(4) Her dust.--Comp. Ezekiel 26:12. The dust is that of her ruined walls and palaces and temples. "Scraping" expresses their utter destruction. As an historic fact, the ruins of the ancient city have all been thrown into the sea, and what now remains is of mediaeval construction, although the greater part of even the mediaeval ruins have been carried away.

26:1-14 To be secretly pleased with the death or decay of others, when we are likely to get by it; or with their fall, when we may thrive upon it, is a sin that easily besets us, yet is not thought so bad as really it is. But it comes from a selfish, covetous principle, and from that love of the world as our happiness, which the love of God expressly forbids. He often blasts the projects of those who would raise themselves on the ruin of others. The maxims most current in the trading world, are directly opposed to the law of God. But he will show himself against the money-loving, selfish traders, whose hearts, like those of Tyre, are hardened by the love of riches. Men have little cause to glory in things which stir up the envy and rapacity of others, and which are continually shifting from one to another; and in getting, keeping, and spending which, men provoke that God whose wrath turns joyous cities into ruinous heaps.And they shall destroy the walls of Tyrus.... Undermining them, or breaking them down with their battering rams:

and break down her towers; with axes, Ezekiel 26:9 built upon the walls; erected for the defence of the city, and for watchmen to stand in, to look out from them for the enemy, and observe his motions, as well as for soldiers to fight from:

and I will scrape her dust from her, and make her like the top of a rock; a bare smooth rock, which has not any surface of earth upon it. So the Targum,

"I will give her for the smoothness of an open rock.''

Tyre was built upon a rock; and whereas the inhabitants had brought earth thither, and laid it upon it, in order to make gardens and orchards, and plant flowers and trees; this should be all removed, and it should become a bare rock, as it was at first. It denotes the utter destruction of it. It has its name from a word which signifies a rock; See Gill on Isaiah 23:1.