Ezekiel - Lesson 27

Lesson number 27, Tyre is no more. Ezekiel 26, 1 to 21. After Ezekiel's opening volley of oracles against Judah's immediate neighbors in chapter 25, Bnei Amon, Moab, Edom, and the Philistines, his attention shifted to the northwest, to Tyre. The opening to this oracle sounds familiar, human, because Tyre exclaims against Jerusalem, aha, she is broken, the gateway of the peoples, she has been turned over to me, I will be satisfied, she has been laid waste. With this beginning, we expect this prophecy to proceed like the previous four or five had in chapter 25. The charge is the same, the Tyrians had gone nyeh, nyeh, nyeh, nyeh, nyeh, at the site of Jerusalem's fall, just like Bnei Amon, Moab, Edom, and the Philistines had. And if all we had was verses 1 to 6, its length, 78 words, form, and structure would match closely the 75-word oracle against Bnei Amon in 25, 1 to 5. However, the fact that Ezekiel would devote four oracles to the demise of Tyre and her ruler reflected the significance of this city in the international, economic, and political world, and in particular, the relation to God's plans involving Nebuchadnezzar and the Judeans. In earlier times, especially during the reigns of David and Solomon, Tyre had been a close ally of Israel. According to 2 Samuel 5 and 1 Kings 5 to 9, Hiram, Hiram, king of Tyre, had contributed significantly in expertise, manpower, and resources to the construction of David's and Solomon's palaces, as well as the temple that still stood in Jerusalem in Ezekiel's time. According to Jeremiah 27.3, along with the king of Sidon a few years earlier, the king of Tyre had joined Zedekiah and the Judeans in an alliance against Nebuchadnezzar. While this explains Nebuchadnezzar's hostility toward the city in verses 7 to 14, in Yahweh's scheme, he was an agent of God punishing Tyre for standing in the way of his divine assignment of punishing Judah for her horrific apostasy and for her failure to be Yahweh's agent of blessing to the world. However, according to this oracle, Yahweh had not sent Nebuchadnezzar in to subdue Tyre for Tyre's rebellion against him, but because she had taunted Jerusalem when the city fell in 586 BC. And so, when we look at the preamble, or when we look at this text, the structure of the prophecy is clear. For the first time since 24-1, the chapter begins with a date notice fixing the time of this oracle in the preamble, verses 1 and 2. Now, in the twelfth year, in the eleventh month, on the first day of the month. Unfortunately, the text is garbled here.The Hebrew original does not identify the month and seems to read eleventh year, which is what ESV has, but which does not make sense when compared with 33-21, which has the escapee from Jerusalem coming to Babylon and declaring the city has fallen in the tenth month of the twelfth year, January 8, 585. But this prophecy seems to assume that Jerusalem had fallen sometime earlier. The most likely solution is that the ordinal number twelve has dropped out inadvertently, and the number eleven was mistakenly attached to the year. According to this reconstruction, the date of the prophecy would have been February 3, 585, slightly less than a month after Ezekiel learned of Jerusalem's fall. This would match Josephus' report of Nebuchadnezzar's of Tyre, which he says it lasted 13 years and was finally lifted in 572. So we have to add 13 years to that. Ezekiel prefaced the oracle proper with a summary charge against Tyre. Human? Son of man, because Tyre exclaims against Jerusalem, aha, she is broken, the gateway of the people, she has been turned over to me, I will be satisfied, she has been laid waste. This sets the stage for the oracle proper, which describes in detail Yahweh's response to Tyre's taunting of Jerusalem.What follows is another extremely orderly prophecy that divides into four parts, each of which begins with what we call the citation formula. Therefore thus says the Lord, Yahweh declared, verse 3, part 1. For thus says the Lord, Yahweh declared, verse 7. Thus says the Lord, Yahweh declared, verse 15. For thus says the Lord, Yahweh declared, verse 19. Now the progression of thought and plot as we move from section to section is both logical and very clear. Verses 3 to 6, the first part, deal in general terms with the ultimate cause of Tyre's demise, the judgment of God. Second, verses 7 to 14, highlight the immediate cause and the human agency in Tyre's demise by focusing on Nebuchadnezzar and his forces. Third, given Tyre's public profile, verses 15 to 18 deal appropriately with the response of the international observers to her fall. And four, verses 19 to 21, complete the city's biography by describing her descent into Hades, Sheol. She has passed from the scene for good. So let's look then at the announcement of Tyre's demise, verses 3 to 6. Therefore, thus has the Lord, Yahweh declared, I am against you, O Tyre, as the sea hurls its waves, so I will hurl against you, many nations. They will destroy the walls of Tyre and tear down her rowers. I will scrape her soil off her and transform her into a bare rock. She will be a place where nets are spread in the midst of the sea, for I have spoken the declaration of the Lord, Yahweh. She will become plunder for the nations, while her daughters who are on the mainland will be slaughtered with a sword. Then they will know that I am Yahweh.Like all the preceding oracles against the nations, Yahweh introduced his response to Tyre's glee at Jerusalem's destruction with therefore, followed by an announcement of the judgment. This announcement divides into two unequal parts, separated by the divine signature, the declaration of Adonai Yahweh, affirming again that Ezekiel was not composing this message himself. No, it came to him as a word from God.Indeed, God would have the last word in Tyre's fate. Verses 3 to 5a emphasize the direct intervention of Yahweh, beginning with a forthright declaration of his personal opposition to Tyre, I am against you, O Tyre. This city would discover that it is indeed a terrifying thing to find that you are the enemy of the living God or that the living God has become your enemy. Hebrews 10.31, Tyre will learn that her fate was not merely the result of conflict between two peoples. Yahweh and the divine patron of Judah would stand up in defense of his own nation. Using language that certainly suits this island state, Yahweh declared that he would hurl against her armies of many nations, like the tsunami that slammed Indonesia at 7.59 a.m. on December 26, 2004, as a result of a 9.2 magnitude earthquake in the Indian Ocean.The quake triggered waves that reached 30 and 50 feet and killed at least 250,000 people. Yahweh declared that he would hurl these nations like a tsunami onto Tyre's shore, washing away their seemingly impregnable defensive walls and towers. Indeed, he would strip away all that remained of Tyrian civilization, like dust and debris, until all that remained of the commercial capital of the Mediterranean was bare bedrock, suitable only for fishermen to come and dock and to spread their nets to dry and to repair.Meanwhile, the populations of her daughters, that is, the satellite towns of this island city on the mainland, they were under her control, but they would be slaughtered by the invading armies. With ironic justice, Yahweh declared emphatically that she who had gloated over Jerusalem's fall and had exploited others would become the source of others' enrichment, the spoil for the nations. The final recognition formula affirms that Yahweh's motive for destroying Tyre was not only, not even primarily, retributive. His goal was to ensure that even this arrogant city would acknowledge him. He was the one who spoke, and he would fulfill his declared word. That's the first word. Second, the agent of Tyre's demise, verses 7 to 14. That was the announcement of the demise, and now we see the agent. For thus has the Lord Yahweh declared, I am bringing against Tyre from the north, Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, the king of kings, with cavalry, chariots, and teams of horses, with a vast assembly of troops. Your daughters on the mainland, the villages on the mainland, he will slaughter with a sword. He will set up siege walls against you, heap up a mound against you, and raise a protective shield against you. He will direct the force of his battering rams against your wall, and your towns he will demolish with his axes. The dust raised by his hordes of horses will cover you, while your walls shake from the clatter of teams of horses, wheels, and chariots, when they enter your gates like people enter a breached city. He will trample all your streets with the hooves of his horses, slaughter your people with a sword, and your strong pillars will topple to the ground. They will plunder your wealth and despoil your merchandise. They will demolish your walls and tear down your luxurious mansions. Your stones, your timbers, and your rubble, they will hurl into the water. I will put an end to the noise of your songs, and so the sound of the lyre will no longer be heard. I will transform you into a bare rock. She will be a place where they spread out nets, never to be rebuilt. For I am Yahweh.I have spoken the declaration of the Lord, Yahweh. In verses 7 to 14, Ezekiel clarified how Yahweh would accomplish the utter devastation of Tyre. If this paragraph were not inserted immediately after verses 3 to 6, we would have no idea the prophet was talking about Tyre.We do indeed hear numerous echoes of the previous paragraphs in verses 7 to 14. There is the description of Tyre's fate in terms of the city becoming a bare rock on which fishermen dry their nets, see verses 4 to 5. There are references to the city as dust and debris, verses 4 and 12, and then the reference to the slaughtering of your daughters on the mainland with a sword, verses 6 and 8. However, Ezekiel described Nebuchadnezzar's attack on Tyre as if it were a mainland city. Except for the reference to hurling your rubble into the water in the last sentence of verse 12, one would not know that the prophet was talking about this island more than a half a mile away from the mainland and totally inaccessible to Nebuchadnezzar's armies.The military strategies reflected in verses 7 to 12 were totally irrelevant until Alexander the Great constructed a mall or a causeway from the mainland to the island in November 333 to August 332. There was no way to get cavalry, chariots, horses and battering rams into the city. Nebuchadnezzar undoubtedly used these military resources against the old city of Tyre and the Tyrian villages on the mainland, the daughters of Tyre.And so, for rhetorical purposes, the proper extended the way you would conquer those places with the conventional land strategies. He applied them to the attack on the island. This is rhetoric. It is not a photographic essay of what's actually happening. Tyre was an island more than half a mile across the water from the mainland. Nevertheless, apart from the opening line, I am bringing against Tyre from the north Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, and the conclusion, verses 13 to 14, the focus in the heart of the paragraph shifts from the divine source and the divine agenda in Tyre's punishment to the human agents.This is not to say the divine initiative had been forgotten. The rhetorical strategy highlights the conviction that while Nebuchadnezzar may have imagined himself to be operating sovereignly and may appear to have pursued his military tactics with impunity, his independence was more apparent than real. To Ezekiel, Nebuchadnezzar was merely a tool in Yahweh's hands. Yahweh’s speech opened with an ominous announcement of an agent of destruction being brought in from the north. Technically, Babylon lay directly east of Jerusalem, but the direction specified accords with the perspective of Jeremiah 1, 13 to 15, and the route always taken by Mesopotamian armies invading the Levant, this region. When sweeping down into Palestine from Syria, invading armies had three choices along the coast, but they all came from the north.They could go along the coast through Phoenicia, through the Beqaa Valley, now Lebanon, and then through Damascus, and then go east of the Antilebanon and go on to Rabba Amon east of the Sea of Galilee, but they're all from the north. Remarkably, for the first time in the book, the prophet identified the agent by name, Nebuchadrezzar. We've said a little bit about this name earlier, but this form, Nebuchadrezzar, which is found in the first testament only in Ezekiel and Jeremiah, which is interesting. It is closer to the offspring, then the conventional N, Nebuchadnezzar here. Other names in the first testament also sometimes substitute N for the R, Shannatzer for Sharu Uzzur, 1 Chronicles 3, 18, and Osnapper for Ashurbanipal. So, you have this exchange. This is dialectical. In verse 7, Ezekiel identified Nebuchadrezzar with two additional titles, King of Babylon, which we've heard many times, never the name, but the title many times, and King of Kings, which is equivalent to Sharsharani, a traditional Mesopotamian imperial title having been used in Assyria since the 19th century B.C. He is the King of Kings, the emperor over many other smaller kingdoms. Although Nebuchadnezzar was Yahweh's primary agent, he would be accompanied by a vast army consisting of cavalry, chariotry, and a great host of troops. Verses 8 to 12 describe the strategy and impact of the Babylonian attack on Tyre. The use of the second person of direct address creates the impression Ezekiel was proclaiming this oracle to Tyre, but this was a rhetorical device in keeping with the prophet's posture of facing the subject of his messages even while not being in their presence. The description began appropriately with the fate of the mainland Tyrian settlements, which would be the first to experience Nebuchadnezzar's assault, followed by a more detailed account of the attack on the island city itself.The strategy described in verses 8 to 9 reflects thorough knowledge of military tactics containing all the elements normally associated with siege warfare, but of course we know you can't perform a siege around Tyre unless you've got boats to do it, but you couldn't go this way. He speaks of erecting siege mounds, constructing a ramp, raising the shields to protect the siege artillery and battering rams, pounding the walls with the battering rams, and demolishing defensive towers with axes. From verses 10 to 12, the prophet obviously envisioned complete success for the invader. In bold but realistic strokes, Yahweh painted the scene of the enemy forces rushing through the breach in the wall and stampeding through the city, destroying everything in sight. The last line in verse 10 is the key. The enemy will take the sea fortress by storm as if it were an ordinary walled city on the mainland. The dust raised by stampeding horses and racing chariots will darken the sky like a cloud. And the din of neighing and snorting horses, the clatter of wheels on rocks, the noise of charioteers beating the sides of their vehicles, and the shouts of the invaders will cause the ground to tremble and the walls to shake. The scene of general devastation continues in verse 11, with the entire city crushed under the trampling horse's hooves, its population fallen to the sword, the pillars supporting all the magnificent buildings toppled to the ground, and the plundering of the city's wealth, the smashing of its walls, and the demolition of its magnificent homes, which he could undoubtedly see from the mainland.The final act was to dump all the rubble, reduced here to stones, timbers, and debris, into the sea. In verses 13 to 14, the prophet's attention returned to Yahweh's involvement in the transformation of this magnificent city into a bare rock out in the sea. First, he would bring an end to the festival atmosphere of the city, expressed in terms of silencing the din of your songs and the sound of your lyres.The statement recalls Amos 5.23, and several Jeremiah of Jeremiah's declarations in 7.34, 16.9, 25.10, 33.11, as well as ancient treaty curses that speak of the cessation of music as punishment for covenantal infidelity. This shows up in extra-biblical texts. Verse 14 summarizes the effects of Nebuchadnezzar's attacks on Tyre, with renewed announcement that the city would be transformed into a shining windswept rock with no soil, no buildings, nothing, fit only for drying fishermen's nets.This phase of the oracle concluded with a solemn statement, guaranteed by the signature of Yahweh himself, that the great center of maritime commerce, she who ruled the seas, would never be rebuilt. However, the prophet's vision of a decisive victory and destruction of the city creates a significant problem for interpreters, because what was predicted here did not happen as predicted. According to a report by Philostratus, preserved by Josephus, this king, Nebuchadnezzar, besieged Tyre thirteen years, while Ethbaal was reigning in Tyre, Antiquities 10, 11, paragraph 22, 28. More than 250 years would pass from this date before Tyre would be destroyed. Although many had tried, the Persians tried, Alexander the Great finally succeeded in what no Asian or Egyptian emperor had been able to achieve. Ezekiel himself would acknowledge later that Nebuchadnezzar's efforts against Tyre were less successful than anticipated here, 29, 17 to 20, and that Yahweh would give him the land of Egypt as compensation for the disappointing results. But Nebuchadnezzar's campaign was not totally futile. The Babylonian sources referred to earlier suggest that Nebuchadnezzar received considerable tribute from Tyre, which means he had authority over them. He exercised political control over the city in the following decades. So yes, it did come under the control of the emperor, but it was never destroyed as imagined here or as presented here. But let's turn then to verses 15 to 18, the international impact of Tyre's demise. Thus says the Lord, Yahweh declared to Tyre, how the coastlands will shake at the sound of your downfall when the victims groan and the slain are slaughtered in your midst. All the rulers of the sea will descend from their thrones. They will remove their robes and strip off their finely embroidered garments. They will clothe themselves with trembling. They will sit on the ground and tremble, horrified, horror struck and appalled over you. They will raise a dirge over you saying, how have you perished, been wiped out from the seas, O city of renown, once ruler of the sea? She and her inhabitants who spread their terror, all her inhabitants, now the coastlands will tremble on the day of your downfall, and the coastlands by the sea will be shocked at your demise. The citation formula in verse 15 signals the beginning of a new phase of the oracle. Because the prophet will speak of a dirge, a lament song in verse 17, it is appropriate that the structure of this section follow the typical pattern of ancient Near Eastern expressions of grief. In grief, there is phase one. News of the collapse of Tyre reaches the cities and nations all around the Mediterranean, verse 15a.Ezekiel identified the respondents to Tyre's collapse as the Eyim, a designation for the maritime lands, including islands and coastal cities, in this case the primary beneficiaries of and competitors to Tyre's sea mercantile ventures. She owned the seas. Those who heard of Tyre's fall would express their shock with shuddering, shaking, which in verse 16 had been used of the tottering of the city walls. In this instance, the shock would be evoked by imagined sounds and sights of utter disaster. The city had come crashing down like a large building, the wounded lay groaning in the streets, and the signs of ruthless slaughters were everywhere. Obviously, there were no CNN crews on hand to report on and videotape the scene of destruction, but this sort of brutality was all too common in the ancient world. Phase two. All governmental activity is suspended. In verse 16, the prophet's attention focused on all the princes of the sea who got off their thrones and exchanged their royal robes and their colorful vestments for the garments of mourning. Ezekiel described the reaction metaphorically with, they will be clothed with trembling. The present sequence of actions recalls the behavior of the king of Nineveh when he hears Jonah's message of doom for his city in Jonah 3.6. Forty days and it's over, and he responded this way. Phase three. The king sit and tremble with horror on the ground. Sitting on the ground was a customary way of showing grief in the ancient world. Remember Job 2, 12 to 13. His friends come and sit on the ground with him. The international royals were appalled at what they heard, but they were sitting on the ground. Phase four. They raised the death lament, kinah, over the downfall of Tyre. We heard about laments like this in chapter 19, where you've got the lament for the Davidic dynasty, and we will encounter several more laments in chapter 27, 28, and 32. The dirge that follows is somewhat disjointed and incoherent in style, but the difficulties in the Hebrew text reflect the heightened emotional state of those who chanted the dirge. They’re out of control. This is the only lament in Ezekiel to open with a typical exclamation, how, how, ache, or sometimes the longer form, achah, how. As we have it in David's lament over the deaths of Saul and Jonathan in 2 Samuel 1, 19.Your glory, O Israel, is slain on your high places. How the mighty have fallen. That's David's lament over Saul and Jonathan. Elsewhere, this word introduces dirges over deceased cities, as in Lamentations 1, 1 and 2, 1. How lonely sits the city that was full of people. How like the widow she has become. She who was great among the nations, she who was a princess among the provinces, has become a slave. How the Lord in his anger has set the daughter of Zion under a cloud. Often this how statement is followed by a contrast between what once was and what now is. Apparently here, how does double duty for both verbs in the opening line. The inclusion of verse 18 in the lament results in a now, then, now pattern. How have you perished, been wiped out from the sea, now? O city of renown, once ruler of the sea, she and her inhabitants who spread their terror, all her inhabitants, then? Now the coastlands will tremble on the day of your downfall, and the coastlands by the sea will be shocked by your demise. That's the now again. Now, then, now. In the scene envisioned here, Tyre has disappeared from her place in the seas. In the past, she had been renowned for her might on the seas, with which she as a city and her sailor merchants had terrorized her rivals. Like modern-day superpowers motivated entirely by self-interest, Tyre and her merchants controlled the shipping lanes of the world, imposing their own conditions of commerce on their trading partners. But now she had fallen, and the reverberations of the collapse of this seemingly invincible island fortress had spread throughout the Mediterranean basin, and the stock market all over the world was collapsing. Given the terror she had spread all around, the maritime nations might have celebrated the demise of their chief rival, and commercial overlord. Instead, they expressed shock, trembling dismay. For all her brutality, Tyre had represented stability, and places such as Carthage in the North African coast, south of Italy, they had flourished under Tyre's leadership. That was a colony of Tyre. No doubt when they saw Tyre go, these trading partners realized not only that they too were vulnerable, but also that their continued prosperity depended on the establishment of entirely new trading patterns, and how are we going to do that without Tyre? We come then to verses 19 to 21, Yahweh's role in Tyre's demise. For thus has the Lord, Yahweh, declared, when I make you into a desolate city like the cities that are uninhabited, when I bring up the great deep over you, and the mighty waters cover you, then I will bring you down with those who go down to the pit, to the people of old. I will make you dwell in the netherworld like the ancient waste places, with those who go down to the pit, so you will not be inhabited, nor radiate splendor in the land of the living. You’ll be in the land of the dead. I will make you a horror, and you will be no more. You will be sought, but you will never again be found, the declaration of the Lord, Yahweh. Like the first part of this prophecy against Tyre, verses 1 to 6, the concluding segment highlighted Yahweh's role in these events. Behind all the effort her human enemies had invested in the city's destruction stood the sovereign Lord of history, who ultimately determined the city's destiny as well. Ezekiel described Yahweh's devastating action with two different images. First, he would transform the city into a desolate landscape without inhabitants. Second, he would submerge her with the waters of a huge tidal wave. Considering verse 20, it is tempting to see in the Tohom mythological allusions to the chaotic primeval waters, which the peoples around Israel perceived as constantly threatening the cosmic orders, Tiamat in Babylon. However, as was the case at the time of the great flood in the days of Noah, the great deep was but a tool in the hand of Yahweh, executing his judgment on the city. At his command, the great flood, which had once destroyed the world, Genesis 6 to 8, will visit Tyre again. The image shifts in verse 20. Now Yahweh personified Tyre and her demise as the departure of an individual into the dark realm of the dead, the netherworld. In typical Ezekielian style, the prophet teased his first hearers and us by raising a topic, only to drop it without answering all the questions he had raised. But I promise you, he will pick up this topic again later and develop in considerable detail, especially in 31 14-18 and 32 17-32. I will follow the prophet's lead and tease my hearers here as well, reserving fuller discussion of Hebrew conception of the abode of the dead for when we get to those texts. However, we should probably offer a few introductory comments. First, the prophet used several expressions for the place where the dead live. Yes, I say that intentionally. The dead live. The word I have translated as pit, bore, usually refers to a cistern carved in the limestone bedrock to trap and store rainwater, but is also used for empty cisterns used as dungeons or convenient places in which to dump corpses.Lamentations 3.53 speaks of a pit as a hole in the ground in which one may be buried alive, which leads naturally to the denotation, the grave, as we have in Isaiah 14-19. Like Sheol, with which pit, bore, is often paired, we shall see this in 31 14-16 and 32 17-32, once it had acquired this meaning, the application of this term to the subterranean abode of the dead was a small step. This is clearly its meaning here, as well as in 31 14-16 and 32 17-32. Twice this verse and 31 14 describe the occupants of this place as those who go down to the pit, in this context, the expression obviously refers to people who have died. Ezekiel also referred to those who go down as an eternal people, am olam, probably meaning people who died long ago who now dwell in the dark places. In related Canaanite and Ugaritic texts, the ruler of the netherworld is identified as the king of eternity, melek olam, a euphemism for king of the underworld. In any case, the modifier eternal stresses the irrevocable nature and finality of the departed's consignment to this realm of the dead. A second distinctly Ezekielian expression for the netherworld used here, literally the land of the depths, that's unique to Ezekiel. It's Eretz, by itself Eretz usually denotes the earth in contrast to the heavens or the land in which people live as an expression like the land of the living, Eretz Chaim, which we find at the end of verse 20.Elsewhere in the Bible, the netherworld is described as a land of gloom and deep darkness from which there is no return, Job 10, 21 to 22, and a land of forgetfulness, Psalm 88, 13. Here Yahweh added that the sight of Tyre would become like waste places from eternity past, which conjures up images of formerly flourishing cities now lying in ruins whose inhabitants had been banished to the netherworld never to return. The last statement of this verse and verse 21 underline the irrevocability of Tyre's judgment. Never again would the city be occupied, let alone achieve her past glory in the land of the living. That's where you and I live. The expression land of the living represents the sphere in which we humans and all plants and animals live in contrast to the netherworld, the realm of the dead and the heavens, the domain of God. So there are three tiers in this universe. These three reflect the Israelite perception of the universe as a three-tiered structure, with the heavens occupied by God and other heavenly beings, the surface of the earth as the home of all living things, and Sheol as the place where the dead continue to exist as, some have called it, living corpses. As we will see later, the people who are in Sheol know where they are in relation to others who are also there in Sheol.It's as if they're still alive. Well, I'm not sure what we should make of Yahweh's announcement that he will make Tyre a horror in verse 21. The reference may be to the horrified response of the observers who witnessed her fall or those who would come and search for her after she was gone. But the plural form, horrors, balahot, expresses a superlative mode. In superlative mode, the emotion felt at the experience of some form of disaster, whether it was caused by snares and traps, Job 18.11, floodwaters, Job 27.20, tempests and storms, Job 30.15, darkness, Job 24.17, invading armies, Isaiah 17.14, or the direct action of God, Psalm 73.19. In Job 18.14, the connotations are clearly netherworldly. He, the wicked person, is torn from the security of his tent and marched off to the king of terrors, NIV. The phrase, king of terrors, is especially telling, referring to the ruler of the netherworld known as Mot, which is related to the Hebrew word for death, Mot in Canaan and Nergal in Mesopotamia. The same netherworldly connotations are present in our text. Yahweh was delivering Tyre over to the terrifying world of the dead. As we see in 27.36 and 28.19, also Isaiah 17.14, to become this terror and to be banished to Sheol is equivalent to the termination of one's existence. You shall be no more, gone, done, annihilated from the land of the living. People may send out search parties to look for the lost city, but all such efforts would prove futile. The judgment of Tyre will be total and irreversible. No one ever returns from the realm of the dead. The concluding signatory formula drives the final nail into Tyre's coffin, the declaration of the Lord Yahweh. When Ezekiel spoke of life after death and the world of the dead, he spoke an elevated and semi-poetic speech. Some of his language was obviously influenced by the mythologies of the surrounding peoples. However, his vision of the netherworld bears several fundamental differences from theirs. First, whereas other ancient Near Easterners recognized the realm of the dead to be ruled by the god of the netherworld, the king of terrors, in the mind of Ezekiel and all orthodox Yahwehs, Yahweh exercised full control over life and death. His sovereignty knows no bounds. Psalm 139.8, he opened and closed the doors of Sheol, and he consigned his enemies to it. He, no god of the netherworld, Yahweh has the keys to the netherworld. Second, unlike the surrounding nature religions in which one of the deities, Baal and Canaan, Tammuz and Babylon, was thought to die each autumn and be banished to the netherworld where he remained until his annual resurrection in the spring. When Yahweh banished someone to Sheol and closed the door to the pit, it was sealed. No one consigned to Sheol ever returns. Well, on this morbid and moribund note, Ezekiel's first oracle against Tyre concluded. As I noted earlier, these notions will be developed more fully in subsequent prophecies. But for now, we pause to reflect on what were some permanent theological truths Ezekiel had proclaimed here that might and should make a difference in our lives as we seek to claim the pronouncements of this weird prophet as our scripture. Well, first, as we learned in the address, as far as God is concerned, the opening of this prophecy reinforces the notion we observed in chapter 25 that schadenfreude, expressing delight over another person's calamity, is not acceptable to God. A motto my roommate in college had I mentioned earlier, he had it on his desk, reflected this disposition. Never hit a man when he's down. Kick him. It's easier. When those at the top of the food chain sneer over the calamity of those at the bottom, it is doubly offensive. And when the disaster happened to Jerusalem, the site of the temple and the home of the divinely installed Davidic dynasty, the issue was even more serious in God's eyes. Second, this oracle reinforces another notion we observed in chapter 25, namely, that Yahweh determines the fate of the nations. He exalts the low, and he is certainly able to bring down the high. The arrogant and the smug are especially vulnerable to his humbling actions. Third, whether the ungodly are aware of it or not, God often uses wicked people as his instruments of judgment on others, even when this complicates the plot for him. In the present case, Yahweh used the very same agent he had used to punish his own people for their history of rebellion against him. He used the same agent to punish those who had mocked his people when they fell. Earlier, the prophet Habakkuk had complained to God, first, that it was not right for him to overlook the sins of rebellion in Judah and Jerusalem. And second, when God said he was calling Babylon to serve as his agent of judgment, he was using a more wicked person to punish a less wicked people. Babylon was punishing Judah. But Yahweh had reassured Habakkuk that he would punish Babylon for her crimes as well, in God's administration of justice, unless he demonstrates exceptional grace. The wicked always get what they deserve, the fury of God. This may be particularly relevant as we reflect on the political chaos of our time. There is an adage that in a democracy, people get the government they deserve. Well, when I observe who rises to the top in our countries, I am frustrated by the choices God and we as a nation make. As Christians, we believe that God sets up at hands the reins of power into the hands of governors to punish evildoers and reward virtue, 1 Peter 2.14. But what do we do when our leaders themselves lack integrity and personal moral virtue? But history and the scriptures teach us that God raises wicked people like Nebuchadnezzar and good people like Esther for such a time as this, Esther 4.14, to accomplish his purposes. Although Ezekiel will not develop this thought, the history of Babylon teaches that while Yahweh had called Nebuchadnezzar to be his agent of punishing Judah and bringing down Tyre, Yahweh would hold him accountable for every ethical misdeed he committed. And the same is true of our leaders. We may despair of righteousness ever reigning in our capitals and in our courts and be depressed by the way our leaders behave. However, they have a divine task to govern both on God's behalf and on ours. If they misbehave, they may escape the execution of justice by our law enforcement agencies, but they will not escape the judgment of God. Ultimately, all will account to him for their performance and their fulfillment or perversion of the charge placed on their shoulders. In the meantime, the challenge for Christ followers is to silence the ignorance of foolish people by our own virtuous behavior, to embody righteous values that the masses in our nation used to treasure, and to carry these qualities with grace and modesty, so that no one may find fault in us, 1 Peter 2, 13 to 25.But there's more in our text, as we will see demonstrated even more emphatically in the oracles against Egypt. Anyone who tries to stop God and his agenda becomes an object of God's wrath. The present text does not speak about this issue explicitly, but if we recall that of all the nations Jeremiah had listed as forming an alliance against Babylon in Jeremiah 27, 1 to 3, Tyre was the most powerful. They owned the Mediterranean. For them to conspire against Babylon meant conspiring against Yahweh. Josiah, arguably the godliest king in the history of the monarchy, had experienced this. In 609 BC, he tried to intercept the Egyptians at Megiddo when they were on their way north to assist what was left of the Assyrians against the rising power of the Babylonians. But it cost him his life. This good king was killed by a stray Egyptian arrow. Is there such a thing in God's providence? He was killed by a stray Egyptian arrow because he did not grasp the significance of the rise of Babylon. 2 Kings 23, 29 to 30, 2 Chronicles 35, 20 to 25. This episode was a precursor to the battle of Carchemish in 605 BC when Nebuchadnezzar II defeated this alliance of superpowers in one blow, giving him a clear path to Jerusalem. Because 598 and 586 were on Yahweh's calendar. In this respect, Tyre is a metaphor for us. If and when we rise to the top in our vocations, whether in the role as a teacher and principal in an educational institution, as a politician running for office, an entrepreneur carving out a fortune in the business world, as a financial wizard playing the stock market, or an MVP, professional athlete, irrespective of all that we accumulate in a lifetime, God is able to put an end to the noise of our songs and our fortunes overnight. No one is impregnable or insulated from the hand of God. This is a humbling thought.