‘I am perfect in beauty.’
4 Your borders are in the midst of the seas.
Your builders have perfected your beauty...
Your oarsmen brought you into many waters,
But the east wind broke you in the midst of the seas." vv.3-4, 27
Read chapter 27
Tyre was a great city. Well known for it's goods of all commodities and its ships for trading and exporting. It was built on a rock, good solid foundation.
While Tyre and Sidon were considered Canaanite during the second millennium BC, scholars call the Lebanese coast after the time of the Israelite Conquest of Canaan, Phoenecia. “Phoenicia” was the name given to the region by the Greeks, from their word for purple. The ancient world’s purple dye industry developed from extracting a fluid from a Mediterranean mollusk, the murex. Not only did the people of the Phoenician coast develop this industry, they specialized in shipping this very valuable commodity all over the Mediterranean world. Beginning with David, the Tyrian connection became prominent. Hiram, king of Tyre, offered cedar trees, carpenters and masons to build David’s palace (2 Sm 5:11). (biblearchaeology.com)
The east wind is what brought the destruction of Tyre, this rock island city. The east wind was the most dangerous wind; most violent in the Mediterranean (Ps. 48:7). Makes me think of the movie A Perfect Storm where the sailors can't win against the sea of the hurricane that stirred up the waves to over 100 feet high and ultimately swallowed them with no trace left. As violence of the wind causes shipwrecks so violence of the enemy causes destruction. Figuratively the east wind is King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon who's army will soon destroy the city as we read in chapter 26:7.
The city was at ease for it's popularity not ready for trouble. Tyre seems similar to the United States of America today where we are the popular number one nation yet soon our downfall will be from those of the Middle East.
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