Was Ushu (on the coast) part of Tyre?
Was Ezekiel's prophecy on Tyre fulfilled? Some critics of Ezekiel's prophecy have insisted that only the island was being targeted; the suburbs on the coast were simply not part of Tyre. For example:
Chris Sandoval (author): “When he referred to ‘Tyre,’ he meant the island and nothing else.” [The Failure of Biblical Prophecy (Trafford, 2010), 64.
By way of response, however, this is simply false. Ushu was part of Tyre. One reason we know this is that if it were not part of Tyre, then Ezekiel would not have spent almost half of the prophecy on Tyre discussing how it would be destroyed.1 That is to say, when Ezekiel speaks of Nebuchadnezzar attacking "your daughters on the coast" (Tyre's coastal suburbs), it was considered an attack on Tyre for the same reason an attack on a borough of New York (e.g. Manhattan) would be an attack on New York itself. Contemporary scholarship seems fairly unanimous in maintaining that these suburbs were part of Tyre. For example:
Encyclopædia Britannica 2014: “Tyre, built on an island and on the neighbouring mainland” [Online]
MSN Encarta (Microsoft Encyclopedia): “Ancient Tyre occupied both an offshore island and part of the mainland.” [Online]
“The Land of Tyre” by Pierre Bikai in The Heritage of Tyre: “Ousoüs is, of course, Ushu or Uzu, the ancient name of the mainland city… During most periods, the majority of the population must have lived on the mainland, while the island area was an administrative and religious center. As an administrative center, it would have contained the palaces of the ruler and probably stations for the army as well, and as a religious center, it had temples serving the city and the region.” [ed. Joukowsky (Kendall Hunt Pub Co, 1992), 13-15.]
Phoenicia: History of Civilization 2nd ed.: “It is among the most remarkable peculiarities of Tyre, that it was a double-city - a city made up of two wholly distinct parts - one, a littoral island about three-quarters of a mile in length, separated from the mainland by a strait about half a mile wide, and the other a town upon the opposite shore. The town upon the shore was known to the Greeks and Romans as Palaetyrus, or “Old Tyre” - its twin sister was “the island Tyre”, or “New Tyre”, or “Tyre” emphatically.” [George Rawlinson (I. B. Tauris, 2005), 41.]
Phoenicians: “…in classical sources, Ushu served not only as the primary conduit for raw materials from the surrounding region but as the base for the city's southward expansion into the Akko plain and the northern Galilee.” [Glenn Markoe (University of California Press, 2000), 197.]
The Phoenicians: The Purple Empire of the Ancient World: “Ushu [the part of Tyre on the mainland]…” [Gerhard Herm (Morrow, 1975), 147.]
“Phoenicia” by Ciasca in The Phoenicians: “The mainland sector of the city of Tyre (called Ushu in Egyptian and Assyrian texts and Palai-Tyros in classical sources)” [ed. Moscati (I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd, 2001), 179.]
Historical Studies and Recreations 2nd ed.: “Originally, Tyre was a double city, of which one part stood on the mainland and the other on an island. The portion which stood on the mainland was called Palaetyrus, and was the elder or more ancient.” [Shoshee Chunder Dutt (Trübner & C. 1879), 501.]
Mercer Dictionary of the Bible: “The city was divided into two parts: the mainland community sometimes referred to as Ussu, and the smaller island community just offshore.” [eds. Ellis, McKnight, Bullard (Mercer University Press, 2001), 938.]
A History of the Babylonians and Assyrians: “the Phoenician cities of Ushu (Tyre on the mainland)...” [George Stephen Goodspeed (C. Scribner's Sons, 1902), 312.]
- See Ezek. 26 (color coded). v6-11 detail the destruction of “your daughters on the coast” (which scholars unanimously agree is a reference to Ushu). Some critics of this interpretation suggest at least some of these verses must be refer to the island alone because: Premise 1. The city under attack had fortifications, and Premise 2. Ushu did not have fortifications. However, premise 2 is simply false: Coastal Tyre was fortified.