Ezekiel Chapter 26 verse 2 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 2. - Because that Tyrus, etc. As the nearest great commercial city, the Venice of the ancient world, Tyre, from the days of David (2 Samuel 5:11) and Solomon (1 Kings 5:1) onward, had been prominent in the eyes of the statesmen and prophets of Judah; and Ezekiel follows in the footsteps of Joel 3:4; Amos 1:9, 10; Isaiah 23, in dealing with it. The description in Vers. 5 and 14 points, not to the city on the mainland, the old Tyre of Joshua 19:29, which had been taken by Shalmaneser and was afterwards destroyed by Alexander the Great, but to the island-city, the new Tyre, which was, at this time, the emporium of the ancient world. The extent of her commerce will meet us in Ezekiel 27. Here, too, as in the case of the nations in Ezekiel 25, Ezekiel's indignation is roused by the exulting selfishness with which Tyre had looked on the downfall (actual or imminent, as before) of Jerusalem. "Now," her rulers seem to have said, "we shall be the only power in the land of Canaan." Jerusalem, that had been the gate of the peoples, was now broken. The name thus given may imply either (1) that Jerusalem was regarded as to a considerable extent a commercial city, carrying on much intercourse with the nations with which she was in alliance, (Ezekiel 23:40, 41; 1 Kings 9:26-28; 1 Kings 22:48; Isaiah 2:7; Herod., 3:5, of Cadytis, i.e. probably Jerusalem); or (2) that its temple had, under Hezekiah and Josiah, drawn many proselytes from the neighboring nations, as in Psalm 87:4-6, and was looking forward to a yet fuller confluence of men of all races, as in the prophecies of Micah 4:1, 2 and Isaiah 2:2, 3 - expectations which may well have become known to a city like Tyro, in frequent intercourse with Judah. "Now," the Tyrians might say, "that hope is shattered." I shall be replenished. The interpolated "now" indicates what is, of course, implied, that Tyre expects her prosperity to increase in proportion to the decline and fall of Jerusalem.

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(2) She is broken that was the gates of the people.--"Gates" is in the plural simply because the word originally means a leaf of a door or gate, and hence the two leaves mean the gate; accordingly the sense would be better conveyed by using the singular in English. On the other hand, "people, both here and in Ezekiel 27:3, is intentionally in the plural =the nations. By omitting all the words in italics in this verse a better idea is obtained of the exultation of Tyre over the fall of Jerusalem.This exultation is described as of a purely selfish and commercial character, and shows nothing of the spitefulness and religious animosity of the nations mentioned in the previous chapter. Jerusalem had been made in the days of Solomon the great commercial emporium of the inland trade from Arabia, and even from India, as well as the negotiator of products between Egypt and the Hittites and other northern nations. Doubtless something of this commercial importance still remained to Jerusalem in her decay, of which we have already seen evidence in Ezekiel 16; but however this may have been, a considerable city, situated as Jerusalem was, must of necessity have been the centre of many of those transactions between the surrounding nations which Tyre would gladly have monopolised for herself. Hence her exultation: "Jerusalem being destroyed, all that gave her importance among the nations must come to increase my prosperity."