Ezekiel 27:23-33

23 "'Haran, Canneh, and Eden from the east in Assyria and Media traded with you,

24 bringing elegant clothes, dyed textiles, and elaborate carpets to your bazaars.

25 "'The great Tarshish ships were your freighters, importing and exporting. Oh, it was big business for you, trafficking the seaways!

26 "'Your sailors row mightily, taking you into the high seas. Then a storm out of the east shatters your ship in the ocean deep.

27 Everything sinks - your rich goods and products, sailors and crew, ship's carpenters and soldiers, Sink to the bottom of the sea. Total shipwreck.

28 The cries of your sailors reverberate on shore.

29 Sailors everywhere abandon ship. Veteran seamen swim for dry land.

30 They cry out in grief, a choir of bitter lament over you. They smear their faces with ashes,

31 shave their heads, Wear rough burlap, wildly keening their loss.

32 They raise their funeral song: "Who on the high seas is like Tyre!"

33 "'As you crisscrossed the seas with your products, you satisfied many peoples. Your worldwide trade made earth's kings rich.

Ezekiel 27:23-33 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO EZEKIEL 27

This chapter contains a lamentation on Tyre; setting forth her former grandeur, riches, and commerce; her ruin and destruction; and the concern of others on that account. The prophet is bid to take up his lamentation concerning it, Eze 27:1,2, observing her situation and magnificence, of which she boasted, Eze 27:3,4, describing the excellency of her shipping and naval stores, Eze 27:5-7, declaring who were her mariners, pilots, and caulkers, Eze 27:8,9, her military men, Eze 27:10,11 her several merchants, and the things they traded in with her in her fairs and markets, Eze 27:12-25, then follows an account of her destruction, Eze 27:26,27, the lamentation of pilots and mariners because of it, Eze 27:28-32, and of the kings and inhabitants of the isles, and merchants of the people, Eze 27:33-36.