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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadPaul Kretzmann Commentary - Ezekiel 26:15 - 26:21
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The Effect of the Fall of Tyre
v. 15. Thus saith the Lord God of Tyrus, Shall not the isles, including the colonies located along the shores of the Mediterranean, shake at the sound of thy fall, being filled with agitation and terror when the report of Tyre's fall reaches them, when the wounded cry, groaning in their pain, when the slaughter is made in the midst of thee? namely, at the taking of the city, when the sword mowed down with unrestrained fierceness.
v. 16. Then all the princes of the sea, the rich merchant princes who were at the head of Tyre's rich colonies, shall come down from their thrones, losing all their power, obliged to give up their princely might and pomp, and lay away their robes, their outer garments, and put off their broidered garments, their rich dresses of state, all this indicating the depth of their mourning; they shall clothe themselves with trembling, with terrors, the strong figure indicating the extremity of their position; they shall sit upon the ground, instead of the thrones formerly occupied by them, and shall tremble at every moment, with fear shaking them again and again, and be astonished at thee, horrified at the catastrophe which had come upon the great metropolis.
v. 17. And they shall take up a lamentation for thee, a song of mourning, and say to thee, How art thou destroyed, being overthrown in such a great calamity, that wast inhabited of seafaring men, literally, "inhabited from out of the seas," for Tyre had, as it were, arisen out of the seas as a mighty metropolis, the renowned city, spoken of in words of praise by men everywhere, which wast strong in the sea, not only impregnable in her location, but also dominating the seas with her marine, she and her inhabitants, which cause their terror to be on all that haunt it, for the city with all its inhabitants spread a fear of itself wherever its name was heard.
v. 18. Now shall the isles, the colonies imbued with this spirit, tremble in the day of thy fall, frightened at the fall of the metropolis upon which they depended; yea, the isles that are in the sea shall be troubled at thy departure, at the horrible end of their proud mistress.
v. 19. For thus saith the Lord God, When I shall make thee a desolate city, in exact accordance with these and other prophecies, like the cities that are not inhabited, which have already been turned into desert wastes; when I shall bring up the deep upon thee, and great waters shall cover thee, as by the inundation of an immense tidal wave;
v. 20. when I shall bring thee down with them that descend into the pit, to all those destroyed in former times, by similar catastrophes, with the people of old time, particularly those swept away in the Deluge, and shall set thee in the low parts of the earth, in the abode of the dead, in places desolate of old, amidst the ruins of ancient civilizations, with them that go down to the pit, to share the fate of the godless generation before the Flood, that thou be not inhabited; and I shall set glory in the land of the living, by once more establishing His people in power;
v. 21. I will make thee a terror, an object of horror and aversion, and thou shalt be no more, destroyed completely by a sudden calamity; though thou be sought for, yet shalt thou never be found again, saith the Lord God. In the case of Old Tyre, this prophecy was literally fulfilled, not a vestige of the former proud city being left.