Visions of the Kingdom

Visions of the Kingdom: Week 30

Ezekiel 27:1-36: The Shipwreck of Tyre

This prophecy is in the past tense. This of course prompts critics to place Ezekiel after the events in question. But this is the prophetic perfect - the doom is sure. The final step of scraping the rock bare is still 2000 years away, and while their world domination will soon come to an end, there is much rich history in the service of Christ ahead for Tyre. Historians William of Malmesbury, Maelgwyn of Llandaff and Polydore Vergil all place Joseph of Arimathea at Glastonbury. Even the four Church councils of Pisa 1409, Constance 1417, Sienna 1424 and Basle 1434, mention that "the Churches of France and Spain must yield in points of antiquity and precedence to that of Britain as the latter Church was founded by Joseph of Arimathea immediately after the passion of Christ."

27:5 Tyre is likened unto a top of the line Phonecian merchant ship. We get a rundown of the materials use to build their ships.
27:12 We get a rundown of the trading partners of Tyre, and their principal products.
27:13 "slaves" - Tyre was condemned in Amos 1:9 for directly betraying and selling slaves.
27:26 "east wind" - "You break the ships of Tarshish With an east wind." Psalm 48:7
"shatter you in the midst of the sea" - no limping to shore, to be broken in the midst of the sea is to go down with the cargo and all hands. Phoenician ships did not have lifeboats at the fall of Tyre. But the Romans added lifeboats to the design, as we see in Acts 27:30, an Alexandrian grain ship.
27:27 "your merchandise" - just as when a ship sinks, all the merchandise will be lost.
"everyone on board" - just as everyone would suffer with the fall of Judah, so everyone would suffer with the fall of Tyre.
27:31 "weep over you" - not just everyone in Tyre, but every merchant trading with Tyre would suffer in the fall.
"shave their heads" - a gentile mourning custom forbidden by Moses.
27:32 "Who was ever like Tyre" - there is no gloating over Tyre. "You enriched the kings of the earth" - their downfall is a loss to the world.
27:35 "appalled" - the business partners are in shock.
27:36 "hiss at you" - or whistle. It is used in other places as an expression of derision, or shock/disbelief, or summons. Most (but not all) commentators picked "derision" in this case, but they are wrong. There is a even a couplet with verse 35 to make it clear.