Attributed commentary excerpt
Keil & Delitzsch on Ezekiel 26:2
A historical reference excerpt for this verse. Read it alongside the biblical text and other available sources.
Commentary on the Old Testament
C. F. Keil & F. Delitzsch · 19th-century historical commentary
Source: BibleWord.ai's local reference edition of this named work.
Tyre shall be broken and utterly destroyed Eze 26:2. Son of man, because Tyre saith concerning Jerusalem, "Aha, the door of the nations is broken; it turneth to me; I shall become full; she is laid waste;" Eze 26:3. Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Behold, I will come upon thee, O Tyre, and will bring up against thee many nations, as the sea bringing up its waves. Eze 26:4. They will destroy the walls of Tyre, and throw down her towers; and I will sweep away her dust from her, and make her a bare rock. Eze 26:5. She shall become a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea, for I have spoken it, is the saying of the Lord Jehovah; and she shall become booty for the nations. Eze 26:6. And her daughters which are in the land shall be slain with the sword; and they shall learn that I am Jehovah. - Tyre, as in the prophecy of Isaiah (Ezekiel 23), is not the city of that name upon the mainland, ἡ πάλαι Τύρος or Παλαίτυρος, Old Tyre, which was taken by Shalmaneser and destroyed by Alexander (as Perizon., Marsh, Vitringa, J. D. Michaelis, and Eichhorn supposed), but Insular Tyre, which was three-quarters of a mile farther north, and only 1200 paces from the land, being built upon a small island, and separated from the mainland by a strait of no great depth (vid., Movers, Phoenizier, II p. 288ff.). This Insular Tyre had successfully resisted the Assyrians (Josephus, Antt. ix. 14. 2), and was at that time the market of the nations; and in Ezekiel's day it had reached the summit of its greatness as mistress of the sea and the centre of the commerce of the world. That it is against this Tyre that our prophecy is chiefly directed, is evident from Eze 26:5 and Eze 26:14, according to which Tyre is to become a bare rock in the midst of the sea, and from the allusion to the daughter cities, בּשּׂדה, in the field, i.e., on the mainland (in Eze 26:6), as contrasted with the position occupied by Tyre upon a rocky island in the sea; and, lastly, from the description given in Ezekiel 27 of the maritime trade of Tyre with all nations, to which Old Tyre never attained, inasmuch as it possessed no harbour (vid., Movers, l.c. p. 176). This may easily be reconciled with such passages as Eze 26:6, Eze 26:8, and Ezekiel 27, 28, in which reference is also made to the continental Tyre, and the conquest of Tyre is depicted as the conquest of a land-city (see the exposition of these verses). - The threat against Tyre commences, as in the case of the nations threatened in Ezekiel 25, with a brief description of its sin. Tyre gave expression to its joy at the fall of Jerusalem, because it hoped to derive profit therefrom through the extension of its commerce and increase of its wealth. Different explanations have been given of the meaning of the words put into the mouth of Tyre. "The door of the nations is broken in pieces." The plural דּלתות indicates the folding doors which formed the gate, and are mentioned in its stead. Jerusalem is the door of the nations, and is so called according to the current opinion of expositors, because it was the centre of the commerce of the nations, i.e., as a place of trade. But nothing is known to warrant the idea that Jerusalem was ever able to enter into rivalry with Tyre as a commercial city. The importance of Jerusalem with regard to other nations was to be found, not in its commerce, nor in the favourable situation which it occupied for trade, in support of which Hvernick refers to Herodotus, iii. 5, and…
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