Reflections on Isaiah 23

Isaiah 23 (Contemporary English Version)
1. This is a message from distant islands about the city of Tyre: Cry, you seagoing ships! Tyre and its houses lie in ruins.
   
2. Mourn in silence, you shop owners of Sidon, you people on the coast. Your sailors crossed oceans, making your city rich.
   
3. Your merchants sailed the seas, making you wealthy by trading with nation after nation. They brought back grain that grew along the Nile.
   
4. Sidon, you are a mighty fortress built along the sea. But you will be disgraced like a married woman who never had children.
   
5. When Egypt hears about Tyre, it will tremble.
   
6. All of you along the coast had better cry and sail far across the ocean.
   
7. Can this be the happy city that has stood for centuries? Its people have spread to distant lands;
   
8. its merchants were kings honored all over the world. Who planned to destroy Tyre?
   
9. The LORD All-Powerful planned it to bring shame and disgrace to those who are honored by everyone on earth.
   
10. People of Tyre, your harbor is destroyed! You will have to become farmers just like the Egyptians.
    
11. The LORD's hand has reached across the sea, upsetting the nations. He has given a command to destroy fortresses in the land of Canaan.
    
12. The LORD has said to the people of Sidon, "Your celebrating is over-- you are crushed. Even if you escape to Cyprus, you won't find peace."
    
13. Look what the Assyrians have done to Babylonia! They have attacked, destroying every palace in the land. Now wild animals live among the ruins.
    
14. Not a fortress will be left standing, so tell all the seagoing ships to mourn.
    
15. The city of Tyre will be forgotten for seventy years, which is the lifetime of a king. Then Tyre will be like that evil woman in the song:
    
16. You're gone and forgotten, you evil woman! So strut through the town, singing and playing your favorite tune to be remembered again.
    
17. At the end of those seventy years, the LORD will let Tyre get back into business. The city will be like a woman who sells her body to everyone of every nation on earth,
    
18. but none of what is earned will be kept in the city. That money will belong to the LORD, and it will be used to buy more than enough food and good clothes for those who worship the LORD.

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Tyre receives the next oracle delivered by Isaiah. Tyre, located on the seacoast, was a center of trade and commerce from regions all over the middle east. This oracle against Tyre is the ninth oracle thus far in Isaiah, and of these nine, all have this in common: The threat against them was Assyria, and God was behind the threat. He was bringing to judgment all of these places, including Judah and Israel. Why were they being judged? A reason is given in verse 9 of this chapter. "The LORD All-Powerful planned it to bring shame and disgrace to those who are honored by everyone on earth." In other oracles it is mentioned that the subjects of the oracle looked to other gods instead of God or depended on themselves and other people rather than on God. A truth that can be gained from this is that the object of our trust and reliance will at some point be tested. Unless this object of our trust is God, it will fail the test and we will be brought down in the process. All truth will at some time be made plain and the truths of God along with the falsehood of other objects of trust will all be revealed. 

Tyre was an affluent city and was honored by the merchants of the earth because of her trade and Tyre prided herself in all this as well. For the people of Tyre and the merchants of the earth who traded in Tyre, affluence was their god - the object of their trust and worship. But this god could not stand up to the test that the true God would bring against it. Once it failed the test, those who placed their trust in it would be lost and would have nothing. And so, places such as Egypt would be "in anguish over the news of Tyre." (23:5) Inhabitants of the coastland would wail in mourning over the news.

This scenario brings to mind the present economic situation in the United States and many places in the world. The US has known much affluence and many have placed their trust in this affluence. But the financial systems that have made this affluence possible are now being tested and are proving to be faulty. Many who have placed their trust in these financial systems are finding the object of their trust to be failing them and are lost and many are being brought down without any safety net to catch them. Those who place their trust in the Lord may also be hurt by the failure of these financial systems, but their trust is in the Lord, not in those systems. He is their safety net. He will provide beyond the failure of these financial systems.