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Ezekiel 27-29
We are in the Prophetic Stream reading from the Modern English Version.
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Commentary by Dr. Drake Travis
Lord, what an awful price people pay for mocking you, ignoring you, assuming your role is theirs. I pray we are the opposite of these wrong-minded people. May we worship and serve you humbly all our days. Amen.
Ezekiel’s visions of what is going to happen to Tyre continues:
27 – this chapter is the middle of the visions for Tyre. Here Ezekiel gives an elaborate list of the superlatives that are Tyre. The impressions of the picturesque city, the exquisite goods that ship through, the regal and ornate ships that move along the coasts and take wares to and from Tyre – it is all listed with aplomb; as we just read. But Tyre is about to come apart at the seams. Terror is going to sweep over this city, these people, this region. Tyre has mocked and jeered at Jerusalem’s calamity –> and because of this attitude, they are headed for ruin. This is one of God’s divine rules. Tyre is “on a timer” now. They will be removed from the map permanently. Visiting Tyre even today is a walk through an archaeological site.
28 – Tyre had a wealthy and confident king who was so self-assured and arrogant that he needs a stern word from God. Tyre’s king is that appallingly arrogant. So God is sending a message. Collateral readings and other historical documents reveal that Tyre’s king basically rolled his eyes over these prophesies. He thought he was “untouchable”. God declared otherwise. Ezekiel also penned the lament for the king of Tyre. How do you like that? A death prophecy complete with funeral arrangements, heavens! And Sidon just to the north was going to see rough days in the near future. They were a headquarters of wretched man-made religion. (Jesus even called its residents “dogs” ca. 600 years later.) It was not a place known for its virtue and pleasantries. God was against them and He wanted them to know it. Disease will wrack this place and blood will flow in the streets. Nebuchadnezzar smashed into both these cities at basically the same time. And there would be a day when Israel, as a restored whole nation, would glory again -After the hostile neighbors are gone from the earth, of course.
29 – In the next four chapters; 29-32, there are six visions for Egypt. We’ll read the first vision in chapter 29, part of the second one, and complete the six visions for Egypt next week. The first vision comes to Ezekiel in January 587 B.C. – 18 months before Jerusalem fell to Nebuchadnezzar. Egypt is envisioned as a giant crocodile in this chapter, just as Tyre is descriptive of an ornate ship in ch. 27. The “Crocodile”, being one of the gods of Egypt, shall ‘go down’ just as Egypt is going to go down. The crocodiles and fish of the Nile will be banished to the wilderness (e.g. things are going to be where they shouldn’t be; Egyptians included!). This Nile River, that YOU claim you made, will not be where you draw your life and food from. You irrigate with the Nile, and eat fish from the Nile. Guess what, the vultures that will be eating your fish in the wilderness will eat you after that. Yes, things will collapse in Egypt…soon! Nebuchadnezzar will hold you captive as the Babylonians will rush in to kill and/or capture whomever they will. And in 571 B.C. The Babylonians did storm Egypt. They had spent much of the 16 years in between sacking Jerusalem and marching to Egypt – 13 of it to be exact – laying siege to Tyre and coming up empty since the Tyrians incrementally left the region with their gems/wealth. Thus the Babylonians entered Egypt weary of not gathering booty and desperate to pillage. And pillage Egypt they did! The Babylonians scooped up Egypt’s wealth and enslaved them for just over 40 years. And as Ezekiel decreed, this was God’s plan – to strip Egypt.