Chapter Twenty-Six

The Siege and Destruction of Tyre

Chapters XXVI–XXVIII contain three prophecies against Tyre and one against Sidon. Although Tyre apparently had no relations with Israel other than commercial, and certainly no hostile ones, the prophet devotes to it three words, and from Ezek 29:17-21 four words, because in the conquest by Nebuchadnezzar of such a great and impregnable, foremost in commerce city, the power of God, acting through the latter, was revealed, and because Tyre underwent the same fate as Jerusalem, though it hoped to profit from Jerusalem’s fall. Already in the 4th year of Jehoiakim Jeremiah threatened Tyre with Nebuchadnezzar (Jer 25:22); perhaps it participated in the war of Necho with Nebuchadnezzar at the beginning of Zedekiah’s reign, being subject to Nebuchadnezzar but inclined to rebel from him (Jer 27:3 etc.), which it probably did in alliance with Zedekiah, the Ammonites, and others (Ezek 21:1). After this rebellion, Nebuchadnezzar first rushed at Jerusalem, fearing it would fall into the hands of the Egyptians moving from the south; but Phoenicia, which did not have such strategic significance, he dealt with when he had repulsed the Egyptians; and when Jerusalem fell, Nebuchadnezzar was already in Hamath, on the border of Phoenicia (2 Sam 25:21; Jer 52:27). The siege begun immediately lasted 13 years and ended, it seems, not entirely successfully for Nebuchadnezzar (Ezek 29:18, Josephus Flav. Antiqu. 10:11, 1). The prophet, who began his words against Tyre before its siege (Ezek 26:1), predicts in them the destruction of the city, first drawing a picture of this destruction (chapter XXVI), in which he is so confident that he pronounces over the city a funeral song (chapter XXVII); then the prophet addresses the king of Tyre (chapter XXVIII), whose death he first describes (verses 1–10), then mourns (verses 11–19). The words against Tyre are the most poetic and beautiful part of the book, especially the description of the Tyrian ship in chapter XXVII.—The picture of Tyre’s destruction, given in chapter XXVI, falls into a general threat to it (verses 1–6), a description of the horrors of the siege and its conquest (verses 7–14), and a description of the impression its destruction will make on the world (verses 15–21).

Ezekiel 26:1. In the eleventh year, on the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came to me: “The 11th year,” that is, of the captivity of Jehoiachin and of the prophet, which was also the 11th year of the reign of Zedekiah, and consequently the year of the destruction of Jerusalem. 586 B.C. The month is indicated neither in the Hebrew nor in the LXX, perhaps because the date applies to all three words against Tyre, pronounced in different months. The agreement of all manuscripts in the omission of this date does not allow us to suppose that it has been lost. Since Jerusalem was conquered on the 9th of IV of this year, destroyed on the 10th of V (Jer 52:6), and the prophet learned of this on the 5th of X (Ezek 33:21), the word, which presupposes the event to be known and even evaluated by its significance in Tyre (verse 2), could not have been pronounced or written before the 11th–12th month of 585 B.C.

Ezekiel 26:2. Son of man! Because Tyre has said of Jerusalem, “Aha! The gateway of the peoples is broken; it has swung open to me; I will be filled, now that it is laid waste, There are prophecies against Tyre also at Amos 1:9-10; Joel 3:4; Isa 23:1; Jer 25:22; Zech 9:2-4. Tyre, from the Hebrew “Tzor”—“rock.” The LXX, translating this word as “Tyre” everywhere, here for some reason prefer the transcription Σορ, Slavic “Sor”: perhaps they wished thereby to point to island Tyre, which replaced the continental Tyre taken by Salmaneser and later destroyed by Alexander, which was 1,200 feet away from it; the prophet indeed seems to have in view chiefly the island Tyre: verses 5, 14; Ezek 27:4. “Aha!”—see explanation Ezek 25:3. “The gateway of the peoples”—Jerusalem appeared to Tyre as such, insofar as commercial caravans going from the south, from rich Egypt for example, had to pass through Judea and hardly did so without toll or certainly not disadvantageously to Jerusalem and without loss to Tyre, for which reason the latter is glad at the destruction of these gates. LXX: “the nations have perished,” that is, those who lived at the expense of Jerusalem. “I will be filled; it is laid waste.” Jerusalem will no longer be a rival in commerce to Tyre. Slavic: “which was fulfilled becomes desolate.”

Ezekiel 26:3. Therefore, thus says the Lord God: Behold, I am against you, O Tyre, and I will bring up many nations against you, like the sea raises its waves. “Behold, I am against you”—Ezek 5:13. “I will bring up many nations against you.” “Nations will come to Tyre, but not as he expected” (Smend). The plural indicates that it is not only the Babylonian invasion, from which Tyre did not ultimately perish. “Like the sea raises its waves.” Tyre was often subjected to floods (Seneca Nat. quaest. VI, 26. Movers Phoenic. II, 201). The sea, which enriched Tyre, often destroyed it as well.

Ezekiel 26:4. And they will destroy the walls of Tyre and break down her towers; and I will scrape her dust from her and make her a bare rock. According to Arrian (II, 18, 3) and Quintus Curtius (IV, 2, 9), the island Tyre was surrounded by walls and towers, which certainly existed already in the prophet’s time. “I will scrape her dust from her.” Nothing will remain of Tyre after the siege but rubble. Perhaps there is reference also to earthquakes, to which Tyre was frequently subjected (Movers, l.c.). “A bare rock.” The expression shows, as does also the following verse, that the chief aim is the island Tyre, built on a rocky island.

Ezekiel 26:5. A place for spreading nets will it become in the midst of the sea; for I have spoken it, says the Lord God; and it will become plunder for the nations. “A place for spreading nets.” For drying fishing nets, a rocky, open, and desert place is most suitable. A beautiful expression in its concreteness that sounds terrifying for Tyre, intensifying the thought of its complete devastation. “In the midst of the sea.” Consequently, at least chiefly the island Tyre is in view. “For plunder for the nations”—see the next verse.

Ezekiel 26:6. And her daughters on the mainland will be killed by the sword; and they will know that I am the Lord. “Daughters”—cities: dependent cities and settlements nearest to it; see Ezek 16:46. With regard to Tyre, such daughters could only be settlements on the shore, on the mainland, “the so-called Old Tyre,” Palaetyrus. “Will be killed by the sword” does not mean the settlements, but their inhabitants: the comparison passes into direct speech. There may be reference to the fact that the inhabitants of island Tyre will lose only property (“for plunder for the nations”—verse 5), as many of them will be able to escape, while Old Tyre will pay with its life as well.

Ezekiel 26:7. For thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will bring against Tyre from the north Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, a king of kings, with horses and chariots, and with horsemen and an army and many soldiers. “Against Tyre.” LXX: “upon you Sor.” “Nebuchadnezzar.” According to the Hebrew “Nebucadrezzar,” as everywhere in Ezekiel (Ezek 29:18 etc. Ezek 30:10) and Jer 21:2 instead of the more common later form “Nebuchadnezzar” (Jer 27:6; 2 Sam 24:1 etc. Ezra; Nehemiah; Esther; Daniel; Chronicles), but less correct: from the Babylonian Nabu-kudurri-usur “May Nebo guard the crown.” “From the north,” as the invasion of Nebuchadnezzar is represented also in Jer 1:13-14. It is hardly Riblah that is meant, where Nebuchadnezzar’s military headquarters was at that time (2 Sam 25:21; Jer 52:9). “King of kings.” A title adopted by Babylonian kings (Dan 2:37), apparently because of their many vassal kings (Isa 10:8), and borrowed from them by Persian kings (Ezra 7:12), perhaps in place of and strengthening the title “great king” which Assyrian kings already had (Isa 36:4; 2 Sam 18:28). In this and other places, God Himself through the prophet, as it were, sanctions this title, because only God could give such authority to this king over other kings. But by full right such a title belongs only to the Son of God, who took it when earthly kings clearly showed they were abusing such a great prerogative (1 Tim 6:15; Rev 17:12-14). “With many soldiers”—the Slavic is stronger: “with an assembly of many languages.”

Ezekiel 26:8. He will slay your daughters on the mainland with the sword; and he will set up siege towers against you and cast up a siege mound against you and raise a shield wall against you; In his campaign against Tyre, Nebuchadnezzar will first encounter the mainland settlements (“on the mainland”) of Tyre mentioned in verse 6 (“your daughters”); these small cities will hardly be in a state to offer him any resistance (“slay with the sword”). On the other hand, against the island Tyre he will have to resort to a regular siege, which will be greatly hindered by Tyre’s position by the sea. “Siege towers”—Hebrew dayeq—Ezek 4:2. “A siege mound”—in this case it had to be conducted across the sea strait. But the Chaldeans were masters in siege work: Hab 1:10; Isa 23:13. “A shield wall.” Probably an entire roof made of shields to protect those working in the siege from the enemy’s arrows—the Roman testudo, not ordinary shields, to which the verb “raise” would not fit. However, the Assyro-Babylonians had a special kind of large, man-high shields placed on the ground, under cover of which the besieged city was mined (Beitrage zur Assyrologie und semitisch. Sprachwissenschaft III, 75). The LXX have in this verse much that is extra compared to the Hebrew (perhaps duplicates or supplements from 4:2): “and he will bring up a siege against you (a siege wall), and encircle you with a fortification, and dig a ditch for you, and make a rampart for you with a palisade (χαρακα), and surround it with weapons (περιστασυ ᾿οπλων—perhaps battering rams) and set up spears (perhaps catapults) against you”; the latter should be a duplicate translation of the first sentence of the Hebrew verse 9.

Ezekiel 26:9. And he will direct the shock of his battering rams against your walls and break down your towers with his axes. “Battering rams”—a conjectural, but most likely translation of the Hebrew hapax—meches kabel, of which the first must mean “blow,” and the second is similar to the name of the ram in Marseille and Carthaginian Phoenician inscriptions. “Your towers.” The Slavic leaves the Greek word “pyrgi your”—your towers—untranslated, while from the previous clause it introduces “your walls.” “With axes”—cherev, Hebrew “sword,” but properly must be “iron” and every iron tool, for example, an adze (Exod 20:25); Slavic: “with his weapons.”

Ezekiel 26:10. From the multitude of his horses their dust will cover you; your walls will shake at the sound of the horsemen and carts and chariots, when he enters your gates as one enters a city that is breached. The entry of cavalry into island Tyre was something unheard of and perhaps possible thanks to a dam or mole across the sea strait. While this mole was being constructed, Tyre could long hear the ill-omened sound of enemy cavalry and chariots (compare Jer 8:16) on the shore, from which its walls trembled. There are so many horses that a whole layer of dust from them will settle on the city (compare Nah 1:3). “When he enters your gates as one enters a city that is breached,” Slavic “into a city from the field.” A comparison explained particularly by the Slavic rendering—island Tyre’s enemies will enter it as easily as they would enter a continental city through a breached wall (Slavic “from the field”). This presupposes a causeway or bridge across the strait. Nebuchadnezzar had no fleet. Ancient historians who wrote about Tyre (Berossus, Philostratus, Menander) do not speak of a siege of Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar; and the passage Ezek 29:18 may apparently testify that Nebuchadnezzar’s siege ended unsuccessfully and Tyre was not taken. In view of this, not only modern rationalists consider this prophecy unfulfilled, but also old commentators allowed such an assumption, defending the prophet by saying that God revoked His terrible judgment at Tyre’s repentance, as He once did for Nineveh (Scaliger). But the silence of historians about the siege does not refute its fact: historians drew from Phoenician sources (Berossus), which for obvious reasons could have omitted this sad page of their history. Josephus Flavius (C. App. 1, 21) according to Phoenician sources recounts that around the time of Ezekiel two Tyrian princes—Merbaal and Irom lived in Babylon, from where they were invited to Tyre to occupy the throne. It is natural to think that they ended up there like Jehoiachin, either as hostages; this testifies that the result of Tyre’s siege was at least Tyre’s vassalage to Babylon, if not its destruction. That Nebuchadnezzar did not destroy Tyre may be evidenced by its later siege by Alexander the Great and Antipatrus (315–313). But Ezekiel does not speak of destruction but only of Tyre’s taking by Nebuchadnezzar; see especially verse 14.

Ezekiel 26:11. With the hooves of his horses he will trample all your streets; your people he will slay with the sword, and your mighty pillars will fall to the ground. “Your people”—chiefly the military—as in verse 7. Ezek 30:11. “Your mighty pillars”—literally “statues of your strength” (Vulgate. statuae tuae nobiles). This should first of all be the two famous statues described by Herodotus (II, 34), tall pillars—statues of Melkart (Tyrian Baal, as god of commerce), one of which was golden and the other emerald, which stood at the entrance to the temple of this god (compare 1 Sam 7:21), and then other sacred statues-idols, in the protection of which the Tyrians placed their strength. Hardly statues of heroes. LXX: “the substance (υποστασιν) of your strength.”

Ezekiel 26:12. They will plunder your riches and loot your merchandise; they will tear down your walls and demolish your fine houses; and they will cast your stones and timbers and dust into the sea. The city will be plundered and destroyed. “Your riches”—Slavic literally from the Hebrew “your strength,” but hayil means riches in Ezek 28:4; Jer 15:13. “Your merchandise,” Slavic “your possessions.” “Fine houses,” mentioned in Isa 23:13, which were very tall because of the limited space the city had. “Your dust”—rubble; compare verse 4. The LXX place the verbs in the singular, understanding Nebuchadnezzar as the subject.

Ezekiel 26:13. And I will silence the music of your songs, and the sound of your lyres will be heard no more. There will be no manifestation of joy: singing and music, with which, consequently, Tyre was very much occupied. Slavic instead of “sound” has “multitude”; “of your songs”—“of music”; “of your lyres”—“of singers”—ψαλτηριων. Compare Amos 5:23; Isa 14:11; Jer 7:34; Rev 18:22.

Ezekiel 26:14. And I will make you a bare rock; you shall be a place for spreading nets; you will never be built again, for I the Lord have spoken it, says the Lord God. In the conclusion of the first part, its beginning is repeated—verses 4 and 5. “You will never be built again.” Now nothing remains of continental Tyre, and of island Tyre there remain ruins, preserved since the time of the crusaders and Saracens, who finally destroyed Tyre. But in the time of Jerome, Tyre was still very rich and flourishing, and Jerome removed the contradiction of the prophecy with reality by supposing that Ezekiel, like Isaiah in chapter XXIII (see verse 17), speaks only of the fact that Tyre will no longer be the queen of nations; at this Jerome remarks that according to other commentators, the prophecy refers to the last times. The prophet indeed does not say that Tyre will be destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar: in verse 12, he changes the 3rd person singular of the preceding verses to indefinite 3rd person plural, and in verses 13 and 14, the one acting is God Himself, to whom therefore the final destruction of Tyre is attributed. The ultimate fates of Tyre were not as clearly revealed to the prophet’s contemplation as its immediate ones, which cannot help but have its limits.

Ezekiel 26:15. Thus says the Lord God to Tyre: Will not the coastlands shake at the sound of your fall, when the wounded moan, when slaughter is made in your midst? The devastating and depressing news of Tyre’s fall is poetically presented as if the sound of this fall and the groaning of the wounded reached the neighboring nations. “Will not shake?” A question in token of the certainty of the fact. “The coastlands”—usually called not only islands, but all maritime powers of the Mediterranean. All of them could hardly be assured of their safety from the great conqueror with Tyre’s fall.

Ezekiel 26:16. And all the princes of the sea will come down from their thrones and remove their robes and take off their embroidered garments; they will clothe themselves with trembling; they will sit on the ground and tremble every moment and be appalled at you. “They will come down,” to sit on the floor in sign of mourning. “The princes of the sea”—either the princes of maritime nations, whose public system the prophet presents in the image of Tyre (compare Ezek 28:21), as also the LXX: “princes of the nations of the sea,” or the Tyrian merchants who governed Tyre’s colonies, whose wealth and luxury made them equal to kings (Isa 23:8). “From their thrones”—regal or luxurious seats (1 Sam 4:13). “Robes,” Hebrew meíl—an upper garment without sleeves; LXX: “crowns,” mitras. “Embroidered garments” Ezek 16:10. “They will clothe themselves with trembling”—instead of rich garments (Ezek 7:27); there should be reference to mourning garments, the wearing of which in this case will be joined with fear besides sorrow. Slavic: “they will be seized with horror.” “They will sit on the ground”—a sign of mourning; see Job 2:13. “And tremble every moment and be appalled at you,” Slavic: “and fear their own destruction and will lament over you.”

Ezekiel 26:17. And they will raise a lamentation over you and say to you, “How you have vanished from the seas, O city renowned, that was mighty on the sea, you and your inhabitants, who imposed your terror on all your neighbors! “How”—Hebrew ek—the usual beginning of a lamentation song (Lam 1:1), which here is very short: verse 17 and perhaps 18. “Inhabited by seafarers.” Slavic: “you have dispersed from the sea”—you disappeared from the sea, on which you were so famous. “Was mighty on the sea, you and your inhabitants,”—it, thanks to its sea position (Nah 3:8), they, thanks to their fleet. “Who imposed your terror on all your inhabitants.” “Inhabitants,” that is, either the sea, or Tyre: the population of Tyre could have been divided into a higher class and lower, which trembled before the former, or under “inhabitants” are understood the colonies, which were entirely subordinate to the strict metropolis. Slavic: “you gave your fear to all living in you”: the Tyrians themselves experienced a fearful respect for the power of their city, a feeling analogous to what every Roman felt later.

Ezekiel 26:18. Now, on the day of your fall, the coastlands tremble; the coastlands by the sea are dismayed at your passing. “Tremble”—now not from fear of Tyre, but from horror at its fall, which reminded them of their own helplessness. “The coastlands”—perhaps shores. “The coastlands.” As the clarification “by the sea” shows, islands in the proper sense; moreover, in the Hebrew the first has an unusual Aramaic plural ending (with nun instead of mem). “At your passing,” Slavic more precisely: “from your departure.”

Ezekiel 26:19. For thus says the Lord God: When I make you a city laid waste, like the cities that are not inhabited, when I bring up the deep over you and the great waters cover you; Again, directly at the end of the speech, a prediction is given of Tyre’s destruction, whereby the former thought (verse 14) is reinforced—that the destruction will be final. Here it becomes clear that before its final destruction Tyre will lose its former power and drag out a miserable existence, which was the result of Nebuchadnezzar’s siege. Tyre’s final destruction is presented here directly as the work of the sea, while in verse 4 it was only compared to drowning in the sea: the sea could not be indifferent to the impiety and pride of Tyre, obligated to it for everything, and, like the earth, not tolerating great wickedness, it had to drown it, coming with its inundations and earthquakes (see explanation of verse 3) to the aid of the conquerors. “The abyss,” Hebrew tehom (Gen 1:2)—the depth of the sea, considered as the first sea that feeds the upper, or simply the sea.

Ezekiel 26:20. Then I will bring you down with those who descend into the pit, to the people of old, and I will make you dwell in the world below, in the eternal desolations, with those who go down to the pit, so that you will not be inhabited; but I will set glory in the land of the living. The verse breathes the spirit of the tomb, the chill of the grave and hell. “With those who descend into the pit.” Not directly: “I will bring down into the pit,” because the speech is of the city in its entirety, with buildings and so forth. “The pit,” Hebrew bor, properly here ; Slavic “abyss”; Vulgate. lacus (lake). See Isa 14:15. “To the people of old,” Slavic more precisely: “to the people of the age,” that is, to long-vanished nations from the earth, for example, Rephaim and other giants; compare Ezek 28:8 etc. “In the world below,” literally—in the depths of the earth: the kingdom of darkness, for clarity, is imagined in the bowels of the earth, as the aggregate of all graves. “In the eternal desolations,” Slavic more precisely: “as an eternal desolation.” Tyre’s place will not differ from never-inhabited wastes. “I will set glory in the land of the living.” While Tyre is in the underworld, God on the earth, in the world presenting with living people the opposite of the dead underworld, more specifically—in the land of Israel, as the best of all (Ezek 39:21; Ezek 20:6), will accomplish something glorious, will establish the kingdom of His glory, the establishment of which Tyre seemed to hinder by its existence (Ezek 38:16). But more in accordance with the context is the LXX reading: “neither shall you rise on the earth of the living”; a somewhat different, milder fate of Egypt: Ezek 29:13 etc. Isa 19:18 etc.

Ezekiel 26:21. I will make you a terror, and you will be no more; though you be sought for, you will never be found again, says the Lord God. “A terror will I make you.” Vulgate. in nihilum redigam te (I will reduce you to nothing). “And you will be no more; though you be sought for, you will never be found again.” Nothing will remain of Tyre, not even ruins by which one could determine its place. The place of continental Tyre indeed remains unknown to this day. A terrible fate, rarely destined to any ancient kingdom, probably for special depravity, inevitable with enormous wealth, and perhaps for the ruinous role played in the corruption of the Israelite kingdom.