those that go down to the pit, that thou mayest not be inhabited, nor set as an ornament in the land of the living;1 21. Ruins will I make thee, and thou shalt not be; and thou shalt be sought, and shalt not be found any more for ever, saith the Lord Jehovah.

By the isles or sea-coasts, and princes of the sea, in the earlier part of this passage, are chiefly to be understood the maritime powers in different places, colonies of Tyre, with which she traded, and kept up a very close connection. Even the greatest and most influential of these, Carthage in Africa, was accustomed to send a yearly present of gifts to the temple of the Tyrian Hercules; and, as the mother-city, Tyre still had the honour of giving high-priests to her colonial dependencies. Being thus connected by the sacred tie of religion, as well as by the regular intercourse of trade, with these maritime settlements along the coasts of the Mediterranean, we can easily understand how her humiliation would send a thrill of distress through all the affiliated states, and make them fear also for their own prosperity. The description given of this, however, evidently partakes, to a considerable extent, of the ideal; and we are not to suppose, that the rulers of these states were actually to divest themselves of their royal garments, and sit as mourners upon the ground; what is meant is, that the effect produced would be of a kind that would have its just and fitting expression in such natural indications of sorrow. The prophet seems to have before his eye the account of Nineveh's repentance at the preaching of Jonah. And the feeling of trouble and dismay which then pervaded that great city, when it seemed to stand on the verge of destruction, was now, in like manner, to pervade the colonial settlements and trading associates of Tyre, when they heard the report of her overthrow.

What is said of Tyre herself, at the close, is also entirely figurative. She is described as a person going to be submerged

The negative in this verse ought undoubtedly to be applied to both clauses: not be inhabited, and not set as an ornament. The Chaldee, and those who followed it, understood the last clause to refer to Judah, and hence took it positively. But the LXX. properly understood both clauses of Tyre, and took both negatively. The because, or in that, at the beginning of the whole passage, is to be explained as a construction ad sensum. The reason is here given of what goes before.

For the extraordinary number and extent of these colonial possessions of Tyre, see Heeren, Phoenicians, chap. ii.

under the waters that encompassed her, and sent from the land of the living to tenant the lower regions of the dead, the land of gloom and forgetfulness, where the departed of primeval time had their abode. In plain terms, Tyre (like the king of Babylon, in the 14th chapter of Isaiah) was to take rank with the dead, and be no more numbered with the living. But, of course, it is the Tyre that then was, which is meant,-the proud, imperial mistress of the seas; as such, she was to cease to have a local habitation and a name in the earth; she was to be found only among the departed. That there should still be a Tyre on the same spot where the ancient city stood, is nothing against the description; for this poor and shrivelled thing is no longer the Tyre of the prophet,-that is gone, never to return again. And to apply such expressions—as "she shall be no more,” “she shall be sought for, but not be found"-only to Old Tyre, as we find modern travellers very commonly doing, because the very site of this is not precisely known,-is to misapprehend the nature of the description,-it is to turn a figurative into a literal delineation, and to apply only to an inferior city what was plainly meant of the principal one. It is of insular Tyre the prophet speaks, and she is long since written among the dead.

CHAPTER XXVII.

THE LAMENTATION UPON TYRE, WITH AN ACCOUNT OF HER FORMER GREATNESS AND PROSPERITY.

It seems somewhat like a freak of fancy in Ezekiel to dwell at such length, as he does in this chapter, on the commercial greatness of Tyre, and to point out, with such elaborate minuteness, both the circumstances connected with her thriving and wide-spread merchandize, and the notes of lamentation and pity that should be raised over her coming ruin. It is the mark, certainly, of a somewhat peculiar cast of mind, and has no exact parallel in any of the other prophets, who usually present us with merely a few general and characteristic traits, when they

have occasion to speak of the existing condition of a state or people, as contrasted with what they may be destined to become. Yet the prophet, in this singular delineation, was not the less guided by the Spirit of God in what he wrote, nor was the delineation itself less fitted to serve the ends for which such prophecies were written. It was just Ezekiel's way—the way peculiarly suited to his lively and realistic cast of thought-of conveying a distinct and deep impression concerning the things of Tyre; first, her pre-eminent greatness as the centre of the world's wealth and merchandize, and then her complete annihilation in respect to all that had formerly distinguished her; that so, the omniscient eye of God, in foretelling what was to happen, and his overruling providence in accomplishing it, might be more strikingly exhibited. With so full and lively a picture before us of what Tyre was in the prophet's own time, we can the more easily discern the hand of God in rendering her what she has become, and also the Divine foresight which so long beforehand declared that it was certainly to be.

In regard to the form of the delineation, it is a trope. Tyre's existing condition and coming destiny are exhibited under the figure of a ship, constructed of the best materials, manned and equipped in the first style, trading in all mercantile commodities, and with all parts of the commercial world, but at length brought into tempestuous seas, shipwrecked, and involved in irrecoverable ruin. This is the general character of the description; but, as usually happens in the more lengthened tropes of the prophet, the figure occasionally gives place to the reality; the desire to be clear and graphic breaks in, at various points, on the uniformity of the representation. This is particularly the case at ver. 9, where all the ships of the sea are represented as having a place in this figurative vessel; and at ver. 11, where towns and walls and an armed force, as of a city, are mentioned. But, for so long a description, the figure is wonderfully sustained, though it has, in several places, been marred by wrong translations. We shall simply present a translation of the whole, and subjoin a few explanatory remarks on those parts which are more obscure; deeming it unnecessary to enter at any length into the historical points referred to in the description, as regards the commercial relations of antiquity. These have more in them of an antiquarian than of a religious interest, and may be exa

mined, by such as have a taste for the pursuit, in Bochart's Phaleg, or, what is now more accessible, Heeren's Historical Researches, where the trade and policy of the Phoenicians have received due attention.

Ver. 1. And the word of Jehovah came to me, saying: 2. And thou, son of man, lift up a lamentation over Tyre; 3. And say to Tyre, O thou that dwellest by the entrances (ports or havens) of the sea,1 the peoples' merchantess into many sea-coasts, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Tyre, thou sayest, I am perfect in beauty. 4. In the midst of the seas is thy territory; thy builders have perfected thy beauty. 5. Of fir-trees from Senir they constructed all thy boards; cedar from Lebanon have they taken to make a mast for thee.2 6. Of oaks of Bashan they made thy oars; thy plankwork (deck) they made ivory (i. e., they inlaid with ivory) with boxes from the isle of Cyprus.3 7. Fine linen with broidered work from Egypt, was thy sail, to serve for a banner (streamer) to thee; bluish and red purple from the sea-coasts of Elisha (Greece) were thy awning. 8. The inhabitants of Zidon

The are the openings, the inlets or outlets, by which one finds communication with the sea, in going and coming; hence its ports (as from the Latin porta, the gate that opens out and in to a city, there is portus, that does the same to the sea). Tyre was remarkable for its good harbours: ancient writers specially notice two-one on the north, and another on the south.

2 Senir was the Sidonian name for Hermon (Deut. iii. 9). Instead of fir-trees, some read cypresses, which is countenanced by Sirach xxiv. 13, where the cypress is named as the peculiar production of Hermon. The names of trees, in Scripture, are not very accurately defined. The cedar of Lebanon is well known from its height, durability, and strength; hence, well adapted for the purpose here mentioned-making masts. It is also matter of history, that the Tyrians obtained wood for their costlier buildings from these mountains. See, especially, Josephus, Antiq. viii. 5.

3 Instead of the punctuation of the Hebrew text, making two words of 2, the junction of the two, long ago proposed by the Chaldee: asseres buxeos ebore obductos, also adopted by Rabbi Solomon, has been sanctioned by Bochart, and is now, indeed, generally acquiesced in. It is scarcely possible to make any intelligible meaning of the existing punctuation: Hävernick still tries it, but with little success. Even with the change proposed, the sentence is somewhat peculiar in its construction. By the

, have very commonly been understood, the benches on which the rowers sat; but as there were tiers of these at each side of the vessel, the singular is rather against the supposition. It is more probably the deck, as Hitzig suggests, that is meant, which was one piece, though made up of many separate parts.

4 The meaning of the verse is, that the fine quality of the sail. cloth, and the embroidery upon it, was instead of a pennant or standard; it served the purpose of this. Several of the plates in Wilkinson's Egypt show what expense was sometimes gone into by the ancients in decorating their sails.

and Arvad were thy rowers; thy wise men, Tyre, that were in thee, were thy steersmen.1 9. Men of mature age from Gebal and her skilled ones were thy calkers (literally, stoppers of chinks); all the ships of the sea with their mariners were in thee to handle thy merchandize. 10. Persia and Lud, and Phut were in thy army, thy men of war; the shield and helmet they hung in thee; they made thee glorious. 11. The men of Arvad and thine army were upon thy walls round about, and men of daring were in thy towers;2 they hung their shields upon thy walls round about; they perfected thy beauty. 12. Tarshish was thy dealer from the abundance of all sort of wealth; with silver, with iron, with tin, and with lead, they did barter with thee. 13. Javan, Tubal, and Mesech, they were thy merchants; with souls of men and articles of brass they did barter with thee.1 14. They of the house of Togarmah in horses, riding-steeds, and mules, did barter with thee.5 15. The men of Dedan were thy merchants; many sea-coasts were the mart of thy hand (i. e., were dependent on thee for their trade); horns of ivory and ebony they brought in return as thy reward. 16. Syria was thy mart for

1 When the men of Zidon and Arvad (Aradus) are mentioned as oarsmen in the ships of Tyre, it denotes the relative superiority of Tyre: these also were very important Phoenician cities, yet their men sought employment in the merchant-vessels of Tyre, certainly not working as slaves, but with the view of bettering their condition.

2 The Gammadims of our version ought to be translated; there is no trace whatever of such a people; and the position which the persons in question are said to have occupied, that of keeping watch in the towers, is one that would never have been entrusted to foreigners. The sense also adopted by Hitzig and some others, deserters (namely, from other countries), is arbitrary and unsuitable. I follow those, among whom is Hävernick, who, from the Arabic, obtain the sense of hardy, strong, daring, or enterprising. The stout-hearted and daring occupied her watch-towers.

3

, not as in the received translation," they traded in thy fairs," but they made thy exchanges, or did barter with thee. The noun is from the verb 21, to leave; hence, "that which you leave to any one, for something else given you by him in regular barter" (Gussetius). So also Ewald, Hävernick, and others. The richness of Tarshish, the Latin Tartessus, and that part of Spain in which it was situated, in the precious metals mentioned in this part of the text, is well known.

4 Javan, the Ionians or Greeks; Mesech, the Moschi, in the Moschian mountains, between Armenia, Iberia, and Colchis; Tubal, the Tibareni in Pontus; all, in short, of Greece, or connected with it. The souls of men, in which these races are said to have trafficked with Tyre, are the slaves which, when obtained from certain parts of Greece and the surrounding countries, were particularly prized in ancient times.

5 The must here mean, a certain kind of horses,-horses for riding; as it could not be the prophet's design to class horsemen with horses and and mules, as articles of trade. That the word has this meaning also, in other passages, see Gesenius, Lex. Togarmah is Armenia.

6" Horns of ivory," were so called because of the resemblance of ivory, in its original state, to horns; not, as some have gratuitously supposed, because