Tyre and Loving One's Enemies

The city of Tyre on the Phoenician coast, about 22 miles south of Sidon, receives its first mention in Joshua 19:29: “And the border turned to Ramah and to the fortified city of Tyre . . ..” By the time of Joshua, sometime around 1400 BC, Tyrus, as it is also called, was already a strong mainland city fortified with walls and defensive works. By the time of the Kingdom of Israel’s downfall, it was said its “antiquity is from ancient days” (see Isaiah 23:7), at least from before the time of Moses, and continued as a strategic maritime city for more than another thousand years.

Tyre was unique because it had both a mainland port and a habitable offshore island. As a longtime wealthy city, its mainland holdings spread to several significant villages along the coastline. In about 815 BC, during a Phoenician expansion, traders from Tyre founded Carthage in North Africa. Eventually, its colonies spread around the Mediterranean and even to the coastlines of the Atlantic Ocean, bringing flourishing maritime trade to the city and thus tremendous wealth.

Around 586 BC, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon saw it as a rich plum to be plucked. Seeing the handwriting on the wall, Tyre’s wealthy leaders began to abandon the mainland city for the island’s safety. When Nebuchadnezzar brought his armies to the area, he destroyed mainland Tyre and besieged the island for another five years until Tyre agreed to pay tribute.

Two-and-a-half centuries later, in 332 BC, Alexander the Great used the rubble heaps Nebuchadnezzar had left on the mainland to build a half-mile causeway to the island city. He even scraped the dirt from the ground to fill in over the rubble to smooth and level the causeway. Once the project was finished, he easily defeated and razed the island city. Today, the island no longer exists. Over the centuries, the sea has deposited silt on either side of the causeway, filling the bay. Now, it is just a small coastal peninsula.

Ezekiel’s Prophecy

The prophet Ezekiel foretold the utter destruction of Tyre, naming not less than twenty-five separate details, most of which were fulfilled over the following centuries. Using the Law of Compound Probabilities, mathematicians have estimated a one-in-33.5-million chance of this happening accidentally. The authority of God’s Word leaves no opportunity for a sane denial of His hand bringing these matters to pass.

Notice the details of his prophecy in Ezekiel 26:3-12:

Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: “Behold, I am against you, O Tyre, and will cause many nations to come up against you, as the sea causes its waves to come up. And they shall destroy the walls of Tyre and break down her towers; I will also scrape her dust from her, and make her like the top of a rock. It shall be a place for spreading nets in the midst of the sea, for I have spoken,” says the Lord GOD; “it shall become plunder for the nations. Also her daughter villages which are in the fields shall be slain by the sword. Then they shall know that I am the LORD.”

For thus says the Lord GOD: “Behold, I will bring against Tyre from the north Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, king of kings, with horses, with chariots, and with horsemen, and an army with many people. He will slay with the sword your daughter villages in the fields; he will heap up a siege mound against you, build a wall against you, and raise a defense against you. He will direct his battering rams against your walls, and with his axes he will break down your towers. Because of the abundance of his horses, their dust will cover you; your walls will shake at the noise of the horsemen, the wagons, and the chariots, when he enters your gates, as men enter a city that has been breached. With the hooves of his horses he will trample all your streets; he will slay your people by the sword, and your strong pillars will fall to the ground. They will plunder your riches and pillage your merchandise; they will break down your walls and destroy your pleasant houses . . ..”

There should be a break in the middle of verse 12 because, as noted, Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the mainland city, leaving it in heaps of rubble. Centuries later, Alexander and his Macedonians laid the rubble in the sea to build the causeway to the island city. Continuing with the latter half of verse 12:

“. . . they will lay your stones, your timber, and your soil in the midst of the water. I will put an end to the sound of your songs, and the sound of your harps shall be heard no more. I will make you like the top of a rock; you shall be a place for spreading nets, and you shall never be rebuilt, for I the LORD have spoken,” says the Lord GOD. . . .

For thus says the Lord GOD: “When I make you a desolate city, like cities that are not inhabited, when I bring the deep upon you, and great waters cover you, then I will bring you down with those who descend into the Pit, to the people of old, and I will make you dwell in the lowest part of the earth, in places desolate from antiquity, with those who go down to the Pit, so that you may never be inhabited; and I shall establish glory in the land of the living. I will make you a terror, and you shall be no more; though you are sought for, you will never be found again,’ says the Lord GOD.” (Ezekiel 26:12-14, 19-21)

By comparing ancient and modern maps, it is apparent that more than half of the island sank beneath the sea forever. Its complete destruction was astonishing.

Causes

One might wonder why the Almighty God pronounced such a severe sentence on Tyre. God provides the answer in Ezekiel 26:2:

Son of man, because Tyre has said against Jerusalem, “Aha! She is broken who was the gateway of the peoples; now she is turned over to me; I shall be filled; she is laid waste.”

God gives a more complete explanation in Ezekiel’s prophecy against the Ammonites in the previous chapter, part of a string of divine proclamations against the nations surrounding Israel and Judah:

For thus says the Lord GOD: “Because you have clapped your hands, stamped your feet, and rejoiced in heart with all your disdain for the land of Israel, indeed, therefore, I will stretch out My hand against you . . ..” (Ezekiel 25:6-7)

In an attitude of commercial jealousy and greed, the city of Tyre exulted over Jerusalem’s misfortunes and expected to turn them into profit. Among Tyre’s list of despicable commercial activities, the city’s slave trade ranked as one of the most lucrative. The prophet Joel prophesied that Tyre would take people from Judah and Jerusalem in its devastation and sell them to the Greeks so that the Tyrians could send them as far away as possible (Joel 3:6; see Amos 1:9-10). These dastardly dealings with the inhabitants of Judah would not go unpunished.

Notice the fuller context of Joel’s prophecy:

Indeed, what have you to do with Me,
O Tyre and Sidon, and all the coasts of Philistia?
Will you retaliate against Me?
But if you retaliate against Me,
Swiftly and speedily I will return your retaliation upon your own head;
Because you have taken My silver and My gold,
And have carried into your temples My prized possessions.
Also the people of Judah and the people of Jerusalem
You have sold to the Greeks,
That you may remove them far from their borders. (Joel 3:4-6)

These verses foretell things that, to us, occurred in the distant past. The Phoenicians of Tyre and Sidon took advantage of Judah’s downfall and destruction, plundering the land and enslaving its people. From verse 7, the timeframe moves into the future, the time of the Day of the Lord (mentioned in verse 14), immediately before the return of Christ. Thus, verses 7-8 are part of an as-yet-unfulfilled prophecy:

Behold, I will raise them
Out of the place to which you have sold them,
And will return your retaliation upon your own head.
I will sell your sons and your daughters
Into the hand of the people of Judah,
And they will sell them to the Sabeans,
To a people far off;
For the LORD has spoken. (Joel 3:7-8)

God will punish Tyre fittingly, making them suffer as they made His people suffer.

The Prince of Tyre

The prophecy in Ezekiel 28 is given to “the prince of Tyre” in verses 1-10 and to “the king of Tyre” in verses 11-19. Because the latter prophecy applies to the behind-the-scenes ruler of Tyre, Satan the Devil—who was “in Eden, the garden of God” (verse 13) and once “the anointed cherub who covers” (verses 14, 16)—the former section must apply to the human leader of Tyre, styled as a “prince.” Notice what God says about his transgressions:

Son of man, say to the prince of Tyre, “Thus says the Lord GOD:

‘Because your heart is lifted up,
And you say, “I am a god,
I sit in the seat of gods,
In the midst of the seas,”
Yet you are a man, and not a god,
Though you set your heart as the heart of a god
(Behold, you are wiser than Daniel!
There is no secret that can be hidden from you!
With your wisdom and your understanding
You have gained riches for yourself,
And gathered gold and silver into your treasuries;
By your great wisdom in trade you have increased your riches,
And your heart is lifted up because of your riches),’

“Therefore thus says the Lord GOD:

‘Because you have set your heart as the heart of a god,
Behold, therefore, I will bring strangers against you,
The most terrible of the nations;
And they shall draw their swords against the beauty of your wisdom,
And defile your splendor.
They shall throw you down into the Pit,
And you shall die the death of the slain
In the midst of the seas.
Will you still say before him who slays you,
“I am a god”?
But you shall be a man, and not a god,
In the hand of him who slays you.
You shall die the death of the uncircumcised
By the hand of aliens;
For I have spoken,’ says the Lord GOD.”

God makes it plain that His judgment is on this ruler’s attitude. The prince of Tyre was full of pride, arrogance, greed, and self-exaltation. The passage implies that the leader of Tyre represented its people. They, too, could be described as God describes their prince.

Yet, despite all their egregious sins, God left Tyre alone for centuries until it pounced upon His already crushed people. Had they shown some measure of sympathy and helpfulness to the Israelites’ plight, they would have profited. God would have seen to it. Instead, in their pride, greed, and hatred, they struck while their neighbors were down, and God destroyed them for their inhumanity. (In this regard, read the prophecies against the nations surrounding Israel in Amos 1.)

A Lesson for Today

What we see in Tyre’s story is a good lesson for us today. Here in America, our most potent enemies are within the nation. After “We The People” (there is no doubt we are our own worst enemies), elected politicians, unelected bureaucrats, and activist judges are Americans’ most dangerous human foes. No doubt, most other nations could say the same about their leadership leading them straight to destruction.

As members of the Body of Christ, what is our attitude toward them? Do we rail against them, defame them, and wish the worst upon them? Are we thrilled when one of them takes a fall? Or do we take the high road, the godly path, and pray for them as Jesus instructs His disciples to do in Matthew 5:44-45?

But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. (See also Romans 12:14, 17-21; I Peter 2:13-17)

This command from our Savior is no mere suggestion that we play nice. He really wants us to work for the good and betterment of haters and persecutors because that is what God does. We are not to cheer against them and revel when they get their due. Solomon plainly states this in Proverbs 24:17:

Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and do not let your heart be glad when he stumbles; lest the LORD see it, and it displease Him, and He turn away His wrath from him.

In other words, God will fight our battles for us. Our job is to continue demonstrating Christlike attitudes and behaviors. But if God sees us treating our neighbors with contempt and rejoicing over their downfall, He may well stop fighting for us and let the enemy get back to doing his worst against us!

The finest example of loving one’s enemy, of course, is Christ Himself. David, a type of Christ, also followed this rule. Notice what he writes in Psalm 35:12-14:

They [his enemies] reward me evil for good,
To the sorrow of my soul.
But as for me, when they were sick,
My clothing was sackcloth;
I humbled myself with fasting;
And my prayer would return to my own heart.
I paced about as though he were my friend or brother;
I bowed down heavily, as one who mourns for his mother.

Yes, what Scripture tells us to do is exceedingly difficult, but it is the way of God. We must heed the lesson God gives us through His destruction of Tyre and learn to love our enemies.