Isaiah 23

Isaiah’s final message concerning Israel’s neighbor nations is against Tyre. 

·        23:1: Tyre, on the Mediterranean coast north of Israel (today’s Lebanon) was the leading economic power of the time.  The city and port sat on an island just off the coast giving it an almost impenetrable defense as well as a great location for maritime trade.  Along with her sister-city Sidon (north of Tyre on the eastern coast) these Phoenicians had spawned numerous colonies on the coastlands of the Sea including Tarshish (on the Spanish coast) and Cyprus (the strategically located island on the eastern end of the Med).  Her wealth and prominence was not connected to her own products but rather in her great merchant navy by which she transported everyone else’s products.  

·        23:2-5: This well-named marketplace for the nations will come upon difficult times.  In v1 ships returning from Tarshish will arrive at Cyprus and find out there is no harbor open at Tyre.  The inhabitants of the coastland (v2,6; the occupants of all the port-cities on the Mediterannean that were fundamental to Tyre’s business operation) would become still.  Sidon will be ashamed.

·        23:6-10: Though far removed, at the other end of the Sea, Tarshis will wail because her greatness is wrapped up in the successes of Tyre.  And note, it is Israel’s God, the LORD of hosts, who is doing all of this.

·        23:11-14: In addition, all this is part of what God is doing with Israel who inhabit Canaan.  Each burden against the nations is related to what God is doing with Israel.  God used the Chaldeans (ancient name for Babylonians) to judge His people; so He will use them against Tyre.  Nebuchadnezzar besieged Tyre for 13 years without breaching the defenses, though he brought them into submission.  The end of Tyre’s independence came at the hands of Rome with the defeat of Carthage, another of the colonies.

·        23:15-18: In that day brings us to the end of this part of the story.  Tyre will return to her place as marketplace after the same seventy years that Judah will be in captivity.  When Cyrus defeated Babylon in 539BC he brought freedom to many nations, including the Israelites who were permitted to return, and the Phoenicians who returned to their trade.  It is called fornication because, for one thing, like a harlot, the Phoenicians had nothing to sell but a service, the transport of everyone else’s goods.  But also it spiritual adultery, the essence of the money-is-god religion which remains to this day the largest religion in the world.  This terminology and illustration is used in Rev. 17:2; 18:3,9 to speak of the end-time economic system.  The kingdom of the Antichrist is called Babylon.  It is a religious system (Rev. 17) as well as an economic system (Rev. 18) that is used to maintain people’s loyalty to the regime.

Remember: covetousness is idolatry (Col. 3:5).  The love of money is the root of all evil … Now godliness with contentment is great gain (1 Tim. 6:10,6).