Your domain was on the high seas; your builders brought your beauty to perfection. – Ezekiel 27:4

Today's Scripture Reading (June 29, 2020): Ezekiel 27

Once upon a time, walls were a significant defensive improvement for any city or population center. The idea was that a population could hide behind a wall when an enemy attacked. In many ways, a wall worked the same way that the shell of a turtle protects the animal hidden inside the hardened casing. When danger struck, the people moved behind the wall, and those who wanted to do them harm were stopped by the barrier. As long as there was food, water, and adequate sanitation, the defenders could stay behind their walls for extended periods; sometimes, even for years.

But the invention of air travel lessened the importance of the walls that had been built around the cities. When the attacker could quickly go over the top of the wall and attack from above, the wall's value significantly decreased. Today, walls and physical barriers play a role but are not nearly as crucial for the protection of the people as they once were. Changes in transportation and communication mean that we increasingly live in a global community where it is not only walls that have decreased in value, but also the importance of borders.

Tyre was a global city long before that was a common phenomenon among the cities of the Earth. The city was a merchant city, built on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, that became rich by trading and facilitating trade with the world. Ezekiel describes Tyre, not as a population center that exists by a substantial body of water but instead as a city that lives as a ship on the sea. Ezekiel goes on to reimagine the city as having masts, oars, and decks, like a ship that visits its harbor. And part of the importance of the Prophet's imagery was that it was easy for Tyre to believe that the city, because it was a global entity, trading with all of the nations of the world, was also protected from the mundane things about which other countries and cities had to worry. But Ezekiel needs Tyre to understand that that is not true. Babylon was a threat to the global merchant city of Tyre, just as it had been the Judean capital of Jerusalem, which was surrounded by land and who had only her walls to protect her.

Our problem might be the reverse. Just as Tyre could not rely on its status as a global city to save her, neither is it possible for us to retreat behind our walls and expect to somehow insulate ourselves from the interconnected world in which we live. Salvation for Tyre was available only in the presence of the God of this world, who walked with her on the oceans and existed with the people behind the walls. Any other source of hope was a delusion, and it was destined to fail.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Ezekiel 28