The Cleveland Masonic Library

If you doubt that the word of God is accurate, consider the prophecies concerning a city called Tyre. In Ezekiel 26, God forecast the end of Tyre: many nations would come against it (Ezekiel, 26.3): Babylon would be the first to attack it (26:7); Tyre’s walls and towers would be broken down (26:4,9); the stones, timbers, and debris of the city would be thrown into the sea ((26:12); it’s location would become a bare rock and a place for fisherman to dry their nets (26:4,4-5,14): and the city of Tyre would never be rebuilt (26:14).

Tyre was no insignificant fishing village. It was a great city of Phoenicia and a prominent world capital for over two thousand years. Yet at the peak of its power, the prophet Ezekiel had the audacity to predict a violent future and ignominious end for the mighty city of Tyre. This downfall would come about because of the city’s flagrant wickedness and arrogance, traits personified in its ruler, Ittobal II, who claimed to be God.

History proved Ezekiel’s words. Many nations did come against Tyre: first the Babylonians, and then the Greeks, the Romans, the Muslims, and the Crusaders. After a thirteen-year siege, Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon broke down Tyre’s walls and towers and massacred all of its inhabitants, except for those who escaped to an island fortress a half-mile out in the Mediterranean Sea. Centuries after Ezekiel had spoken, Alexander the Great conquered the island fortress of Tyre by building a causeway from Tyre’s mainland to the island, using the millions of cubic feet of rubble left from the destroyed city. Thus Tyre was scrapped bare as a kneecap, just as Ezekiel had predicted.

And, astonishingly, Tyre has never been rebuilt. Despite its strategic and beautiful location, despite the fact that it contains the Springs of Reselain, which pump ten million gallons of fresh water daily, Tyre finally and irrevocable fell in 1291 A. D., never to be rebuilt. What covers those acres today? The drying nets of fisherman. CNB