Isaiah chapter 23
PROPHECY AGAINST TYRE
When you are going through a dark time, what is your typical response? What do you usually do? Worry? Lose sleep? Get depressed? Ask your friends to pray for you? I daresay few of us break out into song. The night seems so long and so dark, what is there to sing about? Aren’t songs for happy times, for victorious times? And wouldn’t you even seem crazy to be singing in the midst of grave trouble? Yet Isaiah found reasons to write songs even when he was talking about various judgments.
First we will look at the prophecy against Tyre. It could be labeled, Do not build your hope on financial success. Chapter 23 is the last of Isaiah’s prophecies against other nations, which began in chapter 13 with Babylon and ends here in the West with Tyre, which is in Phoenicia.
Tyre was one of the most famous cities of the ancient world and a major trading center with a large seaport. It was a very wealthy and very evil city.
As in the other prophecies, this one about Tyre also pertains to the Assyrian aggression at the end of the eighth century B.C. Though Tyre was not destroyed until some 200 years later, the trade of this great city was cut off between about 700 and 630 B.C.
We encounter here an evil society which serves as a type or illustration of this present evil world. Tyre as such is ruled by the evil forces of Satan. Tyre represents the great commercial systems of the world which bask in every possible luxury while forgetting God. But the day is soon coming when all the things that people have selfishly set their hearts upon will be destroyed and this present world system will pass away. We can see a prediction of this in the prophecy relating to the destruction of Tyre.
Isaiah 23:1-7 NLT:
1 This message came to me concerning Tyre: Weep, O ships of Tarshish, returning home from distant lands! Weep for your harbor at Tyre because it is gone! The rumors you heard in Cyprus are all true.
2 Mourn in silence, you people of the coast and you merchants of Sidon. Your traders crossed the sea,
3 sailing over deep waters. They brought you grain from Egypt and harvests from along the Nile. You were the merchandise mart of the world.
4 But now you are put to shame, city of Sidon, fortress on the sea. For the sea says, “Now I am childless; I have no sons or daughters.”
5 When Egypt hears the news about Tyre, there will be great sorrow.
6 Flee now to Tarshish! Wail, you people who live by the sea!
7 How can this silent ruin be all that is left of your once joyous city? What a history was yours! Think of all the colonists you sent to distant lands.
This oracle begins with a call to a fleet of merchant ships to wail in distress during their trading voyages on the Mediterranean Sea. You may remember our discussion of Tarshish in an earlier chapter. Tarshish was most likely in Spain, so “Ships of Tarshish” were large trading ships capable of sailing great distances on the open sea all the way to the port of Tyre. Those ships were docked at the island of Cyprus, about 150 miles northwest of Tyre, when the news of Tyre’s destruction reached them.
Isaiah foresaw the complete destruction of Tyre whose ships reached every known port in the world of that day. Sidon was also a major seaport in Phoenicia but in no way was it the extent of Tyre. It must have seemed unbelievable at the time of Isaiah’s prophecy to think that this great city would soon be little more than a memory. The fall of this great city would affect nations as near as Egypt and as far away as Tarshish. It is possible that Tarshish could also be used here as a general term to refer to Spain and even Great Britain, from which great amounts of tin, lead, and other metals were mined. In fact, you might be interested to know that the very word “Britannia,” the ancient name for the island of Great Britain, means “the land of tin.”
We can well understand how the great merchant princes of Tyre were looked upon as the Donald Trumps of their day. They were held in the highest esteem.
Unfortunately such men rarely give the glory for their success to God who gave them the ability to amass such fortunes. Tyre gave God no credit whatsoever so God decided to punish them for their detestable pride and vanity.
Isaiah 23:8-17 NLT:
8 Who has brought this disaster on Tyre, empire builder and chief trader of the world?
9 The Lord Almighty has done it to destroy your pride and show his contempt for all human greatness.
10 Come, Tarshish, sweep over your mother Tyre like the flooding Nile, for the city is defenseless.
11 The Lord holds out his hand over the seas. He shakes the kingdoms of the earth. He has spoken out against Phoenicia and depleted its strength.
12 He says, “Never again will you rejoice, O daughter of Sidon. Once you were a lovely city, but you will never again be strong. Even if you flee to Cyprus, you will find no rest.”
13 Look at the land of Babylonia—the people of that land are gone! The Assyrians have handed Babylon over to the wild beasts. They have built siege ramps against its walls, torn down its palaces, and turned it into a heap of rubble.
14 Wail, O ships of Tarshish, for your home port is destroyed!
15 For seventy years, the length of a king’s life, Tyre will be forgotten. But then the city will come back to life and sing sweet songs like a prostitute.
16 Long absent from her lovers, she will take a harp, walk the streets, and sing her songs, so that she will again be remembered.
17 Yes, after seventy years the Lord will revive Tyre. But she will be no different than she was before. She will return again to all her evil ways around the world.
Assyria invaded Tyre in 705 B.C. and again in 681-669B.C. The message here is quite remarkable, however, in that Isaiah prophesied that the Babylonians, not yet a world power, would destroy Tyre. They did so in 572 B.C., a century after Isaiah made this prophecy. During that same seventy years that Judah remained in captivity in Babylon, Tyre was in a state of degradation and collapse. After the death of Nebuchadnezzar, however, and the capture of Babylon by the Medes and Persians, Tyre was largely rebuilt, though it never again became the commercial city it once had been. Tyre was at last almost completely destroyed by the armies of Alexander the Great when he overcame the Persians and conquered most of Western Asia and Egypt.
Isaiah 23:18 NLT:
18 But in the end her businesses will give their profits to the Lord. Her wealth will not be hoarded but will be used to provide good food and fine clothing for the Lord’s priests.
Tyre has never come into prominence since and yet there is a future blessing predicted for it. It is evident in the last verse of this chapter that, like so many other prophetic scriptures, this one takes us beyond the present time to the establishment of Christ’s kingdom on the earth during the Millennium. In that day a new city will arise on the current ruins of Tyre and that city will bring glory and honor to the reign of Jesus Christ.
