Ezekiel 27:2

Lamentation for Tyre. A poem in the qinah rhythm, the rhythm of the dirge (see Vol. Ill, p. 19), begins with v. 3. The lament pictures Tyre under the figure of a gallant ship, fully manned and equipped, sailing everywhere, conducting a prosperous trade, but at last brought into rough seas and shipwrecked. Occasionally the reality breaks through the figure, a characteristic of Ezekiel’s style.

Perhaps the reason why so much space is given to Tyre is that her pride, her ambition, her organization, her conduct, so closely parallel that of the great rebel leader, Satan. In ch. 28:11-19, under the figure of the prince of Tyre, the prophet takes up a lamentation for Satan himself. Later, John the revelator borrows the language of Ezekiel’s prophecy against Tyre to utter his lament at the collapse of Satan’s universal counterfeit religious organization (Rev. 18).