What does Ezechiel Chapter 26 say, and which statements belong to its speaker?

Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary

Tyre’s boast precedes incoming nations. Nabuchodonosor’s siege receives concrete imagery. Sea princes lament a foretold downfall.

Chapter breakdown

Ezechiel 26 dates its word to the eleventh year and first day of an unnamed month. Tyre boasts that Jerusalem's broken gates turn toward her and she will be filled now Jerusalem is waste. Many nations come like rising sea waves, break walls and towers and scrape dust until Tyre resembles smooth rock, a place for drying nets in the sea and spoil for nations. Daughters in the field fall by sword. The passage does not specify redirected trade routes, Phoenician storehouses or sun-bleached topsoil.

Nabuchodonosor of Babylon, king of kings, comes from the north with horses, chariots, horsemen, companies and many people. He kills field daughters, surrounds with forts and a mount, raises a buckler and uses war engines and rams. Horse dust covers Tyre and moving chariots shake walls as they enter gates. Hooves tread streets; people are killed and famous statues fall. Riches and merchandise are spoiled, walls and fine houses destroyed, and stone, timber and dust laid in water. Songs and harps cease and the net-drying rock is not rebuilt. Iron chariots, mobile towers, paved boulevards and sacred pillars are not the source's details.

Islands shake at the fall and slain people's groans. Sea princes leave thrones and embroidered robes, sit astonished on earth and lament a renowned sea city feared by others. Ships are amazed and islands troubled because nobody comes out. Deep waters cover the desolate city as the Lord brings it to the pit with ancient people, gives glory in the living land and announces it will not be found again. The oracle is not independently verified historical fulfillment or a general single-moment rule about all commercial powers.

The story inside

Opening: Tyre’s boast precedes incoming nations. Development: Nabuchodonosor’s siege receives concrete imagery. Conclusion: Sea princes lament a foretold downfall.

Lessons worth keeping

1
Tyre’s boast precedes incoming nations.
2
Nabuchodonosor’s siege receives concrete imagery.
3
Sea princes lament a foretold downfall.

Test your recall

Which images and requests does the speaker use, and what does the chapter leave unresolved?

Source edition and notes

Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.

Lines 94079–94099
26:1. And it came to pass in the eleventh year, the first day of the month, that the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 26:2. Son of man, because Tyre hath said of Jerusalem: Aha, the gates of the people are broken, she is turned to me: I shall be filled, now she is laid waste. 26:3. Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Behold I come against thee, O Tyre, and I will cause many nations to come up to thee, as the waves of the sea rise up. 26:4. And they shall break down the walls of Tyre, and destroy the towers thereof: and I will scrape her dust from her, and make her like a smooth rock. 26:5. She shall be a drying place for nets in the midst of the sea, because I have spoken it, saith the Lord God: and she shall be a spoil to the nations. 26:6. Her daughters also that are in the field, shall be slain by the sword: and they shall know that I am the Lord.
Lines 94101–94131
26:7. For thus saith the Lord God: Behold I will bring against Tyre Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon, the king of kings, from the north, with horses, and chariots, and horsemen, and companies, and much people. 26:8. Thy daughters that are in the field, he shall kill with the sword: and he shall compass thee with forts, and shall cast up a mount round about: and he shall lift up the buckler against thee. 26:9. And he shall set engines of war and battering rams against thy walls, and shall destroy thy towers with his arms. 26:10. By reason of the multitude of his horses, their dust shall cover thee: thy walls shall shake at the noise of the horsemen, and wheels, and chariots, when they shall go in at thy gates, as by the entrance of a city that is destroyed. 26:11. With the hoofs of his horses he shall tread down all thy streets, thy people he shall kill with the sword, and thy famous statues shall fall to the ground. 26:12. They shall waste thy riches, they shall make a spoil of thy merchandise: and they shall destroy thy walls, and pull down thy fine houses: and they shall lay thy stones and thy timber, and thy dust in the midst of the waters. 26:13. And I will make the multitude of thy songs to cease, and the sound of thy harps shall be heard no more. 26:14. And I will make thee like a naked rock, thou shalt be a drying place for nets, neither shalt thou be built any more: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord God.
Lines 94133–94148
26:15. Thus saith the Lord God to Tyre: Shall not the islands shake at the sound of thy fall, and the groans of thy slain when they shall be killed in the midst of thee? 26:16. Then all the princes of the sea shall come down from their thrones: and take off their robes, and cast away their broidered garments, and be clothed with astonishment: they shall sit on the ground, and with amazement shall wonder at thy sudden fall. 26:17. And taking up a lamentation over thee, they shall say to thee: How art thou fallen, that dwellest in the sea, renowned city that wast strong in the sea, with thy inhabitants whom all did dread? 26:18. Now shall the ships be astonished in the day of thy terror: and the islands in the sea shall be troubled because no one cometh out of thee.
Lines 94150–94162
26:19. For thus saith the Lord God: When I shall make thee a desolate city like the cities that are not inhabited: and shall bring the deep upon thee, and many waters shall cover thee: 26:20. And when I shall bring thee down with those that descend into the pit to the everlasting people, and shall set thee in the lowest parts of the earth, as places desolate of old, with them that are brought down into the pit, that thou be not inhabited: and when I shall give glory in the land of the living, 26:21. I will bring thee to nothing, and thou shalt not be, and if thou be sought for, thou shalt not be found any more for ever, saith the Lord God.