Ezekiel 27:25

The ships of Tarshish did sing of thee in thy market: and thou wast replenished, and made very glorious in the midst of the seas. THE SHIPS OF TARSHISH DID SING OF THEE - personification; thy great merchant ships were palpable proofs of thy greatness. [ shaarowtayik (H7788) Maurer translates, from a different Hebrew root, shaaraah, from shuwr (H7788), to go about, 'were thy, (mercantile) travelers.'] Fairbairn translates, 'were thy walls.' So the ships of war used to be called 'the wooden walls of England.' The parallelism to "thou wast ... made very glorious," favours the English version, "sing of thee" [from shuwr, or shaar, to sing]....

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 27:25. _THE SHIPS OF TARSHISH_] The ships of _Tharsis_, in Cilicia, were the chief of those which traded with thee....

DID SING OF THEE - Or, were thy bulwarks, i. e., bulwarks of thy traffic. Others render it: “were thy caravans,” thy merchandise....

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

THE SHIPS OF TARSHISH DID SING OF THEE IN MARKET,.... The ships of the sea in general; for Tarshish is used for the sea; these from all parts came to Tyre with their several wares, the product of their country from whence they came, and, finding a good market for them at Tyre, spoke greatly in her praise, or, "were thy princes", or "thy chief ones, in thy market" f; these brought the principal things into it, and took off the chief that were in it, which were of the produce of Tyre: AND THOU WAST REPLENISHED; with goods from all parts, with every thing for their necessity, convenience, pleasure, and delight, and to carry on a traffic with all nations: AND MADE VERY GLORIOUS IN THE MIDST OF THE SEAS; with great riches, stately towers and buildings. Here ends the account of Tyre's greatness; next follows her ruin and destruction. f שרותיך "principes", V. L. Montanus, Castalio, Starckius...

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 =

The market of Tyre Several things are to be observed in this passage: 1. The representation is not that Tyre is traded with by the nations, though this is the fact lying under the figures employed. The nations are not customers of Tyre. Tyre neither buys nor sells, nor does she exchange one article for another. The nations are _her_merchants, who bring to her wares from every land; or they are her dependents, and the merchandise which they bring is a tribute which they render her (Ezekiel 27:15). They are her subjects, ministering to her luxury, bringing wares to her, and enriching her. The counterpart to this idea is that she enriches many peoples by bestowing her wealth upon them (Ezekiel 27:33). 2. The passage is artistic. Two words are employed for "to trade," "to be a merchant." The words have

II. THE LAMENTATION OVER TYRE 27:1-36 Chapter 27 consists of an allegorical dirge song artistically interrupted by a prose section. Tyre is pictured as a beautiful ship superbly fitted out and manned by a skilled crew (Ezekiel 27:3-11). In the prose section the ship is said to stop at various ports to collect her cargo (Ezekiel 27:12-25 a). The ship becomes so laden with merchandise that she sinks into the depths of a stormy sea (Ezekiel 27:25 b - Ezekiel 27:36). This exquisite composition stresses the abiding truth that worldly wealth is transitory and ultimately self-defeating to those who worship it....