Scripture Daily

Context No. 491 of 4322 · Ezekiel

Context · Reflection

Ezekiel 26:1-6: in context

1In the eleventh year, in the first of the month, the LORD’s word came to me, saying, 2“Son of man, because Tyre has said against Jerusalem, ‘Aha! She is broken! She who was the gateway of the peoples has been returned to me. I will be replenished, now that she is laid waste;’ 3therefore the Lord GOD says, ‘Behold, I am against you, Tyre, and will cause many nations to come up against you, as the sea causes its waves to come up. 4They will destroy the walls of Tyre, and break down her towers. I will also scrape her dust from her, and make her a bare rock. 5She will be a place for the spreading of nets in the middle of the sea; for I have spoken it,’ says the Lord GOD. ‘She will become plunder for the nations. 6Her daughters who are in the field will be slain with the sword. Then they will know that I am the LORD.’

This oracle is aimed at the great trading city of Tyre, and God tells us exactly why. Because Tyre said against Jerusalem, Aha! She is broken, she who was the gateway of the peoples; now that she is laid waste, she has been handed over to me, I will be replenished. There it is, in Tyre's own words. Jerusalem, a rival hub of trade and travel, has just been destroyed, and Tyre's reaction is not horror at a city's ruin but a merchant's calculation: good, the competition is gone, now the business will flow to me, and I will grow rich. Tyre looks at a neighbor's catastrophe and sees a market opening.

That reaction is what God declares himself against. Behold, he says, I am against you, Tyre, and he promises the proud sea-city will itself be scraped down to a bare rock where fishermen spread their nets. Notice that the sin here is not something Tyre did to Jerusalem; Tyre did not conquer the city. The sin is entirely in the gloating, in the Aha, in the quiet satisfaction at a rival's downfall because of what that downfall would put in Tyre's own pocket. God takes seriously not just the harm we cause but the pleasure we take when harm falls on someone whose loss happens to be our gain.

That exposes an ugly little reflex I would rather not admit to. When a rival stumbles, a competitor fails, a colleague who was ahead of me falls behind, someone whose loss opens up room for me, there can be a flicker of Aha, a private satisfaction dressed up as sympathy. Tyre simply said out loud what that reflex is really thinking. Has there been a moment when someone's downfall benefited me, and instead of grieving their loss I quietly welcomed it because of what it meant for me, and what does God, who was against Tyre for exactly that, see in it?

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