Chapter XXVI
Ver. 1-21. The Judgment on Tyue through NebuCHADNEZZAK (Ciis. 26.-28). In ch. 20., Ezekiel sets forth :—
1. Tyre's sin; 2. its doom; 3. the instruments of executing
St; 4. tlie effects proiluced on other nations by her down-
fall. In ch. 27., a lamentation over the fall of such earthly Bplendour. In ch. 28., 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
it when the world-kings shall liave been fully proved as abusers of the trust (1 Timothy 6. 15; Revelation 17. 12-14;
because he views them simply in their hostility to the people of God, which shall outlive them all. Isaiah
19. 15, 16). Ezekiel's prophecy was not based on conjecture from the past, for Shalraaneser, with all the might of the Assyrian empire, had failed in his siege of Tyre. Yet Nebuchadnezzar was to succeed. Josephus tells ua that Nebuchadnezzar began the siege in the seventh year of Ithobal's reign, king of Tyre. 9. engines of war—lit., " an apparatus for striking.'' " He shall apply llie stroke of the battering-ram against thy walls." HAVEitNiCK trans-
(Isaiali 23.), on the other hand, at the close of judgments, holds out t he 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—mz., 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
lates, "His enginery of destruction;" lit., the destruction (not merely ilie atrok?) of his enginery." axes—lit., swoi-oa,
ITie Mourning for Ihe Fall of Tyre. EZEKIEL XXVII. Her Miches and Large Commere*.
10. dust—so thick shall be the "dust" stirred up by the iminense nutnbers of "horses," that it sliall "cover" tlie whole city as a cloud, horses . . . chariots—As in v. 3-5, Sfew Tyre on the insular rock in tlie sea (cf. Isaiah 2?. 2, 4,
their terror upon all her (the city's) inhabitants," <. «, they make the name of every Tyrian to be feared. [FaibBAIRN.] IS. thy departure—Isaiah 2;5. 6, 12 predicts that the Tyrians, in consequence of the siege, should pass over the Mediterranean to the lands bordering onit("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 jligean Seas." [Bishop Newton.] (See my Note on cli. 29. 18.) Grotius explains "departure," i.e., "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 citj^. 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. !J0. the pit—Tyre's disappearance is compared to that of the dead placed in their sepulchres and no more seen among the living (cf. ch. .32. 18, 23; Isaiah 14. 11, 15, 19). I shall set gloi-y in tlie laud—In contrast to Tyre consigned to the "pit" of death, I shall set glory (i. c, my presence symbolized by the Shekinali cloud, the antitype to which shall be Messiah, " the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father," John 1. 14; Isaiah 4.2,5; Zechariah 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 (ch. 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
6) is nUerreU to ; so here, in v. 9-11, Old Tyre on the mainland. Both are included in the prophecies under one tiame. wheels—Faiubairn thinks that here, and in cli.
2:^. '2t, as "the wheels" are distinct from the "chariots," some wheelvvork for riding on, or for the operations of the siege, are meant. 11. thy stroug gnrrlsoiis lit., the
statues of thy stretu/th : so the forts which are "monuments of thy strength." Maxjuer understands, in stricter agreement with Ihe meaning, "tlie statues" or "obelisks erected in honour of tlie idols, the tutelary gods of Tyre," as Melecarte, answering to the Grecian Hercules, whose temple stood in Old Tyre (ef. Jeremiah 43. 13, Margin). 13. lay thy stones . , . timber ... In . . . midst of . . , water—referring to the insular New Tyre {v. 3, 5; ch. 27.
4, 25, 26). When its lofty buildings and towers fall, surrounded as it was with the sea which entered its double harbour 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 (Note, ch.
2!). 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 tlie 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 [Quint. Cukt., 4. 2], 322 b. c. 13. Instead of the joyousness of thy prosperity, a death-like silence shall reign (Isaiah 24.8; Jeremiah 7.34). 14. He concludes ill nearly the same words as he began {v. 4, 5). built no more—fulfilled as to the mainland Tyre, under Nebuchadnezzar. The insular Tyre recovered partly, after seventy years (Isaiah 23. 17, 18), but again suffered under Alexander, then under Antigonus, then under the Saracens at the beginning of the fourteenth century. Now its harbours 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." [Maundhell.] So accurately has God's word come to pass. 13-ai. The impression which the overthrow of Tyre produced on other maritime nations and upon her own colonies, e. g., Utica, Carthage, and Tartessus or Tar-
all evil-doers, thou shalt 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 ful-
filled, not a vestige of it being left.