Market

The market in scripture is two distinct settings — the city marketplace where people gather, deal, and call back and forth, and the great mercantile system whose commodities and partners are catalogued in Ezekiel's lament over Tyre. The Gospel uses of "marketplace" are casual and figurative; Ezekiel's use is comprehensive, almost an inventory of the ancient trading world.

The City Marketplace

In the Gospels the marketplace is a public space — the daily traffic-point that supplies vivid figures to teaching and ritual. After visiting it, the observant practice required washing: "and [when they come] from the marketplace, except they bathe themselves, they don't eat; and many other things there are, which they have received to hold, washings of cups, and pots, and bronze vessels, and beds" (Mr 7:4). The market is treated as the place that contracts ritual impurity through ordinary contact.

It also supplies a figure for the irritable crowd of Jesus' generation. "They are like children who sit in the marketplace, and call one to another; who say, We piped to you⁺, and you⁺ did not dance; we wailed, and you⁺ did not weep" (Lu 7:32). The marketplace here is the children's playground for one set of figures and the adult world's stage for the same complaint — neither Jesus' joy nor John's mourning is met.

Tyre's Catalog of Trade

Ezekiel's oracle against Tyre turns the market into a global ledger. The verses name partner after partner with the goods each brings: "Javan, Tubal, and Meshech, they were your traffickers; they traded the souls of man and vessels of bronze for your merchandise. They of the house of Togarmah traded for your wares with horses and warhorses and mules. The sons of Rodan were your traffickers; many isles were the mart of your hand: they brought you in exchange horns of ivory and ebony. Syria was your merchant by reason of the multitude of your handiworks: they traded for your wares with emeralds, purple, and embroidered work, and fine linen, and coral, and rubies. Judah, and the land of Israel, they were your traffickers: they traded for your merchandise wheat of Minnith, and pannag, and honey, and oil, and balm. Damascus was your merchant for the multitude of your handiworks, by reason of the multitude of all kinds of riches, with the wine of Helbon, and white wool, and the earthenware wine jars of Izalla, for your wares: bright iron, cassia, and calamus, were among your merchandise. Dedan was your trafficker in precious cloths for riding. Arabia, and all the princes of Kedar, they were the merchants of your hand; in lambs, and rams, and goats, in these they were your merchants. The traffickers of Sheba and Raamah, they were your traffickers; they traded for your wares with the chief of all spices, and with all precious stones, and gold. Haran and Canneh and Eden, the traffickers of Sheba, Asshur [and] Chilmad, were your traffickers. These were your traffickers in choice wares, in wrappings of blue and embroidered work, and in chests of rich apparel, bound with cords and made of cedar, these were your merchandise. The ships of Tarshish were your caravans for your merchandise: and you were replenished, and made very glorious in the heart of the seas" (Eze 27:13-25).

The list is a catalog of the known commercial world: peoples from the northern and Aegean rim (Javan, Tubal, Meshech, Togarmah, Rodan), the Levantine neighbors (Syria, Judah, Israel, Damascus), the Arabian and southern partners (Dedan, Arabia, Kedar, Sheba, Raamah), and the trans-Euphrates names (Haran, Canneh, Eden, Asshur, Chilmad). The cargoes range from war-horses and slaves through metals, textiles, agricultural staples, spices, and precious stones. Tyre is "replenished, and made very glorious in the heart of the seas" — the market's outcome and its location both fixed in one line.