of these things the nation was to be still farther subjected to the grinding rule of tyrants.  It was a fertile and fruitful land, in which all the arts known to antiquity flourished; but the rains of Ethiopia were to be withheld, and such should be the unusual and abnormal drouth that the Nile should be dried up, and the reeds upon its banks should wither and decay.  The river was stocked with fish, but the fishermen should cast their hooks and arrange their nets in vain.  Even the workers in flax (one great source of Egyptian wealth and luxury) should be confounded.  The princes were to become fools; there was to be general confusion, and no work was to be done in manufactures.  Even Judah should become a terror to Egypt, and fear should overspread the land.  To these calamities there was to be some palliation.  Five cities should speak the language of Canaan, and swear by the Lord of Hosts; and an altar should be erected in the middle of the land which should be a witness unto the Lord of Hosts, to whom the people should cry amid their oppressions and miseries; and Jehovah should be known in Egypt.  “He shall smite it, but he also shall heal it.”  And when we remember what a refuge the Jews found in Alexandria and other cities in the no very distant future, keeping alive there the worship of the true God, and what a hold Christianity itself took in the second and third centuries in that old country of priests and sorcerers, producing a Clement, a Cyprian, a Tertullian, an Athanasius, and an Augustine; yea, that when conquered by the Mohammedans, the worship of the one true God was everywhere maintained from that time to the present,—­we feel that the mercy of God followed close upon his justice.  Isaiah predicted even the divine blessing on the land, which it should share with Palestine:  “Blessed be Egypt my people, and Israel mine inheritance.”

It is not to be supposed that Tyre would escape from the calamities which were to be sent on the various heathen nations.  Tyre was the great commercial centre of the world at that time, as Babylon was the centre of imperial power.  Babylon ruled over the land, and Tyre over the sea; the one was the capital of a vast empire, the other was a maritime power, whose ships were to be seen in every part of the Mediterranean.  Tyre, by its wealth and commerce, gained the supremacy in Phoenicia, although Sidon was an older city, five miles distant.  But Tyre was defiled by the worship of Baal and Astarte; it was a city of exceeding dissoluteness.  It was not only proud and luxurious, but abominably licentious; it was a city of harlots.  And what was to be its fate?  It was to be destroyed, and its merchandise was to be scattered.  “Howl, ye ships of Tarshish! for your strength is laid waste, so that there is no house, no entering in....  The Lord of Hosts hath purposed it, to stain the pride of glory, and bring to contempt all the honorable of the earth.”  The inhabitants of the city who sought escape from death were compelled to take refuge in the colonies at Cyprus, Carthage, and Tartessus in Spain.  The destruction of Tyre has been complete.  There are no remains of its former grandeur; its palaces are indistinguishable ruins.  Its traffic was transferred to Carthage.  Yet how strong must have been a city which took Nebuchadnezzar thirteen years to subdue!  It arose from its ashes, but was reduced again by Alexander.