CHAPTER XXVI. 1 Tyrus, for insulting against Jerusalem, is threatened. 7 The power of Nebuchadrezzar against her. 15 The mourning and astonishment of the sea at her fall. 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, 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: 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. 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. 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. 6 And her daughters which are in the field shall be slain by the sword; and they shall know that I am the LORD. 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. 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. 9 And he shall set engines of war against thy walls, and with his axes he shall break down thy towers. 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 a made breach. 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. 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. 13 *And I will cause the noise of thy songs to cease; and the sound of thy harps shall be no more heard. 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. 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? 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. 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! 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. 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; 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; 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. Heb. according to the enterings of a city broken up. Heb. houses of thy desire. 1 Or, pour out the engine of shot. Isa. 94. 8. Jer. 7 34, and 16. 9. 5 Heb. tremblings. 6 Revel. 18. 9. 7 Heb. of the seas. 8 Heb. terrors. Verse 2. "Tyrus."-This prophecy, which so circumstantially predicts the downfal of Tyre, and its condition to remote ages, was delivered at a time when that city was in the height of its prosperity and power. From the interest necessarily connected with whatever relates to so remarkable a people as the Tyrians, and still more from the striking cor roborations which may be obtained, from different sources. of the prophecies which relate to their history and condition, there are few passages of Scripture which afford room for more ample and interesting illustration than the present chapter. As the separate illustration of every point would occupy our space more fully than our limits allow, we judge it preferable to give a general historical notice of Tyre; adding, under verse 4, a series of brief notices from successive travellers, to illustrate its decline and present condition; thus enabling the reader to trace the historical connection and marked fulfilment of the prophecies which relate to that renowned city. We have already taken some slight (but, for our purposes, sufficient) notice of the origin of Tyre, as a colony of Sidon (see the notes on Josh. xix. 24; Judges i. 31), and shall not here return to the subject, or inquire into the date-certainly very ancient-at which this Sidonian settlement was formed. It is however to be borne in mind that ancient history and geography recognize two Tyres, differently situated. The more ancient Tyre was placed on the shore of the continent; and the other upon a small island, about one-third of a mile from the shore. As it was only after the Old Tyre was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, as predicted in the present chapter, that the capital seat of the Tyrians was removed to the island-this must of course be understood as the Tyre of Scripture history. Whether it were also the sole Tyre of prophecy, we regard as a distinct question. It is certain that some of the prophecies are best understood with reference to the Old Tyre, and others as respecting the New Tyre; and if the latter did not exis when the prophecies which may be supposed to regard it were delivered, no objection can arise from this circumstance, when we reflect that all things are present to Him in whose name the prophets spoke, and that prophecy actually does in other cases, sometimes relate the history and final condition of that which had no existence when the prophecy was delivered. It is indeed easy to understand that the prophets should speak in the wide sense of Tyre, the city of the Tyrians, as continuously connected with their history, and therefore proceeding with their history from the old town ti the new. We have given this explanation in order to dispense with the necessity for the one of Bishop Newton, although that still remains probable and well-supported:-this is, that although the insular Tyre only became the sole city after the continental town had been destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, it had previously, and from very ancient times been built upon, and formed part of Tyre, and is comprehended under that name. Whence it follows that the Tyre of Scripture history and prophecy embraced both the continental and insular portions of the town. It is indeed scarcely credible that the Tyrians, as a body of commercial navigators, could have overlooked the advantages offered by ai island so close to their shore; and that they did not, and that it was regarded as part of Tyre, is almost demonstrated by the fact that the ancient authors cited by Newton bear witness to the remote antiquity of the insular city. It is a remarkable circumstance that Pliny (Nat. Hist. v. 19), in describing the circumference of Tyre as nineteen Roman miles, expressly includes the continental and insular Tyre together; adding, that the then existing (insular) Tyre had no more than twenty-two stades. Concerning the continental Tyre we have no information but that which the Bible offers; and from which we learn that, according to the ideas of the time, it was a large, wealthy, and splendid city. That it did exist is acknowledged by the Greek writers, but they could furnish no information, as it had been utterly destroyed before their time. It was never rebuilt, and not the least trace of its ruins can be discovered; nor could indeed its site be determined did we not know that it was on the coast opposite the island. Hence, having given a representation of the insular Tyre under Josh. xix., and wishing here to furnish some idea of the continental desolation, we have had no other alternative than to take an illustration characterising the desolation of the territory rather than of the exact spot; the ruins which our present engraving exhibits being a few miles from the site, and will be considered interesting as a general illustration. When Nebuchadnezzar gained the city, after a siege of thirteen years, the previous removal by the inhabitants of their valuable effects to the island, and to other places beyond his reach, as explained under Jer. xliii., so disappointed him that he completely destroyed the place, and marched to Egypt. However, although the Tyrians had evaded the spoliation of their valuable property, they became subject to the Babylonians, as the prophets foretold. Indeed it would seem as if the royal family of Tyre, like that of Judah, had been carried into captivity, for Josephus cites the Phoenician annals, as showing that, after this time, the Tyrians received their kings from Babylon. The duration of their subjection was limited by prophecy to seventy years (Isa. xxiii. 15, 16, 17), that is, to the termination of the Babylonian monarchy, when the Tyrians, with some other remote nations, were restored to comparative independence by the Persians. They then seem to have been allowed the entire management of their own affairs, with the only discoverable limitation that they were obliged to furnish subsidies and vessels to the Persians, when required. Accordingly they did render very valuable assistance to the Persians in the famous war of Xerxes against the Greeks; and Herodotus (viii. 67) particularly mentions the kings of Tyre and Sidon as present at the council of war held by the Persian monarch. Under the Persians, the people of Tyre recovered much of their former wealth and importance; and such were their resources, and the strength and advantageous situation of their insular city, that they were enabled to stay the progress of Alexander's arms longer than any other place under the Persian dominion. He spent eight months before Tyre, and at last only succeeded by constructing an embankment or causeway between the main land and the island, giving his troops and engines free access to the latter. The Tyrians still however made a valiant defence, which, with the delay they had occasioned, so provoked the conqueror, that, with a cruelty not unusual with him, and which has left a great blot upon his character, he crucified two thousand of the inhabitants, and sold thirty thousand for slaves: eight thousand had been slain in the storming and capture of the city. The town itself he set on fire. Yet it recovered once more; and only nineteen years after was able to withstand the fleets and armies of Antigonus, and sustained a siege of fifteen months before it was taken. After this it endured that frequent change of masters to which all this region was subject, in the continual contests between the Greek kings of Egypt and Syria, until it was finally, with all the rest, absorbed into the vast Roman empire. By that time Tyre had again greatly declined in importance. Alexander did the Tyrians more evil than the ruin of their city and the slaughter of its people, by the foundation of Alexandria in Egypt, which gradually drew away from them that foreign traffic through which they had enjoyed unexampled prosperity for not less than a thousand years. With the loss of their monopolies and colonial establishments, the skill and enterprise of the Tyrians still, however, sufficed to keep Tyre in a respectable station as an individual town, and such it remained under the Romans. Many of the people of Tyre in the end embraced the Jewish religion; and that city was one of the first that received the faith of Christ, who himself visited the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, and miraculously healed the woman of Canaan's daughter. Paul found there some faithful disciples on his journey to Jerusalem; and in the persecution under Dioclesian, there were many sincere believers at Tyre, who “counted not their own lives dear unto them. This, as well as most of the other circumstances we have related, appear very clearly to have been predicted by the prophets. (See, in particular, Ps. xlv. 12; lxxii. 10; Isa. xxxii. 18.) The decline of Tyre, even as a private town, may soon be told. It passed, with the rest of Syria, to the Arabs; in 1124 it was taken from them by the Crusaders; Saladin made an ineffectual attempt to recover it in 1187; and it was finally taken, in 1291, by Khalil, the Sultan of Egypt, who nearly razed it to the ground, that it might never again afford a stronghold or harbour to the Christians. The Turks took it from the Egyptian Mamelukes in 1516. These facts are chiefly of interest as connecting the prophecies concerning Tyre; for it appears, as already intimated, that while Ezekiel speaks primarily of the destruction of continental Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar, he, by a transition not unusual in Scripture, glances at the subsequent destruction of the insular Tyre by Alexander, and predicts its future history and condition. Even if this were disputed in the case of Ezekiel, the prophetic notice of the latter would be clear from Zechariah, who lived after the old Tyre had been destroyed, and yet foretells the destruction of Tyre, which must necessarily have been that of the insular Tyre by Alexander. 4. "They shall destroy the walls of Tyrus."-This was true both of the old and new Tyre: the walls of the former having been destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, and those of the insular Tyre by Alexander. The wall was afterwards rebuilt-doubtless on the old foundations, and with the old materials-but these were destroyed by the sultan Khalil, and, as stated in the preceding note, only the foundations can now be traced. The strength of the wall which opposed the efforts of Alexander is particularly noticed by Arrian, who states that opposite to the mole formed by the Macedonians, it was 150 feet high, and of proportionable thickness, constructed with great stones strongly cemented together. 5. “A place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea."-The last clause must clearly refer this to the insular, or (as the causeway of Alexander made it) peninsular Tyre. Indeed, besides the considerations stated in the preceding note, it will be observed that nothing has hitherto been said of Nebuchadnezzar; but, in these introductory verses, the prophet seems rather to speak of the ultimate result of the various succeeding desolations to which Tyre should be exposed, and of which Nebuchadnezzar's desolation of old Tyre was only the commencement. The image of desolation employed, that of fishers spreading their nets to dry on the site of a once populous city, is as natural for a place on the coast, as that of feeding and stabling cattle is for inland desolation. And as fishermen naturally spread their nets on any convenient place, on a naked rock or beach, it only becomes necessary to say that Tyre has become a fishing station, to show that this prophecy has been literally accomplished, without our being required to find that some traveller has happened to say that he saw nets spread upon the strand where old Tyre stood. But this has been said by travellers even of the new or peninsular Tyre. This town seems to have been in a tolerably prosperous condition, though wofully different from what it once was, till it was destroyed by the Mameluke Sultan. From this it never recovered; and we no more find it mentioned as an existing town. Our best course here will be to introduce the substance of observations made by successive travellers, beginning with Benjamin of Tudela, who visited the place while possessed by the Crusaders, and whose account is instructive, though dashed with his usual extravagance in what he says about old Tyre. “One day's journey from Sidon is New Tyrus, furnished with a most commodious naven, which VOL. III. Y 161 it containeth within itself, and receiveth ships between two towers built on both sides: so that a brazen chain being extended from one tower to the other by the publicans, serving for the gathering of customs, ali entrance and going out of ships by night may be hindered, and no man can possibly convey any thing taken out of the ships. Nor do I think any haven in the world to be found like unto this. The city itself, as I have said, is goodly, and in it there are about 400 Jews, some of whom are very skilful in disciplinary readings, and especially Ephraim, the Egyptian judge, and Mair, and Carchasona, and Abraham the head of the college. Some of the Jews living there have ships at sea for the cause of gain. There are workmen in glass there, who make glass, called Tyrian glass ”—[This, by the way, was a very ancient manufacture at Tyre]-"the most excellent, and of the greatest estimation in all countries. The best and most approved sugar is also found here. Ascending the walls of New Tyrus, Old Tyrus is seen overwhelmed and covered with the sea, distant a cast out of a sling from the new: but if any please to take sea in a skiff or boat, he seeth the tower, market-places, streets, and palaces in the bottom. But New Tyrus is famous for public traffic, whereto they resort from all places." Passing a long interval of time, we come to Sandys, who was at Tyre about a century after it fell to the Turks. After alluding to its former greatness, he adds: “But this once famous Tyrus is now no other than an heape of ruines; yet they have a reverent respect, and doe instruct the pensive beholder with their exemplarie frailtie." It had two harbours, of which that on the north side was, as he thought, the best in all the Levant, and which the corsairs entered at pleasure; the other was encumbered and choked up with the ruins of the city. Later, in the same century, the place is noticed by Thevenot, Dumont, and Lebrun, in their respective Voyages au Levant." They describe it to the same effect as Maundrell, quoted below. Lebrun particularly notices the abundance of fish, and the bad state of the harbour. There were but a few miserable dwellings (Dumont says twelve or fifteen), inhabited by Turks and Arabs. The learned Huet (in his Demonstratio Evangelica,' first published in 1679) says that he knew a Jesuit named Hadrian Parvillarius, a candid and learned man, who had spent ten years in Syria, and who related to him how strongly this prediction of Ezekiel was brought to his mind when he approached the ruins of Tyre, and beheld the rocks stretching forth to the sea, and the large stones strewed upon the shore, made smooth by the sun, the waves, and the wind, and on which the fishermen dried their nets. To the same purpose follows our own admirable traveller, Maun drell (1697). "The city, standing in the sea, upon a peninsula, promises at a distance something very magnificent But when you come to it. you see no similitude of that glory for which it was renowned in ancient times, and which the prophet Ezekiel describes. On the north side it has an old Turkish ungarrisoned castle, besides which you see nothing but a mere Babel of broken walls, pillars, vaults, &c., there being not so much as an entire house left. 1ts present inhabitants are only a few poor wretches, harbouring themselves in the vaults, and subsisting chiefly upon fishing; who seem to be preserved in this place by Divine Providence as a visible argument how God has fulfilled his word concerning Tyre, that it should be as the top of a rock, a place for fishers to dry their nets on." The east end of an ancient Christian church remained tolerably entire: near it was a staircase, and Maundrell got upon the top, and had a full prospect over the peninsula, the isthmus, and neighbouring shore. The island appeared of a circular form, containing about forty acres, and at the utmost margin of the land the foundations might be traced of the wall by which it was anciently encircled. The island makes with the isthmus two large bays, which were in part defended from the ocean each by a long ridge resembling a mole, stretching directly out on both sides from the head of the island; but whether these were walls or rocks, the work of nature or art, Maundrell could not discover. Dr. Shaw says, that the best of the harbours, that to the north, was in his time so choked up with sand and rubbish, that even the boats of the poor fishermen who now and then visit this once renowned emporium could only with difficulty obtain admittance. Volney's avowed infidelity renders him a valuable witness to the fulfilment of prophecy-which service to truth he often unconsciously renders. Besides quoting him with this view, we shall add such particulars from his general account of the place as may serve to complete the preceding intimations concerning its situation and condition. The peninsula projects into the sea in the form of a mallet with an oval head; this head is of solid rock, covered with a brown cultivable earth, which forms a small plain about eight hundred paces long by four hundred broad. The isthmus, which joins the plain to the continent, is of pure sea sand. The difference of soil renders the ancient insular state of the plain. before Alexander joined it to the sea by a mole, very manifest, since it is plain that the sea, by covering the whole with sand, has enlarged it by successive accumulations, and formed the present isthmus. The port on the north side appears to have been formed by art, but is so choked up that children pass it without being wet above the middle. From the towers at its entrance began a line of walls which, after surrounding the basin, enclosed the whole island; but, as in Maundrell's time, it can only be traced by the foundations which run along the shore. On approaching the continent from the island, the ruins of arches at equal distances are perceived, as shown in our engraving under Josh. xix., having at top a channel three feet wide by two and a half deep, lined by a cement harder than the stones themselves. This was an aqueduct which conveyed water to the shore, in the first instance and which the inhabitants, turning to good account the mole of Alexander, afterwards continued across the isthmus te the island. When Volney was there, the huts had increased to a poor village, situated at the junction of the isthmus with the ancient island. "The whole village contains only fifty or sixty poor families, who live but indifferently on the produce of their little grounds and a trifling fishery. The houses they occupy are no longer, as in the time of Strabo edifices three or four stories high, but wretched huts ready to crumble to pieces." Since Volney's time this place has increased to a small and miserable looking town, and a peddling trade has arisen, which serves more (like the villages at Thebes and Memphis) to impress the degradation of Tyre upon the minds of those who have heard the story of its ancient renown, than would its abandonment to solitary ruin. "Some miserable cabins," says Jolliffe, "ranged in irre gular lines, and dignified with the name of streets, and a few buildings of a rather better description, occupied by th officers of government, compose nearly the whole of the town. It still makes, indeed, some languishing efforts at com merce, and continues annually to export to Alexandria cargoes of silk and tobacco, but the amount merits no consider ation. The noble dust of Alexander. traced by the imagination till found stopping a beer-barrel, would scarcely afforé a stronger contrast of grandeur and debasement than Tyre, at the period of being besieged by that conqueror, and the modern town of Tsour erected on its ashes." ("Letters from Palestine,' p. 13.) The modern name, Tsour, is precisel the same as that which the ancient city bears (3, a rock) in the Hebrew Scriptures. 10. "Thy walls shall shake at the noise of the horsemen, and of the wheels."-This must necessarily refer to the conti nental Tyre, as of course neither horses nor chariots could approach that on the island. 12. "They shall lay thy stones and thy timber and thy dust in the midst of the water."-In this verse the propheti vision seems to go or to the circumstances attending the desolation of the insular Tyre by Alexander. We are told that the conqueror should make a spoil of the riches of Tyre, which was true of Alexander—at least more true than of Nebuchadnezzar, of whom the same prophet declares that he should be disappointed of the anticipated spoil, and that he should therefore have Egypt for his reward. The transition from Nebuchadnezzar to the Macedonians is indicated by a change of person: the doings of the former having been indicated in the singular number-he shall do this and that; then it comes abruptly-"they shall make a spoil," &c. But the change would be clear enough without this. The principal cause of the difference was that the Tyrians, on the latter occasion, trusted with more confidence to the safety derived from their insular position and their fortifications, than they had when besieged by Nebuchadnezzar on the continent; and hence they did not, at least to the same extent, take the precaution of removing their valuable property and merchandise beyond the reach of the invader. The passage we have cited at the head of this note seems most clearly to refer to the manner in which Alexander employed the ruins of the continental Tyre to facilitate the conquest of the insular; and hence it furnishes a remarkable instance of most definite prophecy, analogous to that which foretold the very manner in which Babylon should be taken by Cyrus. Alexander having no fleet, and seeing that nothing could be hoped from an ordinary course of operations against Tyre, conceived, as we have already intimated, the bold idea of forming a mole from the continent to the island, which might enable him to bring his troops and military engines under its walls. The difficulties of this enterprise, which has in all ages been the wonder and admiration of military men, are fully stated by Q. Curtius, who says that the soldiers were in despair when the work was proposed to them; for the sea was so deep, that it seemed impossible to them, even with the assistance of the gods, to fill it up; and besides, where could they find stones large enough and trees tall enough for so prodigious an undertaking? Alexander encouraged them and desired them to recollect that the ruins of the old town afforded plenty of stone suitable for the purpose, and that timber suitable for their boats and towers might be obtained from the neighbouring mountains of Lebanon. Arrian also notices that there was plenty of stone not far off, with a sufficient quantity of timber and rubbish to fill up the vacant spaces. (Compare Q. Curtius, iii. 2, 3, with Arrian, ii. 18.) As the mole when nearly completed was swept away by a storm, and a new one had to be constructed, the materials must have been well exhausted, and this, while it accounts for the entire disappearance of Old Tyre, does most strikingly corroborate the prediction that its stones, its timber, and its very dust (rubbish) should be laid in the midst of the water. See also verse 19, "I shall bring up the deep upon thee, and great waters shall cover thee." We wish to note the emphasis to be placed on the word “lay thy stones." &c, in the present text, as implying a deliberate act, corresponding to the construction of the mole which was composed of successive lagers of stones, rubbish, and timber. (See Q. Curtius, as above.) CHAPTER XXVII. 1 The rich supply of Tyrus. 26 The great and unrecoverable fall thereof. the ships of the sea with their mariners were in thee to occupy thy merchandise. 10 They of Persia and of Lud and of Phut were in thine army, thy men of war: THE word of the LORD came again unto me, they hanged the shield and helmet in thee; they set forth thy comeliness. man, take up a lamen saying, 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. 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 1 Heb perfect of beauty. 2 Heb. heart, 3 Heb. built. Or, purple and scarlet. 7 Or, stoppers of chinks. Il 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 broidered work, and fine linen, and coral, and "agate. 17 Judah, and the land of Israel, they were thy merchants: they traded in thy 4 Or, they have made thy hatches of ivory well trodden. 10 5 Heb. the daughter. Heb. thy works. |