Prophecies]

CHAP. XXVII.

THE HE word of the LORD came again unto me, saying,

2 Now, thou son of man, take up a lamentation for Tyrus;

3 And say unto Tyrus, O thou that art situate at the entry of the sea, which art a merchant of the people for many isles, Thus saith the Lord GOD; O Tyrus, thou hast said, I am of perfect beauty.

4 Thy borders are in the midst of the seas, thy builders have perfected thy beauty.

5 They have made all thy ship boards of fir trees of Senir: they have taken cedars from Lebanon to make masts for thee.

[against Tyre.

6 Of the oaks of Bashan have they made thine oars; the company of the Ashurites have made thy benches of ivory, brought out of the isles of Chittim.

7 Fine linen with broidered work from Egypt was that which thou spreadest forth to be thy sail; blue and purple from the isles of Elishah was that which covered thee.

8 The inhabitants of Zidon and Arvad were thy mariners: thy wise men, O Tyrus, that were in thee, were thy pilots.

9 The ancients of Gebal, and the wise men thereof were in thee thy calkers: all the ships of the sea with their mariners were in thee to occupy thy merchandise.

by Nebuchadnezzar, after a siege of thirteen years. The city called Old Tyre, stood on a peninsula, from which a great part of the inhabitants fled, with their effects, before it was taken, to an island half a mile from the shore, and built New Tyre, afterwards taken by Alexander the Great. The prophecy relates chiefly to Old Tyre, though it is thought to comprehend both, which were often considered as one city. The same event was foretold by Isaiah, ch. xxiii.

The Prophet begius with introducing Tyre as insulting Jerusalem, and congratulating herself on the prospect of accessions to her commerce, now that city was no more. Upon this, God, by his Prophet, denounces utter destruction to Tyre, and all the lesser cities depending on her, which are called her daughters. We have then a particular account of the monarch charged with this work; "We, as it were, see his mighty hosts raising the mounds, setting the engines, and shaking the walls; we hear the noise of the horsemen, and the sound of their cars; we view the clouds of smoke and dust; we see the sword bathed in blood, and hear the groans of the dying. Tyre immediately disappears; her strong towers shrink down into the earth, and her very dust is buried in the sea. Nothing remains but the bare rock (ou which the city stood). The scene is then varied. The isles and adjacent regions shake, as

by a mighty earthquake, with the concussion occasioned by the fall of Tyre. The groans of the dying reach the ears of the people inhabiting those regions. Their princes, alarmed for themselves, and grieved for Tyre, descend from their thrones, lay aside their robes, and clothe themselves with sack-cloth? no, but with trembling! Arrayed in this astonishing attire, the Prophet introduces them as a chorus of mourners, lamenting Tyre, in a funeral song, or dirge, as customary on the death of renowned personages.

"Such is the prophecy concerning Tyre, comprehending both the city on the continent, and that on the island, and punetually fulfilled in regard to both. That os the continent was razed to the ground by Nebuchadnezzar, and that on the island by Alexander. The latter used all the stones, rubbish, and earth of the old city, in making a causeway to join the continent to the island, by which meaus he became master of the (latter) city, and fulfilied that part of the prediction which says,

her dust shall be scraped together, and her stones, her timber, and her earth laid in the midst of the waters.' At present, aud for ages back, this great city, once the emporium of the world, is literaly what the Prophet repeatedly foretoldbare rock, a place to spread nets ou.' Dr.

J. Smith.

CHAP. XXVII. Ver. 3. Entry of the sea-that is," A sea port."- -Of perfect beauty-Heb." Perfect of beauty."

Ver. 4. In the midst (Heb. "heart") of the sea.-Newcome thinks this refers to Old Tyre, which stood on a peninsula; others refer it to New Tyre, built on an adjacent island.

10 They of Persia and of Lud and of Phut were in thine army, thy men of war they hanged the shield and helmet in thee; they set forth thy

comeliness.

11 The men of Arvad with thine army were upon thy walls round about, and the Gammadims were in thy towers: they hanged their shields upon thy walls round about; they have made thy beauty perfect.

12 Tarshish was thy merchant by reason of the multitude of all kind of riches; with silver, iron, tin, and lead, they traded in thy fairs.

13 Javan, Tubal, and Meshech, they were thy merchants: they traded the persons of men and vessels of brass in thy market.

14 They of the house of Togarmah traded in thy fairs with horses and horsemen and mules.

15 The men of Dedan were thy merchants; many isles were the merchandise of thine hand: they brought thee for a present horns of ivory and ebony.

16 Syria was thy merchant by reason of the multitude of the wares of thy making: they occupied in thy fairs with emeralds, purple, and broi dered work, and fine linen, and coral, and agate.

17 Judah, and the land of Israel, they were thy merchants: they traded in thy market wheat of Minnith and Pannag, and honey, and oil, and balm. 18 Damascus was thy merchant in the multitude of the wares of thy making, for the multitude of all riches; in the wine of Helbon, and white wool.

19 Dan also and Javan, going to and fro occupied in thy fairs: bright iron, cassia, and calamus, were in thy market.

[against Tyre.

20 Dedan was thy merchant in precious clothes for chariots.

21 Arabia, and all the princes of Kedar, they occupied with thee in lambs, and rams, and goats: in these were they thy merchants.

22 The merchants of Sheba, and Raamah, they were thy merchants: they occupied in thy fairs with chief of all spices, and with all precious stones, and gold.

23 Haran, and Canneh, and Eden, the merchants of Sheba, Asshur, and Chilmad, were thy merchants.

24 These were thy merchants in all sorts of things, in blue clothes, and broidered work, and in chests of rich apparel, bound with cords, and made of cedar, among thy merchandise.

25 The ships of Tarshish did sing of thee in thy market: and thou wast replenished, and made very glorious in the midst of the seas.

26 Thy rowers have brought thee into great waters: the east wind hath broken thee in the midst of the seas.

27 Thy riches, and thy fairs, thy merchandise, thy mariners, and thy pilots, thy calkers, and the occupiers of thy merchandise, and all thy men of war, that are in thee, and in all thy company which is in the midst of thee, shall fall into the midst of the seas in the day of thy ruin.

28 The suburbs shall shake at the sound of the cry of thy pilots.

29 And all that handle the oar, the mariners, and all the pilots of the sea, shall come down from their ships, they shall stand upon the land;

30 And shall cause their voice to be heard against thee, and shall cry bitterly, and shall cast up dust upon their heads, they shall wallow themselves in the ashies:

Ver. 12. Tarshish.-See Jonah i. 3. Ver. 13. Jaran-that is, Greece. Dan. viii. 21. The persons of men-that is, slaves, Rev. xviii, 13. Grecian slaves were considered the most valuable; but Tubal and Meshech also brought slaves to Tyre for sale. These slave-dealers are called by St. Paut "men-stealers," and classed with murderers, whoremongers, and Sodomites, 1 Tim. i. 10.

Ver. 15. Of thine hand—that is, of thy manufac

ture.

31 And they shall make themselves

Ver. 16. Agate-Newcome, "Carbuncles." Ver. 18. Wine of Helbon-that is, Chalehon in Syria; the only wine drank by the kings of Persia. Ver. 24. All sorts of things-Marg. "All excellent things."

Ver. 26. Thy rowers-Newcome and others understand this of their statesmen, or politica! pilots, which had brought them into great difficulty and danger. Compare this chapter with Rev. xvii, throughout.

utterly bald for thee, and gird them with sackcloth, and they shall weep for thee with bitterness of heart, and bitter wailing.

32 And in their wailing they shall take up a lamentation for thee, and lament over thee, saying, What city is like Tyrus, like the destroyed in the midst of the sea?

33 When thy wares went forth out of the seas, thou filledst many people; thou didst enrich the kings of the earth with the multitude of thy riches and of thy merchandise.

34 In the time when thou shalt be broken by the seas in the depths of the waters, thy merchandise and all thy company in the midst of thee shall fall.

35 All the inhabitants of the isles shall be astonished at thee, and their kings shall be sore afraid, they shall be troubled in their countenance.

36 The merchants among the people shall hiss at thee; thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt be any more. (D)

CHAP. XXVIII.

THE word of the LORD came again unto me, saying,

2 Son of man, say unto the prince

CHAP. XXVII.

[against Tyre.

of Tyrus, Thus saith the Lord God; Because thine heart is lifted up, and thou hast said, I am a god, I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas; yet thou art a man, and not God, though thou set thine heart as the heart of God:

3 Behold, thou art wiser than Daniel; there is no secret that they can hide from thee:

4 With thy wisdom and with thine understanding thou hast gotten thee riches, and hast gotten gold and silver into thy treasures:

5 By thy great wisdom and by thy traffick hast thou increased thy riches, and thine heart is lifted up because of thy riches.

6 Therefore thus saith the Lord GoD; because thou hast set thine heart as the heart of God;

7 Behold, therefore I will bring strangers upon thee, the terrible of the nations and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of thy wis dom, and they shall defile thy bright

(D) Farther prophecies against Tyre, and a lamentation for her.-In this chapter the Prophet pursues his subject in the manner of the aucient laments, or funeral songs, in which the mourning women first recounted whatever was great or praiseworthy in the deceased, and then bewailed his fall. Here, the riches, glory, and extensive commerce of Tyre are first enlarged upon her downfall is then described in a beautiful allegory, in which all the maritime and commercial world are represented as grieved and astonished at her fate, and greatly alarmed for their own.

"Besides the view which this chapter gives of the conduct of Providence, and of the truth of prophecy; and besides the example it affords the critic, of a very elegant and highly finished piece of composition, it likewise affords the antiquary a very curious and interesting view of the wealth and commerce of ancient times.— And to the mind that looks for a city that hath foundations, what a picture does the whole present of the mutability and inanity of all earthly things! Almost all the places mentioned, like Tyre, are now no more: they are sunk in the deep waters of oblivion; the east wind hath carried them away."-Dr. J. Smith.

CHAP. XXVIII. Ver. 1. Prince of Tyrusnamely, Ithobel, in whose reign Nebuchadnezzar besieged and took Tyre. In the next verse we have a display of his arrogant pretensions.

Ver. 2, 6. Set thine heart as the heart of God.The heart is the seat of understanding: to set his

heart as the heart of God, was to magnify his own wisdom, as divine and unsearchable: see ver. 3 & 5 Ver. 3. Thou art wiser than Daniel. - This is said ironically, but serves to show that the prophet Daniel had, by this time, established a character for extraordinary and inspired wisdom.

Prophecies] CHAP. slayeth thee, I am God? but thou shalt be a man, and no God, in the hand of him that slayeth thee.

10 Thou shalt die the deaths of the uncircumcised by the hand of strangers: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD.

11 Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,

12 Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.

13 Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.

14 Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.

15 Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.

16 By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.

17 Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay

thee before kings, that they may behold thee.

18 Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffick: therefore wil! I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee.

19 All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee: thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more.

20 Again the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,

21 Son of man, set thy face against Zidon, and prophesy against it;

22 And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold I am against thee, O Zidon; and I will be glorified in the midst of thee: and they shall know that I am the LORD, when I shall have executed judgments in her, and shall be sanctified in her.

23 For I will send into her pestilence, and blood into her streets; and the wounded shall be judged in the midst of her by the sword upon her on every side; and they shall know that I am the LORD.

24 And there shall be no more a pricking brier unto the house of Israel, nor any grieving thorn of all that are round about them, that despised them; and they shall know that I am the Lord GOD.

25 Thus saith the Lord GOD; When I shall have gathered the house of Israel from the people among whom they are scattered, and shall be sanctified in them in the sight of the heathen, then shall they dwell in their

Ver 9. Wilt thou yet (or indeed) say, &c. Ver. 10. The death of the uncircumcised--that is, main unburied. See chap. xxxi. 18; xxxii. 19, &c. Ver. 12. Thou sealest up the sum — Newcome, Thou (art like) a signet of curious engraving." the ancient versions. Dr. Boothroyd confidently ys, No sense (whatever) can be made of the esent text." Bp. Lowth, however, thought otherse, and rendered the first clanse, "Thou art the armed exemplar of measures." (Lect. xxi.) which understand as parallel to " thou art the model perfection." It must be confessed, that these rious readings differ but in the corner of a letter, in the difference between Caph and Beth. This

and the two following verses are evidently ironical. Ver. 13. Thou hast been in Eden- and hast brought thence all the precious productions of Paradise!

Ver. 14. The anointed cherub that covereth-the ark of God. See Exod. xxv. 18, 21; xxx. 26. Ver. 14, 16. The stones of fire-are supposed to be the precious glittering stones in the high priest's breastplate, deposited in the most holy place; but we should rather refer to the sapphire pavement. Exod. xxiv. 10, and Note.

Ver. 24. A pricking briar.-See Num. xxxiii. 55; Josh, xxiii. 13.

land that I have given to my servant Jacob.

26 And they shall dwell safely therein, and shall build houses, and plant vineyards: yea, they shall dwell with confidence, when I have executed judgments upon all those that despise them round about them; and they shall know that I am the LORD their God. (E)

CHAP. XXIX.

IN the tenth year, in the tenth month, in the twelfth day of the month, the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,

2 Son of man, set thy face against Pharaoh king of Egypt, and prophesy against him, and against all Egypt:

3 Speak, and say, Thus saith the Lord GoD; Behold, I am against thee, Pharaoh, king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers, which hath said, My river is mine own, and I have made it for myself.

4 But I will put hooks in thy jaws, and I will cause the fish of thy rivers to stick unto thy scales, and I will bring thee up out of the midst of thy rivers,

[against Egypt.

and all the fish of thy rivers shall stick unto thy scales.

5 And I will leave thee thrown into the wilderness, thee and all the fish of thy rivers: thou shalt fall upon the open fields; thou shalt not be brought together, nor gathered: I have given thee for meat to the beasts of the field and to the fowls of the heaven.

6 And all the inhabitants of Egypt shall know that I am the LORD, because they have been a staff of reed to the house of Israel.

7 When they took hold of thee by thy hand, thou didst break, and rend all their shoulder: and when they leaned upon thee, thou brakest, and madest all their loins to be at a stand.

8 Therefore thus saith the Lord GoD; Behold, I will bring a sword upon thee, and cut off man and beast out of thee.

9 And the land of Egypt shall be desolate and waste; and they shall know that I am the LORD: because he hath said, The river is mine, and I have made it.

10 Behold, therefore I am against thee, and against thy rivers; and I will make the land of Egypt utterly waste

CHAP. XXVIII.

(E) Another lamentation for the king of Tyre; and a prediction of the fall of Zidon (or Sidon) and the restoration of Israel. -The greater part of this chapter relates to the king of Tyre, called in the Phonician annals, Ithobalus. He appears to have been a vain and impious man, who affected divine honours. The Prophet treats his foolish pretensions with severe irony, and predicts his doom. He then takes up a funeral dirge and lamentation over him, in which his former pomp and splendour are finely contrasted with his fall, in terms

that seem frequently to allude to the fall of Lucifer from heaven. This dirge (ver. 12 -18) is of course poetical.

The latter part of the chapter announces the fall of Zidon the mother city of Tyre; and it concludes with promises of deliverance to the people of Israel from all their enemies, and a restoration to their land after all their dispersions; promises which chiefly apply to the general restoration of the Jews, which is yet future and perhaps distant, after all the enemies of the truth and of the church are brought inte subjection.

CHAP. XXIX. Ver. 1. In the tenth year-that is, of Jehoiachin's captivity, from which epoch all Ezekiel's dates appear to be reckoned, though, at this distance of time, there is much difficulty in reconciling them with each other.

Ver. 3. The great dragon -See Note on Isa. xxvii. 1.-My river-that is, the Nile.

Ver. 4. Hooks. See Isa. xxxvii. 29. —— Stick unto thy scales.-Pharaoh is the crocodile, and all the fish adhering to his scales, the inferior powers dependant on him.

Ver. 5. Into the wilderness-Or, “in the desert." Newcome thinks this may allude to the heavy lo which this Pharaoh (Apries) sustained in his expedition against the Cyrenians, toward whom he must have marched through the desert. He i taken prisoner on the face of the field," (so Heb.) and afterwards strangled by his own subjects. Ver. 6. A staff of reed.-See Isa. xxxvi, 6 Ver. 7. Madest all their loins, &c.-Newcom "Didst strain all their loins."

Ver. 10. Utterly waste-Heb." Waste of wastes.*