The Pulpit Commentary — Ezekiel — Volume 2 — Section 83

EXPOSITION. CHAPTER XXvn. tioned here lot the erection of hfa pala.oo; the house of the forest of Lebanon (l Kingt Ver. 2.-Takenp a lamentation for Tyms. vii. 2). The fir tree was more commonly The dlxge over the merchant-city that used for ships, the cedar for houses (Virgil, follows, the doom sic transit gloria mundi, 'Georg.,' ii. 444). The Hebrew for" boards" worked out with a fulness of detail which is unique in its form as a plural with a dual reminds us of the Homerio catalogue of form snperadded to indicate that each plank ships(' Iliad,' ii. 484-770), is almost, if not had its counterpart on the other Bide of the altogether, without a parallel in the history ship. of literature. It can scarcely have resteu Ver. 6.-The high plateau of Bashan, the on anything but personal knowledge. Eze- region ea.et of the sea. of Galilee and the kiel, we must believe, bad, at some time or Jordan, now known as the Hauran, waa other in his life, trod the sinful streets of famous then, as it is now, for its oak forests the great city, and noted the mingled crowd and its wild cattle (Ps. xxii. 12). The com- of many nations and in many costumes pany of the Ashurites, etc.; better, with that he met there, just as we infer from the Revised Version, they have made thy Dante's vivid description of the dockyards benches of ivory inlaid in boxwood. The of Venice ('Inf.,' xxi. 7-15) that he had Authorized Version follows the present visited that city. Apart from its poetio Hebrew text, but the name of the nation or prophetic interest, it is for us almost the there is not the same a.a that of the As- locus classicus aa to the geography and eyrians, and corresponds with the Ashnrites commerce of that old world of which Tyre of 2 Sam. ii. 9 - an obscure tribe of was in some sense the centre. We may Cana.anites, possibly identical with the oompare it, from thnt point of view, with Geshnrites. A difference of punctuation the ethnological statement.s in Gen. x. ; or spelling (Bithaashurim for Bath-asshu- just as, from the standpoint of prophecy, it rim) gives the meaning which the Revised baa to be compared with Isniah's "burden" Version follows; thaashur being need in against Babylon (Isa. xiii., xiv.), and with Isn. xii. 19 and Ix. 13 for tbe box tree, or per- St. John's representation of Rome as the haps cypress, or larch, e.s forming pnrt or the spiritual Babylon of the Apoco.J.ypse (Rev. glory of Lebanon. The nee of ivory in ship xviii.). or house building seems to hnve been one of Ver. 3.-We begin with the pictnro of the the arts for which Tyro was famous. So city, situate at the entry (Hebrew, entries), we hnve the ivory palace of Ahnb, ofter he or harbours of the sea. Of tbeso Tyre had had married his Sid•micm queen (1 Kings two-the northern, known as the Sidoninn; xxii. 39) and those of the monnrnh who hnd the southern, o.s the Egyptian. There she mnrried a Tyrian princess iu Ps. xiv. 8 (see dwelt, a merohant of the peoples, that came, also Amos iii. 15). For the uso of such in- in the wider sense of the woru (see eh. nvi. laid wood in later times, see Virgil, • .lEneid,' 15), from the isles of the Meditcrrnncan. I x. 137. Either the ivory or the wood is am perfeot in beauty. The boast here put into said to come from the isles of Chittim. the mouth of the city appears afterwnrds 'l'he word we.a 11bout as wide in its use us as the utterance of it.s ruler, or as applied the "Indies" in the time of El izubeth. to him (eh. xxviii. 2, 15-17). We are Josephns (' Ant.,' i. 6. l) identifies it with reminded of Genoa., la superba. Oyprus, which porhops rctl\ins a memoriul Ver. 4.-In the midst of the seas; lite- of it in Citium. The Vulgnto, I\S in rally, in the heart (Revised Version). The Numb. xxiv. 24, identifies it here with ltnly, words were true of the islond-city, but and in Dan. xi. 30 translates the "ship~ Ezekiel lias already present to his thoughts of Chitti,u" o.s trieres et Romani, whilo in the idealized picture of the city under the 1 Mocc. i. I it is nsed of Grecco ns in- figure of its stateliest ship. 'l'he builders cluding Macedonia. In Gen. x. 4 the are ship-builders, nod in the verses thnt Kittim o.ppcor a.a desccndet.l from Jnvnn, follow wo have n picture of the Bucentaur i.e. nre clnsscd as Greeks or loninns. The of the Venice of the ancient world. ivory which the 1'yrinns used prolJl\bly Ver. 5.-Fir trees of Benir. The no.me np- came from Northern Africa, nncl may hove peors in Dout. iii. 9 and Song of Sol. iv. 8 ea been supplied through Corthngo or other She11ir ; in 1 Ch.ron. v. 28 it is spelt aa here. Phmuiciau colonieR. A supply muy hove From Dent. iii. 9 we learn that it was the come olso from Ethiopio through Egypt, Amorito nume for Hermon, ns Sirion w11s or from the Red Sea ports, with which the tlw Si,Ioninn no.me. In 1 Kinga v. 10 Phamicinus carried on n trndo with Ambi11. Hirnm King of Tyre appears as supplying Inlaid ivory-work, sometimes in wood, Solomon with the fir and oedar timber men- sometimes with enamel, is found both in  88 THE BOOK OP Tii& PllOPilEt EZEKIEL. ton. ttm. 1~6.