Ezekiel 27:26 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Thy rowers have brought thee into great waters The prophet here begins to change the subject, and now, in metaphorical language, speaks of the danger into which the rulers and statesmen of Tyre had brought her by their pride and ill-concerted measures. He compares her to a ship, impelled by its own rowers into a very tempestuous sea, by which is meant their war with the Chaldeans. See a similar comparison Isaiah 33:23. Great troubles are frequently signified by great waters. The east wind hath broken thee By this is signified the Chaldean army coming from the east: as if he had said, As the violence of the east wind occasions many shipwrecks in the sea, so the army of thy enemies, coming upon thee, shall ruin thy strength and glory, and leave thee like a wreck cast upon the shore. “This is a proper allegory,” says Bishop Warburton, “with only one real sense; and it is managed by the prophet with that brevity and expedition which a proper allegory demands, when used in the place of a metaphor.” Grotius refers to Horace, lib. 1. ode 14, as an allegory very similar to this of the prophet.