Bible Commentaries

HOMILETICAL HINTS

On Ch26

Ezekiel 26:1-6. Tyre, the home of the first learned jurist, Ulpian, is the burial-place of the gifted theologian Origen; and the ruins of its once gorgeous cathedral cover the bones of the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa.—“Selfishness is a very great sin, especially when one seeks to become rich through other people’s hurt” (Cr.).—Tyre against Jerusalem: a study for the times.—“The prophet would check the despondency which a sight of the world shining in its glory can so readily evoke in the people of God when sighing under the cross” (Hengst.).—The loud triumph of the world over the Church is still only an apparent triumph.—The Church may be brought down, but the world with all its lust must utterly go down.

Ezekiel 26:3. Yes; many nations shall come; God took Tyre at her word, but how?—Against the high wave-stroke of the towering heart, there come the high beating waves of retribution.—“God serves Himself of men in executing punishment, where an angel might rather have done it (Sennacherib), in order that we may become more sensible of our impotence” (Stck.).—The sea, which had been the hope of Tyre, now its terror.—God, the Leader of the enemies of His enemies.

Ezekiel 26:4. Walls, towers, all is nothing, if God is not all.—What survives if God falls upon us?—The comforting and the terrible faithfulness of God to His word.—All things and persons are included in the annihilating judgments of God.

Ezekiel 26:7-14. Nebuchadnezzar, a servant of God: in Egypt the insects were such.—The world-conqueror and the world-ruler.—The king out of the north is, above all, death; and if he draws up in array, he has a multitude also for his host, and there will be pain for the soul as well as for the body.—No fortress stands so secure and so firmly guarded that God’s judgment cannot reach and enter it.—Every power is broken at last.—“Whosoever does not tremble before the divine law will be only the more affrighted before the divine punishment when it alights” (Stck.).

Ezekiel 26:12. The spoiling of our goods is the final end of all upon earth; therefore should we lay up for ourselves treasures in heaven, which remain for ever. Sic transit gloria mundi.

Ezekiel 26:13-14. The lust of the world shall be one day suffering; the suffering of the pious eternal glory.—Let not thy heart be so stunned by the noise which the world makes as not to mark the bare rock which lies beneath; be not deceived by the merry songs and lively instruments of music: upon the graves even of the rich and the great all is still.—Here the fishing-net, elsewhere the cobwebs.

Ezekiel 26:15 sqq. The interest in the downfall of others, arising from the consideration of the nothingness and perishableness of all earthly things, from the feeling of one’s own impotence and weakness, from the consciousness of sin and guilt.—The echo of misery.—“When God punishes, He does it not merely on account of the ungodly, who must feel such punishment, but also on account of other ungodly persons, that they may become better by such examples” (St.).—Herakles, the strength of Tyre, the might of commerce (comp. the Heb. word rakal).—The fall of Tyre an impressive preaching of repentance.—“The downfall of the ungodly is more readily mourned and bewailed than the tribulation of the righteous” (St.).—“That may be accomplished in a moment which was not expected to take place in years” (Stck.).—The Bible also represents tragedies, in which whole peoples may weep and kings take their place in the dust.—“When earthly well-being departs, the world complains—only its eternal perdition troubles it not” (Stck.).—The fall of the great should make us shy of seeking after such perishable greatness.—The unrighteous grief of the world, and the righteous lamentation of the world.—The terror before Tyre, and the terror upon Tyre.—If thou art frightened at sin in time, thou shalt not need to be frightened at its punishment when it is too late.

Ezekiel 26:19-21. “These three verses hang together. The overthrow of the great city, and the glorification of the church. The one is the consequence of the other. There was a time when Rome was desolated, and the peoples covered it like water. At last it also went down to the dead in the Council of Trent, where, by its anathemas, it cut itself off from true believers. God has delivered His church, the land of the living, from Babylon, and adorned her with peace and manifold gifts” (Cocc.).—Tyre in the going down, Zion in the rising up again.—“He who has such hope may well let the scorn of Tyre pass—respice finem” (Hengst.).—“Just as God overthrows the proud antichristianism, so much the higher will He one day raise His church”(Tüb. Bible).—“Even in the hardest threatenings there is an under-current of promise for the children of God” (St.).

Ezekiel 26:21. As there is a seeking and not finding, so also shall there be a being sought and not found.—“This is likewise said of every ungodly one who has been prosperous, Psalm 37:36. He is not to be found in heaven for ever, and in hell none cares to seek or to be found” (B. B.).