Ezekiel 27: The First World Trade Center

Before New York City, before London, before Rome - there was one ancient city that was regarded as a center of world trade: Tyre.  "When your wares came from the seas, you satisfied many peoples; with your abundant wealth and merchandise you enriched the kings of the earth" (vs. 33).

Reading Ezekiel 27 is like perusing a catalog or trade journal from three thousand years ago.  All the goods and produce of the ancient world was being traded around the Mediterranean, and it flowed through Tyre, making its merchants rich.  However, the good times weren't going to last.  Ezekiel knew that the Babylonians were coming and were about to destroy it all.

The prophet foresees that there will be much lamentation made over the fate of Tyre.  Those who earned their living from trade or the sea will be sorry to see their meal ticket destroyed.  "In their wailing they raise a lamentation for you, and lament over you: “Who was ever destroyed like Tyre in the midst of the sea?" (vs. 32)  When Tyre goes down, not only are its citizens lost, but so are all the captains of industry that traded there.

It is an interesting exercise to compare the weeping and sorrow over Tyre with the prophecies of Revelation 18:9-24 in connection the destruction of "Babylon."  Many of the circumstances and emotions seem to line up and be the same.  A great city of trade is judged and destroyed by God, and the merchants of the world mourn its passing in utter dismay.

You might wonder, What does God have against commerce?  A careful reading of the bill of goods in each of the sinful cities reveals human beings (souls) for sale and the economics of the places demonstrate a triumph of greed and excess.  Rather than God being glorified through such transactions of the nations, the basest desires of men are indulged and great sins are committed.  That's what God detests, not simply trade.