The word of the Lord came again to me, saying, 2 “Now, son of man, take up a lamentation for Tyre, 3 and say to Tyre, ‘You who are situated at the entrance of the sea, merchant of the peoples on many coastlands, thus says the Lord God: (Ezekiel 27:1-3)
As noted at Ezekiel 26:1-2, Tyre was a famous commercial center of the Phoenicians, north of Israel.
Javan, Tubal, and Meshech were your traders. They bartered human lives and vessels of bronze for your merchandise. (Ezekiel 27:13)
They bartered human lives. This could be a reference to selling and buying humans as slaves. Or could it be something more sinister than that?
“Those from Persia, Lydia, and Libya
Were in your army as men of war;
They hung shield and helmet in you;
They gave splendor to you.
Men of Arvad with your army were on your walls all around,
And the men of Gammad were in your towers;
They hung their shields on your walls all around;
They made your beauty perfect. (Ezekiel 27:10-11)
Men from different nations were part of their army - mercenaries. A mercenary is an individual who takes part in military conflict for personal profit. They usually worked for a fee.
Your oarsmen brought you into many waters, But the east wind broke you in the midst of the seas. (Ezekiel 27:26)
East Wind
Out of the four winds of the Bible, the east wind is the one which is mentioned most often and it is generally described as a very strong, hot and dry wind. The book of Genesis (verses 41:6, 41:23, 41:27) talks of the heads of grain that sprouted and then got withered by the scorching east wind.
The book of Ezekiel (verses 17:10, 19:12) tells how the strong and tall vine was uprooted and got completely withered and stripped of its fruit by the dry east wind.
The east wind of the Bible is also a fierce wind (Isaiah 27:8, Job 38:24), it can destroy ships on the high seas (Psalm 48:7, Ezekiel 27:26), it can scatter and sweep out people (Job 15:2, 27:21, Jonah 4:8, Jeremiah 18:17).
The book of Exodus describes how God brought in ten different forms of plagues over Egypt. The seventh plague was the plague of hail, and it was followed the next day by the eighth plague which was the plague of locusts (Exodus 10:13). The sequence was such that the massive hail storms had already rendered the ground wet. The next morning God used the east wind to bring in a swarm of locusts, which found in the wet sandy soil an ideal environment to lay eggs and breed in huge numbers. Whatever had survived the hail, was completely devoured by the locusts. The following day, God changed the direction of the wind to a very strong west wind. It caught up the locusts and carried them into the Red Sea, and not a locust was left anywhere in Egypt (Exodus 10:19).
The strong and dry east wind again played a major role in the parting of the waters of the Red Sea that enabled the Israelites to cross it. God used the strong east wind to drive the sea back, turn it into dry land and divide the waters (Exodus 14:21). The sheer power of the east wind that made all this possible, was remembered for long (Psalm 78:26).
In the book of Hosea, there is a warning for anyone who feeds on the wind, pursues the east wind all day, and multiplies lies and violence (12:1). An east wind from the Lord will come, blowing in from the desert; his spring will fail and his well dry up. His storehouse will be plundered of all its treasures (13:15). Hosea speaks of the fruitless deeds of evildoers in these words (8:7): They sow the wind and reap the whirlwind.
Chapters
- Chapter 1
- Chapter 2
- Chapter 3
- Chapter 4
- Chapter 5
- Chapter 6
- Chapter 7
- Chapter 8
- Chapter 9
- Chapter 10
- Chapter 11
- Chapter 12
- Chapter 13
- Chapter 14
- Chapter 15
- Chapter 16
- Chapter 17
- Chapter 21
- Chapter 22
- Chapter 26
- Chapter 27
- Chapter 29
- Chapter 30
- Chapter 31
- Chapter 32
- Chapter 33
- Chapter 34
- Chapter 35
- Chapter 36
- Chapter 37
- Chapter 38
- Chapter 47
- Chapter 48