“‘O Tyre, you have said, “I am perfectly beautiful.”
31:15 “‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: On the day it 5 went down to Sheol I caused observers to lament. 6 I covered it with the deep and held back its rivers; its plentiful water was restrained. I clothed Lebanon in black for it, and all the trees of the field wilted because of it.
1 tn Heb “hear.”
2 tc The MT reads “if not” but most ancient versions translate only “if.” The expression occurs with this sense in Isa 5:9; 14:24. See also Ezek 34:8; 36:5; 38:19.
3 tn Heb “entrances.” The plural noun may reflect the fact that Tyre had two main harbors.
4 sn Rome, another economic power, is described in a similar way in Rev 17:1.
5 tn Or “he.”
6 tn Heb “I caused lamentation.” D. I. Block (Ezekiel [NICOT], 2:194-95) proposes an alternative root which would give the meaning “I gated back the waters,” i.e., shut off the water supply.
7 sn Outside of its seven occurrences in Ezekiel the term translated “possession” appears only in Exod 6:8 and Deut 33:4.