Amos 1:9,10

Tyre, the great commercial city of the North, next receives her doom from the prophet's lips. Tyre, as the most important of the Phoenician cities, is taken as representing Phoenicia generally. For defensive purposes Tyre was strongly fortified; but the Phoenicians were not an aggressive people: they were devoted to commerce: Tyre was a -mart of nations" (Isaiah 23:3), a centre of trade by land as well as by sea (see the striking picture of the variety and extent of Tyrian commerce in Ezekiel 27); hence her relations with the Hebrews, as with her neighbours generally, were peaceful. The Tyrians were also celebrated for skill in artistic work: Hiram, king of Tyre, sent Tyrian workmen to build a palace for David; a formal treaty was concluded between Hiram and Solomon; Tyrian builders prepared timber and stones for the Temple; and a Tyrian artist designed and cast the chief ornaments and vessels of metal belonging to it (2 Samuel 5:11; 1 Kings 5:1-12; 1 Kings 5:18; 1 Kings 7:13-45).

because they delivered up entire populations to Edom The charge is similar to that brought against the Philistines, Amos 1:6; the Tyrians however are not accused of takingcaptives, but only of delivering them to others, i.e. of acting as agents for those who actually took them. For the Tyrians taking part in the trade of slaves, cf. Ezekiel 27:13; and see on Joel 3:6. What -exiled companies" are alluded to does not appear; they need not necessarily have consisted of Israelites; the reference may be as well to gangs of slaves procured with violence from other nations.

and remembered not the brotherly covenant lit. the covenant ofi.e. betweenbrothers:this forgetfulness was an aggravation of the offence, which is not mentioned in the case of Gaza, Amos 1:6. The allusion is commonly supposed to be to the league, or -covenant," concluded between Hiram and Solomon, 1 Kings 5:12 (for -brother" used figuratively of one joined in amity to another, see 1 Kings 9:13; 1 Kings 20:32); but it is scarcely likely that the crowning offence of Tyre should be forgetfulness of a treaty entered into nearly 300 years previously; more probably the reference is to the way in which, repudiating some alliance formed with other Phoenician towns, the Tyrians were the means of procuring slaves from them for Edom. As Amos 2:1 shews, Amos does not restrict his censure to wrongs perpetrated against Israel: it is the rights common to humanity at large, which he vindicates and defends.

Isaiah (ch. 23), Jeremiah, at least incidentally (Jeremiah 25:22), Ezekiel (ch. 26 28), Zechariah (Zechariah 9:3 f.), all foretell the ruin of Tyre; but it was long before it was accomplished. The Tyrians, it seems, escaped as a rule the hostility of the Assyrians by acquiescing in a condition of dependence and by timely payment of tribute. Thus Asshurnazirpal (b.c. 885 860) boasts of marching with his army as far as the "great sea of the West," and receiving tribute from Tyre, Sidon, Gebal, and Arvæd; but he claims no conquest by arms (K.A.T[121][122], p. 157; R.P[123][124] iii. 73 f.). Shalmaneser II. receives tribute in his 18th and 21st years (b.c. 842, 839) from Tyre and Sidon (K.A.T[125][126], p. 207, 210; R.P[127][128] iv. 44 f.), in the former year, together with that of Jehu, Hiram, king of Tyre, pays tribute to Tiglath-pileser in 734 (ib.p. 253). Shalmaneser IV. besieged Tyre for five years, but it does not appear that he took it. Both Esarhaddon and Asshurbanipal name "Baal of Tyre" among their tributaries (K.A.T[129][130], p. 356). Tyre sustained a long siege according to Josephus one of 13 years at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar; but it is not stated whether he captured it, Ezekiel, in his allusion (Ezekiel 29:18), implies that he did not. In the subsequent centuries the greatest blow which befel Tyre was its capture, after a seven months" siege, by Alexander the Great, when 30,000 of its inhabitants were sold into slavery. It recovered itself, however, and continued for long afterwards to be an important naval and commercial city: Jerome (c. a.d. 400) describes it as Phoenices nobilissima et pulcherrima civitas, and says that mercantile transactions of nearly all nations were carried on in it. The final blow was not given to Tyre till a.d. 1291, when it was taken by the Saracens; and since then the site of the once populous and thriving city has been little more than a barren strand.

[121] .A.T.… Eb. Schrader, Die Keilinschriften und das A. T., ed. 2, 1883 (translated under the title The Cuneiform Inscriptions and the O. T. 1885, 1888). The references are to the pagination of the German, which is given on the margin of the English translation.

[122] … Eb. Schrader, Die Keilinschriften und das A. T., ed. 2, 1883 (translated under the title The Cuneiform Inscriptions and the O. T. 1885, 1888). The references are to the pagination of the German, which is given on the margin of the English translation.

[123] .P.… Records of the Past, first and second series, respectively.

[124] … Records of the Past, first and second series, respectively.

[125] .A.T.… Eb. Schrader, Die Keilinschriften und das A. T., ed. 2, 1883 (translated under the title The Cuneiform Inscriptions and the O. T. 1885, 1888). The references are to the pagination of the German, which is given on the margin of the English translation.

[126] … Eb. Schrader, Die Keilinschriften und das A. T., ed. 2, 1883 (translated under the title The Cuneiform Inscriptions and the O. T. 1885, 1888). The references are to the pagination of the German, which is given on the margin of the English translation.

[127] .P.… Records of the Past, first and second series, respectively.

[128] … Records of the Past, first and second series, respectively.

[129] .A.T.… Eb. Schrader, Die Keilinschriften und das A. T., ed. 2, 1883 (translated under the title The Cuneiform Inscriptions and the O. T. 1885, 1888). The references are to the pagination of the German, which is given on the margin of the English translation.

[130] … Eb. Schrader, Die Keilinschriften und das A. T., ed. 2, 1883 (translated under the title The Cuneiform Inscriptions and the O. T. 1885, 1888). The references are to the pagination of the German, which is given on the margin of the English translation.