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This is followed by a description of the commerce of Tyre with all nations, who delivered their productions in the market of this metropolis of the commerce of the world, and received the wares and manufactures of this city in return. - Eze 27:12. Tarshish traded with thee for the multitude of goods of all kinds; with silver, iron, tin, and lead they paid for thy sales. Eze 27:13. Javan, Tubal, and Meshech, they were thy merchants; with souls of men and brazen vessels they made thy barter. Eze 27:14. From the house of Togarmah they paid horses, riding-horses, and mules for thy sales. Eze 27:15. The sons of Dedan were thy merchants; many islands were at thy hand for commerce; ivory horns and ebony they brought thee in payment. Eze 27:16. Aram traded with thee for the multitude of thy productions; with carbuncle, red purple, and embroidery, and byssus, and corals, and rubies they paid for thy sales. Eze 27:17. Judah and the land of Israel, they were thy merchants; with wheat of Minnith and confectionery, and honey and oil, and balsam they made thy barter. Eze 27:18. Damascus traded with thee in the multitude of thy productions, for the multitude of goods of all kinds, with wine of Chelbon and white wool. Eze 27:19. Vedan and Javan from Uzal gave wrought iron for thy salves; cassia and calamus were for thy barter. Eze 27:20. Vedan was thy merchant in cloths spread for riding. Eze 27:21. Arabia and all the princes of Kedar, they were at thy hand for commerce; lambs and rams and he-goats, in these they traded with thee. Eze 27:22. The merchants of Sheba and Ragmah, they were thy merchants; with all kinds of costly spices and with all kinds of precious stones and gold they paid for thy sales. Eze 27:23. Haran, and Canneh, and Eden, the merchants of Sheba, Asshur, Chilmad, were they merchants; Eze 27:24. They were thy merchants in splendid clothes, in purple and embroidered robes, and in treasures of twisted yarn, in wound and strong cords for thy wares. Eze 27:25. The ships of Tarshish were thy caravans, thy trade, and thou wast filled and glorious in the heart of the seas. - The enumeration of the different peoples, lands, and cities, which carried on trade with Tyre, commences with Tarshish (Tartessus) in the extreme west, then turns to the north, passes through the different lands of Anterior Asia and the Mediterranean to the remotest north-east, and ends by mentioning Tarshish again, to round off the list. But the lands and peoples, which are mentioned in Eze 27:5-11 as furnishing produce and manufactures for the building of Tyre, viz., Egypt and the tribes of Northern Africa, are left out. - To avoid wearisome uniformity in the enumeration, Ezekiel has used interchangeably the synonymous words which the language possessed for trade, besides endeavouring to give life to the description by a variety of turns of expression. Thus סֹחַרְתֵךְ (Eze 27:12, Eze 27:16, Eze 27:18), סֹחֲרַיְךְ (Eze 27:21), and סְחֹרַת יָדֵךְ (Eze 27:15), or סֹחֲרֵי יָדֵךְ (Eze 27:21), are interchanged with רֹכְלַיִךְ (Eze 27:13, Eze 27:15, Eze 27:17, Eze 27:22, Eze 27:24), רֹכַלְתֵךְ (Eze 27:20, Eze 27:23), and מַרְכֻּלְתֵּךְ (Eze 27:24); and, again, נָתַן עִזְבֹונַיִךְ (Eze 27:12, Eze 27:14, Eze 27:22), נָתַן (Eze 27:16, Eze 27:19), with נָתַן מָעֲרָבֵךְ (Eze 27:13, Eze 27:17), and בְּמַעֲרָבֵךְ הָיָה (Eze 27:19), and הֵשִׁיב אֶשְׁכָּרֵךְ (Eze 27:15). The words סֹחֵר, participle of סָחַר, and רֹכֵל, from רָכַל morf, signify merchants, traders, who travel through different lands for purposes of trade. סֹחֶרֶת, literally, the female trader; and סְחֹרָה, literally, trade; then used as abstract for concrete, the tradesman or merchant. רֹכֵל, the travelling merchant. - רֹכֶלֶת, the female trader, a city carrying on trade. מַרְכֹלֶת, trade or a place of trade, a commercial town. עִזְבֹונִים (pluralet.) does not mean a place of trade, market, and profits (Gesenius and others); but according to its derivation from עָזַב, to leave, relinquish, literally, leaving or giving up, and as Gusset. has correctly explained it, “that which you leave with another in the place of something else which he has given up to you.” Ewald, in accordance with this explanation, has adopted the very appropriate rendering Absatz, or sale. נָתַן עִזְבֹונַיִךְ, with ב, or with a double accusative, literally, to make thy sale with something, i.e., to pay or to give, i.e., pay, something as an equivalent for the sale; 'נָתַן בְּעִזְב, to give something for the sale, or the goods to be sold. מַעֲרָב, barter, goods bartered with נָתַן, to give bartered goods, or carry on trade by barter.
The following are the countries and peoples enumerated: - תַּרְשִׁישׁ, the Tyrian colony of Tarshish or Tartessus, in Hispania Baetica, which was celebrated for its wealth in silver (Jer 10:9), and, according to the passage before us, also supplied iron, tin, and lead (vid., Plin. Hist. nat. iii. 3 4, xxxiii. 6 31, xxiv. 14 41; Diod. Sic. v. 38). Further particulars concerning Tarshish are to be found in Movers, Phoeniz. II 2, pp. 588ff., and II 3, p. 36. - Javan, i.e., Jania, Greece or Greeks. - Tubal and Meshech are the Tibareni and Moschi of the ancients between the Black and Caspian Seas (see the comm. on Gen 10:2). They supplied souls of men, i.e., slaves, and things in brass. The slave trade was carried on most vigorously by the Ionians and Greeks (see Joel 4:6, from which we learn that the Phoenicians sold prisoners of war to them); and both Greeks and Romans drew their largest supplies and the best slaves from the Pontus (for proofs of this, see Movers, II 3, pp. 81f.). It is probable that the principal supplies of brazen articles were furnished by the Tibareni and Moschi, as the Colchian mountains still contain an inexhaustible quantity of copper. In Greece, copper was found and wrought in Euboea alone; and the only other rich mines were in Cyprus (vid., Movers, II 3, pp. 66, 67). - Eze 27:14. “From the house of Togarmah they paid,” i.e., they of the house of Togarmah paid. Togarmah is one of the names of the Armenians (see the comm. on Gen 10:3); and Strabo (XI 14. 9) mentions the wealth of Armenia in horses, whilst that in asses is attested by Herodotus (i. 194), so that we may safely infer that mules were also bred there. - Eze 27:15. The sons of Dedan, or the Dedanites, are, no doubt, the Dedanites mentioned in Gen 10:7 as descendants of Cush, who conducted the carrying trade between the Persian Gulf and Tyre, and whose caravans are mentioned in Isa 21:13. Their relation to the Semitic Dedanites, who are evidently intended in Eze 27:20, and by the inhabitants of Dedan mentioned in connection with Edom in Eze 25:13 and Jer 49:8, is involved in obscurity (see the comm. on Gen 10:7). The combination with אִיִּים רַבִּים and the articles of commerce which they brought to Tyre, point to a people of southern Arabia settled in the neighbourhood of the Persian Gulf. The many אִיִּים are the islands and coasts of Arabia on the Persian Gulf and Erythraean Sea.
(Note: Movers (II 3, pp. 303ff.) adduces still further evidence in addition to that given above, namely, that “unquestionable traces of the ancient name have been preserved in the region in which the ancient Dedanites are represented as living, partly on the coast in the names Attana, Attene, which have been modified according to well-known laws, - the former, a commercial town on the Persian Gulf, visited by Roman merchants (Plin. vi. 32, §147); the latter, a tract of country opposite to the island of Tylos (Plin. l.c. §49), - and partly in the islands of the Persian Gulf” (p. 304).)
סְחֹרַת יָדֵךְ, the commerce of thy hand, i.e., as abstr. pro concr., those who were ready to thy hand as merchants. קַרְנֹות שֵׁן, ivory horns. This is the term applied to the elephants' tusks (shçn) on account of their shape and resemblance to horns, just as Pliny (Hist. nat. xviii. 1) also speaks of cornua elephanti, although he says, in viii. 3 (4), that an elephant's weapons, which Juba calls cornua, are more correctly to be called dentes.
(Note: The Ethiopians also call ivory Karna nage, i.e., cornu elephanti, and suppose that it is from horns, and not from tusks, that ivory comes (vid., Hiob Ludolph, Hist. Aeth. I c. 10).)
The ἁπ. λεγ.. הֹובְנִים, Keri הָבְנִים, signifies ἔβενος hebenum, ebony. The ancients obtained both productions partly from India, partly from Ethiopia (Plin. xii. 4 8). According to Dioscor. i. 130, the Ethiopian ebony was preferred to the Indian. הֵשִׁיב אֶשְׁכָּר to return payment (see the comm. on Psa 72:10).
In Eze 27:16, J. D. Michaelis, Ewald, Hitzig, and others read אֱדֹם for אֲרָם, after the lxx and Pesh., because Aram did not lie in the road from Dedan and the אִיִּים to Israel (Eze 27:17), and it is not till Eze 27:18 that Ezekiel reaches Aram. Moreover, the corruption ארם for אדום could arise all the more readily from the simple fact that the defective form אֱדֹם only occurs in Ezekiel (Eze 25:14), and is altogether an extraordinary one. These reasons are undoubtedly worthy of consideration; still they are not conclusive, since the enumeration does not follow a strictly geographical order, inasmuch as Damascus is followed in Eze 27:19. by many of the tribes of Southern Arabia, so that Aram might stand, as Hävernick supposes, for Mesopotamian Aram, for which the articles mentioned in Eze 27:16 would be quite as suitable as for Edom, whose chief city Petra was an important place of commerce and emporium for goods. רֹב מַעֲשַׂיִךְ, the multitude of thy works, thy manufactures. Of the articles of commerce delivered by אֲרָם , the red purple, embroidery, and בּוּץ (the Aramaean name for byssus, which appears, according to Movers, to have originally denoted a species of cotton), favour Aram, particularly Babylonia, rather than Edom. For the woven fabrics of Babylonia were celebrated from the earliest times (vid., Movers, II 3, pp. 260ff.); and Babylon was also the oldest and most important market for precious stones (vid., Movers, p. 266). נֹפֶךְ is the carbuncle (see the comm. on Exo 28:18). כַּדְכֹּד, probably the ruby; in any case, a precious stone of brilliant splendour (vid., Isa 54:12). רָאמֹות, corals or pearls (vid., Delitzsch on Job 28:18). - Judah (Eze 27:17) delivered to Tyre wheat of Minnith, i.e., according to Jdg 11:33, an Ammonitish place, situated, according to the Onomast., four Roman miles from Heshbon in the direction of Philadelphia. That Ammonitis abounded in wheat, is evident from 2Ch 27:5, although the land of Israel also supplied the Tyrians with wheat (1Ki 5:11). The meaning of the ἁπ. λεγ. דם̓̀בנ̓̀ב cannot be definitely ascertained. The rendering confectionery is founded upon the Aramaean פְּנַק, deliciari, and the Chaldee translation, קֹולְיָא, i.e., κολία, according to Hesychius, τὰ ἐκ μέλιτος τρωγάλια, or sweetmeats made from honey. Jerome renders it balsamum, after the μύρων of the lxx; and in Hitzig's opinion, Pannaga (literally, a snake) is a name used in Sanscrit for a sweet-scented wood, which was employed in medicine as a cooling and strengthening drug (?). Honey (from bees) and oil are well-known productions of Palestine. צֹרִי is balsam; whether resina or the true balsam grown in gardens about Jericho (opobalsamum), it is impossible to decide (see my Bibl. Archäol. I p. 38, and Movers, II 3, pp. 220ff.). Damascus supplied Tyre with wine of Chelbon. חֶלְבֹּון still exists in the village of Helbôn, a place with many ruins, three hours and a half to the north of Damascus, in the midst of a valley of the same name, which is planted with vines wherever it is practicable, from whose grapes the best and most costly wine of the country is made (vid., Robinson, Biblical Researches). Even in ancient times this wine was so celebrated, that, according to Posidonius (in Athen. Deipnos. i. 22), the kings of Persia drank only Chalybonian wine from Damascus (vid., Strabo, XV 3. 22). צֶמֶר צַחַר, wool of dazzling whiteness; or, according to others, wool of Zachar, for which the Septuagint has ἔρια ἐκ Μιλήτου, Milesian wool.
(Note: According to Movers (II 3, p. 269), צַחַר is the Sicharia of Aethicus (Cosm. §108): Sicharia regio, quae postea Nabathaea, nuncupatur, silvestris valde, ubi Ismaelitae eminus, - an earlier name for the land of the Nabathaeans, who dwelt in olden time between Palestine and the Euphrates, and were celebrated for their wealth in flocks of sheep.)
Eze 27:19. Various explanations have been given of the first three words. וְדָן is not to be altered into דְּדָן, as it has been by Ewald, both arbitrarily and unsuitably with Eze 27:20 immediately following; nor is it to be rendered “and Dan.” It is a decisive objection to this, that throughout the whole enumeration not a single land or people is introduced with the copula w. Vedan, which may be compared with the Vaheb of Num 21:14, a place also mentioned only once, is the name of a tribe and tract of land not mentioned elsewhere in the Old Testament. Movers (p. 302) conjectures that it is the celebrated city of Aden (Arab. 'dn). Javan is also the name of an Arabian place or tribe; and, according to a notice in the Kamus, it is a place in Yemen. Tuch (Genesis, p. 210) supposes it to be a Greek (Ionian) settlement, the founders of which had been led by their enterprising spirit to cross the land of Egypt into Southern Arabia. For the purpose of distinguishing this Arabian Javan from Greece itself, or in order to define it more precisely, מְעוּזָל is appended, which all the older translators have taken to be a proper name. According to the Masoretic pointing מְאוּזָּה, the word is, no doubt, to be regarded as a participle Pual of אְזַל, in the sense of spun, from אָזַל, to spin. But apart from the fact that it would be a surprising thing to find spun goods mentioned in connection with the trade of the Arabian tribes, the explanation itself could not be sustained from the usage of the language; for there is nothing in the dialects to confirm the idea that אזל is a softened form of עזל, inasmuch as they have all עזל (Aram.) and gzl (Arab.), and the Talmudic אזל, texere, occurs first of all in the Gemara, and may possibly have been derived in the first instance from the Rabbinical rendering of our מאוזל by “spun.” Even the fact that the word is written with Shurek is against this explanation rather than in its favour; and in all probability its origin is to be traced to the simple circumstance, that in Eze 27:12, Eze 27:14, Eze 27:16 the articles of commerce are always mentioned before נָתְנוּ עִזְבֹונַיִךְ, and in this verse they would appear to be omitted altogether, unless they are covered by the word מאוזל. But we can very properly take the following words בַּרְזֶל עָשֹׁות as the object of the first hemistich, since the Masoretic accentuation is founded upon the idea that מאוזל is to be taken as the object here. We therefore regard מֵאוּזָל as the only admissible pointing, and take אוּזָל as a proper name, as in Gen 10:27 : “from Uzal,” the ancient name of Sanaa, the subsequent capital of Yemen. The productions mentioned bear this out. Forged or wrought iron, by which Tuch (l.c. p. 260) supposes that sword-blades from Yemen are chiefly intended, which were celebrated among the Arabs as much as the Indian. Cassia and calamus (see the comm. on Exo 30:23 and Exo 30:24), two Indian productions, as Yemen traded with India from the very earliest times. - Dedan (Eze 27:20) is the inland people of that name, living in the neighbourhood of Edom (cf. Eze 25:13; see the comm. on Eze 27:15). They furnished בִּגְדֵי, tapetes straguli, cloths for spreading out, most likely costly riding-cloths, like the middim of Jdg 5:10. עֲרַב and קֵדָר represent the nomad tribes of central Arabia, the Bedouins. For עֲרַב is never used in the Old Testament for the whole of Arabia; but, according to its derivation from עֲרָבָה, a steppe or desert, simply for the tribes living as nomads in the desert (as in Isa 13:20; Jer 3:2; cf. Ewald, Grammat. Arab. I p. 5). Kedar, descended from Ishmael, an Arabian nomad tribe, living in the desert between Arabia Petraea and Babylonia, the Cedrei of Pliny (see the comm. on Gen 25:13). They supplied lambs, rams, and he-goats, from the abundance of their flocks, in return for the goods obtained from Tyre.
Jdg 5:22. Next to these the merchants of Sheba and Ragmah (רַעְמָה) are mentioned. They were Arabs of Cushite descent (Gen 10:7) in south-eastern Arabia (Oman); for ,רַעְמָה̔Ρεγμα, was in the modern province of Oman in the bay of the same name in the Persian Gulf. Their goods were all kinds of spices, precious stones, and gold, in which southern Arabia abounded. רֹאשׁ כָּל־בֹּשֶׂם, the chief or best of all perfumes (on this use of רֹאשׁ, see the comm. on Exo 30:23; Son 4:14), is most likely the genuine balsam, which grew in Yemen (Arabia felix), according to Diod. Sic. iii. 45, along with other costly spices, and grows there still; for Forskal found a shrub between Mecca and Medina, called Abu sham, which he believed to be the true balsam, and of which he has given a botanical account in his Flora Aeg. pp. 79, 80 (as Amyris opobalsamum), as well as of two other kinds. Precious stones, viz., onyx-stones, rubies, agates, and cornelians, are still found in the mountains of Hadramaut; and in Yemen also jaspers, crystals, and many good rubies (vid., Niebuhr, Descript. p. 125, and Seetzen in Zach's Monatl. Corresp. xix. p. 339). And, lastly, the wealth of Yemen in gold is too strongly attested by ancient writers to be called in question (cf. Bochart, Phal. II 28), although this precious metal is no found there now.
In Eze 27:23, Eze 27:24 the trade with Mesopotamia is mentioned. חָרָן, the Carrhae of the Romans in north-western Mesopotamia (see the comm. on Gen 11:31), was situated at the crossing of the caravan-roads which intersect Mesopotamia; for it was at this point that the two caravan routes from Babylonia and the Delta of the Persian Gulf joined the old military and commercial road to Canaan (Movers, p. 247). The eastern route ran along the Tigris, where Calneh, the later Ktesiphon, and the most important commercial city. It is here called כַּנֵּה (Canneh), contracted from כַּלְנֵה (see the comm. on Gen 10:10; Amo 6:2). The western route ran along the Euphrates, past the cities mentioned in Eze 27:23. עֵדֶן is not the Syrian, but the Mesopotamian Eden (2Ki 19:12; Isa 37:12), the situation of which has not yet been determined, though Movers (p. 257) has sought for it in the Delta of the Euphrates and Tigris. The singular circumstance that the merchants of Sheba should be mentioned in connection with localities in Mesopotamia, which has given rise both to arbitrary alterations of the text and to various forced explanations, has been explained by Movers (p. 247 compared with p. 139) from a notice of Juba in Pliny's Hist. nat. xii. 17 (40), namely, that the Sabaeans, the inhabitants of the spice country, came with their goods from the Persian Gulf to Carrhae, where they held their yearly markets, and from which they were accustomed to proceed to Gabba (Gabala in Phoenicia) and Palestinian Syria. Consequently the merchants of Sabaea are mentioned as those who carried on the trade between Mesopotamia and Tyre, and are not unsuitably placed in the centre of those localities which formed the most important seats of trade on the two great commercial roads of Mesopotamia.
Asshur and Chilmad, as we have already observed, were on the western road which ran along the Euphrates. כִּלְמַד has already been discovered by Bochart (Phal. I 18) in the Charmande of Xenophon (Anab. i. 5. 10), and Sophaenetus (see Steph. Byz. s.v. Χαρμάνδη), a large and wealthy city in a desert region “beyond the river Euphrates.” The Asshur mentioned along with Chilmad, in the midst of purely commercial cities, cannot be the land of Assyria, but must be the emporium Sura (Movers, p. 252), the present Essurieh, which stands upon the bank on this side of the Euphrates above Thapsacus and on the caravan route, which runs from Palmyra past Rusapha (Rezeph, Isa 37:12; 2Ki 19:12) to Nicephorium or Rakka, then in a northerly direction to Haran, and bending southwards, runs along the bank of the river in the direction of Chilmad or Charmande (Ritter, Erdk. XI pp. 1081ff.). The articles of commerce from these emporia, which were brought to Tyre by Sabaean caravans, consisted of מַּכְלֻלִים, literally, articles of perfect beauty, either state-dresses (cf. מִכְלֹל, Eze 23:12 and Eze 34:4), or more generally, costly works of art (Hävernick). The omission of the copula ו before בִּגְלֹומֵי is decisive is favour of the former, as we may infer from this that 'בגל is intended as an explanatory apposition to מַּכְלֻלִים. גְּלֹומֵי תְכֵלֶת וְרִקְמָה, cloaks (גְּלֹום connected with χλαμύς) of hyacinth-purple and embroidery, for which Babylonia was celebrated (for proofs of this, see Movers, pp. 258ff.). The words which follow cannot be explained with certainty. All that is evident is, that 'ואר 'בַּחֲבָלִים חב is appended to בְּגִנְזֵי בְּרֹומִים without a copula, as 'בִּגלֹומֵי וגו is to בְּמַּכְלֻלִים in the first hemistich, and therefore, like the latter, is intended as an explanatory apposition. חֲבָלִים does not mean either cloths or threads, but lines or cords. חֲבֻשִׁים signifies literally bound or would up; probably twisted, i.e., formed of several threads wound together or spun; and אֲרָזִים, firm, compact, from Arab. arz, to be drawn together. Consequently 'גִּנְזֵי בְּרֹומִים וגו can hardly have any other meaning than treasures of spun yarns, i.e., the most valuable yarns formed of different threads. For “treasures” is the only meaning which can be assigned to גְּנָזִים with any certainty on philological grounds, and בְּרֹומִים, from בָּרַם, Arab. brm, contorsit , is either yarn spun from several or various threads, or cloth woven from such threads. But the latter would not harmonize with חֲבָלִים. Movers (II 3, pp. 263ff.) adopts a similar conclusion, and adduces evidence that silk yarn, bombyx, and cotton came to Tyre through the Mesopotamian trade, and were there dyed in the splendid Tyrian purples, and woven into cloths, or brought for sale with the dyeing complete. All the other explanations which have been given of these difficult words are arbitrary and untenable; not only the Rabbinical rendering of גִּנְזֵי בְּרֹומִים, viz., chests of damask, but that of Ewald, “pockets of damask,” and that proposed by Hartmann, Hävernick, and others, viz., girdles of various colours, ζῶναι σκιωταί. In Eze 27:25 the description is rounded off with a notice of the lever of this world-wide trade. שָׁרֹות cannot mean “walls” in this instance, as in Jer 5:10, and like שׁוּרֹות in Job 24:11, because the ships, through which Tyre became so rich, could not be called walls. The word signifies “caravans,” after שׁוּר = Arab. sâr (Isa 57:9), corresponding to the Aramaean שְׁיָרָא. מַעֲרָבֵךְ might be regarded as an accusative of more precise definition: caravans, with regard to (for) thy bartering trade. At the same time it is more rhetorical to take מַעֲרָבֵךְ as a second predicate: they were thy trade, i.e., the carriers of thy trade. What the caravans were for the emporia of trade on the mainland, the ships of Tarshish were for Tyre, and these on the largest sea-going ships are mentioned instar omnium. By means of these vessels Tyre was filled with goods, and rendered weighty (נִכְבַּד), i.e., rich and glorious. - But a tempest from the east would destroy Tyre with all its glory.