EZEKIEL 26
11th YEAR OF CAPTIVITY-586 BC-CHAPTERS 26-28
Because Tyre rejoiced against Jerusalem, she should be leveled to the ground and scraped clean, like the top of a rock (Tyre="Rock"). Tyre was on an island stronghold, boasting in her insular security, as Britain did for many centuries.
Bro Growcott - Prophecies in the captivity
3 Therefore thus saith Adonai Yahweh; Behold [Hineni], I am against thee, O Tyrus [Tzor ], and will cause many nations [Goyim rabbim] to come up against thee, as the sea [yam] causeth his waves to come up.
This prophecy has been fulfilled to the very letter; and man cannot prophesy. Tyre came to ruin, not by natural decay; not by the uprise of a commercial rival on another spot drawing away her business from her; but in the very way foretold...
...First under Nebuchadnezzar, and then under Alexander, nearly 250 years after Nebuchadnezzar, imperial armies (comprising many nationalities) subjected Tyre to the most destructive of sieges, and brought her into the ruin foretold.
It is not as if this were the only case of Bible prophecy fulfilled. There is scarcely an end to such cases. The Bible is full of prophecy to a much greater extent than the common run of people imagine: and all its prophecies have been fulfilled. There is not an exception. Look at the great mountain outlines of the subject.
Look at scattered Israel... look at overthrown and obliterated Babylon; look at degraded Egypt. Look at the four great empires that have successively ruled the world; look at the terrible Papacy that rose out of the fourth of these empires, wielding the most odious tyranny over the consciences and liberties of men that could be imagined, but which was plainly foretold, and losing it exactly at the end of the allotted time (1,260 years).
Look at the birth, death, resurrection, and ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ-all foreshewn in the prophets many centuries before their occurrence. What verdict of reason can there be but one-that God is in this book, and that the prophets spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit?
Bro Roberts - Sunday Morning No 259
The Christadelphian, Nov 1894
5 It shall be a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea [yam]: for I have spoken it, saith Adonai Yahweh: and it shall become a spoil to the nations [plunder to the Goyim].
In the day when Ezekiel wrote this prophecy, Tyre, like Babylon, was in the zenith of her prosperity, for he wrote at the beginning of Judah's captivity by Nebuchadnezzar "among the captives by the river of Chebar" (Ezek. i. 1). Tyre, with her extensive shipping, was queen of the sea and nurse of all nations. She enriched the kings of the earth with the multitude of her merchandise (xxvii. 33). She had a very high position in her own estimation and in the estimation of all who had dealings with her.
She said, "I am of perfect beauty." Her builders had perfected her beauty. Her shipboards were of the best timber-cedar of Lebanon; her oars, of the oaks of Bashan: her benches of ivory: her sails of the finest material that could be manufactured-fine linen with bordered work from Egypt, blue and purple from the isles of Elishah. The mariners sang of her: they could not find language to describe her glory: "What city is like Tyrus?" (xxvii. 3-7; 25, 32).
Well, what does the prophecy say? That God is against her, and that she will be brought to ruin.
...How has this prophecy worked out? The fact is notorious to all who make history their study and not romance: who choose truth and not fiction for their mental pabulum: who prefer knowledge and understanding to the gapes and fripperies of light literature. The prophecy has been fulfilled to the letter. You may go to the sea coast of Palestine by one of Cook's excursions and you will search in vain for Tyre. You will of course find the geographical spot where she stood. You will find the sea-washed island about 40 miles to the north of Haifa, where the range of Carmel ends in a promontory.
The shape of land and sea is the same as when Tyre boasted and Ezekiel wrote. But the busy harbour, crowded shipping, the stately towers, the sumptuous mansions, the villas and castles of the rich stretching away right and left on the main land, the thronging prosperous populace everywhere-you look for them in vain... "Thou shalt be no more; though thou be sought for, yet shalt thou never be found again, saith the Lord God" (v 1).
You cannot even find her architectural relics, except in the water round the island, according to the account of travellers, as it had been written: "They shall lay thy stones and thy timber and thy dust in the midst of the water." Looking down into the depths on a clear day, it is said you can see broken columns and masses of stone work. All is a silent desolation where once were busy sounds of human industry and mirth, as it had been written:
"I will cause the noise of thy songs to cease; and the sound of thy harps shall no more be heard" (xxvi. 13).
But on the island itself we see something. There is a small fishing settlement. What is that which, by the eyes of travellers, we see drying and bleaching on the rocks? Fishermen's nets. What is this which we read in the chapters before us? "I will scrape her dust from her and make her like the top of a rock. It shall be a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea" (verses 4-5). What shall we say?
That the word of God is true and cannot be broken.
Bro Roberts - Sunday Morning No 259
The Christadelphian, Nov 1894