The Book of Isaiah

Hebrew Study

Explanation

Tyre was the commercial superpower of the ancient world, a fortified island city with a sister port at Sidon, whose fleets carried the goods of every land. Isaiah pictures the great merchant ships of Tarshish sailing home and getting the news at sea, "from the land of Chittim" (Cyprus): their home port is "laid waste, so that there is no house, no entering in." The command goes out to "howl," to wail in grief. This was the city that "replenished" the nations, whose "revenue" was the harvest of the Nile traded through her wharves, "a mart of nations." Now the sea itself, her great mother and highway, is made to speak as a bereaved woman: "I travail not, nor bring forth children", her teeming life is cut off. "Is this your joyous city, whose antiquity is of ancient days?" Isaiah asks. This ancient, proud, celebrating city will be led away on foot, "her own feet shall carry her afar off to sojourn", the sea-queen reduced to a refugee.

Gospel Focus

Tyre stands in Scripture as the very picture of proud, self-sufficient commerce, wealth trusted as if it were a fortress. And her sudden ruin preaches an old, unwelcome truth: riches are no shelter from the hand of God. "Riches profit not in the day of wrath" (Proverbs 11:4). Jesus told of a man whose barns were full and who said to his soul, "take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry," only to hear, "Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee" (Luke 12:19-20). A city, or a life, can be busy, ancient, respected, and rich, and still be laid waste in a day. The ships come home to find the harbor gone. Do not build your security on what can be taken in a night. "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth... But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven" (Matthew 6:19-20). The only wealth that no invasion, no market, and no death can strip away is what you have laid up with God.

Hebrew Study

Explanation

Isaiah asks the great question: "Who hath taken this counsel against Tyre, the crowning city, whose merchants are princes?" Who could possibly plan the downfall of so mighty and honored a city? The answer is unflinching: "The LORD of hosts hath purposed it." And He tells us why, "to stain the pride of all glory, and to bring into contempt all the honourable of the earth." Tyre's fall is a deliberate act of God against human pride itself. He "stretched out his hand over the sea" and "shook the kingdoms"; He "given a commandment against the merchant city, to destroy the strong holds thereof." The mistress of the seas is told, "Thou shalt no more rejoice," and sent fleeing to Cyprus where she will find "no rest." Isaiah even points to the Chaldeans as an object lesson, a people raised up and then "brought to ruin", to show that no empire, however it rises, is beyond God's power to bring down. So the refrain returns: "Howl, ye ships of Tarshish: for your strength is laid waste."

Gospel Focus

"To stain the pride of all glory" is one of the clearest statements in the Bible of why God topples the mighty. It is not only Tyre; it is "all glory... all the honourable of the earth." God has set Himself against human pride wherever it exalts itself, and He will not share His glory with the self-made and the self-important. "God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble" (James 4:6). He deliberately "hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty... that no flesh should glory in his presence" (1 Corinthians 1:27, 29). Every "crowning city," every empire of wealth and self-congratulation, is on notice: the LORD of hosts can purpose its end. Revelation shows the final "merchant city," Babylon, falling in a single hour while the merchants of the earth weep, "for no man buyeth their merchandise any more" (Revelation 18:11). The lesson for us is plain and personal: humble yourself now, before God has to do it. "Whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted" (Luke 14:11). Lay your pride down at the foot of the cross, where all human glory is stained and only Christ is exalted.

Hebrew Study

Explanation

Tyre's ruin would not be forever. She would be "forgotten seventy years, according to the days of one king," and then revive. Isaiah pictures her return to business with a jarring image: an aging harlot, forgotten and eager to be noticed again, taking up her harp to "make sweet melody, sing many songs, that thou mayest be remembered." When the LORD "visits" her, she goes straight back to "her hire," trading, as before, "with all the kingdoms of the world." Commerce itself is likened to prostitution here, love and loyalty sold to whoever pays. And then comes the surprise that turns the whole chapter: "her merchandise and her hire shall be holiness to the LORD." Her profit will no longer be hoarded, "it shall not be treasured nor laid up", but will go "for them that dwell before the LORD, to eat sufficiently, and for durable clothing." The wealth once gathered in greed is at last devoted to the people and worship of God.

Gospel Focus

This is a remarkable ending. The city held up as the picture of greedy, godless commerce becomes, in the end, a source of provision for the people of God, "her merchandise... shall be holiness to the LORD." It is a small, early gleam of a great gospel theme: the wealth and the peoples of the nations gathered in and consecrated to God. Isaiah later sees it in full, "the abundance of the sea shall be converted unto thee, the forces of the Gentiles shall come unto thee" (Isaiah 60:5), and Zechariah foresees a day when even the common vessels of a city shall bear "HOLINESS UNTO THE LORD" (Zechariah 14:20-21). In Christ that ingathering has begun: Gentiles once far off, "strangers from the covenants of promise," are "made nigh by the blood of Christ" (Ephesians 2:12-13), and what was defiled is cleansed and set apart for God. The grace here is stunning, God can take even what was earned in harlotry and make it "holiness to the LORD." That is what He does with sinners: He does not only forgive us, He consecrates us, turning lives once spent in the world's markets into vessels holy and useful for the Master's house. If God can make Tyre's hire holy, He can make your past, your work, and your wealth holy too, when they are laid at His feet.