One of the most amazing Old Testament prophecies in the Bible is regarding the City of Tyre. In the prophecy of Tyre, the Bible makes 28 specific predictions regarding what God says that He is going to do to this city. These deatails are so specific, that only someone who has advanced knowledge of future events who lives outside time, could have possibly know that these things were going to happen.
Each of the 28 predictions by God are highlighted in Bold Underline:
Ezekiel 26:1-14
A Message for Tyre
1 On February 3, during the twelfth year of King Jehoiachin’s captivity, this message came to me from the LORD:
2 “Son of man, Tyre has rejoiced over the fall of Jerusalem, saying, `Ha! She who controlled the rich trade routes to the east has been broken, and I am the heir! Because she has been destroyed, I will become wealthy!’
3 “Therefore, this is what the Sovereign LORD says: I am your enemy, O Tyre, and 1. I will bring many nations against you, like the waves of the sea crashing against your shoreline.
4 2. They will destroy the walls of Tyre and 3. tear down its towers. 4. I will scrape away its soil and make it a bare rock!
5 5. The island of Tyre will become uninhabited. 6. It will be a place for fishermen to spread their nets, for I have spoken, says the Sovereign LORD. 7. Tyre will become the prey of many nations,
6 and 8 its mainland villages will be destroyed by the sword. Then they will know that I am the LORD.
7 “For the Sovereign LORD says: 9 I will bring King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon–the king of kings from the north–against Tyre with his cavalry, chariots, and great army.
8 10 First he will destroy your mainland villages. 11 Then he will attack you by building a siege wall, 12constructing a ramp, and 13 raising a roof of shields against you.
9 14 He will pound your walls with battering rams and 15 demolish your towers with sledgehammers.
10 16 The hooves of his cavalry will choke the city with dust, and 17 your walls will shake as the horses gallop through your broken gates, pulling chariots behind them.
11 18 His horsemen will trample every street in the city. 19 They will butcher your people, and 20 your famous pillars will topple.
12 21 “They will plunder all your riches and merchandise and 22 break down your walls. 23 They will destroy your lovely homes and 24 dump your stones and timbers and even your dust into the sea.
13 25 I will stop the music of your songs. No more will the sound of harps be heard among your people.
14 26 I will make your island a bare rock, 27 a place for fishermen to spread their nets. 28 You will never be rebuilt, for I, the LORD, have spoken! This is the word of the Sovereign LORD. NLT
Here is a recap of the predictions that the Lord makes concerning Tyre:
- I will bring many nations against you, like the waves of the sea crashing against your shoreline.
- They will destroy the walls of Tyre and
- Tear down its towers.
- I will scrape away its soil and make it a bare rock!
- The island of Tyre will become uninhabited.
- It will be a place for fishermen to spread their nets, for I have spoken, says the Sovereign LORD.
- Tyre will become the prey of many nations,
- It’s mainland villages will be destroyed by the sword. Then they will know that I am the LORD.
- “For the Sovereign LORD says:
- I will bring King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon–the king of kings from the north–against Tyre with his cavalry, chariots, and great army.
- First he will destroy your mainland villages.
- Then he will attack you by building a siege wall,
- Constructing a ramp, and
- raising a roof of shields against you.
- He will pound your walls with battering rams and
- Demolish your towers with sledgehammers.
- The hooves of his cavalry will choke the city with dust, and your walls will shake as the horses gallop through your broken gates, pulling chariots behind them.
- His horsemen will trample every street in the city.
- They will butcher your people, and
- Your famous pillars will topple.
- “They will plunder all your riches and merchandise and
- Break down your walls.
- They will destroy your lovely homes and
- Dump your stones and timbers and even your dust into the sea.
- I will stop the music of your songs. No more will the sound of harps be heard among your people.
- I will make your island a bare rock,
- A place for fishermen to spread their nets.
- You will never be rebuilt,
Not only did the Lord speak of this prophecy here in Ezekiel chapter 28 years before it happened, He also fulfilled all 28 points of this prophecy perfectly and in every detail!
Tyre and Israel during the time of king David were joint partners in shipping their merchandise throughout the Mediterranean sea. As a result both Tyre and Israel became extremely wealthy and prosperous, as they really had no other competition except each other. Every since Israel had first come out of Egypt they had began to fall away from the Lord and go back again into worshipping false gods.
The nation of Israel had observed the Babylonians and how they lived, and they had began to desire the gods that the Babylonians were worshipping. The Lord began to tell Israel in chapters 23 and 24 of Ezekiel: You like the Babylonians, you got them. The Lord sends king Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon to take Israel and all of her people captive back to Babylon. The entire nation of Israel are taken captive by Babylon. The Lord allowed His people to be judged though a pagan nation as the Lord sought to get their attention and correct them and to draw them back to Himself.
How does the city of Tyre fit into all of this? If you study your history books you will find that: The name “Tyre” means “A Rock”. Tyre was built upon a rock.
The city of Tyre was really 2 cities:
The main city of Tyre was on the mainland about 25 miles north of Israel on the coast of the Mediterranean sea, built upon bedrock. The other part of the city of Tyre was built upon an island about 1/2 mile offshore of the mainland city of Tyre. Joshua Said In The Book of Joshua That The City of Tyre on the mainland was “A Fortified City” (Joshua 19:29)
There were over 40,000 people that lived in the 2 cities of Tyre. The city of Tyre is where king Solomon of Israel had received “The cedar timbers” from king Hiram that were used in the construction of the temple in Jerusalem. As the Lord has sent king Nebuchadnezzar to attack Israel and take her captive for her falling away from Him, news of this siege reached the city of Tyre.
In Ezekiel chapter 26 as Tyre learns of Israel’s siege by Nebuchadnezzar and they begin to “rejoice”. Remember that Tyre had become an extremely wealthy city as well as Jerusalem through their joint trading with the ships that passed through the waters off their coasts, carrying their goods to places all over the world. When news of Jerusalem’s fall reaches Tyre, the people that lived in the cities of Tyre began to rejoice saying “our competition is gone, now we will keep all of the profit from our trading ships for ourselves”
There is something about the Lord that as He is disciplining His people, He just does not like it very much when others see him correcting his people they begin to rejoice over their trial. Never the less, rejoice and throw a party is exactly what the city of Tyre does after they hear that Israel was taken captive to Babylon.
In Ezekiel 26:2-3 the Lord declares that “He is against Tyre” because they were rejoicing over Jerusalem’s fall. The Lord then begins to predict this amazing prophecy that we first took a look at in chapter 28 of Ezekiel:
The Lord will send Nebuchadnezzar to the mainland villages of Tyre.
“Then He will attack Tyre by building a siege wall and constructing a ramp…”.
“He will leave the main city in rubble.”
“Even the dirt from the ground of the main city of Tyre will be scrapped off leaving only the flat bare rock underneath.”
“They will dump your stones and timbers and dirt into the sea”
About 2 1/2 to 3 years after the Lord predicted this prophecy against Tyre in 588 b.c., Nebuchadnezzar began his siege of Tyre. The way in which the Babylonians overcame a city was to surround it, cut off their food supply, and gradually starve the people into surrender. This was the method that Nebuchadnezzar used as he eventually overcame Jerusalem.
The Babyloninas surrounded the city of Jerusalem, and cut off their food supply. When Jerusalm used up all of their food two years later, they became so desperate that they began eating their own children. This event was predicted by the Lord in the book of Isaiah. Jerusalem became so weakened by starvation that Nebuchadnezzar easily overcame the city and took it captive.
The city of Tyre was a completely different matter. Tyre was on the coast of the Mediterranean sea. The walls of the city went all the way up to the sea completely cutting off Tyre from any land attack. As Nebuchadnezzar had done with Jerusalem, he cut off all Tyre’s food and water supply on the mainland. He could not touch Tyre’s food supply from the sea because their Phoenician navy was so powerful. Tyre also had an abundance of fresh water. Archeologists have discovered an underground spring in the ruins of Tyre that produces over 10 million gallons of fresh water per day. The siege by Nebuchadnezzar over Tyre took over 13 years.
Finally, the people of Tyre grew tired of all of the noise and dust from outside their walls, so they began to move the city from the mainland, 1/2 mile off shore to the island city of Tyre.
By the time Nebuchadnezzar had overcome the walls of the old city most of the people and the riches of the city had moved out to the island. Nebuchadnezzar began systematically to completely destroy the old city of Tyre reducing it to ruins.
He broke down the walls.
He destroyed all of the high towers.
He reduced the city to rubble.
Tyre on the island, continued to prosper. Much of Ezekiel’s prophecy concerning Tyre had already been fulfilled in amazing detail as Nebuchadnezzar finally after 13 years, destroyed the main city of Tyre on the mainland. There were still parts of the Lord’s prophecy of Tyre that were left unfulfilled.
The rubble and timbers from the city had not been thrown into the sea.
The dirt from the ground had not been scrapped up leaving only the exposed rocks.
In Ezekiel 26:12-14 the Lord says that what he had said “will be done”.
Very often the Lord will work in our life in exactly the same way. When we don’t see immediate results after we pray and Him for help, we begin to think that either the Lord didn’t hear us, He can’t help, or doesn’t care. Even though another 240 years has gone by, the Lord accomplishes exactly what He said that he would do. Remember that only the mainland city of Tyre was destroyed when the original Prophecy against Tyre was made, The Lord had said that both the Island city of Tyre as well as the mainland city of Tyre one half mile offshore woudl also be destroyed. 240 years later as Alexander the Great was conquering the entire world, he came against the remaining island city of Tyre that had relocated out on the Island.
Alexander demanded that Tyre surrender to him but they refused. Alexander came up with the idea of taking all of the rubble from the old city of Tyre on the mainland that had been piled up from when Nebuchadnezzars destruction of the mainland city. Alexandar “Threw all the rocks and timbers into the ocean”, creating a causeway ½ mile long out to the island of the new city of Tyre
This causeway was over 2,600 feet long and up to 900 feet wide!
His soldiers went back to the mainland, “scraped the dirt from the ground of the old city to make a road out to the island, leaving only the exposed flat surface of the rock”. Eventually Alexander overcame the city of Tyre and completely destroyed it, hust as the Lord had said would happen. The Lord’s prophecy was fulfilled “His way”, in “His timing, 240 years after he had first predicted it. The Lord is not in a hurry but he most certainly will do all that he says because He is in control of every event of human history!
All 28 points of that amazing prophecy werefulfilled literally just as the Lord had said that it would!
The city of tyre never regained it’s position of wealth and power just as the Lord had predicted. The prophet Ezekiel had been given a glimpse into the future, 1,900 years ahead of time where he saw that the city of Tyre would be “A bald rock where fishermen would gather to open their nets.” This is exactly what has happened. If you go to the area where the old city of Tyre is located, guess what the people there do for a living? They cast their nets for fish, exactly what the Lord predicted in Ezekiel chapter 26:
Ezekiel 26
26 I will make your island a bare rock,
27 a place for fishermen to spread their nets
Satelite View of Tyre Today showing the Island and the mainlad have become one:
The Amazing Bible again proves that it is the Word of God by demonstrating from the historical record that the things spoken by God, written by His Prophets, came to fulfillment just as He said that they would. Perhaps we should pay more attention to this Book.
Rob Robinson
Listen to all of Rob’s Audio studies online at www.thewordmp3.com
