The Expositor's Bible: The Book of EzekielSkinner, John
Religion
The Expositor's Bible: The Book of Ezekiel
Skinner, John
Bible. Ezekiel -- Commentaries
The remaining oracles on Tyre (chs. xxvii., xxviii. 1‐19) are somewhat
different both in subject and mode of treatment from the chapter we have
just finished. Ch. xxvi. is in the main a direct announcement of the fall
of Tyre, delivered in the oratorical style which is the usual vehicle of
prophetic address. She is regarded as a state occupying a definite place
among the other states of the world, and sharing the fate of other peoples
who by their conduct towards Israel or their ungodliness and arrogance
have incurred the anger of Jehovah. The two great odes which follow are
purely ideal delineations of what Tyre is in herself; her destruction is
assumed as certain rather than directly predicted, and the prophet gives
free play to his imagination in the effort to set forth the conception of
the city which was impressed on his mind. In ch. xxvii. he dwells on the
external greatness and magnificence of Tyre, her architectural splendour,
her political and military power, and above all her amazing commercial
enterprise. Ch. xxviii., on the other hand, is a meditation on the
peculiar genius of Tyre, her inner spirit of pride and self‐sufficiency,
as embodied in the person of her king. From a literary point of view the
two chapters are amongst the most beautiful in the whole book. In the
twenty‐seventh chapter the fiery indignation of the prophet almost
disappears, giving place to the play of poetic fancy, and a flow of lyric
emotion more perfectly rendered than in any other part of Ezekiel’s
writings. The distinctive feature of each passage is the elegy pronounced
over the fall of Tyre; and although the elegy seems just on the point of
passing into the taunt‐song, yet the accent of triumph is never suffered
to overwhelm the note of sadness to which these poems owe their special
charm.
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