Ezekiel Chapter 29 verse 18 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 18. - Nebuchadnezzar, etc. The words carry us to the close of the thirteen years' siege of Tyre referred to in the notes on Ezekiel 28, and enable us to refer the commencement of that siege to the fourteenth year of Jehoiachin's captivity, circ. B.C. 586, two years after the destruction of Jerusalem. This agrees with the report of the Tyrian Annals given by Josephus ('Contra Apion,' 1:21), who gives the names of the kings of Tyro from Ithobal to Hirom, in the fourteenth year of whose reign Cyrus became King of Persia. Josephus, however, gives the seventh, in. stead of the seventeenth, year of Nebuchadnezzar as the date of the beginning of the siege. Here the point dwelt on is not the success of the siege, but its comparative failure. The labors and sufferings of the besiegers had been immense. Jerome (in loc.) states (not, however, giving his authority) that these labors consisted mainly in the attempt to fill up the strait between the island-city and the mainland with masses of stone and rubbish. These were carried on the heads and shoulders of the troops, and the natural result was that the former lost their hair and the latter their skin, and the whole army was in a miserable plight. And after all, the king had no wages for his labors. The city indeed, was taken, but the inhabitants made their escape by sea, with their chief possessions, and the hopes of spoil were disappointed.

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(18) Yet had he no wages.--The siege of Tyre is here represented as a service to God, for which Nebuchadnezzar had not yet received his reward. This is quite in accordance with the whole Scriptural representation of that monarch, as a man raised up to execute God's judgments. He was himself unconscious of this, and yet did that which had been foretold--a striking instance that "there is a God in history." It has been argued from this verse, and from the fact that there is no especial mention in history of the result of the siege of Tyre, that Nebuchadnezzar failed in its capture; but all that is meant is that he failed to obtain any considerable booty thereby, the Tyrians having abundant warning and opportunity to convey away their valuables by sea. This St. Jerome expressly asserts to have been done by them, and he further describes the method of the capture of the city by the same means afterwards used by Alexander, that of building a mole from the mainland to the island; thus explaining how in the besieging army "every head was made bald, and every shoulder was peeled" by the bearing of burdens for the structure. Berosus expressly testifies that Nebuchadnezzar "conquered all Syria and Ph?nicia" (Jos. c. Ap., i. 21); and Josephus also cites Philostratus, Megasthenes, and Diocles as mentioning Nebuchadnezzar's exploits and the siege of Tyre in a way which, while they do not directly mention, yet certainly imply the capture of the city (ibid., and Antt. x. 11, ? 1). Besides, it is inconceivable that Ezekiel, who long survived that siege, should have left that prophecy on record if the event was otherwise than as he predicted.