The Sure Word of Prophecy by W. A. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 6, 1915

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 92, No. 22.

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The Sure Word of Prophecy

By W. A. S.

Synopsis of Present Truth — No. 4

The Sure Word of Prophecy

(Continued)

The Burden of Tyre

TYRE was the greatest maritime city of antiquity. The Phenicians traded in the ports of all the known world. The prophet Ezekiel describes the heart of the seas as its borders. “Thy builders have perfected thy beauty,” he says. He tells how all countries traded in its marts and contributed to its wealth. And then obeying the word of the Lord, the prophet bears a message of rebuke and warning, and pronounces the coming judgment. The burden of Tyre was:—

“Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I am against thee, O Tyrus, and will cause many nations to come up against thee. . . . And 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. It shall be a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord God.” Eze. 26: 3-5.

The accounts of travelers bear witness that the prophecy has been fulfilled. As to the site of the island city of Ezekiel’s day, Bruce, nearly a century ago, said that he found it a “rock whereon fishers dry their nets.” See “Keith on the Prophecies,” page 329.

In more recent times, Dr. W. M. Thompson found the whole region of Tyre suggestive only of departed glory:—

There is nothing here, certainly of that which led Joshua to call it “the strong city” more than three thousand years ago (Joshua 19:29),—nothing of that mighty metropolis which baffled the proud Nebuchadnezzar and all his power for thirteen years, until “every head” in his army “was made bald, and every shoulder was peeled,” in the hard service against Tyrus (Eze. 29:18),—nothing in this wretched roadstead and empty harbor to remind one of the times when merry mariners did sing in her markets; no visible trace of those towering ramparts which so long resisted the utmost efforts of the great Alexander.

All have vanished utterly like a troubled dream, and Tyre has sunk under the burden of prophecy. . . . As she now is, and has long been, Tyre is God’s witness; but great, and powerful, and populous, she would be the infidel’s boast. This, however, she cannot be. Tyre will never rise from her dust to falsify the voice of prophecy.

“Dim is her glory, gone her fame, Her boasted wealth has fled; On her proud rock, alas! her shame, The fisher’s net is spread. The Tyrian harp has slumbered long And Tyria’s mirth is low; The timbrel, dulcimer, and song Are hushed, or wake to woe.” — “The Land and the Book,” Vol. II, page 627.

Yet another city of ancient times there was, the mightiest of them all, whose fate was a subject of prophecy, and whose history bears special testimony for us today; for, more than any other, the Lord used that city as a symbol of the pride of life and the exaltation of the selfish heart against God. We must study briefly the desolations pronounced upon Babylon of old. W. A. S.

(To be concluded)