Ezekiel 27:26

27:26-36 The most mighty and magnificent kingdoms and states, sooner or later, come down. Those who make creatures their confidence, and rest their hopes upon them, will fall with them: happy are those who have the God of Jacob for their Help, and whose hope is in the Lord their God, who lives for ever. Those who engage in trade should learn to conduct their business according to God's word. Those who possess wealth should remember they are the Lord's stewards, and should use his goods in doing good to all. Let us seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.

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, Ezekiel 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 Psalm 48:7, by it are meant Nebuchadnezzar and the Chaldean 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 27:26 . Thy rowers have brought thee into great waters — The prophet here begins to change the subject, and now, in metaphorical language, speaks of the danger into which the rulers and statesmen of Tyre had brought her by their pride and ill-concerted measures. He compares her to a ship, impelled by its own rowers into a very tempestuous sea, by which is meant their war with the Chaldeans. See a similar comparison Isaiah 33:23 . Great troubles are frequently signified by great waters. The east wind hath broken thee — By this is signified the Chaldean army coming from the east: as if he had said, As the violence of the east wind occasions many shipwrecks in the sea, so the army of thy enemies, coming upon thee, shall ruin thy strength and glory, and leave thee like a wreck cast upon the shore. “This is a proper allegory,” says Bishop Warburton, “with only one real sense; and it is managed by the prophet with that brevity and expedition which a proper allegory demands, when used in the place of a metaphor.” Grotius refers to Horace, lib. 1. ode 14, as an allegory very similar to this of the prophet.

(26) Thy rowers. —As the chief means of propelling vessels when the art of sailing was imperfectly understood. The figure of the ship is here resumed. “The east wind” is powerful, gusty, and dangerous in the Levant. (Comp. Psalm 48:7 : “Thou breakest the ships of Tarshish with an east wind.”)

Verse 26. - Thy rowers have brought thee . The metaphor goes on its course. The state-ship is in the open sea, and the east wind, the Euroclydon of the Mediterranean ( Acts 27:14 ), blows and threatens it with destruction (comp. Psalm 48:7 ). In that destruction all who contributed to her prosperity were involved. The picture reminds us of the description of the ship of Tarshish in Jonah 1:4, 5 . The city shall be left, in that terrible day , in the heart of the seas (Revised Version). Ezekiel 27:26

26–31 . The vessel steered by her pilots into dangerous waters, is shipwrecked and her cargo and crew cast into the sea ( Ezekiel 27:26-27 ). Dismay and lamentation of all seafaring men ( Ezekiel 27:28-31 ) 26 . The allegory does not need interpretation. How far her statesmen precipitated the fall of Tyre is unknown; it was the east-wind that broke her in the heart of the sea—a force above that of men ( Psalm 48:7 ).

Thy rowers, governors and counsellors, have brought thee, unadvisedly, into great waters, dangers and difficulties, in which thou art like to be shipwrecked, in which thou wilt perish. The east wind, which is very tempestuous, and dangerous to ships in those seas: by this is meant the king of Babylon with his army, whose march was somewhat by east to Tyre. Hath broken thee; as surely will as if he had already done it; he hath broken; it is the prophetic style. In the midst of the seas; where thou art far from shore, and must therefore sink and drown, or where thou thoughtest thyself impregnable. Where many seas meet, it is impossible for a half-starved creature to swim out; so shall Tyre perish in the violent currents of many seas; many nations, fierce and cruel, under Nebuchadnezzar shall swallow thee up.

26. In contrast to her previous greatness, her downfall is here, by a sudden transition, depicted under the image of a vessel foundering at sea. east wind—blowing from Lebanon, the most violent wind in the Mediterranean (Ps 48:7). A Levanter, as it is called. Nebuchadnezzar is meant. The "sea" is the war with him which the "rowers," or rulers of the state vessel, had "brought" it into, to its ruin.

Destruction of Tyre Ezekiel 27:26. Thy rowers brought thee into great waters: the east wind broke thee up in the heart of the seas. Ezekiel 27:27. Thy riches and thy sales, thy bartering wares, thy seamen and thy sailors, the repairers of thy leaks and the treaders in thy wares, and all thy fighting men in thee, together with all the multitude of people in thee, fell into the heart of the seas in the day of thy fall. Ezekiel 27:28. At the noise of the cry of thy sailors the places tremble. Ezekiel 27:29. And out of their ships come all the oarsmen, seamen, all the sailors of the sea; they come upon the land, Ezekiel 27:20. And make their voice heard over thee, and cry bitterly, and put dust upon their heads, and cover themselves with ashes; Ezekiel 27:31. And shave themselves bald on thy account, and gird on sackcloth, and weep for thee in anguish of soul a bitter wailing. Ezekiel 27:32. They raise over thee in their grief a lamentation, and lament over thee: Who is like Tyre! like the destroyed one in the midst of the sea!. Ezekiel 27:33. When thy sales came forth out of the seas, thou didst satisfy many nations; with the abundance of thy goods and thy wares thou didst enrich kings of the earth. Ezekiel 27:34. Now that thou art wrecked away from the seas in the depths of the water, thy wares and all thy company are fallen in thee. Ezekiel 27:35. All the inhabitants of the islands are amazed at thee, and their kings shudder greatly; their faces quiver. Ezekiel 27:36.

The traders among the nations hiss over thee; thou hast become a terror, and art gone for ever. - The allusion to the ships of Tarshish, to which Tyre was indebted for its glory, serves as an introduction to a renewal in Ezekiel 27:26 of the allegory of Ezekiel 27:5-9; Tyre is a ship, which is wrecked by the east wind (cf. Psalm 48:8). In Palestine (Arabia and Syria) the east wind is characterized by continued gusts; and if it rises into a tempest, it generally causes great damage on account of the violence of the gusts (see Wetzstein in Delitzsch's commentary on Job 27:1). Like a ship broken in pieces by the storm, Tyre with all its glory sinks into the depths of the sea. The repetition of בּלב in Ezekiel 27:26 and Ezekiel 27:27 forms an effective contrast to Ezekiel 27:25; just as the enumeration of all the possessions of Tyre, which fall with the ship into the heart of the sea, does to the wealth and glory in Ezekiel 27:25. They who manned the ship also perish with the cargo, - "the seamen," i.e., sailors, rowers, repairers of leaks (calkers), also the merchants on board, and the fighting men who defended the ship and its goods against pirates, - the whole qâhâl, or gathering of people, in the ship. The difficult expression בּכל־קהלך can only be taken as an explanatory apposition to אשׁר בּך: all the men who are in thee, namely, in the multitude of people in thee. Ezekiel 27:28.