AS THE SEA CAUSETH HIS WAVES TO COME UP

Chapters 25 to 28 of Ezekiel consist of six prophecies directed against the gentile nations around Israel. The messages against Ammon, Moab, Edom, the Philistines and Sidon are compara­tively short. But that against Tyre spans almost three chapters, Ezek. 26. 1 to 28. 19. In part this reflects the fact that, at the time, Tyre was the principal city of Phoenicia, a great commercial cen­tre, and very much the ‘mistress of the sea’.

Strictly speaking, Tyre consisted of two distinct cities. The original city (‘Old Tyre’) was located on the shore of the Mediter­ranean Sea. The second city, which lay some three-quarters of a mile to the north, took the form of an island fortress less than half a mile from the mainland.

It was Tyre’s maritime situation which established her promi­nent position among the nations. It was the sea which had brought Tyre her wealth and power. And it was therefore a most fitting image which the Lord chose to picture Tyre’s fall, ‘I am against thee … and will cause many nations to come up against thee, as the sea causeth his waves to come up’. In the same way, that is, that the sea exercised control over the waves, so the Lord exercised sovereign control over the nations.

The first ‘wave’ would be the defeat and destruction of main­land Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar’s vast military forces, described in graphic detail in verses 7-11. Although Nebuchadnezzar did indeed succeed in breaking down the heavily fortified walls of the mainland city, he did not destroy the island stronghold. Note that Ezekiel makes it clear that the full and final destruction of Tyre would be achieved, not by Nebuchadnezzar, but by the ‘many nations’. Note the significant change from ‘he’ and ‘his’ in verses 7-11 to ‘they’ in verse 12.

The detailed fulfilment of verses 3-5 and verses 12-14 awaited the coming of Alexander the Great some 250 years later. For, at the conclusion of a seven-month siege, Alexander used the rubble from the former mainland city to construct a cause­way through the sea, over which his forces advanced to conquer the island fortress. Quite literally, as God said, he laid the stones, timber and dust ‘in the midst of the water’, v. 12.