Ezekiel 26

Eze 26:1-21.

THE

JUDGMENT ON

TYRE THROUGH

NEBUCHADNEZZAR

(TWENTY-SIXTH THROUGH

TWENTY-EIGHTH

CHAPTERS).

In the twenty-sixth chapter, Ezekiel sets forth:--(1) Tyre's sin; (2)

its doom; (3) the instruments executing it; (4) the effects produced on

other nations by her downfall. In the twenty-seventh chapter, a

lamentation over the fall of such earthly splendor. In the twenty-eighth

chapter, an elegy addressed to the king, on the humiliation of his

sacrilegious pride. Ezekiel, in his prophecies as to the heathen,

exhibits the dark side only; because he views them simply in their

hostility to the people of God, who shall outlive them all. Isaiah

(Isa 23:1-18),

on the other hand, at the close of judgments, holds out the prospect of

blessing, when Tyre should turn to the Lord.

1. The specification of the date, which had been omitted in the case

of the four preceding objects of judgment, marks the greater weight

attached to the fall of Tyre.

eleventh year--namely, after the carrying away of Jehoiachin, the year

of the fall of Jerusalem. The number of the month is, however, omitted,

and the day only given. As the month of the taking of Jerusalem was

regarded as one of particular note, namely, the fourth month, also

the fifth, on which it was actually destroyed

(Jer 52:6, 12, 13),

RABBI DAVID reasonably

supposes that Tyre uttered her taunt at the close of the fourth month,

as her nearness to Jerusalem enabled her to hear of its fall very soon,

and that Ezekiel met it with his threat against herself on "the first

day" of the fifth month.

2. Tyre--

(Jos 19:29;

2Sa 24:7),

literally, meaning "the rock-city," Zor; a name applying to the

island Tyre, called New Tyre, rather than Old Tyre on the

mainland. They were half a mile apart. "New Tyre," a century and

a half before the fall of Jerusalem, had successfully resisted

Shalmaneser of Assyria, for five years besieging it (MENANDER, from the Tyrian archives, quoted by JOSEPHUS, Antiquities, 9.14. 2). It was the

stronger and more important of the two cities, and is the one chiefly,

though not exclusively, here meant. Tyre was originally a colony of

Zidon. Nebuchadnezzar's siege of it lasted thirteen years

(Eze 29:18;

Isa 23:1-18).

Though no profane author mentions his having succeeded in the siege,

JEROME states he read the fact in Assyrian

histories.

Aha!--exultation over a fallen rival

(Ps 35:21, 25).

she . . . that was the gates--that is, the single gate composed of two

folding doors. Hence the verb is singular. "Gates" were the place of

resort for traffic and public business: so here it expresses

a mart of commerce frequented by merchants. Tyre regards Jerusalem

not as an open enemy, for her territory being the narrow, long strip of

land north of Philistia, between Mount Lebanon and the sea, her interest

was to cultivate friendly relations with the Jews, on whom she was

dependent for corn

(Eze 27:17;

1Ki 5:9;

Ac 12:20).

But Jerusalem had intercepted some of the inland traffic which she

wished to monopolize to herself; so, in her intensely selfish

worldly-mindedness, she exulted heartlessly over the fall of Jerusalem

as her own gain. Hence she incurred the wrath of God as pre-eminently

the world's representative in its ambition, selfishness, and pride, in

defiance of the will of God

(Isa 23:9).

she is turned unto me--that is, the mart of corn, wine, oil,

balsam, &c., which she once was, is transferred to me. The caravans

from Palmyra, Petra, and the East will no longer be intercepted by the

market ("the gates") of Jerusalem, but will come to me.

3, 4. nations . . . as the sea . . . waves--In striking contrast to the

boasting of Tyre, God threatens to bring against her Babylon's army

levied from "many nations," even as the Mediterranean waves that dashed

against her rock-founded city on all sides.

scrape her dust . . . make her . . . top of . . . rock--or, "a bare

rock" [GROTIUS]. The soil which the Tyrians had brought together upon

the rock on which they built their city, I will scrape so clean away as

to leave no dust, but only the bare rock as it was. An awful contrast to

her expectation of filling herself with all the wealth of the East

now that Jerusalem has fallen.

5. in the midst of the sea--plainly referring to New Tyre

(Eze 27:32).

6. her daughters . . . in the field--The surrounding villages,

dependent on her in the open country, shall share the fate of the mother

city.

7. from the north--the original locality of the Chaldeans; also, the

direction by which they entered Palestine, taking the route of Riblah

and Hamath on the Orontes, in preference to that across the desert

between Babylon and Judea.

king of kings--so called because of the many kings who owned allegiance

to him

(2Ki 18:28).

God had delegated to him the universal earth-empire which is His

(Da 2:47).

The Son of God alone has the right and title inherently, and shall

assume it when the world kings shall have been fully proved as abusers

of the trust

(1Ti 6:15;

Re 17:12-14; 19:15, 16).

Ezekiel's prophecy was not based on conjecture from the past, for

Shalmaneser, with all the might of the Assyrian empire, had failed in

his siege of Tyre. Yet Nebuchadnezzar was to succeed. JOSEPHUS tells us that Nebuchadnezzar began the siege in

the seventh year of Ithobal's reign, king of Tyre.

9. engines of war--literally, "an apparatus for striking." "He

shall apply the stroke of the battering-ram against thy walls."

HAVERNICK translates, "His enginery of destruction"; literally, the

"destruction (not merely the stroke) of his enginery."

axes--literally, "swords."

10. dust--So thick shall be the "dust" stirred up by the immense

numbers of "horses," that it shall "cover" the whole city as a cloud.

horses . . . chariots--As in

Eze 26:3-5,

New Tyre on the insular rock in the sea (compare

Isa 23:2, 4, 6)

is referred to; so here, in

Eze 26:9-11,

Old Tyre on the mainland. Both are included in the

prophecies under one name.

wheels--FAIRBAIRN thinks that here, and in

Eze 23:24,

as "the wheels" are distinct from the "chariots," some wheelwork for

riding on, or for the operations of the siege, are meant.

11. thy strong garrisons--literally, "the statutes of thy

strength"; so the forts which are "monuments of thy strength."

MAURER understands, in stricter agreement with the

literal meaning, "the statues" or "obelisks erected in honor of the

idols, the tutelary gods of Tyre," as Melecarte, answering to the

Grecian Hercules, whose temple stood in Old Tyre (compare

Jer 43:13,

Margin).

12. lay thy stones . . . timber . . . in . . . midst of . . . water--referring to the insular New Tyre

(Eze 26:3, 5;

Eze 27:4, 25, 26).

When its lofty buildings and towers fall, surrounded as it was with the

sea which entered its double harbor and washed its ramparts, the

"stones . . . timbers . . . and dust" appropriately

are described as thrown down "in the midst of the water." Though

Ezekiel attributes the capture of Tyre to Nebuchadnezzar (see on

Eze 29:18),

yet it does not follow that the final destruction of it

described is attributed by him to the same monarch. The overthrow of

Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar was the first link in the long chain of

evil--the first deadly blow which prepared for, and was the earnest of,

the final doom. The change in this verse from the individual conqueror

"he," to the general "they," marks that what he did was not the whole,

but only paved the way for others to complete the work begun by him. It

was to be a progressive work until she was utterly destroyed. Thus the

words here answer exactly to what Alexander did. With the "stones,

timber," and rubbish of Old Tyre, he built a causeway in seven months

to New Tyre on the island and so took it [CURTIUS,

4, 2], 322 B.C.

13. Instead of the joyousness of thy prosperity, a death-like silence

shall reign

(Isa 24:8;

Jer 7:34).

14. He concludes in nearly the same words as he began

(Eze 26:4, 5).

built no more--fulfilled as to the mainland Tyre, under Nebuchadnezzar.

The insular Tyre recovered partly, after seventy years

(Isa 23:17, 18),

but again suffered under Alexander, then under Antigonus, then under

the Saracens at the beginning of the fourteenth century. Now its

harbors are choked with sand, precluding all hope of future

restoration, "not one entire house is left, and only a few fishermen

take shelter in the vaults" [MAUNDRELL]. So

accurately has God's word come to pass.

15-21. The impression which the overthrow of Tyre produced on other

maritime nations and upon her own colonies, for example, Utica,

Carthage, and Tartessus or Tarshish in Spain.

isles--maritime lands. Even mighty Carthage used to send a yearly

offering to the temple of Hercules at Tyre: and the mother city gave

high priests to her colonies. Hence the consternation at her fall felt

in the widely scattered dependencies with which she was so closely

connected by the ties of religion, as well as commercial intercourse.

shake--metaphorically: "be agitated"

(Jer 49:21).

16. come down from their thrones . . . upon the ground--"the throne

of the mourners"

(Job 2:13;

Jon 3:6).

princes of the sea--are the merchant rulers of Carthage and other

colonies of Tyre, who had made themselves rich and powerful by trading

on the sea

(Isa 23:8).

clothe . . . with trembling--Hebrew,

"tremblings." Compare

Eze 7:27,

"clothed with desolation";

Ps 132:18.

In a public calamity the garment was changed for a mourning garb.

17. inhabited of seafaring men--that is, which was frequented by

merchants of various sea-bordering lands

[GROTIUS].

FAIRBAIRN translates

with Peschito, "Thou inhabitant of the seas" (the Hebrew literal

meaning). Tyre rose as it were out of the seas as if she got thence

her inhabitants, being peopled so closely down to the waters. So Venice

was called "the bride of the sea."

strong in the sea--through her insular position.

cause their terror to be on all that haunt it--namely, the sea. The

Hebrew is rather, "they put their terror upon all her (the city's)

inhabitants," that is, they make the name of every Tyrian to be feared

[FAIRBAIRN].

18. thy departure--

Isa 23:6, 12

predicts that the Tyrians, in consequence of the siege, should pass

over the Mediterranean to the lands bordering on it ("Chittim,"

"Tarshish," &c.). So Ezekiel here. Accordingly JEROME says that he read in Assyrian histories that,

"when the Tyrians saw no hope of escaping, they fled to Carthage

or some islands of the Ionian and Ægean Seas" [BISHOP NEWTON]. (See on

Eze 29:18).

GROTIUS explains "departure," that is, "in the day

when hostages shall be carried away from thee to Babylon." The

parallelism to "thy fall" makes me think "departure" must mean

"thy end" in general, but with an included allusion to the

"departure" of most of her people to her colonies at the fall of

the city.

19. great waters--appropriate metaphor of the Babylonian hosts,

which literally, by breaking down insular Tyre's ramparts, caused the

sea to "cover" part of her.

20. the pit--Tyre's disappearance is compared to that of

the dead placed in their sepulchres and no more seen among the living

(compare

Eze 32:18, 23;

Isa 14:11, 15, 19).

I shall set glory in the land--In contrast to Tyre consigned to the

"pit" of death, I shall set glory (that is, My presence symbolized

glory as of the only-begotten of the Father,"

Joh 1:14;

Isa 4:2, 5;

Zec 6:13)

in Judah.

of the living--as opposed to Tyre consigned to the "pit" of death.

Judea is to be the land of national and spiritual life, being restored

after its captivity

(Eze 47:9).

FAIRBAIRN loses the antithesis by applying the

negative to both clauses, "and that thou be not set as a glory

in the land of the living."

21. terror--an example of judgment calculated to terrify all evildoers.

thou shall be no more--Not that there was to be no more a Tyre, but she

was no more to be the Tyre that once was: her glory and name were to

be no more. As, to Old Tyre, the prophecy was literally fulfilled, not a

vestige of it being left.