“I am against thee, O Tyrus, and will cause many nations to come up against thee, as the sea causes her waves to come up. And they shall destroy the walls of Tyrus, and break down her towers. It shall be a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea; and her daughters shall be slain by the sword.” The prophet then discloses who shall be the instrument of all this destruction. “I will bring upon Tyrus Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, a king of kings, with horses, and with chariots, and with horsemen, and companies of much people.” “He shall set his engines of war against thy walls, and with his axes he shall break down thy towers.” “With the hoofs of thy horses shall he tread down all thy streets; he shall slay thy people with the sword, and thy strong garrisons shall go down to the ground.” “And they shall make a spoil of thy riches, and make a prey of thy merchandise; and they shall break down thy walls, and destroy thy pleasant houses; and they shall lay thy stones, and thy timber, and thy dust, in the midst of the water.” “I will cause the noise of thy songs to cease; and the sound of thy harps shall be no more heard.” “Thou shalt be a place to hang nets upon; and shalt be built no more.” “Though thou be sought for, thou shall not be found.”
The pride of the Tyrians may be estimated by the splendour of their ships. These were frequently of cedar; their benches of ivory; fine embroidered linens of Egypt were used for sails; and their canopies were of scarlet and purple silk[294]. Its trade may be in some degree imagined, from what is stated as having been brought to her markets;—gold, silver, iron, tin, brass, and lead; slaves[295]; horses, horsemen, and mules; sheep and goats; horn, ivory, and ebony; emeralds, purple, and broidered work; fine linen, and coral, and agate;—wheat, honey, oil, and bales of wares, wine, and wool; cassia and calamus; cloths for chariots; all manner of spices and precious stones. All these articles were to be destroyed. “Thy riches and 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 days of thy ruin.”
The Prophet then goes on to prophesy how all the nations shall mourn for her fall. “Shall not the isles shake at the sound of thy fall, when the wounded cry; when the slaughter is made in the midst of thee? All the princes of the sea shall come down from their thrones, and lay away their robes, and put off their embroidered garments; they shall clothe themselves with trembling; they shall sit upon the ground, and shall tremble at every moment, and shall be astonished at thee.”
Tyre was besieged by Nebuchadnezzar, in the twenty-first year of his reign; Ithobel being its king. After seven years he made himself master of it; not without his troops suffering incredible hardships; insomuch that, as Ezekiel had predicted, “every head was made bald and every head was peeled.” Previous, however, to the taking of it, a multitude of its inhabitants quitted the city, and took up their abode, with the greatest part of their effects, in the neighbouring island[296], half a mile from the shore; and in that spot they laid the foundation of a new city. When, therefore, Nebuchadnezzar took possession of the town, he found little in it to reward him for the trouble, danger, and expense he had been at during the siege, which lasted thirteen years. He rased the city to the foundations, and it was afterwards known only as a village, by the name of Palæ-Tyrus (ancient Tyre): the new one rose to greater power than the former one.
The new town, nevertheless, was not remitted of misfortune; for the inhabitants were made slaves of, compelled to admit a foreign yoke, and this for the space of seventy years. After the expiration of that time, they were restored, according to the prophecy of Isaiah,[297] to the possession of their ancient privileges, with the liberty of having a king of their own, and that liberty they enjoyed till the time of Alexander.
At that period Tyre had again become an exceedingly large city; and because of the vast commerce she carried on with all nations, she was called “Queen of the Sea.” She boasted of having first invented navigation, and taught mankind the art of braving the waves and wind. Her happy situation, the extent and conveniency of her ports, the character of her inhabitants, who were not only industrious, laborious, and patient, but extremely courteous to strangers, invited thither merchants from all parts of the then-known world: so that it might be considered, not so much as a city belonging to any particular nation, as the common city of all nations, and the centre of their commerce.
Tyre had now for some time risen from the desolation, into which she had fallen: but with prosperity came pride, and vain-glory; luxury and voluptuousness. Another prophet, therefore, foretold to her a second ruin. She was now “the crowning city,” whose merchants were princes, and whose traffickers were styled “the honourable of the earth.”
Tyre had profited nothing from the first lesson: Another destruction, therefore, was denounced against her. This was to come from Chittim (Macedonia). Tyre was careless of this threat. Defended by strong fortifications, and surrounded on all sides by the sea, she feared nothing; neither God nor man. Isaiah, therefore, brings to her recollection the ruin, that had befallen them in the days of Nebuchadnezzar; and the destruction which had afterwards fallen on Babylon itself. “The inhabitants had raised pompous palaces, to make their names immortal; but all those fortifications had become but as dens for wild beasts to revel in.” “The Lord hath purposed it to stain all the pride of all glory, and to bring into contempt all the honourable of the earth.” “The Lord hath given a commandment against the merchant city, to destroy the strong-holds thereof.” “Thou shalt no more rejoice, thou virgin daughter of Zidon.” This fall was to come, as we have already said, from Macedon.
Alexander besieged Tyre seven months;[298] during which time he erected vast mounds of earth, plied it with his engines, and invested it on the side next the sea with two hundred galleys. When the Tyrians saw this fleet, they were astonished; because it greatly exceeded what they had any reason to expect. They had had in contemplation to send most of their women and children, with all the men, who were past the military age, to Carthage: but, confident in their strength, they had delayed doing so; and now they could not spare ships or seamen to transport them.
A vessel coming from Sidon, they seized upon the crew, led them to a part of the wall, from which they could have a full view of the besieging army, then maliciously put them to death, and threw their dead bodies over the wall. This greatly enraged the Macedonian: and he soon after took possession of the city. According to Plutarch, the siege terminated in the following manner:—Alexander had permitted his main body to rest themselves, after some great fatigues they had undergone, and ordered only some small parties to keep the Tyrians in play. In the mean time, Aristander, his principal soothsayer, offered sacrifices; and one day, upon inspecting the entrails of the victims, he boldly asserted, amongst those about him, that the city would be taken that month. As the day happened to be the last of the month, this prediction was received with great ridicule. Alexander perceiving the soothsayer to be disconcerted, and having always made a point of bringing the prophecies of his soothsayers to completion, he gave orders that the day should not be called the thirtieth, but the twenty-eighth of the month. At the same time he called out his forces by sound of trumpet, and made a much more vigorous assault than he at first intended. The attack was violent, and those who were left in the camp, quitted it to have a share in it, and to support their fellow soldiers; insomuch that the Tyrians were forced to give in; and the city was taken that very day; seven thousand being slain.[299]