Ezekiel 27:2

Now, thou son of man, take up a lamentation for Tyrus; TAKE UP A LAMENTATION - a funeral dirge, eulogizing her great attributes, to make the contrast the greater between her former and her latter state....

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...

Verse Ezekiel 27:2. _TAKE UP A LAMENTATION FOR TYRUS_] This is a singular and curious chapter. It gives a very circumstantial account of the trade of Tyre with different parts of the world, and the _different_ _sorts of merchandise_ in which she trafficked. The _places_ and the _imports_ are as regularly entered here as they could have been in a European custom-house....

EXPOSITION EZEKIEL 27:2 TAKE UP A LAMENTATION FOR TYRUS. The dirge over the merchant-city that follows, the doom _sic transit gloria mundi, _worked out with a fullness of detail which reminds us of the Homeric catalogue of ships ('Iliad,' 2:484-770), is almost, if not altogether, without a parallel in the history of literature. It can scarcely have rested on anything but personal knowledge. Ezekiel, we must believe, had, at some time or other in his life, trod the sinful streets of the great city, and noted the mingled crowd of many nations and in many costumes that he met there, just as we infer from Dante's vivid description of the dockyards of Venice ('Inf.,' 21.7-15) that he had visited that city. Apart from its poetic or prophetic interest, it is for us almost the _locus classicus _as to the geography and commerce of t

NOW, THOU SON OF MAN, TAKE UP A LAMENTATION FOR TYRUS. Compose an elegy, and sing it; make a mournful noise, and deliver out a funeral ditty; such as the "praeficae", or mournful women, made at funerals, in which they said all they could in praise of the dead, and made very doleful lamentations for them: this the prophet was to do in a prophetic manner, for the confirmation of what was prophesied of by him; and it may teach us, that even wicked men are to be pitied, when in distress and calamity....

Ezekiel 27:1. Ezekiel 27:1 give an interesting description of the world-wide commerce and glory of this proud world city. “Sic transit gloria mundi,” thus passeth the glory of the world! Of the proud and wicked mistress of the sea nothing but ruins remain and her very site is no longer known. What her past glory was is made known by the prophet, yet Ezekiel never had been to that city, nor did he have any knowledge of her grandeur, her great wealth and far reaching commerce. God revealed all unto him. The description of her great commerce reminds us of that coming world-system as described in the last book of the Bible, the Revelation. Babylon the Great will be both an ecclesiastical and commercial world center. Her commerce is just like the commerce of Tyrus...

EZEKIEL 27. THE DIRGE OVER TYRE. The interest of the brilliant poem that follows is greatly enhanced by the description of the commerce of Tyre in a passage (Ezekiel 27:9_ b_ - Ezekiel 27:25_ a_) remarkable alike for its textual difficulty and for its importance as a source for our knowledge of the trade of the ancient world. Tyre is compared to a gallant ship, of finished beauty, with equipments the finest and costliest, manned and piloted by the most skilful of sailors (Ezekiel 27:1). In Ezekiel 27:5, Senir = Herman. In Ezekiel 27:6, Kittim =

SON OF MAN. See note on Ezekiel 2:1, TYRUS. See note on Ezekiel 26:2....

Ezekiel 27:1. Tyre as a gallant ship 2. For the phrase "take up a lamentation" cf. Ezekiel 19:1; Ezekiel 26:17; Ezekiel 28:12; Ezekiel 32:2. The word is technical for the dirge....

TAKE UP A LAMENTATION, &C.— This alludes to the melancholy songs used at funerals, concerning which we spoke in our comment on the Lamentations; and wherein the women recounted every thing which was valuable or praise-worthy in the deceased, and then lamented his loss. Though indeed the prophet dwells more upon the punishment denounced against this place, than in deploring its calamity, and rather excites terror than pity; yet, notwithstanding this, he follows the plan and manner of those funeral dirges. For he recounts, as is usual in those compositions, the former glory, power, and riches of Tyre, and, by means of the contrast augments the greatness of her calamities. See Bishop Lowth's 23rd Prelection....