Ezekiel 26

12. lay thy stones . . . timber . . . in . . . midst of . . . water--referring to the insular New Tyre ( Ezekiel 26:3 Ezekiel 26:5 , Ezekiel 27:4 Ezekiel 27:25 Ezekiel 27:26 ). When its lofty buildings and towers fall, surrounded as it was with the sea which entered its double harbor and washed its ramparts, the "stones . . . timbers . . . and dust" appropriately are described as thrown down "in the midst of the water." Though Ezekiel attributes the capture of Tyre to Nebuchadnezzar does not follow that the final destruction of it described is attributed by him to the same monarch. The overthrow of Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar was the first link in the long chain of evil--the first deadly blow which prepared for, and was the earnest of, the final doom. The change in this verse from the individual conqueror "he," to the general "they," marks that what he did was not the whole, but only paved the way for others to complete the work begun by him. It was to be a progressive work until she was utterly destroyed. Thus the words here answer exactly to what Alexander did. With the "stones, timber," and rubbish of Old Tyre, he built a causeway in seven months to New Tyre on the island and so took it [CURTIUS, 4, 2], 322 B.C.

13. Instead of the joyousness of thy prosperity, a death-like silence shall reign ( Isaiah 24:8 , Jeremiah 7:34 ).

14. He concludes in nearly the same words as he began ( Ezekiel 26:4 Ezekiel 26:5 ).
built no more--fulfilled as to the mainland Tyre, under Nebuchadnezzar. The insular Tyre recovered partly, after seventy years ( Isaiah 23:17 Isaiah 23:18 ), but again suffered under Alexander, then under Antigonus, then under the Saracens at the beginning of the fourteenth century. Now its harbors are choked with sand, precluding all hope of future restoration, "not one entire house is left, and only a few fishermen take shelter in the vaults" [MAUNDRELL]. So accurately has God's word come to pass.

15-21. The impression which the overthrow of Tyre produced on other maritime nations and upon her own colonies, for example, Utica, Carthage, and Tartessus or Tarshish in Spain.
isles--maritime lands. Even mighty Carthage used to send a yearly offering to the temple of Hercules at Tyre: and the mother city gave high priests to her colonies. Hence the consternation at her fall felt in the widely scattered dependencies with which she was so closely connected by the ties of religion, as well as commercial intercourse.
shake--metaphorically: "be agitated" ( Jeremiah 49:21 ).

16. come down from their thrones . . . upon the ground--"the throne of the mourners" ( Job 2:13 , Jonah 3:6 ).
princes of the sea--are the merchant rulers of Carthage and other colonies of Tyre, who had made themselves rich and powerful by trading on the sea ( Isaiah 23:8 ).
clothe . . . with trembling--Hebrew, "tremblings." Compare Ezekiel 7:27 , "clothed with desolation"; Psalms 132:18 . In a public calamity the garment was changed for a mourning garb.

17. inhabited of seafaring men--that is, which was frequented by merchants of various sea-bordering lands [GROTIUS]. FAIRBAIRN translates with Peschito, "Thou inhabitant of the seas" (the Hebrew literal meaning). Tyre rose as it were out of the seas as if she got thence her inhabitants, being peopled so closely down to the waters. So Venice was called "the bride of the sea."
strong in the sea--through her insular position.
cause their terror to be on all that haunt it--namely, the sea. The Hebrew is rather, "they put their terror upon all her (the city's) inhabitants," that is, they make the name of every Tyrian to be feared [FAIRBAIRN].

18. thy departure-- Isaiah 23:6 Isaiah 23:12 predicts that the Tyrians, in consequence of the siege, should pass over the Mediterranean to the lands bordering on it ("Chittim," "Tarshish," &c.). So Ezekiel here. Accordingly JEROME says that he read in Assyrian histories that, "when the Tyrians saw no hope of escaping, they fled to Carthage or some islands of the Ionian and Ægean Seas" [BISHOP NEWTON]. GROTIUS explains "departure," that is, "in the day when hostages shall be carried away from thee to Babylon." The parallelism to "thy fall" makes me think "departure" must mean "thy end" in general, but with an included allusion to the "departure" of most of her people to her colonies at the fall of the city.

19. great waters--appropriate metaphor of the Babylonian hosts, which literally, by breaking down insular Tyre's ramparts, caused the sea to "cover" part of her.

20. the pit--Tyre's disappearance is compared to that of the dead placed in their sepulchres and no more seen among the living (compare Ezekiel 32:18 Ezekiel 32:23 , Isaiah 14:11 Isaiah 14:15 Isaiah 14:19 ).
I shall set glory in the land--In contrast to Tyre consigned to the "pit" of death, I shall set glory (that is, My presence symbolized by the Shekinah cloud, the antitype to which shall be Messiah, "the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father," John 1:14 , Isaiah 4:2 Isaiah 4:5 , Zechariah 6:13 ) in Judah.
of the living--as opposed to Tyre consigned to the "pit" of death. Judea is to be the land of national and spiritual life, being restored after its captivity ( Ezekiel 47:9 ). FAIRBAIRN loses the antithesis by applying the negative to both clauses, "and that thou be not set as a glory in the land of the living."

21. terror--an example of judgment calculated to terrify all evildoers.
thou shall be no more--Not that there was to be no more a Tyre, but she was no more to be the Tyre that once was: her glory and name were to be no more. As, to Old Tyre, the prophecy was literally fulfilled, not a vestige of it being left.