Ezekiel 26
Tyre was the great merchant city of the ancient world - a center of trade and shipping and wealth, set partly on the mainland and partly on a rocky island just offshore, walled and harbored and proud of its place at the crossroads of the sea. The chapter opens by dating the word that came to Ezekiel, in the eleventh year, in the first day of the month (v. 1), and then names the offense that called it down. When Jerusalem fell, Tyre did not mourn; she gloated. Aha, she is broken that was the gates of the people: she is turned unto me: I shall be replenished, now she is laid waste (v. 2). The fall of God's city looked to Tyre like a business opportunity - the trade routes Jerusalem once controlled would now flow her way. It is the gloating of a heart that measures another's ruin by its own profit.3
Against that pride the LORD speaks: Behold, I am against thee, O Tyrus, and will cause many nations to come up against thee, as the sea causeth his waves to come up (v. 3). The image is exact and terrible - nation after nation breaking over the sea-city like the waves she had always trusted to defend her. He will bring Nebuchadnezzar, a king of kings, from the north (v. 7), with horses and chariots and siege-works, until the walls are broken and the towers thrown down. And the recurring sentence of the chapter is its title and its center: He will make her like the top of a rock, a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea (vv. 4-5), built no more (v. 14). The richest city in the world, scraped to bare bedrock.
The final movement turns to the watching world. When Tyre falls, all the princes of the sea - the rulers and traders who depended on her - come down from their thrones, strip off their robes, and sit on the ground trembling (vv. 15-18). They take up a lament: How art thou destroyed, that wast inhabited of seafaring men, the renowned city, which wast strong in the sea (v. 17). The chapter ends with the LORD's own verdict, sealed three times over with saith the Lord GOD: Tyre will be brought down to the pit, made a terror, and thou shalt be no more: though thou be sought for, yet shalt thou never be found again (v. 21). It is a sober chapter, and it asks a sober question of every reader: what are you building on?2
Tap any highlighted phrase to jump to the commentary that unpacks it.
Ezekiel 26:1-6Behold, I Am Against Thee, O Tyrus
1And it came to pass in the eleventh year, in the first day of the month, that the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, 2Son of man, because that Tyrus hath said against Jerusalem, Aha, she is broken that was the gates of the people: she is turned unto me: I shall be replenished, now she is laid waste: 3Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Tyrus, and will cause many nations to come up against thee, as the sea causeth his waves to come up. 4And they shall destroy the walls of Tyrus, and break down her towers: I will also scrape her dust from her, and make her like the top of a rock. 5It shall be a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD: and it shall become a spoil to the nations. 6And her daughters which are in the field shall be slain by the sword; and they shall know that I am the LORD.
The chapter opens by fixing the moment - in the eleventh year, in the first day of the month (v. 1) - and then names the sin that brings the word down. It is not idolatry here, nor violence in war; it is a single ugly response to someone else's grief. When Jerusalem fell, Tyre said, Aha, she is broken that was the gates of the people: she is turned unto me: I shall be replenished, now she is laid waste (v. 2). Two things are tangled together in that taunt, and both are deadly. The first is gloating - Aha, the sound of satisfaction at another's ruin. The second is greed: Jerusalem had been the gates of the people, a hub through which the caravans and the trade once passed, and with her broken, Tyre expected the traffic to swing her way. I shall be replenished - my profits will swell. So Tyre looked at the suffering of God's city and saw only a clearing of the competition. It is a posture the heart is endlessly capable of: measuring a neighbor's loss by our own possible gain, glad in secret when someone who stood in our way goes down. The LORD heard the Aha, and it is to that word that the rest of the chapter answers.3
The answer comes with the gravest words a city could hear: Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Tyrus (v. 3). When the Maker of heaven and earth sets Himself against a place, no wall can save it. And the form the judgment takes is fitted with terrible precision to the city it falls on. Tyre lived by the sea and trusted the sea - her wealth came over the water, her defense was the water that ringed her island. So the LORD says He will bring many nations… as the sea causeth his waves to come up. The very element Tyre relied upon becomes the figure of her undoing: army after army will break over her like the endless rolling of the surf, wave upon wave with no let-up. The judgment is concrete - they shall destroy the walls… and break down her towers (v. 4) - but its aim runs deeper than rubble. Twice in these verses the purpose is named: it shall become a spoil to the nations (v. 5), and they shall know that I am the LORD (v. 6). The point of the judgment is not mere destruction but recognition. A city that knew only commerce and self-confidence will finally be made to reckon with the One she never factored into her accounts.
At the heart of the oracle is the image that gives the chapter its shape: I will also scrape her dust from her, and make her like the top of a rock. It shall be a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea (vv. 4-5). The picture is devastating in its plainness. A city is layers of life laid down over generations - soil and rubble and the dust of daily living, packed into streets and foundations. The LORD says He will scrape all of it away, down to the naked bedrock beneath, leaving nothing but bare stone swept by the sea. And then the haunting detail: that bare rock will become a place for the spreading of nets. Where merchants once haggled and ships unloaded the wealth of the world, fishermen will one day stretch their nets out to dry on the empty stone. It is one of the most arresting reversals in the prophets - not a ruin still grand in its decay, but a working surface for poor men's nets, as though the metropolis had never been. And the certainty is sealed with five words that recur through the chapter like a refrain: for I have spoken it. This is not Ezekiel's guess about the fortunes of trade. It is the word of the LORD, and the chapter will insist, again and again, that what He speaks comes to pass.2
Ezekiel 26:7-14A Place to Spread Nets Upon · Built No More
7For thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will bring upon Tyrus Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, a king of kings, from the north, with horses, and with chariots, and with horsemen, and companies, and much people. 8He shall slay with the sword thy daughters in the field: and he shall make a fort against thee, and cast a mount against thee, and lift up the buckler against thee. 9And he shall set engines of war against thy walls, and with his axes he shall break down thy towers. 10By reason of the abundance of his horses their dust shall cover thee: thy walls shall shake at the noise of the horsemen, and of the wheels, and of the chariots, when he shall enter into thy gates, as men enter into a city wherein is made a breach. 11With the hoofs of his horses shall he tread down all thy streets: he shall slay thy people by the sword, and thy strong garrisons shall go down to the ground. 12And they shall make a spoil of thy riches, and make a prey of thy merchandise: and they shall break down thy walls, and destroy thy pleasant houses: and they shall lay thy stones and thy timber and thy dust in the midst of the water. 13And I will cause the noise of thy songs to cease; and the sound of thy harps shall be no more heard. 14And I will make thee like the top of a rock: thou shalt be a place to spread nets upon; thou shalt be built no more: for I the LORD have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD.
The general word of verse 3 - many nations like the waves of the sea - now narrows to a name and a face: Behold, I will bring upon Tyrus Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, a king of kings, from the north (v. 7). The waves have a leader. The title a king of kings marks Nebuchadnezzar as the supreme overlord of his age, the emperor before whom lesser kings bowed; from the north is the direction from which invasion always swept down upon the Levant. And then the verses turn cinematic, walking through a siege step by step the way an eyewitness would: the fort thrown up, the siege-mound cast against the wall, the shields raised, the engines of war battering the towers, the axes hewing them down (vv. 8-9). The dust of countless horses darkens the air; the walls shake at the thunder of wheels and chariots; the cavalry pours through the breach and tramples the streets, and the proud garrisons go down to the ground (vv. 10-11). The detail is not relished for its violence - it is the sober anatomy of how a confident city actually falls. What is striking is the One behind it all. I will bring, says the LORD. The mightiest emperor on earth, the king of kings, is in this telling an instrument in a higher hand. Babylon marches, but the LORD has spoken.3
The siege reaches into the very things Tyre most prized. They shall make a spoil of thy riches, and make a prey of thy merchandise (v. 12) - the wealth she had gloated over inheriting from fallen Jerusalem is itself carried off as plunder. Her pleasant houses are pulled down; her stones and timber and dust are cast in the midst of the water, the sea she trusted now the dumping-ground of her rubble. And then a quieter, almost mournful line: I will cause the noise of thy songs to cease; and the sound of thy harps shall be no more heard (v. 13). Tyre was not only a place of commerce but of music and revelry, the soundtrack of a wealthy, pleasure-loving city. All of it falls silent. There is something piercing in the way judgment here is measured not only in broken walls but in silence - the songs stopped, the harps stilled, the festive noise of a great city replaced by the lap of waves on bare stone. The things Tyre counted as permanent - her riches, her fine houses, her music - turn out to be the most fragile things of all. What looked like the very furniture of a secure life proves to be removable in a season, gone so completely that even the sound of it is not heard again.
The section closes by returning to the chapter's central image and adding the word that makes it final: And I will make thee like the top of a rock; thou shalt be a place to spread nets upon; thou shalt be built no more (v. 14). Cities are usually rebuilt. They burn, they fall, they are sacked - and then, in time, they rise again on the same ground, because the ground was valuable and people return to it. The LORD says of this proud city the thing almost never said: built no more. The bare rock will stay bare; the nets will keep drying where the markets stood; the reversal will not be reversed. And the verse stamps the whole oracle with the seal that has run through the chapter, now doubled for emphasis: for I the LORD have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD. Twice over the divine name stands behind the sentence. This is the chapter's deepest point, beneath all the rubble and waves: the certainty of God's word. He does not predict; He speaks, and what He speaks is as good as done. The reader is not meant merely to note the fate of an ancient city but to feel the weight of a word that cannot fail - for the same God who said this of Tyre has spoken, too, of mercy and of judgment, of a kingdom and a coming day, and every word of His stands with the same iron certainty.
Ezekiel 26:15-21Thou Shalt Be No More
15Thus saith the Lord GOD to Tyrus; Shall not the isles shake at the sound of thy fall, when the wounded cry, when the slaughter is made in the midst of thee? 16Then all the princes of the sea shall come down from their thrones, and lay away their robes, and put off their broidered garments: they shall clothe themselves with trembling; they shall sit upon the ground, and shall tremble at every moment, and be astonished at thee. 17And they shall take up a lamentation for thee, and say to thee, How art thou destroyed, that wast inhabited of seafaring men, the renowned city, which wast strong in the sea, she and her inhabitants, which cause their terror to be on all that haunt it! 18Now shall the isles tremble in the day of thy fall; yea, the isles that are in the sea shall be troubled at thy departure. 19For thus saith the Lord GOD; When I shall make thee a desolate city, like the cities that are not inhabited; when I shall bring up the deep upon thee, and great waters shall cover thee; 20When I shall bring thee down with them that descend into the pit, with the people of old time, and shall set thee in the low parts of the earth, in places desolate of old, with them that go down to the pit, that thou be not inhabited; and I shall set glory in the land of the living; 21I will make thee a terror, and thou shalt be no more: though thou be sought for, yet shalt thou never be found again, saith the Lord GOD.
The oracle now widens its lens from Tyre herself to the whole watching world that depended on her. Shall not the isles shake at the sound of thy fall, when the wounded cry, when the slaughter is made in the midst of thee? (v. 15). The fall of so central a city sends a tremor outward across all the coasts and islands that traded with her. And then comes one of the most vivid scenes in the prophets: all the princes of the sea shall come down from their thrones, and lay away their robes, and put off their broidered garments: they shall clothe themselves with trembling; they shall sit upon the ground… and be astonished at thee (v. 16). These are the rulers and merchant-lords of the maritime world, the ones who had grown rich in Tyre's orbit. Watch what they do, gesture by gesture. They come down from their thrones - the seats of their own power suddenly feel unsafe. They lay away their robes and strip off their embroidered finery, the very emblems of the wealth Tyre had fed. They put on trembling as if it were a garment, sink to the bare ground, and sit there astonished. It is the posture of mourning, but it is also the posture of fear: if Tyre could fall - Tyre, the strongest of them all - then no throne is secure, and they feel the ground shift under their own. The fall of the proud is a sermon the whole world cannot help but hear.
The princes do not merely tremble; they sing a dirge. They shall take up a lamentation for thee, and say to thee, How art thou destroyed, that wast inhabited of seafaring men, the renowned city, which wast strong in the sea (v. 17). The whole lament hangs on that opening cry - How art thou destroyed! It is the stunned question of those who cannot believe what they are seeing. Everything they name is in the past tense: she wast inhabited, she was the renowned city, she was strong in the sea. Tyre's greatness was so settled a fact of their world that its absence is almost unthinkable. She had been the city that caused their terror to be on all that haunt it - feared and powerful, throwing her weight across the waters. And now the isles tremble… and shall be troubled at thy departure (v. 18). There is real pathos in the scene, and it is meant to be felt; the chapter does not invite the reader to gloat over Tyre any more than Tyre should have gloated over Jerusalem. But underneath the lament is a hard clarity. Greatness that the whole world takes for permanent can vanish, and when it does, those who built their own security upon it are left sitting on the ground, asking how. Reputation, dominance, the awe of others - Tyre had all of it, and it did not save her.
The chapter ends with the LORD's own final verdict, and the language sinks downward into the depths. When I shall bring up the deep upon thee, and great waters shall cover thee (v. 19) - the sea that was Tyre's highway and her pride rises up and closes over her. Then the imagery descends even further, into the realm of the dead: He will bring thee down… into the pit, with the people of old time, set her in the low parts of the earth, in places desolate of old… that thou be not inhabited (v. 20). Tyre is not merely defeated on the surface of the world; she is sent down to join the long-forgotten dead, the peoples of ages past whom no one remembers. And against that sinking is set one bright line: and I shall set glory in the land of the living (v. 20). As proud Tyre goes down into darkness, the LORD reserves glory for the land of the living - a quiet promise that life and glory belong, in the end, not to the merchant city but to God and to those who live before Him. The very last word seals everything: I will make thee a terror, and thou shalt be no more: though thou be sought for, yet shalt thou never be found again, saith the Lord GOD (v. 21). To be sought and never found - it is the final undoing of a city that thought herself eternal, and it is spoken, like all the rest, by the One whose word does not return void.3
Further study
- The Hebrew text of Ezekiel 26 with Rashi, Radak, and other classical commentators side by side - useful for tsor (Tyre, the “rock” city whose very name is the word for rock), for tsechiach sela (v. 4, the bare, sun-scorched bedrock she is reduced to), and for mishtach charamim (v. 5, “a place for the spreading of nets”).
- Ezekiel 26 ↔ 1 Corinthians 7 & 10 · Hebrews 11 · Matthew 7Intertextual BibleTraces the threads tying Ezekiel 26 to the rest of Scripture - the proud city scraped to bare rock (vv. 4-5) read alongside the fashion of this world passeth away (1 Cor. 7:31), the city whose builder and maker is God (Heb. 11:10), and the house built on the rock that stood when the floods came (Matt. 7:24-25).
- Ezekiel 26 - Translators' NotesNET BibleThe NET Bible's detailed footnotes on Ezekiel 26 - Tyre's gloating taunt over Jerusalem in verse 2, the wordplay between Tyre's name and the “rock” she is reduced to (vv. 4, 14), the historical siege under Nebuchadnezzar (v. 7), and the lament of the sea-princes in verses 15-18.
Where this echoes in Scripture
Behold, I Am Against Thee, O Tyrus
- Proverbs 24:17-18Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, and let not thine heart be glad when he stumbleth: lest the LORD see it, and it displease him.The exact sin of verse 2 - the gloating <em>Aha</em> over another’s fall that the LORD sees and answers.
- Obadiah 1:12thou shouldest not have looked on the day of thy brother... neither shouldest thou have rejoiced over the children of Judah in the day of their destruction.The same charge as Tyre’s in verse 2 - rejoicing over God’s people in the day of their ruin.
- 1 Corinthians 7:31they that use this world, as not abusing it: for the fashion of this world passeth away.The principle beneath verses 4-5 - the world Tyre trusted in is always passing away.
- Proverbs 23:5riches certainly make themselves wings; they fly away as an eagle toward heaven.The wealth Tyre gloated over (v. 2) and the wealth that does not stay - scraped away like her dust.
- Isaiah 23:1The burden of Tyre. Howl, ye ships of Tarshish; for it is laid waste, so that there is no house, no entering in.The same city under the same judgment - Tyre’s fall foretold, her harbors emptied.
A Place to Spread Nets Upon · Built No More
- Daniel 2:37-38Thou, O king, art a king of kings: for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory.The same title given Nebuchadnezzar in verse 7 - and the reminder that even his power was given from above.
- Matthew 7:24-25a wise man, which built his house upon a rock... the floods came... and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.The contrast to Tyre’s false rock (v. 14) - the house that stands the rising waters because of its foundation.
- 1 Corinthians 10:4they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.The true Rock set against Tyre’s bare stone (v. 14) - not a fortress that fails but the Rock that gives life.
- Hebrews 11:10he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.The city that endures over against the city <em>built no more</em> (v. 14) - God’s building against man’s.
- Revelation 18:22the voice of harpers, and musicians... shall be heard no more at all in thee.The silence of verse 13 echoed at the fall of the last great merchant-city - the music stopped forever.
Thou Shalt Be No More
- Revelation 18:9-11the kings of the earth... shall bewail her, and lament for her... the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her.The lament of verses 15-18 echoed at the fall of the last great city - kings and merchants mourning their lost wealth.
- Isaiah 14:11-15Thy pomp is brought down to the grave... yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.The descent to the pit of verse 20 - proud power brought down to the place of the dead.
- Matthew 24:35Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.The certainty sealed throughout the chapter (vv. 5, 14, 21) - God’s word stands when everything else falls.
- 1 Peter 1:24-25all flesh is as grass... the grass withereth... but the word of the Lord endureth for ever.The principle beneath Tyre’s fall - human glory fades like grass; only the LORD’s word endures.
- Psalm 9:6O thou enemy, destructions are come to a perpetual end... their memorial is perished with them.The fate of verse 21 - sought for, yet never found again; the proud city blotted from memory.