Footnotes

1. Ezekiel 27:2 tn Heb “lift up over Tyre a lament.”
2. Ezekiel 27:3 tn Heb “entrances.” The plural noun may reflect the fact that Tyre had two main harbors.
3. Ezekiel 27:3 sn Rome, another economic power, is described in a similar way in Rev 17:1.
4. Ezekiel 27:4 tn The city of Tyre is described in the following account as a merchant ship.
5. Ezekiel 27:5 tn Heb “built.”
6. Ezekiel 27:5 tn Perhaps the hull or deck. The term is dual, so perhaps it refers to a double-decked ship.
7. Ezekiel 27:6 tn Or “hull.”
8. Ezekiel 27:6 tc The Hebrew reads, “Your deck they made ivory, daughter of Assyria.” The syntactically difficult “ivory” is understood here as dittography and omitted, though some construe this to refer to ivory inlays. “Daughter of Assyria” is understood here as improper word division, and the vowels are repointed as “cypresses” and translated as “cypress wood.”
9. Ezekiel 27:6 tn Heb “from the coastlands (or islands) of Kittim,” generally understood to be a reference to the island of Cyprus, where the Phoenicians had a trading colony on the southeast coast.
10. Ezekiel 27:7 sn This is probably a reference to Cyprus.
11. Ezekiel 27:8 tc The MT reads, “the residents of”; the LXX reads, “your rulers who dwell in.” With no apparent reason for the LXX to add “the rulers,” many suppose something has dropped out of the Hebrew text. While more than one may be possible, Allen’s proposal, positing a word meaning “elders,” is the most likely to explain the omission in the MT from a graphic standpoint and also provides a parallel to the beginning of v. 9. See L. C. Allen, Ezekiel (WBC), 2:81.
12. Ezekiel 27:8 sn Sidon and Arvad, like Tyre, were Phoenician coastal cities.
13. Ezekiel 27:8 tn Or “wise.”
14. Ezekiel 27:9 sn Another Phoenician coastal city located between Sidon and Arvad.
15. Ezekiel 27:9 tn Heb “strengthening damages.” Here “to strengthen” means to repair. The word for “damages” occurs several times in 1 Kgs 12 about some type of damage to the temple, which may have referred to or included cracks. Since the context describes Tyre in its glory, we do not expect this reference to damages to be of significant scale, even if there are repairmen. This may refer to using pitch to seal the seams of the ship, which had to be done periodically and could be considered routine maintenance rather than repair of damage.
16. Ezekiel 27:9 sn The reference to “all the ships of the sea…within you” suggests that the metaphor is changing; previously Tyre had been described as a magnificent ship, but now the description shifts back to an actual city. The “ships of the sea” were within Tyre’s harbor. Verse 11 refers to “walls” and “towers” of the city.
17. Ezekiel 27:10 sn See Gen 10:22.
18. Ezekiel 27:11 tn Heb “sons of Arvad.”
19. Ezekiel 27:11 sn The identity of the Gammadites is uncertain.
20. Ezekiel 27:11 tn See note on “quivers” in Jer 51:11 on the meaning of Hebrew שֶׁלֶט (shelet) and also M. Greenberg, Ezekiel (AB), 2:553.
21. Ezekiel 27:12 sn Tarshish refers to a distant seaport sometimes believed to be located in southern Spain (others identified it as Carthage in North Africa). In any event it represents here a distant, rich, and exotic port that was a trading partner of Tyre.
22. Ezekiel 27:14 tn The way in which these horses may have been distinguished from other horses is unknown. Cf. ASV “war-horses” (NASB, NIV, NRSV, CEV are all similar); NLT “chariot horses.”
23. Ezekiel 27:15 tn Heb “sons of Dedan.”
24. Ezekiel 27:15 tn Heb “they returned as your gift.”
25. Ezekiel 27:16 tc Many Hebrew mss, Aquila’s Greek translation, and the Syriac version read “Edom.” The LXX reads “man,” a translation that assumes the same consonants as Edom. This reading is supported from the context as the text deals with Damascus, the capital of Syria (Aram), later (in v. 18).
26. Ezekiel 27:17 sn The location is mentioned in Judg 11:33.
27. Ezekiel 27:19 tc The MT leaves v. 18 as an incomplete sentence and begins v. 19 with “and Dan and Javan [Ionia] from Uzal.” The LXX mentions “wine.” The translation follows an emendation assuming some confusions of vav and yod. See L. C. Allen, Ezekiel (WBC), 2:82.
28. Ezekiel 27:19 sn According to L. C. Allen (Ezekiel [WBC], 2:82), Izal was located between Haran and the Tigris and was famous for its wine.
29. Ezekiel 27:25 tn Or perhaps “Large merchant ships.” The expression “ships of Tarshish” may describe a class of vessel, that is, large oceangoing merchant ships.
30. Ezekiel 27:27 tn Heb “your repairers of damage.” See v. 9.
31. Ezekiel 27:28 tn Compare this phrase to Isa 57:20 and Amos 8:8. See M. Greenberg, Ezekiel (AB), 2:561.
32. Ezekiel 27:30 tn Heb “make heard over you with their voice.”
33. Ezekiel 27:30 tn Note a similar expression to “roll in the ashes” in Mic 1:10.
34. Ezekiel 27:31 tn Heb “and they will weep concerning you with bitterness of soul, (with) bitter mourning.”
35. Ezekiel 27:32 tn As it stands, the meaning of the Hebrew text is unclear. The translation follows the suggestion of M. Dahood, “Accadian-Ugaritic dmt in Ezekiel 27:32, ” Bib 45 (1964): 83-84. Several other explanations and emendations have been offered. See L. C. Allen, Ezekiel (WBC), 2:83, and D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 2:85-86, for a list of options.
36. Ezekiel 27:34 tn Heb “fallen.”
37. Ezekiel 27:34 tn Heb “in the midst of you.”