Amos 1:9-10

3. An oracle against Phoenicia 1:9-10

Tyre was apparently the leading city of Phoenicia at this time. The sin of the Phoenicians was the same as that of the Philistines. They had sold whole communities of people to the Edomites as slaves. [Note: See Paul, p. 59.] They also broke a covenant of brothers.

"If Israel was the injured partner, the reference is probably to the pact between Solomon and Hiram (1 Kings 5) or perhaps to the later relations established through the marriage of Ahab and Jezebel (1 Kings 16:29-31)." [Note: Sunukjian, p. 1429.]

Ironically many Tyrians became captives and were sold as slaves when Alexander the Great destroyed Tyre in 332 B.C. (cf. Ezekiel 26-28). Phoenicia declined as a major power in the ancient Near East after that destruction and never revived.