Ezekiel 26:8-21

26:8 He will kill your daughters in the field with the sword. He will build a siege wall against you, erect a siege ramp against you, and raise a great shield against you. 26:9 He will direct the blows of his battering rams against your walls and tear down your towers with his weapons. ¹  26:10 He will cover you with the dust kicked up by his many horses. ²  Your walls will shake from the noise of the horsemen, wheels, and chariots when he enters your gates like those who invade through a city’s broken walls. ³  26:11 With his horses’ hoofs he will trample all your streets. He will kill your people with the sword, and your strong pillars will tumble down to the ground. 26:12 They will steal your wealth and loot your merchandise. They will tear down your walls and destroy your luxurious ⁴  homes. Your stones, your trees, and your soil he will throw ⁵  into the water. ⁶  26:13 I will silence ⁷  the noise of your songs; the sound of your harps will be heard no more. 26:14 I will make you a bare rock; you will be a place where fishing nets are spread. You will never be built again, ⁸  for I, the Lord, have spoken, declares the sovereign Lord.

26:15 “This is what the sovereign Lord says to Tyre: Oh, how the coastlands will shake at the sound of your fall, when the wounded groan, at the massive slaughter in your midst! 26:16 All the princes of the sea will vacate ⁹  their thrones. They will remove their robes and strip off their embroidered clothes; they will clothe themselves with trembling. They will sit on the ground; they will tremble continually and be shocked at what has happened to you. ¹⁰  26:17 They will sing this lament over you: ¹¹ 

“‘How you have perished – you have vanished ¹²  from the seas,

O renowned city, once mighty in the sea,

she and her inhabitants, who spread their terror! ¹³ 

26:18 Now the coastlands will tremble on the day of your fall;

the coastlands by the sea will be terrified by your passing.’ ¹⁴ 

26:19 “For this is what the sovereign Lord says: When I make you desolate like the uninhabited cities, when I bring up the deep over you and the surging ¹⁵  waters overwhelm you, 26:20 then I will bring you down to bygone people, ¹⁶  to be with those who descend to the pit. I will make you live in the lower parts of the earth, among ¹⁷  the primeval ruins, with those who descend to the pit, so that you will not be inhabited or stand ¹⁸  in the land of the living. 26:21 I will bring terrors on you, and you will be no more! Though you are sought after, you will never be found again, declares the sovereign Lord.”

¹ tn Heb “swords.”

² tn Heb “From the abundance of his horses he will cover you (with) their dust.”

³ tn Heb “like those who enter a breached city.”

⁴ tn Heb “desirable.”

⁵ tn Heb “set.”

⁶ tn Heb “into the midst of the water.”

⁷ tn Heb “cause to end.”

⁸ sn This prophecy was fulfilled by Alexander the Great in 332 b.c.

⁹ tn Heb “descend from.”

¹⁰ tn Heb “and they will be astonished over you.”

¹¹ tn Heb “and they will lift up over you a lament and they will say to you.”

¹² 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.

¹³ 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).”

¹⁴ tn Heb “from your going out.”

¹⁵ tn Heb “many.”

¹⁶ tn Heb “to the people of antiquity.”

¹⁷ tn Heb “like.” The translation assumes an emendation of the preposition כְּ (kÿ, “like”), to בְּ (bÿ, “in, among”).

¹⁸ tn Heb “and I will place beauty.” This reading makes little sense; many, following the lead of the LXX, emend the text to read “nor will you stand” with the negative particle before the preceding verb understood by ellipsis; see L. C. Allen, Ezekiel (WBC), 2:73. D. I. Block (Ezekiel [NICOT], 2:47) offers another alternative, taking the apparent first person verb form as an archaic second feminine form and translating “nor radiate splendor.”