Ezekiel 26:3

26:3 therefore this is what the sovereign Lord says: Look, ¹  I am against you, ²  O Tyre! I will bring up many nations against you, as the sea brings up its waves.

Ezekiel 26:5

26:5 She will be a place where fishing nets are spread, surrounded by the sea. For I have spoken, declares the sovereign Lord. She will become plunder for the nations,

Ezekiel 26:17

26:17 They will sing this lament over you: ³ 

“‘How you have perished – you have vanished ⁴  from the seas,

O renowned city, once mighty in the sea,

she and her inhabitants, who spread their terror! ⁵ 

Ezekiel 27:3

27:3 Say to Tyre, who sits at the entrance ⁶  of the sea, ⁷  merchant to the peoples on many coasts, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says:

“‘O Tyre, you have said, “I am perfectly beautiful.”

Ezekiel 27:9

27:9 The elders of Gebal ⁸  and her skilled men were within you, mending cracks; ⁹ 

all the ships of the sea and their mariners were within you to trade for your merchandise. ¹⁰ 

Ezekiel 47:10

47:10 Fishermen will stand beside it; from Engedi to En-eglaim they will spread nets. They will catch many kinds of fish, like the fish of the Great Sea. ¹¹ 

Ezekiel 47:17-18

47:17 The border will run from the sea to Hazar-enan, at the border of Damascus, and on the north is the border of Hamath. This is the north side. 47:18 On the east side, between Hauran and Damascus, and between Gilead and the land of Israel, will be the Jordan. You will measure from the border to the eastern sea. This is the east side.

Ezekiel 48:28

48:28 Next to the border of Gad, at the south side, the border will run from Tamar to the waters of Meribath Kadesh, to the Stream of Egypt ¹²  and on to the Great Sea.

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¹ tn The word הִנֵּה (hinneh, traditionally “behold”) draws attention to something and has been translated here as a verb.

² tn Or “I challenge you.” The phrase “I am against you” may be a formula for challenging someone to combat or a duel. See D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 1:201-2, and P. Humbert, “Die Herausforderungsformel ‘h!nn#n' ?l?K>,’” ZAW 45 (1933): 101-8. The Hebrew text switches to a second feminine singular form here, indicating that personified Jerusalem is addressed (see vv. 5-6a). The address to Jerusalem continues through v. 15. In vv. 16-17 the second masculine plural is used, as the people are addressed.

³ tn Heb “and they will lift up over you a lament and they will say to you.”

⁴ tn Heb “O inhabitant.” The translation follows the LXX and understands a different Hebrew verb, meaning “cease,” behind the consonantal text. See L. C. Allen, Ezekiel [WBC], 2:72, and D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 2:43.

⁵ tn Heb “she and her inhabitants who placed their terror to all her inhabitants.” The relationship of the final prepositional phrase to what precedes is unclear. The preposition probably has a specifying function here, drawing attention to Tyre’s inhabitants as the source of the terror mentioned prior to this. In this case, one might paraphrase verse 17b: “she and her inhabitants, who spread their terror; yes, her inhabitants (were the source of this terror).”

⁶ tn Heb “entrances.” The plural noun may reflect the fact that Tyre had two main harbors.

⁷ sn Rome, another economic power, is described in a similar way in Rev 17:1.

⁸ sn Another Phoenician coastal city located between Sidon and Arvad.

⁹ tn Heb “strengthening damages.” Here “to strengthen” means to repair. The word for “damages” occurs several times in 1 Kgs 12 about some type of damage to the temple, which may have referred to or included cracks. Since the context describes Tyre in its glory, we do not expect this reference to damages to be of significant scale, even if there are repairmen. This may refer to using pitch to seal the seams of the ship, which had to be done periodically and could be considered routine maintenance rather than repair of damage.

¹⁰ sn The reference to “all the ships of the sea…within you” suggests that the metaphor is changing; previously Tyre had been described as a magnificent ship, but now the description shifts back to an actual city. The “ships of the sea” were within Tyre’s harbor. Verse 11 refers to “walls” and “towers” of the city.

¹¹ sn The Great Sea refers to the Mediterranean Sea (also in vv. 15, 19, 20).

¹² tn Traditionally “the Brook of Egypt,” although a number of recent translations have “the Wadi of Egypt” (cf. NAB, NIV, NRSV). The word “Egypt” is not in the Hebrew text, but is implied.