from her, and make her like the top of a rock: it shall be a place for
the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea: for I have spoken it,
saith the Lord God.” “I will make thee like the top of a rock: thou
shalt be a place to spread nets upon: thou shalt be built no more; for I
the Lord have spoken it, saith the Lord God.” Nothing can be more
literally and astonishingly executed than this sentence. Huetius relates
of one Hadrianus Parvillerius, that “when he approached the ruins of
Tyre, and beheld the rocks stretched forth to the sea, and the great
stones scattered up and down on the shore, made clean and smooth by the
sun and waves and wind, and useful only for the drying of fishermen’s
nets, many of which happened at that time to be spread thereon, it
brought to his memory the prophecy of Ezekiel concerning Tyre, that such
should be its fate.” Maundrell, who visited the Holy Land, A. D. 1697,
describes it thus: “This city, standing in the sea upon a peninsula,
promises at a distance, something very magnificent; but when you come to
it, you find no similitude of that glory for which it was so renowned in
ancient times, and which the Prophet Ezekiel describes, xxvi, xxvii,
xxviii. On the north side it has an old Turkish ungarrisoned castle;
beside which, you see nothing here but a mere Babel of broken walls,
pillars, vaults, &c; there being not so much as one entire house left!
Its present inhabitants are only a few poor wretches harbouring
themselves in the vaults, and subsisting chiefly by fishing: who seem to
be preserved in this place by Divine Providence, as a visible argument
how God has fulfilled his word concerning Tyre, namely, that it should
be as the top of a rock; a place for fishers to dry their nets upon,
Ezek. xxvi, 14.” Hasselquist, who saw it since, in A. D. 1751, observes
as follows: “None of those cities which were formerly famous are so
totally ruined as Tyre, now called Zur; except Troy. Zur now scarcely
can be called a miserable village, though it was formerly Tyre, the
queen of the sea. Here are about ten inhabitants, Turks and Christians,
who live by fishing.” Bruce, who visited this country about eighty years
after Maundrell, says, that “passing by Tyre from curiosity, I came to
be a mournful witness of the truth of that prophecy, that Tyre, the
queen of nations, should be a rock for fishers to dry their nets on.”
Mr. Buckingham, who visited it in 1816, represents it as containing
about eight hundred substantial stone-built houses, and from five to
eight thousand inhabitants. But Mr. Jowett, on the authority of the
Greek archbishop, reduces this number to less than four thousand;
namely, one thousand two hundred Greek Catholics, one hundred Maronites,
one hundred Greeks, one thousand Montonalis, and one hundred Turks. Mr.
Jowett observed numerous and beautiful columns stretched along the
beach, or standing in fragments half buried in the sand, that has been
accumulating for ages: “the broken aqueduct, and the ruins which appear
in its neighbourhood, exist as an affecting monument of the fragile and
transitory nature of earthly grandeur.” Mr. Joliffe states, that there
now exist scarcely any traces of this once powerful city. “Some
miserable cabins, ranged in irregular lines, dignified with the name of
streets, and a few buildings of a rather better description, occupied by
the officers of government, compose nearly the whole of the town. It
still makes, indeed, some languishing efforts at commerce, and contrives
to export annually to Alexandria cargoes of silk and tobacco; but the
amount merits no consideration. The noble dust of Alexander, traced by
the imagination till found stopping a beer barrel, would scarcely afford
a stronger contrast of grandeur and debasement, than Tyre, at the period
of being besieged by that conqueror, and the modern town of Tsour
erected on its ashes.”
As commercial cities, says Mansford, ancient Alexandria and London may
be considered as approaching the nearest to Tyre. But Alexandria, during
the whole of her prosperous days, was subject to foreign rule; and
London, great as are her commerce and her wealth, and possessing as she
does almost a monopoly of what has in all ages been the most enviable
and most lucrative branch of trade, that with the east, does not centre
in herself, as Tyre did, without a rival and without competition, the
trade of all nations, and hold an absolute monopoly, not of one, but of
every branch of commerce. For the long period of a thousand years, not a
single production of the east passed to the west, or of the west to the
east, but by the merchants of Tyre. Nor for many ages were any ships
found but those of Tyre daring enough to pass the straits of the Red Sea
on one side, or of the Mediterranean on the other. While the vessels of
other countries were groping along their coasts, clinging to their
landmarks, and frightened at a breeze, the ships of Tyre were found from
Spain, if not from Britain, on the west, to the coast of Malabar and
Sofala on the east and south. No wonder that her merchants were princes,
and that they lived in a style of magnificence unknown in any other
country in the same age; or that she should be considered a desirable
prey by the conquerors of the times. But enterprise and wealth did not
alone complete the character of the Tyrians; they had an undoubted claim
to valour of no common order. Their city, which possessed scarcely any
territory beyond their own walls, maintained a siege of thirteen years
(the longest in history except that of Ashdod) against the whole power
of Babylon; and another of seven months against Alexander, whose
successes had afforded no instance of similar delay. And in neither case
had the captors much to boast of, as the Tyrians had shipped off their
most valuable property to Carthage; and in the former particularly, as
has been already related, they so effectually secured or sacrificed the
whole, that the soldiers of Nebuchadnezzar found nothing to reward them
for their length of labour, during which, by excessive toil and heat,
“their heads were made bald, and their very shoulders peeled,” but
vacant streets, and houses already sacked. Carthage, Utica, and Cadiz,
are celebrated monuments of the power of Tyre on the Mediterranean, and
in the west. She extended her navigation even into the ocean, and
carried her commerce beyond England to the north, and the Canaries to
the south. Her connections with the east, though less known, were not
less considerable; the islands of Tyrus and Aradus, (the modern
Barhain,) in the Persian Gulf. The cities of Faran and Phœnicum
Oppidum, on the Red Sea, in ruins even in the time of the Greeks, prove
that the Tyrians had long frequented the coast of Arabia and the Indian
Sea. But, through the vicissitudes of time, Tyre, reduced to a miserable
village, has no other trade than the exportation of a few sacks of corn
and raw cotton, nor any merchant, says Volney, but a single Greek factor
in the service of the French Saide, (Sidon,) who scarcely makes
sufficient profit to maintain his family. In allusion to Tyre in her
better days, Forbes observes, when speaking of Surat, “The bazars,
filled with costly merchandise; picturesque and interesting groups of
natives on elephants, camels, horses, and mules; strangers from all
parts of the globe, in their respective costume; vessels building on the
stocks, others navigating the river; together with Turks, Persians, and
Armenians, on Arabian chargers; European ladies in splendid carriages,
the Asiatic females in hackeries drawn by oxen; and the motley
appearance of the English and nabob’s troops on the fortifications,
remind us of the following description of Tyre, “O thou that art situate
at the entry of the sea, which art a merchant of the people for many
isles,” &c, Ezek. xxvii, 3. This is a true picture of oriental commerce
in ancient times; and a very exact description of the port and the
bazars of Surat, at the present day.”
Dr. Vincent has given the following able illustration of the trade of
Tyre as described in Ezek. xxvii, which must be considered as one of the
most ample and early accounts extant. The learned author has rendered
the Hebrew names into others better known in the geography of more
recent times:--Tyre produced from Hermon, and the mountains near it, fir
for planking; and from Libanus, cedars for masts. From Bashan, east of
the sea of Galilee, oaks for oars. From Greece, or the Grecian isles,
ivory to adorn the benches or the waists of the galleys. From Egypt,
linen, ornamented with different colours, for sails, or flags, or
ensigns. From Peloponnesus, blue and purple cloths for awnings. From
Sidon and Aradus, mariners; but Tyre itself furnished pilots and
commanders. From Gebal, or Biblos, on the coast between Tripolis and
Berytus, caulkers. From Persia and Africa, mercenary troops. From
Aradus, the troops that garrisoned Tyre with the Gamadim. From Tarshish,
or by distant voyages toward the west, and toward the east, great
wealth, iron, tin, lead, and silver. Tin implies Britain or Spain, or at
least a voyage beyond the Straits of Hercules. From Greece, and the
countries bordering on Pontus, slaves, and brass ware. From Armenia,
horses, horsemen, and mules. From the Gulf of Persia, and the isles
within that gulf, horns (tusks) of ivory, and ebony. The export to these
isles was the manufacture of Tyre. From Syria, emeralds, purple,
broidered work, fine linen, coral, and agate. The exports to Syria were
the manufactures of Tyre in great quantities. From Judah and Israel, the
finest wheat, honey, oil, and balsam. From Damascus, wine of Chalybon,
(the country bordering on the modern Aleppo,) and wool in the fleece.
The exports to Damascus were costly and various manufactures. From the
tribe of Dan, situated nearest to the Philistines, the produce of
Arabia, bright or wrought iron, cassia or cinnamon, and the calamus
aramaticus. In conducting the transport of these articles, Dan went to
and fro, that is, formed or conducted the caravans. By one
interpretation, they are said to come from Uzal; and Uzal is said to be
Sana, the capital of Yemen, or Arabia Felix. From the Gulf of Persia,
rich cloth for the decoration of chariots or horsemen. From Arabia
Petræa and Hedjaz, lambs, and rams, and goats. From Sabea and Oman, the
best of spices. From India, gold, and precious stones. From Mesopotamia,
from Carrhæ, and Babylonia, the Assyrians brought all sorts of exquisite
things; that is, fine manufacture, blue cloth, and broidered work, or
fabric of various colours, in chests of cedar bound with cords,
containing rich apparel. If these articles were obtained farther from
the east, may they not be the fabrics of India, first brought to Assyria
by the Gulf of Persia, or by caravans from Karmania and the Indus, and
then conveyed by the Assyrians, in other caravans, to Tyre and Syria? In
this view, the care of package, the chests of cedar, and the cording of
the chests, are all correspondent to the nature of such a transport.
From Tarshish the ships came that rejoiced in the markets of Tyre: they
replenished the city, and made it glorious in the midst of the sea,
Ezek. xxvii, 5–25. Dr. Vincent observes, that from the Tarshish last
mentioned the ships returned to the ports in the Red Sea; as from the
nineteenth to the twenty-fourth verse every particular relates to the
east, while that referred to in the twelfth implies the west--Spain, or
beyond. We have here some light thrown on the obscurity which surrounds
the situation of this distant and unknown place. There is, indeed, a
clear reference to two distinct places, or parts of the world,
denominated Tarshish; perhaps from those very circumstances, their
distance, and the little that was known respecting them. That one was
situated westward, and reached by a passage across the Mediterranean, is
certain from other parts of Scripture; that the other was eastward, or
southward, on the coast of Arabia, India, or Africa, is equally certain.
See TARSHISH, and OPHIR.
UNBELIEF or INFIDELITY is a want of credence in the word of God; or it
may be defined, a calling in question the divine veracity, in what God
hath either testified, promised, or threatened; and thus it is the
opposite of faith, which consists in crediting what God hath said, John
iii, 18, 33. It is said that the Jews could not enter into the promised
land, “because of their unbelief,” Heb. iii, 18, 19. And the Apostle,
teaching the believing Hebrews what instruction they should deduce from
that portion of the history of their forefathers, says, as the words
literally translated would run, “We are evangelized as well as they
were; but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed
with faith in them that heard it,” Heb. iv, 2. The meaning is, We
Christians are favoured with the good news of the heavenly rest, as well
as Israel in the wilderness were with the good news of the earthly rest
in Canaan; but the word which they heard concerning that rest did not
profit them, because they did not believe it. Hence it appears that
faith and unbelief are not confined to the spiritual truths and promises
of the Gospel of Christ, but respect any truth which God may reveal, or
any promise which he may make even concerning temporal things. It is a
crediting or discrediting God in what he says, whatever be the subject.
Christ could not do many mighty works in his own country, because of
their unbelief, Matt. vi, 5, 6; their mean opinion of him, and contempt
of his miracles, rendered them unfit objects to have miracles wrought
upon or among them. The Apostles’ distrust of Christ’s promises, of
enabling them to cast out devils, rendered them incapable of casting one
out, Mark xvii, 16; and St. Peter’s distrust of his Master’s power
occasioned his sinking in the water, Matt. xiv, 30, 31. The unbelief for
which the Jews were broken off from their being a church was their
denial of Christ’s Messiahship, their contempt and refusal of him, and
their violent persecution of his cause and members, Rom. xi, 20.