Tyre #48

Tyre was a major Phoenician city on the Mediterranean coast in what is now southern Lebanon, a short distance north of the modern border with Israel. Built on a rocky island just off the shore, with a mainland settlement beside it, it grew into one of the great trading powers of the ancient world. The Bible knows Tyre as a friend of David and Solomon, a proud commercial giant, and a city whose fate the prophets announced.

Biblical Significance

Tyre’s king Hiram was a longtime friend of David, sending cedar, carpenters, and masons to build his palace in Jerusalem (2 Samuel 5:11). Hiram later supplied cedar and cypress timber for Solomon’s temple in exchange for wheat and oil (1 Kings 5:1-12), and a skilled bronze worker whose mother was from Naphtali and whose father was a man of Tyre made much of the temple’s metalwork (1 Kings 7:13-14). Jezebel, the wife of Ahab, was the daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Sidonians, a link that brought Phoenician worship of Baal into Israel (1 Kings 16:31).

The prophets denounced Tyre for its arrogance and commercial greed. Isaiah declared an oracle against it (Isaiah 23), and Ezekiel foretold that many nations would come against it and that its walls would be broken down (Ezekiel 26:1-6). He also described its wealth in a long lament that lists its trade with distant lands (Ezekiel 27), and he condemned its ruler for claiming to be a god (Ezekiel 28:1-10). Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon is named as the one who would besiege the city (Ezekiel 26:7). Interpreters have long discussed how the prophecy relates to the later history of Tyre, including its siege by Alexander the Great, but the passages themselves are best read in terms of the detailed judgments they state.

In the Gospels, Jesus compared the unrepentant towns of Galilee unfavorably with Tyre and Sidon, saying that they would have repented long ago had they seen his miracles, and that it would be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment (Matthew 11:21-22). He also traveled into the region of Tyre, where a Gentile woman asked him to heal her daughter (Mark 7:24-30). At the end of his third journey, Paul spent seven days with the disciples at Tyre, who urged him through the Spirit not to go on to Jerusalem before he finally sailed away (Acts 21:3-6).

Today

Modern Tyre, called Sour in Arabic, is a coastal city in Lebanon and a UNESCO World Heritage site. Its ancient island was joined to the mainland by a causeway that Alexander the Great built during his siege in 332 BC, and silt has since widened it into a peninsula. Visitors can see Roman and Byzantine remains, including a large hippodrome, a colonnaded road, and a triumphal arch, along with the harbor areas. Much of the earlier Phoenician city lies beneath the modern one or underwater, so the biblical-era city is less visible than its later periods.