EZEKIEL'S FAILED FORTUNE TELLING ATTEMPT ABOUT TYRE 

God supposedly gave the following revelation to the prophet Ezekiel.  It is alleged to be an example of how God foretold the future. The Bible warns that a prophet who errs about the future is not from God even if he gets only one of many predictions wrong for God knows the future.

Ezekiel 26.  "Son of man, because Tyre said concerning Jerusalem, 'Aha the gate of the peoples is broken, it has swung open to me; I shall be replenished now that she is laid waste', therefore thus says the Lord God: Behold, I am against you O Tyre [This prediction is made to Tyre as it was then.  It was relevant to Tyre as it was then.  Why would God tell Tyre hundreds of years before Christ that it will come to a bad end centuries later?  Yet religion says that is what God did - it only says that for that generation did not experience the fulfilment of the whole prophecy.  The most important thing in interpreting anything is to try and read it as you would if it were written to you - in this case as if you were the inhabitant of Tyre during the time of Ezekiel], and will bring up many nations against you as the sea brings up its waves. [This text gives believers an excuse for arguing that many nations perhaps over many centuries would go against Tyre - if Ezekiel meant that then he was no prophet for same prediction could be made of any city.  Why didn't he name at least some of the nations?]  They shall destroy the walls of Tyre, and break down her towers; and I will scrape her soil from her and make her a bare rock [He says the enemies will demolish much of the city but says he will miraculously do the rest himself - that did not happen.  Christians say he meant he would do it through the enemies but why did he switch then from they to I?].  She shall be in the midst of the sea a place for the spreading of nets; for I have spoken, says the Lord God; and she shall become a spoil to the nations; and her daughters on the mainland shall be slain by the sword. Then they will know that I am the Lord. [Why doesn't he say, "She shall be in the midst of the sea a place for the spreading of nets; for I have spoken, says the Lord God; and she shall become a spoil to the nations;  Then they will know that I am the Lord.  And her daughters on the mainland shall be slain by the sword."  This arrangement avoids having a vague prophecy about the daughters being slain being counted as proof that God is speaking.  The prophet is predicting something he knows has to happen some time so it cannot count as a prophecy or evidence that God is speaking] For thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will bring upon Tyre from the north Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, [interestingly Neb invaded just months after the prophecy.  Or was the prophecy just written after the event?  No wonder it gets that right and everything else wrong!] and with horsemen and a host of many soldiers. He will slay with the sword your daughters on the mainland; he will set up a siege wall against you, and throw up a mound against you, and raise a roof of shields against you.  He will direct the shock of his battering rams against your walls, and with his axes he will break down your towers.  His horses will be so many that their dust will cover you; your walls will shake at the noise of the horsemen and wagons and chariots, when he enters your gates as one enters a city that has been breached.  With the hoofs of his horses he will trample all your streets; he will slay your people with the sword; and your mighty pillars will fall to the ground.  They [the they here gives believers an excuse for saying that some other mob would continue the destruction.  It is not an excuse for the they means Neb and co.  The only reason they are messing around with words is because Neb did not throw the remains of the city into the sea.  The they is imagined to mean Alexander the Great and his army who used the rubble to make a causeway] will make a spoil of your riches and a prey of your merchandise; [Ezekiel later admits in the book that they got nothing]  they will break down your walls and destroy your pleasant houses; your stones and your timber and soil they will cast into the midst of the waters [There is no hint here that a causeway is meant.  It just means the destruction of a city].  And I will stop the music of your songs, and the sound of your lyres shall be heard no more.  I will make you a bare rock; you shall be a place for the spreading of nets; you shall never be rebuilt; for I the Lord have spoken, says the Lord God. [Tyre was rebuilt a number of times and is even better today than it was then]" Revised Standard Version.

But later on in the book, see Ezekiel 29:17-20, the "prophet" admits that his earlier prediction that Nebuchadnezzar would destroy the city of Tyre failed. The same chapter predicts the destruction of Egypt which never happened either.  

"In the twenty-seventh year, in the first month on the first day, the word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon drove his army in a hard campaign against Tyre; every head was rubbed bare and every shoulder made raw. Yet he and his army got no reward from the campaign he led against Tyre. Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I am going to give Egypt to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and he will carry off its wealth. He will loot and plunder the land as pay for his army. I have given him Egypt as a reward for his efforts because he and his army did it for me, declares the Sovereign Lord."[It is horrendous and blasphemous that Christians regard that as a message from God in which he rewards a terrorist leader for looting Tyre and murdering its people!  When we read that it should be enough to deny that Ezekiel really was a mouthpiece of God].

The believers say that this agrees with the earlier prediction.  Their argument is that just because Nebuchadnezzar got the city does not mean that it was a good thing for him.  He wasted a lot of time and men's lives.  But they believe no such thing for Neb destroyed a superpower.  And what other reward would he have wanted?  It was not about gold or anything else.  It was about military might.  They are trying to distract you from the fact that Ezekiel predicted that Neb would loot Tyre and take its riches and merchandise and here we are told that Neb needs to go to Egypt if he wants such goods for Tyre was a let-down.
 
Tyre did make a comeback - St Jerome wrote 400 AD that Tyre was "the noblest and most beautiful of the Phoenician cities and an emporium of commerce for almost the whole world” (Porter 1956: 3032). Doesn't sound like a hell hole fit only for the spreading of nets.