Ezekiel Chapter 26

VERSE 17 “And they will take up a lamentation for you, and say to you:

“How you have perished, O one inhabited by seafaring men, O renowned city, Who was strong at sea, She and her inhabitants, Who caused their terror to be on all her inhabitants!”

And they, the (former) “princes” (the various leaders, rulers, both civil and ecclesiastical) of the sea (the waters, the peoples, multitudes, nations and tongues, Rev 17:15), will lament at the destruction of the once “renowned city”, the “great city” (Rev 17:18), Babylon the Great whose inhabitants were seafaring men.

As literal Tyre was a city inhabited by a seafaring people, a people who made their living off the sea, so too in antitype do many of the inhabitants of mystic Babylon “gain their living by sea” (Rev 18:18 ASV)

“The merchants … who became rich by her, will stand at a distance for fear of her torment, weeping and wailing, and saying, ‘Alas, alas, that great city that was clothed in fine linen, purple, and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls! For in one hour such great riches came to nothing.’ Every shipmaster (Trader in religion, denominational heads or leaders), all who travel by ship (those who book their passage to heaven through membership in the church nominal), sailors (seamen: crewmembers of one denomination or another who may or may not perform some specific duty or function in the Church, viz. Deacons, Sunday school teachers, Choir members, Counselors or etc.), and as many as trade on the sea (make their living by trying to evangelize the masses), stood at a distance and cried out when they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, ‘What is like this great city?’ They threw dust on their heads and cried out, weeping and wailing, and saying, ‘Alas, alas, that great city, in which all who had ships (business, commerce, specifically religious commerce, individual religious groups, denominations and etc.) on the sea, became rich by her wealth! For in one hour she is made desolate.” (Rev 18:15-19)

The great city once “was strong in the sea”, an island surrounded and supported by the sea (the people), “she and her inhabitants, who caused their terror to be on all her inhabitants!” Applying a literal translation to this text we might suggest the following as taken from (Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers).

“Fear” (terror) is here used in the sense of that which causes fear; and the meaning is, that the power of Tyre was so feared that every Tyrian was respected for her sake, just as at a later day every Roman bore about with him something of the majesty of Rome, or, as now, the citizen of a great Power is respected among foreigners for his country’s sake.

The New Living Translation states it thus, “Your people, with their naval power, once spread fear around the world”.

The symbolic significance of this would be that:

Your people once held a position as a religious power or authority (seamen). Babylon having at one time been “a golden cup”, a receptacle of divine truth in the hands of the Lord (Jer 51:7), but alas that cup is now full of abominations (false doctrines) and filthiness of her fornication” (Rev. 17:1-6), which she has used to “spread fear” (fear of hell, of eternal torment) on “all her inhabitants” (those who reside in mystic Babylon, who profess her doctrines) as well as the rest of the world (the heathen, non-believers and etc.).

VERSE 18 “Now the coastlands tremble on the day of your fall; yes, the coastlands by the sea are troubled at your departure.”

All who do commerce with Great Babylon both the “kings of the earth” who committed fornication (the great ones of the earth, the various rulers and political leadership. The church-state relationship constitutes spiritual fornication on the part of the civil ruler-ship and harlotry on the part of the woman.), and the “merchants of the earth” (those who profit from the system in any way. A comprehensive term, “merchants” includes financiers, craftsmen, architects, contractors, clothiers—any engaged with the professed Church in commercial enterprise, particularly those with some ability to trade in spiritual things to their own profit; becoming Cardinals, Bishops, Deans, Canons, Priests etc., in her organizations who became rich off her) all of these will “weep and wail” when they see Great Babylon go down. (Rev 18:3, 9, 15)

VERSE 19 “For thus says the Lord God: ‘When I make you a desolate city, like cities that are not inhabited, when I bring the deep upon you, and great waters cover you.”

“Water, the resource of Tyre, made her a great maritime power, but ironically, the very resource that made her great caused her downfall and destruction. The same was true of the river Euphrates and literal Babylon, and the same will be true in the antitype. The “waters” (peoples) will turn against Papacy, an international system. The harlot, that great city Babylon, the “mother of harlots,” sits upon the waters, but the waters (her support) will dry up (Rev 16:12, 19; 17:1, 5). Both typically and antitypically, the “waters” that are the protection will become an avenue of destruction.”

Literally speaking this prophecy came true, the sea did indeed encroach upon Tyre the island being partially submerged over time as can be seen in the following diagram.

However as alluded to the symbolic significance of the Lord’s statement: “when I bring the deep upon you, and great waters cover you”, and its fulfillment is of far greater importance to us than is the literal mentioned here.

We will take a look at this in our next post.