Ezekiel 26 THE TYRE PROPHECY

A place for fishermen's nets-The fall of TyreTyre was a city in ancient Lebanon which still exists today. In the years when the prophecy was given, Tyre was part of a country called Phoenicia. This was about 600 years before Jesus was born. In the year 590 B.C., God spoke to the prophet Ezekiel and told him what was going to happen in the future to the city of Tyre. From Ezekiel chapters 26-30-Son of man, because Tyre has said against Jerusalem, ‘Aha! She is broken.' And hast said, ‘I am a God, I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas-I am of perfect beauty!' Therefore thus says the Lord God: ‘Behold, I am against you, O Tyre, and will cause many nations to come up against you. And they shall destroy the walls of Tyre and break down her towers; I will also scrape her dust from her, and make her like the top of a rock. It shall be a place for spreading nets in the midst of the sea, for I have spoken,' says the Lord God; ‘it shall become plunder for the nations. I will make you a terror, and you shall be no more; though you are sought for, you will never be found again. I will make you like the top of a rock; you shall be a place for spreading nets, and you shall never be rebuilt. Behold, I will bring against Tyre from the north Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee: … and they shall know that I am the Lord [when] I will give the land of Egypt unto Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon; yet had he no wages, nor his army, for Tyrus.God told Ezekiel that because the city of Tyre was proud and rebellious against God, then God was going to allow the king of another country to come and destroy the city. He said that the city would end up in ruins, just piles of rocks for the fishermen to spread their nets over. If you were living in Tyre in those days, you would have thought this was a silly prediction. Tyre was the great city of the Phoenicians, built on a hill overlooking the Mediterranean Sea in what is now the modern nation of Lebanon. The Phoenicians were a great seafaring and trading people- "all the ships of the sea" came to Tyre. The Phoenicians were one of the outstanding civilizations of ancient times. Ezekiel 27:9-Elders of Gebal and its wise men were in you to caulk your seams; all the ships of the sea and their oarsmen were in you to market your merchandise.But just look what happened to Tyre! Nebuchadnezzar was the heathen king of Babylon. He went out conquering many countries. God even allowed him to conquer His people in the land of Israel because they had turned their backs on God's ways. In 586 B.C. four years later, Nebuchadnezzar's armies went through the cities of Tyre and Sidon. Just like God had told Ezekiel, Nebuchadnezzar tore down ancient Tyre and leveled it to the very ground, but left the ruins there. The whole prophecy still had not been fulfilled because the old city of Tyre had not been scraped "as bare as the top of a rock" and its ruins were not yet "a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea." Nebuchadnezzar received no wages for destroying Tyre-no jewels or gold or loot-because the people of Tyre fled to a little island that was a half mile offshore. There the people built a new city and took all of their wealth with them. Nebuchadnezzar was not a seafaring man. He had no ships or navy and he was unable to cross that little half mile of ocean between him and the island to conquer them.So on the mainland lay the ruins of ancient Tyre, while a new city of Tyre was built on the island. The prophecy was still not completely fulfilled. But what God says, eventually comes to pass! Sometimes it takes a long time, but God's prophecies never fail! And that's what happened. About 250 years later a Macedonian king named Alexander the Great came along sweeping the world with his armies, fighting great battles with minimal losses on his side.In 332 B.C., Alexander came to Tyre. He heard all about this wealthy city out there on the island. Alexander was a very smart general. He looked out across that half mile of water and said, "How can I get there? I want to get all that money they have out there!"So he began looking around for something to use, and he saw this big pile of rubble that used to be the ancient city of Tyre-all those bricks and stones and mortar and timbers. So Alexander's army got it all together and they scraped everything they could find right into the Mediterranean Sea. They scraped the area bare and used the materials to build a causeway right across the shallow floor of the Mediterranean to the island city! And soon Alexander captured and plundered the island city of Tyre. And do you know what? Along the sides of that road the fishermen spread their nets exactly like God had prophesied! Tyre was thrown into the sea! This exact end of ancient Tyre was predicted over 250 years before it happened! Only God could have predicted that so many years before!