The bewailing of the city.
Very picturesque and impressive is this representation of the effect produced upon the nations by the fall of Tyre. So world-wide was the city's commerce, that no people, however distant, could be unaffected by the catastrophe; and so awful was its fate, that no sensitive mind could contemplate it unmoved. To the vision of the prophet-poet, the galley labors and strains, and at last sinks in the waters of the Mediterranean. The dwellers upon the land and those who sail the sea gather together upon the shore to witness the shipwreck. Their cry and bitter wailing fill the air. Every sigma of humiliation and of mourning is exhibited by the spectators. A lamentation, a dirge, rises from the company of those deeply moved by sympathetic sorrow. They celebrate the glories of the past; they bear witness to present calamity and woe; they confess with terror that Tyre never shall be more. We trace in the demeanor and the language here depicted—
I. ASTONISHMENT AT THE SPECTACLE OF DESTRUCTION. The scene was so unexpected, so much in contradiction to all human anticipation and foresight, so revolutionary, so appalling, that amazement was the predominant emotion of those who witnessed it.
II. SENSE OF THE WORLD'S LOSS BY REASON OF THE SHIPWRECK. The earth seemed poorer for the overthrow and annihilation of Tyre—the leading seaport and commercial center of the nations. In Ezekiel 27:33 this loss is depicted, the loss alike of peoples and of kings. Riches and merchandise disappeared, engulfed with Tyre in the insatiable deep. The march of human civilization seemed to be arrested.
III. CONTRAST WITH THE REMEMBERED AND MEMORABLE PAST. Cities, like men, are sometimes best understood and appreciated when they are no more. Those who recollected Tyre's splendor would, in their old age, tell a new generation of the bygone wonders. "Who is there like Tyre, like her that is brought to silence in the midst of the sea?" The puny successors to the peerless seaport would point many a moral, and inspire many a regret for vanished glories.
IV. UNSETTLEMENT AND FOREBODING AS TO THE FUTURE. Astonishment is often associated with fear and trouble. When a vast calamity occurs, it is as if the fountains of the great deep were broken up. Men's hearts fail them for fear. What is to be the future of the world's history? What nation is secure? What throne is stable? What principle, what power, shall bear sway in coming times? There is but one answer to these questions, but one confidence that can never be shaken, "The kingdoms of the earth are the Lord's."—
HOMILIES BY J.D. DAVIES