Ezekiel 27:6

27:1-25 Those who live at ease are to be lamented, if they are not prepared for trouble. Let none reckon themselves beautified, any further than they are sanctified. The account of the trade of Tyre intimates, that God's eye is upon men when employed in worldly business. Not only when at church, praying and hearing, but when in markets and fairs, buying and selling. In all our dealings we should keep a conscience void of offence. God, as the common Father of mankind, makes one country abound in one commodity, and another in another, serviceable to the necessity or to the comfort and ornament of human life. See what a blessing trade and merchandise are to mankind, when followed in the fear of God. Besides necessaries, an abundance of things are made valuable only by custom; yet God allows us to use them. But when riches increase, men are apt to set their hearts upon them, and forget the Lord, who gives power to get wealth.

Of the oaks of Bashan have they made thine oars,.... To row the ships with; for their ships probably were no other than galleys, which were rowed with oars, as were the ships of first invention. Bashan was a country in Judea where oaks grew; see Isaiah 2:13 . The country of Judea in general was famous for oaks; it abounded with them in the times of Homer (t), who speaks of Typho being buried in a country abounding with oaks, among the rich or fat people of Judea; and he seems to design Bashan particularly, of which Og was king, whom he calls Typho, and of whose bed he makes mention in the same place; hence several places in Judea had their names from the oaks which grew, there, as Elonmoreh, Allonbachuth, Elonmeonenim, Elontabor, and Elonbethhanan, Genesis 12:6 and which one would have thought were fitter to make their ships of; but of these only their oars were made: the company of the Ashurites have made thy benches of ivory, brought out of the isles of Chittim; the benches for the towers to sit on, or for others in the cabin and decks; but that these should be wholly of ivory is not very probable; nor was ivory brought from the isles of Chittim, but from other parts; nor is it easy to say who the company of the Ashurites were; some say the Assyrians; but why they should be so called is not plain.

(6) The company of the Ashurites have made thy benches of ivory. —The literal rendering of this clause (with two words of doubtful meaning left blank) is, they made thy . . . of tooth ( ivory ) , daughter of . . . The sense will depend upon the filling up of these blanks. For the first there need be no difficulty. The word is used in Exodus 26:16 of the boards of the tabernacle, and here it is undoubtedly used of some planking about the ship; but it is in the singular number. It is hardly likely, therefore, to mean “benches” ( i.e. , seats for the oarsmen), since there were usually two or three tiers of these on each side of the ship. It is now generally taken collectively of the planking of the deck. If the Hebrew text, as it stands, is quite correct, we must read the other word “daughter of Ashurites,” for there is no authority for rendering “daughter” by company. It is difficult or impossible to make any intelligible sense of this; but if the two Hebrew words now written separately be joined together, we shall have “in box-wood,” the word being the same as in Isaiah 60:13 .

There will still be a little doubt, as there is so often in Scripture, as to the exact wood intended, whether box-wood or the sherbin-cedar; but the general sense is plain—“ they have made thy deck of ivory, inlaid in box-wood.” Isles of Chittim.—Chittim is the Old Testament name for Cyprus, and hence “isles of Chittim” (as in Jeremiah 2:10) stands for the islands and coasts whose fleets, in coming to the East, made their rendezvous at Cyprus. Thither were brought both the ivory from the African coast and the precious woods from various quarters.

Verse 6. - The high plateau of Bashan, the region east of the sea of Galilee and the Jordan, now known as the Hauran, was famous then, as it is now, for its oak forests and its wild cattle ( Psalm 22:12 ). The company of the Ashurites , etc.; better, with the Revised Version, they have made thy benches of ivory inlaid in boxwood . The Authorized Version follows the present Hebrew text, but the name of the nation there is not the same as that of the Assyrians, and corresponds with the Ashurites of 2 Samuel 2:9 - an obscure tribe of Canaanites, possibly identical with the Geshurites. A difference of punctuation or spelling ( Bithasshurim for Bath-asshu-rim ) gives the meaning which the Revised Version follows; thasshur being used in Isaiah 41:19 and Isaiah 60:13 for the box tree, or perhaps cypress, or larch, as forming part of the glory of Lebanon. The use of ivory in ship or house building seems to have been one of the arts for which Tyre was famous. So we have the ivory palace of Ahab, after he had married his Sidonian queen ( 1 Kings 22:39 ) and those of the monarch who had married a Tyrian princess in Psalm 45:8 (see also Amos 3:15 ). For the use of such inlaid wood in later times, see Virgil, 'AEneid,' 10:137. Either the ivory or the wood is said to come from the isles of Chittim . The word was about as wide in its use as the "Indies" in the time of Elizabeth. Josephus ('Ant.,' 1:06. 1) identifies it with Cyprus, which perhaps retains a memorial of it in Citium.

The Vulgate, as in Numbers 24:24 , identifies it here with Italy, and in Daniel 11:30 translates the "ships of Chittim" as trieres et Romani , while in 1 Macc. 1:1, it is used of Greece as including Macedonia. In Genesis 10:4 the Kittim appear as descended from Javan, i.e. are classed as Greeks or Ionians. The ivory which the Tyrians used probably came from Northern Africa, and may have been supplied through Carthage or other Phoenician colonies. A supply may have come also from Ethiopia through Egypt, or from the Red Sea ports, with which the Phoenicians carried on a trade with Arabia. Inlaid ivory-work, sometimes in wood, sometimes with enamel, is found both in Egyptian and Assyrian remains ('Dict. Bible,' s . v . "Ivory"). Ezekiel 27:6

6 . The oars of the great ship were made of oaks of Bashan; cf. Isaiah 2:13 ; Zechariah 11:2 . The term “oars” occurs in another form, Ezekiel 27:27 , but probably with no difference of meaning. The rest of Ezekiel 27:6 should read: thy deck they made of ivory (inlaid) in sherbin wood from the isles of Chittim (the words bath teasshur should no doubt be read bitheasshur , in theasshur). This tree is mentioned as growing in Lebanon, Isaiah 41:19 ; Isaiah 60:13 ; it is usually considered to be the tree called in Arabic sherbîn, a species of cedar. Others contend for box or larch. The term “deck” is literally “board,” e.g. of the boards of the sanctuary, Exodus 26:15 seq . Chittim is Cyprus, called after the town Kition (Larnaka), but probably the name embraced the coasts of Asia Minor and Greece or perhaps even of Italy ( Daniel 11:30 ; 1Ma 1:1 ; 1Ma 8:5 ).

The company ... ivory - Rather, "thy benches (or, deck) made they of ivory with boxwood" (or, larch), i. e., boxwood inlaid with ivory. The isles - (or, coasts) of Chittim is a phrase used constantly for Greece and the Grecian islands. It may probably be extended to other islands in the Mediterranean sea Genesis 10:5, and there ivory may have been brought from the coasts of North Africa.

Oaks; of pines, say some; of chesnut-trees, say others: but, since oaks, and those of Bashan, are famous in sacred dendrology, I know not why we should not keep to our own version, since the primary notation of the Hebrew leads us to it. The company of the Ashurites: as we read these words, there arise many difficulties in the expounding them. If the conjecture of the learned Bochart be well considered, it will seem very probable the words would be better rendered thus; Thy benches they have made of ivory, with box brought out, &c. For the isles of Chittim afforded many amid large box trees, Whereas ivory, or the elephant’s tooth, we know, is the merchandise of other countries, and the elephant a foreigner to all the parts of Europe; nor are the teeth of elephants of that largeness to afford breadth for seats and benches; nor shall we find any such company of Ashurites, if we inquire for them.

I shall therefore subscribe to that learned man in the opinion, that here are two words read divided, and by mistake translated as divided words, which ought to have been read in one word, and so translated as it is in Isaiah 41:19 , where we translate Myvah, box ; then all is plain, and the sense this, That from the isles, and parts about the Ionian, Ægean, and other seas of the Mediterranean, where this box tree is native, as in Corsica, Apulia, &c. and of great growth and firmness, fit to saw into boards for benches, they were conveyed to Tyrus, where their artists inlaid these box boards with ivory, and made them beautiful seats in their galleys and ships.

6. Bashan—celebrated for its oaks, as Lebanon was for its cedars. the company of … Ashurites—the most skilful workmen summoned from Assyria. Rather, as the Hebrew orthography requires, "They have made thy (rowing) benches of ivory inlaid in the daughter of cedars" [Maurer], or, the best boxwood. Fairbairn, with Bochart, reads the Hebrew two words as one: "Thy plankwork (deck: instead of 'benches,' as the Hebrew is singular) they made ivory with boxes." English Version, with Maurer's correction, is simpler. Chittim—Cyprus and Macedonia, from which, Pliny tells us, the best boxwood came [Grotius].