Ezekiel 28
Butler11-19. The dirge of the prince of Tyre, answering to the dirge of the State. A strong vein of irony runs throughout the passage, but the main purpose is to depict all the glory, real or assumed, of the prince of Tyrus, in order to show how deplorable should be his ruin. B. C.
- “Eden, the garden of God,” man’s primeval paradise, fills the conception of beauty. Such in her own esteem was the state of Tyre when she sat proudly, enriched with the wealth of the nations and shining in their concentrated splendor. This accumulation of terms for gems and precious stones shows at least that a great variety of them were well known and much valued as objects of enduring beauty. The general idea is, Thou wast ordained to this wealth and splendor from the day when thou wast founded as a city and nation. Tyre had always been a great mart of commerce and a home for its wealth and glory.
15. Up and down amid these the king of Tyre had walked. In all his ways this monarch had enjoyed the perfection of earthly glory and splendor from the very foundation of the city and kingdom until iniquity was found in him and the hand of the Almighty came down upon him in righteous judgment.
16,17. The language which describes her doom is transferred from the account of her previous splendor. Once a cherub sitting in glory in the holy mount of God amid gems sparkling with lustre; now the Lord will cast her as a profane thing down from His own holy mount and destroy her. Beauty and wisdom had been her snare, and now became her curse.
- “And never shalt thou be any more.” The full measure of this doom did not come with the siege by Nebuchadnezzar, for Tyre recovered in some degree from this first blow. Another blow fell on her from the hand of Alexander, two hundred and fifty years later. Saracen and Turk have finished the work of her destruction. She has come at last to be only a naked rock on which fishermen dry their nets, as the prophet said.
20-24. Zidon, the subject of this prophecy, lying but twenty miles north of Tyre; herself, like Tyre, situated on the Mediterranean, yet never, like Tyre, distinguished for trade, but rather for skill in manufactures, was the more ancient, appearing in Bible history, Gen. 10: 15, 19; Josh. 11: 8; 19: 28—in these two latter cases as “Great Zidon.” The references to it in Judges 1: 31 and 18: 28 indicate its military strength. This prophecy against Zidon is brief; does not specify her sins particularly, but declares that God will be glorified and sanctified in His judgments upon her. H. C.
21. Zidon. Prophecy against Zidon: Joel 3: 4. Zidon was more ancient than Tyre, and was the original metropolis of Phœnicia; it is mentioned in Gen. 10: 19, where the name of Tyre does not occur, but in the times of Phœnician greatness it ever played a subordinate part. Only once (Judges 10: 12) do we find the Zidonians in conflict with Israel. The evil which they did was the seducing them to idolatry, as in the case of Jezebel, daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Zidonians. This is implied in verse 24, referring, no doubt, to Num. 33: 55 and Josh. 23: 13. The capture of Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar increased the importance of Zidon, which was a wealthy and flourishing town when Artaxerxes Ochus destroyed it. It has rallied from time to time, but has never attained to any great consequence, but its ruin has not been so complete as that of Tyre. The terms of this prophecy against Zidon differ widely from those in which Tyre is denounced. “The modern Saida must be considered not so much a direct successor of the ancient Zidon as a small group of fortified houses which especially since the time of the Crusades has collected round the port of the old town. It is made up of ancient débris which are scarcely to be recognized, with the exception of the never-ending shafts of columns built into the walls, the gigantic blocks in the old port, and the cuttings in the rocks. Saida, like Sour, has preserved above ground no other vestige of its Phœnician history. Until the discovery of the great Necropolis situated around Mughâret Abloun, in 1855, it might have been said that the ancient Zidon, the mother in Canaan, had totally disappeared” (“Mission de Phénicie,” pp. 361, 362).
25,26. The contrast of the future of Israel with that of the surrounding nations. As we have seen that the prophecies against the heathen reached, not merely to the particular nations, but to the world-power which they represented, as the same predictions are directed against Tyre by Ezekiel, against Babylon by Isaiah, and against the Apocalyptic Babylon by St. John; so this prophecy reaches far beyond a mere temporal restoration. It points to times of more permanent security, when from all nations and kingdoms the Church of Christ, the Israel of God, shall be gathered in, when the power of the world shall be forever broken, and the kingdom of Christ shall be established forever. B. C.
25. When I shall have gathered the house of Israel. In their long captivity, God had been preparing the land for them so as to make it a safe dwelling; and hence He executed judgments on all the heathen nations round about by means of the Chaldeans. Thus Tyre and Sidon were destroyed, as were the Ammonites and others who had been the inveterate enemies of the Jews. Judgment first began at His own house, then proceeded to the heathen nations; and when they were brought down, then He visited and redeemed His people. Thus God’s ways are proved to be all equal; partialities and caprices belong not to Him. A. C.
25,26. So true is it that God stands with and for His people, and will surely prove Himself their Redeemer and Saviour. The world shall yet know His power to save His trusting children, befriend His own cause, and fill all the earth with His glory. H. C.
One who reads the graphic records in the three chapters of Ezekiel (26-28) referring to the history of Tyre must be blinded in mind or in heart if he does not discern in them the presence of a Divine mind which foresees all the future, and of a Divine will which is able to bring every prediction to a sure and distinct and sublime fulfilment. . . . Can any thoughtful student of the remarkable series of predictions respecting Tyre found in the Bible, and of its equally remarkable history, have any serious doubt as to either the reality or the importance of prophecy as a supernatural element in Scripture? In this case both the fact and the function of prophecy stand out before us with peculiar clearness. It cannot be that these predictions are fraudulent interpretations inserted in Scripture in order to deceive men into belief in a fraudulent Book, pretending to be from God, but written by human hands alone. Nor can it be said that these were merely the acute generalizations of wise men familiar with the course of human affairs, and competent to guess at what might happen under certain specified conditions. The only possible hypothesis in the case is that there was a mind which, before Amos and Isaiah and Ezekiel were born, distinctly saw the entire future of Tyre, which looked with undimmed vision down through the twenty-five centuries that have intervened since they lived and wrote, and which in some true sense not only foresaw the whole, but has brought it to pass. But that foreseeing and determining mind is God, the God who by the twofold evidence of miracle and prophecy confirms His Word and proves Himself to be the providential Sovereign and Lord of mankind. We see in the verifications of history the proof that the predictions are genuine; and in the verified predictions we see conclusive evidence that there is such a God, and that all His declarations are “yea” and “amen.” And so, in the crushed and perished city by the sea, standing in silent desolation through the centuries, we find a mute yet solemn witness to the truth that God rules in history, and by that sovereign rule has set to His seal that His revelation is infinitely worthy of all human acceptance.
It is also obvious that the desolated Tyre is divinely designed to be not only a corroboration of the Bible, but also a solemn lesson to the world respecting the sinfulness of sin and the certainty of its final and terrible doom. History here confirms prophecy, and both join their voices in testifying to the moral government of God in the world. So long as history continues to paint on its canvas the awful picture which the pen of Ezekiel first portrayed, it will be known and realized that a Divine power that works for righteousness is always present among men, rebuking and overthrowing evil as well as confirming good. And we may well meditate in this connection on the words with which Bishop Newton closes his dissertation on Tyre as an illustration of the nature and scope of prophecy:
“Such hath been the fate of this city, once the most famous in the world for trade and commerce. But trade is a fluctuating thing. It passed from Tyre to Alexandria; from Alexandria to Venice; from Venice to Antwerp; from Antwerp to Amsterdam and London. All nations, almost, are wisely applying themselves to trade; and it behooves those who are in possession of it to take the greatest care that they do not lose it. It is a plant of tender growth, and requires sun, and soil, and fine seasons to make it thrive and flourish. . . . Liberty is a friend to that, as that is a friend to liberty. But the greatest enemy to both is licentiousness, which tramples upon all law and lawful authority, encourages riots and tumults, promotes drunkenness and debauchery, sticks at nothing to supply its extravagance, practises every art of illicit gain, ruins credit, ruins trade, and will in the end ruin liberty itself. Neither kingdoms nor commonwealths, neither public companies nor private persons can long carry on a beneficial, flourishing trade without virtue, and what virtue teacheth—sobriety, in-
dustry, frugality, modesty, honesty, punctual- | how the Tyrians lost it; and the like causes ity, humanity, charity, the love of our country | will always produce the like effects.” E. D. and the fear of God. The prophets inform us | Morris.