Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Ezekiel · About this commentary
The Ship of Tyre
Ezekiel 27:1-36
1 Yahweh’s word came again to me, saying, · WEB
The city is built in the poem as a magnificent ship out of parts sourced from everywhere, and then sunk with all of it aboard.
The conceit is sustained for a whole chapter and it is the most elaborate piece of construction in the prophets. Tyre is a ship, and the poem builds her plank by plank with a bill of materials. Cypress from Senir for the hull. A cedar of Lebanon for the mast. Oaks of Bashan for the oars. Ivory inlaid in cypress for the benches. Embroidered linen from Egypt for the sail, and blue and purple from the islands for the awning.
The crew is sourced the same way. Rowers from Sidon and Arvad, pilots from among Tyre's own wise men, caulkers from Gebal. Then a manifest that runs for a dozen verses and names the trade of half the known world — silver, iron, tin and lead; horses and mules; ivory and ebony; emeralds, purple, embroidery, fine linen, coral and rubies; wheat, honey, oil and balm; wine and wool; lambs, rams and goats; spices, precious stones and gold. It is a customs ledger set to poetry, and its cumulative effect is exactly what Tyre said of herself in the third verse: I am perfect in beauty.
Every item in that inventory is imported. The ship is magnificent and there is nothing in her that is hers. A city that had made itself the junction of everyone else's goods is described entirely in other people's produce, and the poem never says so directly. It simply lists, and lets the list make the point.
Then one line sinks her: The east wind has broken you in the heart of the seas. And the manifest is read out a second time, in reverse, as cargo going down — riches, wares, merchandise, mariners, pilots, caulkers, dealers, men of war, all falling into the heart of the seas in the day of her ruin. The same catalogue that established her wealth becomes the casualty list, and nothing is added to it. The mourners on the shore ask the question the poem has been building toward: Who is there like Tyre, like her who is brought to silence in the middle of the sea?
settled What this mark means