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a small island, about one-third of a mile from the shore. As it was only after the Old Tyre was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, as predicted in the present chapter, that the capital seat of the Tyrians was removed to the island -this must of course be understood as the Tyre of Scripture history. Whether it were also the sole Tyre of prophecy, we regard as a distinct question. It is certain that some of the prophecies are best understood with reference to the Old Tyre, and others as respecting the New Tyre; and if the latter did not exist when the prophecies which may be supposed to regard it were delivered, no objection can arise from this circumstance, when we reflect that all things are present to Him in whose name the prophets spoke, and that prophecy actually does, in other cases, sometimes relate the history and final condition of that which had no existence when the prophecy was delivered. It is indeed easy to understand that the prophets should speak in the wide sense of Tyre, the city of the Tyrians, as continuously connected with their history, and therefore proceeding with their history from the old town to the new. We have given this explanation in order to dispense with the necessity for the one of Bishop Newton, although that still remains probable and well-supported :this is, that although the insular Tyre only became the sole city after the continental town had been destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, it had previously and from very ancient times, been built upon, and formed part of Tyre, and is comprehended under that name. Whence it follows that the Tyre of Scripture history and prophecy embraced both the continental and insular portions of the town. It is indeed scarcely credible that the Tyrians, as a body of commercial navigators, could have overlooked the advantages offered by an island so close to their shore; and that they did not, and that it was regarded as part of Tyre, is almost demonstrated by the fact, that the ancient authors cited by Newton bear witness to the remote antiquity of the insular city. It is a remarkable circumstance that Pliny (Hist. Nat. v. 19), in describing the circumference of Tyre as nineteen Roman miles, expressly includes the

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continental and insular Tyre together; adding, that the then existing (insular) Tyre had no more than twenty-two stades, or three miles.

Concerning the continental Tyre we have no information but that which the Bible offers; and from which we learn that, according to the ideas of the time, it was a large, wealthy, and splendid city. That it did exist is acknowledged by the Greek writers, but they could furnish no information, as it had been utterly destroyed before their time. It was never rebuilt, and not the least trace of its ruins can be discovered; nor could indeed its site be determined, did we not know that it was on the coast opposite the island.

When Nebuchadnezzar gained the city, after a siege of thirteen years, the previous removal by the inhabitants of their valuable effects to the island, and to other places beyond his reach, as explained under Jer. xliii., so disappointed him, that he completely destroyed the place, and marched to Egypt. However, although the Tyrians had evaded the spoliation of their valuable property, they became subject to the Babylonians, as the prophets foretold. Indeed it would seem as if the royal family of Tyre, like that of Judah, had been carried into captivity; for Josephus cites the Phoenician annals, as shewing that, after this time, the Tyrians received their kings from Babylon. The duration of their subjection was limited by prophecy to seventy years (Isa. xxiii. 15, 16, 17), that is, to the termination of the Babyloniau monarchy, when the Tyrians, with some other remote nations, were restored to comparative independence by the Persians. They then seem to have been allowed the entire management of their own affairs, with the only discoverable limitation, that they were obliged to furnish subsidies and vessels to the Persians when required. Accordingly they did render very valuable assistance to the Persians in the famous war of Xerxes against the Greeks; and Herodotus (viii. 67) particularly mentions the kings of Tyre and Zidon as present at the council of war held by the Persian monarch. Under the Persians, the people of Tyre recovered much of their

former wealth and importance; and such were their resources, and the strength and advantageous situation of their insular city, that they were enabled to stay the progress of Alexander's arms longer than any other place under the Persian dominion. He spent eight months before Tyre, and at last only succeeded by constructing an embankment or causeway between the main land and the island, giving his troops and engines free access to the latter. The Tyrians still however made a valiant defence, which, with the delay they had occasioned, so provoked the conqueror, that with a cruelty not unusual with him, and which has left a great stain upon his character, he crucified two thousand of the inhabitants, and sold thirty thousand for slaves; eight thousand had been slain in the storming and capture of the city. The town itself he set on fire. Yet it recovered once more; and only nineteen years after was able to withstand the fleets and armies of Antigonus, and sustained a siege of fifteen months before it was taken. After this it endured that frequent change of masters to which all this region was subject, in the continual contests between the Greek kings of Egypt and Syria, until it was finally, with all the rest, absorbed into the vast Roman empire. By that time Tyre had again greatly declined in importance.

Alexander did the Tyrians more evil than the ruin of their city and the slaughter of its people, by the foundation of Alexandria in Egypt, which gradually drew away from them that foreign traffic through which they had enjoyed unexampled prosperity for not less than a thousand years. With the loss of their monopolies and colonial establishments, the skill and enterprise of the Tyrians still, however, sufficed to keep Tyre in a respectable station as an individual town, and such it remained under the Romans. Many of the people of Tyre in the end embraced the Jewish religion; and that city was one of the first that received the faith of Christ, who himself visited the coasts of Tyre and Zidon, and miraculously healed the woman of Canaan's daughter. Paul found there some faithful disciples on his journey to Jerusalem; and in the persecution under Dioclesian, there were many sincere believers at Tyre, who counted not their own lives dear' unto them. This, as well as most of the other circumstances we have related, appear very clearly to have been predicted by the prophets (see in particular, Ps. xlv. 12; lxxii. 10; Isa. xxxiii. 18). The decline of Tyre, even as a private town, may soon be told. It passed, with the rest of Syria, to the Arabs; in 1124 it was taken from them by the Crusaders; Saladin made an ineffectual attempt to recover it in 1187; and it was finally taken, in 1291, by Khalil, the sultan of Egypt, who nearly razed it to the ground, that it might never again afford a stronghold or harbour to the Christians. The Turks took it from the Egyptian Mamelukes in 1516.

These facts are chiefly of interest as connecting the prophecies concerning Tyre; for it appears, as already intimated, that while Ezekiel speaks primarily of the destruction of continental Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar, he, by a transition not unusual in Scripture, glances at the subsequent destruction of the insular Tyre by Alexander, and predicts its future history and condition. Even if this were disputed in the case of Ezekiel, the prophetic notice of the latter would be clear from Zechariah, who lived after the old Tyre had been destroyed, and yet foretells the destruction of Tyre, which must necessarily have been that of the insular Tyre by Alexander.

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4. They shall destroy the walls of Tyrus.'-This was true both of the old and new Tyre; the walls of the former having been destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, and those of the insular Tyre by Alexander. The wall was afterwards rebuilt-doubtless on the old foundations, and with the old materials-but these were destroyed by the sultan Khalil, and, as stated in the preceding note, only the foundations can now be traced. The strength of the wall which opposed the efforts of Alexander is particularly noticed by Arrian, who states that opposite to the mole formed by the Macedonians, it was 150 feet high, and of

proportionable thickness, constructed with great stones strongly cemented together.

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5. A place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea. The last clause must clearly refer this to the insular, or (as the causeway of Alexander made it) peninsular Tyre. Indeed, besides the considerations stated in the preceding note, it will be observed that nothing has hitherto been said of Nebuchadnezzar; but in these introductory verses the prophet seems rather to speak of the ultimate result of the various succeeding desolations to which Tyre should be exposed, and of which Nebuchadnezzar's desolation of old Tyre was only the commence

ment.

The image of desolation employed, that of fishers spreading their nets to dry on the site of a once populous city, is as natural for a place on the coast, as that of feeding and stabling cattle is for inland desolation. And as fishermen naturally spread their nets on any convenient place, on a naked rock or beach, it only becomes necessary to say that Tyre has become a fishing station. to shew that this prophecy has been literally accomplished, without our being required to find that some traveller has happened to say that he saw nets spread upon the strand where old Tyre stood. But this has been said by travellers even of the new or peninsular Tyre. This town seems to have been in a tolerably prosperous condition, though wofully different from what it once was, till it was destroyed by the Mameluke Sultan, from which stroke it never fully recovered. Our best course here will be to introduce the substance of observations made by successive travellers, beginning with Benjamin of Tudela, who visited the place while possessed by the Crusaders, and whose account is instructive, though dashed with his usual extravagance in what he says about old Tyre. One day's journey (from Zidon) is New Tsour, a very beautiful city, the port of which is in the very town. This port is guarded by two towers, within which the vessels ride at anchor. The officers of the customs draw an iron chain from tower to tower every night, thereby effectually preventing any thieves or robbers to escape by boat or by other means. A port equal to this is to be met with nowhere upon earth. About four hundred Jews reside in this excellent place, the principal of which are the judge R. Ephraim Mitzri, R. Meir of Carcasson, and R. Abraham, the elder of the community. The Jews of Tsour are ship-owners and manufacturers of the far-renowned Tyrian glass; the purple dye is also found in the vicinity. If you mount the walls of New Tsour, you may see the remains of " Tyre the crowned" [referring to Isa. xxiii.], which was inundated by the sea. It is about the distance of a stone's throw from the new town; and whoever embarks may see the towers, the markets, the streets, and the halls at the bottom of the sea. The city of New Tsour is very commercial, and one to which traders resort from all parts' (Itinerary, i. 62, 63, ed. Asher, Berlin, 1840).

Passing a long interval of time, we come to Sandys, who was at Tyre about a century after it fell to the Turks. After alluding to its former greatness, he adds,- But this once famous Tyrus is now no other than a heap of ruins; yet they have a reverent respect, and do instruct the pensive beholder with their exemplary frailty.' It had two harbours, of which that on the north side was, as he thought, the best in all the Levant, and which the corsairs entered at pleasure; the other was encumbered and choked up with the ruins of the city. Later in the same century the place is noticed by Thevenot, Dumont, and Le Bruyn, in their respective Voyages au Levant. They describe it to the same effect as Maundrell, quoted below. Le Bruyn particularly notices the abundance of fish, and the bad state of the harbour. There were but a few miserable dwellings (Dumont says twelve or fifteen), inhabited by Turks and Arabs.

The learned Huet (in his Demonstratio Evangelica, first published in 1679) says that he knew a Jesuit named Hadrian Parvillarius, a candid and learned man, who had

spent ten years in Syria, and who related to him how strongly this prediction of Ezekiel was brought to his mind when he approached the ruins of Tyre, and beheld the rocks stretching forth to the sea, and the large stones strewed upon the shore, made smooth by the sun, the waves, and the wind, and on which the fishermen dried their nets. To the same purpose follows our own admirable traveller, Maundrell (1697). The city, standing in the sea, upon the peninsula, promises at a distance something very magnificent. But when you come to it, you see no similitude of that glory for which it was renowned in ancient times, and which the prophet Ezekiel describes. On the north side it has an old Turkish ungarrisoned castle, besides which you see nothing but a mere Babel of broken walls, pillars, vaults, etc., there being not so much as an entire house left. Its present inhabitants are only a few poor wretches, harbouring themselves in the vaults, and subsisting chiefly upon fishing; who seem to be preserved in this place by Divine Providence as a visible argument how God has fulfilled his word concerning Tyre, that it should be as the top of a rock, a place for fishers to dry their nets on.' The east end of an ancient Christian church remained tolerably entire; near it was a staircase, and Maundrell got upon the top, and had a full prospect over the peninsula, the isthmus, and neighbouring shore. The island appeared of a circular form, containing about forty acres, and at the utmost margin of the land the foundations might be traced of the wall by which it was anciently encircled. The island makes, with the isthmus, two large bays, which were in part defended from the ocean each by a long ridge resembling a mole, stretching directly out on both sides from the head of the island; but whether these were walls or rocks, the work of nature or art, Maundrell could not discover.

Dr. Shaw says, that the best of the harbours, that to the north, was in his time so choked up with sand and rubbish, that even the boats of the poor fishermen who now and then visit this once renowned emporium could only with difficulty obtain admittance. Volney's avowed infidelity renders him a valuable witness to the fulfilment of prophecy-which service to truth he often unconsciously renders. Besides quoting him with this view, we shall add such particulars from his general account of the place as may serve to complete the preceding intimations concerning its situation and condition. The peninsula projects into the sea in the form of a mallet with an oval head; this head is of solid rock, covered with a brown cultivable earth, which forms a small plain about eight hundred paces long by four hundred broad. The isthmus, which joins the plain to the continent, is of pure sea-sand. The difference of soil renders the ancient insular state of this plain, before Alexander joined it to the sea by a mole, very manifest, since it is clearly seen that the sea, by covering the whole with sand, has enlarged it by successive accumulations, and formed the present isthmus. The port on the north side appears to have been formed by art, but is so choked up that children pass it without being wet above the middle. From the towers at its entrance began a line of walls which, after surrounding the basin, enclosed the whole island; but, as in Maundrell's time, it can only be traced by the foundations which run along the shore. On approaching the continent from the island, the ruins of arches at equal distances are perceived, as shewn in our engraving under Josh. xix., having at top a channel three feet wide by two and a half deep, lined by a cement harder than the stones themselves. This was an aqueduct which conveyed water to the shore in the first instance, and which the inhabitants, turning to good account the mole of Alexander, afterwards continued across the isthmus to the island. In Pococke's time (1736) it was a place of export, but still contained only two or three Christian families and a few other inhabitants. But in 1766 the north-east corner of the peninsula was Iwalled in, and a town founded which retained the ancient name is Tsor, which in Hebrew signifies a rock.' This town receives no very sudden enlargement of pros

perity. When Volney was there, the town was still no better than a village, containing only fifty or sixty poor families, who live but indifferently on the produce of their little grounds and a trifling fishery. The houses they occupy are no longer, as in the time of Strabo, edifices three or four stories high, but wretched huts ready to crumble to pieces.' It has since somewhat increased in population and importance, and drives some active trade in tobacco, cotton, wool, and wood, which are its chief exports; but as the once famous harbour is navigable only by boats, and becomes more and more shallow every year, no material enlargement of its commercial importance can be expected. The town was much injured by the earthquake of 1837; but has recovered that stroke, and the population is now reckoned by Dr Wilson (Lands of the Bible, ii. 221) at 5000, of whom about one-half are Christians.

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10. Thy walls shall shuke at the noise of the horsemen, and of the wheels.'-This must necessarily refer to the continental Tyre, as of course neither horses nor chariots could approach that on the island.

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12. They shall lay thy stones and thy timber and thy dust in the midst of the water.'-In this verse the prophetic vision seems to go on to the circumstances attending the desolation of the insular Tyre by Alexander. We are told that the conqueror should make a spoil of the riches of Tyre, which was true of Alexander-at least more true than of Nebuchadnezzar, of whom the same prophet declares that he should be disappointed of the anticipated spoil, and that he should therefore have Egypt for his reward. The transition from Nebuchadnezzar to the Macedonians is indicated by a change of person: the doings of the former having been indicated in the singular number-he shall do this and that; then it comes abruptly-they shall make a spoil,' etc. But the change would be clear enough without this. The principal cause of the difference was that the Tyrians, on the latter occasion, trusted with more confidence to the safety derived from their insular position and their fortifications, than they had when besieged by Nebuchadnezzar on the continent; and hence they did not, at least to the same extent, take the precaution of removing their valuable property and merchandise beyond the reach of the invader.

The text we have cited at the head of this note seems most clearly to refer to the manner in which Alexander employed the ruins of the continental Tyre to facilitate the conquest of the insular; and hence it furnishes a remarkable instance of most definite prophecy, analogous to that which foretold the very manner in which Babylon should be taken by Cyrus. Alexander having no fleet, and seeing that nothing could be hoped from an ordinary course of operations against Tyre, conceived, as we have already intimated, the bold idea of forming a mole from the continent to the island, which might enable him to bring his troops and military engines underneath its walls. The difficulties of this enterprise, which has in all ages been the wonder and admiration of military men, are fully stated by Q. Curtius, who says that the soldiers were in despair when the work was proposed to them; for the sea was so deep, that it seemed impossible to them, even with the assistance of the gods, to fill it up; and besides, where could they find stones large enough and trees tall enough for so prodigious an undertaking? Alexander encouraged them, and desired them to recollect that the ruins of the old town afforded plenty of stone fit for the purpose, and that timber suitable for their boats and towers might be obtained from the neighbouring mountains of Lebanon. Arrian also notices that there was plenty of stone not far off, with a sufficient quantity of timber and rubbish to fill up the vacant spaces. (Compare Q. Curtius, iii. 2, 3, with Arrian, ii. 18.) As the mole when nearly completed was swept away by a storm, and a new one had to be constructed, the materials must have been well exhausted, and this, while it accounts for the entire disappearance of Old Tyre, does most strikingly corroborate the prediction that its stones,

its timber, and its very dust (rubbish) should be laid in the midst of the water. See also verse 19, I shall bring up the deep upon thee, and great waters shall cover thee. We wish to note the emphasis to be placed on the word 'lay thy stones,' etc., in the present text, as implying a deliberate act, corresponding to the construction of the mole which was composed of successive layers of stones, rubbish, and timber. See Q. Curtius, as above.

16. The princes of the sea....shall lay away their robes, and put off their broidered garments.'-The Egyptian paintings seem to afford us some means of satisfying the natural curiosity which is felt respecting the personal appearance and attire of a people so remarkable as the ancient inhabitants of Tyre. The figures regarded as representing the Phoenician nations (the Tyrians, Arvadites, and Hermonites) shew them to have been as closely allied to each other in personal appearance and dress as they were contiguous in geographical position. Their

TYRIAN.

features were well formed and regular, with more of the European cast than is found in the Canaanites. The two figures regarded as Tyrian, in the tomb of Rameses Meiamoun, give us much information respecting that

ancient people, as the colours are still very perfectly preserved. The beard was flaxen, the eyes blue, and the complexion of that florid but somewhat dark hue which is peculiar to the inhabitants of the parallel of latitude of Tyre. The hair was either filled with white powder or covered with a net-work of blue beads, or a close cap made of chintz, of such a pattern, was worn upon it; upon this was a fillet, tied behind with a loop and two long ends, like those used in Egypt: like them also it was made of scarlet leather. The dress was distinguished from that of other Canaanites by a cape or short cloak fastened at the throat and reaching to the elbows. This was made of one piece, and passed over the head when put on; a cross-shaped slit, embroidered around, was made in it in front to allow the head to pass. Beneath this was a close coat or tunic, which seems to have fitted the person more gracefully than any dress worn by the other nations of Canaan. It was confined at the waist by a golden girdle, which, in war, was of great length, passing round the body many times, and tied in front in a large bow or knot, with long hanging ends. The two sides of the tunic folded over each other considerably, and were not left square like those of the neighbouring tribes, but sloped away in order to interfere as little as possible with the action of walking. The inner garment resembled that of all other ancient nations. It was a fine linen cloth, bound round the waist and descending to the ancles. The stiff heavy folds of the mantle and tunic seem to indicate that they were of wool, but it must have been of fine texture, as the contour of the arms and chest is represented as visible beneath the mantle. The colours seem to set at rest the difficult question as to the tint of the famous Tyrian dye. They are both purple and scarlet, and are so made that half the person is clothed in one, and the other half in the other. Both colours are extremely vivid, as the Greek and Latin authors uniformly represent them to have been. The scarlet part of the mantle has a pattern of large purple spots upon it. The mantle and tunic are both edged with a deep gold lace. This gorgeous dress agrees perfectly with the refinement and luxury which all the classical writers ascribe to the Tyrians, and which are vividly displayed by the prophet. The coloured figure is given by Rosellini, and has been well copied in Mr. Osborn's Egypt, her Testimony to the Truth-from which the above description of it is abridged.

CHAPTER XXVII.

1 The rich supply of Tyrus. 26 The great and irrecoverable fall thereof.

THE word of the LORD came again unto me, saying,

2 Now, thou son of man, take up a lamentation for Tyrus ;

3 And say unto Tyrus, O thou that art situate at the entry of the sea, which art a merchant of the people for many isles, Thus saith the Lord GOD; O Tyrus, thou hast said, I am 'of perfect beauty.

4 Thy borders are in the midst of the seas, thy builders have perfected thy beauty.

5 They have made all thy ship boards of fir trees of Senir: they have taken cedars from Lebanon to make masts for thee.

6 Of the oaks of Bashan have they made

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3 Heb. built. • Or, purple and scarlet.

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thine oars; the company of the Ashurites have made thy benches of ivory, brought out of the isles of Chittim.

7 Fine linen with broidered work from Egypt was that which thou spreadest forth to be thy sail; "blue and purple from the isles of Elishah was that which covered thee.

8 The inhabitants of Zidon and Arvad were thy mariners: thy wise men, O Tyrus, that were in thee, were thy pilots.

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9 The ancients of Gebal and the wise men thereof were in thee thy calkers all the ships of the sea with their mariners were in thee to occupy thy merchandise.

10 They of Persia and of Lud and of Phut were in thine army, thy men of war: they hanged the shield and helmet in thee; they set forth thy comeliness.

11 The men of Arvad with thine army were

4 Or, they have made thy hatches of ivory well trodden. 7 Or, stoppers of chinks. 8 Heb. strengtheners.

upon thy walls round about, and the Gammadims were in thy towers: they hanged their shields upon thy walls round about; they have made thy beauty perfect.

12 Tarshish was thy merchant by reason of the multitude of all kind of riches; with silver, iron, tin, and lead, they traded in thy fairs.

13 Javan, Tubal, and Meshech, they were thy merchants: they traded the persons of men and vessels of brass in thy market.

14 They of the house of Togarmah traded in thy fairs with horses and horsemen and

mules.

15 The men of Dedan were thy merchants; many isles were the merchandise of thine hand: they brought thee for a present horns of ivory and ebony.

16 Syria was thy merchant by reason of the multitude of the wares of thy making: they occupied in thy fairs with emeralds, purple, and broidered work, and fine linen, and coral, and "agate.

17 Judah, and the land of Israel, they were thy merchants: they traded in thy market wheat of Minnith, and Pannag, and honey, and oil, and balm.

18 Damascus was thy merchant in the multitude of the wares of thy making, for the multitude of all riches; in the wine of Helbon, and white wool.

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cords, and made of cedar, among thy merchandise.

25 The ships of Tarshish did sing of thee in thy market and thou wast replenished, and made very glorious in the midst of the seas. 26

Thy rowers have brought thee into great waters: the east wind hath broken thee in the midst of the seas.

27 Thy "riches, and thy fairs, thy merchandise, thy mariners, and thy pilots, thy calkers, and the occupiers of thy merchandise, and all thy men of war, that are in thee, and in all thy company which is in the midst of thee, shall fall into the "midst of the seas in the day of thy ruin.

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28 The suburbs shall shake at the sound of the cry of thy pilots.

29 And all that handle the oar, the mariners, and all the pilots of the sea, shall come down from their ships, they shall stand upon the land;

30 And shall cause their voice to be heard against thee, and shall cry bitterly, and shall cast up dust upon their heads, they shall wallow themselves in the ashes:

31 And they shall make themselves utterly bald for thee, and gird them with sackcloth, and they shall weep for thee with bitterness of heart and bitter wailing.

32 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?

33 When thy wares went forth out of the seas, thou filledst many people; thou didst enrich the kings of the earth with the multitude of thy riches and of thy merchandise.

34 In the time when thou shalt be broken by the seas in the depths of the waters thy merchandise and all thy company in the midst of thee shall fall.

35 All the inhabitants of the isles shall be astonished at thee, and their kings shall be sore afraid, they shall be troubled in their

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9 Or, merchandise. 10 Heb. thy works. 11 Heb. chrysoprase. 12 Or, rosin. 15 Heb. they were the merchants of thy hand. 16 Or, excellent things. 19 Revel. 18. 9, &c. 20 Or, even with all. 21 Heb. heart. 22 Or, waves.

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CHAP. XXVII.-We now arrive at a very singular and interesting chapter, giving an account of the commercial relations of Tyre, to the satisfactory elucidation of which, in all the lines of inquiry which it opens, the research and study of years might be advantageously applied. If we reflect on the extensive ramifications of the commerce

which this enterprising people conducted, we shall find, with Dr. Vincent, that if we consider this chapter only as historical, without any reference to the divine authority of the prophet, it is not only the most early but the most authentic record extant, relative to the commerce of the ancients. Much has been done towards its illustration

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