‘And so it was that in the eleventh year, on the first day of the month, that the word of Yahweh came to me saying, “Son of man, because Tyre has said against Jerusalem, ‘Aha, she is broken who was the gate of the peoples, she has been turned to me. I will be replenished now that she is laid waste'.”
The dating of the oracle is slightly uncertain as no month is mentioned. This may have been because it was the eleventh month so that it accidentally dropped out due to the scribe picking up at the wrong point. Or it may simply be that there was no record of the month and that what was considered to matter was that it was on the first day of a moon period. It was possibly around February 586/5 BC, just after the fall of Jerusalem. Tyrian traders may well have reached Babylonia with the news of the downfall, and jesting remarks about the benefit it would now bring to them.
But more important is the reason for the coming judgment. Tyre exulted in the downfall of Jerusalem because it would enhance her own profits. It is clear that she had been jealous of Jerusalem's position as ‘the gate of the peoples', a major intersection on the trade routes. Now that Jerusalem was no more, much of the trade benefit would come to Tyre. The destruction of Jerusalem brought her nothing but happiness.
It is a woeful thing to rejoice at gaining through the suffering and misery of others.