The long siege of Tyre

CHAPTER IX

The Neo-Babylonian Period and the Long Siege of Tyre—How Nebuchadnezzar Could Not Break the Rock

The Assyrian Empire collapsed with astonishing speed. In 612 BCE, a coalition of Babylonians and Medes stormed Nineveh, razed the great city, and put an end to the empire that had dominated the Near East for three centuries. The victors divided the spoils. Media took the northern and eastern territories. Babylon, under the Chaldaean dynasty of Nabopolassar and his son Nebuchadnezzar II, took Mesopotamia, Syria, and the Levant.

The Phœnician cities, which had navigated the Assyrian period with such skill, now faced a new master. Nebuchadnezzar II (r. 605–562 BCE) was not content with tribute. He wanted submission. And when Tyre refused, he mounted the longest siege in the history of the ancient world.

The Fall of Jerusalem and the Rise of Babylonian Power

Before Nebuchadnezzar turned his attention to Tyre, he dealt with the petty kingdoms of the interior. In 597 BCE, he captured Jerusalem after a brief siege, deposed King Jehoiachin, and installed Zedekiah as a puppet. When Zedekiah rebelled with Egyptian encouragement, Nebuchadnezzar returned. In 586 BCE, after an eighteen-month siege, Jerusalem fell. The Temple of Solomon — the structure that Phœnician craftsmen had built for Hiram's ally four centuries earlier — was burned to the ground. The elite of Judah were deported to Babylon. The kingdom of David was extinguished.

The Hebrew scriptures present the destruction as the judgment of Yahweh upon a sinful people. But from the perspective of the Phœnician cities, the lesson was political: rebellion against Babylon meant annihilation. Jerusalem had rebelled and was destroyed. The Phœnician cities watched, and most submitted. Arvad, Byblus, Sidon — these made their peace with Nebuchadnezzar and paid their tribute.

Tyre did not submit.

The Siege of Tyre: 586–573 BCE

The siege of Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar is one of the most famous military operations of antiquity, but its details have been obscured by the loss of the Babylonian chronicles for the relevant years. What we know comes from fragmentary references in the Hebrew scriptures, a brief notice in Josephus, and the archaeological evidence of the city's survival.

Josephus, quoting the Phœnician historian Menander of Ephesus, provides the essential testimony (Against Apion I.156–159):

"In the reign of Ithobaal, Nebuchadnezzar besieged Tyre for thirteen years, while Baal was king. After this, the Tyrians appointed judges: Ecnibalus, the son of Baslacus, who judged for two months; Chelbes, the son of Abdeus, for ten months; Abbar, the high priest, for three months; Myttynus and Gerastartus, the sons of Abdelemus, for six years. After them, Balatorus reigned one year; then they sent to Babylon for Merbalus, who reigned four years; and after him, they sent for Hiram, the brother of Merbalus, who reigned twenty years."

This passage is crucial. It establishes several facts:

First, Nebuchadnezzar did indeed besiege Tyre. The siege lasted thirteen years, from approximately 586 to 573 BCE.

Second, the Tyrian king during the siege was Ithobaal III (not to be confused with Ithobaal I of the Jezebel story). He apparently survived the siege, and the Tyrian monarchy continued.

Third, after the siege, Tyre underwent a period of political instability. The monarchy was replaced, briefly, by a succession of judges (suffetes), and then restored, with kings who were acknowledged by Babylon. This suggests that the siege ended not with the conquest of Tyre but with a negotiated settlement: the Tyrians accepted Babylonian suzerainty, paid tribute, and received a Babylonian-approved king in return for their survival.

The Hebrew prophet Ezekiel, writing from exile in Babylon, devoted an entire oracle to the siege of Tyre (Ezekiel 26–28). Ezekiel describes the siege in vivid detail and predicts that Nebuchadnezzar will take the city. But Ezekiel's prophecy did not come true. Nebuchadnezzar did not take Tyre. The city, on its island, was beyond the reach of Babylonian siege engines. Nebuchadnezzar could devastate the mainland settlement of Ushu — the "daughters in the field" — but he could not cross the water. The island held.

Ezekiel himself, in a later passage (Ezekiel 29:17–20), was forced to admit the failure:

"Son of man, Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon caused his army to serve a great service against Tyre: every head was made bald, and every shoulder was peeled: yet had he no wages, nor his army, for Tyre, for the service that he had served against it."

The prophet then declares that God will give Nebuchadnezzar Egypt as compensation — a face-saving revision of the original prophecy. The admission is remarkable. The Hebrew prophet, writing in Babylon, acknowledged that the greatest king of the age had failed to take Tyre.

Gad Yaton: I note the irony. The Hebrew scriptures contain two kinds of passages about Tyre. The first is the oracle of destruction, which predicts the city's annihilation. The second is the reluctant admission that the destruction never happened. The oracle is theology — the expression of the prophet's belief that his god must punish the wealthy, idolatrous city that had profited from Jerusalem's fall. The admission is history — the record of what actually occurred. It is the admission, not the oracle, that I credit.

The Outcome of the Siege

The siege of Tyre ended not with conquest but with a treaty. The exact terms are unknown, but the outcome is clear: after the siege, Tyre was governed by judges for a period, and then the monarchy was restored under a king who had been sent from Babylon. The archaeological evidence supports this interpretation. There is no destruction layer at Tyre corresponding to the Babylonian siege. The city continued to function throughout the sixth century BCE. Tyre was humbled, but it was not destroyed.

The Decline of Babylonian Power

Nebuchadnezzar II died in 562 BCE. His successors were weak. In 539 BCE, the Persian king Cyrus the Great entered Babylon without a battle, deposed the last Babylonian king, Nabonidus, and absorbed the entire empire into his own dominions. The Phœnician cities — now subjects of the Persian king — prepared for a new chapter in their history.

Sources for Chapter IX: Josephus, Against Apion I.156–159; Josephus, Antiquities X.228; Menander of Ephesus, fragments preserved in Josephus; Ezekiel 26–29; 2 Kings 24–25; Jeremiah 27–29; D.J. Wiseman, Chronicles of Chaldaean Kings (626–556 B.C.) in the British Museum (1956); H. Jacob Katzenstein, The History of Tyre (1973); Josette Elayi, The History of Phoenicia (2013); María Eugenia Aubet, The Phoenicians and the West (2nd ed., 2001).