“Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears, even if the thread of their discourse is secret, their rules are absurd, their perspectives deceitful, and everything conceals something else...You take delight not in a city's seven or seventy wonders, but in the answer it gives to a question of yours.”
Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino
In the middle of this war that’s raging on between Israel and the Hamas, hurting and rupturing so many people’s ties worldwide, however implicated by the horrors and the pain -- a Hebrew word keeps coming to my lips, a word that usually translates as ‘horror.’ Ba’la’ha, or in the plural, Ba’la’hot -- shows up for the first time in the Hebrew Bible in these chapters of Ezekiel as he imagines the future demise of Tyre - the fabled city of the north.
How many cities have been leveled to the ground in world history, forever lost to horror that perhaps has lost the right for words?
Whether through bombs of wars or waves of floods, eventual migration or internal hostility -- all over the planet discarded ruins whisper secrets of lost civilizations, some of them under the sea. Some fabled cities become collective cultural memories -- even when they no longer serve as anybody’s home.
What about Tyre brings out this poetic horror in Ezekiel, so many miles away?
It is likely that Ezekiel never visited Tyre, way up on the northern coast. While he was living in Jerusalem in the 6th century BCE, a local priest, the distance would have called for at least two week’s worth of costly travel, some of it through mountains and hostile enemy territory. And then he would have to reach that rock island, built as a fortress upon the sea, maybe getting on a boat for the first time in his life.
But in his imagination, and perhaps because it was so famous -- Tyre was a giant ship - its trademark -- and one day in the future, he imagined, even this rock-city will be shipwrecked. Before he describes the future horror he pauses to describes Tyre’s affluence in minute and astonishing detail: Cedar and pine trees, egyptian silks and embroideries, silver, gold, lead from what seems to be Sardinia, perfumes and gemstones from Africa and Arabia, horses from the north, even honey and grains from Judea.
How does he know all this? Scholars claim that there were migrants, and later on - exiles, who left Tyre and lived alongside Judeans in Babylon. Ezekiel’s exposure to their world included hearing their nostalgic hymns to their distant rock city.
He turns their declarations into a dirge:
בְּמַ֤יִם רַבִּים֙ הֱבִא֔וּךְ הַשָּׁטִ֖ים אֹתָ֑ךְ ר֚וּחַ הַקָּדִ֔ים שְׁבָרֵ֖ךְ בְּלֵ֥ב יַמִּֽים׃ הוֹנֵךְ֙ וְעִזְבוֹנַ֔יִךְ מַעֲרָבֵ֕ךְ מַלָּחַ֖יִךְ וְחֹבְלָ֑יִךְ מַחֲזִיקֵ֣י בִדְקֵ֣ךְ וְֽעֹרְבֵ֣י מַ֠עֲרָבֵ֠ךְ וְכׇל־אַנְשֵׁ֨י מִלְחַמְתֵּ֜ךְ אֲשֶׁר־בָּ֗ךְ וּבְכׇל־קְהָלֵךְ֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר בְּתוֹכֵ֔ךְ יִפְּלוּ֙ בְּלֵ֣ב יַמִּ֔ים בְּי֖וֹם מַפַּלְתֵּֽךְ׃
“Your oarsmen brought you out Into the mighty waters; The tempest wrecked you
On the high seas.
Your wealth, your wares, your merchandise,
Your sailors and your pilots,
Those who made your repairs,
Those who carried on your traffic,
And all the warriors within you—
All the multitude within you—
Shall go down into the depths of the sea
On the day of your downfall.”
Ezekiel 27 25-27
He then goes on to describe the aftermath of this ship going down -- some of the sailors having survived the disaster. Here he perhaps echoes the people that he met in Babylon - and through his words we hear a mix of empathy - and scorn. In as much detail as he described all the merchandise in the belly of the ship he now describes the mourning gestures of the last survivors. And just as in detailing Tyre’s riches he gives historical valuable information about what passed for trade centuries ago, he also gives us detailed descriptions of ways with which ancient people grieved and mourned:
וְֽיָרְד֞וּ מֵאֳנִיּֽוֹתֵיהֶ֗ם כֹּ֚ל תֹּפְשֵׂ֣י מָשׁ֔וֹט מַלָּחִ֕ים כֹּ֖ל חֹבְלֵ֣י הַיָּ֑ם אֶל־הָאָ֖רֶץ יַעֲמֹֽדוּ׃ וְהִשְׁמִ֤יעוּ עָלַ֙יִךְ֙ בְּקוֹלָ֔ם וְיִזְעֲק֖וּ מָרָ֑ה וְיַעֲל֤וּ עָפָר֙ עַל־רָ֣אשֵׁיהֶ֔ם בָּאֵ֖פֶר יִתְפַּלָּֽשׁוּ׃ וְהִקְרִ֤יחוּ אֵלַ֙יִךְ֙ קׇרְחָ֔ה וְחָגְר֖וּ שַׂקִּ֑ים וּבָכ֥וּ אֵלַ֛יִךְ בְּמַר־נֶ֖פֶשׁ מִסְפֵּ֥ד מָֽר׃ וְנָשְׂא֨וּ אֵלַ֤יִךְ בְּנִיהֶם֙ קִינָ֔ה וְקוֹנְנ֖וּ עָלָ֑יִךְ מִ֣י כְצ֔וֹר כְּדֻמָ֖ה בְּת֥וֹךְ הַיָּֽם׃
And all the oarsmen and mariners, all the captain of the sea, shall descend from their lost ships and stand on the ground.
They shall raise their voices over you and cry out bitterly; They shall cast dust on their heads And strew ashes on themselves. On your account, they shall make bald patches on their heads, and shall gird themselves with sackcloth.
They shall weep over you, brokenhearted, with bitter lamenting;
They shall intone a dirge over you as they wail, and lament for you thus:
Who was like Tyre when she was silenced In the midst of the sea?
Ezekiel 27:29-32
And finally, the final word is from the merchants - they who were Tyre’s elite, and the final word is the one that means unspeakable horror - a word that sounds in the original like a groan or a loud exhale - “Ba-La-haa” or “Ba-La-Hot.”
סֹֽחֲרִים֙ בָּֽעַמִּ֔ים שָׁרְק֖וּ עָלָ֑יִךְ בַּלָּה֣וֹת הָיִ֔ית וְאֵינֵ֖ךְ עַד־עוֹלָֽם
The merchants among the peoples hissed at you You have become a horror,
And have ceased to be forever.
Ezekiel 27:31
And yet Tyre survived. And is still there today, as is Jerusalem, and a different Tel Aviv - and even Gaza. Prophets give us words that sometimes help transcend the horror and yet sometimes even cities have resilience that defies and lives longer than the loudest dirge.
Image: An Assyrian relief depicting a Phoenician boat transporting cedar logs, 8th century BCE, World History Encyclopedia
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