This week we will be discussing Ezekiel 26-28, the “Prophecies against Tyre”. Each of the major prophets and many of the minor prophets speak condemnation against Israel’s neighbors – Edom, Moab, Philistia, Damascus, Babylon, Assyria, Egypt, Cush, Tyre, and Sidon. These condemnations can be found in Isaiah 13-23, Jeremiah 47-51, Ezekiel 25-32, Amos 1, Obadiah, Nahum, and Habakkuk 2. Specifically, Isaiah 23, Jeremiah 47:4, and Ezekiel 26-28 are directed at the city of Tyre. The city was the Hong Kong of the Ancient Near East. It was located on an island just off the coast of modern Lebanon (just north of Israel) and was the sea-trading hub of the eastern Mediterranean. Tyre also provided the purple dye used for royalty throughout the Mediterranean world. The Old Testament tells us that the King of Tyre provided the raw materials and workman that build both David’s palace (2 Samuel 5:11) and Solomon’s Temple (1 Kings 5).
After reading through the passages from Ezekiel, please read Origen’s homily (13). The richness and relevancy of Scripture derives not from its literal, historical meaning but from its eternal, spiritual meaning (for as Paul says, the literal kills, but the spiritual gives life (2 Cor. 3:6)). Think about whether Ezekiel’s prophecy against the King of Tyre in chapter 28 is directed against an historical figure or someone else when he describes the King as “the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God; . . . . You were anointed as a guardian cherub, for so I ordained you. . . .”
Dinner is at 6. The menu is meatball stroganoff. Hope to see you here.
Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glorification. None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory – For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
1 Corinthians 2:6-8, Ephesians 6:12.