Yehezkiel 26:15-21

26:15 “This is what the sovereign Lord says to Tyre: Oh, how the coastlands will shake at the sound of your fall, when the wounded groan, at the massive slaughter in your midst! 26:16 All the princes of the sea will vacate ¹  their thrones. They will remove their robes and strip off their embroidered clothes; they will clothe themselves with trembling. They will sit on the ground; they will tremble continually and be shocked at what has happened to you. ²  26:17 They will sing this lament over you: ³ 

“‘How you have perished – you have vanished ⁴  from the seas,

O renowned city, once mighty in the sea,

she and her inhabitants, who spread their terror! ⁵ 

26:18 Now the coastlands will tremble on the day of your fall;

the coastlands by the sea will be terrified by your passing.’ ⁶ 

26:19 “For this is what the sovereign Lord says: When I make you desolate like the uninhabited cities, when I bring up the deep over you and the surging ⁷  waters overwhelm you, 26:20 then I will bring you down to bygone people, ⁸  to be with those who descend to the pit. I will make you live in the lower parts of the earth, among ⁹  the primeval ruins, with those who descend to the pit, so that you will not be inhabited or stand ¹⁰  in the land of the living. 26:21 I will bring terrors on you, and you will be no more! Though you are sought after, you will never be found again, declares the sovereign Lord.”

[26:16]  ¹ tn Heb “descend from.”

[26:16]  ² tn Heb “and they will be astonished over you.”

[26:17]  ³ tn Heb “and they will lift up over you a lament and they will say to you.”

[26:17]  ⁴ tn Heb “O inhabitant.” The translation follows the LXX and understands a different Hebrew verb, meaning “cease,” behind the consonantal text. See L. C. Allen, Ezekiel [WBC], 2:72, and D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 2:43.

[26:17]  ⁵ tn Heb “she and her inhabitants who placed their terror to all her inhabitants.” The relationship of the final prepositional phrase to what precedes is unclear. The preposition probably has a specifying function here, drawing attention to Tyre’s inhabitants as the source of the terror mentioned prior to this. In this case, one might paraphrase verse 17b: “she and her inhabitants, who spread their terror; yes, her inhabitants (were the source of this terror).”

[26:18]  ⁶ tn Heb “from your going out.”

[26:19]  ⁷ tn Heb “many.”

[26:20]  ⁸ tn Heb “to the people of antiquity.”

[26:20]  ⁹ tn Heb “like.” The translation assumes an emendation of the preposition כְּ (kÿ, “like”), to בְּ (bÿ, “in, among”).

[26:20]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “and I will place beauty.” This reading makes little sense; many, following the lead of the LXX, emend the text to read “nor will you stand” with the negative particle before the preceding verb understood by ellipsis; see L. C. Allen, Ezekiel (WBC), 2:73. D. I. Block (Ezekiel [NICOT], 2:47) offers another alternative, taking the apparent first person verb form as an archaic second feminine form and translating “nor radiate splendor.”