Bible Commentaries
Ezekiel 25

Verses 1-32

XVII

PROPHECIES AGAINST THE FOREIGN NATIONS

Ezekiel 25-32

Ezekiel has grouped his prophecies in regard to the foreign nations that came in contact with Israel, as Jeremiah also groups his prophecies in Ezekiel 46-51. Isaiah also groups his, in reference to the foreign nations, in Ezekiel 13-23. These three greatest of the prophets had oracles on the nations with whom Israel came in contact during that period of their history. Amos also devotes the earlier part of his prophecies to utterances regarding these same nations. Nahum devotes his prophecy to predicting the downfall of Nineveh and the Assyrian Kingdom. Obadiah’s entire prophecy relates to the downfall of Edom.

Some may ask the question, Why these prophecies against the foreign nations? Let us endeavor to find some reasons why Ezekiel should give these oracles against the foreign powers. They were written during the siege of Jerusalem, at a time when Ezekiel was perfectly sure that the city would fall, as he had been preaching for many years that doctrine to the exiles. Jeremiah had been preaching the same thing to the people in Jerusalem and Judah. The fall of Jerusalem at the hands of foreign and heathen powers would seem to establish the triumph of heathenism. The nations would conclude from this fact that because Jehovah’s kingdom, city, and Temple had fallen and the great heathen powers had triumphed, therefore Jehovah was inferior to the heathen gods.

On this point the prophets of Jehovah had something to say, and such was apparently the occasion for these prophecies. They would serve to confirm the sentence of God upon Israel in showing that God dealt with the foreign nations as he did with Israel; that he punishes sin as surely and as severely among the heathen as he does in Israel, and although the heathen nations seem to survive for awhile, they are no exception to the rule of righteousness with Jehovah. Again, the downfall of these nations at the hand of Jehovah and the prophecies regarding them, would have their influence upon Israel for the future. With the heathen nations out of the way, Israel would be free to return to her land and set up the everlasting kingdom that Jeremiah and Isaiah and Ezekiel had prophesied. The enemies, the old hereditary enemies of Israel, shall be destroyed utterly and absolutely, therefore the kingdom of God shall have free course to be glorified.

Ezekiel speaks of seven nations; five of them are small, but two of them are large nations. He says nothing of Babylon except by way of inference. He is living in Babylon and doubtless that was sufficient reason for refraining from speaking against that great empire.

The prophecy against Ammon is found in Ezekiel 25:1-7. Ammon bordered on the tribe of Reuben, and when that tribe was deported by Tiglath-pileser, Ammon seized the territory of Reuben contrary to what was right. Ammon had suffered at the hands of Jephthah, and also David through his general, Joab. Ammon bore hatred against Israel, but along with Judah he rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar, out of no friendship to Judah, but with the possible hope of freedom for himself. When Judah was destroyed, Ammon rejoiced and because of that Ezekiel hurls his denunciation against him: "Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Because thou saidst, Aha, against my sanctuary, when it was profaned; and against the land of Israel, when it was made desolate; and against the house of Judah, when they went into captivity; therefore, behold, I will deliver thee into captivity; thou shalt be utterly destroyed and thy capital, Rabbah, shall be a stable for camels and thy territory shall be possessed by the roving Bedouin Arabs of the desert." He holds out no hope for the future whatever. Jeremiah did prophesy a future for Ammon, but Ezekiel does not.

Ezekiel’s prophecy against Moab is recorded in Ezekiel 25:8-11. Isaiah and Jeremiah also have oracles against Moab. Moab had, like Ammon, seized a part of the territory of Reuben and was famous for her pride, an inordinate, selfish pride. When Jerusalem fell Moab also scorned her and rejoiced over her fall and said, "Behold, the house of Judah is like unto all the nations." Because Moab said that Jehovah’s people, with their king, was just like other nations, "therefore," says Ezekiel, "Moab shall be overwhelmed and destroyed forevermore." No hope for the future is held out for Moab by Ezekiel. Jeremiah did give some hope to Moab, but none is given by Ezekiel.

Then follows the prophecy against Edom (Ezekiel 25:12-14). The country of Edom lies south of the Dead Sea and north of the Gulf of Akabah. Edom had borne hatred against Israel since the days of Esau. It was born in her, and she was nourished in animosity toward her neighbor. David almost exterminated the Edomites, and they were brought into subjection time and time again. They never forgave Israel, and when Judah and Jerusalem were overwhelmed, Edom also rejoiced and took captive all the fleeing Israelites she could and sold them into slavery. Because of that Ezekiel pronounces an irretrievable doom: "Therefore thus saith the Lord God, I will stretch out my hand upon Edom, and will cut off man and beast from it; and I will make it desolate from Teman; even unto Dedan shall they fall by the sword."

The prophecy against Philistia (Ezekiel 25:15-17): These were likewise the old, hereditary foes of Israel. They were very much like the Edomites in their feelings against her. They were revengeful, filled with an everlasting enmity, and rejoiced when Jerusalem went up in smoke. Because of that Ezekiel hurls his denunciations against the Philistines: they were to be crushed by the yoke Nebuchadnezzar. They had already been almost wiped out by the Assyrians. They were destroyed as a nation by the Babylonians, and at the time of the Maccabees they were completely exterminated as a nation.

Tyre was one of the greatest commercial nations of the old world, corresponding to the English nation in the modern world. The date of this prophecy is 586 B.C., the first day of the first month of the siege of Jerusalem. The prophet devotes three chapters to his oracles against Tyre. That city had achieved great commercial importance. She traded with every known nation in the world; she had lent her influence to every nation; she was the envy of almost every nation. She was the most active, the most aggressive, had the greatest commercial power, in some respects the greatest wisdom and the greatest skill, as well as the greatest colonizing power, of any nation at that period. From the thirteenth century Tyre was the commercial center. She had been friendly to Judah and Jerusalem under David and Solomon and some later kings, but for a century or two her relations to Judah had been changed; she had grown jealous of Judah’s commercial advantages, and was now exhibiting the same hatred and jealousy toward Judah that all the other nations were manifesting. She rejoiced over the fall of Jerusalem the same as the other nations. Her business rival was now destroyed; her own chances were enhanced and, with the true spirit of commercial greed, she was glad that her sister nation had perished.

The destruction of the city of Tyre is described in Ezekiel 26. In Ezekiel 26:2 the prophet gives his reason for hurling this denunciation and prophecy of destruction against Tyre: "Son of man, because that Tyre hath said against Jerusalem, Aha, she is broken that was the gate of the people; she is turned unto me; I shall be replenished, now that she is laid waste." Therefore, he denounced her and predicted her fate.

It was by Nebuchadnezzar, and in predicting her fall and end, Ezekiel 26:5 says, "She shall be a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea; for I have spoken it, saith the Lord God; and she shall become a spoil to the nations." He would scrape the great rock, the island upon which Tyre was built, so that the very dust itself would be taken off and there would be nothing there but a bare rock for spreading and drying the nets of the fishermen. That is almost literally true today and has been for centuries.

From that verse on, he predicts the siege of the city by Nebuchadnezzar. Tyre was built upon an island rock a short distance from the shore and was one of the strongest forts of the world. Nebuchadnezzar had to build a causeway from the mainland to reach the city. Ezekiel describes his mode of attacking the city in verse Ezekiel 26:9: "And he shall set his battering engines against thy walls, and with his axes he shall break down thy towers," and he continues with a full description of the rushing of the chariots over the streets and the indiscriminate slaughter of the inhabitants, with a sack of the great city.

From Ezekiel 26:15-19 we have the consternation of the various nations over the fall of this great commercial center. If New York, that center of commercial life, were to be destroyed, it would not send a greater thrill of consternation throughout the civilized world and would not more seriously affect the industrial life of America than did the fall of Tyre shock every nation and affect the commerce of every people of the world. They are represented as being in a state of consternation and it says in Ezekiel 26:17, "They shall take up a lamentation for thee, and say to thee, How art thou destroyed, that wast inhabited by seafaring men, the renowned city, that was strong in the sea, she and her inhabitants, that caused their terror to be on all that dwelt there." In the last two verses of that chapter he describes the inhabitants of Tyre as sinking down into Sheol, the pit, or abyss, the abode of the dead, and there abiding in darkness forever.

We have a magnificent description of Tyre by Ezekiel under the figure of a great ship in Ezekiel 27. In this chapter we have one of the finest passages in the Old Testament and one of the best opportunities for the study of ancient commerce to be found anywhere. Tyre is pictured as a gallant ship, a splendid big ship, one of the great merchantmen of that age: "They have made all thy planks of fir trees from Senir [Hermon]; they have taken a cedar from Lebanon to make a mast for thee. Of the oaks of Bashan have they made thine oars; they have made thy benches of ivory inlaid in boxwood, from the isles of Kittim [Cyprus."] Her sail was made of fine linen from Egypt, and it was an ensign. Ships did not carry flags in that age, but they had colored sails and figures marked upon them which served the purpose of a flag. Thus the purple of Egypt served as an ensign, or flag. Blue and purple linen of Elishah [which refers to Peloponnesus] furnished the awning for the ship.

The men of Sidon, a town about twenty miles north, and the men of Arvad, a town still farther north on the Mediterranean coast, were its mariners, or rowers. Ships in that age had one or two sets of rowers. The ship in which Paul sailed had rowers, and the mariners in Jonah’s ship rowed hard. The men of Tyre, the wisest of the world, as they thought, and the best seamen and navigators of the world, were their pilots. The elders of Gebal, the best carpenters, were their calkers, literally, the leak-stoppers. Look at the army on board to guard this magnificent ship: They were men of Arvad; "Persia and Lud, and Phut were in thine army, thy men of war: they hanged the shield and helmet in thee; they set forth thy comeliness . . . and valorous men were in thy towers."

Then he goes on in (Ezekiel 27:12-14) to describe the sea commerce of the great city of Tyre. To Tarshish, away on the western coast of Spain, the Strait of Gibraltar on the Atlantic Ocean her trade extended. "Tarshish was thy merchant by reason of the multitude of all kinds of riches; with silver, iron, tin, and lead, they traded for thy wares." From Javan, Tubal, (south of the Black Sea) and Meshech, they brought vessels of brass and slaves. Togarmah is supposed to be modern Armenia, probably bordering on the Black Sea also. They reached this country by ships through the Black Sea and the straits. What did they get there? Horses and mules. So much for the sea commerce.

Now he gives the land commerce (Ezekiel 27:15-25). Dedan was the Arab tribe bordering on the southern and eastern boundary of Palestine and Edom. Here they got horns of ivory and ebony which indicates that these merchants either went into Africa and made use of the elephant tusks, or went into India and obtained the ivory and ebony there.

Syria, round about Damascus, supplied them with emeralds, purple and broidered work, fine linen, coral and rubies.

Judah supplied them with wheat of Minnith, and Pannag (perhaps a kind of confection), honey, oil, and balm.

Damascus supplied them with the wine of Helbon, the finest and best wine of the world at that time; also with white wool.

Vedan and Javan supplied them with bright iron, cassia, and calamus.

Dedan supplied them with precious clothes for riding. When the ladies would go out riding, the fine clothes they wore came all the way from Dedan, probably located in southeastern Arabia.

Arabia and the princes of Kedar supplied them with lambs, rams, and goats.

Sheba and Raamah supplied them with all kinds of spices, precious stones, and gold.

Haran, Canneh, Eden, Asshur, and Chilmad supplied them with blue cloth and broidered work, and in chests of rich apparel, bound with cords and made of cedar.

Now that is a magnificent description of the commerce of Tyre. It is the analogue of that marvelous description which we find in Revelation 18:1-20, where John pictures all the merchants of the earth mourning over the fall of the great city, Babylon. Many things there are identical with the articles of commerce here.

Next we have the fate of this magnificent ship (Ezekiel 27:26-36): "Thy rowers have brought thee into great waters: the east wind hath broken thee in the heart of the seas. Thy riches, and thy wares, thy merchandise, thy mariners, and thy pilots, thy calkers, and the dealers in thy merchandise, and all thy men of war, that are in thee, with all thy company which is in the midst of thee, shall fall into the heart of the seas in the day of thy ruin." Her rowers had rowed into dangerous waters, and the divine powers broke upon her. The east wind, or divine judgment, produced the fall of the great city of Tyre. In Ezekiel 27:28-36 there is the lamentation of the nations over the fall of this great city, just as John pictures all the merchants of the world lamenting over the fall of the great mystical Babylon, Rome.

The pride and fall of Tyre are represented in Ezekiel 28:1-19. This is a representation of what he had already said, only here he takes the prince of Tyre as a personified spirit of the city, the prince, representing the people, and gathering up in himself, as it were, the spirit of the people. He directs his lamentation against the prince. He represents the prince of Tyre as saying, "I am a god, I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas." That was the spirit of Tyre and is the spirit of every great commercial center where the commercial spirit rules and reigns.

Babylon said, "I am, and there is none else beside me." Self-glorification, self-deification, idolizing self, is the besetting sin of every great commercial city. It has been and is today, and because of this great commercialism and inordinate pride, the prince of Tyre was doomed to destruction. They had great wisdom, worldly wisdom; they had great power, great wealth, great glory, but they were great idolaters and as such they perished. In Ezekiel 28:11-19 he pictures the prince of Tyre as a cherub in the garden of God, or on the mountain of God, clothed in all the magnificence of the finest and most precious and costliest stones that could be found. This cherub, this angelic being, fell prey to sin and was destroyed.

There is also a prophecy against Sidon in Ezekiel 28:20-24. (For the prophecies of this passage see the text.) Sidon was an important city a few miles north of Tyre and her fate was involved in the fate of Tyre. When Nebuchadnezzar destroyed one he destroyed the other, with all the villages and towns adjacent to it.

Then follows another wonderful prophecy of the restoration of Israel and the blessings upon her after her return (Ezekiel 28:25-26).

Egypt was a great nation, one of the greatest nations of the world, and Ezekiel devotes four chapters to her fall. The date of it was during the siege of Jerusalem, 587 B.C. The following is a summary of the prophecy against her:

1. A general statement of the fall of Egypt (Ezekiel 29:1-16). Egypt is compared to a dragon, a crocodile, a huge alligator floundering around in the river Nile and boasting, as he says in the latter part of verse Ezekiel 29:3: "My river is mine own, and I have made it for myself." That was the spirit of Egypt. That great dragon-crocodile shall be taken with hooks in his mouth and Jehovah will pull him up and drag him forth and all the little fishes that belong to him will hang onto his scales, and he will be taken out into the wilderness and there he will be meat for the beasts and fowls of the air. This means that Egypt shall be destroyed from one end to the other, from the tower of Seveneh unto the border of Ethiopia. "Yet thus saith the Lord God: At the end of forty years will I gather the Egyptians from the peoples whither they were scattered; and I will bring back the captivity of Egypt, and will cause them to return into the land of Pathros, into the land of their birth; and they shall be there a base kingdom." After that Egypt shall be the basest of the kingdoms; "neither shall it any more lift itself up above the nations: and I will diminish them, that they shall no more rule over the nations." From that time until this, Egypt has been a poor, weak, and worthless power.

2. The reward of Nebuchadnezzar for failure to get booty at Tyre (Ezekiel 29:17-21). The prophecy against Tyre that we have been studying was uttered in the year 586 B.C. Shortly after the fall of Jerusalem Nebuchadnezzar besieged Tyre and continued the siege for thirteen years. We are not told whether he succeeded in capturing and destroying the city or not. Now, this prophecy came from Ezekiel in the year 570 B.C., the first month, first day of the month, sixteen years after he had written the previous prophecy. During those sixteen years Nebuchadnezzar had been besieging Tyre for thirteen years and had apparently destroyed the city as Ezekiel had prophesied, but had taken no spoil. Ezekiel had definitely prophesied that Nebuchadnezzar would utterly and completely overwhelm Tyre, and he had seemingly done it. This prophecy throws some light upon the situation. Ezekiel 29:18 says, "Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, caused his army to serve a great service against Tyre; every head was made bald, and every shoulder was worn; yet had he no wages, nor his army, from Tyre, for the service he had served against it." How extremely hard was this thirteen years of toil I Now that plainly indicates that Nebuchadnezzar did not succeed in securing the wealth of the Tyre.

The truth seems to be that the people of Tyre spirited away by ships all their wealth and most of their inhabitants, and capitulated to Nebuchadnezzar at the end of about thirteen years, and when he entered the city he had nothing to destroy nor any wealth to take. Such seems probable, though we have no history that would justify the statement.

Now, because Nebuchadnezzar had performed this service for Jehovah against Tyre and had received no wages (Ezekiel 29:19-20), God says, "Therefore, thus saith the Lord God: Behold, I will give the land of Egypt unto Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon; and he shall carry off her multitude, and take her spoil, and take her prey; and it shall be the wages for his army. I have given him the land of Egypt as his recompense for which he served, because they wrought for me, saith the Lord God."

3. The terror and dismay of the surrounding nations (Ezekiel 30:1-19). The fall of a nation sends a thrill of horror and dismay through the world, and the fall of a great nation like Egypt struck terror into the hearts of all the surrounding nations, Arabia, Ethiopia, Crete, etc.

4. The broken arm of Egypt (Ezekiel 30:20-26). Egypt had had one arm broken, probably by Nebuchadnezzar. Now Ezekiel prophesies that Egypt shall have both arms broken, and her power shall be destroyed.

5. Pharaoh represented as a lordly cedar cut down (Ezekiel 31:3), "Behold, the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon." He is using Assyria as an example for Egypt. He goes on with his magnificent description of the cedar. It is cut down. The Babylonians and Medes lay the ax at the roots and the cedar falls, crashing among the nations. In Ezekiel 31:16 he pictures them as going down into the nethermost part of the earth into the pit of Sheol to abide forever.

6. Lamentation over the fall of Egypt (Ezekiel 32:1-16). Here we have the picture of the dragon again, destroyed and left for a prey of the birds and beasts.

7. The welcome to Sheol, or Hades, by the nations (Ezekiel 32:17-32).

This has been said to be the most weird piece of literature in all the world. All the people of Egypt, the princes, the mighty men, the soldiers, who were slain in these wars, go down into Sheol, the underworld, the place of the departed, and there existing in their shadowy and weak existence, grouped together and with them is Assyria and all her hosts that were slain with the sword: grouped together also and with them, Elam and all her hosts; grouped around them Mesheck, Tubal, and all her multitude; Edom, her kings, and all her princes, and all the Sidonians grouped together in Sheol. These are all in the shadowy world below, surrounding Egypt. In Ezekiel 32:31, Pharaoh and his hosts and all these foreign countries and their hosts, are said to be in Sheol where light is as darkness, and are gathered together in groups and Pharaoh shall see them and shall be comforted over all this multitude of slain ones. It is a picture of their conception of the underworld, Sheol, which is the place of the dead who have passed through what we know to be the grave, down into the spirit world. Thus Ezekiel leaves these nations in Sheol, the place where there is no light.

QUESTIONS

1. What prophets prophesied against foreign nations and what can you say of the grouping of their prophecies?

2. Why these prophecies against foreign nations?

3. What and why the prophecy against Ammon? (Ezekiel 25:1-7.)

4. What and why the prophecy against Moab? (Ezekiel 25:8-11.)

5. What and why the prophecy against Edom? (Ezekiel 25:12-14.)

6. What and why the prophecy against Philistia? (Ezekiel 25:15-17.)

7. What can you say of Tyre’s commercial importance and her attitude toward Judah and Jerusalem?

8. How is the destruction of the city of Tyre described in chapter 26?

9. Give the magnificent description of Tyre by Ezekiel under the figure of a great ship (27).

10. How is the pride and fall of Tyre represented in Ezekiel 28:1-19?

11. What is the prophecy against Sidon in Ezekiel 28:20-24, when fulfilled and what prophecy relative to the children of Israel?

12. Summarize the prophecy against Egypt (Ezekiel 29-32).

13. What is the added prophecy concerning Tyre in Ezekiel 28:17-21?