https://literalword.com/esv?q=Ezekiel+26
Observations from today’s readings and today’s S-WOD, Tuesday, 29 September 2026:
Ezekiel 26:1-6 — In the eleventh year, on the first day of the month, the word of the LORD came to me: “Son of man, because Tyre said concerning Jerusalem, ‘Aha, the gate of the peoples is broken; it has swung open to me. I shall be replenished, now that she is laid waste,’ therefore thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I am against you, O Tyre, and will bring up many nations against you, as the sea brings up its waves…. Then they will know that I am the LORD.
Tyre was one of the great commercial powers of the ancient world, a wealthy seaport whose ships and merchants connected nations across the Mediterranean. Jerusalem’s destruction therefore looked like an economic opportunity. Tyre did not simply say, “Jerusalem has fallen.” She said, “I shall be replenished, now that she is laid waste.” Someone else’s loss could become her gain. The same “Aha” that revealed Ammon’s malicious pleasure in the previous chapter now reveals something slightly different in Tyre: cold, calculating self-interest. Jerusalem’s suffering mattered primarily because of what Tyre could gain from it.
That exposes a form of sin that can easily hide behind normal ambition. We can begin evaluating people and circumstances primarily according to whether they advance our interests. Someone else’s failure creates an opening for us. Their weakness gives us leverage. Their loss creates an opportunity. Business, career, money, influence, and success are not evil, but they become idols when people become competitors, obstacles, customers, contacts, or opportunities rather than neighbors to love. Jesus asks a radically different question: not “What can I gain from this person?” but “How can I love this person?” The Son of Man came “not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).
There is a striking contrast between Tyre and Christ. Tyre looked at another’s loss and asked how it could become her gain. Jesus willingly accepted loss so that it could become our gain. Though He was rich, for our sake He became poor so that through His poverty we might become rich (2 Corinthians 8:9). That is the Gospel, and union with Christ increasingly changes the way we see other people. Their weakness is no longer an opportunity to advance ourselves but an opportunity to love. Their success does not threaten us, and their failure does not secretly please us, because our identity and security are already found in Christ.
God’s response to Tyre is sobering: “Behold, I am against you.” The sea that had been the source of Tyre’s wealth and security now becomes the picture of judgment as nations rise against her “as the sea brings up its waves.” God can overturn the very circumstances in which we have placed our confidence. Tyre believed geography, commerce, wealth, and power made her secure. God reminds her that none of them operate outside His rule. What have I begun treating as my real security — money, position, reputation, relationships, health, possessions, or influence? And do I view the people around me primarily through the love of Christ or according to how they affect what I want?
Ezekiel 26:7-14 – “For thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I will bring against Tyre from the north Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, king of kings, with horses and chariots, and with horsemen and a host of many soldiers…. They will plunder your riches and loot your merchandise. They will break down your walls and destroy your pleasant houses. Your stones and timber and soil they will cast into the midst of the waters…. I will make you a bare rock…. You shall never be rebuilt, for I am the LORD; I have spoken, declares the Lord GOD.”
Tyre appeared exceptionally secure. Part of the city stood on an island offshore, protected by the sea and supported by one of the ancient world’s great maritime economies. Yet God names the conqueror before he arrives: Nebuchadnezzar. The Babylonian king who had destroyed Jerusalem would now move against Tyre. Ezekiel’s description is filled with the things Tyre trusted — walls, towers, houses, riches, merchandise — and one after another they are stripped away.
The point is larger than the fall of one ancient city. Everything we possess in this world is temporary. Wealth can disappear. Businesses can fail. careers can end. Homes can be lost. Physical strength declines. Governments change. Nations rise and fall. Jesus therefore warns against laying up treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and thieves break in and steal, and tells us instead to lay up treasure in heaven (Matthew 6:19-21). The issue is not whether we possess earthly things but whether earthly things possess our hearts.
Tyre’s prosperity had made her feel secure enough to imagine that Jerusalem’s catastrophe would only increase her wealth. But what she counted on keeping was precisely what she lost. Jesus tells of a rich man who accumulated so much that he planned larger barns and told his soul that he had ample goods for many years. God answered, “Fool! This night your soul is required of you” (Luke 12:16-21). Jesus’ conclusion is not that planning or possessions are wrong, but that it is foolish to accumulate treasure for ourselves while not being “rich toward God.”
The Gospel gives us a security Tyre could never build. Jesus describes the person who hears His words and does them as someone whose house is built upon rock. Rain falls, floods come, winds beat against the house, but it stands because its foundation is secure (Matthew 7:24-25). The security of the Christian is not that storms will never come or earthly things will never be lost. It is that our life is joined to Christ, and nothing that happens in this world can separate us from Him (Romans 8:35-39). When Christ becomes our treasure, we can enjoy God’s gifts without asking them to become our foundation.
The repeated declaration, “I have spoken,” is therefore both warning and comfort. Human circumstances change constantly; God’s Word does not. Tyre’s walls seemed more tangible than God’s warning, but the walls fell and His Word stood. Faith learns to treat what God has said as more certain than what we can presently see.
Ezekiel 26:15-18 – “Thus says the Lord GOD to Tyre: Will not the coastlands shake at the sound of your fall…. Then all the princes of the sea will step down from their thrones and remove their robes and strip off their embroidered garments…. And they will raise a lamentation over you and say to you, ‘How you have perished…. O city renowned, who was mighty on the sea…. Now the coastlands tremble on the day of your fall….’”
Tyre’s fall sends shock waves far beyond Tyre. The rulers and merchants who had regarded her as powerful and secure now sit on the ground trembling. Their fear reveals something important: they had built part of their own confidence upon Tyre. If something this powerful could collapse, what could they really depend upon?
God sometimes uses the shaking of things around us to expose what we thought could never move. Hebrews describes God shaking what can be shaken so that what cannot be shaken may remain, and then reminds believers that we are receiving “a kingdom that cannot be shaken” (Hebrews 12:27-28). That is one of the great freedoms of belonging to Christ. We do not need an unchanging economy, government, career, bank account, family situation, or physical body in order to possess an unchanging kingdom. Our King remains when everything else moves.
This does not make Christians indifferent to earthly losses. The princes mourn because Tyre’s fall has real consequences. Scripture never teaches us to become detached from suffering. Jesus wept at Lazarus’s tomb even though He knew resurrection was moments away (John 11:35). But Christians grieve differently because loss cannot take away our deepest treasure. Paul could say that he had learned how to face abundance and need because his sufficiency was ultimately found in Christ (Philippians 4:11-13).
The fall of Tyre therefore asks a revealing question: What loss would make me feel as though my life itself had collapsed? The answer may reveal where I am looking for security. Christ does not promise to preserve everything we presently possess. He offers something infinitely better—Himself. Eternal life is knowing the Father and Jesus Christ whom He sent (John 17:3). As that becomes increasingly real to us, the things of this world can still matter deeply without becoming the things upon which our lives depend.
Ezekiel 26:19-21 – “For thus says the Lord GOD: When I make you a city laid waste, like the cities that are not inhabited, when I bring up the deep over you, and the great waters cover you, then I will make you go down with those who go down to the pit…. so that you will not be inhabited; but I will set beauty in the land of the living. I will bring you to a dreadful end, and you shall be no more. Though you be sought for, you will never be found again, declares the Lord GOD.”
The chapter ends with Tyre descending from extraordinary prominence into the imagery of the grave. The city that seemed indispensable to the economic life of the ancient world would not remain forever. Tyre’s enormous commercial reach and apparent strength made her seem permanent, but permanence belongs only to God and to what He establishes.
That truth should change the scale by which we measure our lives. Much of what consumes us today will eventually disappear. Positions will be filled by someone else. Possessions will belong to someone else. Accomplishments will be forgotten. Even nations and institutions that seem permanent will eventually pass away. James describes human life as “a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes” (James 4:14). Jesus asks the question that cuts through all our temporary ambitions: “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” (Mark 8:36).
But Ezekiel places one small phrase in the middle of Tyre’s descent that points our attention in another direction: “I will set beauty in the land of the living.” Tyre’s glory disappears, but God’s purposes do not. Human glory rises and falls; God is building something that lasts.
The New Testament reveals where that lasting kingdom is found. Jesus Christ entered our dying world, went down into death, and rose again never to die again. Through Him, those who were spiritually dead are made alive (Ephesians 2:4-6). We are united to the risen Christ, and our life is now “hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3). The contrast could hardly be greater. Tyre built an extraordinary earthly kingdom and eventually lost everything. Jesus surrendered everything, passed through death, rose victorious, and received a kingdom that will never end.
That changes what success means for those who belong to Him. Our goal is not to build something impressive enough to survive us. It is to know Christ, become like Christ, and faithfully invest the life He has given us in what lasts forever. Jesus tells us to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness (Matthew 6:33). Paul tells us to set our minds on things above because our lives are hidden with Christ (Colossians 3:1-4). The more deeply we know Him, the less we need wealth, accomplishment, recognition, or security to tell us that our lives matter.
Tyre therefore confronts us with a simple but searching question: What am I building my life around that cannot last? Am I measuring success primarily by what I accumulate, accomplish, control, or leave behind, or by whether I am knowing Christ and becoming like Him? If everything I presently depend upon were shaken, would Christ still be enough? One day everything temporary will fall away. The great privilege of the Christian life is that we can begin living for what lasts now.
“Cross” Fit S-WOD (Spiritual Workout of the Day) – 29 September 2026: Set aside fifteen minutes today and identify the one earthly thing you most fear losing—money, position, health, reputation, possessions, influence, or a particular relationship. Bring that specific thing before Christ and consciously surrender it to Him, then read Matthew 6:19-21 and 33 and ask God to show you one concrete way today to invest your time, money, or attention in His kingdom rather than your own.
Pray: “Father, You alone are eternal, and everything I possess comes from You. Forgive me for building security on things that cannot last and for measuring life by what I can gain, accomplish, or keep. Thank You that in Christ I have received a kingdom that cannot be shaken and a life that death cannot take away. Teach me to hold Your gifts with open hands, to see people as those to love rather than opportunities to use, and to seek first Your kingdom. Make Christ my treasure, shape me into His likeness, and use my temporary life for what lasts forever. Amen.”
