The Ship of Fools: A Lament for Tyre Text: Ezekiel 27:1-11
Introduction: The Pride of the Global City
We live in an age that worships at the altar of global commerce. We are mesmerized by the intricate dance of supply chains that bring us coffee from Colombia and smartphones from China. We build gleaming towers of glass and steel in our financial districts, monuments to our own ingenuity. Our modern cities, like the Tyre of old, are traders to many coastlands, and they whisper the same ancient lie to themselves in the quiet of their boardrooms and the hustle of their trading floors: "I am perfect in beauty."
Man is a worshiping creature. If he will not worship the uncreated God, he will inevitably worship something he has created. He will look at the works of his own hands, the systems he has built, the wealth he has accumulated, and he will bow down to it. This is the essence of idolatry. It is not simply a matter of primitive statues in the jungle; it is the sophisticated, self-congratulatory pride of a civilization that believes it has mastered the world. It is the belief that with enough capital, enough technology, and enough human wisdom, we can build a perfect society, a secure fortress, a ship that cannot sink.
But the word of Yahweh comes to Ezekiel with a very different message. It is a message that cuts through all the noise of the marketplace and all the self-admiration of the port city. God commands his prophet to sing a funeral song for a city that is still very much alive. He is told to take up a lamentation, a dirge, for a global superpower at the absolute zenith of its power. This is because God does not see as man sees. Man sees the glorious ship, the bustling trade, the military might. God sees a corpse. He sees a hollow beauty, a pride that has already sealed its own doom. The judgment of God is not a future possibility; for those who have set themselves against Him, it is a present reality. The sentence has been passed, and all that remains is the execution. This prophecy is not a prediction; it is an obituary, written in advance by the sovereign Judge of all the earth.
The Text
Moreover, the word of Yahweh came to me saying, "Now as for you, son of man, take up a lamentation over Tyre and say to Tyre, who inhabits the entrance to the sea, a trader of the peoples to many coastlands, 'Thus says Lord Yahweh, "O Tyre, you have said, 'I am perfect in beauty.' Your borders are in the heart of the seas; Your builders have perfected your beauty. They have made all your planks of fir trees from Senir; They have taken a cedar from Lebanon to make a mast for you. Of oaks from Bashan they have made your oars; With ivory they have inlaid your deck of boxwood from the coastlands of Cyprus. Your sail was of fine embroidered linen from Egypt So that it became your standard; Your awning was blue and purple from the coastlands of Elishah. The inhabitants of Sidon and Arvad were your rowers; Your wise men, O Tyre, were aboard; they were your pilots. The elders of Gebal and her wise men were with you repairing your seams; All the ships of the sea and their sailors were with you in order to deal in your merchandise. Persia and Lud and Put were in your military force, your men of war. They hung shield and helmet in you; they set forth your majesty. The sons of Arvad and your military force were on your walls, all around, and the Gammadim were in your towers. They hung their small shields on your walls all around; they perfected your beauty."
(Ezekiel 27:1-11 LSB)
The Slogan of the Damned (vv. 1-4)
We begin with the divine command and the city's fatal self-assessment.
"O Tyre, you have said, 'I am perfect in beauty.' Your borders are in the heart of the seas; Your builders have perfected your beauty." (Ezekiel 27:3b-4)
Here is the root of the whole problem. This is the sin that lies beneath all other sins. It is the primordial lie of the serpent in the Garden: "You will be like God." Tyre looks at its accomplishments, its strategic location, its economic power, and its aesthetic glory, and it makes a theological declaration: "I am perfect in beauty." This is not a statement of interior design. It is a claim to divinity. It is the creature usurping the role of the Creator.
Perfection and beauty belong to God alone. He is the standard. When a created thing declares itself to be the standard, it has declared war on Heaven. This is the foundational sin of autonomy. Tyre does not say, "God has blessed us with beauty." It says, "My builders have perfected my beauty." The glory is given to man. The praise is directed inward. This is the anthem of secular humanism, ancient and modern.
Notice the false security this pride creates. "Your borders are in the heart of the seas." As an island fortress, Tyre felt impregnable. Its wealth and location gave it a sense of absolute security. This is what pride does. It blinds us to our utter fragility. We build our financial portfolios, our careers, our reputations, and we think these are strong borders in the heart of the sea. But we forget that the God who made the seas can command them to swallow us whole in an instant.
The Anatomy of Worldly Glory (vv. 5-9)
The prophet then gives us a detailed inventory of this self-made perfection. Tyre is pictured as a magnificent ship, a masterpiece of global craftsmanship.
"They have made all your planks of fir trees from Senir; They have taken a cedar from Lebanon to make a mast for you... Your sail was of fine embroidered linen from Egypt... Your wise men, O Tyre, were aboard; they were your pilots." (Ezekiel 27:5, 7a, 8b)
This is a catalog of idolatry. God is showing us how men build their towers of Babel. They take the very best of God's creation, the fir from Senir, the majestic cedar from Lebanon, the sturdy oaks of Bashan, the fine linen of Egypt, and they assemble it all into a monument to themselves. Every plank, every oar, every sail is a testament to their own glory. They are using God's raw materials to build a temple to man.
This is high-handed theft. God created the cedars of Lebanon for His glory. In fact, Solomon used those same cedars to build the Temple of Yahweh in Jerusalem. Tyre takes that same holy wood and uses it to build a mast for its ship of commerce. This is a picture of profane worship. It is taking what belongs to God and consecrating it to the service of Mammon.
And the crew is the best that money can buy. They have the expert rowers from Sidon, the master shipwrights from Gebal, and most importantly, their own "wise men" as pilots. They have no need for God's navigation. They have their own experts, their own technocrats, their own PhDs. They believe that human wisdom is sufficient to steer the ship of state and commerce. They trust in their own charts, their own compasses, their own intellect. And they are steering directly into the hurricane of God's judgment.
Borrowed Muscle and Hollow Beauty (vv. 10-11)
Finally, we see the foundation of Tyre's security. It is not internal strength, but rented power.
"Persia and Lud and Put were in your military force, your men of war. They hung shield and helmet in you; they set forth your majesty... they perfected your beauty." (Ezekiel 27:10-11)
Tyre's military was a mercenary force. Her defense was outsourced. Her might was bought and paid for. This reveals the hollowness at the center of all this worldly glory. The "perfect beauty" is a facade. The majesty is borrowed. The security is an illusion maintained by foreign soldiers who serve for pay, not for principle. When the money runs out, or when a greater power comes, the mercenaries will vanish.
And notice the refrain returns one last time: "they perfected your beauty." Man heaps up decoration upon decoration. He hangs the shields and helmets on the walls as ornaments. He turns the tools of war into interior design. This is what a decadent and proud culture does. It aestheticizes everything, forgetting the grim reality of a world under God's judgment. They are polishing the brass on a sinking ship.
Conclusion: Abandoning the Sinking Ship
This lament for Tyre is a lament for every human enterprise that seeks glory apart from God. Every one of us, by nature, is the captain of our own little Tyrian ship. We build it with the planks of our accomplishments, rig it with the sails of our reputation, and steer it with the rudder of our own wisdom. We decorate it with our possessions and our successes, and we whisper to ourselves, "I am perfect in beauty."
But this chapter is a warning shot across the bow. God will not tolerate rivals. He will not share His glory with another. Every ship of human pride is destined for the rocks. The storm of divine judgment is coming for every institution, every nation, and every individual soul that has not been built upon the foundation of Jesus Christ.
But there is another ship. There is an ark of salvation. By the world's standards, it is not a beautiful ship. It is made of gopher wood and pitched with tar. It is filled not with wise pilots and wealthy merchants, but with broken, repentant sinners. It looks foolish to the world. But its builder and its captain is God Himself. That captain, the Lord Jesus Christ, has already weathered the ultimate storm of God's wrath on the cross. He took the judgment we deserved so that we could be brought safely to shore.
The gospel call is a call to abandon ship. It is a call to stop trusting in your own vessel of self-righteousness, which is already taking on water. It is a call to confess that you are not perfect in beauty, but are in fact a rebel and a sinner. It is a call to leave your pride, your accomplishments, and your false security behind, and to climb aboard the ark of grace by faith alone. For that ship, and that ship alone, will make it to the harbor. All other ships, no matter how glorious they may seem, are already the subject of a funeral dirge being sung in heaven.