Bible Commentaries
Isaiah 23

Verses 1-14

Isa 23:1-14

Isaiah 23:1-5

THE BURDEN OF TYRE

Although this chapter is labeled "The burden of Tyre" in the first verse; yet it actually contains the burden of Tyre, the burden of Sidon, and the burden of the whole of Phoenicia.

There are four divisions in the chapter: (1) a prophecy of doom (Isaiah 23:1-5), (2) God is the executioner of wicked nations (Isaiah 23:6-9), (3) the extent of Tyre’s destruction (Isaiah 23:10-14), and (4) the prophecy of Tyre’s renewal (Isaiah 23:15-18). This chapter concludes the second major division of the prophecy, concluding the denunciations hurled by the prophet against a dozen nations.

Present-day commentators are reluctant to decide which destruction of Tyre is here prophesied; but the Assyrian "destruction" which is favored by some cannot be fully established. Sure, there were defeats of Tyre by a number of Assyrian invaders; but by paying heavy tribute, and by certain other accommodations the Tyrians were usually able to maintain some semblance of autonomy except in two instances: (1) that of the 13-year siege by Nebuchadnezzar from, 587-574 B.C., and (2) that of Alexander the Great in 332 B.C. which lasted seven months and was completed when Alexander built a mole out to the island city and literally scraped all of it into the sea. Of course, critical commentators are blind to either one of these sieges on account of their absurd dictum about "predictive prophecy." We feel very certain that these are precisely the sieges foretold by the prophecy. In fact, the mention of the Chaldeans in Isaiah 23:13 is the only proof of this needed.

Isaiah 23:1-5

"The burden of Tyre. Howl ye ships of Tarshish; for it is laid waste, so that there is no house, no entering in: from the land of Kittim it is revealed to them. Be still ye inhabitants of the coast, thou whom the merchants of Sidon, that pass over the sea, have replenished. And on great waters the seed of the Shihor, the harvest of the Nile was her revenue; and she was the mart of nations. Be thou ashamed, O Sidon; for the sea hath spoken, the stronghold of the sea, I have not travailed, nor brought forth, neither have I nourished young men, nor brought up virgins. When the report cometh to Egypt, they shall be sorely pained at the report of Tyre."

TYRE

This city was one of the first great cities on earth. Herodotus gave the date of its founding as 2300 B.C. It stood for many centuries as the prime example of commercialism; and Hailey believed that it was in its capacity as a center of commerce that it received God’s prophetic condemnation here. Having already proclaimed the doom of great political and military powers, as well as the centers of decadent paganism, God, as Hailey saw it, was here denouncing "the world capital of commerce.” We cannot fully agree with this, because Tyre in this chapter represents the entire coastal country. She is identified with Sidon in Isaiah 23:4; and "Tyre and Sidon" are mentioned together throughout the New Testament especially; and, even in the Old Testament, the godless wife of Ahab was identified as the "daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Sidonians." She was the one who murdered the prophets of God, installed Baal as the God of Northern Israel and moved hundreds of pagan priests into the country. Therefore, although the selfish, wicked commercialism of Tyre was indeed condemned by the Lord’s denunciation here, that was by no means the full extent of their sins.

It is generally believed that Tarshish, as mentioned here must be identified with Tartessus, a colony of Tyre built upon the southwest coastline of Spain "beyond the Pillars of Hercules, which was the center of an important and lucrative commerce.”

"No house, no entering in ..." Such words as these denoted the total ruin of Tyre, something that did not occur until the ruin of the city by Nebuchadnezzar; and even in that conquest, Tyre continued "for the life of one king (seventy years)," in a sense "forgotten" and of no particular importance till later. The fulfillment of this line "no house ... no entering in" took place in the siege by Alexander in 332 B.C. It happened like this: After taking the Tyre on the coast, Alexander tore down all the houses of Tyre, using them to construct a mole all the way out to the island city itself, which was literally scraped into the sea. The critics, of course, would date this prophecy, not merely "after the exile” but after 332 if they dared; but Alexander himself indicated belief in these very prophecies.

"Merchants of Sidon ..." Here Sidon stands for Tyre and all of Phoenicia. The ships of Tarshish (Isaiah 23:1) are the same vessels referred to here as "ships of Sidon." After all, Sidon was the mother city of Tyre; and, "Old coins, excavated from the ruins of Tyre, carry the legend, "The metropolis of the Sidonians.”

"On great waters the seed of the Shihor ..." This is a reference to the extensive products of the Nile valley usually carried by the ships of Tarshish and Sidon to the great cities of the Mediterranean. "`Shihor’ is related to the word `black,’ which is given to the Nile river because of the black sediment carried by that river in its annual overflow.” This name for the Nile also occurs in Jeremiah 2:18, and in 1 Chronicles 8:5.

"Be thou ashamed, O Sidon ..." (Isaiah 23:4) "Sidon, called the mother of Tyre in Isaiah 23:12, is here represented as deeply affected by the calamity of her daughter.” For the people of antiquity, childlessness was as great a disgrace as any other calamity; and Sidon’s daughter Tyre having been mined is here designated as the shame of Sidon.

Isaiah 23:5 refers to the pain that was supposed to come to Egypt over the fall of Tyre. As Rawlinson suggested, "Egypt bore no great affection toward any foreign nation"; but, as Tyre was a buffer stronghold on the Egyptian border, the fall of it would indeed be a source of pain and apprehension on the part of the Egyptians. Whatever nation would be strong enough to take Tyre could reasonably be expected to launch a campaign against the Nile valley also.

Isaiah 23:6-9

"Pass ye over to Tarshish; wail, ye inhabitants of the coast. Is this your joyous city, whose antiquity is of ancient days, whose feet carried her afar off to sojourn? Who hath purposed this against Tyre, the bestower of crowns, whose merchants are princes, whose traffickers are the honorable of the earth? Jehovah of hosts hath purposed it, to stain the pride of all glory, to bring into contempt all the honorable of the earth."

"Whose feet carried her afar off to sojourn ..." (Isaiah 23:7). This is a prophetic reference to the selling of 30,000 citizens of Tyre into captivity, and to nothing else in the long history of that great city. Critical efforts to make this a prophecy of some other calamity in Tyre are futile. Regarding all of those conflicts with Assyria, and even in the case of the 13-year siege by Nebuchadnezzar, nothing that even resembles this is visible. Concerning all the invasions and assaults of Tyre prior to Alexander the Great, the Encyclopedia Britannica states that, "For the most part, Assyrian and Babylonian might spent itself in vain against Tyre’s defenses ... But after a siege of seven months Alexander took it, slaughtered 8,000 of its citizens, later executed 2,000 more, and sold 30,000 into slavery!” Of course, such slaves were marched to their destination on foot; and right here one finds Tyre’s own feet carrying her afar off to sojourn. Oh yes, this is indeed predictive prophecy. Isaiah lived in the eighth century; Tyre was "carried off on its own feet" in the fourth (332 B.C.)! Thus at last the old slave traders finally got what was coming to them. For ages "They had been present on battlefields, either stripping the dead, or bargaining for captives.” On one occasion, they had even sold Israelites as captives, a shameful act that earned them this denunciation from Amos:

"Thus saith Jehovah, for three transgressions of Tyre, yea, for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof, because they delivered up the whole people to Edom, and remembered not the brotherly covenant. But I will send a fire upon the wall of Tyre, and it shall devour the palaces thereof" (Amos 1:9-10).

"The bestower of crowns ..." (Isaiah 23:8). This emphasizes the importance of ancient Tyre. All over the Mediterranean world, there were colonies and cities where Tyre had established petty dependent "kings" who cooperated with them in their worldwide system of markets. Jamieson called Tyre, "The city from which dependent kingdoms had arisen.”

Of great significance in this paragraph is the use of the word "traffickers" (Isaiah 23:8). It never meant an honorable merchant, but a crooked deceiver. The word thus rendered here also may be translated Canaanite, or Phoenician; and one of the charges of the prophet Hosea against Israel was that they also had become "traffickers" in the crooked and deceitful sense (Hosea 12:7).

Barnes suggested that the ruin of a great city so magnificent and so ancient would naturally raise a question as to who had purposed such a thing; and that question is raised in Isaiah 23:8. The thundering answer comes in the very next verse: "Jehovah of hosts hath purposed it!" Furthermore, the reasons underlying God’s purpose were also given. God wished to stain all false pride and human glory. He would punish and denounce that false standard of success that declared the crooked traffickers of Tyre as the "honorable of the earth." Honorable they were not. God reduced, and he should have reduced such "honor" to the contempt it deserved. In our own generation, there are many examples of the same human conceit that God here punished.

Isaiah 23:1-3 WORLD’S MARKET PLACE: Tyre was a city on the coast of Phoenicia. The oldest part of the city lay on the mainland; but the main seaport part of the city was located on two rocky islands about a mile off the coast of Phoenicia. Herodotus claims that Tyre was founded about 2740 B.C. The Tell-el-Amarna tablets contain an appeal from the ruler of Tyre, dated 1430 B.C. (just after the Exodus), imploring help from Amenhotep IV against the invading Habiri (Hebrews). Joshua assigned Tyre to the tribe of Asher, but in all probability the city was not occupied by the Hebrews (Cf. Joshua 19:29). 2 Samuel 24:7 shows that the border of the Israelite kingdom extended to Tyre; and David’s palace was constructed with the help of Hiram, king of Tyre (2 Samuel 5:11; 1 Chronicles 14:1). Hiram also furnished Solomon with cedar and cypress wood in exchange for wheat and oil (1 Kings 5:1; 1 Chronicles 22:4; 2 Chronicles 2:3-18). Later, Jezebel, daughter of Ethbaal, king of Tyre, and priest of Astarte, married Ahab, king of Israel (1 Kings 16:31), and sought to introduce the Baal worship into Israel. Tyre grew in wealth and power through international trade. It exploited the cedar forests of the Lebanon mountain range. Tyrian purple, the product of the murex shellfish, was also a famous export. The cedar forests provided material for the famous Phoenician galleys, and, accepting the challenge of the sea became her way to wealth and fame. She exported her pagan religion along with trading her commerce. In 876 B.C. Tyre began to pay tribute to the king of Assyria and suffered some plundering in the battle of Qarqar, 853 B.C. But she still was able to assert independence. Tiglath-pileser III and Shalmaneser both laid siege to the city. For five years she was under siege, but in 722 B.C. she made a treaty with the Assyrians. Finally her king was deposed by Sennacherib and she began to lose more of her independence. We shall continue with the history of Tyre’s demise at the end of this chapter.

Whether Isaiah’s prophecy of Tyre’s downfall is intended to be in the distant future or whether it will be some immediate downfall is not easy to determine. Historically speaking her complete downfall did not come until Alexander the Great was able to conquer it in about 332 B.C. Her glory began to fade, however, with the Assyrian invasion of Phoenicia and Syria and northern Palestine in 722 B.C. We assume then that Isaiah is predicting Tyre’s demise not intending that it is to happen immediately but gradually.

The message of the prophet is that Tyre’s merchantmen and seamen who travel as far away as Tarshish (probably on the eastern coast of Spain) should look forward to a time of mourning over her. The time is coming when her famous ports will not be available for them to enter and sell their cargoes. Tyre’s final downfall is going to be international news! Men on her ships will be hearing it, when it happens, as far away as Kittim (islands in the Aegean sea). An old, established, international institution which no one thought would ever disappear, will fail. It will cause consternation throughout the world. There will be a shocked silence. People will be struck dumb momentarily by the news. Her fame was world-wide. She traded in an immense grain supply from the ancient granary of the world, Egypt. The grain “of Shihor” (Shihor literally means “black”) came from the fertile, black-dirt, fields of the Nile delta. Tyre was the “middleman” between the Egyptian grain resources and the nations much in need of grain. Tyre was actually the market place of the world.

Isaiah 23:4-7 WASTED MEMORY: Sidon is here used metaphorically to represent the whole region of Phoenician coast to be affected by the coming destruction. The Phoenicians were “sons of the sea.” They were great seafaring men. The sea is metaphorically their father. But after the future desolation of Phoenicia, the sea will have no more “sons” from that area. The great fleet of ships and navy of mariners which was once Tyre’s pride and joy will only be a matter for dejected shame. Tyre’s death will affect the whole world! Egypt, who depended on Tyre for trading, will suffer distress at the news. The citizens of Tyre are told that should they even flee to Tarshish they would find much mourning among the coastal cities of the Mediterranean at the downfall of Tyre. The whole Mediterranean and Aegean coast felt the blow. So the question comes—Is this the great wealthy and proud Tyre? Tyre had exerted profound influence on the world. The great city of Carthage, on the coast of north Africa, was one of Tyre’s colonies. The feet of her merchantmen traversed the whole known world. Now, what is she to be? Only a wasted memory!

Why was this judgment to come upon Tyre? Isaiah does not give us much light on the reason for judgment here. If we turn to Ezekiel chapters 26, 27, and 28, however, we find statements of the causes for her judgment. Tyre evidently took advantage of some calamity that befell Jerusalem and exploited Jerusalem’s affliction for her own advance (Ezekiel 26:1-2). She was also proud and self-exalting (Ezekiel 27:1-3). Tyre’s king uttered blasphemies against Jehovah (Ezekiel 28:1-10).

Isaiah 23:10-14

"Pass through the land as the Nile, O daughter of Tarshish; there is no restraint any more. He hath stretched out his hand over the sea, he hath shaken the kingdoms: Jehovah hath given commandment concerning Canaan, to destroy the stronghold thereof. And he said, Thou shalt no more rejoice, O thou oppressed virgin daughter of Sidon: arise, pass over to Kittim; even there shalt thou have no rest. Behold, the land of the Chaldeans; this people was not; the Assyrians founded it for them that dwell in the wilderness; they set up their towers; they overthrew the palaces thereof; they made it a ruin. Howl, ye ships of Tarshish; for your stronghold is laid waste."

"Pass through the land as the Nile ..." (Isaiah 23:10). This verse is admitted to be obscure in meaning; but Barnes thought that, "Just as a river flows without obstruction through a land, so the inhabitants would be scattered.”

Isaiah 23:11 mentions the "destruction" of Tyre, a thing that actually took place only once, in the complete sense, but which also appears in this passage to speak of the destruction by Babylon, the successful termination of that 13-year siege, being certainly a sufficient "destruction" to put the city in a state of having been forgotten for some seventy years.

"Pass over to Kittim; even there shalt thou have no rest ..." (Isaiah 23:12). "Kittim" here is generally held to be the same as the island of Cypress, a colony of Sidon, and one of the stops by ships of Tarshish on their way home to Tyre. On two occasions when Tyre fell, some of the people actually escaped in ships to Cypress.

"Behold, the land of the Chaldeans: this people was not ..." (Isaiah 23:13). Lowth seems to have been correct when he declared that this means, "that they were of no account (Deuteronomy 32:21)," that is, without any significance as a powerful nation. As a matter of fact, Babylon (most surely indicated by this mention of the Chaldeans) was not important at all until, "Some powerful king of Assyria gathered them together and settled them in Babylon." Echoes of this historical fact are in this verse.

The really difficult part of Isaiah 23:13 is in the words, "They overthrew the palaces thereof, they made it a ruin." In our view, the first words of the next verse (Isaiah 23:14) compel us to interpret this as a reference to the overthrow of Tyre, not a victory over Babylon by the Assyrians. They appear in the verse as builders of Babylon, which of course, they were until Babylon rebelled and overthrew Assyria.

"Howl, ye ships of Tarshish; for your stronghold is laid waste ..." (Isaiah 23:14). All scholars admit the difficulty and ambiguity of this passage, and we are extremely suspicious of those who wish to see Isaiah’s prophecy here as something which he might have been able to foresee, rather than as authentic predictive prophecy of events centuries after Isaiah lived. Only in those instances of Nebuchadnezzar’s capture of Tyre and of Alexander’s destruction of it may we actually find such terms as "laid waste" applicable to what happened.

We are delighted to note that a recent dependable scholar agrees with our interpretation that Isaiah 23:13-14 refer to the conquest of Tyre by Babylon, and not by Assyria. He wrote:

"In spite of the difficulties of Isaiah 23:13, since Tyre is the object of Isaiah’s burden, it seems that its ruin at the hands of the Babylonians, a people from the desert wilderness, is his topic here ... The following verses bear out this view.”

To us, no other interpretation of this admittedly difficult passage is acceptable.

Ezekiel 26:16-21 carries another explicit prophecy of the destruction of Tyre, which also is a prophecy of the total destruction of the city, which actually occurred in 332 B.C. "Thou shalt never be found again ... I shall make thee a desolate city like the cities that are not inhabited ... The isles shall be dismayed at thy departure" (Ezekiel 23:18-21).

Isaiah 23:8-11 AUTHOR OF JUDGMENT: HOW shall the great fall of Tyre be explained? It will be of such magnitude and so far-reaching in its consequences something beyond what the eye can see must be the cause. Tyre, market place of the world, hub of the world’s commerce, builder of colonies, destined to be reduced to almost nothing? Impossible as it appears to the human eye! Tyre became a “bestower of crowns,” through founding of other city-colonies such as Carthage, etc. She also built up quite an “aristrocracy of merchants” known throughout the world as princes-of-all-traders. It would appear nothing human or natural could so completely erase Tyre’s hold on the commerce of the world. The answer comes from the prophet who asked the question. The answer is—“Jehovah of hosts hath purposed it!” The Lord God of Israel is the God of all nations. He is King of all kings. He “purposed” it. Tyre’s destiny is controlled not by chance, fortune, accident, coincidence, but by the will of the Omnipotent Creator of all mankind. It is one of the main emphases of the prophets that Almighty God enthrones and dethrones earth’s rulers in all ages. Jehovah, in His own good time and according to His eternal wisdom and purposes, permits nations and races to flourish and diminish. He governs the ups and downs of potentates and populations according to certain standards of justice, righteousness, morality and truth. In other words, His governing principles are not capricious or frivolous. Any ruler or people or nation who will make their main concern human dignity, freedom and justice will find God’s approval. But of course, human dignity, freedom and justice cannot be built on any foundation other than truth—truth about God, His identity, His nature, His revealed will. Any nation accepting falsehood about God as a national policy will find all other national structures crumbling into ruin upon such a ruinous foundation. This was the cause for the judgment of God upon one pagan ruler and nation after another. This was the cause for the judgment of God upon Israel and Judah. They did not govern themselves according to divine principles because they denied the Divine Author of those principles. Jehovah brought Tyre down for her pride. When the successful grow proud, they grow contemptuous and corrupt. Inevitably the exploitation of human beings by one another follows pride. So God has chosen to govern the world by bringing the proud down—by humiliating those who exalt themselves.

Tyre’s colonies (such as Tarshish) would be hampered in their own freedom by the mother city as long as she maintained such a “strangle-hold” on their economy. But when Tyre is defeated, Tarshish will be free of her restraint and will be able to expand its trade. Tarshish will be able to flow through her own territory as the Nile inundates the valley of Egypt. Isaiah emphasizes again in Isaiah 23:11 that this great, world-shaking upheaval was from the “hand of the Lord.” God creates both weal and woe (Isaiah 45:7). Evil does not befall a city unless the Lord does it (Amos 3:6).

Isaiah 23:12-14 AGENT OF JUDGE: Jehovah is the author of Tyre’s destiny but He usually employs human agents in carrying out both His deliverances and His judgments. When Tyre’s great devastation comes it will be as shocking and traumatic as a virgin ravished (raped). Even if she flees to Cyprus (Kittim) she will find no relief from the pain of her experience. But who shall ravish her? It will be the Chaldeans! The Babylonians are predicted to be Tyre’s assailants. When Isaiah first made the prediction of Tyre’s downfall the Assyrians would seem to be the most likely agents of God’s judgment but the prophet makes it clear the Chaldeans are to execute His punishment. So it was in 585 B.C. Nebuchadnezzar, emperor of Babylon, laid siege to Tyre. The siege lasted 13 years and in 572 the city was overrun. From that time her stranglehold on the world’s trade was broken. However, her citizens escaped Nebuchadnezzar and fled to the islands a mile or more off shore and formed a new colony. The Babylonians, without much of a navy, could not conquer that stronghold. So Tyre remained at least a fortress protecting any advance of conquering armies down through Phoenicia enroute to Egypt and other points south. Alexander the Great, on his way to conquer the world in 322 B.C., conquered Tyre once and for all. His conquest fulfilled the prophecies of Isaiah 23, Ezekiel 26-28, and Zechariah 9, in minute detail, as follows:

1. He used the captured fleets of other cities and attacked the new island city by taking the ruins of the old city “Its timbers and stones” and casting them into the sea and building a causeway out to the island.

2. Other neighboring cities were so frightened they opened their gates to Alexander without opposition.

3. The old city site was scraped flat “like the top of a rock” and today you may go there and find fishermen spreading their nets on its ruins.

4. There are great artesian wells there that would supply a city with water (10 million gallons daily) yet the city has never been rebuilt on the old location. Sidon, a city just a few miles from Tyre, has been destroyed and rebuilt many times over!

There remains a small city of no international significance (not on the original site) on the island. Travelers today may walk over the very causeway Alexander’s armies constructed to give them access to the once proud and internationally powerful Tyre. God said it, and it was so! The mills of God’s justice may grind slowly but they grind exceedingly fine! God oft-times uses human agents to execute His judgments (Cf. Isaiah 10:5-19; Isaiah 44:23 to Isaiah 45:7; Jeremiah 27:1-11).

The English translation of our text makes it appear almost as if Isaiah were looking back on an event that has already transpired. However, the use of the past tense in the Hebrew language often is what we call the “prophetic perfect”—a past that is the equivalent of a very assured future. Tyre’s destiny is certain—so certain it may be looked upon as having already happened. So, though the past tense is used, this whole passage should be regarded as a prophecy which tells of the future overthrow of Tyre.

Verses 15-18

Isa 23:15-18

Isaiah 23:15-18

"And it shall come to pass in that day, that Tyre shall be forgotten seventy years, according to the days of one king: after the end of seventy years, it shall be unto Tyre as in the song of a harlot. Take a harp, go about the city, thou harlot that has been forgotten; make sweet melody, sing many songs, that thou mayest be remembered. And it shall come to pass after the end of seventy years, that Jehovah will visit Tyre, and she shall return to her hire, and shall play the harlot with all the kingdoms of the world upon the face of the earth. And her merchandise and her hire shall be holiness to Jehovah: it shall not be treasured nor laid up; her merchandise shall be for them that dwell before Jehovah, to eat sufficiently, and for durable clothing."

Peake declared that, "This is best referred to Nebuchadnezzar’s siege of Tyre (585-577 B.C.).” This, of course is correct; but the critical dictum about "predictive prophecy" forces such a scholar to date the passage "after the exile," which is ridiculous, there being no evidence for such a thing anywhere on earth. The repeated mention of "seventy years" is significant, that being almost exactly the duration of the Chaldean dynasty that controlled Babylon during their conquest of Assyria and their conquest of Jerusalem and the removal of Judah into captivity. Lowth pointed out that:

"Nebuchadnezzar began his conquests in the first year of his reign; from thence to the taking of Babylon by Cyrus are seventy years, at which time the nations taken by Nebuchadnezzar were to be restored to liberty...Some of the nations were conquered sooner, some later; but the end of the seventy years was the occasion for the deliverance of all of them.”

In this connection Barnes also noted that "king" in the Bible may and many times does refer to a dynasty rather than to a single monarch.

The mention of the "song of a harlot" (the end of Isaiah 23:15) is a reference to the custom of ancient harlots who, when they became old, often resorted to the role of a singing beggar to attract gifts, or to induce renewed acceptance by old customers. Isaiah here adopted that ancient custom as a metaphor of what would happen to Tyre after her fall to the Babylonians.

In this connection we might ask, in what way was Tyre a harlot? Well, their very religion was largely Baal-worship, featuring hundreds of both male and female prostitutes; but more is intended here. By pandering to the slave trade, which we have already mentioned, they were prostituting their honor and sacrificing the lives of countless people in order to satisfy the greed and lust of people who desired to own slaves. In a similar way today, some people are pandering to the desire of the wicked for drugs.

Isaiah 23:17 states that Jehovah would restore Tyre and bless the city again after the seventy years; and we might have hope that after such a scourge was lifted, Tyre might have learned her lesson; but no! She returned to her hire and "played the harlot with all the nations of the world" (Isaiah 23:17). "A nation’s prosperity is of God; all is in his hand. He controls the destiny both of men and of nations.”

The final Isaiah 23:18 speaks of the commerce in which Tyre continued to engage as resulting in benefit to the people of God, and this is another mystery found in this chapter. Is there a reference here to the conversion of citizens of Tyre in the kingdom of Christ? It does not appear that this was ever extensive enough to warrant such a statement as is found here. We like the comment of Hailey who wrote:

"Might not the prophecy mean simply that whatever the motives of tradesmen, Jehovah uses commerce for the good of mankind, consecrating it to that purpose? What we know of God and his ways tends to make this view reasonable.”

The unreasonable and inaccurate dating of this prophecy often encountered violates the very words of the prophecy. For example, Kelley flatly declared that, "The prophecy of Tyre’s restoration probably belongs in the sixth century!" If so, what about the "seventy years" mentioned three times? Such a date simply does not fit, and it could not possibly be correct.

(The end of Division II)

Isaiah 23:15-16 SUBJECTION: Alexander the Great took the city killing 8000 and selling 30,000 into slavery. He imported many foreigners into the ruined city to colonize it and left it after spending seven months to subdue it. After Alexander’s death, Tyre passed into the hands of Ptolemy Lagi, and when Antigonus, in 314 B.C. took Phoenicia from him, Tyre resisted and he had to blockade it 15 months before it would yield, showing how quickly it had recovered from its previous disaster.

The period “seventy years” might refer to the 70 years of the Babylonian empire when Nebuchadnezzar had subdued Tyre. However, we think the number “seventy” is being used to denote a period of time whose completeness is determined by the divine purposes and known only to the divine Person. Seven is the Divine, Perfect, Complete number of the Bible. Ten signifies also a measure of completion. Seven multiplied by ten then means a period during which God will have achieved His purpose in a given direction. Tyre will be “forgotten” or lie devastated until God is ready for her to be remembered again. It is too difficult to pinpoint an exact 70 years.

“Like the days of one king” probably refers to the idea that while one king reigns there usually is no major changes in policy, things remain static. Tyre’s God-destined period of forgottenness will remain static for as long as God wishes it to be so.

The “Song of the Harlot” suggests a song whose lyrics tell the story of how a forgotten, derelict, old harlot might seek to rehabilitate herself in her old occupation. She might take up a harp and start strumming an accompaniment to her little piece. She might wander up and down the streets advertising her wares. Perhaps she could bring herself to the attention of her former customers.

Isaiah 23:17-18 SALVATION: Tyre became a part of the Seleucid kingdom when Antiochus III drove the Ptolemies from Syria (198 B.C.), and the Seleucid kings regarded the city of importance and gave it the right of asylum, and it was allowed the status of a free city by the Romans, Antony recognizing the magistrates and council of Tyre as allies. When the Parthians attacked and took Syria, in 40 B.C., Tyre would not submit and was left untouched, being too strong for them. Tyre is mentioned in the New Testament several times; Christ visited its territory (Matthew 15:21; Mark 7:24), and people from there came to hear Him (Luke 6:17). Herod Agrippa I had trouble with Tyre, and a deputation came to visit him at Caesarea (Acts 12:20). Paul visited Tyre on his journey from Asia to Jerusalem (Acts 21:3-7). Christianity was accepted by the people of Tyre, so that the 2nd century A.D. saw a bishopric established there, and in the 4th century a council was held there to consider charges against Athanasius, by the party of Arius; he was condemned, a decision which brought the Tyrian church into disrepute. Tyre was already obnoxious to Christians because the anti-Christian philosopher Porphyry was from there. Tyre continued to be a commercial center, and Jerome says that it was the noblest and most beautiful of the Phoenician cities and an emporium of commerce for almost the whole world. It was of considerable importance during the Crusades and continued so until toward the end of the 13th century, when its trade declined, and it is now a small city of approximately 5000.

Isaiah 23:17-18 seem to indicate a two-fold result of God’s permitting Tyre to be restored after a period of forgottenness. First, a part of her will return to her former ways of prostituting herself before the world for commercial purposes. Second, a part of her will become a treasure, not selfishly hoarded, but put to use as holiness (dedicated) to Jehovah. This second has its beginning, no doubt, in Ezra 3:7 when she supplies goods to rebuild the city of Jerusalem and the temple after the captivities. But we believe the ultimate fulfillment is in those people converted by the gospel and become precious jewels, the wealth, of the kingdom of God. The conversion of Gentiles and their incorporation in the kingdom of Jehovah through the preaching of the gospel is symbolized and prefigured in just this manner in Isaiah 60:1-14; Isaiah 61:1-9; Haggai 2:7-9, etc. In spite of what should happen to Tyre’s physical glory or her commercial prowess, her greatest remembrance for all eternity will be those precious saints (like the Syro-Phoenician woman who believed Jesus, Matthew 15; Mark 7) who are the jewels of the kingdom of God, and who have supplied “food” and “clothing” to many hungry and naked sinners through the ages.