CHAPTER 28

1And the word of Jehovah came to me, saying, 2Son of man, say to the prince of Tyre, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Because thy heart is high, and thou sayest, I am God, the seat of the gods I occupy in the heart of the seas; and thou art man, and not God, and thou makest thy heart as the heart of the Godhead: 3Behold, thou art wiser than Daniel; nothing concealed is dark to 4thee: In thy wisdom and in thy prudence thou hast made for thee wealth, 5and makest [procurest] gold and silver in thy treasures: In the fulness of thy wisdom in thy traffic thou didst increase thy wealth, and thy heart was high in thy wealth: 6Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Because thou makest 7thy heart as the heart of the Godhead; Therefore, behold, I bring strangers upon thee, the violent of the heathen; and they draw their swords upon the 8beauty of thy wisdom, and they dishonour thy shining beauty. To the grave they will bring thee down, and thou diest the death of the pierced through 9in the heart of the seas. Wilt thou say and [still] say, I am God, in the presence of him that slayeth thee? and thou art man, and not God, in the 10hand of him that pierceth thee through! Deaths of the uncircumcised shalt thou die in the hand of strangers: for I have spoken: sentence of the Lord 11Jehovah. And the word of Jehovah came to me, saying, 12Son of man, raise a lamentation over the king of Tyre, and say to him, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Thou confirmedst the measure, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty! 13In Eden, the garden of God, wast thou; every precious stone was thy covering, Sardine, topaz, and diamond, Tarshish-stone, onyx, and jasper, sapphire, carbuncle, and emerald, and gold: the work of thy kettledrums and of thy pipes was with thee; in the day that thou wast made they were prepared. 14Thou cherub of the anointing, that covered; and I have given thee [therefor, thereto]; upon the holy mountain of God wast thou, in the midst of fiery stones 15thou didst walk. Blameless wast thou in thy ways from the day that thou 16wast made, till perverseness was found in thee. In the abundance of thy merchandise they filled thy midst with mischief, and thou sinnedst; and I will profane thee from off the mountain of Godhead; and I will destroy thee, 17covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. Thy heart was high in thy beauty; thou didst corrupt thy wisdom on account of thy shining beauty; to the earth will I throw thee down; I give thee before kings, that 18they may look upon thee. From the multitude of thy iniquities, in the corruptness of thy traffic, thou hast profaned thy sanctuaries; and I will make fire go forth from the midst of thee, which burns thee up; and I will give thee 19to ashes upon the earth in the eyes of all who see thee. All who know thee among the people are amazed at thee; for terrors thou art become, and thou art no more even to eternity.

20And the word of Jehovah came to me, saying, 21Son of man, direct thy face toward Zidon, and prophesy upon it, 22And say, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah; Behold, I [come] upon thee, Zidon, and glorify Myself in the midst of thee: and they know that I am Jehovah, when I do judgments in [oh] her, 23and sanctify Myself in her. And I send pestilence into her, and blood into her streets; and the pierced-through fall in the midst of her by the sword upon her round about; and they know that I am Jehovah. 24And there shall no more be to the house of Israel a pricking thorn and a smarting sting from all round about them, who despised them; and they know that I am the Lord Jehovah. 25Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, When I gather the house of Israel from the peoples among whom they have been scattered, then I sanctify Myself in them before the eyes of the heathen, and they dwell upon their 26ground which I have given to My servant Jacob. And they dwell upon it in security, and build houses, and plant vineyards, and dwell in security, when I do judgments on all who despised them of those round about them; and they know that I, Jehovah, am their God.

Ezekiel 28:3. Sept.: μη σοφωτερος εἱ συ; … ἠ σοφοι οὐκ ἐπαιδευσαν σε ἐν τῃ ἐπιστημῃ αὐτων;

Ezekiel 28:4. μη ἐν τῃ ἐπιστημῃ σου; …

Ezekiel 28:5. ἠ ἐν τῃ πολλῃ; …

Ezekiel 28:7. Sept.: ἀλλοτριους λοιμους ἀπο ἐθνων … ἐπι σε κ. ἐπι το καλλος … και στρωσουσιν το καλλος σου εἰς ἀπωλειαν.

Ezekiel 28:8. Και καταβιβασουσιν σε,

Ezekiel 28:9. Sept., Vulg., Syr., Ar. read: הורגיך and מחלליך.

Ezekiel 28:12. Sept.: ... Συ εἰ ἀποσφραγισμα ὁμοιωσεως … κ. στεφανος καλλους—חותָם, or in stat. const.—For חכנית some codices read חבנית.

Ezekiel 28:13. Another reading: כעדן = quasi Eden. Sept.: ἐν τῃ τρυφῃ τ. παραδεισου … κ. ἀεγυριον κ. χρυσιον κ. λιγυριον κ. ἀχατην κ. ἀμεθυστον κ. χρυολιθον κ. βηρυλλιον κ. ὀνυχιον κ. χρυσιον ἐνεπλησας τους θησαυρους σου, κ. τας ἀποθηκας σ. ἐν σοι. Ἀφ’ ἡς ἡμερας ἐκτισθης συ.— Vulg.: In deliciis parodisi … aurum opus decoris tui; et foramina tua in die—

Ezekiel 28:14. Sept.: μετα Χερουβ, ἐθηκα σε ἐν ὀρει … ἐγενηθης ἐν μεσῳ.—Vulg.: Tu Cherub extentus et protegens,—

Ezekiel 28:15. (Ἐγενηθης) ἀμωμος ἐν ταῖς ἡμεραις σου—

Ezekiel 28:16. Ἀπο πληθους … ἐπληθυνας τ. ταμιεια σου … κ. ἐτραυματισθης ἀπο ὀρους … κ. ἠγαγεν σε το Χερουβ το συσκζον. Vulg.: … repleta sunt interiora tua—

Ezekiel 28:17. Sept.: ... διεφθαρη ἡ ἐπιστημη … μετα του καλλους σου δια τ. πληθος τ. ἁμαρτιων σου ἐπι τ. γην—

Ezekiel 28:18. και ἀδικιων τ. ἐμποριας. Vulg.: polluisti sanctificationem tuam—(Some codd. read.: עונך sing. and מקדשך.)

Ezekiel 28:19. ... ἀπωλεια ἐγενου—nihili factus es—

Ezekiel 28:22. ... και γνωση—Sept. for בה read twice בך; Chal., Ar., a few, בם.

Ezekiel 28:23. Sept.: ... ἐν σοι περικυκλῳ σου—

Ezekiel 28:24. Και οὐκετι ἐσονται σκολοψ πικριας κ. ακανθα ὀδυνης—

Ezekiel 28:25. … και συναξω … ἐκ τ. χωρων οὑ … ἐκει … ἐνωπιον τ. λαων των ἐθνων. Sept. read: שם.

Ezekiel 28:26. … ἐν ἐλπιδι … ὁ Θεος αὐτων, κ. ὁ Θεος τ. πατερως αὐτων.

EXEGETICAL REMARKS

Ezekiel 28:1–10. The Prophecy on the Prince of Tyre

Ezekiel 28:1. There is first, therefore, a prophecy of judgment, as in Ezekiel 26, with reference to Tyre.

Ezekiel 28:2. נגיד; MEIER: one who holds together, a governor, director. In Ethiopic, Nĕgus is king, GESEN.: he who goes before, duke, doge. The special prominence given to this person, designated king in Ezekiel 28:12, was natural from the marked parallel with Jerusalem; comp. Ezekiel 17:19. But there was expressed in the kingdom, and especially in the case of Tyre, also a characteristic state-constitution. Small as many of the Phœnician cities were, each still had its king, and Tyre, in particular, kept by a hereditary kingdom, so that even in the latest times only those related to the old royal house were admitted to the throne. This kingdom combined with a rich and powerful aristocracy the mercantile interest, the gains of commerce, which founded it (Ezekiel 28:16). After the analogy of Carthage, a senate stood by the side of the king, of the old families, which must in many respects have limited him, so that the Oriental despotism could not develope itself here. According to Josephus, it was Ethbaal II.; but not the person, only the position comes into consideration, and especially as in him the mercantile power of Tyre had its proud, secure representative.—As elsewhere also (Ezekiel 25), so here the sinning goes first on to Ezekiel 28:6.—The self-exaltation which is ascribed to him has respect, on one side, to the high opinion entertained of himself; on the other, to the same in connection with his dwelling-place. What is to be made account of in the latter respect is plain from the assertion, I am God,—to be distinguished from the likeness of the Most High (אדמה לעליון) in Isa. 14:14, also from Acts 12:22; it expresses the heathenish-mythological consciousness. The rock on which Tyre was built is at the same time to be viewed in its connection with the oft-mentioned temple. The Phœnician myth represented the two islands as moving about in the sea, until an eagle was sacrificed as an atonement. Down to the third century Tyrian coins exhibit the two islands, with the inscription, ἀμβρόσεε πέτρε (immortal rock). According to Sanchoniathon, Astarte, when wandering through the world, consecrated a star that fell down before her eyes to the island Tyre. The foundation of the temple to Melkarth was represented by its priests as contemporaneous with that of the city—about 2750 B. C. So Herodotus relates; and Arrian calls it the oldest sanctuary known in the annals of mankind. Thus מושב אלהים is sufficiently explained; while Hengst. still thinks of an “absolute inaccessibleness,” and Hitzig of the circumstance that this kingly residence “sprang up out of the water, as the palace of God out of the heavenly ocean.” [“Sanchoniathon expressly calls it ‘the holy island’; and it is known that the Tyrian colonies all reverenced it as the mother-city of their religion, not less than the original source of their political existence. It was only in the spirit of ancient heathenism to conclude, that a state which was not only strong by natural position, and by immense maritime resources, but also stood in such close connection with the divine, might be warranted in claiming, through its head, something like supernatural strength and absolute perpetuity of being.”—P. F.]—In the heart of the seas is an echo from Ezekiel 27:4, 25, 26.—The rejoinder, and thou art man, etc., is sharp, yet at the same time sober—the simple contrast between man and God (El).—And thou makest thy heart, etc., continues the thou sayest, as well explaining לכך גבה, as giving forth the speech that naturally flowed from it, the thoughts, the ebullitions of a heart which was the heart of Godhead.—HITZIG: נתן indicates what is made.

Ezekiel 28:3 begins an interlude, which, however, does not picture forth the imagination of his being God, to which the mention of Daniel would as little suit as what thereafter follows; but rather proceeds on the ground of the admitted manhood, and so does only the more feelingly censure the loftiness of spirit. It needs not be understood either as a question, or as spoken ironically. Behold, what exists, according to thy mistaken notion; it shows the being wiser than Daniel to be merely an imagination. There hence arises, at the same time, a clear confirmation of the book of Daniel (comp. Hengst. here), since Daniel’s wisdom was at any rate well known in the circle of Ezekiel, one also recognised at the Chaldean court, and therefore to be held up against the Tyrian sovereign. On the כל־סתום, that to him nothing concealed, secret, was unknown, comp. Dan. 2:10, 11, 19, 4:6. Here also, indeed, is only a man, but with a generally admitted superhuman, truly divine wisdom, which God had in reality given (that is the main element in the comparison with Daniel), which he has not, as thou hast done, in his imagination appropriated to himself. Hengst. lays stress also upon the statesmanlike, the really princely position of Daniel, which so excellently grounded the kind of counter-position assigned him in relation to the king of Tyre.

Ezekiel 28:4 goes a step deeper still, namely, to the real standpoint of the Tyrian prince,—his wisdom and prudence in the matter of worldly riches (1 Kings 4:29). In connection therewith, one naturally thinks of the traditions according to which an ancestor of the royal house was the first sailor, who was borne to the island in the hollow trunk of a tree, and there erected pillars to the wind and fire; that the forefathers of the Tyrian kings alleged they had found purple on the island (the Tyrian colour, scarlet, the lack-dye of Sor).—חיל is presently specified in the gold and silver.—אוצר is: provisions, treasure, treasury (Zech. 9:2, 3).

Ezekiel 28:5. However great this wisdom might be, however much and varied its manifestations, it centred in the merchandise; and with the growth which accrued to the wealth, the heart also became swollen, as its self-elation found in that wealth its proper element.

Ezekiel 28:6 connects itself in a summary way with Ezekiel 28:2, and prepares for the conclusion in Ezekiel 28:7, which joins the punishment to the course of sin that had just been described.—עריץ, terrible, powerful and violent: those who are so pre-eminently above others—the Chaldeans (Ezekiel 26:7). HITZIG: “Against (why not upon?) the beauty of thy wisdom.” What is meant is: that the beauty of the mercantile state of things in Tyre was the offspring of the wisdom which distinguished its king, יפי and יפעה are almost the same, the latter, however, indicating more the shine or glitter of the beauty. The shine of the beauty may be referred. especially to the princehood of Tyre. [EWALD: “they draw their swords upon thy most beautiful wisdom.”] חלל, to pierce through, Pi. to dishonour, to make common.

Ezekiel 28:8. בור=שׁחת, Ezekiel 26:20.—The plural ממותי, deaths, admits of explanation partly from the representative character of the Tyrian princehood, partly from the feeling therewith connected, of his dying in the death of every Tyrian that was slain. Hengst. compares Ezekiel 29:5; Gen. 14:10. Others: as the pierced through dies of many death-wounds (Ezekiel 21:30, 19 [25]). Even without rendering חלל, “profane,” there is a pointing back to וחללי in Ezekiel 28:7 in this way, namely, that the princehood should at last share the fate of every one who was pierced through, and, stripped of all splendour, should be cast into the grave.

Ezekiel 28:9. The word here goes still farther back than ומתה in Ezekiel 28:8, and transfers the scene to the very moment of being killed, and confronts the vaunting discourse (in Ezekiel 28:2). לפני חרגך, Ezekiel 21:16 [11].—The extremely cutting argumentation, and thou art man, etc.—מחללך, Pi. =מחולל, Poel (Isa. 51:9)

Ezekiel 28:10. מותים, plur. from מָוֶת, comp. at Ezekiel 28:8.—ערל is uncircumcised (comp. Ezekiel 44:9; Isa. 52:1); for Jews, on account of the sacramental import of circumcision, it designates the heathen world as outside the covenant of God (1 Sam. 17:36, 31:4, barbari?). The opposite in Num. 23:10: “the death of the righteous.” Also for the Tyrian, as here, it is hardly to be understood without the circumcision reported by Herodotus of the Phœnicians (II. 104). Earlier, in Ezekiel 28:8: as every one that is pierced through; here there is an ascension: as a non-Tyrian through strangers.

Ezekiel 28:11–19. Lamentation over the Prince of Tyre

Now Ezekiel 28:11, as Ezekiel 27

Ezekiel 28:12. The lamentation is in fitting adaptation to the person who was just killed. Comp. at Ezekiel 27:2.—In the connection with מלא חכמה and כליל יפי, which in themselves, and after what has preceded, are quite clear, חותם תכנית cannot possibly be rendered, with Hitzig: “thou art a curiously wrought seal-ring.” Ewald has: “O thou seal of the completion.” חותם means: to cut in, to impress with a seal, to seal; therefore partic.: thou wast sealing. Also חוֹתָם, the seal-ring, is properly the impressor. The transferred signification: to seal, that is: to attest, to confirm, to verify, recommends itself through תכנית (from תכן, to determine exactly, to weigh), the measure, the determinate, that which must have a certain amount (Ezekiel 43:10); accordingly: thou confirmedst the measure, thou fulfilledst, madest the right measure good; therefore a threefold thing is boasted of the Tyrian kingdom: measure, wisdom, and beauty. The first of these may be said against despotism; comp. at Ezekiel 28:2. [“According to the present text and punctuation, the expression plainly means: thou art the one sealing exactness (the noun חותם denoting anything that is of an exact or perfect nature). To say of the king of Tyre that he sealed up this, was in other words to declare him every way complete: he gave, as it were, the finishing stroke, the seal, to all that constitutes completeness; or, as we would now say it, he was a normal man—one formed after rule and pattern. Hence it is immediately explained by what follows: ‘full of wisdom and perfect in beauty’ in this stood his sealing completeness.”—P. F.]

Ezekiel 28:13. In Eden; comp. Ezekiel 36:35; Isa. 51:3. And the delightsome land, wherein the garden for primeval man lay, brings up the garden of God (El, not Jehovah); Ezekiel 31:8, 9; Gen. 13:10. As the Tyrian king himself was certainly not God, but what was said of him in Ezekiel 28:12, so his dwelling was unquestionably not מושׁב אל, the habitation of God; it might, however, be named paradisiacal, since all fulness of what was pleasant, and all possible magnificence, surrounded the same, covered it (מסכתך). Hitzig freely: “every precious stone was thy figure-work;” because out of the stones the figuration of the ring must be composed! The transition to every precious stone brings to remembrance Gen. 2:11, 12. The distribution of the particulars forms three groups, each having three precious stones, rounded oil by the gold, which makes ten (the symbolical number of completeness). This emblematic representation of kingly greatness and glory, therefore, carries no respect to the breastplate of the high priest and its twelve stones, where also they are ranged in a different order; comp. however, on the signification of the particular names, at Ex. 28:17 sq., 39:10 sq. Comp. also here at Ezekiel 1:16, 26, 27:16.—מלאכה may signify business, performance, work, also goods. Manifestly music is meant by it here, as the older expositors have rendered, an ordinary accompaniment of the pomp of royalty (comp. Pan. 3:5)! תף is therefore the (hand) kettledrum, as a specimen of all instruments that were struck (תפף); and נקב will be the pipe (from נקב, to push through, bore through), for the wind instruments as they were then constructed. [Ges. takes תף for the socket in which the gem is put, and נקב as ring-socket. EWALD: “were appointed for thy oracle and soothsaying work on the day of thy creation.” He would take it ironically: the man—who might be called the seal, that is, the consummation, etc., was once certainly as the first of all men in paradise (Job 15:7), so that he has a completeness beyond any other person—took, doubtless, for his holy ornament, which covered him from the first day of his life, all the twelve stones of the high priest’s oracle-sign, and was doubtless made by God a cherub upon the mountain of the gods, and was also, doubtless, unblameable from his birth—only, alas! till his guilt was discovered! Others thought of נְקֵבָה, the female (woman). So Häv.: “the service of thy kettledrums and of thy women was ready for thee on the day of thy creation,” which (by a reference to Gen. 1:27) must indicate the king’s entrance on his government, and the ladies of his harem, who surrounded him with dance and song.]—On the הבראך, comp. Ezekiel 21:35 [30]. With the creation of this princedom, as it took in Tyre precedence of the still older Zidon, there forthwith existed all sorts of parade and glory, such as could be found only in kings’ courts. (כונן, Pual from כון?). Firm and well prepared did this kingdom start into being.

Ezekiel 28:14. As the colour given to the representation has already, with its kettledrums and its pipes, forsaken Eden and paradise, and “the day of creation” does not quite constitute the Tyrian king a second Adam—as the whole representation generally appears to take into account only the very ancient origin on which this kingdom prided itself, perhaps also not without some touch of irony—so certainly the cherub here has little or nothing at all to do with paradise (comp. at Ezekiel 1, 9:3, 10); for it is unnecessary for the following context to think of the history of the Tyrian kingdom after the analogy of the history of the fall. Rather may we suppose that the designation of cherub points simply to the temple at Jerusalem, and especially to the most holy place there. There is thereby symbolized out of the history of this kingdom that historical epoch when it came through Hiram II. into connection with David and with Solomon, so important, in particular, for the design of the temple-building, and important also for the commerce of Tyre. Already, as architect of the temple of Solomon (and that Hiram was a connoisseur as well as a promoter of the building art is testified by Josephus, in addition to what is said in the Bible, from the fragments of Dius and Menander in his possession), the king of Tyre takes beside Solomon in this respect a position which makes his appearance under a name borrowed from the architecture of the holy of holies, the cherub, not unsuitable. That cherub is applied to him only symbolically is rendered plain by the otherwise incomprehensible addition of ממשׁח, that is, of the anointing, which imports as much as: anointed cherub, therefore: who is king. What Hengst. concludes from Ex. 30:22 sq., that “anointed” = holy, because all the vessels of the temple were anointed, to impress on them the character of holiness, runs out to this result, that the king of Tyre, as king, was res sacra, because God had communicated to him of His greatness—therefore, that he is said to be anointed because he was king. Since הסוכך, “the covering,” repeated in Ezekiel 28:16, refers to Ex. 25:20, and we know (comp. Doctrinal Reflections on Ezekiel 9) that the cherubim, screening with their wings the ark of the covenant, symbolized the life of creation, confessing, as it actually does, the heavenly King, the Holy One in Israel, the Most High over all, so it is not out of the way if the king of Tyre, who has shown himself to be, along with Solomon, the protector of the temple,—a building which unquestionably culminated in the most holy place,—should, agreeably to this testimony, be honoured as “the anointed cherub that covereth.” Yea, as the whole creation serves the eternal King of Israel, so also has the Tyrian kingdom served Him in His house at Jerusalem (on which also Isa. 23:18 leans), and thus a proper contrast to the self-elevation in Ezekiel 28:2 and 5 is brought out, as is expressly said through the immediately following נתתיך, I have given thee. Upon the holy mountain of God is here, therefore, as always, to be understood of the temple-mount at Jerusalem (2 Chron. 3.), where He right truly was, as architect of the temple. And because there the sanctuary for the ministrations of the priestly service in Israel was executed through him, and in the high priest of Israel the whole Israelitish priesthood culminated, it might be said, with reference to the high-priestly Urim and Thummim, of the Tyrian king, that “he walked in the midst of stones of fire.”

[Other Explanations.—Häv. thinks that the king of Tyre was named cherub as the ideal of a creature (so, too, Bähr previously in his Symbolik); ממשׁח is with him to be distinguished from משׁיח, an anointed object (Ex. 30:26), and הסוכך is as much as: a reflection of the divine glory. He thinks of a holy gods’-mountain (Isa. 14:13), wherein the king of Tyre, as one of those mighty mountain-gods (1 Kings 20:23) whom the Tyrians honoured, was located; and the fiery stones were, according to Häv., those in the temple of Herculus as the fire-god, which may have been illuminated. Hengst. takes the cherub, with Häv., as a representation of the earthly creature-life in its highest grade, and in its highest perfection; which, however, cannot be conceived of as proper to the Tyrian king. As “covering,” he covered Tyre so long as God’s favour was with him and his people. The mountain of God must be his elevation to the holy mount of God, a participation in the divine greatness (Ps. 30:8); and the fiery stones correspond to the walls of fire, which indicate the divine protection (Zech. 2:9). EWALD: “thou—into the wide-covering cherub, into that I make thee;” and from the holy mountain of the gods rush down the sparkling stones of fire, namely, thunderbolts against the wicked (!). Hitzig, like the Sept., takes את as אֶת, with: “beside the cherub, etc., so have I set thee;” then: “cherub of the width of the covering.” But he is in some doubt; he thinks by the mountain of God might be meant Horeb; but it might be the Albordsch of Asiatic mythology, and in the stones of fire there lies at bottom the idea of a Vulcan. One sees the despair which attaches to every rationalistic exposition.]

[The rationalistic explanations of this singular passage are certainly bold and unsatisfactory enough; but our author’s own appears to make greatly too much account of the historical relation of Hiram to the temple at Jerusalem, and too little of the poetical element which pervades the representation. “It is one of the most highly figurative representations of prophecy, and is only to be compared with Isaiah’s lamentation, Ezekiel 16, over the downfall of the king of Babylon, It characteristically differs from this, however, in that, while it moves with equal boldness and freedom in an ideal world, it clothes the ideal, according to the usage of our prophet, in a historical drapery, and beholds the past revived again in the personified existence of which it treats. It is a historical parable. The kings of Tyre are first personified as one individual, an ideal man—one complete in all material excellence, perfect manhood. And then this ideal man, the representative of whatever there was of greatness and glory in Tyre, and in whom the Tyrian spirit of self-elation and pride appear in full efflorescence, is ironically viewed by the prophet as the type of humanity in its highest states of existence upon earth. All that is best and noblest in the history of the past he sees in imagination meeting in this new beau-ideal of humanity. It was he who in primeval time trod the hallowed walks of paradise, and used at will its manifold treasures, and regaled himself with its corporeal delights. It was he who afterwards appeared in the form of a cherub—ideal compound of the highest forms of animal existence—type of humanity in its predestined state of ultimate completeness and glory; and, as such, had a place assigned him among the consecrated symbols of God’s sanctuary in the holy mount, and the immediate presence of the Most High. Thus, occupying the highest spheres of created life, and familiar even with the sight of the divine glory, he knew what it was to dwell amidst the consuming fire, and to walk as on burning stones of sapphire (Ex. 24:10). So thou thinkest, thou ideal man, thou quintessence of human greatness and pride—thou thinkest that manhood’s divinest qualities, and most honourable conditions of being, belong peculiarly to thyself, since thou dost nobly peer above all, and standest alone in thy glory. Let it be so. But thou art still a man, and, like humanity itself in its most favoured conditions, thou hast not been perfect before God: thou hast yielded thyself a servant to corruption, therefore thou must be cast down from thine excellency, thou must lose thy cherubic nearness to God, etc. … So that the cry which the prophet would utter through this parabolical history in the ears of all is, that man in his best estate—with everything that art or nature can bring to his aid—is still corruption and vanity. The flesh can win for itself nothing that is really and permanently good; and the more that it can surround itself with the comforts and luxuries of life, the more only does it pamper the godless pride of nature, and draw down upon itself calamity and destruction.”—P. F.]

Ezekiel 28:15. To wish to bring תמים into connection with Adam’s sinless constitution, has against it the expression בדרכיך, in thy ways. It is simply the contrast to the expression: perverseness was found in thee; therefore: blameless in thy walk. One might suppose, after the exposition given of the walking in the midst of the fiery stones in Ezekiel 28:14, an allusion to the וְתֻמִּים! The earlier procedure of the kingdom of Tyre, as seen in the fellowship it then maintained with the David and Solomon of Israel, must be viewed as set over against the corruption into which it latterly fell (Ezekiel 26:2, 27:3, 28:2 sq.). A dogmatic antithesis, such as Hengst. supposes, is not to be imagined.

Ezekiel 28:16. Here now follows the origin of the perverseness that was found in him, namely, in his vast commerce (Ezekiel 28:5); and so one has to think of the Tyrian kingdom as carrying on and plying merchandise, and that in all sorts of ways, by which it fell into pernicious and sinful courses.—מלו, indeterminate as to its subject, or (HENGST.): thy inhabitants (?); more properly: fellow-citizens, subjects, if they are not to be regarded as the merchants from all countries. Rosenm. preferred the intransitive signification of the verb: “through the multitude, etc., was thy interior filled.” [HITZIG: מְלוֹא=מְלוֹ, “the filling of thy interior was injustice.”] Thus, in place of the former blamelessness, there has come to be a ground for punishment. Hence for the punishment there must now, through God, be a withdrawal from the relations once held to Israel, the most elevated reminiscences of its history, as through God it had been introduced to these. This lies in מהר; and that it is contemplated as a holy downfall, with a view to the building up of the sanctuary in Israel at the time, we perceive from the ואחללך—ch. 7:21, 22. [HITZIG: “and thou, covering cherub, art quite rooted out”!!]—For the rest, comp. at Ezekiel 28:14.

Ezekiel 28:17. The discourse here, with גבה׳, again reverts to the subject announced at the very beginning (Ezekiel 28:2), the corruption of the Tyrian kingdom: the proud self-elation in or on account of his beauty; comp. at Ezekiel 28:7. The higher man raises himself, so much the poorer does he become as to his wisdom. A proud man, a fool; so it is said in common life, for this special reason, that the splendour of wealth, the whole attractive display of its outward position, so apt to bewitch strangers even and to beget envy, brings the possessor so much the sooner and the more to a self-pleasing condition. This is distinctly involved in the על, on account of, which does not need to be taken as = with, together with. EWALD: “thou hast lost thy wisdom upon thy splendour.”—The self-destruction and annihilation (שׁחת) of such self-elation corresponds, as to time, with the casting down effected by God (על־ארץ), and, with respect to the preceding glory, with the abandonment to the astounded and at the same time malicious gaze of those who were companions as to rank and position. Hengst. remarks that ראה, with ב, marks the affecting contemplation, especially with a joyful participation. לראוה, the infinitive form, like לדאבה, לאהבה.

Ezekiel 28:18. מרב עוניך is parallel with ברב רכלתך in Ezekiel 28:16, and בעיל רכלתך throws light on עוניך.—The profanation proceeded from the moral offence; the unrighteous mammon in commerce brought along with it sin and guilt. After what is said in Ezekiel 28:16 in reference to God as to the profaning, the words חללת מקדשׁיך can occasion no difficulty. The sanctuaries of the Tyrian kingdom are those holy reminiscences regarding the mountain of God and the sanctuary of the Lord, and of Israel’s high-priesthood. One cannot possibly serve God and mammon. (Others have thought of the temple, which Tyre made on his holy island (?!). With Hengst. every sort of greatness ordained by God, or of glory distributed by Him, is a sanctuary.)—The fire, according to Hitzig, must be the perverseness with which his interior was penetrated, as fire bound up in him (!!). Some, too, have under it thought of a traitor, who would pass over to Nebuchadnezzar. Vatke has also mentioned the phœnix, giving itself to be burnt. It is a biblical form of speech, frequently used, for the punishment of divine wrath which comes from sin, and which, as is evident from the term ashes, was to annihilate the kingdom of Tyre (Ezekiel 19:12).—ואתנך, contrast to ונתתיך in Ezekiel 28:14.—The seeing once more emphasizes the spectacle, which will be presented to every one in the subject so judged.

Ezekiel 28:19. Here at last is the conclusion. With the seeing with the eyes there is conjoined the knowing, the understanding with the spirit.—Comp. Ezekiel 26:16. They are prophetic preterites.—Ezekiel 27:36, 26:21.

Ezekiel 28:20–26. The Prophecy on Zidon

Ezekiel 28:20, 21. The brief and supplementary manner in which this prophecy respecting Zidon is introduced arose from the backgoing character of this city, though it was more ancient than Tyre (hence sung of by Homer, while Tyre is not), and, according to such tradition, still very commonly represented the Phœnician state (for example, Isa. 23:4, 12); comp. Gen. 10:15, 49:13. On coins, as among the Greeks, Zidon is called the metropolis of Tyre. On account of its still always preserved independence, whence it took part in the coalition against Babylon (Jer. 27),—one may say, the Genoa of the old world,—there was due to it a word, however short, especially since, as a representative of Canaan, with which no such relations were maintained as between Tyre and Israel under Hiram and Solomon, it formed most fitly the contrast for the promise which bore respect to the people of God. Comp. Judg. 10:12.

Ezekiel 28:21. צידון, that is, “fishing,” which indicates the earliest employment of its inhabitants, lay in a plain, which resembled an orchard, several hours’ walk along the sea, and had a summer and a winter harbour; at present a small, insignificant place. Of the old fortress there still remains a square tower. Fishing and traffic in fish are still practised there.

Ezekiel 28:22. הנני עליד, as at Ezekiel 26:3.—ונככדתי; comp. Ex. 14:4, 17, 18. May a preparation have been intended, through this reference to Egypt, for what follows in Ezekiel 29.? In such a being sanctified, or in God sanctifying Himself, as is done by means of a judicial punishment, there is presupposed the certainty that Zidon would not have sanctified Him. The impressive transition from the second to the third person makes the fact appear, in a manner, as already accomplished, so that one speaks of Zidon as of such a person.

Ezekiel 28:23. For which sort of judgments see Ezekiel 5:17. Pestilence in connection with war,—that in the houses; this as the shedding of blood in the streets, as is presently brought vividly out.—ונפלל, Pil. equivalent to Kal, but strengthening, enhancing, as also alliterating; producing a resemblance of sound which has in it something graphic (HÄV.). Continually, as it were, the pierced-through fall.—The sword, through which God will act upon them, comes upon Zidon from round about, so that there is no escape.—The representation of the predicted judgment is kept general. With Zidon the analogous prophecies respecting judgment first reach their end. And thus also can the following be joined to it the more fitly.

Ezekiel 28:24. The point of contrast is presented by the idea of neighbourhood—the nearer (Ezekiel 25), or the more remote, as was the case with Tyre and Zidon; it is said expressly: from all round about them. On סלון, comp. at Ezekiel 2:6. GES.: “like the young shoots and twigs of the palm.”—ממאיר, partic. Hiph. from מָאַר, to thrust; intransitive: to be sharp, bitter. GES.: “raising bitter pain.” קוץ is something cutting, stinging.—כָאֵב, to bend oneself for pain, hence Hiph.: to cause pain.—The Promise, accordingly, amounts to this, that the sensible pain which the people of Israel must have experienced through the contempt of their neighbours shall cease in the future. The figurative representation is a marked repetition of Num. 33:55; the pain experienced was punishment; comp. Gen. 15:18 sq.; Josh. 13:19; Judg. 1:31, 32, 3:3. But now the Lord accomplishes what His people had slightingly neglected. Comp. also Ezekiel 16:57.—The negative side is followed by the positive in Ezekiel 28:25; the scornful heathen go down, but the people in whom the Lord sanctifies Himself, in contrast to them, come gloriously up. Comp. Ezekiel 11:17, 20:41.—The change, also, from Israel to Jacob, is to be noticed, and the relation of house of Israel to My servant Jacob.

Ezekiel 28:26. In consequence of the added definition׃ לבטח, in security, it is repeated that they should dwell upon their home-soil. בָּטַח, according to MEIER: to stretch forth oneself, i.e. give away oneself, confide; hence: to be careless, secure. GES.: the same derived from a primary meaning, “to be void, empty.”—But also the secure possession in the confidence of faith is in this comforting promise repeated, and finally, such grace of God is again, and still more expressly than before, set over against the divine judgments. Comp. besides, Isa. 65:21. HITZIG: “the first וישׁבו preceding the building and planting is inchoative: they settle down; the second: they are established, dwell, or abide.” Hengst. remarks: “It is designed to meet the despair which, after the opening of the siege of Jerusalem, had become the most formidable enemy. So that here, in the onesidedness which so commonly adheres to prophecy, because everywhere connecting itself with definite temporal relations and issues, only the light side of the future of the covenant-people is brought into view. Along with that there was also a shady side, which is supplied by the successors of Ezekiel, Zechariah and Malachi. A great national judgment was destined to follow the Chaldean.” Häv.: “This is the eternal blessing which rests upon Israel, that it shall one time attain to a blessed peace, while the heathen powers shall lie under the penal judgment of God.” He calls to mind the gathering through the gospel. That here, as in Ezekiel 26:20, in the shape of a brief glance into the future, there are traits of Messianic colouring, is manifest. Comp. also at Amos 9:14.

DOCTRINAL REFLECTIONS

1. The time for the fulfilment of these prophecies against the aliens, where no dates of a definite nature are to be found in the prophecies themselves, depends on the kind of realization applied to them. Tholuck admits of a wide interval “in the relation between truth and reality in the prophecies.” But when he presently, again, limits the principle, that “the mode of realization may be to us a matter of indifference,” since “the simply religious spirits” are to be distinguished from divine seers, nothing is gained but the arbitrary definition that the prophets, “though not uniformly, yet in great part, saw the truth of the future not merely in abstracto, but under the concrete veil of their historical realization.” And what is meant by “seeing the truth in abstracto”? Is there not a self-contradiction in this as applied to the prophets, to whom the ideas presented themselves as matters of fact, and these facts in this or that actual form? There must, first of all, be admittedly something of human weakness, especially in the subsequent reproduction of the previously received divine communications and visions. Many an intermediate link in this way was lost; but thereby the end came so much nearer to the beginning, the ultimate background to the foreground. In this and other respects there is the dust of finiteness on these prophetic paintings, which but so much the more furnishes a pledge of their divine origin. With this agrees what is said in 1 Pet. 1:10–12,—said, indeed, with reference to the time of the Christian salvation, yet admitting also of a more general application,—where there is ascribed to the prophets an “inquiring” and “searching into,”—a matter of study, therefore, also for them, since, when the meaning had not been expressly made manifest to them, they sought for traces [of the fulfilment], and made trial of them in regard to the times which lay near at hand. If their prophecies had been the product of their own spirit, such want of knowledge in regard to the cases in question, and their procedure in consequence thereof, must have been strange; but in this way we have, with their searching concerning their prophecies, perhaps the proper soul of their so-called literary activity.

2. In the prophecies of judgment contained in the earlier chapter [i.e. Ezekiel 25], the execution of the judgment rests wholly in the hand of God. So upon Ammon, upon Moab, upon the Philistines; only in respect to Edom was it said that the accomplishment would be made specially through Israel. The divine sentence speaks throughout of the extirpation of the very name. As regards place and time, no other fulfilment could lie nearer to the prophet and his contemporaries than that through Nebuchadnezzar. That this was only the beginning of the end could not be concluded without some insight into the divine patience, and the manifestation of Christ in the flesh. Still more clearly do these relations discover themselves in the case of Tyre.

3. The transition to Tyre is made by our prophet through the Philistines. Considered generally, this has its ground in the heathenish character of the race. More specially, for their appearance in this connection, account has been made of a notice (see Movers, Phœn. ii. 313), according to which the Zidonians, after they had (B. C. 1209) been brought into subjection by the Philistines, laid the foundation of the island-city of Tyre. Lenormant (Manuel d’ Hist. Anc. de l’Orient), and, leaning upon him, M. Busch, have woven thence the story, that a Philistine fleet, sailing from Askalon, had surprised Zidon, and put an end to the hitherto Zidonian supremacy. Thus would the Philistines, as having furnished the occasion for the origination of Tyre, have had their proper place assigned them, in a historical-genetical respect, at the close of Ezekiel 25 and before the beginning of Ezekiel 26 of Ezekiel. M. Duncker (Hist. of Antiq. i. 519) merely says: “In the year B. C. 1254, a number of the Zidonian race emigrated from Zidon, and over against Old Tyre, upon an island-rock, beside the temple of Melkarth, founded New Tyre. This New Tyre grew into a commonwealth with the old city on the land. The strengthening which Tyre hereby received put it in the position of setting up a rivalry with the commerce and the colonization of Zidon. From B. C. 1100 Tyre saw herself at the head of the Phœnician cities.”

4. Tyre, as very commonly happens with commercial states, and still more with commercial cities, presents, in the few and disconnected things that we know of its history, an image of ups and downs, and inversely. Commonly it is said, in connection with our chapter, that Tyre was then at the summit of its power. But this might rather be said of the times of David and Solomon (DUNCKER, p. 520). For the period under consideration it comes nearer to the truth to say, that Tyre had again revived, and continued to maintain a certain precedence among the Phœnician cities. For though the revolt of Kition in Cyprus had been suppressed, and the island stronghold of Tyre had under King Elulæos successfully withstood the Assyrians (Salmanassar), yet the dependent relationship of the Phœnician cities toward Assyria from the year B. C. 900 became more and more marked, and Tyre had to stretch all her powers to preserve her position, or again to make it good. During the Assyrian siege it lost its last colony in the Thracian seas, namely, Thasos; and an Assyrian fleet ere long robbed it anew of the island of Cyprus, which it had again reconquered. A memorial stone in the Berlin Museum commemorates this success of Salmanassar against Tyre. According to Lenormant’s representation (ii. p. 313; Busch, p. 247 sq.), while Salmanassar, B. C. 720–15, had been successfully resisted, there were, about B. C. 700, decided failures against Sennacherib, who conquered the island Tyre, and set up there a vassal (Toubaal) as king. The bas-reliefs in the rocks of Nahr el Kelb, around Beirût, even to the present time, according to Lenormant, bear witness to the complete subjection of Phœnicia by Sennacherib (? Sargana-Salmanassar!), and the overthrow of the Tyrian supremacy. (If this French representation were to be trusted, the prophecy of Isaiah in Ezekiel 23 would have to be applied to it, though the Chaldeans were already to be descried in the distance; and Ezekiel would connect with the restoration which intervened (Isa. 23:15 sq.) the prophecy of a new judgment upon Tyre by the hand of the Chaldeans, as generally the judgment upon Tyre. But also in the otherwise general representation, which knows only of the unsuccessful siege of the island-city by Salmanassar, is the reference thereto of the prophecy of Isaiah in its first aspect to be held fast. What Isaiah predicts in Ezekiel 23 accords quite well with the Assyrian issue of things. For Salmanassar did subject the Phœnicians to himself, and also Old Tyre (JOSEPH. Antiq. ix. 4. 2), so that Salmanassar could cause himself to be glorified at Lykos beside the monuments of the Egyptian Ramses. The five years’ siege assuredly did not pass without inflicting serious injuries; and it is anyhow matter of fact, that King Elulæos recognised the sovereignty of Assyria, for he henceforth took the title of Pha (פחה), that is, governor, vassal. As the Chaldeans and the siege, through Nebuchadnezzar, emerge behind the Assyrian, the prophecy of Isaiah certainly has a much more distant background, precisely as is the case also with Ezekiel.) That the catastrophe at Jerusalem should have inspired new courage into Tyre, called forth words that were expressive of new hopes (Ezekiel 26:2), is sufficiently explained not through any position she occupied on the height of power, but rather through the relations which arose out of events in connection with Assyria. (As Lenormant mentions (ii. p. 314), if the Tyrian ascendency had been ill borne by the other Phœnician cities, since Tyre in many ways abused her position (comp. at Ezekiel 27:8 sq.), there would hence, on this side, have been no farther interest for Tyre; also, at the end of the Assyrian period, it is rather Zidon which appears at the head of an insurrectionary movement against the son of Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, as is testified by an inscription. That Zidon was worsted in the affair is shown by an inscription found in the British Museum, which represents Tyre, indeed, as among the tributaries of Assyria, but takes no notice whatever of Zidon.) In consequence of the decay of the Assyrian power, Egypt also, through Pharaoh Nechoh, attained to the position of making the Phœnician states subject to it. This took place at the period to which belongs the circumnavigation of Africa, through Tyrian mariners in the employ of the king of Egypt. During this whole time, however, and in spite of the Assyrian supremacy, the merchandise of Tyre flourished, and there was no diminution of the resources and wealth which it brought to the hand of Tyre. The place, so favourably situated, always raised itself anew; its walls were rebuilt, so that, in its re-established condition, it was able to offer resistance to Nebuchadnezzar.

5. The determination respecting the issue of the thirteen years’ siege of the island Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar has been, on one side, made dependent on Ezekiel 29:17 sq., while on another, Gesenius, Winer, Hitzig have turned to a wrong account the silence which is observed upon the consequence of the siege in question, in the passages quoted by Josephus regarding it (Antiq. x. 11, con. Ap. i. 21).1 They thence draw the conclusion that the Chaldeans did not get the city into their power, nor inflict any damage upon it. The silence, however, observed in this respect, especially when it is practised by Phœnician historiographers, speaks rather for the opposite view. For if the siege had really been without any result, how should it have made for the side in question, that no notice was taken of Nebuchadnezzar’s leaving his affair with Tyre in an unfinished state ? The very honourable report for Tyre, of its having withstood a thirteen years’ siege, which is given by Josephus from the original sources, does not exclude the supposition that the siege ended in a capitulation (in 573), but involves the assumption of a corresponding pressure through Nebuchadnezzar; although in this Chaldaic siege of Tyre, as in the Assyrian, a much wider and more comprehensive view must be taken (as already said) of the prophetic announcements pointing in that direction. The evidence for the subjection of Tyre to the sovereignty of Babylon may be seen in Movers, ii. 1, p. 448 sq., 461 sq.; comp. Häv. Comm. p. 429 sq. On King Ethbaal being obliged to abdicate, or however the act may be designated, Nebuchadnezzar brought in Baal in his place. The royal family was carried away to Babylon. Berosus says that all Phœnicia became subject to Nebuchadnezzar. At all events, we see the Tyrians, and Phœnicians generally, in a still more marked state of dependence upon Babylon than formerly on Assyria. Twice, as we learn from Assyrian sources, did the people of Tyre receive their king from Babylon—with which Hitzig compares 1 Kings 12:2 sq.; but Delitzsch rightly judges 2 Kings 24:12, 14, Dan. 1:3, more worthy of comparison, for the quite undoubted supremacy of the Persians over all Phœnicia appears plainly as the taking over of a subject-relationship which had already existed under the Chaldeans. “How also should princes have been brought back by the Tyrians, who had not long before sought refuge in a court so hostile to Tyre as Babylon was?” (HÄV.) As Lenormant represents the matter (ii. p. 318 sq.), the city on the mainland was first attacked by Nebuchadnezzar, taken, and wholly destroyed. There upon came Nebuchadnezzar in person (B. C. 574), to press forward the slumbering work; and now the island-city was taken by storm, sacked, and partly destroyed. A number of the people had previously escaped by sea to Carthage. Tyre henceforth merely vegetated; Carthage was her heiress.

6. Tyre, in the prophets, comes into consideration not in a political respect, but as the representative, the might, of the world’s commerce. Jehovah and Mammon is the counterpart to Jerusalem and Tyre. “This last” (says Delitzsch) “gained as peacefully as possible the treasures of the nations, and secures for itself the advantage it won by means of colonies and factories.”

7. The judgment upon Tyre is history—an entire development of judgment even to utter extinction, as is now most clearly manifest. Assyria is in this judgment-history one chapter, Nebuchadnezzar also one, and Alexander the Great still another: Assyria the type of the Chaldeans, the Chaldeans the type of the Macedonians—each one surpassing the other in the power of inflicting judgment, like wave upon wave of the sea, till the flood had overwhelmed all (comp. Ezekiel 26:3, 19). “The deeds of Nebuchadnezzar rank with the prophet for more than an isolated fact. In the conquest by that monarch, he beholds from the historical ground of the present the whole mass of destruction concentrated, which links itself in history thereto as a closely connected chain of events. The might of Tyre, broken by Nebuchadnezzar, coincides in his view with the entire annihilation of the same. This was demanded by the internal theocratic significance of that fact in relation to the destruction of Jerusalem. The conquest of Tyre by the same hand which struck the city of God has the counter signification of a future glory (Ezekiel 29:21, 28:25, 26). Nebuchadnezzar inflicts on Tyre the death-wound, and its whole subsequent existence is a struggle with death” (HÄV.). The Macedonian conqueror first destroyed Old Tyre; then out of the ruins he constructed a mound to the island—the idea having been suggested to him, it is said, by Hercules appearing in a dream, and from the temple in the island stretching out the hand to him; and at last, by means of treachery, he conquered the island-city in the seventh month, and dealt with it so severely, that what remained of it was but the ashes of the Tyre which had formerly existed (comp. Ezekiel 28:18). After this manner is prophecy and fulfilment to be made out. That Tyre still, even in Jerome’s time, was an active place of trade, he had no difficulty in understanding, because he took into account, on the other side, the ancient world-wide ascendency of the Tyrian state. From the time of Alexander the island Tyre continued to be united to the mainland: its sacred position in the sea had reached its end. A pathway conducted every one quietly over to the once splendid harbour of ships, and the alluvial deposits from the sea continually added to this connecting mound, while on the other hand the waves wasted the rock (PLIN. Hist. Nat. v. 17; POMP. MELA. i. 12; PTOL. v. 15). Alexandria became the centre of the world’s commerce. From the hands of the Seleucidæ the city passed under the sway of the Romans; and it is known as still existing in the Gospels, and in the book of Acts (Acts 21:3 sq.). In the early times of Mahommedanism it fell into the hands of the Arabians. The crusades in the 12th century again lent to it a sort of poetic glimmer; but at the end of the 13th century it was brought to desolation by the Saracens. “Where once waved the forest of the ships of Tarshish” (says Sepp, Jerusalem and the Holy Land, ii. p. 409), “there scarcely now rise out of the water two well-rigged keels of English merchants; commerce has found another centre. The lucrative trade in purple cloth passed over to the Jews, who as merchants and dyers pervaded the Lebanon, and in the Greek cities, as at Thebes, founded purple-dyeing establishments. Venice transplanted to itself from Tyre the manufacture of glass. The rocky part of the old island actually serves, according to the prophetic word, as a place merely for the spreading of fishing-nets. Under the sand of the old island there are still discovered traces of streets, etc. Thus has the pride of the old sea-princess been humbled, and she wears now none but a beggar’s attire. From the time of Abulfeda onwards into the 17th century, all travellers represent Tyre as a heap of ruins, with broken up arches and vaults, towers cast down, and shaky walls, so that the inhabitants had to shelter themselves in the hollow places that remained between portions of the rubbish. Maundrell did not find a single dwelling-house in good preservation, but only a couple of fishermen occupying a sort of vaults. To the present time it is not frequented by Jews, so little is there now of chaffering and trading in the old merchant-city. Something is done in corn and tobacco, which grows upon the western side of the place. The earthquake of 1837 drove into flight those who were not destroyed by it. Only the knowledge of ancient times and a number of waving palms lend an interest to the Tyre of the present day.” Comp. HENGST. de Rebus Tyriorum, p. 88 sq.

8. Cocceius makes application of Tyre spiritually to the great city which commits fornication with all nations, and desires to install herself in the place of Jerusalem, and interprets the prince of Tyre as a hieroglyph of the Pope. He does not deny the historical basis, but it is to him an allegory.

9. The special prophecy upon the Tyrian kingdom, and the lamentation in Ezekiel 28, receive also a light from particular points in the history of Tyre—not so much through the revolt which, in the twenty-sixth year after the death of Hiram II., drove the legitimate dynasty from the throne, and the horrors which led a part of the old Tyrian race to emigrate with Elissa (Dido), and found Carthage—as rather through the translation of the government, after the death of the king introduced by Nebuchadnezzar,2 to judges, who were chosen from among the priests and considerable men of Tyre. Hävernick is of opinion that the appearance of judges in the midst of a regular succession of Tyrian kings might only be regarded as a Chaldaic arrangement for the punishment of insubordination or the like; just as Tyre was deprived by Alexander of its ancient constitution, in the way of punishment. For, as Ezekiel 28 shows, the kingdom belonged to the pride of Tyre, as generally, according to the Oriental mode of contemplation, and especially would it do so with a race of such old renown as the Tyrian. Internal factions might readily enough have called into existence rival kings, but never the removal of the kingly state altogether.

10. The prophetic collocation, Tyre and Zidon (Joel 4. [3.] 4; Zech. 9:2; Isa. 28.; Jer. 25:22, 27:3, 47:4; here in Ezek.; comp. on the other hand, 1 Chron. 22:4; Ezra 3:7),—not a geographical or political point of view,—determines the New Testament allusion to both in this order. From its antiquity alone the mention of Zidon would admit of explanation. In the Pentateuch, as in Homer, notice is taken only of it; its name stands for Phœnicia at large. The ups and downs, also, experienced by Tyre occasionally brought Zidon to the summit, or, at least, placed Tyre at her side; so, too, it is in the highest degree probable, that the governors of Syria and Phœnicia, who succeeded one another, would probably in their own interest not allow the old rivalry between Zidon and Tyre to remain untouched. While the Chaldean conquest humbled Tyre, Zidon appears to have from the first bowed to the conqueror, and still more so afterwards. But anyhow, under the Persian rule, Zidon appears as “the first city of Phœnicia, and its kings take precedence of those of Tyre, and of the other states” (DUNCKER, ii. p. 738; HERZOG, Realencyc. 11. p. 626). About the middle of the 4th century, when, in the self-consciousness of its position as at the head of the Phœnician States, it had revolted under Artaxerxes Ochus (B. C. 351), it was again destroyed by the Persians, and required to be built anew—whereupon it readily submitted to Alexander the Great. We learn from Diodorus, that at the fall of the city 40,000 perished; and Artaxerxes also sold the burnt ruins for the sake of the gold and silver they contained. Under the Macedonians and Romans, Zidon was nothing but a provincial city; at the time of Cæsar pre-eminently a Jewish city. After coming into view in the time of the crusades,—being destroyed again and again by the Saracens, Crusaders, Mongols,—it still exists, and has some exports of silk, cotton, and gall-nuts. This survey of Zidon also confirms with reference to Ezekiel the far-reaching view of his prophetic word.

11. Neteler remarks on our chapter: “Through the most extraordinary wonders God placed His covenant-people on such a height, that all the Chaldeans must bow before the giant spirit of Daniel, and Nebuchadnezzar himself proclaim to the whole world that there is no god who can deliver as the God of Israel. Nebuchadnezzar and his Chaldeans consequently had the calling, as heroes standing in the service of God, to overthrow the Hamitic worldly power, and to prepare the way for the kingdom of God.”

12. Schmieder says, that the threatening of the Lord against the historical Tyre was as little accomplished to the full through Nebuchadnezzar as the similar one against Babylon (Isa. 13:20), and many other threatenings, which were proclaimed for the very purpose that they might not need to be executed. Certainly God promises only to conversion the removal of the threatened punishment (Jer. 18:7, 8); but He sometimes also mitigates the punishment, where the measure of sin has not been so full, or the means for conversion may have been exhausted (Matt. 11:21, 22). The historical Tyre is only an imperfect type of the spiritual Tyre, on which account the severest threatening was uttered against it, though still not in its entire severity was it executed. This early denunciation of judgment, this sparing alleviation as to the execution, begins already at Gen. 2:17, etc. In Ezekiel 28 the prophet exhibits, first, the highest glory of the true king, who has been set up by God, as it can alone perfectly appear in Christ (Ezekiel 28:12–15); and second, the deep fall of the king, who would make himself a god, as such fall shall only be completely manifested in the Man of Sin, and in the Prince of this world. The king of Tyre is a type of both,—of the King of the kingdom of heaven by his office, of the prince of darkness by his misuse of the dignity, his pride and fall. Thus does Ezekiel teach us to understand and explain the history of the world.

Footnotes:

[1]The point which Josephus, in the first passage, confirms from different authors is, that Nebuchadnezzar had been “a more energetic, more enterprising, and more prosperous man than the kings who had been before him.” Thus Berosus, in the third book of his Chaldean History, writes of his deeds—that with a part only of his father’s host, and while himself but a stripling, he had vanquished those who were in a State of revolt—τεταγμενος σατραπης ἐν τῳ Αἰγυπτῳ και τοις περι την Κοιλην Συριαν και την Φοινικην τοποις, και την χωραν ἐκ ταυτης της ἀρχης ὑπο αὐτου βασιλειαν ἐποιησατο. On the report of the death of his father, και καταστησας τα κατα την Αἰγυπτον πραγματα κ. την λοιπην χωραν, and after entrusting the Jewish, Phœnician, and Syrian prisoners to certain of his friends, to convey them to Babylon, together with the heavy-armed soldiers and baggage, he himself went thither and assumed the government. Megasthenes, also (Book 2. of his Indian History), is cited by Josephus, and Diokles (Book II. of his Persian History); finally, Philostratus, by whom it is said, as well in his Indian as his Phœnician History, that Nebuchadnezzar besieged Tyre thirteen years. If this long siege was to serve as a proof of Nebuchadnezzar’s practical energy, and, in particular, of his extraordinary prosperity. Josephus could not have been of opinion that Nebuchadnezzar had been obliged to withdraw from Tyre without result. That Josephus was convinced of the agreement of the profane writers with the historical accounts of his own people in the point under consideration, is still more clear from his work against Apion. He there repeats from Berosus. what, he had elsewhere said upon Nebuchadnezzar, that the latter, after the revolt of Egypt and Judea, obtained the mastery over all—Egypt, Syria. Phœnicia, Arabia; and that he surpassed all the Chaldean and Babylonian kings who had been before him by his deeds, for which he again quotes the words of Berosus, and in the following section (20) adds, that in such things “the Chaldean history must be deemed trust worthy”,—.οὐ μην ἀλλα κἀν τοις ἀρχαιοις των Φοινικων συμφωνα τοις ὑπο Βηρωσσου λεγομενοις ἀναγεγραπται, περι του των Βαβυλωνιων βασιλεως, ὁτι και την Συριανν και την Φοινικην ἁπασαν ἐκεινος κατεστρεψατο. With this, also, he says, Philostratus agrees, in the place where he makes mention of the siege of Tyre, and Megasthenes; so that that siege is throughout to be understood in the light of the result stated, that “he overthrew all Syria and Phœnicia.”

[2]This person, called in the Phœnician sources from which Josephus draws in his con. Apion. § 21 (where he mentions for the third time the siege of Tyre), Baal—succeeding, and in connection with the siege, Ithobal, was most probably made, or at least confirmed as king by Nebuchadnezzar; whereupon, after ten years, “judges were appointed, who judged the people”; after them “reigned Balatorus”; and “after his death they sent and brought Merbalus from Babylon, who reigned”; lastly, “after his death they sent for his brother Hirom.”