God tells Ezekiel to “take up a lament” for Tyre, the city that rejoiced at Jerusalem’s downfall because it would benefit from an economic perspective as a result of the destruction of Jerusalem.
But Tyre would also fall and now Ezekiel is writing out and listing what was once considered beautiful about this city, because of its arrogance and pride, would become ugly and broken.
At one time, Tyre traded with all of the cities around it. At one time, it had a port that would be a gateway to the rest of the world. At one time, they had ships that would cover the seas. And all of this brought great prosperity and great prestige to their city.
But they were proud and they would also be destroyed by God’s judgment as he stirred up the king of Babylon against them.
Very frequently, we can think that we have obtained, by ourselves, our prestige and wealth, our beauty or our fame, and we can imagine that this a result of our own great intelligence or how well we have done in our lives because of our skill. But we routinely forget that God has made us and is guiding our paths. We allow our arrogance and pride to blind us and make us think that we are great.
But the truth is that we become like Tyre if we do this, and we risk destruction as a result of our pride. We haven’t done simply done these things. We are only unable or unwilling to see, and we are setting ourselves up for our own downfall, for someone to one day give a lament over the same story that continues to repeat itself through the ages. Only by humility and acknowledgement of God’s work in our lives can we avoid this end.