Isaiah 23: Against Tyre

Context:

• 1.2.2 Second wave Ch.21-23
  • Ch.21 – Against Babylon, against Edom & against Arabia
  • Ch.22 – Against Jerusalem
  • Ch.23 – Against Tyre

Chapter 23

• v.1-3 Tyre’s fall prophesied
• v.4-6 The effect of her fall on other trading partners
• v.7-12 This is clearly a judgment of God
• v.13-16 Learn from the recent past, this will happen – and last!
• v.17,18 She will eventually be restored and yet her profits will go to God’s people

[Preliminary Comment: Ezekiel had brought words and lament over Tyre that had taken up three chapters [Ezek 26-28], but this of course comes many years before his words. See our Ezek 26 ‘Preliminary Comments’ for description etc. of Tyre that also comes out below. Ezek 27:12-23 shows the extent of Tyre’s trading.

Isaiah speaks of Tyre’s destruction [v.1] after having been for so long a prosperous trading port [v.2] for the nations [v.3] along with her mother city [that had originally founded Tyre], Sidon [v.4]. Prophetic reference to the sea may mean the peoples of the world [as the term often is used prophetically], and the implication of v.4 may be the world saying Sidon is childless now. This will impact her trading partners across the world [v.5,6] but it is clearly an act of God [v.7-12], a destruction that will last for seventy years [v.13-16] before the Lord restores her for His own purposes [v.17,18]. A chapter of severe warning.]

v.1-4 Tyre’s fall prophesied

v.1 A prophecy against Tyre:

Wail, you ships of Tarshish!
    For Tyre is destroyed
    and left without house or harbor.
From the land of Cyprus
    word has come to them.

v.2 Be silent, you people of the island
    and you merchants of Sidon,
    whom the seafarers have enriched.

v.3 On the great waters
    came the grain of the Shihor;
the harvest of the Nile was the revenue of Tyre,
    and she became the market-place of the nations

v.4 Be ashamed, Sidon, and you fortress of the sea,
    for the sea has spoken:
‘I have neither been in labor nor given birth;
    I have neither reared sons nor brought up daughters.’

[Notes: The spotlight shines on that coastal trading centre of Tyre. The sounds of the prosperous will be ended. She had been a great trading place, together with Sidon, the mother port of Tyre, about 25 miles north, now made childless – see above.]

v.5-6 The effect of her fall on other trading partners

v.5 When word comes to Egypt,
    they will be in anguish at the report from Tyre.

v.6 Cross over to Tarshish;
    wail, you people of the island.

[Notes: When Egypt hears of their downfall of their trading partner they will be in anguish. Up in Tarshish in Spain, similarly

v.7-12 This is clearly a judgment of God

v.7 Is this your city of revelry,
    the old, old city,
whose feet have taken her
    to settle in far-off lands?

v.8 Who planned this against Tyre,
    the bestower of crowns,
whose merchants are princes,
    whose traders are renowned in the earth?

v.9 The Lord Almighty planned it,
    to bring down her pride in all her splendor
    and to humble all who are renowned on the earth.

v.10 Till your land as they do along the Nile,
    Daughter Tarshish,
    for you no longer have a harbor.

v.11 The Lord has stretched out his hand over the sea
    and made its kingdoms tremble.
He has given an order concerning Phoenicia
    that her fortresses be destroyed.

v.12 He said, ‘No more of your reveling,
    Virgin Daughter Sidon, now crushed!

‘Up, cross over to Cyprus;
    even there you will find no rest.’

[Notes: No longer a city of merriment, how did this come to powerful Tyre? It was God! He has brought down her pride. Similarly the Spanish port – you’ll have to work harder to trade. The Lord decrees this fall and there will be no escaping it.]

v.13-16 Learn from the recent past, this will happen – and last!

v.13 Look at the land of the Babylonians,
    this people that is now of no account!
The Assyrians have made it
    a place for desert creatures;
they raised up their siege towers,
    they stripped its fortresses bare
    and turned it into a ruin.

v.14 Wail, you ships of Tarshish;
    your fortress is destroyed!

v.15 At that time Tyre will be forgotten for seventy years, the span of a king’s life. But at the end of these seventy years, it will happen to Tyre as in the song of the prostitute:

v.16  ‘Take up a harp, walk through the city,
    you forgotten prostitute;
play the harp well, sing many a song,
    so that you will be remembered.’

[Notes: Learn from what the Assyrians did in Babylon. Travellers from Spain, your trading link is gone. She will be destroyed for seventy years. It will be a source of lament.]

v.17,18 She will eventually be restored and yet her profits will go to God’s people

v.17 At the end of seventy years, the Lord will deal with Tyre. She will return to her lucrative prostitution and will ply her trade with all the kingdoms on the face of the earth.

v.18 Yet her profit and her earnings will be set apart for the Lord; they will not be stored up or hoarded. Her profits will go to those who live before the Lord, for abundant food and fine clothes.

[Notes: God will eventually restore her, yet use her profits for His people.]

For those who may wish to make a study of this chapter, to perhaps think some more about what you have been reading, use the link below: