Ezekiel 27 - Introduction

Chapter 27 The Second Oracle Against Tyre.

In this oracle Tyre, who is seen as describing herself as ‘perfect in beauty', is likened to a mighty ship which being overloaded will finally become a wreck and will sink beneath the waves at which all will bewail her loss. It is in the form of a poem, with a prose section inserted. The poetic metre is found in Ezekiel 27:3 and Ezekiel 27:25. In the previous oracle it was her greed that was condemned, here it is her vanity. Tyre had great pride and conceit in herself, and this was a further reason for her judgment by God (compare Psalms 10:4; Proverbs 6:17; Proverbs 8:13; Proverbs 16:18).

Tyrian ships had keels (unlike Egyptian ships) and carried large cargoes. A document from Ugarit (c 1200 BC) refers to one as having a cargo of 450 tonnes as though it was nothing unusual. It would thus have to depend largely on sail power with oars only used for a fairly short time in emergency situations. As regards rigging, the Tyrian ships in the time of Ezekiel, as seen in Assyrian representations, had one mast with one yard and carried a square sail. The planks, masts and yards were made of fir, pine or cedar, and the sails of linen, but the fibre of papyrus was employed as well as flax in the manufacture of sail-cloth. The sail had also to serve "for an ensign". The flag proper does not seem to have been used in ancient navigation. Its purpose was served by the sail.

The description here is magnificent. Tyre is seen as the centre and shipmaster of world trade, trading north, south, east and west. It brings out her own view of herself. (Translation is not always certain, partly due to the unusual technical terms used and the metric requirements of poetry).