Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Ezekiel 26:4
And they shall destroy the walls of Tyrus, and break down her towers: I will also scrape her dust from her, and make her like the top of a rock.
4. like the top of a rock ] like a naked rock, ch. Eze 24:7. Tyre stood upon a small island of rock separated from the mainland by a narrow strait. She shall be swept from her place, and her dust scraped into the sea, leaving her island site a bare rock, cf. Eze 26:12.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Verse 4. I will also scrape her dust from her] I will totally destroy her fortifications, and leave her nothing but a barren rock, as she was before. This cannot refer to the capture of Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar. It flourished long after his time.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Destroy; batter and demolish with their mighty engines, which shall shake, disjoint, and beat down the strongest parts of their walls.
Break down; undermine, that they may tumble at once, or employ hands to take them down, as men pull down buildings.
Towers; watch-towers, and those that were for defence and safety of their city, which from their greatness have their name, Migdol.
I will also scrape her dust from her; I will leave thee nothing, thou shalt be scraped, and brushed, and swept, that not so much as dust shall remain to thee.
And make her like the top of a rock; as bare as was the rock on which thy city is built before wealth, beauty, buildings, and strength was brought to it by mans industry.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
And they shall destroy the walls of Tyrus…. Undermining them, or breaking them down with their battering rams:
and break down her towers; with axes, Eze 26:9 built upon the walls; erected for the defence of the city, and for watchmen to stand in, to look out from them for the enemy, and observe his motions, as well as for soldiers to fight from:
and I will scrape her dust from her, and make her like the top of a rock; a bare smooth rock, which has not any surface of earth upon it. So the Targum,
“I will give her for the smoothness of an open rock.”
Tyre was built upon a rock; and whereas the inhabitants had brought earth thither, and laid it upon it, in order to make gardens and orchards, and plant flowers and trees; this should be all removed, and it should become a bare rock, as it was at first. It denotes the utter destruction of it. It has its name from a word which signifies a rock;
[See comments on Isa 23:1].
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(4) Her dust.Comp. Eze. 26:12. The dust is that of her ruined walls and palaces and temples. Scraping expresses their utter destruction. As an historic fact, the ruins of the ancient city have all been thrown into the sea, and what now remains is of mediaeval construction, although the greater part of even the mediaeval ruins have been carried away.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
4. Top of a rock Or, naked rock. (See Eze 24:7-8.)
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Eze 26:4. I will also scrape her dust from her I will brush away the dust out of her, and reduce her to a dry rock: Houbigant: an allusion to the custom in Palestine of fertilizing particular spots by carrying mould to them from other places less eligible for the purpose of sowing or planting. Chandler renders the last clause, I will make thee as a shining or barren rock; that is to say, as appears by the context, “Strip thee of thy riches, pride, power, inhabitants, palaces; so that thou shalt be as bare as a rock which hath nothing on it, and is of no other use than “for the spreading and drying of nets.” See Eze 26:14 and Psa 68:6.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Eze 26:4 And they shall destroy the walls of Tyrus, and break down her towers: I will also scrape her dust from her, and make her like the top of a rock.
Ver. 4. And they shall destroy the walls of Tyrus. ] Which thou holdest to be inexpugnable. Hence this and the two following chapters, purposely to undeceive thee, if it may be.
I will also scrape her dust from her.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
the top of a rock = a bare rock.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
destroy: Eze 26:9, Isa 23:11, Jer 5:10, Amo 1:10, Zec 9:3
I: Eze 26:12, Lev 14:41-45
make: Eze 24:7, Eze 24:8
Reciprocal: 1Ki 14:10 – as a man taketh Lam 2:13 – for Eze 26:14 – like Eze 27:32 – the destroyed
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
THE DOOM OF TYRE
I will make her like the top of a rock.
Eze 26:4
Eleven years after the carrying away of Jehoiachini.e. the year after the fall of Jerusalem, and whilst Tyre was rejoicing over the fall of the Hebrew capitalEzekiel set forth her sin, her doom, the instruments by which she would be punished, and the effect produced by her downfall.
I. She was the great trading centre of the old world, what Venice was in the Middle Ages, and Liverpool or New York is to-day. She thought that she would greatly profit by the fall of Jerusalem, but instead, under the terrible siege and assault of Nebuchadnezzar, her site would become as bare as it was before her mighty buildings, marts, and harbours were constructed. The towns and villages dependent on her (her daughters) would share her fate. When this prophecy was uttered, nothing seemed less probable than that Tyre should fall before any attack, for she had already withstood the powerful armies of Assyria, and there was every reason to think she would resist those of Babylon; but the Divine purpose must stand.
II. So all earthly greatness, however stable it may seem, must pass away.The things which excite mens ambition and cupidity shall perish with the using, and God will set glory only in the land of the living. In this case that phrase must refer to the Hebrew people, who should have Jehovah as a wall of fire and His glory in their midst (Zec 2:5). But in its further scope the words surely refer to those who are numbered in the Book of Life, and shall reign with Christ when the works of human pride have vanished like the morning mist.
III. We have to suffer for our sins.Every step that we take over flowers along the forbidden path, we have to retrace, but the flowers have turned to hot ashes. The way of transgressors is hard, and the very people and circumstances that were associated with the pleasures of sin become the scorpion whips by which we are scourged back to the forsaken path. The ancients believed in Nemesis; and the Gospel does not hesitate to utter the same warning note, that every man must reap as he has sown. Let man or woman sin with a confederate, he or she will be the sure curse and sorrow of after life, unless by some special providence God shall interpose.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
Eze 26:4. In connection with this verse I shall make a quotation from Smith’s Bible Dictionary, and I request the reader to note especially the words walls, dust and rock as he reads the quotation because they are important words in the verse of the present paragraph, At that time [Alexander’s attack in 332 B.C.l Tyre was situated on an island half a mile from the mainland: it was completely surrounded by prodigious [huge] walls, the loftiest portion of which on the side fronting the mainland reached a height of not less than 150 feet; and notwithstanding the persevering efforts of Alexander, he could not have sue ceeded iu his attempt if the harbor of Tyre to the north had not been blockaded by the Cyprians and that to the south by the Phoenicians, thus affording an opportunity to Alexander for uniting the island to the main-land by an enormous mole. (The materials for this he obtained from the remains of old Tyre, scraping the very dust from her rocks into the sea, as prophesied by Ezekiel. Eze 26:3-4; Eze 26:12; Eze 26:21, more than 250 years be-fore.)
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Eze 26:4-6. They shall destroy the walls of Tyrus, &c. The expressions of these verses signify that Tyre should be entirely demolished, and that the place where the city stood should be made as bare as the top of a rock, and that it should be employed to no other use but that of a desolate shore, the drying of the fishermens nets. Nebuchadnezzar quite demolished old Tyre, and the stones and rubbish of it were afterward made use of by Alexander, to carry on a causeway from the continent to the island where new Tyre stood, by which means he took that. This latter city is since so decayed, that there are no remains of it left but a few huts belonging to fishermen, who are in the habit of hanging out their nets to dry upon the rocks, as is related by travellers that have been upon the place. The present inhabitants of Tyre. says Maundrell, page 49, are only a few poor wretches, harbouring themselves in the vaults, and subsisting chiefly upon fishing. The Jesuit Hadrianus Parvillerius resided ten years in Syria; and the famous Huetius heard him say, that when he approached the ruins of Tyre, and beheld the rocks stretched forth to the sea, and the great stones scattered up and down on the shore, made clean and smooth by the sun, waves, and winds, and useful only for the drying of fishermens nets, many of which happened at the time to be spread on them, it brought to his memory this prophecy: see Newton on the prophecies, Diss. 11.; and note on Isa 23:1, &c. And her daughters shall be slain with the sword By the daughters of Tyre here are meant the lesser towns, which were under her jurisdiction as the mother city, or metropolis of the kingdom: the inhabitants of these would be slain with the sword.