The Un-Deletable Decree Text: Ezekiel 26:7-14
Introduction: The Pride of Nations
We live in an age that has forgotten what a nation is for. Modern man, particularly Western man, sees his nation as a grand stage for his own self-expression, a marketplace for his appetites, or a platform for his grievances. He believes that history is something that he directs, that borders are arbitrary, and that prosperity is a human right that can be generated by clever economic policies and sheer force of will. And when a nation becomes this arrogant, it becomes ripe for judgment. It sets itself up as a rival to God.
In the ancient world, there was no city more emblematic of this kind of commercial pride than Tyre. Tyre was a maritime superpower, a glittering jewel on the Mediterranean coast. She was the queen of the seas, a merchant city whose wealth was legendary. Her ships sailed everywhere, her colonies dotted the coastlands, and her heart was swollen with pride. She looked at the fall of Jerusalem, not with pity, but with avarice. "Aha, broken is the gateway of the peoples; it has swung open to me. I shall be replenished, now that she is laid waste" (Ezekiel 26:2). Tyre saw God's judgment on Judah as a grand business opportunity.
This is the kind of pride that God cannot abide. It is the creature telling the Creator that it knows better. It is the clay boasting against the Potter. And so, through the prophet Ezekiel, God pronounces a sentence of utter, meticulous, and permanent destruction upon this proud city. This is not a vague warning of "bad things to come." It is a detailed, multi-stage demolition order, signed and sealed by the Lord of Hosts. And as we shall see, God's decrees are not suggestions. History is not a chaotic series of unfortunate events; it is the slow, deliberate, and sometimes violent unfolding of God's un-deletable decree.
The passage before us is a detailed battle plan. God, the supreme strategist, lays out precisely how He will bring this arrogant city to nothing. He will use a pagan king, a man who does not know Him, as His instrument of wrath. This teaches us a fundamental lesson about how the world works: God is sovereign over all nations, not just Israel. The hearts of kings are in His hand, and He turns them wherever He wishes, like channels of water (Proverbs 21:1). Nebuchadnezzar, the mighty king of Babylon, thought he was building his own empire. In reality, he was a hammer in the hand of God, sent to shatter a city that had set itself against the Almighty.
The Text
For thus says Lord Yahweh, "Behold, I will bring upon Tyre from the north Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, king of kings, with horses, chariots, horsemen, and an assembly, a great number of people. He will kill your daughters on the mainland with the sword; and he will make siege walls against you, cast up a ramp against you, and raise up a large shield against you. The blow of his battering rams he will direct against your walls, and with his swords he will tear down your towers. Because of the abundance of his horses, the fine dust raised by them will cover you; your walls will shake at the noise of horsemen and wagons and chariots when he enters your gates as men enter a city that is breached. With the hoofs of his horses he will trample all your streets. He will kill your people with the sword; and your strong pillars will come down to the ground. Also they will make a spoil of your wealth and a plunder of your merchandise, and pull down your walls and tear down your desirable houses, and throw your stones and your timbers and your debris into the water. So I will cause the tumult of your songs to cease, and the sound of your harps will be heard no more. I will make you a bare rock; you will be a place for the spreading of nets. You will be built no more, for I Yahweh have spoken," declares Lord Yahweh.
(Ezekiel 26:7-14 LSB)
The Appointed Instrument (v. 7-8)
The prophecy begins by naming the agent of destruction. God is not vague; He is specific.
"For thus says Lord Yahweh, 'Behold, I will bring upon Tyre from the north Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, king of kings, with horses, chariots, horsemen, and an assembly, a great number of people. He will kill your daughters on the mainland with the sword; and he will make siege walls against you, cast up a ramp against you, and raise up a large shield against you.'" (Ezekiel 26:7-8)
Notice who is the primary actor here. "I will bring..." God says. Nebuchadnezzar is not acting on his own initiative. He is being brought. The prophet Jeremiah calls this same pagan king "My servant" (Jeremiah 25:9). This is a staggering theological claim. The most powerful man on earth at the time, a ruthless pagan emperor, is nothing more than a servant, an employee, carrying out the demolition orders of Yahweh, the God of Israel. This is the biblical doctrine of divine providence. God does not just sit back and watch history unfold; He writes it. He uses both the righteous acts of His people and the wicked acts of godless men to accomplish His perfect will.
The description of Nebuchadnezzar's army is overwhelming. Horses, chariots, a great number of people. This is meant to convey the sheer, irresistible force of the coming judgment. Tyre, secure on its island fortress, thought it was impregnable. But no fortress can stand when God has decreed its fall. The prophecy begins with the mainland settlements, the "daughters" of Tyre. The siege works are described with military precision: siege walls, ramps, large shields. This is not a random raid; it is a systematic, grinding, and total war.
The Anatomy of Destruction (v. 9-11)
The prophecy then moves from the preparations for war to the brutal reality of the assault itself.
"The blow of his battering rams he will direct against your walls, and with his swords he will tear down your towers. Because of the abundance of his horses, the fine dust raised by them will cover you; your walls will shake at the noise of horsemen and wagons and chariots when he enters your gates as men enter a city that is breached. With the hoofs of his horses he will trample all your streets. He will kill your people with the sword; and your strong pillars will come down to the ground." (Ezekiel 26:9-11 LSB)
This is a picture of total military collapse. Every element of Tyre's security is systematically dismantled. The walls are breached by battering rams. The defensive towers are torn down. The noise and dust of the invading army are so immense that they overwhelm the city. The very foundations shake. This is a sensory overload of terror and destruction, all according to the divine script.
The invasion is not surgical. The horsemen "trample all your streets." The people are killed "with the sword." The "strong pillars," likely symbols of their civic and religious pride, perhaps dedicated to their gods Melqart or Baal, "will come down to the ground." This is a comprehensive leveling of the city's military, civilian, and religious life. When God judges a nation for its pride, He strikes at the very sources of that pride. He pulls down the pillars they lean on to show that He is the only one who can truly support anything.
From Plunder to Rubble (v. 12)
The destruction goes beyond military conquest to total obliteration. This is where the prophecy becomes truly remarkable.
"Also they will make a spoil of your wealth and a plunder of your merchandise, and pull down your walls and tear down your desirable houses, and throw your stones and your timbers and your debris into the water." (Ezekiel 26:12 LSB)
First comes the economic ruin. Tyre's great wealth, the very thing that fueled her arrogance, will be plundered. Her merchandise, the lifeblood of her empire, will be carried off as spoil. But the judgment doesn't stop there. An ordinary conqueror would plunder the city and occupy it. But God's plan for Tyre is obliteration. The walls, houses, stones, timbers, and debris are all to be thrown "into the water."
Now, history tells us that Nebuchadnezzar besieged mainland Tyre for thirteen years and broke its power, but he did not completely destroy the island fortress in this manner. Critics of the Bible love to point this out as a "failed prophecy." But this is a failure of reading comprehension, not of prophecy. God had said earlier that He would bring "many nations" against Tyre, like the waves of the sea (Ezekiel 26:3). Nebuchadnezzar was just the first wave. The ultimate fulfillment of this specific verse came about 250 years later, in 332 B.C., with the arrival of the second wave: Alexander the Great. When the island fortress of Tyre refused to surrender, Alexander did something unprecedented. He took the rubble and debris of the old mainland city, the very stones and timbers that Nebuchadnezzar had knocked down, and built a causeway, a land bridge, across the sea to the island. He literally threw the old city into the water to get to the new one. The prophecy was fulfilled with an unnerving, architectural precision that no human could have possibly guessed.
The Silence and the Rock (v. 13-14)
The prophecy concludes with the final state of the city: a silent, barren rock.
"So I will cause the tumult of your songs to cease, and the sound of your harps will be heard no more. I will make you a bare rock; you will be a place for the spreading of nets. You will be built no more, for I Yahweh have spoken,' declares Lord Yahweh." (Ezekiel 26:13-14 LSB)
The vibrant, bustling, noisy commercial hub will fall silent. The "tumult of your songs," the sound of a prosperous and decadent culture, will cease. God will turn the volume down to zero. In its place will be an eerie quiet. The city will become a "bare rock." The very soil will be scraped away, leaving nothing but the bedrock. This proud metropolis will be reduced to a place where fishermen spread their nets to dry.
And then comes the final, irrevocable seal on the judgment: "You will be built no more, for I Yahweh have spoken." The authority behind this sentence is absolute. This is not a prediction based on geopolitical trends. This is a creative, or rather, un-creative, act of the sovereign God. When God speaks, reality rearranges itself accordingly. And history has borne this out. While a town exists in the area today, the mighty, world-dominating Tyre of antiquity, the queen of the seas, has never been rebuilt. Her glory is gone, precisely as God declared.
The Gospel in the Rubble
This is a hard word. It is a terrifying picture of divine judgment. So where is the good news in this pile of rubble? It is found in the very character of the God who speaks.
First, the God who judges pride is the God who shows grace to the humble. The warning to Tyre is a warning to every proud heart, every proud family, every proud church, and every proud nation. The way up is down. "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble" (James 4:6). The path to life is not to build our own towers of Babel, but to bow before the God who holds all things in His hand. The judgment on Tyre is a severe mercy, a global announcement that trusting in wealth, military might, or human ingenuity is a fool's game.
Second, the God who uses a pagan king to judge Tyre is the same God who used a pagan empire, Rome, to crucify His own Son. On the cross, the full, unmitigated wrath of God against human pride and rebellion was poured out. All the violence, all the destruction, all the silence that fell upon Tyre is but a faint echo of the judgment that fell upon Jesus Christ. He was besieged by the powers of darkness. His body was broken like a wall. He was plundered of His dignity. He was cast into the deep of death.
Why? So that proud, rebellious sinners like us would not have to face that judgment. He became a ruin so that we could be rebuilt. He was made bare so that we could be clothed in His righteousness. The silence of the grave engulfed Him so that our songs of praise could be heard forever.
The final word of this passage is, "I Yahweh have spoken." That is a word of terror for the proud. But for those who have taken refuge in Christ, it is a word of ultimate comfort. The same God who spoke Tyre's destruction into reality is the God who spoke our salvation into reality. "It is finished," He said. And when He speaks, it is done. Your forgiveness is not a suggestion. Your adoption is not a temporary arrangement. Your future resurrection is not a possibility. It is a divine decree, spoken by the Lord Yahweh, and it cannot be broken.