Ezekiel 27:29, commentary and pictures

Ezekiel 27:29 belongs to the lamentation and prophecy over Tyre in Ezekiel 26 to 28, foretelling the ruin and utter destruction of the great Phoenician commercial center. It pictures the oarsmen, sailors and pilots abandoning their vessels to stand on the shore as the city's vast maritime trade and wealth collapse under judgment. The fall came because Tyre was lifted up by worldwide merchandise and a grasping commercial spirit that put gain before honor and integrity and forgot God, until God humbled her pride. That same trafficking spirit lives on in great Babylon, the modern Tyre embracing all the earth, whose sudden fall will likewise leave its merchants desolate. The downfall therefore stands as a warning to every proud city and people that forgets and defies God, in later times as well.

Setting and Plain Meaning

Ezekiel 27:29 belongs to the lamentation over the destruction of Tyre given in Ezekiel 26 to 28, which shows the ruin of Tyre whose utter destruction is predicted. Those chapters speak prophetically about Tyre, the commercial emporium of Phoenicia. It is part of the prophecy concerning Tyre, one of the prophecies of other nations in Ezekiel 25 to 31 concerning Ammon, Moab, Tyre, and Egypt, remarkable prophecies whose fulfillment is evident today.

The verse depicts all that handle the oar, the mariners and the pilots of the sea, leaving their ships and standing upon the land or shore. This leaving of the ships and standing on land and on the shore is part of the judgment against Tyre. It is part of the lament over the city's destruction.

The verse belongs to a chapter that sets forth Tyre's extensive commerce and great maritime trade. It portrays the people who worked its ships and navigated its trade, the seafarers and sea pilots and mariners, as part of the city's prosperity. Ezekiel 27 in this way describes the vast wealth and greatness of ancient Tyre as a coastal city.

Fulfilled Prophecy and Warning

The word against Tyre, the great commercial city of the world, was given through Ezekiel during the twenty-two years Jehovah pleaded with Israel to turn to God. In those years the kingdoms on all sides of Israel were used to show how God had brought down their pride and would bring down the pride of those who still remained. Tyre would be utterly wiped out of existence, so that the very place on which she stood would become a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea. Nebuchadnezzar, of whom the false prophets said he was not coming against Jerusalem, would capture Tyre, and from Tyre would go on to conquer Jerusalem.

The chapter presents Tyre as a city of worldwide merchandise whose traffickers were everywhere. She was possessed by a spirit of commercialism that overrides honor and integrity, seeks to possess all nations and to gather every commodity, even the bodies and souls of men. Forgetting God and making gold first, she became so corrupt and exalted that God must humble her. The same spirit and traffic lives on in great Babylon, the modern Tyre, which is not one city but a federation taking in all the earth, whose fall in one hour leaves its merchants desolate. Ancient Tyre itself is described as a coastal city of vast wealth and greatness, whose people later carried their wealth away by ship when the city was about to fall.

The abandonment of the ships by all that handle the oar, the mariners and the pilots of the sea, belongs to the judgment on a proud, God-defying city. The chapter stands as a warning for cities and people who forget and defy God. Its lesson also applies to later cities that forget and defy God, including New York and Chicago.