Modern-day Tyre
God declared that Tyre would be destroyed – NEVER to be rebuilt or to be inhabited again. Yet today, Tyre is a city lined with building structures and home to a community of some 135,204 inhabitants. Did God’s prophecy fail?
Here’s one controversial prophecy that had become a tough nut to crack for both skeptics and apologists alike – God’s prophecy against ancient Tyre as recorded in Ezekiel 26. Skeptics are sure that the Ezekiel 26 is a failed prophecy, because Tyre, they say, had been rebuilt. If they were right, then Bible believers do not have a ground to stand on. But what really happened of this prophecy?
Much of the problem in understanding the Bible, especially prophecy, is due to failure to pay attention to details, which, admittedly, is a problem most of us are not immune to. Understanding prophecy is really a question of what was prophesied and what was not prophesied — and what actually happened [if it had].
The Ezekiel 26 prophecy is actually God’s pronouncement of judgment on Tyre, which had angered God when its people gloated on the suffering of Jerusalem that was just laid waste by Babylon under Nebuchadnezzar [Ezekiel 26:2]. This pronouncement was given about three years prior to the actual invasion of Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar.
Eze 26:3 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Tyrus, and will cause many nations to come up against thee, as the sea causeth his waves to come up.
Eze 26:4 And they shall destroy the walls of Tyrus, and break down her towers: I will also scrape her dust from her, and make her like the top of a rock.
Eze 26:5 It shall be a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD: and it shall become a spoil to the nations.
Here it says that God will “cause many nations” to come up against Tyre “as the sea causeth his waves to come up”. It is easy to visualize from this, one nation after another coming in “waves” of attack against Tyre – RATHER THAN many nations swamping Tyre all at the same time. Notice also the pronoun “they”, which is a clear reference to the “many nations” of verse 3. Up to verse 5, no specific foreign nation or ruler is mentioned or even hinted.
Now beginning with verse 7, the prophecy starts to mention Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, specifically:
Eze 26:7 For thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will bring upon Tyrus Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, a king of kings, from the north, with horses, and with chariots, and with horsemen, and companies, and much people.
Eze 26:8 He shall slay with the sword thy daughters in the field: and he shall make a fort against thee, and cast a mount against thee, and lift up the buckler against thee.
Eze 26:9 And he shall set engines of war against thy walls, and with his axes he shall break down thy towers.
Eze 26:10 By reason of the abundance of his horses their dust shall cover thee: thy walls shall shake at the noise of the horsemen, and of the wheels, and of the chariots, when he shall enter into thy gates, as men enter into a city wherein is made a breach.
Eze 26:11 With the hoofs of his horses shall he tread down all thy streets: he shall slay thy people by the sword, and thy strong garrisons shall go down to the ground.
Up to here you’ll notice that the pronoun “he” is used throughout, in clear reference to Nebuchadnezzar, as the invader. What regiment and weapons was Nebuchadnezzar to use? Horsemen, horses, chariots, sword, engines of war [battering rams], axes…
Is this the way to attack an island fortress?
Certainly not! Navy and ships, would be required. Nothing here indicates that Nebuchadnezzar was to utterly destroy Tyre, including the island part. And nothing is said that Nebuchadnezzar was to loot the part that he invaded. Other “nations” were to loot Tyre [verses 3 and 12], but not Nebuchadnezzar, as Ezekiel 29:17-18 confirms. And that is what happened as history shows!
SO clearly Nebuchadnezzar was just one of the “waves” of nations that were to attack Tyre. He fulfilled the part of prophecy that specifically mentioned him. And beginning with verse 12 the pronoun “they” is used again. Attacks by other nations resume, in other words. Below is a list of actual “waves” of attack and invasion made against Tyre throughout history, beginning with Nebuchadnezzar:
- Siege by Nebuchadnezzar (586–573 BC) for thirteen years.
- It later fell under the power of the Persians.
- In 332 BC, Tyre is conquered by Alexander the Great, after a 7-month siege, but it continued to maintain much of its commercial importance until the Christian era.
- In 315 BC, Alexander’s former general Antigonus began his own siege of Tyre, taking the city a year later.
- In 126 BC, Tyre regained its independence (from the Seleucids) and was allowed to keep much of its independence when the area became a Roman province in 64 BC.
- During Jesus’ time, Jesus visited the “coasts” of Tyre and Sidon (Matthew 15:21; Mark 7:24), which indicates that there was some form of civilization there during that time.
- Captured by the Crusaders in 1124, becoming one of the most important cities of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
- After the reconquest of Acre by King Richard on July 12, 1191, the seat of the kingdom moved there, but coronations were held in Tyre. In the 13th century, Tyre was separated from the royal domain as a separate crusader lordship.
- In 1291, it was retaken by the Mameluks which then was followed by Ottoman rule before the modern state of Lebanon was declared in 1920.
- Tyre was badly damaged in the late 1970s (Operation Litani) and early 1980s (1982 Lebanon War) during the war between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
- The city was used as a base by the PLO, and was nearly destroyed by Israeli artillery.
- After Israel’s 1982 invasion of southern Lebanon, the city was the site of an Israeli military post.
- In late 1982, and again on November 1983, buildings housing Israeli headquarters were destroyed by bombs, causing dozens of deaths in both cases and known in Israel as the First and Second Tyre Catastrophes.
- The 1983 explosion, by a suicide truck, happened only 10 days after similar car bombs exploded in the US Marines and French paratroop barracks in Beirut. Israel and the US blame Iran and Hezbollah for all explosions, but they have denied any involvement.
- During the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict, several rocket-launching sites used by Hezbollah to attack Israel were located in rural areas around the city. At least one village near the city was bombed by Israel, as well as several sites within the city, causing civilian deaths, and adding to the food shortage problem inside Tyre. Israeli naval commandos also raided Hezbollah targets within the city.
What do we see here?
Throughout history Tyre was attacked by one nation after another. This shows that this part of Ezekiel’s prophecy [Ezek.26:3] continues to be fulfilled to this day. Nations continue to “come up against” Tyre. Tyre, in its entirety is not totally destroyed. Nebuchadnezzar was specifically mentioned in Ezekiel 26, simply because Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon was the empire currently in power then and the one that God used to punish Judah and which God promised to also use to punish the gloating Tyre.
The fact is, Tyre is no longer the same proud empire it once was. While buildings and inhabitants exist in parts of its territory, Tyre is, at best, described as a “depressed area that suffer from civil war or foreign occupation” again and again.
In verse 13-14, the pronoun “I” is used. This means that God is laying claim of direct intervention in the punishment of Tyre:
Eze 26:13 And I will cause the noise of thy songs to cease; and the sound of thy harps shall be no more heard.
Eze 26:14 And I will make thee like the top of a rock: thou shalt be a place to spread nets upon; thou shalt be built no more: for I the LORD have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD.
Furthermore, in verses 19-21:
Eze 26:19 For thus saith the Lord GOD; When I shall make thee a desolate city, like the cities that are not inhabited; when I shall bring up the deep upon thee, and great waters shall cover thee;
Eze 26:20 When I shall bring thee down with them that descend into the pit, with the people of old time, and shall set thee in the low parts of the earth, in places desolate of old, with them that go down to the pit, that thou be not inhabited; and I shall set glory in the land of the living;
Eze 26:21 I will make thee a terror, and thou shalt be no more: though thou be sought for, yet shalt thou never be found again, saith the Lord GOD. ii
Here God says Tyre will become desolate [or parched] and will not be inhabited anymore. This has been not been fulfilled. Total desolation is yet to happen. So clearly its fulfillment is yet future. Indeed, in a very near future, the “Babylonish” system of the coming United Europe, would overrun Israel and much of its neighboring countries, which include the adjoining Lebanon, where Tyre presently is [Dan 11:40-41]. This would be the final “wave” of attack against Tyre. This final human “kingdom”, described in Daniel 2:43-44, is to be destroyed by Christ when He returns. All these human kingdoms would be torn down and replaced by His glorious kingdom. That would be when Tyre, together with its last invader will “not be found” anymore — never to be rebuilt.
In the meantime, the noise about this one controversial detail should not drown the numerous other points of Ezekiel 26 prophecy that has been fulfilled to the last detail: Nebuchadnezzar did break down the walls of mainland Tyre [verses 9-11]. Alexander scraped the old site of Tyre clean when he made the causeway out to the island and left a “bare rock” [verse 12]. He threw the debris into the water in order to make the causeway. Numerous references have been made even by secular observers, to the spreading of nets. Nina Nelson observes during a visit: “Pale turquoise fishing nets were drying on the shore”. Hans-Wolf Rackl describes the site of ancient Tyre: “Today hardly a single stone of old Tyre remains intact. Tyre has become a place ‘to dry fish nets,’ as the prophet predicted” [verse 5]. The old mainland Tyre was never rebuilt.
Skeptics are wrong, the Bible is true and stands — and it tells us that the establishment of God’s kingdom is just around the bend.
