“By your great wisdom in your trade
you have increased your wealth,
and your heart has become proud in your wealth.”
Ezekiel 28:5 ESV
Through the Bible: Ezekiel 25-27
There are certain cities, and even specific places in a city, that mean more than just their physical location. When you hear about Broadway, you don’t think about a street. You think about musicals. “Hollywood” calls to mind the film industry, not a city. And if someone said, “Wall Street had a good day today,” you probably wouldn’t think the street sweepers in Manhattan were especially efficient.
So when the Lord told Ezekiel to take up a prophecy against Tyre, He had more in mind than just a city on the coast.
Tyre was one of the great commercial centers of the ancient world. Situated on the Mediterranean coast just north of Israel, Tyre had become enormously wealthy through international trade. And Ezekiel 27 gives us an amazing picture of just how extensive its reach was.
Read through the chapter and it almost sounds like an ancient commodities report. Tarshish traded silver, iron, tin, and lead. Javan, Tubal, and Meshech traded bronze and human beings. Beth-togarmah supplied horses and mules. Dedan brought ivory and ebony. Syria traded precious stones and fine fabrics. Damascus brought wine and wool. Arabia supplied lambs, rams, and goats. Sheba traded spices, precious stones, and gold.
Even Judah and Israel were part of Tyre’s economy, trading wheat, honey, oil, and balm (Ezekiel 27:17).
Everybody did business with Tyre.
So in the ancient world, “Tyre” meant something like “Wall Street” means to us. It was a real place, certainly. But the name represented something much bigger than its geography. Tyre represented wealth, commerce, international trade, and economic power.
And none of those things are necessarily bad.
There is nothing inherently sinful about buying and selling, building a successful business, trading with other nations, or becoming wealthy. The Bible doesn’t condemn Tyre simply because Tyre was prosperous.
The problem was what Tyre’s prosperity had done to Tyre.
We get our first clue in the previous chapter. When Jerusalem was destroyed, Tyre said,
“Aha, the gate of the peoples is broken; it has swung open to me. I shall be replenished, now that she is laid waste.”
Ezekiel 26:2
Let this sink in: Jerusalem has been destroyed. People have died. Families have lost their homes. Thousands have been carried into exile.
And Tyre’s response is essentially, “This is going to be great for business.”
Someone else’s catastrophe had become Tyre’s market opportunity.
Then, in chapter 28, God exposes what Tyre’s extraordinary success had produced:
“Because your heart is proud, and you have said, ‘I am a god, I sit in the seat of the gods, in the heart of the seas…’
Ezekiel 28:2
There was Tyre’s real problem.
Tyre’s problem wasn’t that it had built a successful economy. It was that its successful economy had become its god.
Its wealth became its security. Its influence became its identity. Its success produced arrogance. And eventually Tyre became so convinced of its own power that it imagined itself untouchable.
Prosperity had become a theology.
Tyre is more than a spot on an ancient map. It represents a world system that has convinced itself that money, luxury, influence, and power can provide the security that only God can give.
Which means Ezekiel’s lament over Tyre isn’t just ancient history.
We still have our Tyres.
They may be called Wall Street. Or Washington. Or Silicon Valley. Or any other place whose name has come to represent wealth, influence, power, or success.
But Tyre can also be much closer to home.
My bank account can become Tyre. My retirement plan can become Tyre (Does that make it a “ReTyrement plan?)
My career can become Tyre. Even a church budget or a successful ministry can become Tyre if I begin trusting it to provide what only God can provide.
And when everything we thought made us secure disappears beneath the waves, only God remains.
Leave a Reply