Ezekiel 26:1-21

Ezekiel 26. Siege and Destruction of Tyre. Tyre is the incarnation of unrestrained commercialism; and, in the mind of Ezekiel her doom is justified by the malicious joy with which she hailed the fall of Jerusalem, whom, as the gate of the peoples, she regarded as in some sort a rival, taxing, if not partially intercepting, the trade that passed between the south and Tyre (Ezekiel 26:1). The agent of Tyre's destruction is to be Nebuchadrezzar, against whom she had rebelled. At this point there is a realistic description of an ancient siege; and, when at length the island city is taken, it will ring with the unwonted sound of chariot wheels and horses-' hoofs, and be reduced in the end to a bare rock (Ezekiel 26:7). (The pillars of Ezekiel 26:11 are probably those associated with the temple of Melkart, the god worshipped in Tyre. Even he could not save his city.)

Then the maritime states involved in the commerce of Tyre are finely imagined as moved by her fall to deep and genuine sorrow, which they express in a dirge (Ezekiel 26:15); and, as the city sinks beneath the waves, the prophet follows her with his imagination in her descent to the great primeval wastes of the nether world, from which she is to rise nevermore (Ezekiel 26:19). (In Ezekiel 26:20 instead of and I will set glory read something like nor remain: cf. LXX.)