II. The Description of the Fall of Tyrus.
Thy rowers have brought thee into great waters: the east wind hath broken thee in the midst of the seas. Thy riches, and thy fairs, thy merchandise, thy mariners, and thy pilots, thy calkers, and the occupiers of thy merchandise, and all thy men of war, that are in thee, and in all thy company which is in the midst of thee, shall fall into the midst of the seas in the day of thy ruin. The suburbs shall shake at the sound of the cry of thy pilots. And all that handle the oar, the mariners, and all the pilots of the sea, shall come down from their ships, they shall stand upon the land; And shall cause their voice to be heard against thee, and shall cry bitterly, and shall cast up dust upon their heads, they shall wallow themselves in the ashes: And they shall make themselves utterly bald for thee, and gird them with sackcloth, and they shall weep for thee with bitterness of heart and bitter wailing. And in their wailing they shall take up a lamentation for thee, and lament over thee, saying. What city is like Tyrus, like the destroyed in the midst of the sea? When thy wares went forth out of the seas, thou filledst many people; thou didst enrich the kings of the earth with the multitude of thy riches and of thy merchandise. In the time when thou shalt be broken by the seas in the depths of the waters thy merchandise and all thy company in the midst of thee shall fail. All the inhabitants of the isles shall be astonished at thee, and their kings shall be sore afraid, they shall be troubled in their countenance. The merchants among the people shall hiss at thee; thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt be any more (verses 26-30).
The description of Tyrus as a ship as given in the first part of this chapter is here maintained. Tyrus is to be shipwrecked. The east wind is Nebuchadnezzar, who came against the proud city to accomplish part of her ruin; and Alexander the Great, as we saw in our previous study, completed the work. A comparison with Revelation xviii will bring out the striking correspondency. When finally Babylon the great falls, that coming religious-commercial world-system, with Rome as a center, her fall and desolation, will surely be greater than the fall of Tyrus. For this all is rapidly preparing.
THE PRINCE OF TYRUS.
Chapter xxviii.
The greater part of this chapter is also devoted to Tyrus. This concluding prophecy about Tyrus is the most interesting. It concerns the proud ruler of that city, who is called Prince and also King. But this ruler as Prince and King is typical of another and more sinister being as we learn from this chapter. Tyrus with its earthly glory, wealth and pride, as pointed out in the previous expositions, is the type of the glory of the world, the commercial glory and all connected with it, and clearly foreshadows the final great commercial world-system, Babylon the Great. Inasmuch then as Tyrus foreshadows this, its proud and wicked King is typical of the prince of this world, the one who fell by pride and who is the ruler and god of this age. As the prince of this world he showed to the Lord Jesus Christ all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, and offered all to the Lord. This sinister being and his coming masterpiece, the Antichrist, who is to rule during the end of this age on the earth, are foreshadowed in a striking way in the ruler of Tyrus.
I. The Prince of Tyrus, his Pride and his Doom.
The word of the Lord came again unto me, saying: Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyrus, Thus saith the Lord God; Because thine heart is lifted up, and thou hast said, I am a god, I sit in the set of God, in the midst of the seas, yet thou art a man, and not God, though thou set thine heart as the heart of God: Behold thou art wiser than Daniel; there is no secret that they can hide from thee. With thy wisdom and with thine understanding thou hast gotten thee riches, and hast gotten gold and silver into thy treasures. By thy great wisdom and by thy traffic thou hast increased thy riches, and thine heart is lifted up because of thy riches. Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Because thou hast set thine heart as the heart of God; Behold therefore, I will bring strangers upon thee, the terrible of the nations, and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of thy wisdom, and they shall defile thy brightness. They shall bring thee down to the pit, and thou shalt die the deaths of them that are slain in the midst of the seas. Wilt thou yet say before him that slayeth thee, I am God? but thou shalt be a man and no god, in the hand of him that slayeth thee. Thou shalt die the deaths of the uncircumcised by the hand of strangers; for I have spoken it, saith the Lord God (verses 1-10.)
The Prince of Tyrus who ruled in the days of Ezekiel was, according to the Jewish historian Josephus, Ithobalus, called in the Phoenecian annals Ithobaal II. The description of this character tells us that he was the consummation of the pride and wealth of Tyrus; the awful pride of that city was headed up in him. His heart was so lifted up that he claimed to be a god and that he occupied the seat of God. He also boasted of wisdom greater than the wisdom of Daniel, the captive in Babylon. By his cunning and wisdom, as well as by traffic, he had heaped up riches, and because of these riches he became still more lifted up. Like the prosperous and wealthy king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, who gloried in his achievements by saying, "Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of the Kingdom by the might of my power, and for the honor of my majesty" (Dan. iv:30), the Prince of Tyrus boasted in arrogant pride. Through the prophet, his doom is announced. The Lord God reckons with him, "because thou hast set thine heart as the heart of God." He would bring nations against him and his city, and "they shall bring thee down to the pit, and thou shall die the deaths of them that are slain in the heart of the seas." Instead of having endless being as a god he would die a sudden and violent death. He should die the death of the uncircumcised, typifying vile and wicked men who are far away from God; dying deaths, which means a physical death and that which follows the wicked after death, an eternal separation from God, with conscious punishment.
The language used in describing the Prince of Tyrus is used elsewhere in the Word of God to describe another one, who is yet to come. We mean the personal Antichrist, the man of sin. The marks of this coming one, Satan's great counterfeit and masterpiece, are always pride, self-exaltation. Daniel describes him in the following words: "And the King shall do according to his will; and he shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvelous things against the God of gods"[18] (Dan. xi:36). In the New Testament the coming Antichrist is pictured as follows: "Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God" (2 Thess. ii:4). Comparing these statements with what is said of the Prince of Tyrus we see at once the similarity. The political head of the final form of the times of the Gentiles, the ten Kingdom Empires, the Roman Empire revived, is described in very much the same way. The man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake the Kingdoms (Isaiah xiv:16) said in his heart, "I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God ... I will be like the Most High" (Is. xiv:13-14). Here is the same characteristic, a God-defying pride. This has led many expositors to call both of these persons, the wicked actors during the end of the age, the Antichrist. But the one is the head of the Roman Empire, the Prince that shall come; the other is the Antichrist, the beast out of the earth (Rev. xiii:11). Both work together under Satan's control and are energized by Satan, therefore they manifest the same characteristics. It is evident that the ruler of Tyrus as Prince foreshadows the coming Antichrist, and we have to see next the significance that the ruler of Tyrus is addressed as King and the one who stands behind him.
II. The Lamentations over the King of Tyrus.