16 Then all the rulers of the sea will come down from their high seats, and put away their robes and take off their clothing of needlework: they will put on the clothing of grief, they will take their seats on the earth, shaking with fear every minute and overcome with wonder at you.
And I will make a number of peoples overcome with wonder at you, and their kings will be full of fear because of you, when my sword is waved before them: they will be shaking every minute, every man fearing for his life, in the day of your fall.
And the word came to the king of Nineveh, and he got up from his seat of authority, and took off his robe, and covering himself with haircloth, took his seat in the dust.
Your haters will be clothed with shame, and the tent of the sinner will not be seen again.
And in the same way, let the younger men be ruled by the older ones. Let all of you put away pride and make yourselves ready to be servants: for God is a hater of pride, but he gives grace to those who make themselves low.
Let all those who take pleasure in my troubles be shamed and come to nothing: let those who are lifted up against me be covered with shame and have no honour.
Now, in a little time, I will let loose my passion on you, and give full effect to my wrath against you, judging you for your ways, and sending punishment on you for all your disgusting works.
And the traders of the earth are weeping and crying over her, because no man has any more desire for their goods, Gold, and silver, and stones of great price, and jewels, and delicate linen, and robes of purple and silk and red; and perfumed wood, and every vessel of ivory, and every vessel made of fair wood, and of brass, and iron, and stone; And sweet-smelling plants, and perfumes, and wine, and oil, and well crushed grain, and cattle and sheep; and horses and carriages and servants; and souls of men. And the fruit of your soul's desire has gone from you, and all things delicate and shining have come to an end and will never again be seen. The traders in these things, by which their wealth was increased, will be watching far off for fear of her punishment, weeping and crying; Saying, Sorrow, sorrow for the great town, she who was clothed in delicate linen, and purple, and red; with ornaments of gold and stones of great price and jewels! For in one hour such great wealth has come to nothing. And every shipmaster, and all who are sailing on the sea, and sailors and all who get their living by the sea, were watching from far away, And crying out when they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, What town is like the great town? And they put dust on their heads, and were sad, weeping and crying, and saying, Sorrow, sorrow for the great town, in which was increased the wealth of all who had their ships on the sea because of her great stores! for in one hour she is made waste.
Then the colour went from the king's face, and he was troubled by his thoughts; strength went from his body, and his knees were shaking.
The strong among the great ones will say to him from the underworld, Are you more beautiful than any? go down, you and your helpers, and take your rest among those without circumcision, and those who have been put to the sword. There is Asshur and all her army, round about her last resting-place: all of them put to death by the sword: Whose resting-places are in the inmost parts of the underworld, who were a cause of fear in the land of the living. There is Elam and all her people, round about her last resting-place: all of them put to death by the sword, who have gone down without circumcision into the lowest parts of the earth, who were a cause of fear in the land of the living, and are put to shame with those who go down to the underworld: They have made a bed for her among the dead, and all her people are round about her resting-place: all of them without circumcision, put to death with the sword; for they were a cause of fear in the land of the living, and are put to shame with those who go down to the underworld: they have been given a place among those who have been put to the sword. There is Meshech, Tubal, and all her people, round about her last resting-place: all of them without circumcision, put to death by the sword; for they were a cause of fear in the land of the living. And they have been put to rest with the fighting men who came to their end in days long past, who went down to the underworld with their instruments of war, placing their swords under their heads, and their body-covers are over their bones; for their strength was a cause of fear in the land of the living. But you will have your bed among those without circumcision, and will be put to rest with those who have been put to death with the sword. There is Edom, her kings and all her princes, who have been given a resting-place with those who were put to the sword: they will be resting among those without circumcision, even with those who go down to the underworld. There are the chiefs of the north, all of them, and all the Zidonians, who have gone down with those who have been put to the sword: they are shamed on account of all the fear caused by their strength; they are resting there without circumcision, among those who have been put to the sword, and are put to shame with those who go down to the underworld. Pharaoh will see them and be comforted on account of all his people: even Pharaoh and all his army, put to death by the sword, says the Lord. For he put his fear in the land of the living: and he will be put to rest among those without circumcision, with those who have been put to death with the sword, even Pharaoh and all his people, says the Lord.
And all the boatmen, the seamen and those who are expert at guiding a ship through the sea, will come down from their ships and take their places on the land; And their voices will be sounding over you, and crying bitterly they will put dust on their heads, rolling themselves in the dust: And they will have the hair of their heads cut off because of you, and will put haircloth on their bodies, weeping for you with bitter grief in their souls, even with bitter sorrow. And in their weeping they will make a song of grief for you, sorrowing over you and saying, Who is like Tyre, who has come to an end in the deep sea? When your goods went out over the seas, you made numbers of peoples full; the wealth of the kings of the earth was increased with your great wealth and all your goods. Now that you are broken by the seas in the deep waters, your goods and all your people will go down with you. All the people of the sea-lands are overcome with wonder at you, and their kings are full of fear, their faces are troubled. Those who do business among the peoples make sounds of surprise at you; you have become a thing of fear, you have come to an end for ever.
The chiefs of Edom were troubled in heart; the strong men of Moab were in the grip of fear: all the people of Canaan became like water.
The responsible men of the daughter of Zion are seated on the earth without a word; they have put dust on their heads, they are clothed in haircloth: the heads of the virgins of Jerusalem are bent down to the earth.
Come and take your seat in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon; come down from your seat of power, and take your place on the earth, O daughter of the Chaldaeans: for you will never again seem soft and delicate.
The word about Tyre. Let a cry of sorrow go up, O ships of Tarshish, because your strong place is made waste; on the way back from the land of Kittim the news is given to them. Send out a cry of grief, you men of the sea-land, traders of Zidon, who go over the sea, whose representatives are on great waters; Who get in the seed of Shihor, whose wealth is the trade of the nations. Be shamed, O Zidon: for the sea, the strong place of the sea has said, I have not been with child, or given birth; I have not taken care of young men, or kept watch over the growth of virgins. When the news comes to Egypt they will be bitterly pained at the fate of Tyre. Go over to Tarshish; give cries of sorrow, O men of the sea-land. Is this the town which was full of joy, whose start goes back to times long past, whose wanderings took her into far-off countries? By whom was this purposed against Tyre, the crowning town, whose traders are chiefs, whose business men are honoured in the land?
The underworld is moved at your coming: the shades of the dead are awake before you, even the strong ones of the earth; all the kings of the world have got up from their seats. They all make answer and say to you, Have you become feeble like us? have you been made even as we are? Your pride has gone down into the underworld, and the noise of your instruments of music; the worms are under you, and your body is covered with them. How great is your fall from heaven, O shining one, son of the morning! How are you cut down to the earth, low among the dead bodies! For you said in your heart, I will go up to heaven, I will make my seat higher than the stars of God; I will take my place on the mountain of the meeting-place of the gods, in the inmost parts of the north.
His haters will be clothed with shame; but I will make his crown shining.
Let my haters be clothed with shame, covering themselves with shame as with a robe.
And lifting up their eyes when they were still far off, it did not seem that the man they saw was Job because of the change in him. And they gave way to bitter weeping, with signs of grief, and put dust on their heads. And they took their seats on the earth by his side for seven days and seven nights: but no one said a word to him, for they saw that his pain was very great.
Hearing this bad news the people were full of grief, and no one put on his ornaments. And the Lord said to Moses, Say to the children of Israel, You are a stiff-necked people: if I come among you, even for a minute, I will send destruction on you; so take off all your ornaments, so that I may see what to do with you.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible » Commentary on Ezekiel 26
Commentary on Ezekiel 26 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 26
Eze 26:1-21. The Judgment on Tyre through Nebuchadnezzar (TWENTY-SIXTH THROUGH Twenty-eighth Chapters).
In the twenty-sixth chapter, Ezekiel sets forth:—(1) Tyre's sin; (2) its doom; (3) the instruments executing it; (4) the effects produced on other nations by her downfall. In the twenty-seventh chapter, a lamentation over the fall of such earthly splendor. In the twenty-eighth chapter, an elegy addressed to the king, on the humiliation of his sacrilegious pride. Ezekiel, in his prophecies as to the heathen, exhibits the dark side only; because he views them simply in their hostility to the people of God, who shall outlive them all. Isaiah (Isa 23:1-18), on the other hand, at the close of judgments, holds out the prospect of blessing, when Tyre should turn to the Lord.
1. The specification of the date, which had been omitted in the case of the four preceding objects of judgment, marks the greater weight attached to the fall of Tyre.
eleventh year—namely, after the carrying away of Jehoiachin, the year of the fall of Jerusalem. The number of the month is, however, omitted, and the day only given. As the month of the taking of Jerusalem was regarded as one of particular note, namely, the fourth month, also the fifth, on which it was actually destroyed (Jer 52:6, 12, 13), Rabbi David reasonably supposes that Tyre uttered her taunt at the close of the fourth month, as her nearness to Jerusalem enabled her to hear of its fall very soon, and that Ezekiel met it with his threat against herself on "the first day" of the fifth month.
2. Tyre—(Jos 19:29; 2Sa 24:7), literally, meaning "the rock-city," Zor; a name applying to the island Tyre, called New Tyre, rather than Old Tyre on the mainland. They were half a mile apart. "New Tyre," a century and a half before the fall of Jerusalem, had successfully resisted Shalmaneser of Assyria, for five years besieging it (Menander, from the Tyrian archives, quoted by Josephus, Antiquities, 9.14. 2). It was the stronger and more important of the two cities, and is the one chiefly, though not exclusively, here meant. Tyre was originally a colony of Zidon. Nebuchadnezzar's siege of it lasted thirteen years (Eze 29:18; Isa 23:1-18). Though no profane author mentions his having succeeded in the siege, Jerome states he read the fact in Assyrian histories.
Aha!—exultation over a fallen rival (Ps 35:21, 25).
she … that was the gates—that is, the single gate composed of two folding doors. Hence the verb is singular. "Gates" were the place of resort for traffic and public business: so here it expresses a mart of commerce frequented by merchants. Tyre regards Jerusalem not as an open enemy, for her territory being the narrow, long strip of land north of Philistia, between Mount Lebanon and the sea, her interest was to cultivate friendly relations with the Jews, on whom she was dependent for corn (Eze 27:17; 1Ki 5:9; Ac 12:20). But Jerusalem had intercepted some of the inland traffic which she wished to monopolize to herself; so, in her intensely selfish worldly-mindedness, she exulted heartlessly over the fall of Jerusalem as her own gain. Hence she incurred the wrath of God as pre-eminently the world's representative in its ambition, selfishness, and pride, in defiance of the will of God (Isa 23:9).
she is turned unto me—that is, the mart of corn, wine, oil, balsam, &c., which she once was, is transferred to me. The caravans from Palmyra, Petra, and the East will no longer be intercepted by the market ("the gates") of Jerusalem, but will come to me.
3, 4. nations … as the sea … waves—In striking contrast to the boasting of Tyre, God threatens to bring against her Babylon's army levied from "many nations," even as the Mediterranean waves that dashed against her rock-founded city on all sides.
scrape her dust … make her … top of … rock—or, "a bare rock" [Grotius]. The soil which the Tyrians had brought together upon the rock on which they built their city, I will scrape so clean away as to leave no dust, but only the bare rock as it was. An awful contrast to her expectation of filling herself with all the wealth of the East now that Jerusalem has fallen.
5. in the midst of the sea—plainly referring to New Tyre (Eze 27:32).
6. her daughters … in the field—The surrounding villages, dependent on her in the open country, shall share the fate of the mother city.
7. from the north—the original locality of the Chaldeans; also, the direction by which they entered Palestine, taking the route of Riblah and Hamath on the Orontes, in preference to that across the desert between Babylon and Judea.
king of kings—so called because of the many kings who owned allegiance to him (2Ki 18:28). God had delegated to him the universal earth-empire which is His (Da 2:47). The Son of God alone has the right and title inherently, and shall assume it when the world kings shall have been fully proved as abusers of the trust (1Ti 6:15; Re 17:12-14; 19:15, 16). Ezekiel's prophecy was not based on conjecture from the past, for Shalmaneser, with all the might of the Assyrian empire, had failed in his siege of Tyre. Yet Nebuchadnezzar was to succeed. Josephus tells us that Nebuchadnezzar began the siege in the seventh year of Ithobal's reign, king of Tyre.
9. engines of war—literally, "an apparatus for striking." "He shall apply the stroke of the battering-ram against thy walls." Havernick translates, "His enginery of destruction"; literally, the "destruction (not merely the stroke) of his enginery."
axes—literally, "swords."
10. dust—So thick shall be the "dust" stirred up by the immense numbers of "horses," that it shall "cover" the whole city as a cloud.
horses … chariots—As in Eze 26:3-5, New Tyre on the insular rock in the sea (compare Isa 23:2, 4, 6) is referred to; so here, in Eze 26:9-11, Old Tyre on the mainland. Both are included in the prophecies under one name.
wheels—Fairbairn thinks that here, and in Eze 23:24, as "the wheels" are distinct from the "chariots," some wheelwork for riding on, or for the operations of the siege, are meant.
11. thy strong garrisons—literally, "the statutes of thy strength"; so the forts which are "monuments of thy strength." Maurer understands, in stricter agreement with the literal meaning, "the statues" or "obelisks erected in honor of the idols, the tutelary gods of Tyre," as Melecarte, answering to the Grecian Hercules, whose temple stood in Old Tyre (compare Jer 43:13, Margin).
12. lay thy stones … timber … in … midst of … water—referring to the insular New Tyre (Eze 26:3, 5; Eze 27:4, 25, 26). When its lofty buildings and towers fall, surrounded as it was with the sea which entered its double harbor and washed its ramparts, the "stones … timbers … and dust" appropriately are described as thrown down "in the midst of the water." Though Ezekiel attributes the capture of Tyre to Nebuchadnezzar (see on Eze 29:18), yet it does not follow that the final destruction of it described is attributed by him to the same monarch. The overthrow of Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar was the first link in the long chain of evil—the first deadly blow which prepared for, and was the earnest of, the final doom. The change in this verse from the individual conqueror "he," to the general "they," marks that what he did was not the whole, but only paved the way for others to complete the work begun by him. It was to be a progressive work until she was utterly destroyed. Thus the words here answer exactly to what Alexander did. With the "stones, timber," and rubbish of Old Tyre, he built a causeway in seven months to New Tyre on the island and so took it [Curtius, 4, 2], 322 B.C.
13. Instead of the joyousness of thy prosperity, a death-like silence shall reign (Isa 24:8; Jer 7:34).
14. He concludes in nearly the same words as he began (Eze 26:4, 5).
built no more—fulfilled as to the mainland Tyre, under Nebuchadnezzar. The insular Tyre recovered partly, after seventy years (Isa 23:17, 18), but again suffered under Alexander, then under Antigonus, then under the Saracens at the beginning of the fourteenth century. Now its harbors are choked with sand, precluding all hope of future restoration, "not one entire house is left, and only a few fishermen take shelter in the vaults" [Maundrell]. So accurately has God's word come to pass.
15-21. The impression which the overthrow of Tyre produced on other maritime nations and upon her own colonies, for example, Utica, Carthage, and Tartessus or Tarshish in Spain.
isles—maritime lands. Even mighty Carthage used to send a yearly offering to the temple of Hercules at Tyre: and the mother city gave high priests to her colonies. Hence the consternation at her fall felt in the widely scattered dependencies with which she was so closely connected by the ties of religion, as well as commercial intercourse.
shake—metaphorically: "be agitated" (Jer 49:21).
16. come down from their thrones … upon the ground—"the throne of the mourners" (Job 2:13; Jon 3:6).
princes of the sea—are the merchant rulers of Carthage and other colonies of Tyre, who had made themselves rich and powerful by trading on the sea (Isa 23:8).
clothe … with trembling—Hebrew, "tremblings." Compare Eze 7:27, "clothed with desolation"; Ps 132:18. In a public calamity the garment was changed for a mourning garb.
17. inhabited of seafaring men—that is, which was frequented by merchants of various sea-bordering lands [Grotius]. Fairbairn translates with Peschito, "Thou inhabitant of the seas" (the Hebrew literal meaning). Tyre rose as it were out of the seas as if she got thence her inhabitants, being peopled so closely down to the waters. So Venice was called "the bride of the sea."
strong in the sea—through her insular position.
cause their terror to be on all that haunt it—namely, the sea. The Hebrew is rather, "they put their terror upon all her (the city's) inhabitants," that is, they make the name of every Tyrian to be feared [Fairbairn].
18. thy departure—Isa 23:6, 12 predicts that the Tyrians, in consequence of the siege, should pass over the Mediterranean to the lands bordering on it ("Chittim," "Tarshish," &c.). So Ezekiel here. Accordingly Jerome says that he read in Assyrian histories that, "when the Tyrians saw no hope of escaping, they fled to Carthage or some islands of the Ionian and Ægean Seas" [Bishop Newton]. (See on Eze 29:18). Grotius explains "departure," that is, "in the day when hostages shall be carried away from thee to Babylon." The parallelism to "thy fall" makes me think "departure" must mean "thy end" in general, but with an included allusion to the "departure" of most of her people to her colonies at the fall of the city.
19. great waters—appropriate metaphor of the Babylonian hosts, which literally, by breaking down insular Tyre's ramparts, caused the sea to "cover" part of her.
20. the pit—Tyre's disappearance is compared to that of the dead placed in their sepulchres and no more seen among the living (compare Eze 32:18, 23; Isa 14:11, 15, 19).
I shall set glory in the land—In contrast to Tyre consigned to the "pit" of death, I shall set glory (that is, My presence symbolized by the Shekinah cloud, the antitype to which shall be Messiah, "the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father," Joh 1:14; Isa 4:2, 5; Zec 6:13) in Judah.
of the living—as opposed to Tyre consigned to the "pit" of death. Judea is to be the land of national and spiritual life, being restored after its captivity (Eze 47:9). Fairbairn loses the antithesis by applying the negative to both clauses, "and that thou be not set as a glory in the land of the living."
21. terror—an example of judgment calculated to terrify all evildoers.
thou shall be no more—Not that there was to be no more a Tyre, but she was no more to be the Tyre that once was: her glory and name were to be no more. As, to Old Tyre, the prophecy was literally fulfilled, not a vestige of it being left.