Ezekiel 26:1-6: a reflection

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.’

God pronounces judgment on the city of Tyre, and the reason is telling. When Jerusalem fell, Tyre had gloated: Aha! The gateway of the peoples is broken; now it has swung open to me; I shall be replenished, now that she is laid waste. Tyre rejoiced at Jerusalem's ruin, and worse, saw in it an opportunity for its own gain, one rival's fall meaning another's profit. And for that gloating, that rejoicing at another's downfall for its own advantage, God declares himself against Tyre.

Notice what draws God's judgment: not an act of aggression, but the sin of gloating over another's fall and seeking to profit from it. Tyre said, Aha!, celebrating a rival's ruin, calculating its own gain from another's loss. That instinct, to be secretly glad when a rival or an enemy stumbles, to see their misfortune as our opportunity, is one God takes seriously enough to judge. Rejoicing at another's downfall is not the neutral thing we sometimes treat it as.

That is a searching word about a common and easily excused sin. We may not raze cities, but the instinct Tyre showed, the quiet Aha! when someone we resent or compete with stumbles, the calculation of how their loss might be our gain, lives in us too. God's word to Tyre says such gloating is not harmless. Do not rejoice when your rival falls, or an enemy stumbles, or someone you resent suffers loss. Do not calculate your advantage from another's ruin. God is not pleased with the Aha! of those who gloat over the downfall of others. Guard your heart against it.

Lord, Tyre gloated over Jerusalem's fall and calculated its own gain from another's ruin, and you set yourself against it. Search my own heart for that sin: the quiet Aha! when a rival stumbles, the secret gladness at an enemy's misfortune, the calculation of how another's loss might be my gain. Show me it is not harmless. Keep me from rejoicing at anyone's downfall or profiting from their ruin. Give me instead a heart that grieves others' losses rather than gloating over them.