Nebuchadrezzar did not destroy Tyre, and when it was destroyed by someone else, Alexander the Great, centuries later, it was rebuilt.
This comment came up a few years ago in a discussion with a friend. At the time I didn’t know enough about biblical prophecy to give a good answer, and I had forgotten about the question by the time I did know. So now I’m coming back to answer it, better late than never.
This is a good opportunity to touch on prophecy in general. When most people hear the term prophecy they think of predictions about what is going to happen in the future. There are prophecies about the Jews in exile, prophecies about the coming of the messiah, prophecies about the end of the world, and generally prophecies about a whole bunch of things.
The term prophecy, however, does not simply mean predictions about the future. One of the definitions of prophecy is ‘a divinely inspired utterance or revelation.’ Another way of looking at it is that a prophet is a person who speaks truth. A prophet is defined as ‘a person regarded as an inspired teacher or proclaimer of the will of God.’ This truth could be about the current situation at hand, about the future, or about anything else that God has given the prophet to speak. There are many instances in the bible where someone is described as prophesying, and it is not the future prediction sense.
Of course for this discussion we are actually focused on the future predictions. Prophecy can be an intense area of study, but I will try to break down some basic points to help here. As I pointed out in an earlier post dealing with prophecies about the coming of Jesus, a prophecy may have more than one fulfillment. There are also prophecies of warning, ones which are not meant to be fulfilled. These prophecies are kinda like a parent telling a kid to stop doing something or they will be punished. There are several instances in the bible where destruction is prophesied, only to have the people repent and the destruction not happen.
Another complicating factor is that prophecies are not always written in the order the events will take place. A prophecy may say that X, Y, and Z, are going to happen, but it doesn’t necessarily say that they will happen in that order. The order could be Y, X, Z or Z, Y, X and still be a fulfillment of the prophecy unless the events are explicitly stated as happening in that order. Further complicating this is the fact that the amount of time between these specific events can vary greatly, even within the same verse. A verse might mention two events happening, but the two events could be fulfilled decades, or even centuries apart. When combined with multiple fulfillments, this makes tracing the specifics of some prophecies a very difficult affair. All of these reasons contribute to the fact that it is impossible to know the full meaning of a prophecy until after it is fulfilled. The best we can do is make guesses, I’m looking at you Revelation.
So, back to the prophecy about the destruction of Tyre. Many of these factors come into play. Let’s start with the prophecy itself.
“In the eleventh month of the twelfth year, on the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man, because Tyre has said of Jerusalem, ‘Aha! The gate to the nations is broken, and its doors have swung open to me; now that she lies in ruins I will prosper,’ therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I am against you, Tyre, and I will bring many nations against you, like the sea casting up its waves. They will destroy the walls of Tyre and pull down her towers; I will scrape away her rubble and make her a bare rock. Out in the sea she will become a place to spread fishnets, for I have spoken, declares the Sovereign Lord. She will become plunder for the nations, and her settlements on the mainland will be ravaged by the sword. Then they will know that I am the Lord.
“For this is what the Sovereign Lord says: From the north I am going to bring against Tyre Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, king of kings, with horses and chariots, with horsemen and a great army. He will ravage your settlements on the mainland with the sword; he will set up siege works against you, build a ramp up to your walls and raise his shields against you. He will direct the blows of his battering rams against your walls and demolish your towers with his weapons. His horses will be so many that they will cover you with dust. Your walls will tremble at the noise of the warhorses, wagons and chariots when he enters your gates as men enter a city whose walls have been broken through. The hooves of his horses will trample all your streets; he will kill your people with the sword, and your strong pillars will fall to the ground. They will plunder your wealth and loot your merchandise; they will break down your walls and demolish your fine houses and throw your stones, timber and rubble into the sea. I will put an end to your noisy songs, and the music of your harps will be heard no more. I will make you a bare rock, and you will become a place to spread fishnets. You will never be rebuilt, for I the Lord have spoken, declares the Sovereign Lord.- Ezekiel 26:1-14”
My friend’s original comment claimed that this prophecy wasn’t fulfilled for two reasons. First was that Nebuchadnezzar never fully destroyed Tyre, and that Alexander had to finish the job later. Second was that there is a city today called Tyre, so the place must have been rebuilt.
Looking at the prophecy, it never claims that Nebuchadnezzar would destroy all of Tyre. The prophecy specifically mentions the settlement on the mainland. Part of what made Tyre so tough to defeat was that there was a large island ¾ of a mile off the coast that served as a safe haven to retreat to during sieges. Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to Tyre in the mid 580’s BC. When he finally broke the outer walls and made it in, the residents had retreated to the island. However, Nebuchadnezzer did destroy the mainland settlement like the prophecy said.
As the Prophecy says, many nations will come against Tyre. Alexander the great happened to be at the head of many nations about two and a half centuries later when he attacked Tyre. This is an example of different times of fulfillment within the prophecy. It began with Nebuchadnezzar, but wasn’t entirely fulfilled until the time of Alexander.
Alexander didn’t give up like Nebuchadnezzer. When the inhabitants of Tyre fled to the island, he followed. His men scraped the mainland clean, just like in the prophecy. They used all of the material from the mainland to create a land bridge to the island. He destroyed the safe haven out on the island. The population was killed or enslaved.
As for the current city of Tyre, it is not in the same place. Alexander’s land bridge was never removed, and over the milennia it has created a peninsula jutting out where the island used to be. The current city is situated mostly on that peninsula. Alexander and his men did such a thorough job destroying the original city that we are unsure of its exact location, nothing at all remains from the time period. Though a new city sprung up in the area, and took on the name of the city that had once been there, the original city was never rebuilt. The people and every building stone had been removed. There was nothing left of the original to rebuild.
About the Author:
Stephen Mayo lives in Montana with his wife, daughter, corgi, and three cats.
You can keep in touch with him on Facebook and Twitter. Find more on his podcast A Side of Mayo. If you enjoyed reading this consider buying him a coffee or supporting him on Patreon.