John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible.

John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible.

Ezekiel 25:1



INTRODUCTION TO EZEKIEL 25



In this chapter the prophet foretells the judgments of God upon the Ammonites, Moabites, Edomites, and Philistines, for their ill usage of the Jews; on the Ammonites, Eze 25:1, on the Moabites,

Eze 25:8, on the Edomites, Eze 25:12, on the Philistines, Eze 25:15.



Ver. 1. The word of the Lord came unto me,.... After he had done prophesying to the Jews, he is bid to prophesy against the Gentiles, the nations that lay nearest the Jews: saying; as follows:





Ezekiel 25:2



Ver. 2. Son of man, set thy face against the Ammonites,.... Who were of the posterity of Lot, implacable enemies of the Jews; who hated their religion, and envied their wealth and happiness; against these the prophet is bid to "set his face"; to look that way where they lived, and to put on a frowning countenance, and a menacing aspect: "strengthen thy face", as the Septuagint and Arabic versions render it; look boldly at them:



and prophesy against them; deliver out the following prophecy concerning them.





Ezekiel 25:3



Ver. 3. And say unto the Ammonites,.... Either to their ambassadors at Babylon, or merchants there; or by letters to them, the prophet being in Chaldea, at a distance from them:



hear the word of the Lord God; not Chemosh their idol, nor their lying oracles, but the word of the true and living God; which is always accomplished, and is never frustrated:



thus saith the Lord God, because thou saidst, aha, against my sanctuary, when it was profaned; that is, expressed joy, as the Targum paraphrases it, at the destruction of the temple, when it was burnt by Nebuchadnezzar; it was foreknown by the Lord that they would do so, and are here threatened before hand; for as yet the temple was not destroyed; a proof this of God's prescience of future contingencies:



and against the land of when it was desolate; the country of the ten tribes, which had been desolate from the sixth year of Hezekiah, when the people of it were carried captive by Shalmaneser king of Assyria; this also was matter of joy to the Ammonites:



and against the house of Judah, when they went into captivity; the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin, who were carried captive by Nebuchadnezzar; part of which had already been carried captive under Jeconiah, and the rest would be, and were, under Zedekiah; which completed the destruction of Israel and Judah, and gave the utmost pleasure to their enemies the Ammonites; who were so impious as to rejoice at the destruction of their temple, the place of their religious worship, which they abhorred; and so inhuman as to express the delight and satisfaction they had in the ruin of their fellow creatures and neighbours, and who were originally related to them; this brutish and barbarous behaviour of theirs is resented by the Lord.







Ezekiel 25:4



Ver. 4. Behold, therefore, I will deliver thee to the men of the east for a possession,.... The Chaldeans and Syrians, which were on the east side, as Jarchi; or the Medes and Persians, as Kimchi, which lay more eastward; or it may be the Arabians, who are commonly called the men of the east; who were a part of Nebuchadnezzar's army, and whom he might reward with this country, when taken by him; for this prophecy, according to Josephus {q}, was fulfilled five years after the destruction of Jerusalem:



and they shall set their palaces in thee, and make their dwellings in thee; or, "their camps and their tents" {r}; and so the Syriac version renders it, their armies and their tents; who should subdue them, and take possession of their cities and fields, and enjoy what they found there:



they shall eat thy fruit, and drink thy milk; the fruit of their land, their vineyards and fields, and the milk of their flocks and herds, which was commonly drank in those countries; these are put for the whole of their substance. So the Targum,



"they shall eat the good of thy land, and spoil thy substance.''



{q} Antiqu. l. 16. c. 9. sect. 7. {r} Mhytwryj "arces suas", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Polanus, Coeccius. Mhynkvm "tentoria sua", V. L. "tabernacala sus", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Polanus, Cocceius, Starckius.







Ezekiel 25:5



Ver. 5. And I will make Rabbath a stable for camels,.... Creatures much used by the eastern nations, especially the Arabians; who pitching their tents about Rabbath, the royal city, the metropolis of the children of Ammon, would convert the houses, and even palaces in it, into stables for their camels. This city, in Jerom's time, as he says, was called Philadelphia, from Ptolemy Philadelphus, who rebuilt it.



And the Ammonites a couching place for flocks; that is, the land of the Ammonites should be made a place for flocks of sheep to lie down in, which the Arabians would bring and feed upon it:



and ye shall know that I am the Lord; omniscient, and sees and observes all your insults upon the children of Israel and Judah; and omnipotent, able to perform all that is threatened; and immutable, bringing about all that is here prophesied of.





Ezekiel 25:6



Ver. 6. For thus saith the Lord God,.... Their sin and punishment are further enlarged upon:



because thou hast clapped thine hands, and stamped with thy feet: gestures expressive of joy and gladness, Isa 55:12, the Ammonites clapped their hands together, and leaped and skipped for joy, when they heard of the calamities of the Jews; who yet had more reason to be sorrowful, since they might expect their turn would be next; for the king of Babylon had a design against them, at the same time he came against Jerusalem, and was in doubt for a while which he should attack first; see Eze 21:20:



and rejoiced in heart with all thy despite against the land of Israel; they had a secret joy in their heart, which they expressed by gestures, in the most spiteful and scornful manner they were capable of; which showed the wretched malignity of their dispositions against the children of Israel; they hated them with a perfect hatred.







Ezekiel 25:7



Ver. 7. Behold, therefore, I will stretch out mine hand upon thee,.... In just retaliation for clapping their hands against his people; and which hand of the Lord they would find to be a heavy one, and which they would not be able either to resist or bear. The Targum is,



"I will lift up the stroke of my power upon thee:''



and will deliver thee for a spoil to the Heathen; to the Chaldeans first, and then to the Arabians, to be spoiled and plundered by them of their wealth and substance: some render it, "for meat" {s} unto them; to be devoured and consumed by them:



and I will cut thee off from the people, and I will cause thee to perish out of the countries; so as to be no more a people and a country; or be reckoned among the people and countries; or have any alliance with them, or help from them:



I will destroy thee, and thou shalt know that I am the Lord; who has said and done all this; See Gill on "Eze 25:5".



{s} gbl "in cibum", Montanus, Gussetius. This is the Cetib or textual writing; but the Keri or marginal reading is Nbl, "in direptionem", Pagninus, Cocceius; "in praedam", Junius & Tremeilius, Piscator. Both come to much one and the same sense, as Ben Melech observes, for food was of the spoil; and one word answers to another by "athbash", which is a certain form of placing the alphabet;

See Gill on "Jer 25:26.







Ezekiel 25:8



Ver. 8. Thus saith the Lord God,.... By his servant the prophet, to whom the word of the Lord came; as concerning the Ammonites, so likewise concerning the Moabites, as follows:



because that Moab and Seir do say; that is, the Moabites, and the Edomites, which latter are meant by Seir, that being the seat of them; these lived near one another, and bore a like enmity to the Israelites and Jews, and had the same sentiments concerning them, and said the same things of them: only Moab is mentioned in the Septuagint and Arabic versions: the Moabites are first prophesied of, and then the Edomites, who both joined in saying, behold, the house of Judah is like unto all the Heathen; it fares no better with them than with the rest of the nations, who do not profess and serve the same God they do; they are fallen into the hands of the king of Babylon, as well as others; and have no more security against him, nor protection from him, than other people; they pretend to serve and worship the one only living and true God, and to be his covenant people, and to be favoured with privileges above all other nations; and yet are brought into the same miserable circumstances, and left in them, as others are; where is the God they boast of, and their superior excellence to the rest of the world? thus blasphemously, as well as wickedly, did they insult them, which was provoking to the Lord. The Targum renders it interrogatively,



"in what do the house of Judah differ from all people?''



and so the Septuagint,



"behold, are not the house of Israel and Judah in like manner as all nations?''



Jerom, on the place, relates a fable of the Jews, that when the city and temple were opened, the Ammonites, Moobites, and Edomites, went into the temple, and saw the cherubim over the mercy seat, and said, as all nations worship images, so Judah hath the idols of their religion. Jarchi makes mention of such a Midrash, but with some difference.





Ezekiel 25:9



Ver. 9. Therefore, behold, I will open the side of Moab from the cities,.... Or, "the shoulder of Moab" {t}; that part of their country where their greatest strength lay, So the Targum renders it,



"the strength of Moab;''



where their principal cities were, their frontier towns, and fortified places, as appears by what follows:



from his cities which are on his frontiers; or, "from his Ars" {u},



from his cities which are at his end; at the extreme part of the land, upon the borders of his countries; the two cities of Ar and Aroer,

Nu 21:28:



the glory of the country; as the above cities were, and what follow:



Bethjeshimoth; this was formerly in the tribe of Reuben, now in the possession of the Moabites, and one of their principal cities,

Jos 13:20:



Baalmeon; the same with Bethbaalmeon, and which was also of the tribe of Reuben, Jos 13:17, in Jerom's time it was a large village in Moab, about nine miles from Heshbon: some think by Meon is meant Menes, or Osiris the god of the Egyptians, and so this might be a temple of his; or at least he might have a temple in it, from whence it had its name:



and Kirjathaim; or the double city, built also by the Reubenites,

Nu 32:37, now in the hands of the Moabites, ten miles from Medeba; on this side of the country of Moab, and through these cities, the Lord threatens to open a way for their enemies to enter in and destroy them, as follows:



{t} Ptk ton wmon, Sept.; "humerum", V. L. Montanus. {u} Myrehm "ab ipsis", Haris, Junius & Tremellius, Polanus.







Ezekiel 25:10



Ver. 10. Unto the men of the east with the Ammonites, and I will give them in possession,.... Or, "against the Ammonites", as the Targum; that is, way should be made for the same people of the east, the Chaldeans or Arabians, that came against the Ammonites and destroyed them, to enter into the land of Moab and possess it, as they had done the land of Ammon:



that the Ammonites may not be remembered among the nations: the name of that people, which is entirely lost; and Moab likewise, which underwent the same fate.





Ezekiel 25:11



Ver. 11. I will execute judgments upon Moab,.... For though the Chaldeans and Arabians were the instruments of their ruin, their destruction was of the Lord; it was his hand that was upon them, and his vengeance that was executed on them, for their hard sayings against his people; for though he had spoke against them in his providence, and chastised them for their sins, yet he will not suffer others to speak against them:



and they shall know that I am the Lord; that takes part with Judah, and will avenge himself of all their enemies.





Ezekiel 25:12



Ver. 12. Thus saith the Lord God,.... Concerning Seir or the Edomites, the prophecy concerning the Moabites being finished:



because that Edom hath dealt against the house of Judah by taking vengeance: or, "revenging a revenge" {w}; the Edomites bore an old grudge against the Jews, not only because their father Jacob had got the birthright and blessing from their father Esau; but because they were made tributaries to them in David's time, and afterwards severely chastised by Amaziah; these things they laid up in their minds, and vowed revenge whenever they had an opportunity; and now one offered at the destruction of Jerusalem, which they took:



and hath greatly offended, and revenged himself upon them: not only by rejoicing at the destruction of the Jews, but by encouraging the Babylonians in it; assisting them therein, joining with them in plundering the city, and in cutting off those with the sword who endeavoured to make their escape; see Ps 137:7.



{w} Mqn Mqnb "in ulciscendo ultionem", Montanus, Starckius.







Ezekiel 25:13



Ver. 13. Therefore thus saith the Lord God,.... Because of such base and barbarous usage, from a people that were originally brethren:



I will also stretch out mine hand upon Edom, and will cut off man and beast from it; by the army of Nebuchadnezzar, by the sword of the Chaldeans, and by famine and pestilence, and such like sore judgments; in which the hand of God is manifestly seen:



and I will make it desolate from Teman; a very principal city of Edom, so called from Teman, the son of Eliphaz, the son of Esau, Ge 36:15 it lay in the south of the land of Idumea; the Targum renders it, "from the south":



and they of Dedan shall fall by the sword; of the Babylonians; this was another city of Edom, it lay in the north of that country; so that hereby is signified that destruction should go through it from the southern to the northern parts of it.





Ezekiel 25:14



Ver. 14. And I will lay my vengeance upon Edom by fie hand of my people Israel,.... This was fulfilled in the times of the Maccabees, when Judas Maccabins overthrew and conquered them,



"Then Judas fought against the children of Esau in Idumea at Arabattine, because they besieged Gael: and he gave them a great overthrow, and abated their courage, and took their spoils.'' (1 Maccabees 5:3)



and when Hyrcanus took their cities, and subdued them, and they became Jews, as Josephus {x} relates; though Kimchi thinks this refers to future time, and is yet to be accomplished; and it is, by the ancient Jews {y}, understood of the times of the Messiah: some choose to understand the phrase,



by the hand of my people Israel, the same hand by which judgment was inflicted upon Israel; suggesting that by the same hand vengeance would be inflicted on the Edomites, namely, by the Babylonians:



and they shall do in Edom according to mine anger and according to my fury; that is, shall execute all the anger and fury, or all that punishment in anger and fury, which the Lord in righteous judgment has appointed them to, and has determined shall be performed upon them, by the children of Israel or the Babylonians, as his instruments:



and they shall know my vengeance, saith the Lord God; the meaning is, they shall feel it, and be sensible of it, and know that it comes from the Lord himself; full of resentment against them, and highly displeased at their behaviour towards his people Israel.



{x} Antiqu. l. 13. c. 9. sect. 1. {y} In Bemidbar Rabba, sect. 2. fol. 179. 3.







Ezekiel 25:15



Ver. 15. Thus saith the Lord God,.... Once more, and concerning another enemy of the people of Israel, and who had been of old an implacable one:



because the Philistines have dealt by revenge: for what they suffered in the times of Saul, when Goliath was slain by David, and their army was discomfited; and for the overthrow of them by David, when he came to throne; and for his burning their images, and subduing them,

1Sa 17:51, this revenge they took in the time of Ahaz, 2Ch 28:18, and very probably also showed their spite at the time of Jerusalem's destruction:



and have taken vengeance with a despiteful heart, to destroy it for the old hatred; which they bore to the people of Israel, from their first settlement in Canaan; from the times of the judges, particularly Samson; and from the times of Saul and David: it was an old grudge they bore, they had spite and malice in their hearts, and wanted an opportunity to vent it; having determined to take vengeance when they could, and utterly destroy them from being a people; very likely, through despite, they assisted the Chaldean army: or, this they did "with a perpetual hatred" {z}; they did everything they could, in a spiteful and malicious way, to perpetuate the hatred between them and Israel.



{z} Mlwe tbya "inimictias perpetuas", Pagninus; "iuimietia perpetua", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator







Ezekiel 25:16



Ver. 16. Therefore thus saith the Lord God,.... Because of such wretched malice and despiteful usage:



behold, I will stretch out mine hand upon the Philistines; as is foretold, Jer 47:1,



and I will cut off the Cherethims: one of the tribes of the Philistines, a principal part of their country, which lay to the south,

1Sa 30:14, there is a beautiful play on words {i} in the Hebrew:



and destroy the remnant of the seacoast; as that of Ashdod, Caphtor, and Ashkelon, formerly spoiled by other persons; what they left should now be utterly destroyed; see Isa 20:1



{a} Mytrk ta ytrkhw.







Ezekiel 25:17



Ver. 17. And I will execute great vengeance upon them with furious rebukes,.... By way of retaliation for their vengeance and fury, wrath and malice, against his people; suggesting, that the judgments inflicted on them, for quantity and quality, should be very great:



and they shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall lay my vengeance upon them; they shall see the hand of God in it, acknowledge his justice, and confess that their gods were idols, and that the God of Israel is the only true God.

 

John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible.

Ezekiel 26:1



INTRODUCTION TO EZEKIEL 26



This chapter contains a prophecy of the destruction of Tyre. The time of the prophecy, Eze 26:1, the cause of the destruction of it, rejoicing at the ruin of Jerusalem, Eze 26:2, the instruments of it, many nations, particularly the king of Babylon, Eze 26:3, the manner in which it shall be done, Eze 26:8, the lamentation of other isles, and the princes of them, on account of it,

Eze 26:15, the utter destruction of it, so as never to be found any more, Eze 26:19.



Ver. 1. And it came to pass in the eleventh year,.... Of Jehoiachin's captivity and Zedekiah's reign, the same year that Jerusalem was taken:



in the first day of the month; but what month is not mentioned; some have thought the first month, and so it was the first day of the year; others the fourth, the same in which the city of Jerusalem was taken; but more probably the fifth, the first of which was twenty days after the taking it; in which time the news of it might be brought to Tyre, at which she rejoiced; and for which her destruction is threatened, and here prophesied of:



that the word of the Lord came unto me, saying; as follows:





Ezekiel 26:2



Ver. 2. Son of man, because that Tyrus hath said against Jerusalem, aha,.... As rejoicing at her destruction, and insulting over her in it; which was barbarous and inhuman, and resented by the Lord:



she is broken that was the gates of the people; through whose gates the people went in and out in great numbers; a city to which there was very popular, not only for religion, from all parts, at their solemn feasts, but for merchandise from several parts of the world; and was now full of people before its destruction, the inhabitants of Judea having fled thither for safety, upon the invasion made by the king of Babylon; but now the city was broken up, as it is said it was, by the Chaldean army,

Jer 52:7, its gates and walls were broken down, and lay in a ruinous condition. The Targum is,



"she is broken down that afforded merchandise to all people.''



She is turned unto me; either the inhabitants of Jerusalem, which escaped and fled to Tyre for refuge; or the spoil taken out of it, which was carried there to be sold; and even the captives themselves to be sold for slaves, which was one part of the merchandise of Tyre; see

Eze 27:3, or the business, trade, and merchandise carried on in Jerusalem, were brought to Tyre upon its destruction; so Jarchi and Kimchi. The Targum is,



"she is turned to come unto me;''



which favours the first sense; all may be intended.



I shall be replenished, now she is laid waste; or, "I shall be filled" {b}; with inhabitants, riches, and wealth, with merchants and merchandise, Jerusalem her rival being destroyed; this was what gave her joy; and is a common thing for persons to rejoice at the fall or death of those of the same trade with them; hoping for an increase of theirs by means of it, which yet is sinful.



{b} halma "implebor", Cocceius, Starckius.







Ezekiel 26:3



Ver. 3. Therefore thus saith the Lord God,.... Who knew the thoughts of the inhabitants of Tyre, and what joy possessed their hearts, and which their lips expressed; and who informs the prophet of it, though at a great distance, and declares his resentment at it:



behold, I am against thee, O Tyrus; and nothing can be more dreadful and formidable than to have God against a nation, city, or a particular person: Tyre was a type of antichrist, who will express a like joy at the death of the witnesses; thinking that the merchandise of Rome will be increased greatly, and there will be nothing to interrupt it,

Re 11:10, but God will show his displeasure, and bring sudden destruction on it:



and will cause many nations to come up against thee, as the sea causeth his waves to come up; the Chaldean army, consisting of soldiers of many nations; who for their number, noise, and fury, are compared to the raging waves of the sea. So the Targum,



"I will bring up against thee an army of many people, as the sea ascendeth in the raging of its waves;''



the ten kings shall hate the whore, and destroy her, even those very people she reigns over, compared to many waters, Re 17:15.





Ezekiel 26:4



Ver. 4. And they shall destroy the walls of Tyrus.... Undermining them, or breaking them down with their battering rams:



and break down her towers; with axes, Eze 26:9 built upon the walls; erected for the defence of the city, and for watchmen to stand in, to look out from them for the enemy, and observe his motions, as well as for soldiers to fight from:



and I will scrape her dust from her, and make her like the top of a rock; a bare smooth rock, which has not any surface of earth upon it. So the Targum,



"I will give her for the smoothness of an open rock.''



Tyre was built upon a rock; and whereas the inhabitants had brought earth thither, and laid it upon it, in order to make gardens and orchards, and plant flowers and trees; this should be all removed, and it should become a bare rock, as it was at first. It denotes the utter destruction of it. It has its name from a word which signifies a rock;

See Gill on "Isa 23:1".





Ezekiel 26:5



Ver. 5. It shall be a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea,.... Where only fishermen would be seen washing their nets, and then spreading them upon this rock, where Tyre stood, to dry them and this has been confirmed by travellers, who have seen fishermen spreading and drying their nets, and having no other habitations on it but the huts of these men. Huetius {c} relates, that he remembered one Hadrian Parvillarius, a Jesuit, a candid and learned man, particularly in the Arabic language, who lived ten years in Syria; and to have heard him say, that when he saw the ruins of Tyre, its rocks to the sea, and scattered stones on the shore, and made clean smooth by the sun, waves, and wind, and only used for drying fishermen's nets, it brought to his mind this passage of the prophet; as it did to Mr. Maundrell {d} when on the spot, a few years ago; who says,



"you see nothing here but a mere Babel of broken walls, pillars, vaults, &c. there being not so much as one entire house left; its present inhabitants are only a few poor wretches, harbouring themselves in the vaults, and subsisting chiefly upon fishing; who seem to be preserved in this place by divine Providence, as a visible argument how God has fulfilled his word concerning Tyre, viz. "that it should be as the top of a rock", &c.'':



so Dr. Shaw {e} says, this port, small as it at present, is choked up to that degree with sand and rubbish, that the boats of these poor fishermen, who now and then visit this once renowned emporium and "dry their nets upon its rocks and ruins", can with great difficulty only be admitted:



for I have spoken it, saith the Lord God; and therefore it should certainly come to pass, as it has:



and it shall become a spoil to the nations; the army of many nations, that besieged it for thirteen years under Nebuchadnezzar.



{c} Evangel. Demonstrat. prop. 6. p. 328. {d} Journey from Aleppo to Jerusalem, p. 48, 49. Ed. 7. {e} Travels, p. 273. Ed. 2.





Ezekiel 26:6



Ver. 6. And her daughters which are in the field shall be slain by the sword,.... That is, the inhabitants of the cities, towns, and villages, on the shore near it, and which were subject to it; as such cities are frequently in Scripture called the daughters of the place to which they belong: or their daughters literally, that should get out of the city, and endeavour to make their escape; yet should fall into the enemies' hands, who would not spare them on account of their sex or age. The Targum favours the former sense, as most of the Jewish writers do, which is,



"and the inhabitants of the villages which are in the field shall be killed by the sword:''



and they shall know that I am the Lord: the true God, and not Hercules or Apollo, or any other idols they worshipped; when they shall see all these things exactly accomplished, now prophesied of; which none but the omniscient God could foretell.





Ezekiel 26:7



Ver. 7. For thus saith the Lord God,.... What follows; and declares by name the person that should be the instrument of this ruin, and the manner in which it should be brought about:



I will bring upon Tyrus Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon; a prince whose name was terrible, having conquered many nations: the Lord is said to bring him against Tyre, because, he inclined his heart to steer his course this way; encouraged him to this work; led and protected his army; and, at last, gave him success: it held out thirteen years against him, and then was taken. The siege began, according to Mr. Whiston {f}, A.M. 3650 or before Christ 586; and was taken A.M. 3663 or before Christ 573; according to Bishop Usher, {g}, it began A.M. 3419 or before Christ 585; and was taken A.M. 3432 or before Christ 572. The Phoenician historians make mention of the siege of Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar; and Berosus speaks of his subduing the whole country of Phoenicia, in which Tyre was; with whom agree Philostratus and Megasthenes {h}:



a king of kings from the north; who had many kings tributaries to him; the metropolis of whose kingdom lay somewhat, though not fully, north to Tyre:



with horses, and with chariots, and with horsemen, and companies, and much people: with a very numerous army, consisting of a large cavalry; horses being very numerous in the countries subject to him; and which he mounted his men on, both for their more easy travelling, and for their better fighting, and for the terror of their enemies.



{f} Chronological Tables, cent. 10. {g} Annales Vet. Test. A. M. 3419, 3432. {h} Apud Joseph. adv. Apien. l. 1. c. 19, 20, 21.







Ezekiel 26:8



Ver. 8. He shall slay with the sword thy daughters in the field,.... The first thing he would do would be to destroy the cities, towns and villages on the continent, near to Tyre, and dependent on it, as in

Eze 26:6, and so the Targum is here, as there:



and he shall make a fort against thee, and cast a mount against thee; a fort built of wood, and a mount made of earth, from which stones might be cast out of their engines, and arrows shot from their bows into the city, to the damaging of the houses, and the hurt of the inhabitants:



and lift up the buckler against thee; or "shield"; that is, as the Targum paraphrases it,



"set against thee such who are armed with shields;''



to repel the arrows shot out from the city, and so defeat the design of them.





Ezekiel 26:9



Ver. 9. And he shall set engines of war against thy walls,.... Which some Jewish writers understand of crossbows, out of which stones or arrows were cast; but rather, according to Kimchi and Jarchi, they were warlike machines, invented to throw large stones against the walls of a place, to beat them down. Some think they were the same with the battering rams, used in sieges for the demolishing of walls; which was a late invention of those times, Ezekiel being the first writer, it is said, that makes mention of them:



and with his axes he shall break down thy towers; the word here used signifies anything made of iron, as swords, spears, hammers, and axes; the latter, being more proper to demolish towers, is here pitched on by our translators. The Targum renders it, "with stones of iron"; that is, with iron balls cast out of their engines.





Ezekiel 26:10



Ver. 10. By reason of the abundance of his horses their dust shall cover thee,.... The dust raised by the feet of the horses so numerous, should rise in such quantities, and to such a height, as to be like a cloud, which should cover the city; an hyperbolical way of speaking, as Kimchi observes; as is also the following clause:



thy walls shall shake at the noise of the horsemen, and of the wheels, and of the chariots; at the shouts of the horsemen upon every attack, and the rattling of the chariot wheels running to and fro, in carrying on their designs:



when ye shall enter into thy gates; that is, then particularly shall such a shout be made by the horsemen, and such rattling of the chariots, as will even make the walls of the city to shake; an excess of expression, signifying the prodigious noise made at their entrance into it: as men enter into a city wherein is made a breach; or, "according to the entrance of a city broken up" {i}; when its walls are broken down, and a gap is made; at which men rush in in great numbers, and with great force and clamour.



{i} heqbm rye yawbmk "tanquam introitus civitatis diruptae", Montanus; "dissipatae", Pagninus; "quemadmodum ingrediuntur urbem disruptam", Piscator; "quemadmodum intratur urbs praerupta", Cocceius.





Ezekiel 26:11



Ver. 11. With the hoofs of his horses shall he tread down all thy streets,.... Such a number of horses running to and fro in the streets, and prancing upon the pavements, shall break them up, and destroy them, so that they shall be mere mire and dirt:



he shall slay thy people by the sword; such as would not lay down their arms and submit; or their principal ones, who encouraged the inhabitants to hold out the siege to such a length of time as they did; which might provoke Nebuchadnezzar to use them with more severity:



and thy strong garrisons shall go down to the ground: where their soldiers were placed for defence; their citadel and other towers: or, "the statues of thy strengths" {k}; their strong statues made of marble, &c. erected as trophies of victories obtained by them; or to the honour of some worthy magistrates, and principal citizens; or of their confederates and allies; or rather of their deities, such as Hercules and Apollo, their tutelar gods; which, though chained as they were, that they might not depart, shall now fall to the ground, unable to protect themselves or their worshippers: all that is here said, concerning the destruction of Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar, seems to be understood of old Tyre, which was upon the continent; for this account agrees not with the isle.



{k} Kze twbum "statuae fortitudinis tuae", Pagninus, Montanus; "columnas tuas robustas", Cocceius; "columnas ruboris tui", Starckius.







Ezekiel 26:12



Ver. 12. And they shall make a spoil of thy riches,.... The Chaldean army, when they entered the city, and got possession of it, would plunder it, and divide the riches of it among them:



and make a prey of thy merchandise; of the merchants' goods, laid up in their warehouses for sale, which was greatly hindered by this long siege; compare with this Re 18:11:



and they shall break down thy walls; the walls of their houses; mention being made before of breaking down the walls of the city, towers, and garrisons:



and destroy thy pleasant houses; or, "houses of thy desire" {l}; the most desirable ones in the city; the houses of their princes and chief magistrates; their summer houses; or which were most delightfully situated towards the sea, to have the prospect and advantage of that:



and they shall lay thy stones and thy timber and thy dust in the midst of the water; of the sea, near unto or about it; into which they cast the rubbish of the demolished houses, stones, timber, and dust, and so left it bare and naked: or rather this was fulfilled when Alexander, with the ruins of old Tyre, its stones, timber, and rubbish, and trees from Lebanon, made a causeway from the continent to the island; and by that means took it, after seven months' toil and labour of this sort {m}.



{l} Ktdmx ytb "domos desiderii tui", Montanus, Vatablus. {m} Curt. Hist, l. 4. c. 2. 4.





Ezekiel 26:13



Ver. 13. And I will cause the noise of thy songs to cease,.... As this city abounded with riches, so with carnal mirth and pleasure; it was a "joyous city", Isa 23:7, the inhabitants lived merrily and jovially; were much given to music, which was very diverting and amusing to foreigners that traded with them; but now it would be all over with them; there would be no more songs, nor any to sing them:



and the sound of thy harps shall be no more heard; neither vocal nor instrumental music; and this will be one day the case of Rome, of which Tyre was a type, Re 18:22.





Ezekiel 26:14



Ver. 14. And I will make thee like the top of a rock,.... Smooth and bare; See Gill on "Eze 26:4":



and thou shall be a place to spread nets upon;

See Gill on "Eze 26:5":



thou shalt be built no more: this must be understood with some restriction and limitation; as that it should not be built any more in the same stately manner; or be raised to royal dignity, and be governed in the grand manner it had been; or be built upon the same spot; or after its last destruction, to which the prophecy may have respect; it being usual in Scripture for prophecies to regard what is more remote as well as more near; for, upon the destruction of it by Nebuchadnezzar, it was to be restored after seventy years, according to Isaiah's prophecy,

Isa 23:15 and, many years after this, new Tyre was besieged, taken, and destroyed by Alexander; and after this it was rebuilt; we read of it in the New Testament; See Gill on "Ac 21:3", and in Jerom's time it was a most noble and beautiful city, as he on this passage observes; indeed, as Kimchi says, who lived near a thousand years after Jerom, the city then built in his time called Tyre was built upon the continent near the seashore; whereas Tyre destroyed by Alexander was built in the midst of the sea, and was as the top of a rock. It has since been destroyed by Saladine, in the year 1291; and now quite uninhabited, unless by fishermen, who wash, dry, and mend their nets here:



for I the Lord have spoken it, saith, the Lord God; and therefore it shall be accomplished, as it has been; no more of his returning void, and becoming of no effect. The Targum is,



"because I the Lord have decreed by my word, saith the Lord God;''



it is a determination and resolution of his, and none can disannul it. Abendana thinks that hitherto the prophecy is concerning the first destruction of Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar, and what follows is concerning the destruction of it by Alexander.







Ezekiel 26:15



Ver. 15. Thus saith the Lord God to Tyrus,.... By his prophet, who very probably delivered this prophecy to the ambassadors of Tyre at Babylon; or to some of their merchants that traded there; or sent it in a letter to them:



shall not the isles shake at the sound of thy fall; when they hear the noise of Tyre being taken, it will make them tremble, as fearing their turn will be next; that if a city so well fortified by nature and art, so well supplied with men and money, that had held out the siege so long, should at last surrender; what should they, the neighbouring isles, do, if attacked, who were so inferior to it? and besides, they might have much of their goods in it, in which they traded with the inhabitants of it, trusting to its great strength, and which would now give them a sensible concern. The Targum renders it, the suburbs; and anther Jewish {n} writer, the villages; those that were near to Tyre:



when the wounded cry, when the slaughter is made in the midst of thee? upon the enemy's entrance, putting to the sword all they meet with; when those that are wounded shall cry, either to have their lives spared, or through the pain and distress occasioned by their wounds.



{n} R. Sol. Urbin. Ohel Moed, fol. 42. 2.





Ezekiel 26:16



Ver. 16. Then all the princes of the sea shall come down from their thrones,.... The kings of the islands of the sea shall lay aside their regalia, all their royal grandeur, and the ensigns of it; leave their thrones of state, and sit in an humble posture:



and lay away their robes, and put off their broidered garments; their royal robes and raiment of needlework curiously embroidered, and richly wrought, such as princes wear; so did the king of Nineveh in token of humiliation, Jon 3:6. The Septuagint and Arabic versions understand the first clause of their taking their mitres, or diadems, from their heads:



they shall clothe themselves with trembling; they shall tremble from head to foot in every joint, as if they were covered with it, as with a garment; or, being clothed with sackcloth, as mourners used to be, shall shake and tremble, being used to other and better clothing:



they shall sit upon the ground; as Job did, and his friends, with dust and ashes on their heads, as persons in distress were wont to do, Job 2:8:



and shall tremble at every moment; continually, every hour, minute, and moment of the day: or, "at the breaches" {o}; so Jarchi; that is, those made upon Tyre; fearing lest the same should be made upon them; so the Targum, "because of their breaches"; or at the ruin and destruction they fear will be their case also:



and be astonished at thee; that a city so wealthy and mighty should be brought so low; see Re 18:9.



{o} Myegrl "super repentino casu suo", V. L.







Ezekiel 26:17



Ver. 17. And they shall take up a lamentation for thee, and say unto thee,.... The following mournful song:



how art thou destroyed that wast inhabited of seafaring men; or, "of the seas": by men who used the seas, and traded by sea to different parts of the world; and was frequented by persons that came by sea thither, by the great ocean, by the Red sea, the Mediterranean sea, and others; or, which was surrounded by the sea. So the Targum,



"that dwellest in the midst of the sea:''



"the renowned city, which wast strong in the sea"; fortified by the sea, and against it; strong in shipping and naval stores; so as to be formidable to others, and mistress of the sea. The Targum is,



"which dwell in the strength of the sea;''



and had the strength and riches of it brought unto it; and so was famous all the world over for its commerce, wealth, and power; but now ruined and undone:



she and her inhabitants, which cause their terror to be on all that haunt it! the sea; on all that used the seas; or on all the inhabitants of the islands of the sea; who all stood in fear of Tyre and her inhabitants, and were obliged to strike their sails to their ships.





Ezekiel 26:18



Ver. 18. Now shall the isles tremble in the day of thy fall,.... The isles near unto it, the isles of the Mediterranean sea; the inhabitants of them, the merchants who from thence traded with Tyre, the seafaring men of those places; partly on account of losses sustained hereby, and partly through fear of the same calamities coming upon themselves; see

Re 18:11: yea, the isles that are in the sea shall be troubled at thy departure; as at the cry of the wounded, and the number of the slain; so on account of those that should be carried away captive by the Babylonians; as well as at the departure of those that should be obliged to fly to other colonies, Isa 23:6, so that, upon one account or another, it shall be entirely stripped of its inhabitants.





Ezekiel 26:19



Ver. 19. For thus saith the Lord God,.... Both to the terror of Tyre, and for the comfort of his people:



when I shall make thee a desolate city, like the cities that are not inhabited; whose trade is ruined, whose inhabitants are destroyed, and whose walls are broken down, and become a mere waste and desert; where no person or anything of value are to be seen:



when I shall bring up the deep upon thee, and the great waters shall cover thee: the waters of the sea shall rush in and overflow the city, the walls of it being broken down; just as the old world, and the cities of it, were overflowed with the deluge, to which the allusion may be; whether this was literally accomplished on Tyre is not certain; perhaps it is to be taken in a figurative sense, and to be understood of the large army of the Chaldeans that should come up against it, and overpower it. So the Targum,



"when I shall bring up against them an army of people, who are many as the waters of the deep, and many people shall cover thee; see Re 17:15.''





Ezekiel 26:20



Ver. 20. When I shall bring thee down with them that descend into the pit,.... The grave, and make thee like to them:



with the people of old time; either the people of the old world, or, however, who have been dead long ago:



and shall set thee in the low parts of the earth; where the dead are laid:



in places desolate of old: long ago unfrequented by men; as such places be as are for the burial of the dead:



with them that go down to the pit, that thou be not inhabited; all the inhabitants being free among the dead; a heap of words made use of to express the same thing, for the confirmation of it; namely, that the condition of Tyre should be like that of dead men, who have been of old dead, and are remembered no more. Jarchi interprets the "pit", of hell; as if this respected their everlasting perdition, as well as temporal ruin; it may be applied to the beast which goeth into perdition,

Re 17:8:



and I shall set glory in the land of the living; in the land of Israel; so the Targum; and it is interpreted by the Jewish expositors and others the same way; and which may be called "the land of the living"; because the living God was worshipped in it; living men in a spiritual sense dwelt there, who offered up living sacrifices unto God, and who had the promise and pledge of eternal life; and which was the "glory" of all lands, as it is sometimes called, where the same word is used as here, Eze 20:6, which had its accomplishment in some respects at the Jews' return from Babylon; but, as Tyre here is a type of antichrist, it may be observed, that, at the time of his fall and destruction, God will put a glory upon his church and people, upon which there shall be a defence; see Isa 4:5. This is interpreted by the Talmudists {p} of the resurrection of the dead, when they that die in the land of Israel shall live.



{p} Vid. Kimchi in loc. & T. Bab. Cetubot, fol. 111. 1.





Ezekiel 26:21



Ver. 21. I will make thee a terror,.... To all the isles round about, who shall shake and tremble at the ruin of Tyre, as before observed; or to herself, being brought into a most terrible and distressed condition:



and thou shall be no more: in the same place and situation, in the same happy state and condition:



though thou be sought for, yet shalt thou never be found again, saith the Lord God: this is true of the antitype, Babylon, or antichrist, Re 18:21.

 

John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible.

Ezekiel 27:1



INTRODUCTION TO EZEKIEL 27



This chapter contains a lamentation on Tyre; setting forth her former grandeur, riches, and commerce; her ruin and destruction; and the concern of others on that account. The prophet is bid to take up his lamentation concerning it, Eze 27:1, observing her situation and magnificence, of which she boasted, Eze 27:3, describing the excellency of her shipping and naval stores, Eze 27:5, declaring who were her mariners, pilots, and caulkers, Eze 27:8, her military men,

Eze 27:10 her several merchants, and the things they traded in with her in her fairs and markets, Eze 27:12, then follows an account of her destruction, Eze 27:26, the lamentation of pilots and mariners because of it, Eze 27:28, and of the kings and inhabitants of the isles, and merchants of the people, Eze 27:33.



Ver. 1. The word of the Lord came again unto me,.... Upon the same subject, the destruction of Tyre:



saying; as follows:







Ezekiel 27:2



Ver. 2. Now, thou son of man, take up a lamentation for Tyrus. Compose an elegy, and sing it; make a mournful noise, and deliver out a funeral ditty; such as the "praeficae", or mournful women, made at funerals, in which they said all they could in praise of the dead, and made very doleful lamentations for them: this the prophet was to do in a prophetic manner, for the confirmation of what was prophesied of by him; and it may teach us, that even wicked men are to be pitied, when in distress and calamity.





Ezekiel 27:3



Ver. 3. And say unto Tyrus, O thou that art situate at the entry of the sea,.... Of the Mediterranean sea; at the eastern part of it, not above half a mile from the continent; and so fit for a seaport, and a harbour for shipping; so mystical Tyre sits on many waters, Re 17:1:



which art a merchant of the people for many isles; the inhabitants of many isles brought the produce of them to her; who took them off their hands, or sold them for them to others; these came from several quarters to trade with her in her markets; and who supplied other isles and countries with all sorts of commodities, for which they either resorted to her, or she sent by ships unto them; so Rome is represented as the seat of merchandise, Re 18:7:



thus saith the Lord God, O Tyrus, thou hast said; in thine heart, in the pride of it, and with thy mouth, praising and commending thyself; which is not right:



I am of perfect beauty: built on a good foundation, a rock; surrounded with walls and towers; the streets arranged in order, and filled with goodly houses; having a good harbour for shipping, and being a mart for all manner of merchandise, Jerusalem being destroyed, Tyre assumes her character, Ps 48:2.







Ezekiel 27:4



Ver. 4. Thy borders are in the midst of the seas, Fixed by the Lord himself, and which could never be removed. Tyre stood about half a mile from the continent, surrounded with the waters of the sea, till it was made a peninsula by Alexander:



thy builders have perfected thy beauty. The Sidonians were the first builders of the city, as Justin {q} says; who began and carried on the building of it to the utmost of their knowledge and skill; and which was afterwards perfected by other builders, who made it the most beautiful city in all those parts; unless this is to be understood of her shipbuilders, who brought the art of building ships in her to such a perfection, as made her famous throughout the world; since they are immediately spoken of without any other antecedent.



{q} Ex Trago, l. 18. c. 3.





Ezekiel 27:5



Ver. 5. They have made all thy ship boards of fir trees of Senir,.... The same with Sion and Hermon, which the Sidonians called Sirion, and the Amorites Shenir, De 3:9 here, it seems, grew the best of fir trees, of which the Tyrians made boards and planks for shipping; of these the two sides of the ship, as the word {r} here used in the dual number is thought to signify, or the fore and hind decks, were made. The Targum is,



"with fir trees of Senir they built for thee all thy bridges;''



the planks from which they went from one ship to another; but these are of too small consequence to be mentioned; rather the main of the ship is intended, which was built of fir planks; but ours made of oak are much preferable:



they have taken cedars from Lebanon, to make masts for thee; large poles for the yards and sails to be fastened to, for receiving the wind necessary in navigation; called the main mast, the foremast, the mizzenmast, and the boltsprit; all these are only in large vessels; whether the Tyrians had all of these is not certain; some they had, and which were made of the cedars of Lebanon; which, being large tall trees, were fit for this purpose. The Tyrians {s} are said to be the first inventors of navigation.



{r} Mytwxl "tabulata duplicia", Munster; "duas tabulas", Vatablus. {s} "Prima ratem ventis credere docta Tyros." Catullus.







Ezekiel 27:6



Ver. 6. Of the oaks of Bashan have they made thine oars,.... To row the ships with; for their ships probably were no other than galleys, which were rowed with oars, as were the ships of first invention. Bashan was a country in Judea where oaks grew; see Isa 2:13. The country of Judea in general was famous for oaks; it abounded with them in the times of Homer {t}, who speaks of Typho being buried in a country abounding with oaks, among the rich or fat people of Judea; and he seems to design Bashan particularly, of which Og was king, whom he calls Typho, and of whose bed he makes mention in the same place; hence several places in Judea had their names from the oaks which grew, there, as Elonmoreh, Allonbachuth, Elonmeonenim, Elontabor, and Elonbethhanan, Ge 12:6 and which one would have thought were fitter to make their ships of; but of these only their oars were made:



the company of the Ashurites have made thy benches of ivory, brought out of the isles of Chittim; the benches for the towers to sit on, or for others in the cabin and decks; but that these should be wholly of ivory is not very probable; nor was ivory brought from the isles of Chittim, but from other parts; nor is it easy to say who the company of the Ashurites were; some say the Assyrians; but why they should be so called is not plain. Jarchi makes Myrva tb to be but one word, which signifies box trees, as it is used in Isa 41:19 and he supposes that these benches, or be they what they will, were made of box trees covered or inlaid with ivory. So the Targum,



"the lintels of thy gates (the hatches) were planks of box tree inlaid with ivory;''



which box, and not the ivory, was brought from the isles of Chittim; either from Cyprus, where was a place called Citium; or from Macedonia, from whence box was fetched; or from the province of Apulia, as the Targum; where there might be plenty of it, as in Corsica, and other places, where particularly the best box grows, as Pliny {u} says. Jerom interprets Cittin of Italy; and Ben Gorion says {w} that Cittim are the Romans.



{t} cwrw enidruoent', ioudhv en pioni dhmw. Homer. Iliad. 2. Vid. Dickinson, Delphi Phoenicix. c. 2. p. 13, 16. {u} Nat. Hist. l. 10. c. 16. {w} Heb. Hist. l. 1. c. 1. p. 7.







Ezekiel 27:7



Ver. 7. Fine linen with broidered work from Egypt,.... From whence came the finest and whitest linen; and which they embroidered with needlework, which looked very beautiful. Pliny {x} says there were four sorts of linen in Egypt, called Tanitic, Pelusiac, Butic, and Tentyritic, from the names and provinces where they were produced; of the second sort the garments of the high priest among the Jews were made; for they say {y}, on the day of atonement he was in the morning clothed with Pelusiac garments; that is, with garments made of linen which came from Pelusium, a well known city in Egypt; and which Jarchi {z} says was the best, and in the greatest esteem; and one of the Misnic commentators says {a} that the linen from Pelusium is fine and beautiful, and comes from the land of Raamses; and observes, that, in the Jerusalem Targum, Raamses is said to be Pelusium; but though they are not one and the same place, yet they are both in the same country, Egypt, and near one another; and with this sort of linen the priests of Hercules were clothed, according to Silius {b}; and so the vv, "shesh", or linen, of which the garments of the Jewish priests in common were made, was linen from Egypt; and which their Rabbins {c} say is the best, and is only found there. The Phoenicians, of which Tyre was a principal city, took linen of Egypt, and traded with other nations with it, as well as made use of it for themselves; particularly with the Ethiopians, the inhabitants of the isle of Cernes, now called the Canaries, who took of them Egyptian goods, as linen, &c.; in lieu of which they had of them elephants' teeth, the skins of lions, leopards, deer, and other creatures {d}: now such fine linen as this



was that which thou spreadest forth to be thy sail: not content with canvass or coarse linen, which would have done as well, they must have the finest Egyptian linen, and this very curiously embroidered, to make their sails of they spread upon their masts, to receive the wind; at least this they spread "for a flag" {e}, standard or ensign, as, the word may be rendered; when they hoisted up their colours on any occasion, they were such as these: "blue and purple, from the isles of Elishah, was that which covered thee"; meaning not garments made of cloth of these colours, which the master of the vessel or mariners wore; but the tilts, or tents, or canopies erected on the decks, where they sat sheltered from the rain, wind, or sun; these were made of stuff died of a violet and purple colour, the best they could get; and which they fetched from the isles of Elishah, or the Aegean sea, from Coa, Rhodia, Nisyrus, and other places famous for purple, as Tyre itself afterwards was. The Targum is,



"from the province of Italy;''



or of Apulia, as others {f}; see Re 18:12.



{x} Nat. Hist. l. 19. c. 1. {y} Misn. Yoma, c. 3. sect. 7. {z} Gloss. in T. Bab. Yoma, fol. 34. 2. {a} Bartenora in Misn. Yoma, ib. {b} "----Velantur corpore lino, Et Pelusiaco praefulget stamine vertex." L. 3. de Bell. Punic. {c} Aben Ezra in Exod. xxv. 4. {d} Vid. Reinesium de Lingua Punica, c. 2. sect. 13. {e} owl "in signum, [sive] vexillum", Gussetius; so some in Bootius. {f} So R. Sol. Urbin. Ohel Moed, fol. 48. 1.







Ezekiel 27:8



Ver. 8. The inhabitants of Zidon and Arvad were thy mariners,.... Zidon was a city in Phoenicia, near to Tyre, and older than that, by whose inhabitants it was built; see the notes on Isa 23:2 and Arvad was an island in Phoenicia, to the south of Zidon, not far from Tyre. Mr. Maundrell {g} says it is about a league distant from the shore; and is now called by the Turks Ruad. It seemed to the eye to be not above four to six hundred yards long, and wholly filled up with tall buildings like castles: its ancient inhabitants, he observes, were famous for navigation, and had a command upon the continent as far as Gabale later mentioned, Dr. Shaw {h} says it is at present called Rouwadde; and that the prospect of it from the continent is wonderfully magnificent; promising at a distance a continued train of fine buildings and impregnable fortifications; but this is entirely owing to the height and rockiness of its situation; for at present all the strength and beauty it can boast of lies in a weak unfortified castle, with a few small cannon to defend it; so that the prophecy of Jeremiah appears to be fulfilled,



Arpad is confounded, Jer 49:23. This is the Aradus of Strabo, and other writers; and which he says is distant from the land, two and an half miles, and is about a mile in circumference; and is said to be built by the Sidonians {k}; the inhabitants of it are the same with the Arvadite, Ge 10:18, these places brought up abundance of seafaring men, and which furnished Tyre with rowers, as the word {l} signifies; which was the most slavish work in navigation:



thy wise men, O Tyrus, that were in thee, were thy pilots; such, as had learnt the art of navigation; were well versed in geography; understood the charts; knew the shores of different places; where were creeks and promontories, rocks and sands; these were brought up among themselves, and made pilots or governors, as the Targum renders it; who have their names here from the "ropes" {m} the sails are fastened to; and which they loosened or contracted, as they saw fit.



{g} Journey from Aleppo, &c. p. 19. Ed. 7. {h} Travels, p. 267. Ed. 2. {k} Geograph. 1. 16. p. 518. {l} Myjv "remiges", V. L. Pagninus, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Polanus, Cocceius, Starckius. {m} Kylbwx a lbx "funis, ita dicuntur a contrahendis aut laxandis funibus veli", Vatablus.





Ezekiel 27:9



Ver. 9. The ancients of Gebal,.... A promontory of the Phoenicians, the same with the Gabale of Pliny {n}, and with the land of the Giblites, Jos 13:5. It was by the Greeks called Byblus; and so the Septuagint here render the words, the elders of Bybli or Byblus, a place once famous for the birth and temple of Adonis; it is now called Gibyle. Mr. Maundrell {o} says it is pleasantly situated by the seaside, and that at present it contains but a little extent of ground, yet more than enough for the small number of its inhabitants; it is compassed with a dry ditch, and a wall with square towers in it, at about every forty yards' distance; on its south side it has an old castle; within it is a church; besides which it has nothing remarkable; though anciently it was a place of no mean extent, as well as beauty, as may appear from the many heaps of ruins, and the fine pillars that are scattered up and down in the gardens near the town. The old experienced workmen of this place were employed by the Tyrians in mending and refitting their ships, and in the caulking of them, as follows:



the wise men thereof were in thee thy caulkers; or, "the strengtheners of thy breaches" {p}, or "chinks"; the seams and commissures of the planks; which they stopped with tow, oakum, or such like stuff; at least this is what is used now, whatever might be by those wise men; and it seems by this that it was reckoned a very great art and mystery, and which only wise men were masters of, at least such the Tyrians employed. The Targum renders it,



"providing thy necessaries;''



as if they were the ships' husbands:



all the ships of the sea with their mariners were in thee to occupy thy merchandise; ships from all parts were in her harbours, which brought goods into her, and carried goods out of her, by way of merchandise. So the Targum,



"all that go down into the sea, and the ships; they were rowers, and they brought merchandise into the midst of thee;''



the goods of merchants from divers places; and carried back commodities again they traded for at Tyre; see Re 18:19.



{n} Nat. Hist. l. 5. c. 20. {o} Journey &c. p. 33, 34. {p} Kqdb yqyzxm "roborantes scissuram tuam", Montanus; "instaurantes fissuras tuas", Munster, Tigurine version; "rimas tuas", Vatablus; "instauratores rupturaram tuarum", Piscator.







Ezekiel 27:10



Ver. 10. They of Persia, and of Lud, and of Phut, were in thine army, thy men of war,.... As the Tryrians were a trading people, they hired foreign troops into their service, to fill their garrisons, defend their city, and fight for them in time of war; and these were of various nations, and the most famous for military skill and valour; as the Persians, a people well known, and famous for war in the times of Cyrus, and before, and well skilled in shooting arrows; and they of Lud, or the Lydians, a people in Greece, renowned for war before the times of Croesus their king, as well as in his time; and they of Phut, the Lybians, a people in Africa, skilful in drawing the bow,

Isa 66:19:



they hanged the shield and helmet in thee; in their garrisons and towers, or places of armoury; which were defensive weapons, the one for the body, the other for the head; this they did in times of peace, when there was no occasion to use them, or when they were off their guard, and not on duty; see So 4:4:



they set forth thy comeliness; it being an honour to the Tyrians to have such soldiers in their service. The Targum is,



"they increased thy splendour;''



added to their glory.





Ezekiel 27:11



Ver. 11. The men of Arvad, with thine army were upon thy walls round about,.... Placed there for the defence of the city, to watch against an enemy, lest it should be surprised; here they were upon the patrol day and night; see Isa 62:6, these were the men of the same place before mentioned, Eze 27:8 which furnished Tyre both with mariners and soldiers:



and the Gammadims were in thy towers: not the Medes, as Symmachus renders it; nor the Cappadocians, as the Targum; much less were they images of their tutelar gods, as Spencer thinks, of a cubit long; nor "pygmies", as the Vulgate Latin version renders it; which to mention would not be to the honour of their militia; though Kimchi and Ben Melech call them dwarfs, men of a small stature, of a cubit high, from whence they are supposed to have their name; so Schindler {q}: rather they were the inhabitants of some place in Phoenicia; either of Ancon; which in Greek signifies a cubit, as Gamad does in Hebrew; or of Gammade, the same which Pliny {r} corruptly calls Gamale. Hillerus {s} thinks the word signifies "ambidexters", or left handed men, such as Ehud:



they hanged their shields upon thy walls roundabout. Kimchi and Ben Melech observe it was a custom in some places to hang such weapons upon the tops of towers, and upon the walls of them; which might be done, either that they might be ready to take up and make use of, whenever occasion required; or to dismay their enemies, and to show them that they were provided for them:



they have made thy beauty perfect; besides the beauty of her buildings and shipping, there was the beauty of her militia; which was increased by the soldiers from Persia, Lydia, and Lybia, and added to by the men of Arvad, but completed by the Gammadim; and particularly being glided, as probably they were, looked very glittering and beautiful in the rays of the sun.



{q} Lexic. Pentaglott. col. 319, 320. {r} Nat. Hist. l. 2. c. 91. {s} Onomast. Sacr. p. 159.







Ezekiel 27:12



Ver. 12. Tarshish was thy merchant by reason of the multitude of all kind of riches,.... Some understand this of the sea, which is sometimes called Tarshish; so Jarchi and Kimchi interpret it here: and the Targum,



"from the sea, or they of the sea bring merchandise into the midst of thee:''



that is, those who lived upon the coasts, or on the isles, of the Mediterranean sea. The Septuagint, Vulgate Latin, and Arabic versions, render it the Carthaginians, who were a colony of the Tyrians, and no doubt traded with them; but it seems most likely, with others, to intend Tartessus in Spain, a place not far from that where Cadiz now stands; a country which abounded with riches, and with the following things:



with silver, iron, tin, and lead, they traded in thy fairs; Pliny {t} says, that almost all Spain abounded in metals of lead, iron, brass, silver, and gold; which takes in the several things here mentioned, excepting tin; and that the Spaniards might have from our Cornwall, which they might import into Tyre: though the Phoenicians carried on a commerce with our isle of Britain themselves, whither they came for tin, and disposed of other goods they brought with them. Gussetius {u} observes, that the word Kynwbze does not signify the place of trade and traffic, as it is commonly rendered; but respects the goods traded in, and the manner of trafficking with them, by way of "exchange", as the word should be rendered; and the sense is, that the things before mentioned were what they gave in exchange, battered, and "left", with the Tyrians, for other goods they took of them; and so it is to be understood in all the following places where the word is used. So Ben Melech says it is expressive of merchandise.



{t} Nat. Hist. l. 3. c. 3. {u} Ebr. Comment. p. 594, 595.





Ezekiel 27:13



Ver. 13 Javan, Tubal, and Meshech, they [were] thy merchants,.... Javan designs Greece, as the Septuagint and Vulgate Latin versions render it; especially that part of it called Ionia, from Javan the son of Japheth,

Ge 10:2 and Tubal, and Meshech, were also sons of Japheth; the former are the Iberi and Albanians, as Jerom and others, among whom were a city called Thabilaca, by Ptolemy {w}; and the latter the Cappadocians, with whom is a city called Mazaca {x}.



They traded the persons of men and vessels of brass in thy markets; or, "the souls of men" {y}; they bought up men and women in the several countries to which they belonged, or where they traded, and brought them to Tyre, and sold them for slaves; and the Ionian and Grecian slaves were had in great esteem: and the best brass, of which vessels were made, was had from Corinth, Delus, and Aeginetus; according to Pliny {z}, Cappadocia was famous for it also: in the first of these merchandises Tyrus was remarkably a type of antichrist, who is said to deal in such wares, the souls of men, Re 18:13. The word here rendered "markets", Gussetius {a} also observes, does not design the place of commerce, but the act of negotiation or trade; and so it is rendered by many {b}.



{w} Geograph. l. 5. c. 12. {x} Joseph. Antiqu. l. 1. c. 6. sect. 1. {y} Mda vpnb "animabus hominum", Pagninus, Vatablus, Cocceius, Starckius. {z} Nat. Hist. l. 34. c. 2. {a} Ebr. Comment. p. 642. {b} Kbrem thn emporian bou, Sept.; "negotiationem tuam", Tigurine version; "in commercio tuo", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Polanus; "mercaturam tuam", Cocceius.







Ezekiel 27:14



Ver. 14. They of the house of Togarmah,.... The Targum is,



"they of the province or country of Germany.''



Jerom understands it of Phrygia, near to which was Cappadocia; and perhaps is here meant, since it abounded with what these people are said to trade with Tyre in:



these traded in thy fairs with horses, horsemen, and mules; for the Cappadocians paid for their yearly tribute to the Persians fifteen hundred horses, and two thousand mules, as Bochart {c} from Strabo observes; and as they sold horses and mules to the Tyrians, so likewise horsemen, men that were skilled in riding and taking care of horses; and these were sold along with the horses, as servants for that purpose.



{c} Phaleg. c. 11. col. 178.





Ezekiel 27:15



Ver. 15. The men of Dedan were thy merchants,.... Not Dedan in Idumea or Edom, but in Arabia, from Dedan the son of Raamah, Ge 10:7:



many isles were the merchandise of thine hands; that is, many isles took off their manufactures from them, in lieu of what they brought them, which were as follow:



they brought thee for a present; that they might have the liberty of trading in their fairs and markets; or rather for a reward, or as a price, for the goods they had of them:



horns of ivory and ebony; Kimchi reads them as separate things; and which the Targum confirms, "horns, ivory, and ebony"; elks' horns, or horns of goats, as the Targum; and "ivory", or the teeth of elephants; and "ebony", which is a wood of a very black colour, hard and heavy, and of which many things are made. The Targum takes it for the name of a fowl, and renders it peacocks; so Jarchi; see 2Ch 9:21, but Ben Melech much better interprets it of a tree, called in Arabia "ebenus". Solinus makes it peculiar to India {d}; and so Virgil {e}.



{d} Polyhistor. c. 65. {e} "----Sola India nigrum fert ebenum.----" Virgil. Georgic. 1. 2.







Ezekiel 27:16



Ver. 16. Syria was thy merchant by reason of the multitude of the wares of thy making,.... Which they took off of their hands, and for them brought the following things:



they occupied in thy fairs with emeralds; precious stones of a green colour: Jarchi renders it "carbuncles", other precious stones of a different colour; and so the word is translated by Pagninus, Montanus, Grotius, the French, and Diodate; sometimes called "carchedonies", and which the Apostle John calls the "chalcedony", Re 21:19, the same with rubies; and so the word here used is rendered by Luther; and, by Abarbinel, precious stones of great value; see Pr 3:15, from whence the Syrians had these to trade with at Tyre cannot be easily said; the modern rubies, which are thought to be the true and genuine carbuncles of the ancients, seldom exceed the weight of twenty carats; yet some say the Emperor Rudolphus the second had a ruby as big as a little hen's egg, bought at sixty thousand ducats, and supposed to be worth more; and that Regulus Decan had one of thirty four carats, bought at six minas of gold, that is, a hundred and ninety two pounds of gold; and that the great Mogul had one, which cost a million four hundred and twenty five thousand florins; and that there are some which exceed the weight of fifty carats {f}; but there were few, if any of these, that came to the market of Tyre; however, no doubt, some valuable ones were here sold.



Purple, and broidered work, and fine linen; cloth of purple colour, raiment of needlework curiously embroidered, and linen of the best sort. So the Targum,



"purple clothes, and wrought with a needle, and linen of different colours;''



and of such they made their sails, tilts, and tents; see Eze 27:7.



And coral, and agate; the first is a sea plant.



"This opinion is now so well established, that all other sentiments seem almost precluded. P. Kircher supposes entire forests of it at the bottom of the sea; and M. Tournefort, that able botanist, maintains, that it evidently multiplies by seed, though neither its flower nor seed be known. However, the count de Marsigli has discovered some parts therein, which seem to serve the purpose of seeds and flower, it vegetates the contrary way to all other plants; its foot adhering to the top of the grotto, and its branches shooting downwards, there are properly but three kinds of coral, red, white, and black; the white is the rarest and most esteemed; but it is the red that is ordinarily used in medicine; the places for fishing it are the Persian gulf, Red sea, coasts of Africa towards the bastion of France, the isles of Majorca and Corsica, and the coasts of Provence and Catalonia {g}.''



Perhaps the Syrians might have theirs from the Red sea, or the Mediterranean. The other, the "agate", is a precious stone, the same with the "achates", first found in Sicily, as Isidore says {h}, by a river of the same name; is of a black colour, according to him, having in the middle black and white circles joined and variegated; but they are of different colours, and of different degrees of transparency. The word is variously rendered; by some the ruby; by others the carbuncle; by others the chalcedony; and by others crystal; it is hard to say what is meant. Now the Phoenicians or Tyrians were so deeply engaged in trade with the Syrians, that it became a common proverb, the Phonicians against the Syrians {i}; when like are set against like, as the Egyptians against the Egyptians, Isa 19:2.



{f} Vid. Braunium de Vestitu Sacerdot. Hebr. 1. 2. c. 11. p. 669. {g} Chambers's Cyclopaedia in the word "Coral". {h} Origin, l. 16. c. 11. {i} Vid. Reinesium de Lingua Punic. c. 2. sect. 12.







Ezekiel 27:17



Ver. 17. Judah, and the land of Israel, they were thy merchants,.... The inhabitants of Judah and Israel; the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin, and the other ten tribes of Israel, they all merchandised with the Tyrians, being near unto them:



they traded in thy market wheat of Minnith; the name of a place,

Jud 11:33, where probably the best wheat grew; so the Targum renders it; the Tyrians were supplied with wheat from the land of Israel, in the times of Solomon, long before this, 1Ki 5:11 as they were in the times of Herod, long after, Ac 12:20, it was four miles from Esbus or Heshbon, in the way to Philadelphia, according to Eusebius:



and Pannag; which some take to be the name of a place, where the best wheat also was; which some say was Phoenicia, or the land of Canaan. The Septuagint render it "ointments": and the Latin interpreter of the Targum "balsam"; with which agrees Josephus ben Gorion {k}, who says that at Jericho grew the balsam tree, from whence came a precious oil, which oil is "pannag": and Hillerus {l} translates it balsam: it follows,



and honey, and oil: with which the land of Canaan abounded; for it was a land of oil olive and honey, a land that flowed with milk and honey, De 8:8 so that they had enough for themselves, and to spare for their neighbours, and which they carried to the market of Tyre:



and balm; or balsam, of which there was plenty at Gilead, and near Jericho, however at the latter; we read of the balm of Gilead, Jer 8:22. The Septuagint and Vulgate Latin versions render it "rosin"; and so the Targum; and this the Tyrians might make use of in their ships {m}. The balm, or balsam plant, was peculiar to Judea, as Pliny {n}; at least it was the place of it until transplanted into other countries; and so says Solinus {o}.



{k} Hist. 1. 4. c. 22. p. 379. {l} Onomastic. Sacr. p. 903. {m} Vid. Scheffer. de Militia Navali, p. 43. 319. {n} Nat. Hist. l. 12. c. 25. {o} Polyhistor. c. 48.







Ezekiel 27:18



Ver. 18. Damascus was thy merchant in the multitude of the wares of thy making,.... Of the many things manufactured at Tyre, the inhabitants of Damascus, once the chief city of Syria, took some:



for the multitude of all riches: in lieu of the vast quantity of rich things there made, they traded with them for them:



in the wine of Helbon, and white wool; Helbon very probably is the same with the Chalybon of Ptolemy {p}, which he places in Syria; a place famous for wine, as Strabo {q} reports; the kings of Persia, he says, through riches fell into luxury, so that they would have wheat brought from Assos in Aeolia, and Chalybonian wine out of Syria, and water from Eulaeus (the river Ulai in Da 8:2), which was lightest of all; and so Athenaeus {r} says, the kings of the Persians drink only Chalybonian wine; which, says Posidonius, was made at Damascus in Syria, from whence the Persians transplant vines: Helbon is thought to be the same with Aleppo; the grapes there are all white, and make a strong wine, as Monsieur Thevenot {s} relates; and who also observes, that the wines of Damascus are treacherous and strong: and the wool they bought was such as it came off of the backs of the sheep, and the purer and whiter sort of it; which was brought to Tyre, and by them bought, and dyed purple, for which dye the Tyrians were famous.



{p} Geograph. l. 5. c. 15. {q} Ibid. l. 12. p. 505. {r} L. 1. c. 22. {s} Travels, part 2. B. 1. c. 5. p. 25. & c. 7. p. 33.







Ezekiel 27:19



Ver. 19. Dan also and Javan, going to and fro, occupied in thy fairs,.... Either the inhabitants of the tribe of Dan in general; or of Laish, sometime called Dan, and in later times Caesarea Philippi, which was in that tribe: though Grotius thinks that Taprobane, or the isle of Zeilan, is meant, where, and not in Dan, were the things after mentioned, in plenty; and where also, according to Ptolemy {t}, was a city called Dana or Dagana: and Bochart takes Javan not to be Greece, but a people of a country in Arabia, the metropolis of which was Uzal; and so he renders it, as some of the Greek versions do, Javan of Uzal, or Asel, to distinguish it from the other Javan, Eze 27:13, where also, and not in Greece, the sweet spices grew, which these are said to trade in:



bright iron, cassia, and calamus, were in thy market; brought from the above places; polished iron or steel, and the sweet spices of cassia and calamus, or the aromatic cane or reed, which came from afar, Jer 6:20.



{t} Geograph. l. 7. c. 4.







Ezekiel 27:20



Ver. 20. Dedan was thy merchant in precious cloths for chariots. Or, "cloths of freedom" {u}; such as freemen and even nobles wore; and yet so extravagant were the Tyrians, that they bought these to line or cover their chariots with; this is different from the Dedan in

Eze 27:15, and is either Dedan in Edom or Idumea, Jer 49:8, or in Arabia, the inhabitants of which descended from Dedan, a grandson of Abraham, Ge 25:3, which agrees with the following.



{u} vpx ydgbb "pannis libertatis", Vatablus, Piscator; "ingenuorem", Junius & Tremellius. So Ben Melech, and R. Sol. Urbin. Ohel Moed, fol. 30. 2.





Ezekiel 27:21



Ver. 21. Arabia, and all the princes of Kedar,.... Arabia was a large country, divided into three parts, Arabia Deserts, or the desert; Arabia Petraea, or the rocky; and Arabia Felix, or the happy. Kedar was in Arabia Petrea; its inhabitants were called Kedarenes, descended from Kedar, a son of Ishmael, Ge 25:13, they were chiefly shepherds, and dwelt in tents, to which the allusion is in So 1:5, these princes were the rich and wealthy among them, who bought up the cattle of the meaner sort, and brought them to Tyre. In Jerom's time Kedar was the country of the Saracens. The Targum calls them the princes of Nebat, the same with Nebajoth, the firstborn of Ishmael, and brother of Kedar, Ge 25:13.



They occupied with thee: or, "they were the merchants of thine hand {w}"; that took off her manufactures from her, in lieu of "the lambs, and rams, and goats", they brought to market, for her food and sacrifices; keeping of sheep being their chief employment: "in these were they thy merchants": they supplied them with their cattle, and took their wares of them for them.



{w} Kdy yrxo "negotiatores manus tuae", V. L. Pagninus, Montanus; "mercatores manna tuae", Cocceius, Starckius.







Ezekiel 27:22



Ver. 22. The merchants of Sheba and Raamah, they were thy merchants,.... This Sheba was the son of Raamah, Ge 10:7 who settled in Arabia Felix; where, according to Ptolemy {x}, is a city called Rhegma; and so Raamah is pronounced in the Septuagint version of Ge 10:7:



they occupied in thy fairs with chief of all spices; as with myrrh and frankincense, with which they abounded: Pliny {y} says that the Arabians paid annually to the kings of Persia a thousand talents of frankincense; and that the Sabaeans {z} boiled their food, some with wood of frankincense, and others with wood of myrrh:



and with all precious stones, and gold; as jaspers, emeralds, carbuncles, and others, which Pliny {a} says are found in Arabia; and mention is made of the gold of Sheba, Ps 72:15 and Bochart thinks that Ophir, from whence the famous gold of that name was fetched, was in Arabia Felix; and it may be observed, that the queen of Sheba gave great quantities of gold, of spices, and of precious stones, to Solomon; and that he had much of these kinds yearly from the spice merchants, and kings of Arabia, 1Ki 10:10,

See Gill on "Isa 60:6".



{x} Geograph. l. 6. c. 7. {y} Nat. Hist. l. 12. c. 17. {z} "----Solis est thurea virga Sabaeis". Virgil. Georgic. l. 2. {a} Nat. Hist. l. 37.







Ezekiel 27:23



Ver. 23. Haran, and Canneh, and Eden,.... Haran was a city of Mesopotamia, the same with Haran, where Abraham dwelt awhile, Ac 7:2, the Charrae of the Parthians, famous for the defeat of Crassus. Canneh is thought to be the same with Calneh, Ge 10:10, afterwards called Ctesiphon; and here, by the Targum, Netzibin, a place not far from Tigris; and Eden also was between Tigris and Euphrates. All three places seem to be in Mesopotamia, and not far from each other; the latter is thought by some to be the place where the garden of Eden was.



The merchants of Sheba; this was another Sheba, distinct from that in

Eze 27:22, this Sheba was the son of Jokshan, a son of Abraham by Keturah, Ge 25:3, these were the Sabaeans, who were not far from the former, and dwelt near the Persian sea.



Ashur and Chilmad were thy merchants; or dealt in "thy merchandise"; took goods of them. Ashur designs the Assyrians, who had their name from Ashur, the builder of Nineveh, Ge 10:11 and Chilmad is by the Targum rendered Media; and by Grotius thought to be the Gaala of Media in Ptolemy {b}; and so Hillerus {c} takes it to be a city of Media.



{b} Geograph. l. 6. c. 2. {c} Onomastic. Sacr. p. 108.







Ezekiel 27:24



Ver. 24. These were thy merchants in all sorts of things,.... Either all before mentioned throughout the chapter, or rather those only in the preceding verse; also these were merchants in various things after mentioned, and which were the best and most perfect of the kind, as the word {d} used signifies:



in blue cloths, and broidered work; these the Assyrians took of them, a colour in which they much delighted; see Eze 23:6:



and in chests of rich apparel bound with cords, and made of cedar, among thy merchandise; rich apparel, such as scarlet cloaks, as the Targum, and blue cloths as before; these were well packed up in chests made of "cedar", which they had from Lebanon, and so fit to be put on board a ship, and carried into any part of the world. The Targum adds,



"and sealed with a signet;''



as things well packed up and bound sometimes are, being of worth and value. Some render it, "in chains"; or, "chains were among thy merchandise" {e}; such as chains of gold, wore about the neck; and take the word to be of the sam meaning with that in So 1:10.



{d} Myllkmb "rebus perfectissimis", Junius & Tremellius, Polanus, Cocceius, Starckius. {e} Ktlkrmb Myzraw "et torquibus in negotiatione tua", Pagninus; "et torques fuerunt in nundinis tuis", Vatablus. So R. Sol. Urbin. Ohel Moed, fol. 71. 2.







Ezekiel 27:25



Ver. 25. The ships of Tarshish did sing of thee in market,.... The ships of the sea in general; for Tarshish is used for the sea; these from all parts came to Tyre with their several wares, the product of their country from whence they came, and, finding a good market for them at Tyre, spoke greatly in her praise, or, "were thy princes", or "thy chief ones, in thy market" {f}; these brought the principal things into it, and took off the chief that were in it, which were of the produce of Tyre:



and thou wast replenished; with goods from all parts, with every thing for their necessity, convenience, pleasure, and delight, and to carry on a traffic with all nations:



and made very glorious in the midst of the seas; with great riches, stately towers and buildings. Here ends the account of Tyre's greatness; next follows her ruin and destruction.



{f} Kytwrv "principes", V. L. Montanus, Castalio, Starckius; "praecipuae", Tigurine version, Grotius. So some in Vatablus.





Ezekiel 27:26



Ver. 26. Thy rowers have brought thee into great waters,.... Here the city of Tyre is compared to a vessel at sea, with great propriety, it being built in the sea, and its trade chiefly there; and its rulers and governors, or the inhabitants of it, to rowers; literally the men of Zidon and Arvad were her rowers, Eze 27:8, the straits, difficulties, and distresses these brought Tyre into, are compared to great waters; who, by some unadvised step or another, provoked the king of Babylon to come against them with his army, and lay siege unto them:



the east wind hath broken thee in the midst of the seas; a wind very fatal to ships and mariners; see Ps 48:7, by it are meant Nebuchadnezzar and the Chaldean army; so called, because of their great force and fury; and because Babylon, from whence they came, lay somewhat to the east of Tyre. So the Targum,



"a king who is strong as the east wind hath broken thee in the midst of the seas.''





Ezekiel 27:27



Ver. 27. Thy riches,.... That vast mass of wealth Tyre had got by her trade and merchandise, were all lost, at once, and came to nought, which had been many years gathering; see Re 18:17:



and thy fairs; to which there were such great resorts from all parts, and where such a prodigious traffic was carried on, were now interrupted by the siege, and put to an end upon the ruin of the city:



thy merchandise; the goods both imported and exported; the wares that were brought in from foreign parts, and sold in her, and what was taken from her in lieu of them; now nothing more of this kind; and what goods were in her, whether her own or others, were all lost and destroyed:



thy mariners; who were the inhabitants of Zidon and Arvad,

Eze 27:8, these perished with her:



and thy pilots; who were the wisest, most skilful, and best learned in the art of navigation, and who were of the city itself, these were no more, Eze 27:8:



thy calkers: the wise and ancient men of Gebal, Eze 27:9:



and the occupiers of the merchandise; that traded in her markets and fairs, mentioned from Eze 27:12:



and all thy men of war that are in thee: to fight for her and defend her; the Persians, Lydiaus, and Lybians, the men of Arvad, and the Gammadims, Eze 27:10:



and in all thy company, which is in the midst of thee; the great concourse of people, whether natives or foreigners:



these all shall fall into the midst of the seas in the day of thy ruin: the walls and banks being demolished, the sea broke in upon it, and washed all away in it, and left it a bare rock; see Eze 26:4.





Ezekiel 27:28



Ver. 28. The suburbs shall shake at the sound of the cry of thy pilots. Or governors, as the Targum; and so the Vulgate Latin, and all the Oriental versions: the allegory of a ship wrecked is still continued: the sense is, that such should be the cry of the principal men of the city when it should be taken, that the noise of it would be heard upon the continent, and in the towns and villages belonging to Tyre, which would make the inhabitants of them tremble: or,



at the sound of the cry of thy pilots the waves are moved, or "tremble" {g}; which beat very strong at the time of her fall into the sea.



{g} twvrgm wvery "commoti sunt fluctus jactni", Junius & Tremellius; "contremiscent fluctus", Piscator.







Ezekiel 27:29



Ver. 29. And all that handle the oar, the mariners, and all the pilots of the sea,.... Inferior officers, and the common people; though this may be literally understood of all sorts of seafaring people, differently employed in ships; some at the oar; some at the sails; and others at the helm; but all shall quit their posts,



and shall come down from their ships; either there being no further business for them, an entire stop being put to trade, through the fall of Tyre; or because of danger, and to save themselves, would leave the ship, and betake to their boats, and make for land: hence it follows,



they shall stand upon the land; upon the continent, being safely arrived; looking upon the shipwrecks, and bewailing the loss of Tyre, as in the next verse.





Ezekiel 27:30



Ver. 30. And shall cause their voice to be heard against thee,.... The rulers and governors of the city, for having taken a false step in provoking the enemy, and then holding out the siege no longer, as it was thought they might and would: or rather "over thee", or, "for thee" {h}; mourning over the city, and lamenting its sad case; see

Re 18:9:



and shall cry bitterly; with great weeping, howling, and shrieking:



and they shall cast dust upon their heads; a custom used in the eastern countries, in time of mourning and sorrow; see Re 18:19:



and they shall wallow themselves in ashes: or roll themselves in them, another custom used in mourning; see Jer 6:26.



{h} Kyle "de te", Junius & Tremellius, Polanus, "super te"; Piscator, Cocceius, Starckius.





Ezekiel 27:31



Ver. 31. And they shall make themselves utterly bald for thee,.... Either by shaving their heads, or tearing off their hair, as mourners in distress have been used to do:



and gird them with sackcloth; about their loins, as was very customary in such distressed cases:



and they shall weep for thee with bitterness of heart and bitter wailing; not in show only, but in reality; not like the "preficae" or mourning women, though the allusion may be to them, who only mourned outwardly; but these from the very heart, and in great bitterness of spirit this is expressive of the inward grief of their minds on this melancholy occasion, as what follows declares the lamentation they expressed vocally; see Re 18:19.





Ezekiel 27:32



Ver. 32. And in their wailing they shall takes up a lamentation for thee,.... A mournful song, such as was used at funerals, or in times of calamity; and so the Vulgate Latin version renders it:



and lament over thee; saying the following ditty;



what city is like Tyrus, like the destroyed in the midst of the sea? as there was none like it a few years ago for riches, splendour, and glory, so now there is none like it for misery and ruin; see Re 18:18. The Targum is,



"who is as Tyre? there is none like unto her in the midst of the sea;''



she is not now Tyre the renowned, but Tyre the destroyed; destroyed in the midst of the sea, from whence she had her riches and her glory: or, "as one dumb or silent in the midst of the sea"; she, in whom was heard the voice of joy and singing, is now mute, and nothing more of that kind is heard in her see Re 18:22.





Ezekiel 27:33



Ver. 33. When thy wares went forth out of the seas,.... When they were took out of ships, which came to Tyre from all parts, and were landed on the shore, and put up in warehouses, and exposed in markets and The Targum is,



"when thy merchandise went out from among the nations;''



being brought from all parts thither:



thou filledst many people; by selling them in their markets commodities they wanted, for which they came from all quarters; and by sending them to others in ships, where they knew they stood in need of them, and would fetch them a good price; and they had enough to answer the demands of all, and to supply them to the full:



thou didst enrich the kings of the earth with the multitude of thy riches and pithy merchandise; by taking off the goods of their subjects, whereby they were able the better to pay their taxes, and support them in their grandeur and dignity; as well as by furnishing them gold and silver, and precious stones, which they gave for the produce of their country; or by the toll and custom of the goods imported or exported.





Ezekiel 27:34



Ver. 34. In the time when thou shall be broken by the seas in the depths of the waters..... By the Chaldean army, which came upon them like the waves of the sea, Eze 26:3 by which they were overpowered and destroyed; just as a ship on the mighty waters is dashed and broke to pieces by the waves thereof:



thy merchandise, and all thy company in the midst of thee, shall fall; trade shall cease, and the mixed multitude of traders from all parts shall be seen no more; the natives of the place shall perish; mariners and soldiers, and persons of every rank and degree, age, and sex. The Targum renders it,



"all thine armies.''



Abendana suggests that this respects the destruction of Tyre by Alexander the great.





Ezekiel 27:35



Ver. 35. All the inhabitants of the isles shall be astonished at thee,.... Both near and afar off; and not only the inhabitants of the isles, properly so called, but all that dwelt on the continent by the seaside; who would all be amazed when they heard of the ruin of Tyro, which they thought inexpugnable, by reason of its natural and artificial strength:



and their kings shall be sore afraid; that it will be their turn next; and as well knowing that they were less able to contend with so mighty a monarch as the king of Babylon, or Alexander the great, than Tyre was; see Re 18:9:



they shall be troubled in their countenance; their inward passions of grief and fear shall be seen in their countenances; which will wax pale, be dejected, distorted, and furrowed.





Ezekiel 27:36



Ver. 36. The merchants among the people shall hiss at thee,.... As Tyre had done at Jerusalem, Eze 26:2 as she hoped to make better markets upon the fall of Jerusalem, and therefore rejoiced at it; so these merchants upon her fall will hope that her trade will come into their hands, and therefore despise her, hiss, and laugh at her in her abject state. The Targum is,



"shall be astonished at thee;''



struck with wonder, and even with a stupor at her fall: "and thou shalt be a terror"; not only to thyself, but to kings and merchants, and to all the inhabitants of the isles, and to all that trade by sea; who will be struck with surprise and dread when they hear of thy destruction; see Re 18:9:



and never shall be any more; upon the same spot, and in the same grandeur and glory: some understand this only of a long time, as seventy years, when it was rebuilt; see Isa 23:15, it may respect its last destruction, since which it has not been, nor now is, or ever will be: this will be true of mystical Babylon, the antitype of Tyre,

Re 18:21.

 

John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible.

Ezekiel 28:1



INTRODUCTION TO EZEKIEL 28



This chapter contains a prophecy of the destruction of the prince of Tyre; a lamentation for the king of Tyre; a denunciation of judgments on Zidon, and a promise of peace and safety to Israel. The order given the prophet to prophesy of the ruin of the prince of Tyre, Eze 28:1, the cause of his ruin, his pride on account of his wisdom and riches, which rose to such a pitch, as to make himself God, Eze 28:2, the manner in which his destruction shall be accomplished, Eze 28:7, the lamentation for the king of Tyre begins Eze 28:11, setting forth his former grandeur and dignity, Eze 28:13, his fall, and the cause of it, injustice and violence in merchandise, pride because of beauty and wisdom, and profanation of sanctuaries, Eze 28:16, next follow the judgments on Zidon, Eze 28:20, and the chapter is concluded with a promise of the restoration of the Jews to their own land, and of great tranquillity and safety in it, Eze 28:24.



Ver. 1. The word of the Lord came again unto me,.... With another prophecy; as before against the city of Tyre, now against the king of Tyre:



saying; as follows:







Ezekiel 28:2



Ver. 2. Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyre,.... Whose name was Ethbaal, or Ithobalus, as he is called in Josephus; for that this was Hiram that was in the days of Solomon, and lived a thousand years, is a fable of the Jewish Rabbins, as Jerom relates: this prince of Tyre is thought by some to be an emblem of the devil; but rather of antichrist; and between them there is a great agreement, and it seems to have a prophetic respect to him:



thus saith the Lord God, because thine heart is lifted up: with pride, on account of his wisdom and knowledge, wealth and riches, as later mentioned:



and thou hast said, I am a god; this he said in his heart, in the pride of it, and perhaps expressed it with his lips, and required divine homage to be given him by his subjects, as some insolent, proud, and haughty monarchs have done; in which he was a lively type of antichrist, who shows himself, and behaves, as if he was God, taking upon him what belongs to God; pardoning the sins of men; opening and shutting the gates of heaven; binding men's consciences with laws of his own making, and dispensing with the laws of God and man; and calling himself or suffering himself to be called God, and to be worshipped as such; See Gill on "2Th 2:4":



I sit in the seat of God; in a place as delightful, safe and happy, as heaven itself, where the throne of God is; so antichrist is said to sit in the temple of God, in the house and church of God; where he assumes a power that does not belong to him, calling himself God's vicegerent, and Christ's vicar; see 2Th 2:4, and the Arabic version here renders it "in the house of God": it follows,



in the midst of the seas; surrounded with them as Tyre was, and lord of them as its king was; sending his ships into all parts, and to whom all brought their wares; thus the whore of Rome is said to sit upon many waters, Re 17:2:



yet thou art a man, and not God; a frail, weak, mortal man, and not the mighty God, as his later destruction shows; and as the popes of Rome appear to be, by their dying as other men; and as antichrist will plainly be seen to be when he shall be destroyed with the breath of Christ's mouth, and the brightness of his coming:



though thou set thine heart as the heart of God; as if it was as full of wisdom and knowledge as his; and thinkest as well of thyself, that thou art a sovereign as he, and to be feared, obeyed, and submitted to by all.





Ezekiel 28:3



Ver. 3. Behold; thou art wiser than Daniel,.... That is, in his own opinion; or it is ironically said. The Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic versions, render it by way of interrogation, "art thou not wiser than Daniel?" who was now at the court of Babylon, and was famous throughout all Chaldea for his knowledge in politics, his wisdom and prudence in government, as well as his skill in interpreting dreams. The Jews have a saying, that



"if all the wise men of the nations were in one scale, and Daniel in the other, he would weigh them all down.''



And perhaps the fame of him had reached the king of Tyre, and yet he thought himself wiser than he; see Zec 9:2, antichrist thinks himself wiser than Daniel, or any of the prophets and apostles; he is wise above that which is written, and takes upon him the sole interpretation of the Scriptures, and to fix the sense of them:



there is no secret that they can hide from thee; as he fancied; he had sagacity to penetrate into the councils of neighbouring princes, and discover all plots and intrigues against him; he understood all the "arcana" and secrets of government, and could counterwork the designs of his enemies. Antichrist pretends to know all mysteries, and solve all difficulties, and pass an infallible judgment on things; as if he was of the privy council of heaven, and nothing was transacted there but he was acquainted with it, and had full knowledge of the mind of God in all things.







Ezekiel 28:4



Ver. 4. With thy wisdom and with thy understanding thou hast gotten thee riches,.... Through skill in navigation and trade, for which the Tyrians and their princes were famous, they acquired great wealth: so antichrist, by carnal policy, and hellish subtlety, has amassed vast treasures together; the sale of pardons and indulgences has brought immense riches into the pope's coffers:



and hast gotten gold and silver into thy treasures; in great quantities; see Re 18:3.





Ezekiel 28:5



Ver. 5. By thy great wisdom and by thy traffic,.... Or, "by thy great wisdom in thy traffic" {i}; through great skill in trade and commerce:



hast thou increased thy riches; to a very great degree, a prodigious bulk; so antichrist has done, especially through trafficking with the souls of men, which is one part of his merchandise, as it was of Tyre,

Re 18:13:



and thine heart is lifted up because of thy riches; which are apt to puff up and make men highminded, and swell them with a vain opinion of themselves, and to make haughty, insolent, and scornful, in their behaviour to others; thus elated with worldly grandeur and riches, the whore of Rome is represented as proud, vain, and haughty, Re 18:7.



{i} Ktlkrb "in negotione tua", V. L. Pagninus, Starckius; "in mercatura tua", Junius & Tremellius.





Ezekiel 28:6



Ver. 6. Therefore thus saith the Lord God,.... Now follows the punishment threatened, because of all this pride, haughtiness, and blasphemy:



because thou hast set thine heart as the heart of God; seeking thine own glory; setting up thyself above all others; assuming that to thyself which belongs to God; and making thyself equal to him, or showing thyself as if thou wast God; See Gill on "Eze 28:2".





Ezekiel 28:7



Ver. 7. Behold, therefore, I will bring strangers upon thee,.... The Chaldean army, who not only lived at a distance from Tyre, but were unknown to them, not trading with them; nor are they mentioned among the merchants of Tyre: these, in the mystical sense, may design the angels that shall pour out the vials on the antichristian states, the kings of Protestant nations:



the terrible of the nations; as the Babylonians were, very formidable to the world, having conquered many countries, and their armies consisting of men of all nations, mighty, courageous, and expert in war; and alike formidable will the Protestant princes be to the antichristian powers, when they shall with their united strength attack them:



and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of thy wisdom; their beautiful city and spacious buildings, the palaces of their king and nobles, their walls and towers erected with so much art and skill; or their forces, the men of war within their city, which made their beauty complete, so well skilled in military affairs, Eze 27:10, or their ships, and the merchandise of them, and the curious things brought in them: even everything that was rich and valuable, the effect of their art and wisdom: all which may be applied to the city of Rome, when it will be taken, ransacked, and burnt, Re 18:8:



and they shall defile thy brightness; profane thy crown, cast down thy throne, destroy thy kingdom, and all that is great and glorious in thee; thus the whore of Rome shall be made bare and desolate,

Re 17:16. The Targum renders it,



"the brightness of thy terror;''



which shall no more strike the nations, or affect them.





Ezekiel 28:8



Ver. 8. They shall bring thee down to the pit,.... Or, "to corruption" {k}; to the grave, the pit of corruption and destruction; so antichrist shall go into perdition, into the bottomless pit from whence he came,

Re 17:8:



and thou shalt die the deaths of them that are slain in the midst of the seas; that die in a sea fight, whose carcasses are thrown overboard, and devoured by fishes.



{k} txvl "ad corruptionem".





Ezekiel 28:9



Ver. 9. Wilt thou yet say before him that slayeth thee, I am God?.... When thou art in the enemies' hands, and just going to be put to death, wilt thou then confidently assert thy deity, and to his face tell him that thou art God? surely thy courage and thy confidence, thy blasphemy and impiety, will leave thee then; a bitter sarcasm this! and so the pope of Rome, the antichristian beast, when taken, and just going to be cast into the lake of fire along with the false prophet, will not have the impudence to style himself God, or to call himself Christ's vicar on earth:



but thou shalt be a man, and no god, in the hand of him that slayeth thee; that is, thou shalt appear to be a poor, weak, frail, mortal, trembling, dying man, when got into the hand of the enemy, and he is just going to put an end to thy life; where will be then thy boasted deity?





Ezekiel 28:10



Ver. 10. Thou shalt die the deaths of the uncircumcised,.... Or the death of the wicked, as the Targum; the first and second death, temporal and eternal: the former



by the hand of strangers, the Chaldeans, in various shapes; and the latter will follow upon it: it may denote the various kinds of death which the inhabitants of Rome will die when destroyed, some by famine, some by pestilence, and others by fire; when these plagues shall come upon her in one day, Re 18:8.



for I have spoken it, saith the Lord God; and therefore it shall surely come to pass; strong is the Lord that will judge, condemn, and destroy mystical Babylon, or Tyre.





Ezekiel 28:11



Ver. 11. Moreover the word of the Lord came unto me,.... After the prophecy concerning the ruin of the prince of Tyre, the word of the Lord came to the prophet, ordering him to take up a lamentation on the king of Tyre:



saying; as follows:





Ezekiel 28:12



Ver. 12. Take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus,.... Who is before called the prince of Tyre; and who he was See Gill on "Eze 28:2", the bishop of Rome was first only a "nagid", a prince, ruler, governor, and leader in the church; afterwards he became a king, a head, even over other kings, princes, and states; perhaps this may also point to his twofold power, secular and ecclesiastical, and so he is represented by two beasts, Re 13:1, here a lamentation or funeral ditty is ordered to be taken up and said for him, to denote his certain destruction and ruin; though some have thought the fall of the angels, and others the fall of Adam, is referred to; several passages are interpreted of Adam in the Talmud {l}:



and say unto him, thus saith the Lord God, thou sealest up the sum; or "pattern" {m}; of everything that is excellent; thou art in all things, consummately so, as that nothing could be added; that is, in his own esteem and account. Junius thinks it refers to the sealing of goods exported, for which a duty was to be paid, without doing which merchandise was not allowed. Antichrist would not suffer any to buy or sell but such as receive his mark or seal on their right hand, or in their forehead, Re 13:16. Cocceius renders it, "the sealer of the measure" {n}; and takes it to be an allusion to the custom of sealing measures, used in buying and selling; and that it respects the man of sin, who takes upon him the power of making rules and canons for faith and practice:



full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty; a most accomplished man for parts and person in his own conceit: antichrist assumes to himself a perfect knowledge of the Scriptures, and sets up himself as an infallible judge of controversies; and glories in the splendour and order of his church, and the government of it.



{l} T. Bab. Bava Bathra, fol. 75. 1. {m} tynbt "exemplar, [sive] specimen", Tigurine version: Castalio. {n} "Signator mensurae", Cocceius, Starckius.







Ezekiel 28:13



Ver. 13. Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God,.... Not only in Eden, but in the garden which was in Eden, and was of the Lord's immediate planting; and therefore called the garden of God, as well as because of its excellency, fragrancy, and delight; not that the king of Tyre was literally there, or ever dwelt in it; but his situation in Tyre was as safe, and as pleasant and delightful, as Adam's was in the garden of Eden, at least in his own imagination. So the Targum,



"thou delightest thyself with plenty of all good things and delectable ones, as if thou dwellest in the garden of God;''



in the mystical sense, this designs the church of God, which is an Eden, a garden, a paradise; see So 4:12 and where antichrist first appeared, and took his seat, and seated himself as if he was God, 2Th 2:4:



every precious stone was thy covering; not only the covering of his head, his crown, was decked with jewels and precious stones of all sorts; but his clothes, the covering of his body, were adorned with them. So the Targum,



"all precious stones were set in order upon thy garments.''



Kimchi renders it "thine hedge", or "fence" {o}; and takes it to be an hyperbole, as if his house, or garden, or vineyard, were fenced with precious stones. This fitly describes the whore of Rome arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones,

Re 17:4. The pope's triple crown is stuck with them, and a cross of precious stones is upon his slipper, when he holds out his toe to be kissed:



the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold. Writers differ very much about these stones; and it is difficult to say what answer to the Hebrew words here used. The stone "sardius", or the sardine stone, is of a blood colour, commonly called a cornelian, and is found in Sardis and Sardinia, from whence some say it has its name. The "topaz" is a hard transparent stone, said to be of a beautiful yellow or gold colour by those who confound it with the chrysolite; otherwise the true topaz is of a fine green colour, as Pliny {p} and Isidore {q}; the best is what is found in Ethopia, Job 28:19. The "diamond" is a precious stone, the first in rank, value, hardness and lustre; the most perfect colour is the white. The "beryl" is a stone of a pale green colour, thought to be the diamond of the ancients: the word is "tarshish", and thought by some the "chrysolite". The "onyx" resembles a man's nail, from whence it has its name: the word "shoham" here used is supposed to mean the "sardonyx", a compound of the "sardian" and "onyx" stones. The "jasper" is a stone of various colours and spots, variegated like a panther; hence the Targum here renders it "pantherin"; the most valuable is the green spotted with red or purple. The "sapphire" is a stone of an azure colour or sky blue, exceeding hard and transparent. The "emerald" is of an exceeding fine green colour, very bright, and clear, and delightful to the eye; but is rather intended by the next word, as the "carbuncle" by this, which is a stone of the ruby kind, and very rare; see Isa 54:12. "Gold" is mentioned along with them, and last of all, as being less valuable; but chiefly because these stones were set in gold, as the Targum paraphrases it; these are nine of the stones which were in the breastplate of the Jewish high priest {r}, whom the king of Tyre might have knowledge of and imitate, as it is certain the pope of Rome does in some things:



the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created; either born into the world; or made a crowned king; against which time, drums, and pipes, and such like instruments of music, were prepared in Tyre, and at them made use of by way of rejoicing: and as this was literally true of the king of Tyre at his coronation, so of the bishop of Rome at his creation and inauguration, which is attended with bells ringing, drums beating, trumpets sounding; and so in mystical Babylon is heard, though the time is coming when it will not be heard, the voice of harpers, musicians, pipers, and trumpeters, Re 18:22.



{o} So R. Sol. Urbin. Ohel Moed, fol. 14. 2. {p} Nat. Hist. l. 38. c. 8. {q} Origin. l. 16. c. 7. {r} Vid. Braunium de Vestitu Sacerdot. Heb. l. 2. c. 12-19.







Ezekiel 28:14



Ver. 14. Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth,.... In allusion to the cherubim over the mercy seat, which covered it with their wings; and which, as the ark of the testimony and all the vessels of the tabernacle were anointed, were so likewise; in all probability the king of Tyre is called a "cherub" because of his wisdom and power; "anointed", because of his royal dignity; and "that covereth", because of his office, which was to protect his people; all which he either was, or ought to be, or was in his own opinion so: antichrist makes great boasts of his wisdom, power, and authority, as a teacher, pastor, or bishop, the cherubim being symbolical of the ministers of the word; and of his being anointed by men, that he may be the cover and shield of the church; and of his being the Lord's anointed, and the vicar of Christ, and head and protector of the church, as he calls himself {s}. The Targum understands all this of regal power, and renders it,



"thou art a king anointed for a kingdom:''



and I have set thee so; from whom all kings have their sceptres, crowns, and kingdoms; and by whom they reign; and who can put them down as well as set them up at his pleasure. It may be rendered, "I have given thee" {t}; or suffered thee to be so, as the word "give" is often used; it is by divine permission that antichrist has taken such power to himself, and in judgment to them over whom he rules, who are given up to believe a lie; yea, God "put", or, as it is in the original text, "gave" it into the hearts of the kings to agree and give their kingdom to the beast, Re 17:17:



thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; not on Sinai, nor on Zion; on neither of which was the king of Tyre; nor was this literally true of him; for to say, as Kimchi does to illustrate it, that Hiram king of Tyre assisted Solomon with materials to build the temple, is very foreign; but this is true of the antitype of the king of Tyre, antichrist; who has set his foot on God's holy mountain the church; here he first appeared and stood, as before observed on the preceding verse:



thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire; which some understand of the precious stones with which the king of Tyre was adorned, which glittered like fire; though rather they design the people of God, those living lively stones of which the spiritual house is built; who, for their clear light, and burning zeal and love, may be said to be as stones of fire; and among these the bishop of Rome, or the antichristian king of Tyre, first walked: so Kimchi interprets them of the Israelites, who were a holy people; and Jarchi of the kings of Israel, who were as the ministering angels; the seraphim perhaps he means, so called from their burning and flaming love. The Targum is,



"and over the holy people thou hast thought to rule.''



{s} Vid. Gurtler. Voc. Typic. Prophet. Explicat. p. 238. {t} Kyttn "et dedi te", Montanus.







Ezekiel 28:15



Ver. 15. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created,.... From the time that Tyre became a kingdom, or this king was set over it, everything was wisely conducted, and all things happily succeeded; so when the church of Rome was first formed in the times of the apostles, it was laid on a good foundation; it was set up according to the rule of the word; its bishop or pastor was one of a sound judgment, a good life and conversation, and so continued In succession for a considerable time; these held the true faith and doctrine of Christ, and kept it incorrupt, and lived holy lives:



till iniquity was found in thee; pride, blasphemy against God, and contempt of his people, as well as violence and deceit; all this was found in the king of Tyre in later times: so in the church of Rome, when the man of sin was revealed, there were pride, haughtiness, and ambition, found in it; blasphemy against God and Christ, and the saints: false doctrine, false worship, superstition, and idolatry.





Ezekiel 28:16



Ver. 16. By the multitude of thy merchandise,.... With the several nations of the earth, who came to the markets and fairs of Tyre, and to whom she sent her goods:



they have filled the midst of thee with violence; or, as the Targum,



"thy treasures are filled with rapine;''



with ill gotten goods, as the pope's coffers are through his merchandise of the souls of men, and the great trade that is driven in pardons and indulgences:



and thou hast sinned; by this unjust and ungodly way of dealing:



therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God; Mount Zion, the church of the living God, where he dwells, and is worshipped, and on which the Lamb stands with his hundred and forty and four thousand, having his name and his Father's on their foreheads,

Re 14:1, these will have no communion with the church and pope of Rome; will not receive his mark, nor worship his image; from this mountain, and the inhabitants of it, he stands excluded as a profane person, with whom they will have nothing to do; and hence he persecutes them to the utmost of his power:



and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire; from among the people of God, who have the clear light of the Gospel, and a sincere love for Christ; these withdrew themselves from his jurisdiction and government; and with whom his name, power, and authority perish, especially when they shall have got the victory over him, Re 15:1. Kimchi paraphrases it,



"from the midst of the saints who are the Israelites, comparable to stones of fire;''



and Jarchi's note is,



"that thou mayest not take a portion with the righteous;''



have no part, lot, or fellowship with them. The Targum is,



"I will destroy thee, O king that art anointed, because thou thoughtest to rule over the holy people.''







Ezekiel 28:17



Ver. 17. Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty,.... Riches, wealth, power, and authority; see Eze 28:5, as the pope of Rome is, because of his dignity, the pomp and splendour of the Roman church, and the gaudy appearance it makes:



thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness; outward lustre and glory, which dazzled his eyes so that he could not see things in a true light; but neglecting the word of God, and setting up his own infallibility, corrupted his doctrine and worship, and became foolish, stupid, and sottish:



I will cast thee to the ground; from the throne and pinnacle of honour, to the lowest state and condition:



and I will lay thee before kings: prostrate at the feet of them, who heretofore has set his feet on the necks of them; or he shall fall before them, and be destroyed by them, when they shall hate the whore, and make her desolate, and burn her flesh with fire, Re 17:16: that they may behold thee; with contempt and disdain, and as an instance and example of divine vengeance.





Ezekiel 28:18



Ver. 18. Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities,.... Or, "thy palaces", as Kimchi; the palace of the king, and the palaces of the nobles, where much iniquity was committed, and which was the cause of their being defiled or destroyed by the Chaldeans; or it may design their sacred places, their temples, where their gods were worshipped, and idolatry committed. This may be applied to the places of religious worship among the Papists, their churches; which, instead of being adorned, are defiled with their images and image worship, and other acts of superstition and will worship:



by the iniquity of thy traffic; as by bringing in ill gotten goods into the sacred places of Tyre, as they were accounted, so by selling pardons; praying souls out of purgatory for money; by simony, or buying and selling ecclesiastical benefices; and such like spiritual merchandise in Roman churches:



therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee; sin, and the punishment of it, as Kimchi; which, for sin committed in the midst of them, should consume as fire; or some from among themselves, that should stir up and cause internal divisions, which should issue in their ruin; as the unclean spirit that shall go out of the mouth of the beast, dragon, and false prophet, to gather the antichristian kings to battle, will end in their ruin, Re 16:14. The Targum is,



"I will bring people who are strong as fire, because of the sins of thy pride they shall destroy thee.''



Alexander, when he took Tyre, ordered all the inhabitants to be slain, excepting those that fled to the temples, and the houses to be set on fire {u}; which literally fulfilled this prophecy; and which may also have respect to the destruction of Rome by fire, because of the sins committed in it, Re 18:8:



and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth, in the sight of all them that behold thee; the kings and merchants of the earth, who shall stand and look on the city as it is burning, and when reduced to ashes; which denotes the utter destruction of it, Re 18:9. The Targum is,



"I will give thee as ashes on the earth, &c.'



and shall be no more accounted of.



{u} Curtius, Hist. l. 4. c. 4. p. 75.







Ezekiel 28:19



Ver. 19. All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee,.... At thy fall; that such a mighty city, and powerful prince, should be destroyed at once; that, from such a height of prosperity, they should be brought to so low an estate of adversity; this will be the astonishment of kings, merchants, and others, that knew the riches, power, and flourishing estate of Rome, as before observed:



thou shalt be a terror; to the said persons, who will be afraid to come nigh for fear of the same torments and punishment, Re 18:10, or, though thou "hast been a terror"; or "terrors"; exceeding terrible to others in time past, yet now, as the Targum,



"I will give thee (or make thee) as if thou wast not:''



and never shalt thou be any more; as thou hast been, or after thy last destruction; so mystical Tyre or Babylon shall be no more, when once destroyed, Re 18:21.







Ezekiel 28:20



Ver. 20. Again, the word of the Lord came unto me,.... After the prophecy of the destruction of the prince and king of Tyre, concerning a neighbouring city:



saying as follows:





Ezekiel 28:21



Ver. 21. Son of man, set thy face against Zidon,.... An ancient city, near to Tyre, and in confederacy with it, greatly given to idolatry and superstition; and may design all the antichristian states in the communion of the church of Rome:



and prophesy against it; the prophet is bid to look towards this place with a stern countenance, as before against Tyre; threatening it with ruin, and prophesying of it, in the following manner.





Ezekiel 28:22



Ver. 22 And say, thus saith the Lord God,.... The eternal Jehovah, the only true God, the Maker of heaven and earth; this is said by way of preface to the prophecy, and to assure of the fulfilment of it, as well as in opposition to the gods of the Zidonians:



behold, I am against thee, O Zidon; angry with thee, and will come out against thee in my wrath, because of thine idolatries and impieties. The Targum is,



"behold, I send my fury upon thee, O Zidon:''



I will be glorified in the midst of thee; not by the conversion of them; nor by acts of religious worship truly performed by them: by prayer, confession of sin, or thanksgiving; but by his judgments executed in the midst of them; by pouring out the vials of his wrath on them, as it follows:



and they shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall have executed judgments in her; for the Lord is known, by the judgments he executes, to be that pure, holy, just, and sin avenging God he is, as well as omniscient and omnipotent; and this even Heathens and antichristian persons are obliged to acknowledge, Ps 9:15:



and shall be sanctified in her; that is, shall appear, be declared and owned, to be a God, just and holy, in all his ways and works.





Ezekiel 28:23



Ver. 23. And I will send into her pestilence, and blood into her streets,.... The plague and the sword, which are two of God's sore judgments, and often go together; the pestilence slays them that are within, and the sword those the enemy meets with in the streets:



and the wounded shall be judged; that is, punished; or "shall fall" {w}, die and perish:



in the midst of her by the sword upon her on every side; this was literally fulfilled in Zidon, either by Nebuchadnezzar and the Chaldean army, which besieged it on every side; or by Artaxerxes Ochus the Persian, who took it, and destroyed it; and will have its accomplishment on the antichristian states, eastern and western, when the vials shall be poured out upon them, Re 16:1:



and they shall know that I am the Lord God; who am able to foretell things to come, and to accomplish them.



{w} llpn pesountai, Sept.; "corruent", Pagninus, Vatablus; "cadet", Montanus; so Kimchi and Ben Melech; and which is approved of by Gussetius.







Ezekiel 28:24



Ver. 24. And there shall be no more a pricking brier to the house of Israel,.... To the church of God, Jews or Gentiles, particularly to the Jews, who will now be converted; all the enemies of Christ and his people will now be destroyed, who have been very grievous and distressing to them by their furious persecutions; the pope and Turk will be no more, nor any of the antichristian powers; the beast and false prophet will be taken and cast into the lake of fire; and there will be none to hurt and destroy in all the holy mountain,

Re 19:20:



nor any grieving thorn of all that are round about them that despised them; the same thing in other words as before; wicked men, especially tyrannical princes, furious persecutors of the saints, are like thorns and briers, not only unfruitful, useless, and unprofitable, but pricking, grieving, and hurtful to good men, by their persecutions, revilings, and reproaches, and whose end is to be burned. The Targum of the whole is,



"and there shall be no more to the house of Israel a king that doth evil (or hurt), or a governor that oppresses all round about them that spoil them:''



and they shall know that I am the Lord; the house of Israel, the Jews now converted, they shall know the Lord Christ, and acknowledge him to be their Lord and King.







Ezekiel 28:25



Ver. 25. Thus saith the Lord God, when I shall have gathered the house of Israel,.... Not at the return of them from captivity in Babylon; for the ten tribes or house of Israel did not then return; though there might some few of those tribes, as a pledge of what would be hereafter; but in the latter day, upon the destruction of antichrist, when all Israel shall be saved: and when they will be collected



from the people among whom they are scattered; in the several nations of the world, in Asia, Africa, and Europe:



and shall be sanctified in them in the sight of the Heathen; being believed in by them; prayed unto and worshipped in a spiritual manner by them; professed and owned to be their Saviour and Redeemer in the face of the whole world, Christians and even Heathens, whom before they rejected: then shall they dwell in their land that I have given to my servant Jacob; the land of Canaan, given by promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; which last is only here mentioned, because it was his posterity that was to possess it; not all Abraham's, only those in the line of Isaac; nor all Isaac's, only those in the line of Jacob; but all his; and this they will do when they are converted in the latter day, and be no more a vagabond people, as they now are.





Ezekiel 28:26



Ver. 26. And they shall dwell safely therein,.... There being none to make them afraid, all their enemies being destroyed, and they also under the protection of Christian princes:



and they shall build houses and plant vineyards; signifying their continuance in their land, and their enjoyment of the blessings of it. Cocceius understands this of churches gathered in the name of Christ; of which no doubt there will be many in Judea, as in the first times of the Gospel, and more abundantly:



yea, they shall dwell with confidence: in the utmost safety and security, having nothing to fear from any quarter:



when I have executed judgment upon all those that despise them round about them; took vengeance on them, and utterly destroyed them that despised or spoiled them, even all around them; they will all be cut off, so that there will be none to give them the least disturbance:



and they shall know that I am the Lord their God: not only God, as before, Eze 28:24, but their God, their Lord and their God, their Redeemer and Saviour, whom they formerly denied, persecuted, and pierced.

 

John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible.

Ezekiel 29:1



INTRODUCTION TO EZEKIEL 29



This chapter contains a prophecy against Pharaoh king of Egypt; and of the destruction of the land of Egypt; and of the restoration of it after a certain time. The time of prophecy is noted, Eze 29:1, the order to prophesy against Pharaoh, who is described as a large fish, lying in his rivers, and boasting of them, Eze 29:2, his destruction and the manner of it, Eze 29:4, the reason of it, his treachery to the Jews,

Eze 29:6, hence the whole land of Egypt is threatened with desolation, from one end to the other, so as to be uninhabited by man or beast for the space of forty years, Eze 29:8, but shall not arrive to their former glory as a kingdom, nor be any more the confidence of the house of Israel, Eze 29:15, then follows a prophecy seventeen years after this, showing the reason why Egypt was given to the king of Babylon, Eze 29:17, and the chapter is closed with a promise of happiness to Israel, Eze 29:21.



Ver. 1. In the tenth year, in the tenth month, in the twelfth day of the month,.... In the tenth year Jeconiah's captivity, and Zedekiah's reign. The Septuagint version has it, the twelfth year; and the Arabic version, the twelfth month; and the Septuagint version again, the first day of the month; and the Vulgate Latin, the eleventh day of it. This month was the month Tebet, and answers to part of December, and part of January. This prophecy was delivered before that concerning Tyre, though placed after it, because fulfilled after it, which gave Nebuchadnezzar Egypt as a reward for besieging and taking Tyre:



the word of the Lord came unto me, saying; as follows.







Ezekiel 29:2



Ver. 2. Son of man, set thy face against Pharaoh king of Egypt,.... Pharaoh was a name common to all the kings of Egypt; the name of this king was Pharaohhophra, Jer 44:30, and who, by Herodotus {x}, is called Apries:



and prophesy against him, and against all Egypt; prophesy of his destruction, and of the destruction of the whole land that is under his dominion.



{x} Euterpe, sive l. 2. c. 161.





Ezekiel 29:3



Ver. 3. Speak, and say, thus saith the Lord God,.... The one only, living, and true God, the almighty, eternal, and unchangeable Jehovah, which the gods of Egypt were not:



behold, I am against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt; who, though so great a king, was not a match for God, yea, nothing in his hands; nor could he stand before him, or contend with him; or,



I am above thee {y}; though the king of Egypt was so high above others, and thought so highly of himself, as if he was a god; yet the Lord was higher than he:



the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers; the chief river of Egypt was the Nile, which opened in seven mouths or gates into the sea, and out of which canals were made to water the whole land; and which abounding with rivers and watery places, hence the king of it is compared to a great fish, a dragon or whale, or rather a crocodile, which was a fish very common, and almost peculiar to Egypt; and with which the description here agrees, as Bochart observes; and who also remarks that Pharaoh in the Arabic language signifies a crocodile; and to which he may be compared for his cruel, voracious, and mischievous nature; and is here represented as lying at ease, and rolling himself in the enjoyment of his power, riches, and pleasures:



which hath said, my river is mine own, and I have made it for myself; alluding to the river Nile, which his predecessors had by their wisdom cut out into canals, for the better watering of the land; and which he might have improved, so that it stood in no need of rain, nor of the supplies of other countries, having a sufficiency from its own product; though he chiefly designs his kingdom, which was his own, and he had established it, and made himself great in it; for the last clause may be rendered, either, "I have made it", as the Syriac version, the river Nile, ascribing that to himself which belonged to God; or, "I have made them", the rivers among whom he lay, as the Septuagint and Arabic versions; or, "I have made myself", as the Vulgate Latin version; that is, a great king. So the Targum,



"the kingdom is mine, and I have subdued it.''



Herodotus says of this king, that he was so lifted up with pride, and so secure of his happy state, that he said there was no God could deprive him of his kingdom {z}. This proud tyrannical monarch was an emblem of that beast that received his power from the dragon, and who himself spake like one; of the whore of Babylon that sits upon many waters, and boasts of her sovereignty and power, of her wealth and riches, of her ease, peace, pleasure, prosperity, and settled estate,

Re 13:2.



{y} Kyle "super te", Montanus. {z} Herodot. Euterpe, sive l. 2. c. 169. & l. 11. c. 163.







Ezekiel 29:4



Ver. 4. But I will put hooks in thy jaws,.... The allusion is to fishhooks, which are taken by fishes with the bait into their mouths, and stick in their jaws, by which they are drawn out of the river, and taken. The king of Egypt being before compared to a fish, these hooks design some powerful princes and armies, which should be the ruin of Pharaoh; one of them, according to Junius and Grotius, was Amasis, at the head of the Cyreneans and Greeks; and another was Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon; see Job 41:1:



and I will cause the fish of thy rivers to stick unto thy scales; the people of his kingdom, especially his soldiers, generals, princes, and great men, to cleave to him, follow him, and go out with him in his expedition against Amasis. The Targum is,



"I will kill the princes of thy strength with thy mighty ones:''



and I will bring thee up out of the midst of thy rivers: alluding to the crocodile, to which he is compared, which sometimes comes out of the river, and goes on dry land. The king of Egypt was brought out of his kingdom by the following means: Amasis, with the Cyreneans and Greeks, having seized upon Lybia, and drove the king of it from thence, he applied to Pharaoh for help, who gathered a large army of Egyptians, and led them out into the fields of Cyrene, where they were defeated by Amasis, and almost all perished, and the king saved himself by flight; upon which the Egyptians mutinied and rebelled against him, and Amasis became their king:



and all the fish of thy rivers shall stick unto thy scales; the common people of Egypt; for the above numerous army consisted only of Egyptians, whom he gathered from all parts, drained his rivers of them, and almost exhausted his country hereby; he had indeed in an army, after this battle with Amasis, thirty thousand auxiliaries, Carians and Ionians; but these were not the fish of his rivers. The Targum is,



"I will make thy kingdom to cease from thee, and all the princes of thy strength with thy mighty ones shall be killed;''



with which the history agrees. The allusion to the crocodile is here very just and pertinent, which is a fish full of scales. Monsieur Thevenot {a}, who saw many of them, says, that



"the body of this fish is large, and all of a size; the back is covered with high scales, like the heads of nails in a court gate, of a greenish colour, and so hard that they are proof against a halberd; and it has a long tail covered with scales like the body;''



and another traveller says {b} they have scales on their back musket proof, and therefore must be wounded in the belly; but another traveller {c} says, this is a vulgar report that a musket shot will not pierce the skins of the crocodiles, for upon trial it is found false; yet all writers, ancient and modern, allow it to have very firm scales on its back, which render it capable of bearing the heaviest strokes, and to be in a measure impenetrable and invincible; so Herodotus {d} says, it has a skin full of scales, on the back infrangible; or, as Pliny {e} expresses it, invincible against all blows and strokes it may be stricken with; and so says Aristotle {f}, with which Aelian {g} agrees, who says that the crocodile has by nature a back and tail impenetrable; for it is covered with scales, as if it was armed as one might say, not unlike to hard shells.



{a} Travels, par. 1. B. 2. c. 72. p. 245. {b} Mandelsloe in Harris's Voyages, &c. vol. 1. p. 759. {c} Tavernier in ib. p. 835. {d} Euterpe, sive l. 2. c. 63. {e} Nat. Hist. l. 8. c. 25. {f} Hist. Animal: l. 2. c. 10. {g} De Animal. l. 10. c. 24.







Ezekiel 29:5



Ver. 5. And I will leave thee thrown into the wilderness, thee, and all the fish of thy rivers,.... Where fish in common cannot live, but die as soon almost as out of the water, and on dry land, excepting those that are of the amphibious kind. This wilderness designs the deserts of Lybia and Cyrene, where the battle was fought between Hophra and Amasis; and where the Egyptian army perished, only their king, before compared to a crocodile, which lives on land, as well as in water, escaped. The Targum is,



"I will cast thee into a wilderness, and all the princes of thy strength:''



thou shalt fall upon the open fields thou shalt not be brought together, nor gathered, this is to he understood of his army; for what is proper to an army is sometimes ascribed to the head or general of it; which fell by the sword in the fields of Lybia and Cyrene and was so discomfited, that the remains of it could not be brought and gathered together again: or the sense is, that those that were slain were left in the open fields, and had no burial; they were not gathered to the grave, as Kimchi interprets it; and so the Targum,



"upon the face of the field thy carcass shall be cast; it shall not be gathered, nor shall it be buried:''



this was only true of the carcasses of the soldiers slain in battle, not of the king, who fled, and afterwards in another battle was taken by Amasis, and strangled in the city of Sais, where he was buried among his ancestors, as Herodotus {h} relates:



I have given thee for meat to the beasts of the field and to the fowls of the heaven; that is, his army; as the armies of the kings, beast, and false prophet, will be at the battle of Armageddon, when the two latter will be taken and cast alive into the burning lake, of which this monarch was an emblem, Re 19:17.



{h} Euterpe, sive l. 2. c. 169.





Ezekiel 29:6



Ver. 6. And all the inhabitants of Egypt shall know that I am the Lord,.... Who could eject their king from his kingdom, and deliver him into the hands of his enemy; though he thought no God could, as he boastingly said, before observed:



because they have been a staff of reed to the house of Israel; alluding to the country of Egypt, which abounded with reeds that grew upon the banks of the river Nile, and other rivers. This signifies that either the Egyptians were weak, and could not help the people of Israel when they applied to them; or rather that they were treacherous and deceitful, and would not assist them, according to agreement; and were even pernicious and hurtful to them, as a broken reed; see Isa 36:6. The Targum renders it,



"the staff of a reed broken.''





Ezekiel 29:7



Ver. 7. When they took hold of thee by thy hand,.... When the Israelites entered into an alliance and confederacy with the Egyptians, called for their assistance according to treaty, and put their confidence in them:



thou didst break and rend all their shoulder; as a reed which a man puts under his armhole, and leans upon, and it breaks under him, the splinters run into the flesh up to the very shoulder, and tear the flesh to pieces; so, through Zedekiah's trusting to the king of Egypt, he rebelled against the king of Babylon, which brought on his ruin, and the destruction of his kingdom:



and when they leaned upon thee thou brakest, and madest all their loins to be at a stand; when they put their confidence in the king of Egypt, and sent to him for help when besieged by the king of Babylon, and he failed them, they were obliged to raise up themselves, as a man is forced to do when his staff breaks under him, whose loins before were bowed, but now erects himself, and stands and walks as well as he can without it; so the Jews were forced to stand upon their own legs, and exert all the force they had, and make all the efforts they could against the king of Babylon, being left in the lurch by the king of Egypt; in which, though they were rightly served for their vain confidence and not trusting in the Lord, yet the treachery of the Egyptians was resented by him, as follows:







Ezekiel 29:8



Ver. 8. Therefore thus saith the Lord God,.... Because of the pride of the king of Egypt, asserting the river to be his own, and made by him for himself; and because of his perfidy to the house of Israel:



behold, I will bring a sword upon thee; or those that kill with the sword, as the Targum; first a cival war, occasioned by the murmurs of the people, on account of the defeat of their army at Cyrene; which issued in the dethroning and strangling of this king, as before observed and setting up another; which cival commotions Nebuchadnezzar took the advantage of, and came against Egypt with a large army:



and cut off man and beast out of thee; for what with the civil wars among themselves, and what with the devastations of the king of Babylon's army, putting men to the sword, and seizing upon the beasts for their food, to support such an army in a foreign land, it was pretty well stripped of both.







Ezekiel 29:9



Ver. 9. And the land of Egypt shall be desolate and waste,.... Men few or none being left in it, to till it, nor cattle found upon it:



and they shall know that I am the Lord; by these judgments executed upon them, now foretold; and which when come to pass, they will be obliged to acknowledge the omniscience and omnipotence of Jehovah:



because thou hast said, the river is mine, and I have made it;

See Gill on "Eze 29:3"; this insolent expression was highly resented by the Lord, as appears by the repetition of it. The Targum is here, as before,



"the kingdom is mine, and I have subdued it;''



but, notwithstanding this vaunt, he could not keep it.





Ezekiel 29:10



Ver. 10. Behold, therefore, I am against thee, and against thy rivers,.... Against the king of Egypt, and against his subjects, the many people he ruled over; as the Lord is against spiritual Egypt, and the head of it, and the antichristian states, signified by many waters, rivers, and fountains; see Re 11:8:



and I will make the land of Egypt utterly waste and desolate; partly by a civil war, and partly by a foreign enemy; especially those parts of it which were the seat of war:



from the tower of Syene even unto the border of Ethiopia; or the tower of Seveneh; according to Herodotus {i}, Syene was a city of Thebais, where he was told were two mountains, which gave rise to the Nile. Pliny {k} says it was six hundred twenty five miles from Alexandria; and it is by him, as well as Strabo {l}, placed under the tropic of Cancer; who both say, in the summer solstice, at noon, no shadow is cast there; to which the poet Lucan {m} refers, It is now called Essuaen; which city, as Mr. Norden {n} says, who lately travelled in those parts, is situated on the eastern shore of the Nile; and he relates that there remain still some marks of the place where the ancient city stood; as to the rest, it is so covered with earth, that there is nothing but rubbish, from which, in some places, one would judge that there were formerly magnificent buildings here. The utter destruction of which, with the rest of Egypt prophesied of, appears to have been fulfilled. This place is famous for being the place of the banishment of Juvenal the poet, where he died, being eighty years of age. The tower of Syene, Jerom says, remained to his days, and was subject to the Roman government, where are the cataracts of the Nile; and to which place, from our sea, he says, the Nile is navigable: but, according to Pliny. {o}, Syene itself was on the border of Ethiopia; and so say Pausanias {p} and Solinus {q}: and, according to Seneca {r}, it was the extreme part of Egypt. So Josephus {s} says the south border of Egypt is Syene, which separates it from Ethiopia; and that between Pelusium (the entrance of Egypt) and Syene are two hundred and fifty miles. It lay between Egypt and Ethiopia, so that it might seem doubtful to which it belonged. It seems better therefore to take "Migdol", rendered a "tower", for the proper name of a place, as the Septuagint do; and such a place there was in Egypt,

Jer 44:1, a town on the Red sea, Ex 14:2, so that the one was on the border of Egypt on one side, and the other on the other: and the words may be rendered {t}, "from Migdol to Syene, even to the border of Ethiopia"; from one end of it to the other: it denotes the utter desolation of the country, from one end to the other. Unless by Cush, rendered "Ethiopia", is meant Arabia, as it often is, and is thought by some to be intended here; which was on the northern border of Egypt, as Syene was, a city in Thebais, near to Ethiopia, on the southern border of it; so that this describes Egypt from south to north; but the former account seems best.



{i} Euterpe, sive l. 2. c. 28. {k} Nat. Hist. l. 2. c. 73. {l} Geograph. l. 2. p. 65, 78. {m} "Umbras nusquan flectente", Syene. Pharsal. l. 2. v. 587. {n} Travels in Egypt and Nubis, vol. 1. p. 143. vol. 2. p. 97, 103. {o} Nat. Hist. l. 5. c. 9. {p} Arcadica, sive l. 8. p. 518. {q} Polyhistor, c. 45. {r} Apud Servium in Virgil. Aeneid. l. 6. p. 1011. {s} De Bello Jud. l. 5. c. 10. sect. 5. {t} See Prideaux's Connexion, part 1. B. 2. p. 93. So the words are rendered by Hillerus, Onomast. Sacr. p. 672. who observes, that Syene is now called by the Arabs "Asuan", from the Ethiopic word "Wasou", which signifies to terminate or finish, this being the border of Ethiopia.







Ezekiel 29:11



Ver. 11. No foot of man shall pass through it,.... This must be understood not strictly, but with some limitation; it cannot be thought that Egypt was so depopulated as that there should not be a single passenger in it; but that there should be few inhabitants in it, or that there should be scarce any that should come into it for traffic; it should not be frequented as it had been at least there should be very few that travelled in it, in comparison of what had:



no foot of beast shall pass through it: no droves of sheep and oxen, and such like useful cattle, only beasts of prey should dwell in it:



neither shall it be inhabited forty years: afterwards, Eze 29:17, a prophecy is given out concerning the destruction of it by Nebuchadnezzar, which was in the twenty seventh year, that is, of Jeconiah's captivity; now allowing three years for the fulfilment of that prophecy, or forty years, a round number put for forty three years, they will end about the time that Cyrus conquered Babylon, at which time the seventy years' captivity of the Jews ended; and very likely the captivity of the Egyptians also. The Jews pretend to give a reason why Egypt lay waste just forty years, because the famine, signified in Pharaoh's dream, was to have lasted, as they make it out, forty two years; whereas, according to them, it continued only two years; and, instead of the other forty years of famine, Egypt must be forty years uninhabited: this is mentioned both by Jarchi and Kimchi.





Ezekiel 29:12



Ver. 12. And I will make the land of Egypt desolate in the midst of the countries that are desolate,.... As Judea and others, made desolate by the king of Babylon:



and her cities among the cities that are laid waste shall be desolate forty years; such as Thebes, Sais, Memphis, and others; which should share the same fate as Jerusalem and other principal cities in other countries, which fell into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar:



and I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and will disperse them through the countries; such as were not carried captive into Babylon fled into other countries, as Arabia, Ethiopia, and other places, Berosus {u} makes mention of this captivity of the Egyptians under Nebuchadnezzar the son, which no other writer does.



{u} Apud Joseph. Antiqu. l. 10. c. 11. sect. 1.







Ezekiel 29:13



Ver. 13. Yet thus saith the Lord God, at the end of forty years,.... Reckoning from its devastation by Nebuchadnezzar to the taking of Babylon by Cyrus:



will I gather the Egyptians from the people whither they were scattered; from Babylon, and other places; Cyrus very probably being stirred up by the Lord to proclaim liberty to the Egyptians, as he did to the Jews, to return to their own land; and at the same time restored Amasis to the quiet possession of his kingdom, who must be still alive; since, according to Diodorus Siculus {w}, he reigned fifty five years; though, according to Herodotus {x}, he reigned but forty four years.



{w} Bibliothec. l. 1. p. 62. Ed. Rhodoman. {x} Thalia, sive l. 3. c. 10.







Ezekiel 29:14



Ver. 14. And I will bring again the captivity of Egypt,.... For what is done by men, under the direction and influence of divine Providence, is said to be done by the Lord, as this was, though by the means of Cyrus:



and will cause them to return into the land of Pathros; which was a part of the land of Egypt; perhaps so called from Pathrusim, the son of Mizraim, from whom Egypt had its name, Ge 10:14. Bochart takes it to be Thebais, a principal country in Egypt:



into the land of their habitation; or nativity, where they were born, and where they before dwelt:



and they shall be there a base kingdom; as it is at this day more especially, to which it has been gradually reduced, having passed into various hands, and come under the power and dominion of different states: whatever might be the case and circumstances of it under Cyrus, Cambyses his son entered into it, made sad devastation in it, and an entire conquest of it; and though it revolted under Darius Hystaspes, it was subdued again, and brought into a worse state than before by Xerxes: it revolted again in the reign of Darius Nothus, and was at last by Ochus totally subdued; and from that time the Egyptians never had a king of their own nation to reign over them. Along with the Persian empire it came into the hands of Alexander without any opposition; and, after his death, fell to the share of Ptolemy, one of his captains; and, though some of the first kings of that name were of considerable note and power, yet Egypt made a poor figure under the reigns of several of them. When the Roman empire obtained, it became a province of that, and continued so for six or seven hundred years; and then it fell into the hands of the Saracens, when it sunk into ignorance and superstition, the Mahometan religion being established in it, with whom it continued until about the year of Christ 1250; when the Mamalucks, or Turkish and Carcassian slaves, rose up against their sovereigns, the sultans of Egypt, and usurped the government, in whose hands it was until the year 1517; when Selim the ninth, emperor of the Turks, conquered the Mamalucks, and put an end to their government, and annexed it to the Ottoman empire; of which it is a province to this day {x}, being governed by a Turkish basha, with twenty four begs or princes under him, who are raised, from being servants, to the administration of public affairs; and so it is become a base kingdom indeed, if to be called one {y}.



{x} Written about 1730. Editor. {y} See all this at large, with the proofs of it, in Dr. Newton's Dissertations on Prophecies, from p. 382. to 394.







Ezekiel 29:15



Ver. 15. And it shall be the basest of the kingdoms,.... That belonged to the Persian monarchy, or to the Macedonian empire, being more kept under than the rest, lest it should regain its former strength and glory; though it became more famous in the times of some of the Ptolemies, yet never recovered its former greatness; and is now exceeding base indeed, as appears from the preceding note:



neither shall it exalt itself any more above the nations; so as to conquer them, and make them tributary to it, as it had done:



for I will demolish them, that they shall no more rule over the nations; for though they made war upon other nations in the time of the Lagidae, yet they did not subdue them, and annex them to their kingdom, being much weakened both as to men and money.





Ezekiel 29:16



Ver. 16. And it shall be no more the confidence of the house of Israel,.... It having been treacherous to them, and moreover subdued by the Chaldeans, the Jews, even after their return from captivity, put no more confidence in them; it being now become as it is here prophesied it would, the basest of the kingdoms, more weak, and in a more abject state, than the rest, and so despised by its neighbours, as it was by the Jews:



which bringeth their iniquity to remembrance, when they shall look after them; as they had done in time past, when they looked after them for help, and expected it from them, and trusted in them, and served their idols; which brought to the Lord's remembrance former iniquities and idolatries, for which he punished them; but now they should do so no more:



but they shall know that I am the Lord God; not the Egyptians, but the Israelites; who being returned from captivity, shall acknowledge and serve the only true God, and no more worship the idols of the nations.





Ezekiel 29:17



Ver. 17. And it came to pass in the seven and twentieth year,.... Of Jeconiah's captivity; or of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, as Jarchi, Kimchi, and Abendana, from Seder Olam Rabba {z}, observe; though it was in the thirty fifth year of his reign that Tyre was taken by him; and after that Egypt was given him:



in the first month, in the first day of the month: the month Nisan, which answers to part of March, and part of April. According to Bishop Usher {a}, it was on the twentieth of April, on the third day of the week (Tuesday), in 3432 A.M.or before Christ 572. Mr. Whiston {b} makes it to be a year sooner. This prophecy is not put in its proper place, as to order of time, since it was sixteen or seventeen years after the preceding, and the last of Ezekiel's prophecies; but is here placed, because it relates to the same subject as the former, the destruction of Egypt.



The word of the Lord came unto me, saying; as follows:



{z} C. 26. p. 77. {a} Annales Vet. Test. A. M. 3432. {b} Chronological Tables, cent. 10.







Ezekiel 29:18



Ver. 18. Son of man, Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon,.... The same with Nebuchadnezzar; he goes by both names in Scripture, nor is the difference very great:



caused his army to serve a great service against Tyrus; in besieging it thirteen years {c} before he was able to take it; during which time his army suffered much hardship, was greatly fatigued and wearied, by the various military works they were engaged in, to carry on the siege so long a time:



every head was made bald, and every shoulder was peeled: the heads of the soldiers became bald with wearing their helmets so long, or carrying baskets of earth and timber upon them, to make mounts with; and the skin of their shoulders was peeled off, either with their armour, or by carrying burdens on them for the above purpose; or, as Jerom says, from the Assyrian annals, to make a causeway to join the island to the continent, that so they might come at it with their battering rams, and demolish it:



yet hath he no wages; nor his army, for Tyrus; for besieging it; for, as the same Jerom observes when the Tyrians found that the city was like to be taken by him, their gold and silver, and whatsoever was valuable that was with them, they put on and sent it to other islands; or, as others say, that when Tyre on the continent, which was what Nebuchadnezzar besieged, was about to be taken, the inhabitants transplanted their riches to the island at some distance, where new Tyre was afterwards built; however, what with the consumption of their riches during this thirteen years' siege, and the removing their effects to other places before the taking of the city there was scarce anything left for the plunder of king of Babylon's army, so that he and that had nothing to requite them:



for the service that he had served against it: it must have cost him a great deal of money to support such a numerous army for so long a time, as well as the siege was very toilsome and laborious; and yet, when the city was taken, there was nothing found in it to answer this expense and labour.



{c} Hist. Physic. spud Joseph. adv. Aplon, l. 1. c. 21.





Ezekiel 29:19



Ver. 19. Therefore thus saith the Lord God,.... Since this was the case, that the king of Babylon had been working for nothing, and had spent much blood and treasure, as well as time, to little purpose and advantage to himself;



behold, I will give the land of Egypt to Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon; which will make him a sufficient recompence for his loss of time, men, and money, before Tyre; and though the conquest of Egypt was made easy to him, by the internal divisions and wars which were among the Egyptians; yet these were suffered, and ordered by the providence of God, to bring about this his will, by way of righteous punishment of the Egyptians, for their treachery to his people, and other sins:



and he shall take her multitude, of soldiers, and of inhabitants, and carry them captive:



and take her spoil, and take her prey; that which the Egyptians had spoiled other nations of and made a prey of that should now become the spoil and prey of the Chaldeans:



and it shall be the wages for his army; with this the king of Babylon would be able to pay off the arrears of his army; which had lain so long against Tyre; or this would be a recompence to them for all the hardships they there sustained.







Ezekiel 29:20



Ver. 20. I have given him the land of Egypt for labour wherewith he served against it, That is, against Tyre; meaning not Nebuchadnezzar merely or only, but his army also, who did the main of the service and labour, and had the plunder of the country for it; though the kingdom itself was given to their king, and annexed to his monarchy:



because they wrought for me, saith the Lord God; not intentionally, but eventually; they did not design to do any service for God; they only sought to serve themselves with the riches and wealth of those they subdued; and yet while they besieged Tyre, and when they took it, and while they were ravaging, plundering, and subduing Egypt, they were doing the Lord's will and work, and executing his righteous judgments on these enemies of his for their sins; wherefore he rewarded them sufficiently: none ever are employed by him but he gives them their wages; even though they are wicked and ungodly men, verily they have their reward.







Ezekiel 29:21



Ver. 21. In that day will I cause the horn of the house of Israel to bud forth,.... Not at the time of Egypt's destruction, unless it can be thought that this refers to the advancement of Daniel in the court of Babylon; or to the taking of Jehoiachin out of prison, and setting his throne above the rest of the kings; which events came to pass a little after this: but rather this respects the time of Egypt's restoration forty years after, when Cyrus came to the throne, and proclaimed liberty to the Jews to return to their own land, and build their city and temple, under the government of Zerubbabel their prince: besides, it may not be limited to either of these times, but may regard the famous day, when the kingdom of Israel, in a spiritual sense, should flourish under the Messiah, the Horn of salvation, and Branch of David, often promised to bud forth, and was fulfilled in Jesus,

Ps 132:17. The Targum is,



"in that day will I bring redemption to the house of Israel.''



And I will give thee the opening of the mouth in the midst of them; in prophecy among them, as the Targum; who after this, might deliver other prophecies, though we have no account of them; or he should have boldness and courage when he and they should see his prophecies fulfilled, by which it would appear that he was a true prophet of the Lord:



and they shall know that I am the Lord; who sent the prophet, and from whom he had these prophecies, and by whom they were fulfilled.

 

John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible.

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