SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/26/2015
11:13 PM
My Worship Time Focus: Introduction
to the Lament over Tyre’s destruction
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Ezekiel
27:1-7
Message
of the verses: As we look at the
introduction to this 27th chapter of the book of Ezekiel we see
something that is a bit unusual, but seen sometimes in the Old Testament, and
that is “The Old Testament prophets occasionally used ‘funeral dirges’ in the
satirical manner to ridicule their enemies, and you find something of that
spirit in the lament over the fall of Tyre,” so says Warren Wiersbe.
Dr. Wiersbe goes on to say “Neither
the prophet nor the Jewish nation was grieved over Tyre’s destruction, but the
even gave Ezekiel opportunity to express spiritual truth in this song. Since Tyre was a maritime city, the chapter
compares the city and its business to a beautiful ship that eventually sinks
and brings great grief to merchants and customers alike. This image is what is
called ‘an extended metaphor,’ not unlike our ‘ship of state.’ A nation or a city isn’t really a ship, but
there are many points of comparison that can help us better understand the
nation and the city. The ship metaphor
included all that was a part of the city of Tyre, its agents and customers, its
business, and all the network it had developed in the Mediterranean world.” One other thing that I noticed as I listened
to this chapter this morning was that it has a similar sound to what is said
about Babylon in the 17th chapter of the book of Revelation,
although to a smaller scale.
Building the Ship (Ezekiel 27:1-7): “1 Moreover, the word of the LORD came to me saying, 2 “And
you, son of man, take up a lamentation over Tyre; 3 and say to Tyre, who dwells
at the entrance to the sea, merchant of the peoples to many coastlands, ’Thus
says the Lord GOD, "O Tyre, you have said, ’I am perfect in beauty.’ 4 “Your
borders are in the heart of the seas; Your builders have perfected your beauty.
5 “They have made all your planks of fir trees from Senir; They have taken a
cedar from Lebanon to make
a mast for you. 6 “Of oaks from Bashan they have made your oars; With ivory they have inlaid
your deck of
boxwood from the coastlands of Cyprus. 7 “Your sail was of fine embroidered linen from Egypt
So that it became your distinguishing mark; Your awning was blue and purple from the
coastlands of Elishah.”
We see here described a beautiful,
but also useful ship that Ezekiel is describing here in these seven
verses. We also can see that the nations
admired and were perhaps a bit jealous over this ship that we see here. This also shows us the pride that Tyre had,
and we will get into more of that when we look at the 28th chapter
of Ezekiel.
One of the points that we can see
from what is seen in these verses as far as in today’s world is that nations
who do not agree with each other will continue to trade with each other in
order to get the things that they want.
Many countries probably did not like Tyre, but they did business with her
in order to get the things that they needed.
The United States does not like the countries that we get oil from, but
we still deal with them.
2/26/2015
11:33 PM
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