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TYRE

Phoenician port and kingdom located on an island originally situated some 700 m. (1300 ft.) offshore and ca. 35 km. (22 mi.) S of Sidon. The modern town of aṣ-Òûr covers the ancient city and little is known about the city from archaeology. The ancient city had two havens: the northern harbor and the southern (Egyptian) harbor. The Canaanite name of the island was Òurru, “The Rock” (Phoen., Heb. Òôr). The Greek name Týros is first attested in Classical sources.

Tyre is mentioned in Egyptian (§r), Hittite, and Ugaritic (Òr) texts of the 2nd millennium b.c.e. It was a loyal ally of Egypt in the troublesome period of the Amarna Age (14th century), as is known from the contemporary letters of its king Abi-milki, found in the el-Amarna archive in Egypt. Other documents mention that Tyre had a settlement on the mainland opposite the island, known as Usu, Egyp. ỉṭ, and later called Palaityros, “Old Tyre,” by the Greeks. The island was originally supplied with water by boats from the mainland, until the advent of lime plastered cisterns at the beginning of the Iron Age.

Shortly after 1200 Tyre was destroyed, evidently by the Sea Peoples, but was rebuilt by refugees from Sidon and recovered very rapidly. Unlike other Phoenician kingdoms, Tyre seems not to have capitulated to the Assyrian king Tiglath-pileser I (1114-1076), who conquered the Levantine littoral. By the 10th century, under a dynasty founded by Abi-baal (ca. 1020-980) the father of Hiram I, Tyre was the principal Phoenician port, having eclipsed Sidon, and retained its prominent role under the Assyrian domination and the subsequent centuries. During his siege of Tyre in 332, Alexander the Great was able to capture the city by constructing a mole to connect the island to the mainland. Due to sediments borne by sea currents and winds, the island later became a peninsula.

The earliest biblical references to the city appear in Pss. 83, 87, , which link Tyre to Philistia, perhaps because of their trade in the era of the judges. According to 2 Sam. 5:11 = 1 Chr. 14:1 the king of Tyre, Hiram I (980-947), initiated an alliance with King David, and this partnership was greatly expanded in the reign of Solomon (971-932). The Tyrians supplied various timbers and masons for the construction of the Solomonic temple in Jerusalem (1 Kgs. 5:10, 18[MT 24, 32]), and a Tyrian coppersmith also named Hiram (also Huran, Hirom) executed all the bronzework for the building (7:13). It is noteworthy that the palace of Solomon, known for its rows of imported cedar columns, was named the Lebanon Forest House. Tyrian masons also participated in building the Second Temple in Jerusalem in the 6th century (1 Chr. 22:4).

Beginning in the 10th century, Israel supplied Tyre with large quantities of grain and oil (1 Kgs. 5:11[25]), to which the parallel account in 2 Chr. 2:10 (9) adds wine. Solomon ceded the land of Cabul in the Galilee to Tyre (1 Kgs 9:11; but cf. 2 Chr. 8:2). As part of his treaty with Hiram I, he also imposed a forced labor on the Israelites which required three groups of 10 thousand men each to work in the Lebanon in shifts (1 Kgs. 5:13-14[27-28]).

The primary pursuit of the Tyrian-Israelite pact was to secure large quantities of luxury goods by means of joint maritime ventures on both the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. One such allied fleet sailed to Tarshish (south Spain) to secure precious metals, ivory, and exotic animals (1 Kgs. 10:22 = 2 Chr. 9:21), while the Red Sea fleet journeyed to Ophir (location uncertain) to acquire gold, timber, and precious stone (1 Kgs. 9:26-28; 10:11; 2 Chr. 8:17-18).

The Tyrian-Israelite alliance was perpetuated by King Ahab of Israel (873-852), who married Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of Tyre (878-847). The royal wedding song in Ps. 45, , celebrating the arrival of a Tyrian princess in Israel, was perhaps composed on this occasion. Another Tyrian princess named Elissa, also known as Dido, founded the city of Carthage in North Africa ca. 825 (other sources: 814). In the 8th century, the Judean prophet Amos could still call the pact between Tyre and Israel a “covenant of brothers” (Amos 1:9-10), namely, of equal partners. Extensive agricultural trade with Tyre, conducted by both Israel and Judah, is still mentioned in Ezek. 27:17.

The celebrated maritime empire of Tyre, her far-flung commercial networks on land and sea, and her great wealth, are the subject of pronouncements by several other biblical prophets (Isa. 23; Jer. 25, 47; Zech. 9). A very concise poetic account of the nature and scope of the Tyrian trade is found in Ezek. 27. Tyre prospered throughout the Persian and Hellenistic eras and even established settlements on the coast of Palestine between Dor and Jaffa. The continuing importance of the area between Tyre and Sidon in NT times is indicated by the account of Jesus’ activity in that region (Matt. 15:21-28 = Mark 7:24-31).

Bibliography. H. J. van Dijk, Ezekiel’s Prophecy on Tyre. BibOr 20 (Rome, 1968); H. J. Katzenstein, The History of Tyre (Jerusalem, 1973); B. Mazar, “The Philistines and the Rise of Israel and Tyre,” Proceedings of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities 1/7 (Jerusalem, 1964): 1-22; R. R. Stieglitz, “The Geopolitics of the Phoenician Littoral in the Early Iron Age,” BASOR 279 (1990): 9-12.

Robert R. Stieglitz

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

TYRE

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)