The blockade was complete, the Tyrians were now cooped up inside their city, unable to harass Alexander’s men or resupply the city from the sea.Work resumed on the causeway. Tyrian soldiers quickly set the vessel aflame and the inferno spread to Alexander’s siege towers and other siege equipment. The Greeks identified this god with their famous mythic hero Hercacles (Hercules). Tyre was the maritime equivalent of Babylon.
The request came during their major annual religious festival to Melkart and they may have felt that to allow Alexander to sacrifice there and at that time would have meant that they acknowledged his sovereignty over the city. In modern terms you could say that Heracles was Alexander’s “brand”.The Tyrians politely declined Alexander’s request to offer sacrifice in their city. Most recently, armed forces in the city belonging to the Shia Muslim “Hezbollah” militia were bombed by Israel during the 2006 Lebanon War.Aerial photo of Tyre circa 1934. Tyre is well-known to Bible students particularly (although not exclusively) from the prophecy of Ezekiel who was inspired to foresee details of Tyre’s downfall that would have seemed wildly improbable to his contemporaries yet in the course of time proved accurate to the smallest detail.At first, the city/state of Tyre enjoyed good relations with Israel and Judah although the relationship was commercial and not based on any religious or cultural sympathy.
Alexander's conquest brought an end - a permanent end - to the Phoenician Empire. Take a look:Nebuchadnezzar is not the "many nations" referenced in verse 3. Another 23 fighting ships came from the Greek city-state of Ionia. This occurred in roughly the mid-580s to 570s B.C.Two hundred and fifty years later, Tyre fell to Alexander the Great and the Greeks. Delay was intolerable!
Since Alexander had pressed into service the soldiers and sailors of subjugated Phoenicians cities, many of his forces were related to the people of Tyre by blood and culture.
The fulfilment of this part of the prophecy would wait over 250 years for the ascent of Alexander the Great.
God comes across as a weak and silly nincompoop! Alexander’s army continued south where the Phoenician cities of Byblos and Sidon capitulated without a fight.
The Greek army literally fulfilled Ezekiel’s prophecy when they demolished the mainland city and threw the stones, timber and soil into the sea. 30,000 of the citizens of Tyre were subsequently sold into slavery while 2,000 soldiers who had survived the downfall were forced onto the beaches of Tyre and hung or nailed by the hands onto trees, posts and rudimentary frames until they were dead.
What is even more amazing however, is that the prophecy continues to foretell the events of Alexander the Great’s siege against the island fortress of Tyre which was positioned a half mile off the coast of mainland Tyre.
Watch.So, in other words, the bizarre prophecy that they would throw the city’s remains into the sea was fulfilled!
Their material was timber from the famous cedar,As the water deepened, the progress of the causeway began to slow. Following deportation to Babylon in 586 BC, Ezekiel prophesied that Tyre, who viewed the fall of Jerusalem as the pathway to further prosperity, would ultimately be destroyed. Because of this betrayal and the arrogance of Tyre’s king, the prophet Ezekiel predicted the destruction of the city:The first “wave” of nations to come against Tyre was Babylon under King Nebuchadnezzar. In total, Alexander now had a navy of 223 ships which was more than Tyre possessed and more than enough to blockade the island city.
True to his word, he would turn the island of Tyre into mainland.Demolishing the ruins of mainland Tyre (“Old Tyre”), Alexander had the stones thrown into the sea at the point where the distance between the mainland and the island of Tyre was the shortest. 26:4, 12. It was built on the coast and spread onto a nearby island. A broken cuneiform tablet first published in 1926 by German archeologist Eckhard Unger refers to provisions of food for “,Nebuchadnezzar did not take the island city by force. Ethbaal’s daughter of course, was the infamous.After this point in history the once good relations enjoyed by Tyre and the people of Judah and Israel soured. Even if those numbers are exaggerated the disparity was surely great. {PD} Source:Phoenicia map by author. LIFE AND MINISTRY MEETING WORKBOOK July 2017,Life and Ministry Meeting Workbook | July 2017. According to the first century Jewish historian Josephus, Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to Tyre for an incredible 13 years:Josephus also quotes an account that has not survived til our day by a historian named Philostratus (who lived circa 170 to 250 B.C) who in his accounts said of Nebuchadnezzar: “,During the protracted, multi-year siege, Babylonian soldiers heads became bare from the chafing of their helmets, their shoulders rubbed raw from wearing armour and labouring long in the siege. They hung cauldrons of oil from the masts and then two galley ships towed the fireship to the end of the causeway and ran her aground. It seems likely that the city negotiated a surrender after 13 years of siege. Many ancient historians thought he had been poisoned although many (but not all) modern historians believe he died of natural causes such as malaria or typhoid fever.Shortly after succeeding his father, Alexander turned his eyes eastward toward the ancient rivals of Greece and determined to conquer Persia. And if this is true, then one could argue convincingly that the prophecy was fulfilled.