Bible Strands
Ezekiel 27:32
As they wail and mourn over you, they will take up a lament for you: ‘Who was ever like Tyre, silenced in the middle of the sea?
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Ezekiel delivers this oracle concerning Tyre’s impending collapse. The passage records the future response of neighboring nations who will perform formal mourning rites after the city falls.
The words — The Hebrew qînâh (קִינָ֔ה) designates a structured dirge chanted over the dead. The rhetorical construction mî kəṣôr (מִי כְ/צ֔וֹר) frames Tyre’s sudden silencing as a unique historical rupture.
The thread — The lament motif appears in Ezekiel 26:17, where coastal powers mourn a fallen maritime hub, and resurfaces in Revelation 18:18 with the identical question over a destroyed commercial center.
Why it lands — The text states that maritime wealth and political influence terminate in absolute silence. It requires the reader to acknowledge that earthly prominence ends without exception under divine judgment.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
And in their wailing they shall take up a lamentation for thee, and lament over thee, saying, What city is like Tyrus, like the destroyed in the midst of the sea?
Cross-references
- Ezekiel 26:17 Then they will lament for you, saying, “How you have perished, O city of renown inhabited by seafaring men—she who was powerful on the sea, along with her people, who imposed terror on all peoples!
- Ezekiel 27:2 “Now you, son of man, take up a lament for Tyre.
- Revelation 18:18 and cry out at the sight of the smoke rising from the fire that consumes her. “What city was ever like this great city?” they will exclaim.
- Lamentations 1:12 Is this nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look around and see! Is there any sorrow like mine, which was inflicted on me, which the LORD made me suffer on the day of His fierce anger?
- Lamentations 2:13 What can I say for you? To what can I compare you, O Daughter of Jerusalem? To what can I liken you, that I may console you, O Virgin Daughter of Zion? For your wound is as deep as the sea. Who can ever heal you?
- Ezekiel 26:4 They will destroy the walls of Tyre and demolish her towers. I will scrape the soil from her and make her a bare rock.
- Ezekiel 27:26 Your oarsmen have brought you onto the high seas, but the east wind will shatter you in the heart of the sea.