Concerning the prophecy about the city of Tyre, everything is fulfilled perfectly, so far except the bit about the city being thrown into the sea. For this we must wait 250 years, until Alexander the Great came along in 333BC. When he got down to Tyre, he found he had a big problem. The mainland city had been rebuilt, and he quickly conquered it, but everyone retreated to the island again, and stood laughing at him. They had developed the island into an impenetrable fortress. They had built walls all-round the island, right up to the edge of the sea, so even if Alexander had a navy (which he didn’t) no-one could land. They could defend the island by firing arrows and fireballs over the walls.

Alexander decided he had to fight them in the way that he knew best, with siege engines which could be wheeled up to the wall. He couldn’t roll them across the sea, so he decided to extend the land. He built a land bridge by tearing down the city and throwing all the stones into the sea to make a roadway. When they ran out of stones, they shovelled earth into bags. They literally scrapped the ground to bare rock.

Obviously, the people on the island were worried and they fired on the workmen from their boats. Alexander called on nations which he had conquered to supply ships to combat the Tyre merchant fleet and protect the causeway. (Remember Ezekiel had said many nations would come against Tyre.) With the help of these nations, Alexander finished the causeway.He then moved his siege engines and battering rams into place and attacked the walls for seven months till something gave way. He killed 8 thousand on the island and sold 30 thousand into slavery.

This last bit of the prophesy about the bare rock is the most remarkable. Let me quote a secular history textbook by Philip Myers: “Alexander the Great… reduced it to ruins (332 BC). She recovered in a measure from this blow, but never regained the place she had previously held in the world. The larger part of the site of the once great city is now bare as the top of a rock – a place where the fishermen that still frequent the spot spread their nets to dry.”

The prediction that no-one would rebuild the city is the most amazing. There is a city of Tyre today, but it is in a different place. The city never regained its importance. This was because the trade routes changed and bypassed Tyre. Alexandria in Egypt became the new trade port. This was helped by Ptolemy II building a canal from the Nile to the Red Sea in 260BC. It was like a small Suez Canal, but big enough for the ancient ships, and this made Alexandria the central hub of Middle eastern trade. 480