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BOOK 26 OF 66 · MAJOR PROPHETS · KING JAMES BIBLE

Ezekiel 27

Ezekiel book home•Chapter 27 of 48•36 verses
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REVIEWED OVERVIEW

Ezekiel 27 Overview

Ezekiel sings a lament over Tyre as a magnificent merchant ship assembled from the best materials and filled with goods from many nations. The long trading network displays Tyre’s wealth and beauty, but the ship is wrecked in the heart of the seas and merchants, sailors, and kings mourn the loss.

EzekielBook
27Chapter
36Verses
Major ProphetsDivision

Before you read Ezekiel 27

Coming from

Because Tyre celebrates Jerusalem’s fall as an opening for commercial gain, Ezekiel announces that many nations will come against the wealthy coastal city. Nebuchadrezzar is named as a major conqueror, Tyre’s walls and settlements will be devastated, and the nations will lament her downfall.

In this chapter

Ezekiel sings a lament over Tyre as a magnificent merchant ship assembled from the best materials and filled with goods from many nations. The long trading network displays Tyre’s wealth and beauty, but the ship is wrecked in the heart of the seas and merchants, sailors, and kings mourn the loss.

Leads into

The LORD condemns the prince of Tyre for claiming godlike status because of wisdom and wealth, then raises a poetic lament over the king of Tyre using Eden and cherub imagery to portray exaltation corrupted by pride and trade. Sidon is also judged, and the chapter closes with hope for Israel’s secure restoration.

Key understandingExplore deeper

The chapter is not merely a list of obscure ancient places. The extensive trade catalogue demonstrates how widely connected Tyre’s economy was and why its fall would send shock waves through the Mediterranean and Near Eastern world.

The ship metaphor allows Ezekiel to praise Tyre’s craftsmanship and commercial reach while showing the fragility of the whole system. Beauty and success do not prevent disaster when pride and judgment overtake the city.

Major truths in this chapterExplore deeper

Complex economic systems can look invincible yet remain fragile

Tyre’s international network collapses when the symbolic ship sinks.

Material excellence is not the same as moral security

The chapter can acknowledge beauty, skill, and trade without treating them as protection from judgment.

One city’s fall can affect many peoples

Merchants, sailors, coastal rulers, and trading partners all mourn because their prosperity was interconnected with Tyre.

Connections to the rest of ScriptureExplore deeper

1 Kings 5

Earlier, Tyre supplied cedar and skilled labor for Solomon’s temple, showing a long history of valuable trade with Israel.

Isaiah 23:1-14

Isaiah’s oracle likewise pictures maritime traders mourning the fall of Tyre.

Revelation 18:11-19

The merchants and shipmasters who mourn Babylon’s sudden commercial collapse echo the form and vocabulary of Tyre’s lament.

What is clear, and where care is neededExplore deeper

Do not treat every commodity as a prophetic code for a modern nation or corporation.

The list maps Tyre’s real ancient trading world and magnifies the scale of its commerce.

Do not read the lament as admiration that cancels the judgment.

Ezekiel can describe genuine magnificence while still showing that prosperity became no refuge from pride and divine sentence.

Read Ezekiel 27 watching for…

the ship metaphor for Tyre

the materials used to describe its beauty

the many nations and goods in the trade list

the sudden shipwreck image

the worldwide mourning of merchants and sailors

TWBC REVIEW STANDARD

Plain language. Scripture first. Fact distinguished from inference. No filler. No fake certainty. Designed to help you read the Bible itself.

Chapter outline3 sections
1-11Tyre is pictured as a beautifully built and richly manned merchant ship12-25The nations and their goods fill Tyre’s markets and make her glorious in the seas26-36The great trading ship is wrecked, and merchants and seafarers lament Tyre’s fall
1

The word of the LORD came again unto me, saying,

2

Now, thou son of man, take up a lamentation for Tyrus;

3

And say unto Tyrus, O thou that art situate at the entry of the sea, which art a merchant of the people for many isles, Thus saith the Lord GOD; O Tyrus, thou hast said, I am of perfect beauty.

4

Thy borders are in the midst of the seas, thy builders have perfected thy beauty.

5

They have made all thy ship boards of fir trees of Senir: they have taken cedars from Lebanon to make masts for thee.

6

Of the oaks of Bashan have they made thine oars; the company of the Ashurites have made thy benches of ivory, brought out of the isles of Chittim.

7

Fine linen with broidered work from Egypt was that which thou spreadest forth to be thy sail; blue and purple from the isles of Elishah was that which covered thee.

8

The inhabitants of Zidon and Arvad were thy mariners: thy wise men, O Tyrus, that were in thee, were thy pilots.

9

The ancients of Gebal and the wise men thereof were in thee thy calkers: all the ships of the sea with their mariners were in thee to occupy thy merchandise.

10

They of Persia and of Lud and of Phut were in thine army, thy men of war: they hanged the shield and helmet in thee; they set forth thy comeliness.

11

The men of Arvad with thine army were upon thy walls round about, and the Gammadims were in thy towers: they hanged their shields upon thy walls round about; they have made thy beauty perfect.

12

Tarshish was thy merchant by reason of the multitude of all kind of riches; with silver, iron, tin, and lead, they traded in thy fairs.

13

Javan, Tubal, and Meshech, they were thy merchants: they traded the persons of men and vessels of brass in thy market.

14

They of the house of Togarmah traded in thy fairs with horses and horsemen and mules.

15

The men of Dedan were thy merchants; many isles were the merchandise of thine hand: they brought thee for a present horns of ivory and ebony.

16

Syria was thy merchant by reason of the multitude of the wares of thy making: they occupied in thy fairs with emeralds, purple, and broidered work, and fine linen, and coral, and agate.

17

Judah, and the land of Israel, they were thy merchants: they traded in thy market wheat of Minnith, and Pannag, and honey, and oil, and balm.

18

Damascus was thy merchant in the multitude of the wares of thy making, for the multitude of all riches; in the wine of Helbon, and white wool.

19

Dan also and Javan going to and fro occupied in thy fairs: bright iron, cassia, and calamus, were in thy market.

20

Dedan was thy merchant in precious clothes for chariots.

21

Arabia, and all the princes of Kedar, they occupied with thee in lambs, and rams, and goats: in these were they thy merchants.

22

The merchants of Sheba and Raamah, they were thy merchants: they occupied in thy fairs with chief of all spices, and with all precious stones, and gold.

23

Haran, and Canneh, and Eden, the merchants of Sheba, Asshur, and Chilmad, were thy merchants.

24

These were thy merchants in all sorts of things, in blue clothes, and broidered work, and in chests of rich apparel, bound with cords, and made of cedar, among thy merchandise.

25

The ships of Tarshish did sing of thee in thy market: and thou wast replenished, and made very glorious in the midst of the seas.

26

Thy rowers have brought thee into great waters: the east wind hath broken thee in the midst of the seas.

27

Thy riches, and thy fairs, thy merchandise, thy mariners, and thy pilots, thy calkers, and the occupiers of thy merchandise, and all thy men of war, that are in thee, and in all thy company which is in the midst of thee, shall fall into the midst of the seas in the day of thy ruin.

28

The suburbs shall shake at the sound of the cry of thy pilots.

29

And all that handle the oar, the mariners, and all the pilots of the sea, shall come down from their ships, they shall stand upon the land;

30

And shall cause their voice to be heard against thee, and shall cry bitterly, and shall cast up dust upon their heads, they shall wallow themselves in the ashes:

31

And they shall make themselves utterly bald for thee, and gird them with sackcloth, and they shall weep for thee with bitterness of heart and bitter wailing.

32

And in their wailing they shall take up a lamentation for thee, and lament over thee, saying, What city is like Tyrus, like the destroyed in the midst of the sea?

33

When thy wares went forth out of the seas, thou filledst many people; thou didst enrich the kings of the earth with the multitude of thy riches and of thy merchandise.

34

In the time when thou shalt be broken by the seas in the depths of the waters thy merchandise and all thy company in the midst of thee shall fall.

35

All the inhabitants of the isles shall be astonished at thee, and their kings shall be sore afraid, they shall be troubled in their countenance.

36

The merchants among the people shall hiss at thee; thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt be any more.

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Ezekiel 27:1

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