In chapter 26 Ezekiel uses the metaphor of an offshore rocky island to talk to and about Tyre. In chapter 27 he shifts the metaphor and compares Tyre to a ship. The appropriateness of these two back-to-back metaphors should be obvious. What an island and a ship have in common is that both are surrounded by water. Tyre likes what she sees when she looks at herself: “I am perfect in beauty” (27:3). She will shortly learn that one consumed with self-congratulation and self-adulation will eventually come to naught.

Verses 4–7 elaborate on the precious materials brought from afar for the construction of the ship. It is not just the luxuriousness of these mate…