Bible Commentaries

Ezekiel 26:1 And it came to pass in the eleventh year, in the first [day] of the month, [that] the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,

Ver. 1. In the eleventh year.] Of Jehoiakim’s captivity and Zedekiah’s reign.

In the first day of the month,] i.e., Of the fifth month, when the news came to Tyre of the destruction of Jerusalem twenty days before, which occured on the ninth day of the fourth month. [2 Kings 25:1]

Ezekiel 26:2 Son of man, because that Tyrus hath said against Jerusalem, Aha, she is broken [that was] the gates of the people: she is turned unto me: I shall be replenished, [now] she is laid waste:

Ver. 2. Because that Tyrus hath said.] Wicked men shall give account for their "hard speeches also," [ 1:15] if not sooner, yet certainly at the last day, with the whole world all on a light fire about their ears. Tyre was the chief city of Phoenicia, built before Solomon’s temple, saith Josephus; ^(a) and anciently called Sarra, ^(b) saith Servius, of the Hebrew tsor, which signifieth a rock, because it was built upon a rock. It became the most famous and wealthy market town of the whole East; and having so great a resort to it from all parts, it was a very sinful place; and framing comedies out of the Church’s tragedies, hath this prophecy to champ upon, for a rebater of its pride and petulance.

Aha.] See Ezekiel 25:3.

That was the gates of the people.] Whereinto they entered by troops and caravans, for religion and traffic.

She is turned unto me.] Vide hic ingenia mercatorum. Her ruin shall be my rise. Lo, this is the world; envy and avarice rejoice at, and are fed with other men’s tears and losses; sed gaudent pyraustae gaudium. Contrariwise, God is rich to all that call upon him; [Romans 10:12] and in spiritual things there is no envy, because they may be divided in solidum, in the whole, one may have as much as another, and all alike.

I shall be replenished.] Mercibus et opibus; with wars and wealth. But how long will it hold?

Ezekiel 26:3 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD Behold, I [am] against thee, O Tyrus, and will cause many nations to come up against thee, as the sea causeth his waves to come up.

Ver. 3. Therefore thus saith the Lord God.] And thy merchants will soon do thee word of it; for they are great newsmongers, and ill news is swift of foot. ^(a)

Behold, I am against them.] Neither can thine Apollo help or deliver thee out of my hands; no, though thou chain that idol and nail him to a post, that thou mayest be sure of him; for so these Tyrians did when Alexander besieged their city and took it.

Ezekiel 26:4 And they shall destroy the walls of Tyrus, and break down her towers: I will also scrape her dust from her, and make her like the top of a rock.

Ver. 4. And they shall destroy the walls of Tyrus.] Which thou holdest to be inexpugnable. Hence this and the two following chapters, purposely to undeceive thee, if it may be.

I will also scrape her dust from her.] Brought from other places, to make her gardens; for she was built upon a rock, et in petram glabram: to a naked rock will God now reduce her.

Ezekiel 26:5 It shall be [a place for] the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea: for I have spoken [it], saith the Lord GOD: and it shall become a spoil to the nations.

Ver. 5. It shall be a place for the spreading of nets.] Of fishers’ nets, hung up in the sun to be dried. The prophets usually fetch their comparisons from things the people were most acquainted with and accustomed to as here. Let ministers now do the like.

Ezekiel 26:6 And her daughters which [are] in the field shall be slain by the sword; and they shall know that I [am] the LORD.

Ver. 6. And her daughters which are in the field,] i.e., Other cities and colonies sent out by her, and subject to her; as she was olim partu clara urbibus genitis, as Pliny saith of her, the mother of many fair cities, Leptis, Utica, Carthage. Some take it literally for people of both sexes.

Ezekiel 26:7 For thus saith the Lord GOD Behold, I will bring upon Tyrus Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, a king of kings, from the north, with horses, and with chariots, and with horsemen, and companies, and much people.

Ver. 7. Behold, I will bring upon Tyrus Nebuchadnezzar.] A name as dreadful then as was at any time the name of the great Turk: a man as famous for his valour and victories as ever was Hercules, saith Megasthenes in Josephus, ^(a) and such as whom we may well call, as Orosius doth Alexander, magnum miseriarum gurgitem, et totius Orientis atrocissimum turbinem, The great troubleworld.

Ezekiel 26:8 He shall slay with the sword thy daughters in the field: and he shall make a fort against thee, and cast a mount against thee, and lift up the buckler against thee.

Ver. 8. He shall slay with the sword.] See on Ezekiel 26:6.

He shall lift up the buckler.] Or, A continued series of bucklers,

“ - ut omnes

Ferre queant subter densa testudine casus. ”

Ezekiel 26:9 And he shall set engines of war against thy walls, and with his axes he shall break down thy towers.

Ver. 9. He shall set engines of war.] Helepoles inieciet. A graphic description of a siege.

And with his axes.] Or, Battering rams, or slings. Heb., With his swords; Gr., With his lances, ferramentis mueronatis helepoleos. Vide Am. Marcell, lib. xxiii.

Ezekiel 26:10 By reason of the abundance of his horses their dust shall cover thee: thy walls shall shake at the noise of the horsemen, and of the wheels, and of the chariots, when he shall enter into thy gates, as men enter into a city wherein is made a breach.

Ver. 10. Thy walls shall shake.] With the noise of one chariot, walls and windows seem to shake; what, then, with the rattle of so many? Methought I heard the noise and fright that shall be at the last day, said one, ^(a) that was at the taking of a town in the low countries. The fragor and terror was so great, say the Turkish histories (speaking of a bloody battle between Amurath III and Lazarus, despot of Sernia), that the angels in heaven, so they are pleased to hyperbolise, amazed with that hideous noise, for that time forgot the heavenly hymns wherewith they always glorify God. ^(b)

When he shall enter into thy gates.] As our Henry VIII did into Tournay, a city of France, which was ever counted so impregnable, that this sentence was engraven over one of the gates, Iannes ton me a perdu ton pucellage, i.e., Thou hast never lost thy maidenhead.

Ezekiel 26:11 With the hoofs of his horses shall he tread down all thy streets: he shall slay thy people by the sword, and thy strong garrisons shall go down to the ground.

Ver. 11. And thy strong garrisons.] Or, Statues, or idols. Their chief idols were Apollo, Hercules, and Astarte. ^(a) See on Ezekiel 26:3.

Ezekiel 26:12 And they shall make a spoil of thy riches, and make a prey of thy merchandise: and they shall break down thy walls, and destroy thy pleasant houses: and they shall lay thy stones and thy timber and thy dust in the midst of the water.

Ver. 12. And they shall make a spoil of thy riches.] Raked together by right and wrong. See on Ezekiel 26:2. Male parta male dilabuntur. ^(a)

Ezekiel 26:13 And I will cause the noise of thy songs to cease; and the sound of thy harps shall be no more heard.

Ver. 13. And I will cause the noise of thy songs to cease.] The Tyrians were much addicted to music. [Isaiah 23:16 Ezekiel 28:13] Pleasure mongers shall suffer deeply, by pain of loss and pain of sense.

And the sound of thy harp.] Qua tu, O Tyre, mercatrix quasi meretrix mercatores ad te pellicis, wherewith thou gettest custom.

Ezekiel 26:14 And I will make thee like the top of a rock: thou shalt be [a place] to spread nets upon; thou shalt be built no more: for I the LORD have spoken [it], saith the Lord GOD.

Ver. 14. Thou shalt be built no more,] i.e., Not in haste, and not at all by the same inhabitants, nor with the like neatness and celebrity. Some say it was not built in the same place with Palaetyrus, or old Tyre; yet was it a famous city again, near unto which our Saviour wrought miracles, in which Paul abode seven days with the brethren. Here Origen died, ^(a) Ulpian the great lawyer was born, ^(b) &c. Of this city read Gul. Tyrius, de Bello Sacro, lib. xiii. cap. 1.

Ezekiel 26:15 Thus saith the Lord GOD to Tyrus; Shall not the isles shake at the sound of thy fall, when the wounded cry, when the slaughter is made in the midst of thee?

Ver. 15. Shall not the isles.] See the like, Isaiah 23:1-16

Ezekiel 26:16 Then all the princes of the sea shall come down from their thrones, and lay away their robes, and put off their broidered garments: they shall clothe themselves with trembling; they shall sit upon the ground, and shall tremble at [every] moment, and be astonished at thee.

Ver. 16. All the princes of the sea,] i.e., Of the neighbouring islands.

Clothe themselves with trembling.] Luth., With mourning.

Ezekiel 26:17 And they shall take up a lamentation for thee, and say to thee, How art thou destroyed, [that wast] inhabited of seafaring men, the renowned city, which wast strong in the sea, she and her inhabitants, which cause their terror [to be] on all that haunt it!

Ver. 17. And they shall take up a lamentation.] The like shall be done shortly at Rome. [Revelation 18:9]

That wast inhabited of seafaring men.] Who are usually the worst of men, whence the proverb, Maritimi mores, &c.

On all that haunt it.] Haunt the sea, littorales qui sunt fere duri, horridi, immanes, latrociniis dediti, feri et inhospitales, tales olim Britanni.

Ezekiel 26:18 Now shall the isles tremble in the day of thy fall; yea, the isles that [are] in the sea shall be troubled at thy departure.

Ver. 18. Now shall the isles tremble.] And seeing thy shipwreck, they shall look better to their tackling. Alterius perditio tua sit cautio. ^(a)

At thy departure.] Into captivity. Or, Tuus exitus, hoc est, tuum exitium.

Ezekiel 26:19 For thus saith the Lord GOD When I shall make thee a desolate city, like the cities that are not inhabited; when I shall bring up the deep upon thee, and great waters shall cover thee;

Ver. 19. When I shall bring up the deep upon thee.] As Ezekiel 26:3; great forces.

And great waters shall cover thee.] So that thou shalt be irrecoverably lost, as places drowned, and never seen any more; Goodwin sands here in Kent, for instance. These did once belong to Goodwin, Earl of Kent, as his lands; but in the reign of William Rufus they were flooded, and remain to this day a dangerous sandy place, where perished, this present year 1658, Col. Reynolds and others, in their return from Mardike.

Ezekiel 26:20 When I shall bring thee down with them that descend into the pit, with the people of old time, and shall set thee in the low parts of the earth, in places desolate of old, with them that go down to the pit, that thou be not inhabited; and I shall set glory in the land of the living;

Ver. 20. With the people of old time.] The multitude of those that are dead from the beginning of the world; or with the people of the old world, as Jerome will have it; and that the Tyrians’ destruction, both temporal and eternal, is hereby hinted.

When I shall set glory in the land of the living,] i.e., In Judea (where the living and true God is worshipped, and where are the right heirs of life) will I re-establish my Church, which is my glory; or when I shall glorify mine elect in mine heavenly kingdom.

Ezekiel 26:21 I will make thee a terror, and thou [shalt be] no [more]: though thou be sought for, yet shalt thou never be found again, saith the Lord GOD.

Ver. 21. Yet shalt thou never be found again.] See on Ezekiel 26:14.