Failed Prophecy (destruction of Tyre)?

[brickwall]

Hi everyone, I was wondering about the prophecy made by Ezekiel described by Wikipedia as follows:

Ezekiel predicts that the ancient city of Tyre will be utterly destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar and “made a bare rock” that will “never be rebuilt” (Ezekiel 26:1, 26:7-14, 26:32). However, Tyre withstood Nebuchadrezzar’s siege for 13 years, ending in a compromise in which the royal family was taken into exile but the city survived intact.

Apologists note that the prophecy states that “many nations” would accomplish the destruction of Tyre, and claim that this refers to later conquerors (Ezekiel 26:3), but skeptics[67][68] counter that this was a reference to the “many nations” of Nebuchadrezzar’s multinational force (Nebuchadrezzar was described by Ezekiel as “king of kings”, i.e., an overking, a ruler over many nations), and that subsequent conquerors didn’t permanently destroy Tyre either (it is now the fourth-largest city in Lebanon). Ezekiel himself admitted later that Nebuchadnezzar could not defeat Tyre (Ezekiel 29:18).

What is the Catholic stance on this?

 

[COPLAND_3]

Here is a comment from Fr. William Most

God wills to punish its
pride, and its rejoicing over the fall of Jerusalem. So He sends
Nebuchadnezzar. The devastation is to be total. Really that was
semitic exaggeration and the result of the prophet’s vision taking
in a vast period of time. The island part of Tyre was not really
taken until Alexander the Great built an artificial dike out to it

• for it was on an island, in 332 BC. The prophet’s description of
  the attack on Tyre follows the usual picture of such things. The
  part of Tyre on the mainland and the related cities of course
  could be attacked.

 

[Mintaka]

In any case, God makes it pretty clear that repentance and doing good, even by pagans, could turn away or soften some prophecies.

Though honestly, Alexander the Great did haul along people of all nations (or pretty much all the nations Ezekiel would have known) in his army, and his siege and destruction of Tyre was really very startling and horrifying to the ancient world. It’s still considered one of the great military feats, and the aftermath was pretty bloody by anybody’s standards. It happened about 200 years after Ezekiel’s day.

Alexander’s siege of Tyre.