Page:Visions and Prophecies of Zechariah (Baron, David).djvu/308



292 VISIONS AND PROPHECIES OF ZECHARIAH

dust, and fine or shining gold (tiarutz) as the mire of the street." *

But worldly wisdom, natural strength, and material resources are of no avail if it is the Lord who rises in judgment against us ; and that is true of nations as of individuals.

" BeJiold, the Lord will dispossess her, and He shall smite her power (or her wealth ) in tJie sea ; and she shall be devoured with fire" " Behold " (hinneh} y by which word our special attention is directed to something very important. " Behold," though Tyre is so wise, so doubly strong, so rich yea, even though her strength were a hundred times as great, and she enclosed herself in a hundred strong walls of one hundred and fifty feet high, " the Lord will dispossess her " ; for cities or peoples cannot barricade themselves against God, and " it is altogether useless to build strongholds to keep Him out." It was the Lord who did it through Alexander, whom He used as His scourge against Phoenicia and the Persian power at that time.

"If the reference of a prophecy can be judged of by the event," says another writer, " there can be no doubt what ever to what period this prophecy must refer. The judg ments denounced against Damascus, Hadrach, and Hamath are expressed in such general terms that several events which occurred at very different periods might be adduced as fulfilments of the prophecy. But the prophecies referring to Tyre were not accomplished until the capture and destruction of that city by Alexander the Great. Tyre was unsuccessfully attacked, during the supremacy of the Assyrian power, by Shalmaneser. It was again besieged for many years by Nebuchadnezzar, and it is still a matter of doubt whether it was actually taken by that monarch. It is, indeed, highly probable that Nebuchadnezzar, though he failed in his attack on the island fortress, was so far

1 Compare especially Ezek. xxviii. No wonder the Prince of Tyre became the foreshadowing of Antichrist, and the King of Tyre (Ezek. xxviii. 12) the earthly foreground and type of the chief of the fallen angels.