John Gill Commentary Ezekiel 26

And it came to pass in the eleventh year Of Jehoiachin's captivity and Zedekiah's reign, the same year that Jerusalem was taken: in the first day of the month ; but what month is not mentioned; some have thought the first month, and so it was the first day of the year; others the fourth, the same in which the city of Jerusalem was taken; but more probably the fifth, the first of which was twenty days after the taking it; in which time the news of it might be brought to Tyre, at which she rejoiced; and for which her destruction is threatened, and here prophesied of: that the word of the Lord came to me, saying ; as follows:

Son of man, because that Tyrus has said against Jerusalem,
aha

As rejoicing at her destruction, and insulting over her in it; which was barbarous and inhuman, and resented by the Lord:

she is broken that was the gates of the people ;
through whose gates the people went in and out in great numbers; a city to which there was very popular, not only for religion, from all parts, at their solemn feasts, but for merchandise from several parts of the world; and was now full of people before its destruction, the inhabitants of Judea having fled thither for safety, upon the invasion made by the king of Babylon; but now the city was broken up, as it is said it was, by the Chaldean army, (Jeremiah 52:7) , its gates and walls were broken down, and lay in a ruinous condition.

The Targum is, ``she is broken down that afforded merchandise to all people.''

She is turned unto me ;
either the inhabitants of Jerusalem, which escaped and fled to Tyre for refuge; or the spoil taken out of it, which was carried there to be sold; and even the captives themselves to be sold for slaves, which was one part of the merchandise of Tyre; see (Ezekiel 27:3) , or the business, trade, and merchandise carried on in Jerusalem, were brought to Tyre upon its destruction; so Jarchi and Kimchi.

The Targum is, ``she is turned to come unto me;'' which favours the first sense; all may be intended.

I shall be replenished, now she is laid waste ;
or, "I shall be filled" ^F2; with inhabitants, riches, and wealth, with merchants and merchandise, Jerusalem her rival being destroyed; this was what gave her joy; and is a common thing for persons to rejoice at the fall or death of those of the same trade with them; hoping for an increase of theirs by means of it, which yet is sinful.

FOOTNOTES:

• F2: (halma) "implebor", Cocceius, Starckius.

Therefore thus saith the Lord God
Who knew the thoughts of the inhabitants of Tyre, and what joy possessed their hearts, and which their lips expressed; and who informs the prophet of it, though at a great distance, and declares his resentment at it:

behold, I am against thee, O Tyrus ;
and nothing can be more dreadful and formidable than to have God against a nation, city, or a particular person:

Tyre was a type of antichrist, who will express a like joy at the death of the witnesses; thinking that the merchandise of Rome will be increased greatly, and there will be nothing to interrupt it, (Revelation 11:10) , but God will show his displeasure, and bring sudden destruction on it:

and will cause many nations to come up against thee, as the sea causeth
his waves to come up ;
the Chaldean army, consisting of soldiers of many nations; who for their number, noise, and fury, are compared to the raging waves of the sea.

So the Targum,``I will bring up against thee an army of many people, as the sea ascendeth in the raging of its waves;'' the ten kings shall hate the whore, and destroy her, even those very people she reigns over, compared to many waters, (Revelation 17:15Revelation 17:16) .

And they shall destroy the walls of Tyrus &c.] Undermining them, or breaking them down with their battering rams: and break down her towers; with axes, (Ezekiel 26:9) built upon the walls; erected for the defence of the city, and for watchmen to stand in, to look out from them for the enemy, and observe his motions, as well as for soldiers to fight from:

and I will scrape her dust from her, and make her like the top of a rock; a bare smooth rock, which has not any surface of earth upon it. So the Targum, ``I will give her for the smoothness of an open rock.''

Tyre was built upon a rock; and whereas the inhabitants had brought earth thither, and laid it upon it, in order to make gardens and orchards, and plant flowers and trees; this should be all removed, and it should become a bare rock, as it was at first. It denotes the utter destruction of it. It has its name from a word which signifies a rock; (See Gill on Isaiah 23:1).

It shall be a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of
the sea
Where only fishermen would be seen washing their nets, and then spreading them upon this rock, where Tyre stood, to dry them and this has been confirmed by travellers, who have seen fishermen spreading and drying their nets, and having no other habitations on it but the huts of these men.

Huetius ^F3 relates, that he remembered one Hadrian Parvillarius, a Jesuit, a candid and learned man, particularly in the Arabic language, who lived ten years in Syria; and to have heard him say, that when he saw the ruins of Tyre, its rocks to the sea, and scattered stones on the shore, and made clean smooth by the sun, waves, and wind, and only used for drying fishermen's nets, it brought to his mind this passage of the prophet; as it did to Mr. Maundrell ^F4 when on the spot, a few years ago; who says,

``you see nothing here but a mere Babel of broken walls, pillars, vaults there being not so much as one entire house left; its present inhabitants are only a few poor wretches, harbouring themselves in the vaults, and subsisting chiefly upon fishing; who seem to be preserved in this place by divine Providence, as a visible argument how God has fulfilled his word concerning Tyre, viz. "that it should be as the top of a rock"'':

so Dr. Shaw ^F5 says, this port, small as it at present, is choked up to that degree with sand and rubbish, that the boats of these poor fishermen, who now and then visit this once renowned emporium and "dry their nets upon its rocks and ruins", can with great difficulty only be admitted:

for I have spoken it, saith the Lord God ; and therefore it should certainly come to pass, as it has: and it shall become a spoil to the nations ; the army of many nations, that besieged it for thirteen years under Nebuchadnezzar.

FOOTNOTES:

• F3: Evangel. Demonstrat. prop. 6. p. 328.
• F4: Journey from Aleppo to Jerusalem, p. 48, 49. Ed. 7.
• F5: Travels, p. 273. Ed. 2.