Ezekiel 27:10-21. Part of Ezekiel's lamentation over Tyre. These verses are extolling how great and rich and powerful Tyre has been. Every known land traded with them, men from Persia and Lud and Put served in their army, they and others protected the city with their shields and "made perfect your beauty." Ezekiel goes on to list nation after nation, city after city, who exchanged every kind of wealth, precious metal, goods, jewels, services, everything with Tyre - she was rich beyond measure - many coastlands were Tyre's "own special markets."

As anyone who reads the Bible can see, these verses are part of a "setup." When a people or place is about to be punished by God, we almost always get the description of how powerful and rich they were preceding the punishment. It shows how they got to the point where punishment was necessary - they became too attached to wealth, power, etc, and how much it will hurt - they have very far to fall.

This is essentially what is happening here - Ezekiel is saying all of this at God's behest, to lead up to the lamentation part - Tyre fell and it fell hard. Verses 25-36 show how bad it became for Tyre. The "set up" or, I should say, "lead up" to a great fall like this is always a long period of prosperity.

Prosperity is not a bad thing, it is wonderful for the nation and for its people. Unfortunately, given our fallen nature, we cannot keep it going forever - corruption seeps in - abusive people, greed, lust for power and comfort, are all the endpoints of this kind of prosperity. It just will happen, we cannot avoid it, because we are all sinners and eventually the balance tilts, just a little bit at first, towards evil, and then as more and more slide from the "good" side to the "bad" side, the ruin accelerates.

This is the cyclical nature of our world and the story of every nation, including ours. Our balance is tilting right now. I don't know if it has gone too far to be righted. I guess we will see!

(Note, I originally accidentally published the dictated, unedited version of this post (all my "Tyres" were "tires" or "tears":) I have gone back and made edits and corrections.)