Tyre

Tyre in the Bible

• Boundaries and alliance: Joshua 19:29, describing the boundary of the territory of the tribe of Asher, mentions "the strong city Tyre." According to 2 Samuel 5:11, Hiram king of Tyre sent David cedar trees, carpenters, and masons. In 1 Kings 5, Hiram makes a treaty with Solomon and supplies timber for building the Temple in Jerusalem. First Kings 9:11-13 also relates that Solomon gave Hiram twenty cities in Galilee, but Hiram was not pleased with them. The craftsman Hiram who made the bronze furnishings of the Temple (1 Kings 7:13-14) is a different person from this king.
• Oracles of judgment: Isaiah 23, Ezekiel 26–28, Amos 1:9-10, Joel 3:4-8, Zechariah 9:2-4, and other passages rebuke Tyre for its pride, its wealth, and its slave trade, and foretell its destruction. Ezekiel 27 is a lament (a song of mourning) that likens Tyre to a splendid merchant ship, and chapter 28 pronounces judgment on the king of Tyre, who says of himself, "I am a God" (Ezekiel 28:2).
• New Testament: Rebuking the unrepentant towns of Galilee, Jesus says that Tyre and Sidon would have repented had they seen what those towns saw (Matthew 11:21-22). He later goes into the region of Tyre and heals the daughter of the Syrophoenician woman (Mark 7:24-30; Matthew 15:21-28). Other passages record that crowds came to Jesus from the area of Tyre and Sidon (Mark 3:8) and that Herod was angry with the people of Tyre and Sidon (Acts 12:20). On his way to Jerusalem at the end of his third missionary journey, Paul stayed seven days with the disciples at Tyre, and when he departed they knelt down together on the shore and prayed (Acts 21:3-6).

Background

Along with Sidon, Tyre was one of the leading maritime trading cities of Phoenicia. It consisted of a mainland settlement and a city built on an island just offshore. Its Hebrew name, Tsor, is generally understood to mean "rock." The city was renowned for its purple dye and its long-distance seaborne trade, and tradition holds that it founded Carthage in North Africa. The Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar besieged Tyre for a long period (Ezekiel 29:18). In 332 BC, Alexander the Great famously captured the island city after building a causeway out into the sea.

Interpretation and Debated Questions

• The "king of Tyre" in Ezekiel 28:11-19: This passage refers to Eden, to a cherub (a kind of angelic being), and to a being created perfect who then fell through pride. For this reason, a tradition reaching back to the patristic era reads it as a description of the fall of Satan, and many churches preach it that way alongside Isaiah 14. Other interpreters, however, see it as a poetic lament that depicts the pride of an actual king of Tyre in exaggerated terms drawn from the imagery of the Garden of Eden. On its face, the text is addressed to "the king of Tyrus."
• The question of fulfillment: Interpreters differ over the prophecy in Ezekiel 26 that Tyre would become "like the top of a rock" and "a place to spread nets upon" (Ezekiel 26:5, 14). One view holds that it was fulfilled in stages through the attacks of Nebuchadnezzar and Alexander. Another questions a literal fulfillment, noting that Tyre continued to exist as a city afterward. Defenders of fulfillment respond by pointing to the statement that "many nations" (Ezekiel 26:3) would come against it in succession and to the fate of the old island city.
• Relationship to Jezebel: First Kings 16:31 introduces Jezebel as the daughter of "Ethbaal king of the Zidonians." On the basis of ancient sources, this Ethbaal is commonly identified as a king of Tyre, but the biblical text does not explicitly mention Tyre. See also the article Ahab and Jezebel.

Significance in the Bible as a Whole

In the Old Testament, Tyre is portrayed both as a neighbor that cooperated with Israel and as a representative Gentile power judged for its wealth and pride. Psalm 45:12 celebrates the daughter of Tyre coming with a gift. In the New Testament, it is in that very region of Tyre that a Gentile woman is commended for her faith, and a community of disciples is established in Tyre. For this reason, these scenes are often read as depicting the opening of the gospel to the Gentiles.