The Problem of Tyre

If you’re new here, I posted near the end of 2010 that I was reading through the entire Bible in 90 days so that I could do a book review on it. Since it’s a large book (actually a compilation of books), the review will have some meat to it, but it will also have some focus.

I came across something that wouldn’t fit the review but I wanted to bring up nonetheless, which is the prophecy of Tyre in the book of Ezekiel (chapter 29, verses 19-21):

This is what the Sovereign LORD says: When I make you a desolate city, like cities no longer inhabited, and when I bring the ocean depths over you and its vast waters cover you, then I will bring you down with those who go down to the pit, to the people of long ago. I will make you dwell in the earth below, as in ancient ruins, with those who go down to the pit, and you will not return or take your place in the land of the living. I will bring you to a horrible end and you will be no more. You will be sought, but you will never again be found, declares the Sovereign LORD.

This prophecy interested me because it’s easily verifiable: does Tyre exist today or not? That would confirm or negate Ezekiel 26 (read all of 26 here).

Tyre was a major Phoenician seaport in Ezekiel’s time, 6th century BCE. It was actually in two places: the small island off the coast of modern-day Lebanon and the mainland center. Ezekiel predicted that “many nations” would come against Tyre, starting with Nebuchadnezzar. The mainland city was completely destroyed by Alexander the Great in 332 BCE, where he dragged the rubble of mainland Tyre into the Mediterranean to build a causeway for his troops to reach the island city-Tyre.

It can be argued that Tyre was rebuilt because, uh, there’s a city called Tyre there today.

Putting that fact aside for now, there is some ambiguity in Ezekiel around who does what. It’s implied (not very strongly) that the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar would lay waste to Tyre. He attacked it for 13 years, starting in 585 BCE, but by no means destroyed it to the extent Ezekiel says. Ezekiel switched from “he”, meaning Nebuchadnezzar, to “they”, meaning the “many nations”, from verse 11 to 12. Tyre still stood after Nebuchadnezzar — it would have to be there in some form if other nations would have a crack at it. At worst it looks like Ezekiel is guilty of switching subjects using pronouns without warning — although in the original Hebrew the distinction might be more pronounced.

The easiest way to understand it is to think of “Tyre” metonymically, as Tyre the great Phoenician seaport, not as literal land or a city called Tyre — much in the same way we use Silicon Valley to refer to the tech companies of the San Francisco Bay area and not the actual valley’s geography. This would make sense since Tyre is mentioned many times after Ezekiel as an existing place (Jesus even preached there). The subsequent “rebuilding” of Tyre wasn’t considered to be the same Tyre Ezekiel mentioned, which was now underwater.

So is Ezekiel a false prophet or was Tyre completely destroyed? I could go on, but there’s a lot online about it already:

Alec Field has a nice summary here.
Errancy.org (great site) believes Tyre was rebuilt here.
Aboutbibleprophecy explains Ezekiel’s pronoun juggling here.
Ray Simmons has more details and footnotes at Greatmercy.org here.
Mark Taunton wrote a good analysis on a forum here.
On the same forum, there’s a good back and forth on the Tyre prophecy here.

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