Ezekielchapter 26
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Key verse
For thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I will bring upon Tyrus Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, a king of kings, from the north, with horses, and with chariots, and with horsemen, and companies, and much people.
It stands in scene B of the chapter, verses 7 to 14.
The chapter
Chapter summary
Against Tyre, who said of Jerusalem, 'Aha, she is broken that was the gate of the peoples', glad to inherit the trade of a ruined rival. Jehovah brings up many nations against her as the sea causes its waves to come up, beginning with Nebuchadnezzar king of kings from the north with horses and chariots. Her walls are broken, her towers taken down, her very dust scraped away: 'I will make thee a bare rock… a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea.' The princes of the sea come down from their thrones and clothe themselves with trembling. 'Thou shalt be sought for, yet shalt thou never be found again.'
Context
Prophecy · Ezekiel · Ezekiel overview
Where the chapter sits
Ezekiel 26 falls in Oracles against the nations (chapters 25–32). Ammon, Moab, Edom, Philistia (25); Tyre (26–28); Sidon (28); Egypt (29–32). The King of Tyre lament (28:11–19) surfaces interpretive debate on Satan's fall.
Before it: Symbolic acts and judgment on Jerusalem, chapters 4–24. After it: Restoration promised, chapters 33–37.
The whole shape of Ezekiel→The world behind this chapter
Ezekiel 26The history
Tyre was two cities. On the mainland stood a settlement with farmland and water; half a mile offshore stood the real Tyre, a rock island ringed by walls said to reach a hundred and fifty feet, with two harbours, one facing north toward Sidon, one south toward Egypt. An island that could be resupplied by sea was close to unconquerable, and Tyre knew it.
The rest of the history, and what it meant to them
The taunt Ezekiel quotes is commercial. Aha, the gate of the peoples is broken; now that she is ruined I shall be filled. Jerusalem sat astride the inland routes and took its cut. With Jerusalem gone, Tyre expected the whole trade to come to the coast.
The judgment is described as waves: many nations against you, as the sea brings up its waves. Then the specifics, the walls thrown down, the towers broken, the dust scraped away until she is a bare rock, a place for spreading fishing nets. The chapter names Nebuchadnezzar directly, and then shifts to they and many nations, which is why the fulfilment ran in stages.
Those stages are documented. Josephus, quoting the Tyrian historian Menander of Ephesus, records that Nebuchadnezzar besieged Tyre for thirteen years. The mainland city fell; the island held out and settled on terms, and Ezekiel himself says frankly in a later chapter that the army got no wages for all that labour. Two and a half centuries afterwards Alexander the Great took the island in 332 BC by scraping the ruins of the mainland city into the sea to build a causeway out to it, the dust literally scraped from the rock and thrown into the water.
What it meant to them
The exiles were watching a city that had profited from their destruction, and that looked immune. This oracle says the sea will not save it.
The picture that would have stayed with them is the last one: princes of the sea stepping down from their thrones, laying aside their embroidered robes, sitting on the ground and trembling. The men who traded in everything end up with nothing to sit on but the ground.
Sources cited
- Flavius Josephus, Against Apion , citing Menander of Ephesus on the thirteen-year siege of Tyre
- John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews and Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
- Herodotus, The Histories
A. Tyre rejoiced when the gate of the peoples broke
1. (vv. 1-2)
a.in the eleventh year: The date formula, in the eleventh year, in the first day of the month, places this oracle close to the fall of Jerusalem itself, and Tyrus's word against Jerusalem reveals a motive the rest of the chapter never lets go, commercial rather than moral. Aha, she is broken that was the gates of the people: she is turned unto me: I shall be replenished treats Judah's ruin as a business opening, the trade that once passed through Jerusalem now expected to flow through Tyre instead. Fairbairn reads the taunt as the sharpest kind of judgment against a merchant city, condemned not for cruelty in the moment but for calculating profit from a neighbor's fall.
Ezekiel 26:1, 2 voicesWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Ezekiel 26:1
“Prophecies against Tyre. The siege of Tyre lasted thirteen years beginning 585 b.c., about three years after the capture of Jerusalem. While besieging Jerusalem, Nebuchadnezzar had driven Pharaoh Hophra back to the borders of Egypt. Tyre being thus relieved from a dangerous enemy, was exulting in her own deliverance, and in her neighbor’s ruin, when Ezekiel predicted the calamity about to befall her. The name Tyre means rock, and was given to the city in consequence of its position.”
Ezekiel 26:1
“The specification of the date, which had been omitted in the case of the four preceding objects of judgment, marks the greater weight attached to the fall of Tyre. eleventh year--namely, after the carrying away of Jehoiachin, the year of the fall of Jerusalem. The number of the month is, however, omitted, and the day only given.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Ezekiel 26:2, 2 voices
Ezekiel 26:2
“Tyrus hath said - From this it would appear that Jerusalem had been taken, which was on the fourth month of this year; but it is possible that the prophet speaks of the event beforehand. She is broken that was the gates of the people - Jerusalem, a general emporium. I shall be replenished - The merchandise that went to Jerusalem will come to me, (to Tyre.).”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ezekiel 26:2
“Aha!--exultation over a fallen rival (Ps 35:21, 25). she . . . that was the gates--that is, the single gate composed of two folding doors. Hence the verb is singular. "Gates" were the place of resort for traffic and public business: so here it expresses a mart of commerce frequented by merchants.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
2. (vv. 3-6)
a.as the sea causeth his waves to come up: The Lord answers with his own formula, Behold, I am against thee, O Tyrus, and the coming judgment is pictured as the sea Tyre lived by turned against it, many nations to come up against thee, as the sea causeth his waves to come up, wave after wave rather than one blow. Walls and towers fall, the city's dust is scraped away, and it is made like the top of a rock, a place for the spreading of nets, the maritime power reduced to the very shoreline fishermen use to dry their catch. Keil notes the recognition formula closing the unit, they shall know that I am the Lord, landing again on the book's stated purpose for every judgment it pronounces.
Ezekiel 26:3, 1 voice
Ezekiel 26:3
“Will cause many nations to come up against thee - We have already seen that the empire of the Chaldeans was composed of many different provinces, and that Nebuchadnezzar’s army was composed of soldiers from different nations: these may be the people meant; but I doubt whether this may not refer to the different nations which in successive ages fought against Tyre. It was at last finally destroyed in the sixteenth century of the Christian era.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ezekiel 26:4, 2 voices
Ezekiel 26:4
“And they shall destroy the walls of Tyrus.... Undermining them, or breaking them down with their battering rams: and break down her towers; with axes, Eze 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.”
Ezekiel 26:4
“I will also scrape her dust from her - I will totally destroy her fortifications, and leave her nothing but a barren rock, as she was before. This cannot refer to the capture of Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar. It flourished long after his time.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ezekiel 26:5, 1 voice
Ezekiel 26:5
“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.”
Ezekiel 26:6, 2 voices
Ezekiel 26:6
“And her daughters which are in the field shall be slain by the sword,.... That is, the inhabitants of the cities, towns, and villages, on the shore near it, and which were subject to it; as such cities are frequently in Scripture called the daughters of the place to which they belong: or their daughters literally, that should get out of the city, and endeavour to make their escape; yet should fall into the enemies' hands, who would not spare them on account of their sex or age.”
Ezekiel 26:6
“And her daughters - The places dependent on Tyre. As there were two places called Tyre, one on the main land, and the other on a rock in the sea, opposite to that on the main land, sometimes the one seems to be spoken of, and sometimes the other. That on the land, Palaetyre, was soon taken; but that in the sea cost Nebuchadnezzar thirteen years of siege and blockade. The two formed only one city, and one state.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
B. Nebuchadnezzar comes; a bare rock for drying nets
1. (vv. 7-11)
a.Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, a king of kings: The instrument is named without ambiguity, Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, a king of kings, from the north, a title Ezekiel gives a pagan emperor for the reach of his rule over subject kings beneath him. The verses that follow describe siege engines, mounts cast against the walls, horses whose dust shall cover thee, and hooves that tread down all thy streets, warfare aimed first at Tyre's mainland suburbs and gate city rather than the fortified island half a mile offshore. Barnes notes that Ezekiel 29:18 later records Nebuchadnezzar's army coming away from this siege with bald heads and peeled shoulders and no wages, evidence read alongside this passage that the mainland city fell while the island stronghold held out beyond the thirteen years of siege.
Ezekiel 26:7, 2 voices
Ezekiel 26:7
“For thus saith the Lord God,.... What follows; and declares by name the person that should be the instrument of this ruin, and the manner in which it should be brought about: I will bring upon Tyrus Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon; a prince whose name was terrible, having conquered many nations: the Lord is said to bring him against Tyre, because, he inclined his heart to steer his course this way; encouraged him to this work; led and protected his army; and, at last, gave him success: it held out thirteen years against him, and then was taken.”
Ezekiel 26:7
“The description of the siege is that of a town invested by land. Eze 26:7 Nebuchadrezzar - Jer 21:2 note. Eze 26:8 Lift up the buckler - i. e., set a wall of shields, under cover of which the walls could be approached. Eze 26:9 Engines of war - Or, his battering ram. “axes” swords. They who would break flown the towers, rush on with their swords to slay the defenders. Eze 26:11 Garrisons - pillars, on which stood statues of some protecting god. Compare 2Ki 10:”
Ezekiel 26:8, 1 voice
Ezekiel 26:8
“Thy daughters in the field - This seems to be spoken of Palaetyre, or Tyre on the main land; for forts, mounts, engines of war, horses, and chariots could not be brought to act against the other.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ezekiel 26:9, 1 voice
Ezekiel 26:9
“And he shall set engines of war against thy walls,.... Which some Jewish writers understand of crossbows, out of which stones or arrows were cast; but rather, according to Kimchi and Jarchi, they were warlike machines, invented to throw large stones against the walls of a place, to beat them down.”
Ezekiel 26:10, 1 voice
Ezekiel 26:10
“Both are included in the prophecies under one name. wheels--FAIRBAIRN thinks that here, and in Eze 23:24, as "the wheels" are distinct from the "chariots," some wheelwork for riding on, or for the operations of the siege, are meant.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
2. (v. 12)
a.lay thy stones and thy timber and thy dust in the midst of the water: The verse's last clause has drawn particular attention across the centuries, they shall lay thy stones and thy timber and thy dust in the midst of the water, since the island city's own later history supplies what reads as a sequel: when Alexander the Great besieged Tyre in 332 BC, he built a causeway to the island using rubble from the mainland city Nebuchadnezzar had already leveled, casting its stones and timber into the sea to reach the fortress beyond it. Fairbairn and Barnes both point to this later event as bearing out the passage, though the verse itself names no besieger and the observation rests on reading the oracle's arc across two campaigns two and a half centuries apart.
Ezekiel 26:12, 2 voices
Ezekiel 26:12
“And they shall lay thy stones and thy timber and thy dust in the midst of the water - This answers to the taking of Tyre by Alexander; he actually took the timbers, stones, rubbish, etc. of old Tyre, and filled up the space between it and new Tyre, and thus connected the latter with the main land; and this he was obliged to do before he could take it.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ezekiel 26:12
“The overthrow of Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar was the first link in the long chain of evil--the first deadly blow which prepared for, and was the earnest of, the final doom. The change in this verse from the individual conqueror "he," to the general "they," marks that what he did was not the whole, but only paved the way for others to complete the work begun by him.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
3. (vv. 13-14)
a.the noise of thy songs to cease: and the sound of thy harps silenced marks the end of Tyre's festival culture, a city known through the ancient world for wealth and music alike, now reduced to quiet. Made like the top of a rock and built no more closes the sentence with permanence, and the formula for I the Lord have spoken it seals the oracle the way the book seals every certain judgment. Henry reads the silencing of music as the sharpest picture in the chapter, a city that once entertained the nations left with nothing left to sing about.
Ezekiel 26:14, 2 voices
Ezekiel 26:14
“Thou shalt be built no more - If this refer to Nebuchadnezzar’s capture of the city, old Tyre must be intended: that was destroyed by him, and never rebuilt. But I doubt whether the whole of this prophecy do not refer to the taking of Tyre by Alexander, three hundred years after its capture by Nebuchadnezzar. Indeed it may include more recent conquests of this important city. It went through a variety of vicissitudes till 1289, when it and the neighboring towns were sacked and ravaged by the Mamelukes.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ezekiel 26:14
“The insular Tyre recovered partly, after seventy years (Isa 23:17, 18), but again suffered under Alexander, then under Antigonus, then under the Saracens at the beginning of the fourteenth century. Now its harbors are choked with sand, precluding all hope of future restoration, "not one entire house is left, and only a few fishermen take shelter in the vaults" [MAUNDRELL].”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
C. The princes of the sea step down from their thrones
1. (vv. 15-18)
a.Shall not the isles shake at the sound of thy fall: The fall is felt beyond Tyre itself: shall not the isles shake at the sound of thy fall pictures every trading partner across the sea absorbing the shock, and the princes of the sea come down from their thrones to sit upon the ground in a formal act of mourning, laying aside the robes and broidered garments that marked their rank. They take up a lamentation, the verb the next chapter expands into a full dirge, and the isles that are in the sea shall be troubled at thy departure closes the scene with the whole trading world unsettled by one city's ruin. Gill reads the princes' mourning as evidence of how deeply Tyre's economy had bound the coastal world to itself, so its fall registered as a shared loss rather than a distant one.
Ezekiel 26:15, 2 voices
Ezekiel 26:15
“The effect of the fall of Tyre. Eze 26:16 Clothe themselves with trembling - Mourners change their bright robes for sad garments. Eze 26:17 Of seafaring men - literally, “from the seas,” i. e., occupied by men who come from the seas. Tyre was an inhabited city rising from out of the sea. Eze 26:20 Compare Isa 14:9. The image used by Isaiah and Jeremiah of Babylon is by Ezekiel applied to Tyre, as if to show that Tyre and Babylon alike represent the world-power. So, in the Book of Revelation, Babylon is the kingdom of Antichrist.”
Ezekiel 26:15
“Even mighty Carthage used to send a yearly offering to the temple of Hercules at Tyre: and the mother city gave high priests to her colonies. Hence the consternation at her fall felt in the widely scattered dependencies with which she was so closely connected by the ties of religion, as well as commercial intercourse. shake--metaphorically: "be agitated" (Jer 49:21).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Ezekiel 26:16, 1 voice
Ezekiel 26:16
“Then all the princes of the sea shall come down from their thrones,.... The kings of the islands of the sea shall lay aside their regalia, all their royal grandeur, and the ensigns of it; leave their thrones of state, and sit in an humble posture: and lay away their robes, and put off their broidered garments; their royal robes and raiment of needlework curiously embroidered, and richly wrought, such as princes wear; so did the king of Nineveh in token of humiliation, Jon 3:”
Ezekiel 26:17, 2 voices
Ezekiel 26:17
“Wast strong in the sea - The strength of Tyre was so great, that Alexander despaired of being able to reduce it unless he could fill up that arm of the sea that ran between it and the main land. And this work cost his army seven months of labor.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ezekiel 26:17
“So Venice was called "the bride of the sea." strong in the sea--through her insular position. cause their terror to be on all that haunt it--namely, the sea. The Hebrew is rather, "they put their terror upon all her (the city's) inhabitants," that is, they make the name of every Tyrian to be feared [FAIRBAIRN].”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Ezekiel 26:18, 1 voice
Ezekiel 26:18
“GROTIUS explains "departure," that is, "in the day when hostages shall be carried away from thee to Babylon." The parallelism to "thy fall" makes me think "departure" must mean "thy end" in general, but with an included allusion to the "departure" of most of her people to her colonies at the fall of the city.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
D. Taken down to the pit and sought for no more
1. (vv. 19-21)
a.bring up the deep upon thee: The last movement pictures the city sent down into the pit among the people of old time, the underworld language the Old Testament uses for nations and kings who have permanently ceased, set in places desolate of old, with glory set instead in the land of the living, a deliberate contrast between the dead city and the living world that continues without it. The closing sentence is absolute, I will make thee a terror, and thou shalt be no more: though thou be sought for, yet shalt thou never be found again. Keil reads the finality as prophetic certainty stated in its full and strongest form; how completely later history mapped onto the image is a question the commentators answer differently, since a city called Tyre still stands on the same coast, and the text itself names no later empire.
Ezekiel 26:20, 2 voices
Ezekiel 26:20
“With the people - Who are long since dead, and gone to eternity. The low parts - Another description of the grave, from the situation and solitude of it. Set glory - Then I will restore the beauty, strength, and wealth of Israel, and bring them back to Jerusalem.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Ezekiel 26:20
“That was a type of heaven, which is indeed the land of the living. (2.) Though this land of the living may for a time lie under disgrace, yet God will again set glory in it; the glory that had departed shall return, and the restoration of what they had been deprived of shall be so much more their glory.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Ezekiel 26:21, 2 voices
Ezekiel 26:21
“I will make thee a terror,.... To all the isles round about, who shall shake and tremble at the ruin of Tyre, as before observed; or to herself, being brought into a most terrible and distressed condition: and thou shall be no more: in the same place and situation, in the same happy state and condition: though thou be sought for, yet shalt thou never be found again, saith the Lord God: this is true of the antitype, Babylon, or antichrist, Rev 18:21.”
Ezekiel 26:21
“Yet shalt thou never be found again - This is literally true; there is not the smallest vestige of the ancient Tyre, that which was erected on the main land. Even the ground seems to have been washed away; and the new Tyre is in nearly a similar state. I think this prophecy must be extended to the whole duration of Tyre. If it now be found to be in the state here described, it is sufficient to show the truth of the prophecy.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Ezekiel 26. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826); Albert Barnes; Carl Friedrich Keil, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Ezekiel; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871); John Gill; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765); Matthew Henry and Patrick Fairbairn, An Exposition of Ezekiel.
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