WHEN Jerusalem fell, the testimony to God's government was extinguished, and the prince of this world thought to put Babylon at the head of the religious system to take the place, as it were, of Jerusalem. Thus Babylon is first in the iniquity of the world, and in pride and persecution in its representative. Hence Jehovah says in the burden of Babylon (Isa. 13), “I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity, and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and the haughtiness of the terrible.” But enmity is shown by Tire as by other Gentiles, and she rejoiced when Jerusalem fell. Her immense traffic may have increased her enmity. Many, perhaps, at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem sought refuge in the city of Tire. But hope of gain caused Tire to forget the brotherly covenant, and the fugitives were given up to the cruel Edomite. Tire remembered not the brotherly covenant. This is the charge of the prophet against her (Amos 1:99Thus saith the Lord; For three transgressions of Tyrus, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they delivered up the whole captivity to Edom, and remembered not the brotherly covenant: (Amos 1:9)). David and Hiram, king of Tire, made a covenant; and it was confirmed by Solomon, whom Hiram called “my brother” (see 2 Sam. 5 and 1 Kings 5-9). The opposition that Tire manifested has been perpetuated in modern times. The commerce so famous in that city has spread its wing over the cities of our day, which, following in the steps of Tire, await with the same unrighteousness the same doom. The present age may not show the same arrogancy that the prince of Tire and the king of Babylon showed, but the world's commerce in the hands of Satan leads to it. The spirit of Mammon rules the age, and under its influence the truth is perverted, and becomes the profession of covetous men, supposing that gain is godliness. From such we turn away. We look to the testimony of our Lord, and find that the cares and riches of this world, which commerce increases, are weeds which choke the good seed.
Power, religion, and commerce are controlled by the prince and god of this world, and all will be found against the testimony of God. The evil of the old Babylon is intensified in great Babylon; and this last, besides inheriting all the wickedness of the past —what an inheritance!—adds yet to it that she covers all with the name of Christianity. Even now idolatry and persecution, as far as Christendom extends, have their source in the seven-billed city; and the system of which that city is the center is extending its influence and ramifications over all. In the cup of the scarlet woman is found the power that began at Babel, the idolatry of Egypt, the persecution of Babylon, and the merchandise of Tire. The pride that prompted Pharaoh to say at the beginning “Who is Jehovah"? leads man at the end to say, “I am God.” It began in independence and defiance of God, and ends in blasphemy and worse.
The beginning of Nimrod's kingdom was Babel; and this commencement of man's power is marked by God's judgment (judgment being met in grace, but not removed at Pentecost). We next see the power of the world in Egypt, and there it becomes oppression (its natural effect in man's hand) and accompanied with degrading idolatry. But as the civilized world emerged from the slough of image-worship, it was caught in the net of traffic, and it became conscious of the riches that would accumulate by commerce. Tire (envious at first, afterward the rival, of Jerusalem) is used by Satan to show the glory and riches of the world, and thus becomes an instrument against God. By means of commerce Satan tries to make the curse ineffective. Thorns and thistles the earth was to bring forth, and man to eat bread in the sweat of his brow. Satan would obviate that sentence by bringing together the different products of the earth, filling the eye and mind with them; and would seek to hide the thorns by spreading a carpet of Tyrian merchandise over them. It is only carrying out the same plan that he began among the antediluvians when he taught them to handle the harp and pipe, with other things the world calls useful. So Tire has a prominence which her merchandise might not otherwise have had. Not that in itself it was sin; for we read that her merchandise in the coming day is to be used for the Lord (Isa. 23:17, 1817And it shall come to pass after the end of seventy years, that the Lord will visit Tyre, and she shall turn to her hire, and shall commit fornication with all the kingdoms of the world upon the face of the earth. 18And her merchandise and her hire shall be holiness to the Lord: it shall not be treasured nor laid up; for her merchandise shall be for them that dwell before the Lord, to eat sufficiently, and for durable clothing. (Isaiah 23:17‑18)). Nor was her hatred of Jerusalem greater than that of Edom or of any of the Gentile cities; but the principle of her opposition was more subtle, and had a stronger hold on the covetous proclivities of fallen nature.
These places are selected by the Holy Spirit as showing prominently the condition and sin of the world, and by whom led (see Ezek: 30.-32.). In the judgment, which is special to the countries and places named in Jer. 25, the whole world and its leader is included. There is a judgment common to all, “the wine cup of His fury.” All are found together, the sources of all nationalities, in short, the whole earth; the kings in this scripture are the representatives of the different places. But Egypt, Babylon, and Tire have each a prominent place in iniquity. Idolatry and commerce, though their path may be different, have each the same end, viz., blasphemy; and this is the climax of all sin, and may be the reason why the Holy Ghost had selected these places as the representatives of the great sin of the world—its enmity and defiance of God. Not that they are worse than others; for in Jerusalem itself was worse sin to be found than in the world beside: the name of God was blasphemed through its idolatry worse than Egypt's. And the truth of God afterward given for man's salvation is perverted, by what bears the same name as the persecutor of old, to found and support the most horrible system of iniquity that the arch-foe could invent. And to show the connection of this system with idolatry and persecution, it retains the same name; and we find the source of Tire's wealth to be the same as of Egypt's and Babylon's idolatry.
Tire, the prince of Tire, and the king of Tire, in Ezekiel's prophecy are distinct. The city is judged in common with other cities. But the prince and the king have each a lamentation apart from the city. So has the king of Babylon, so also has Pharaoh king of Egypt. In each the direct energy of Satan is seen, but in Egypt and Babylon Satan is not so distinguished from human agents as in Tire. The language of Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar show the same power over them as was over the prince of Tire; and they are not merely the representatives of their countries as the kings in Jer. 25, but exhibit the complete control Satan had over the world. How true that it lay in him! The word to the prince of Tire is what he has become in his pride after he is prince; to the king, what he was before he is king—before iniquity was found in him. The prince's wisdom exceeded Daniel's; there was no secret hid from him. Who was Daniel? Chief of the wise men in Babylon. “No secret” is evidently an allusion to his revealing the dream of Nebuchadnezzar, and the writing on the wall at Belshazzar's feast. The prince of Tire, inspired by Satan, equaled and surpassed (in the world's estimation) Daniel in wisdom. Here is another mark of the power of the prince of this world, who would not only have Tire to rival Jerusalem in wealth, but would also raise up a man to outrival Daniel; that he might persuade men that true wisdom was not the gift of God. By his wisdom the prince gained riches, and increased the wealth of Tire; but because of it he set his heart as the heart of God. This is the charge against him— “Because thine heart is lifted up, and thou hast said, I am a god, I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas; yet thou art a man and not God, though thou set thine heart as the heart of God.” “Wilt thou yet say before Him that slayeth thee, I am God”? Although a prince, he was only a man; and the “terrible of the nations"—the Chaldeans—would be the executors of God's wrath.
To be continued, (D. V.)