Ezekiel 28:20-24

IV. THE RIVAL OF TYRE 28:20-24

TRANSLATION

(20) And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, (21) Son of man, set your face against Sidon, and prophesy against her, (22) and say, Thus says the Lord GOD: Behold I am against you, O Sidon, and I will be glorified in the midst of You; and they shall know that I am the LORD when I execute judgments in her, and manifest My holiness in her; (23) for I shall send into her pestilence and blood in her streets; and the slain shall fall in the midst of her, by the sword upon her on every side. Then they shall know that I am the LORD. (24) And there shall be no more for the house of Israel a pricking brier nor a piercing thorn of any that are round about them, who treated them with contempt; and they shall know that I am the Lord GOD.

COMMENTS

Not only would Tyre experience the wrath of the living God, her rival to the north would fall as well. In early times Sidon was larger and more prestigious than Tyre. But from the eleventh to the fourth century B.C. Tyre controlled, almost without dispute on the part of Sidon, the affairs of Phoenicia. In Biblical prophecy the two cities are closely connected (cf. Isaiah 23). As far as the Hebrew prophets were concerned, Tyre and Sidon were seaside partners in sin.[434] However, Sidon was sufficiently independent from Tyre to justify a separate oracle, sufficiently identified with Tyre not to call for any longer oracle. No indication of Sidon's offenses is given in this oracle; but it is assumed that her sins were the same as those of Tyre and required a similar punishment.

[434] Grider. BBC, p. 582.

God declares that He is an adversary of Sidon as well as of Tyre. By dispensing a just judgment on this city, God would be vindicated. He would receive glory and He would be sanctified (reverenced) as a result of such activity (Ezekiel 28:22).

Sidon would experience the pestilence which usually accompanied ancient sieges. When the enemies breached the walls the blood would flow in her streets. The slain would fall in heaps[435] (Ezekiel 28:23). When all of this occurred men would acknowledge that the doom of Sidon had not occurred by chance, but was an act of God (Ezekiel 28:24). Such judgments would serve the purpose of removing all source of danger, opposition, and ridicule (a pricking brier, a piercing thorn)[436] to the people of God. In time past Israel had been wounded by those thorns and briers, i.e., had been tainted by the wicked worship and lascivious life of these Canaanite neighbors. But in the future restoration the corrupting Canaanite influence would be forever removed.

[435] A rare form of the verb fall is used in this verse which probably denotes intensity.

[436] The same words are used in Numbers 33:55 of the Canaanite peoples. Ezekiel applies the terms to the Phoenician cities which were the last vestige of the old Canaanite culture.

The bloody history of Sidon after the time of Ezekiel[437] can be summarized as follows:

[437] The city was destroyed by the Assyrian king Esarhaddon in 677 B.C. long before the time of Ezekiel. However, Sidon grew up again. For a time (609-593 B.C.) the city was dominated by the Egyptians. Nebuchadnezzar conquered the place in 593 B.C.

1. Sidon was devastated during Nebuchadnezzar's thirteen-year siege of Tyre (587-572 B.C.).
2. With the fall of Babylon, Sidon regained some of its old importance. For a time the city served faithfully the new Persian world rulers. However, in 351 B.C. the Sidonians revolted against Artaxerxes II Ochus. In the face of the siege of the Persian monarch the king of Sidon fled, leaving the city to its fate. The city fathers ordered all ships in the harbor to be destroyed to prevent any flight by the citizens. More than forty thousand are said to have lost their lives when the city was sacked and burned.
3. Sidon meekly surrendered to Alexander the Great in 333 B.C.
4. Under the Seleucid rulers, Sidon again attained a rather independent status.
5. In 64 B.C. Pompey imposed Roman rule throughout Phoenicia. Sidon still flourished, but its importance gradually vanished.
6. In the days of the crusades Sidon was taken and retaken several times by opposing forces.
7. Under Turkish rule the site of Sidon continued to suffer tribulation. In 1840 Sidon was bombarded by the combined fleets of England, France and Turkey.
8. The modern Arab city of Saeda (population, 50,000) which occupies the site of ancient Sidon, has not escaped the bloody religious warfare which erupted in Lebanon in 1976.