The Pulpit Commentary — Ezekiel — Volume 2 — Section 79

"My griers so great, Thot no supporter but the hnge firm earth Can hold it up: here I and sorrow sit; Here is my throne, bid kings come bow to it." These great men, moreover, were seized with amazement and continual trembling. 3. The lamentation awalcened by her destruction. "And they shall take up a lamentation for thee, and say to thee, How art thou destroyed," etc. I Thus would the fall of the prosperous island-city be bewailed by neighbouring peoples. CoNoLUSION. Certain lessons stand out with impressive clearness and force. 1. The insecurity of worldly greatness, glory, and power. 2. The heinw,ffiess of the sin of selfishness. 3. The evanescence of the prosperity which is attained without regard to the rights or interests of others.-W. J. Vers. 2-4.-The exultation of the world over the Ohurch. "Son of man, because that Tyrus hath said against Jerusalem, Ahal she is broken that was the gate of the peoples," etc. Tyre is viewed by the prophet, not merely in its literal aspect, but also in a typical one. "Tyre, in the prophets," says Schroder, "comes into consideration, not in a political respect, but as the representative, the might, of the world's commerce. Jehovah and mammon are the counterpart to Jerusalem and Tyre." And says Heng- stenberg, "Along with Babylon and Egypt, Tyre was then the most glorious concen- tration of the worldly power. In the queen of the sea, the thought of the vanity of all worldly power was strikingly exemplified. Hand-in-hand with this thought goes, in Ezekiel, that of the indestructibleness of the kingdom of God." If, then, we take Tyre as representing the world with its riches and pomp and power, and Jerusalem the Church, the text gives us as a subject the exultation of the world over the Church. But it behoves us to be clear as to what we are to understand by the world-the world that is antagonistic to the Church. It is neither the material world, nor the human world-the world of men, nor our worldly or secular occupation. Very admirably has F. W. Robertson, on 1 John ii. 16-17, brought out the meaning of the world which is forbidden to Christians. "Now to define what worldliness is. Remark, first, that it is determined by the spirit of a life, not the objects with which the life is conversant. It is not the • flesh,' nor the • eye,' nor 'life,' which are forbidden, but it is the l'l/,St of the flesh, and the lust of the eye, and the pride of life. . . . Look into this a little closer. The lust of the flesh. Here is affection for the outward: pleasure, that which affects the senses only: the flesh, that enjoyment which comes from the emotions of an hour, be it coarse or be it refined. The pleasure of wine or the pleasure of music, so for as it is only a movement of the flesh. Again, the lust of the eye. Here is affection for the transient, for the eye can only gaze on Corm and colour; and these are things thnt do not last. Once more, the pride of life. Here is affection for the unreal-men's opinion, the estimate which depends upon wealth, rank, circumstances. Worldliness, then, consists in these three things-attachment to the outward, attachment to the trnnsitory, nttnchment to the unreal, in opposition to love for the inward, the eternal, the true; nnd the one of these affections is necessarily expelled by the other." In this view of worldliness, Tyre was representative of the world. She gloried in her secure situation, her commercial prosperity, her great riches, etc. We remark that the exulta- tion of the world over the Church- I. Is BITTER AND BOASTFUL. "Tyre bath said against Jerusalem, Ahn I she is broken that was the gate of the peoples," etc. (ver. 2). As we have already shown (in our homily on the chapter as a whole), this unseemly triumphing arose from the selfish- ness which anticipated that the fall of Jerusalem would promote the commercial prosperity of Tyre. But probably this was not the only reason for the rejoicing of the Tyrians in the ruin of the sacred city. The antagonism between their religion and the religion of the Jews would increase their joy at the downfall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple. " Only thirty-four years before the destruction of Jerusalem," says Mr. Twisleton, "commenced the celebrated reformation of Josiah (B.o. 622). This momentous religious revolution (2 Kings xxii., xxiii.) fully explains the exultation and malevolence of the Tyrians. In that reformation Josiah hn,l heaped ir.sults on the gods who were tho objects of Tyrinn veneration and love; he l1nd con- sumed with fire the sQcred veeseb uscq in their worsp.ip; he had burnt thdr imnges EZEXIEL-lJ, G 82 THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET EZEKIEL. [ou. xxvr. 1-21.