Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

EZEKIEL - CHAPTER 26

TYRE THREATENED WITH JUDGMENT

Verses 1-6:

Verse 1 established the time of this prophecy that came to Ezekiel from the Lord, as the eleventh year and first day of the year of Jerusalem’s captivity, 588 B.C. The month is not named, probably the fourth month, 2 Kings 25:3; Ezekiel 3:15.

Verse 2 charges that because Tyrus had gloated at the fall of Jerusalem, saying, "aha," imagining and plotting to make herself wealthy, by entering the gates of Jerusalem, Psalms 40:15, Tyre had come to consider herself as the heiress of Jerusalem, Jeremiah 25:22; Jeremiah 47:4; Amos 1:9; Zechariah 9:2; 2 Samuel 24:7; Joshua 19:29.

Verse 3 announces with strong emphasis that God is against Tyre (Tyrus), and that He will cause many nations to come up against her, as surely as the sea waves came up against her. She suffered the repeated waves of invasion from Nebuchadnezzar, Alexander, the crusaders, and the Saracens. She was finally over thrown in the 13th century A.D., but never fully recovered her former glory after her invasions from Babylon.

Verse 4 further describes her destruction as the Lord forewarns He would: 1) destroy her walls, 2) break down her towers, 3) scrape her dust from her, and 4) make her like the top of a sunburned and windblown rock. No vestige of her was to remain, except bare rocks.

Verses 5, 6 explain that Tyre was to become a place laid barren, that fishermen would spread their nets upon her rocks, and she should become a spoil or loot for the invading nations, v. 14; Isaiah 37:20. Her daughters, her dependent villages nearby, were to share in her fate, by the sword, as bound up with her in her sins; She and they were judged to know that the Lord was God, Ezekiel 27:32; Ezekiel 47:10.

HUMAN AGENTS EMPLOYED OF THE LORD

Verse 7-14:

Verses 7, 8 describe how that the Lord would bring Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon down from the northern part of Lebanon with horses, horsemen, chariots and armed companies upon Tyrus, Ezra 7:12; Daniel 2:37. He would make a fort against Tyrus, build up a mount of dirt to go over the walls, and slay her suburban daughters who sought to escape, while holding his buckler of defense safely, as Tyrus was desolated; See also Isaiah 10:8; Hosea 8:10; 2 Samuel 20:16.

Verses 9, 10 further explain that Nebuchadnezzar’s armed men would cause their horses’ hoofs to tear up the streets, tear down the strong garrisons or pillars built in honor of their idol gods, and slay the inhabitants with the sword. Then they would methodically loot the houses and businesses of their riches, for their own prey. Destruction of the walls of the city, residences, and even the timber and stones was to be complete, to the extent that they were to be thrown into the waters of the Mediterranean Sea, beside which she had stood, 2 Chronicles 32:27; 2 Chronicles 36:10; Isaiah 32:12; Jeremiah 25:34.

Verse 13 asserts that the Lord would cause the noise of the songs of Tyre to cease, take away her joy, and cause her famed harps to be heard no more in the city, forever, as also indicated, Isaiah 14:11; Isaiah 23:16; Isaiah 24:8; Jeremiah 7:34; Jeremiah 16:9; Jeremiah 25:10; Revelation 18:22.

Verse 14 restates the desolation of Tyre that was so complete that the only thing left in her should be bare, sun-bleached and windblown rocks on which fishermen would spread their nets, v. 5. There on the southern continental side of the barren rock of Tyre, the fishermen still spread their nets. For it was irrevocably decreed and declared by Divine fiat that Tyre should be built no more. The island off Tyre was rebuilt after a lapse of 70 years and flourished until the time of Alexander the Great, who later conquered it by building a causeway and took it by storm, after a siege of seven months, Isaiah 23:17-18.

HER GLORY DEPARTED

Verses 15-21:

Verse 15 rhetorically states that the desolation of Tyrus, by the vicious and cruel army of Chaldea, shall be so severe that the isles or seacoasts would literally shake near the city, by the sound of the walls that crashed, and the cry of the wounded as the slaughter occurred over the city, Isaiah 2:19; Jeremiah 49:21; Ezekiel 31:16; Ezekiel 32:10.

Verse 16 describes the shock of sorrow that would seize the princes or ruling merchants of the isles or countries that had league of commerce with Tyre. They came from their merchant thrones, took off their ruling robes, clothed themselves with trembling, and sat on the ground and trembled in dazed astonishment at the destruction of this great city, Isaiah 23:8; Ezekiel 33:10; Ezekiel 27:35; See also Jonah 3:6.

Verses 17-19 describe the laments of the merchantmen who had done business with Tyre, asking how such a strong center of merchantmen, salty-seafaring men, such a renounced city, could possibility have been so completely destroyed, Revelation 18:9. She had formerly haunted all who knew her because of her might. It was again and further foretold that in that coming day of the fall of Tyre, both her coastal villages who supported her, and those floating isles of merchants of the seas, would be troubled "shook up" at her destruction. Yet, God had decreed her destruction, as a Gentile power, so as to cause all her merchant people to see the sea waters that would cover her once proud city, warehouses, and docks, Isaiah 23:4.

Verse 20 asserts that God would one day bring Tyre down to the pits, even as he had Sodom and Gomorrah; It would-be a thing that would bring glory to God and the land of Israel, Ezekiel 32:18; Ezekiel 32:24; Genesis 19:24-25; Luke 10:15; Zechariah 2:8.

Verse 21 declares that the Lord would make Tyre to be a terror, that is an occasion of terror, for all who should later behold the barren rock of her once continental glory, Psalms 37:36; Isaiah 46:13.