The Fate of Tyre

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Sep 14, 1905

THE city of Tyre was the ancient metropolis of Phenicia, having an important commerce, and buildings noted for their architectural beauty. But it was also a city noted for the wickedness of its people, and its fate was to become an object-lesson of the reward of transgression and the surety of the word of God. Tyre was a flourishing city at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem, at which event it rejoiced, saying, “I shall be replenished, now she is laid waste.” Eze. 26:2. Therefore came the word of the Lord against Tyre: “Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I am against thee, O Tyrus, and will cause many nations to come up against thee, . . . I will also scrape her dust from her, and make her like the top of a rock.” Id., verses 3, 4.

In two noted sieges to which Tyre was subjected, this prophecy was literally fulfilled. Her first was by King Nebuchadnezzar, and lasted thirteen years. Finally the city was taken, and, according to the historian, “All the inhabitants were put to the sword, or led into captivity, the walls were razed to the ground, and it was made a ‘terror’ and a desolation.” But a part of the city was built upon an islet at some distance from the mainland, and at the time of its second noted siege, by the army of Alexander the Great, this island city had become a place of wealth and political importance. Alexander used the ruins of the old city to construct a gigantic mole from the mainland to the island, and thus it happened that the site of the ancient city was literally scraped bare, as the prophecy had foretold.

After the capture of the city by Alexander, it never regained its former commercial importance, though it had become a place of some note in the time of the apostles. The Saviour made a visit to Tyre, and found there a woman of great faith; and the apostle Paul also found at Tyre a number of Christian believers. The siege and capture of the city by the Crusaders, and its subsequent recapture by the Saracens, put the finishing touch to the work of previous judgments, and Tyre has since remained little more than a miserable village, noted only for its memorable past.