Charles Ellicott Commentary Ezekiel 27

At the entry of the sea. —The word for “entry” in the original is plural, and means the approaches to the sea, or harbours. Tyre had two of these, both remarkably good: the “Egyptian,” facing the south, and the “Sidonian,” facing the north, the latter having also an outer harbour or roadstead, formed by a ledge off the north-west extremity of the island. The former is now completely, and the latter nearly, filled up with sand and ruins.

Ship boards. —Planking for the sides of the ship. The word in the original is in the dual, with reference to its two sides.

Senir was the Amorite name of Hermon, or Antilebanon, called by the Sidonians Sirion (Deuteronomy 3:9). Ezekiel wished to use a foreign name, and the latter may at this time have become obsolete. The timber brought from there for the ship’s planking, and called fir, was the same as that furnished by Hiram to Solomon for the floor of the Temple (1 Kings 6:15), and may have been either “fir” (spruce?) or cypress.

The Scripture names of trees are not always well identified. Both were esteemed among the ancients for shipbuilding, especially the cypress, on account of its lightness, durability, and freedom from the attacks of worms.

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 filling these blanks.

For the first blank, there need be no difficulty. The word is used in Exodus 26:16 for the boards of the tabernacle, and here it is undoubtedly used for some planking about the ship; however, it is in the singular number.

It is hardly likely, therefore, to mean “benches” (that is, 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 as the planking of the deck.

If the Hebrew text, as it stands, is quite correct, we must read the other word as “daughter of Ashurites,” for there is no authority for rendering “daughter” as company. It is difficult or impossible to make any intelligible sense of this.

However, if the two Hebrew words now written separately are joined together, we will have “in box-wood,” the word being the same as in Isaiah 60:13. There will still be a little doubt, as there so often is in Scripture, about 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 stands for the islands and coasts whose fleets, when coming to the East, made their rendezvous at Cyprus. There, both the ivory from the African coast and the precious woods from various quarters were brought.

Fine linen with embroidered work.— To a modern sailor, “fine linen” may seem both an extravagant and an insufficient material for a ship’s sails, but the state ships of antiquity were often fitted out in this way, and the sails embroidered in colors in place of a pennant. The clause literally is, Linen with embroidery from Egypt was for your spreading out (sail), to be to you for a sign.

Isles of Elishah.— In Genesis 10:4 and 1 Chronicles 1:7, Elishah is mentioned among the sons of Javan, or Ionia. The regions referred to here are the coasts of Asia Minor, where an abundant supply of the murex (from which the famous purple dye came) was obtained when the quantity on the Tyrian coast was insufficient for its manufacturing. That which covered you is the awning spread over the ship’s deck.

Arvad. — The description now turns to the sailors. The Arvadite is mentioned among the family of Canaan in Genesis 10:18, and corresponds to the Greek Aradus. There were two islands of this name: one in the Persian Gulf, the other (the one here intended) a rocky island north of the coast of Tripoli, on which a city was built like Tyre. The Phoenician cities of Sidon and Arvad furnished the oarsmen, but Tyre itself the superior captains and pilots.