Ezekiel 27

Lyrics of this song present Lebanon’s port city of Tyre as a marvelous ship doomed to disaster.

A double decker ship is a ship with two full decks, one on top of the other. The space in between was commonly used as the cargo hold.

Senir was the Amorite name for Mount Hermon, on the borders of Lebanon, Syria, and Israel (Deuteronomy 3:9).

Bashan was a territory east of the Sea of Galilee. Early on, Israelites conquered that land and gave much of it to half the tribe of Manasseh. They liked the land because it provided good grazing for their livestock.

Location of Elishah’s coast is unknown. Purple was an expensive color because purple die came from the murex snail in the Mediterranean Sea. Jews weren’t seafaring people. They were dryland “sea-fearing” herders and farmers. It’s likely they had to import the dye from others who worked in the shallow coastal waters of the Mediterranean Sea, such as Phoenicians in what is now Lebanon.

Sidon and Arvad are cities that represented Tyre’s leaders in this allegory, a symbolic story. Sidon is about 21 miles (35 km) north of Tyre. The island city of Arvad is roughly 115 miles (185 km) north and less than 2 miles (3 km) offshore.

The coastal town of Byblos was about 65 miles (105 km) up the coast of Lebanon, and a day’s walk north of Beirut (about 20 miles or 32 km).

These are educated guesses, a step up from “guesses.” In the original Hebrew, the names are Paras, Lud, and Put. Paras is the longshot, as “Persia.” That’s because Ezekiel lived before Persia’s rise to power. But Paras is the common Hebrew spelling for Persia. Lud is typically translated as “Lydia,” a province in what is now Turkey. Put is commonly linked to Libya.

Gamad shows up in the Bible only here. Location is unknown. Some scholars say they can’t tell if it’s a place or something else.

“Spain” seems the most common guess about where to find Tarshish. Location of Tarshish is uncertain. But wherever it was, it was west of the Jewish homeland of Israel. Scholars often guess that it was a city in Spain or somewhere else at the opposite end of the Mediterranean Sea from the Jewish homeland. Some say it was a Phoenician colony called Tartessus, in Spain. Phoenicians were native to what is now Lebanon, but their merchant ships sailed through the Mediterranean Sea.

More specifically Javan for Greece and Tubal and Meshach, territories in what are now Turkey.

Beth-togarmah was in central Turkey, many scholars speculate. Some link it to the town of Gurun.

Rhodes was a port city in Turkey, about 470 miles (750 km) northwest of Tyre.

Helbon was a town about 10 miles (16 km) north of Damascus. Location of the other cities associated with Damascus is uncertain.

Cassia was a fragrant spice used in anointing oil and to sweeten the smell of clothing in a hot and dry ancient land without deodorant.

Dedan was an oasis town in northwestern Saudi Arabia. Dedan, now the city of Al Ula, is in the Saudi Arabian desert boonies, where the sand meets the rock foothills east of the Red Sea. As the raven flies, it’s close to 400 miles (over 600 km) southeast of Jerusalem. It was an important stop for merchants traveling through the desert to take products like frankincense and spices to trading centers. named after Esau’s grandson. One of Job’s visitors came from there (Job 2:11).

Kedar is the name of a tribe of nomads from the deserts of what are now Syria and Saudi Arabia.

No one seems to know where the land of Sheba was. A popular guess is Yemen, in southern Arabia, parked at the corner of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. Another common guess is across the Red Sea, somewhere on the Horn of Africa, in Somalia, Ethiopia, or another neighboring nation.

In the Bible, Raamah is always mentioned with Sheba. But the location is unknown.

Haran is a city in what is now southern Turkey, near the northern border of Syria. Abraham lived there before moving to what became Israel. Location of Canneh, Eden, Asshur, Chilmad is unknown.

It’s a guess that the ropes were used to tie up the carpet. It’s impossible to tell from the phrasing in the original Hebrew text if the ropes were used to tie up the carpet or if they were a separate product. Either way, it seems Tyre got some good rope.