Why Tyre?

Tyre is monumental in the background of Revelation 17-18, which draws extensively on Ezekiel 26-28. If the chapter describes the destruction of the harlot-city Jerusalem, why is Tyre so much a part of the texture of the prophecy?

Beale notes that Isaiah 23:17 is one of the rare instances where the imagery of harlotry is applied to a Gentile power, specifically to Tyre (cf. Nahum 3:1-7). The phrasing of Isaiah 23:17 (“play the harlot with all the kingdoms on the face of the earth”) is clearly echoed in Revelation 17:2. And the reason for that usage, as James Jordan has pointed out over the years, is that Tyre was, during the reigns of Hiram and Solomon, a Gentile ally of Israel. Tyre was the temple-building Gentile power, and so can be evoked in a passage dealing with the destruction of the temple. And, Tyre eventually abandoned Yahweh and turned against Israel, and so is a harlot Gentile power. When Revelation 17-18 incorporates Tyrean symbolism into its description of the fall of Jerusalem, it is pointing to the harlotry not only of first-century Jerusalem but how that harlotry spread to Gentile allies of Jerusalem.

Much of the pervasive economic imagery of Revelation 17-18 is drawn from Ezekiel’s description of the fall of Tyre.

Jordan has pointed to the way economic exchanges were symbols of liturgical exchange, and that is the central thrust of these chapters in Revelation. The materials that the merchants lose are temple materials. At the same time, having Tyre in the background suggests that economic exchange is not wholly out of the picture. Perhaps we can incorporate the liturgical and economic this way: Tyre allied with Israel, but later fell away, apparently because they turned from Yahweh to worship the idol Mammon.

First-century Jerusalem was also corrupted by economic idolatries, as well as the idolatry of power (which is inevitably connected to Mammon). The fall of “Babylon” is the fall of a Jerusalem that has turned Tyrean, slaughtering the saints to protect her liturgical and economic riches.