Armenia in comments -- Book: Ezekiel (tEzek) Եզեկիէլ
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tEzek 27::24 These were thy merchants in all sorts of things - The above people traded with the Tyrians in a great variety of the most valuable merchandise: blue or purple cloth, boxes of cedar, covered with skins, and bound with silken cords, and sealed with an engraved seal, finely cut, etc. See the Chald:ee. Ezekiel 27:25 tEzek 27::26 Thy rowers have brought thee into great waters - Tyre is still considered under the allegory of a ship; and all the vessels of different nations trading with her are represented as towing her into deep waters - bringing her into great affluence. But while in this state, a stormy east wind, or a destructive wind, meaning the Chald:eans, arises, and dashes her to pieces! See the ode from Horace, already quoted on Eze 27:4 (note). Ezekiel 27:27
tEzek 27::12 This is followed by a description of the commerce of Tyre with all nations, who delivered their productions in the market of this metropolis of the commerce of the world, and received the wares and manufactures of this city in return. - Eze 27:12. Tarshish traded with thee for the multitude of goods of all kinds; with silver, iron, tin, and lead they paid for thy sales. Eze 27:13. Javan, Tubal, and Meshech, they were thy merchants; with souls of men and brazen vessels they made thy barter. Eze 27:14. From the house of Togarmah they paid horses, riding-horses, and mules for thy sales. Eze 27:15. The sons of Dedan were thy merchants; many islands were at thy hand for commerce; ivory horns and ebony they brought thee in payment. Eze 27:16. Aram traded with thee for the multitude of thy productions; with carbuncle, red purple, and embroidery, and byssus, and corals, and rubies they paid for thy sales. Eze 27:17. Judah and the land of Israel, they were thy merchants; with wheat of Minnith and confectionery, and honey and oil, and balsam they made thy barter. Eze 27:18. Damascus traded with thee in the multitude of thy productions, for the multitude of goods of all kinds, with wine of Chelbon and white wool. Eze 27:19. Vedan and Javan from Uzal gave wrought iron for thy salves; cassia and calamus were for thy barter. Eze 27:20. Vedan was thy merchant in cloths spread for riding. Eze 27:21. Arabia and all the princes of Kedar, they were at thy hand for commerce; lambs and rams and he-goats, in these they traded with thee. Eze 27:22. The merchants of Sheba and Ragmah, they were thy merchants; with all kinds of costly spices and with all kinds of precious stones and gold they paid for thy sales. Eze 27:23. Haran, and Canneh, and Eden, the merchants of Sheba, Asshur, Chilmad, were they merchants; Eze 27:24. They were thy merchants in splendid clothes, in purple and embroidered robes, and in treasures of twisted yarn, in wound and strong cords for thy wares. Eze 27:25. The ships of Tarshish were thy caravans, thy trade, and thou wast filled and glorious in the heart of the seas. - The enumeration of the different peoples, lands, and cities, which carried on trade with Tyre, commences with Tarshish (Tartessus) in the extreme west, then turns to the north, passes through the different lands of Anterior Asia and the Mediterranean to the remotest north-east, and ends by mentioning Tarshish again, to round off the list. But the lands and peoples, which are mentioned in Eze 27:5-11 as furnishing produce and manufactures for the building of Tyre, viz., Egypt and the tribes of Northern Africa, are left out. - To avoid wearisome uniformity in the enumeration, Ezekiel has used interchangeably the synonymous words which the language possessed for trade, besides endeavouring to give life to the description by a variety of turns of expression. Thus סחרתך (Eze 27:12, Eze 27:16, Eze 27:18), סחריך (Eze 27:21), and סחרת ידך (Eze 27:15), or סחרי ידך (Eze 27:21), are interchanged with רכליך (Eze 27:13, Eze 27:15, Eze 27:17, Eze 27:22, Eze 27:24), רכלתך (Eze 27:20, Eze 27:23), and מרכּלתּך (Eze 27:24); and, again, נתן עזבוניך (Eze 27:12, Eze 27:14, Eze 27:22), נתן (Eze 27:16, Eze 27:19), with נתן מערבך (Eze 27:13, Eze 27:17), and בּמערבך היה (Eze 27:19), and השׁיב אשׁכּרך (Eze 27:15). The words סחר, participle of סחר, and רכל, from רכל morf, signify merchants, traders, who travel through different lands for purposes of trade. סחרת, literally, the female trader; and סחרה, literally, trade; then used as abstract for concrete, the tradesman or merchant. רכל, the travelling merchant. - רכלת, the female trader, a city carrying on trade. מרכלת, trade or a place of trade, a commercial town. עזבונים (pluralet.) does not mean a place of trade, market, and profits (Gesenius and others); but according to its derivation from עזב, to leave, relinquish, literally, leaving or giving up, and as Gusset. has correctly explained it, "that which you leave with another in the place of something else which he has given up to you." Ewald, in accordance with this explanation, has adopted the very appropriate rendering Absatz, or sale. נתן עזבוניך, with ב, or with a double accusative, literally, to make thy sale with something, i.e., to pay or to give, i.e., pay, something as an equivalent for the sale; 'נתן בּעזב, to give something for the sale, or the goods to be sold. מערב, barter, goods bartered with נתן, to give bartered goods, or carry on trade by barter.
The following are the countries and peoples enumerated: - תּרשׁישׁ, the Tyrian colony of Tarshish or Tartessus, in Hispania Baetica, which was celebrated for its wealth in silver (Jer 10:9), and, according to the passage before us, also supplied iron, tin, and lead (vid., Plin. Hist. nat. iii. 3 4, xxxiii. 6 31, xxiv. 14 41; Diod. Sic. v. 38). Further particulars concerning Tarshish are to be found in Movers, Phoeniz. II 2, pp. 588ff., and II 3, p. 36. - Javan, i.e., Jania, Greece or Greeks. - Tubal and Meshech are the Tibareni and Moschi of the ancients between the Black and Caspian Seas (see the comm. on Gen 10:2). They supplied souls of men, i.e., slaves, and things in brass. The slave trade was carried on most vigorously by the Ionians and Greeks (see Joel 4:6, from which we learn that the Phoenicians sold prisoners of war to them); and both Greeks and Romans drew their largest supplies and the best slaves from the Pontus (for proofs of this, see Movers, II 3, pp. 81f.). It is probable that the principal supplies of brazen articles were furnished by the Tibareni and Moschi, as the Colchian mountains still contain an inexhaustible quantity of copper. In Greece, copper was found and wrought in Euboea alone; and the only other rich mines were in Cyprus (vid., Movers, II 3, pp. 66, 67). - Eze 27:14. "From the house of Togarmah they paid," i.e., they of the house of Togarmah paid. Togarmah is one of the names of the Armenians (see the comm. on Gen 10:3); and Strabo (XI 14. 9) mentions the wealth of Armenia in horses, whilst that in asses is attested by Herodotus (i. 194), so that we may safely infer that mules were also bred there. - Eze 27:15. The sons of Dedan, or the Dedanites, are, no doubt, the Dedanites mentioned in Gen 10:7 as descendants of Cush, who conducted the carrying trade between the Persian Gulf and Tyre, and whose caravans are mentioned in Isa 21:13. Their relation to the Semitic Dedanites, who are evidently intended in Eze 27:20, and by the inhabitants of Dedan mentioned in connection with Edom in Eze 25:13 and Jer 49:8, is involved in obscurity (see the comm. on Gen 10:7). The combination with איּים רבּים and the articles of commerce which they brought to Tyre, point to a people of southern Arabia settled in the neighbourhood of the Persian Gulf. The many איּים are the islands and coasts of Arabia on the Persian Gulf and Erythraean Sea.
(Note: Movers (II 3, pp. 303ff.) adduces still further evidence in addition to that given above, namely, that "unquestionable traces of the ancient name have been preserved in the region in which the ancient Dedanites are represented as living, partly on the coast in the names Attana, Attene, which have been modified according to well-known laws, - the former, a commercial town on the Persian Gulf, visited by Roman merchants (Plin. vi. 32, 147); the latter, a tract of country opposite to the island of Tylos (Plin. l.c. 49), - and partly in the islands of the Persian Gulf" (p. 304).)
סחרת ידך, the commerce of thy hand, i.e., as abstr. pro concr., those who were ready to thy hand as merchants. קרנות שׁן, ivory horns. This is the term applied to the elephants' tusks (shn) on account of their shape and resemblance to horns, just as Pliny (Hist. nat. xviii. 1) also speaks of cornua elephanti, although he says, in viii. 3 (4), that an elephant's weapons, which Juba calls cornua, are more correctly to be called dentes.
(Note: The Ethiopians also call ivory Karna nage, i.e., cornu elephanti, and suppose that it is from horns, and not from tusks, that ivory comes (vid., Hiob Ludolph, Hist. Aeth. I c. 10).)
The ἁπ. λεγ.. הובנים, Keri הבנים, signifies ἔβενος hebenum, ebony. The ancients obtained both productions partly from India, partly from Ethiopia (Plin. xii. 4 8). According to Dioscor. i. 130, the Ethiopian ebony was preferred to the Indian. השׁיב אשׁכּר to return payment (see the comm. on Psa 72:10).
In Eze 27:16, J. D. Michaelis, Ewald, Hitzig, and others read אדם for ארם, after the lxx and Pesh., because Aram did not lie in the road from Dedan and the איּים to Israel (Eze 27:17), and it is not till Eze 27:18 that Ezekiel reaches Aram. Moreover, the corruption ארם for אדום could arise all the more readily from the simple fact that the defective form אדם only occurs in Ezekiel (Eze 25:14), and is altogether an extraordinary one. These reasons are undoubtedly worthy of consideration; still they are not conclusive, since the enumeration does not follow a strictly geographical order, inasmuch as Damascus is followed in Eze 27:19. by many of the tribes of Southern Arabia, so that Aram might stand, as Hvernick supposes, for Mesopotamian Aram, for which the articles mentioned in Eze 27:16 would be quite as suitable as for Edom, whose chief city Petra was an important place of commerce and emporium for goods. רב מעשׂיך, the multitude of thy works, thy manufactures. Of the articles of commerce delivered by ארם , the red purple, embroidery, and בּוּץ (the Aramaean name for byssus, which appears, according to Movers, to have originally denoted a species of cotton), favour Aram, particularly Babylonia, rather than Edom. For the woven fabrics of Babylonia were celebrated from the earliest times (vid., Movers, II 3, pp. 260ff.); and Babylon was also the oldest and most important market for precious stones (vid., Movers, p. 266). נפך is the carbuncle (see the comm. on Exo 28:18). כּדכּד, probably the ruby; in any case, a precious stone of brilliant splendour (vid., Isa 54:12). ראמות, corals or pearls (vid., Delitzsch on Job 28:18). - Judah (Eze 27:17) delivered to Tyre wheat of Minnith, i.e., according to Jdg 11:33, an Ammonitish place, situated, according to the Onomast., four Roman miles from Heshbon in the direction of Philadelphia. That Ammonitis abounded in wheat, is evident from Ch2 27:5, although the land of Israel also supplied the Tyrians with wheat (Kg1 5:11). The meaning of the ἁπ. λεγ. דם̓̀בנ̓̀ב cannot be definitely ascertained. The rendering confectionery is founded upon the Aramaean פּנק, deliciari, and the Chald:ee translation, קוליא, i.e., κολία, according to Hesychius, τὰ ἐκ μέλιτος τρωγάλια, or sweetmeats made from honey. Jerome renders it balsamum, after the μύρων of the lxx; and in Hitzig's opinion, Pannaga (literally, a snake) is a name used in Sanscrit for a sweet-scented wood, which was employed in medicine as a cooling and strengthening drug (?). Honey (from bees) and oil are well-known productions of Palestine. צרי is balsam; whether resina or the true balsam grown in gardens about Jericho (opobalsamum), it is impossible to decide (see my Bibl. Archol. I p. 38, and Movers, II 3, pp. 220ff.). Damascus supplied Tyre with wine of Chelbon. חלבּון still exists in the village of Helbn, a place with many ruins, three hours and a half to the north of Damascus, in the midst of a valley of the same name, which is planted with vines wherever it is practicable, from whose grapes the best and most costly wine of the country is made (vid., Robinson, Biblical Researches). Even in ancient times this wine was so celebrated, that, according to Posidonius (in Athen. Deipnos. i. 22), the kings of Persia drank only Chalybonian wine from Damascus (vid., Strabo, XV 3. 22). צמר צחר, wool of dazzling whiteness; or, according to others, wool of Zachar, for which the Septuagint has ἔρια ἐκ Μιλήτου, Milesian wool.
(Note: According to Movers (II 3, p. 269), צחר is the Sicharia of Aethicus (Cosm. 108): Sicharia regio, quae postea Nabathaea, nuncupatur, silvestris valde, ubi Ismaelitae eminus, - an earlier name for the land of the Nabathaeans, who dwelt in olden time between Palestine and the Euphrates, and were celebrated for their wealth in flocks of sheep.)
Eze 27:19. Various explanations have been given of the first three words. ודן is not to be altered into דּדן, as it has been by Ewald, both arbitrarily and unsuitably with Eze 27:20 immediately following; nor is it to be rendered "and Dan." It is a decisive objection to this, that throughout the whole enumeration not a single land or people is introduced with the copula w. Vedan, which may be compared with the Vaheb of Num 21:14, a place also mentioned only once, is the name of a tribe and tract of land not mentioned elsewhere in the Old Testament. Movers (p. 302) conjectures that it is the celebrated city of Aden (Arab. 'dn). Javan is also the name of an Arabian place or tribe; and, according to a notice in the Kamus, it is a place in Yemen. Tuch (Genesis, p. 210) supposes it to be a Greek (Ionian) settlement, the founders of which had been led by their enterprising spirit to cross the land of Egypt into Southern Arabia. For the purpose of distinguishing this Arabian Javan from Greece itself, or in order to define it more precisely, מעוּזל is appended, which all the older translators have taken to be a proper name. According to the Masoretic pointing מאוּזּה, the word is, no doubt, to be regarded as a participle Pual of אזל, in the sense of spun, from אזל, to spin. But apart from the fact that it would be a surprising thing to find spun goods mentioned in connection with the trade of the Arabian tribes, the explanation itself could not be sustained from the usage of the language; for there is nothing in the dialects to confirm the idea that אזל is a softened form of עזל, inasmuch as they have all עזל (Aram.) and gzl (Arab.), and the Talmudic אזל, texere, occurs first of all in the Gemara, and may possibly have been derived in the first instance from the Rabbinical rendering of our מאוזל by "spun." Even the fact that the word is written with Shurek is against this explanation rather than in its favour; and in all probability its origin is to be traced to the simple circumstance, that in Eze 27:12, Eze 27:14, Eze 27:16 the articles of commerce are always mentioned before נתנוּ עזבוניך, and in this verse they would appear to be omitted altogether, unless they are covered by the word מאוזל. But we can very properly take the following words בּרזל עשׁות as the object of the first hemistich, since the Masoretic accentuation is founded upon the idea that מאוזל is to be taken as the object here. We therefore regard מאוּזל as the only admissible pointing, and take אוּזל as a proper name, as in Gen 10:27 : "from Uzal," the ancient name of Sanaa, the subsequent capital of Yemen. The productions mentioned bear this out. Forged or wrought iron, by which Tuch (l.c. p. 260) supposes that sword-blades from Yemen are chiefly intended, which were celebrated among the Arabs as much as the Indian. Cassia and calamus (see the comm. on Exo 30:23 and Exo 30:24), two Indian productions, as Yemen traded with India from the very earliest times. - Dedan (Eze 27:20) is the inland people of that name, living in the neighbourhood of Edom (cf. Eze 25:13; see the comm. on Eze 27:15). They furnished בּגדי, tapetes straguli, cloths for spreading out, most likely costly riding-cloths, like the middim of Jdg 5:10. ערב and קדר represent the nomad tribes of central Arabia, the Bedouins. For ערב is never used in the Old Testament for the whole of Arabia; but, according to its derivation from ערבה, a steppe or desert, simply for the tribes living as nomads in the desert (as in Isa 13:20; Jer 3:2; cf. Ewald, Grammat. Arab. I p. 5). Kedar, descended from Ishmael, an Arabian nomad tribe, living in the desert between Arabia Petraea and Babylonia, the Cedrei of Pliny (see the comm. on Gen 25:13). They supplied lambs, rams, and he-goats, from the abundance of their flocks, in return for the goods obtained from Tyre.
Jdg 5:22. Next to these the merchants of Sheba and Ragmah (רעמה) are mentioned. They were Arabs of Cushite descent (Gen 10:7) in south-eastern Arabia (Oman); for ,רעמה̔Ρεγμα, was in the modern province of Oman in the bay of the same name in the Persian Gulf. Their goods were all kinds of spices, precious stones, and gold, in which southern Arabia abounded. ראשׁ כּל־בּשׂם, the chief or best of all perfumes (on this use of ראשׁ, see the comm. on Exo 30:23; Sol 4:14), is most likely the genuine balsam, which grew in Yemen (Arabia felix), according to Diod. Sic. iii. 45, along with other costly spices, and grows there still; for Forskal found a shrub between Mecca and Medina, called Abu sham, which he believed to be the true balsam, and of which he has given a botanical account in his Flora Aeg. pp. 79, 80 (as Amyris opobalsamum), as well as of two other kinds. Precious stones, viz., onyx-stones, rubies, agates, and cornelians, are still found in the mountains of Hadramaut; and in Yemen also jaspers, crystals, and many good rubies (vid., Niebuhr, Descript. p. 125, and Seetzen in Zach's Monatl. Corresp. xix. p. 339). And, lastly, the wealth of Yemen in gold is too strongly attested by ancient writers to be called in question (cf. Bochart, Phal. II 28), although this precious metal is no found there now.
In Eze 27:23, Eze 27:24 the trade with Mesopotamia is mentioned. חרן, the Carrhae of the Romans in north-western Mesopotamia (see the comm. on Gen 11:31), was situated at the crossing of the caravan-roads which intersect Mesopotamia; for it was at this point that the two caravan routes from Babylonia and the Delta of the Persian Gulf joined the old military and commercial road to Canaan (Movers, p. 247). The eastern route ran along the Tigris, where Calneh, the later Ktesiphon, and the most important commercial city. It is here called כּנּה (Canneh), contracted from כּלנה (see the comm. on Gen 10:10; Amo 6:2). The western route ran along the Euphrates, past the cities mentioned in Eze 27:23. עדן is not the Syrian, but the Mesopotamian Eden (Kg2 19:12; Isa 37:12), the situation of which has not yet been determined, though Movers (p. 257) has sought for it in the Delta of the Euphrates and Tigris. The singular circumstance that the merchants of Sheba should be mentioned in connection with localities in Mesopotamia, which has given rise both to arbitrary alterations of the text and to various forced explanations, has been explained by Movers (p. 247 compared with p. 139) from a notice of Juba in Pliny's Hist. nat. xii. 17 (40), namely, that the Sabaeans, the inhabitants of the spice country, came with their goods from the Persian Gulf to Carrhae, where they held their yearly markets, and from which they were accustomed to proceed to Gabba (Gabala in Phoenicia) and Palestinian Syria. Consequently the merchants of Sabaea are mentioned as those who carried on the trade between Mesopotamia and Tyre, and are not unsuitably placed in the centre of those localities which formed the most important seats of trade on the two great commercial roads of Mesopotamia.
Asshur and Chilmad, as we have already observed, were on the western road which ran along the Euphrates. כּלמד has already been discovered by Bochart (Phal. I 18) in the Charmande of Xenophon (Anab. i. 5. 10), and Sophaenetus (see Steph. Byz. s.v. Χαρμάνδη), a large and wealthy city in a desert region "beyond the river Euphrates." The Asshur mentioned along with Chilmad, in the midst of purely commercial cities, cannot be the land of Assyria, but must be the emporium Sura (Movers, p. 252), the present Essurieh, which stands upon the bank on this side of the Euphrates above Thapsacus and on the caravan route, which runs from Palmyra past Rusapha (Rezeph, Isa 37:12; Kg2 19:12) to Nicephorium or Rakka, then in a northerly direction to Haran, and bending southwards, runs along the bank of the river in the direction of Chilmad or Charmande (Ritter, Erdk. XI pp. 1081ff.). The articles of commerce from these emporia, which were brought to Tyre by Sabaean caravans, consisted of מּכללים, literally, articles of perfect beauty, either state-dresses (cf. מכלל, Eze 23:12 and Eze 34:4), or more generally, costly works of art (Hvernick). The omission of the copula ו before בּגלומי is decisive is favour of the former, as we may infer from this that 'בגל is intended as an explanatory apposition to מּכללים. גּלומי תכלת ורקמה, cloaks (גּלום connected with χλαμύς) of hyacinth-purple and embroidery, for which Babylonia was celebrated (for proofs of this, see Movers, pp. 258ff.). The words which follow cannot be explained with certainty. All that is evident is, that 'ואר 'בּחבלים חב is appended to בּגנזי בּרומים without a copula, as 'בּגלומי וגו is to בּמּכללים in the first hemistich, and therefore, like the latter, is intended as an explanatory apposition. חבלים does not mean either cloths or threads, but lines or cords. חבשׁים signifies literally bound or would up; probably twisted, i.e., formed of several threads wound together or spun; and ארזים, firm, compact, from Arab. arz, to be drawn together. Consequently 'גּנזי בּרומים וגו can hardly have any other meaning than treasures of spun yarns, i.e., the most valuable yarns formed of different threads. For "treasures" is the only meaning which can be assigned to גּנזים with any certainty on philological grounds, and בּרומים, from בּרם, Arab. brm, contorsit , is either yarn spun from several or various threads, or cloth woven from such threads. But the latter would not harmonize with חבלים. Movers (II 3, pp. 263ff.) adopts a similar conclusion, and adduces evidence that silk yarn, bombyx, and cotton came to Tyre through the Mesopotamian trade, and were there dyed in the splendid Tyrian purples, and woven into cloths, or brought for sale with the dyeing complete. All the other explanations which have been given of these difficult words are arbitrary and untenable; not only the Rabbinical rendering of גּנזי בּרומים, viz., chests of damask, but that of Ewald, "pockets of damask," and that proposed by Hartmann, Hvernick, and others, viz., girdles of various colours, ζῶναι σκιωταί. In Eze 27:25 the description is rounded off with a notice of the lever of this world-wide trade. שׁרות cannot mean "walls" in this instance, as in Jer 5:10, and like שׁוּרות in Job 24:11, because the ships, through which Tyre became so rich, could not be called walls. The word signifies "caravans," after שׁוּר = Arab. sâr (Isa 57:9), corresponding to the Aramaean שׁירא. מערבך might be regarded as an accusative of more precise definition: caravans, with regard to (for) thy bartering trade. At the same time it is more rhetorical to take מערבך as a second predicate: they were thy trade, i.e., the carriers of thy trade. What the caravans were for the emporia of trade on the mainland, the ships of Tarshish were for Tyre, and these on the largest sea-going ships are mentioned instar omnium. By means of these vessels Tyre was filled with goods, and rendered weighty (נכבּד), i.e., rich and glorious. - But a tempest from the east would destroy Tyre with all its glory. Ezekiel 27:26
tEzek 27::26
Thy rowers have brought thee into great waters,.... Here the city of Tyre is compared to a vessel at sea, with great propriety, it being built in the sea, and its trade chiefly there; and its rulers and governors, or the inhabitants of it, to rowers; literally the men of Zidon and Arvad were her rowers, Eze 27:8, the straits, difficulties, and distresses these brought Tyre into, are compared to great waters; who, by some unadvised step or another, provoked the king of Babylon to come against them with his army, and lay siege unto them: the east wind hath broken thee in the midst of the seas; a wind very fatal to ships and mariners; see Psa 48:7, by it are meant Nebuchadnezzar and the Chald:ean army; so called, because of their great force and fury; and because Babylon, from whence they came, lay somewhat to the east of Tyre. So the Targum, "a king who is strong as the east wind hath broken thee in the midst of the seas.'' Ezekiel 27:27 tEzek 27::34
In the time when thou shall be broken by the seas in the depths of the waters..... By the Chald:ean army, which came upon them like the waves of the sea, Eze 26:3 by which they were overpowered and destroyed; just as a ship on the mighty waters is dashed and broke to pieces by the waves thereof: thy merchandise, and all thy company in the midst of thee, shall fall; trade shall cease, and the mixed multitude of traders from all parts shall be seen no more; the natives of the place shall perish; mariners and soldiers, and persons of every rank and degree, age, and sex. The Targum renders it, "all thine armies.'' Abendana suggests that this respects the destruction of Tyre by Alexander the great. Ezekiel 27:35
tEzek 27::26 We have seen Tyre flourishing; here we have Tyre falling, and great is the fall of it, so much the greater for its having made such a figure in the world. Note, The most mighty and magnificent kingdoms and states, sooner or later, have their day to come down. They have their period; and, when they are in their zenith, they will begin to decline. But the destruction of Tyre was sudden. Her sun went down at noon. And all her wealth and grandeur, pomp and power, did but aggravate her ruin, and make it the more grievous to herself and astonishing to all about her. Now observe here, 1. How the ruin of Tyrus will be brought about, Eze 27:26. She is as a great ship richly laden, that is split or sunk by the indiscretion of her steersmen: Thy rowers have themselves brought thee into great and dangerous waters; the governors of the city, and those that had the management of their public affairs, by some mismanagement or other involved them in that war with the Chald:eans which was the ruin of their state. By their insolence, by some affront given to the Chald:eans or some attempt made upon them, in confidence of their own ability to contend with them, they provoked Nebuchadnezzar to make a descent upon them, and, by their obstinacy in standing it out to the last, enraged him to such a degree that he determined on the ruin of their state, and, like an east wind, broke them in the midst of the seas. Note, It is ill with a people when those that sit at the stern, instead of putting them into the harbour, run them aground. 2. How great and general the ruin will be. All her wealth shall be buried with her, her riches, her fairs, and her merchandise (Eze 27:27); all that had any dependence upon her, and dealings with her, in trade, in war, in conversation, shall ball with her into the midst of the seas, in the day of her ruin. Note, Those who make creatures their confidence, place their happiness in their interest in them and rest their hopes upon them, will of course fall with them; happy therefore are those that have the God of Jacob for their help, and whose hope is in the Lord their God, who lives for ever. 3. What sad lamentation would be made for the destruction of Tyre. The pilots, her princes and governors, when they see how wretchedly they have mismanaged and how much they have contributed to their own ruin, shall cry out so loud as to make even the suburbs shake (Eze 27:28), such a vexation shall it be to them to reflect upon their own bad conduct. The inferior officers, that were as the mariners of the state, shall be forced to come down from their respective posts (Eze 27:29), and they shall cry out against thee, as having deceived them, in not proving so well able to hold out as they thought thou hadst been; they shall cry bitterly for the common ruin, and their own share in it. They shall use all the most solemn expressions of grief; they shall cast dust on their heads, in indignation against themselves, shall wallow themselves in ashes, as having bid a final farewell to all ease and pleasure; they shall make themselves bald (Eze 27:31), with tearing their hair; and, according to the custom of great mourners, those shall gird themselves with sackcloth who used to wear find linen, and, instead of merry songs, they shall weep with bitterness of heart. Note, Losses and crosses are very grievous, and hard to be borne, to those that have long been wallowing in pleasure and sleeping in carnal security. 4. How Tyre should be upbraided with her former honour and prosperity (Eze 27:32, Eze 27:33); she that was Tyrus the renowned shall now be called Tyrus the destroyed in the midst of the sea. "What city is like Tyre? Did ever any city come down from such a height of prosperity to such a depth of adversity? Time was when thy wares, those of thy own making and those that passed through thy hands, went forth out of the seas, and were exported to all parts of the world; then thou filledst many people, and didst enrich the kings of the earth and their kingdoms." The Tyrians, though they bore such a sway in trade, were yet, it seems, fair merchants, and let their neighbours not only live, but thrive by them. All that dealt with them were gainers; they did not cheat or oppress the people, but did enrich them with the multitude of their merchandise. "But now those that used to be enriched by thee shall be ruined with thee" (as is usual in trade); "when thou shalt be broken, and all thou hast is seized on, all thy company shall fall too," Eze 27:34. There is an end of Tyre, that made such a noise and bustle in the world. This great blaze goes out in a snuff. 5. How the fall of Tyre should be matter of terror to some and laughter to others, according as they were differently interested and affected. Some shall be sorely afraid, and shall be troubled (Eze 27:35), concluding it will be their own turn to fall next. Others shall hiss at her (Eze 27:36), shall ridicule her pride, and vanity, and bad management, and think her ruin just. She triumphed in Jerusalem's fall, and there are those that will triumph in hers. When God casts his judgments on the sinner men also shall clap their hands at him and shall hiss him out of his place, Job 27:22, Job 27:23. Is this the city which men called the perfection of beauty? Next: Ezekiel Chapter 28
tEzek 27::23
Haran--the dwelling-place of Abraham in Mesopotamia, after he moved from Ur (Gen 11:31). Canneh--Calneh, an Assyrian city on the Tigris; the Ctesiphon of the Greeks (Gen 10:10). Eden--probably a region in Babylonia (see Gen 2:8). Chilmad--a compound; the place designated by PTOLEMY "Gaala of Media." The Chald:ee version interprets it of Media. HENDERSON refers it to Carmanda, which XENOPHON describes as a large city beyond the Euphrates.
Ezekiel 27:24