one here too. But the word used is keresh, "planking." Hebrew does not seem to have a word of its own for "rudder." Most take it as a collective word, either for the rowers' benches or for the deck... Rashi is the one who suggests "the helm"... Most read it as ivory inlaid in pine, boxwood or cedar. The wood comes from the isles of Chittim, that is, from Cyprus, and the pines of Cyprus were especially noted as ship-building material.

Large island at the east end of the Mediterranean. It is the same as the Chittim of the Old Testament, where its commerce and its relation to Tyre are spoken of.

If Chittim is Cyprus, as most agree, then it stands for all that is fair and lovely in nature, the sweet influences that tend to rule the heart. They may rule it harshly, and become to it what the name Chittim means: "the breakers down." They destroy the heart's true response to Him from whom all natural blessings come. But how such influences do steer, one way or another, the course of the ship of commerce! There are needs that master us, and they must be met; in a sense they must control the course. Yet how much of trade serves nothing but pleasure and luxury! How much of its material goes to that end! And the ship's steering follows suit.

So it is all bound together like their bales of merchandise, and for the present it makes Tyre very glorious. But it all rests in the very image of instability, "in the heart of the seas."