Wednesday Bible Study: Apparently everyone is doomed

Isaiah continues prophesying the destruction of every people and every city he can think of. Now it's the turn of Tyre, which was at the time a prosperous port city in what was then Phoenecia, and what is now Lebanon. Our fortune teller seems to equate the international trading that went on there with prostitution. He is entirely vague about who or what is going to destroy the city but he imagines it will cause distress to its trading partners, e.g. Egypt. Then after 70 years the city's greatness will be restored and it will return to making money by trade, but by some unspecified means the profits won't remain with the merchants but will be distributed to devout people to pay for luxuries. 

 

Uhm, this did not happen. Alexander did conquer Tyre in 332 BCE -- everybody back in those days was going to get conquered eventually -- but it didn't regain its importance after 70 years. It never really became as central to Mediterranean trade as it had been, but it survived. Today it's more of a tourist town, or it was until Lebanon became not a nice place to visit. Anyway, this is all nonsense.

23 A prophecy against Tyre:

Wail, you ships of Tarshish!
    For Tyre is destroyed
    and left without house or harbor.
From the land of Cyprus
    word has come to them.

² Be silent, you people of the island
    and you merchants of Sidon,
    whom the seafarers have enriched.
³ On the great waters
    came the grain of the Shihor;
the harvest of the Nile^[a] was the revenue of Tyre,
    and she became the marketplace of the nations.

⁴ Be ashamed, Sidon, and you fortress of the sea,
    for the sea has spoken:
“I have neither been in labor nor given birth;
    I have neither reared sons nor brought up daughters.”
⁵ When word comes to Egypt,
    they will be in anguish at the report from Tyre.

⁶ Cross over to Tarshish;
    wail, you people of the island.
⁷ Is this your city of revelry,
    the old, old city,
whose feet have taken her
    to settle in far-off lands?
⁸ Who planned this against Tyre,
    the bestower of crowns,
whose merchants are princes,
    whose traders are renowned in the earth?
⁹ The Lord Almighty planned it,
    to bring down her pride in all her splendor
    and to humble all who are renowned on the earth.

¹⁰ Till^[b] your land as they do along the Nile,
    Daughter Tarshish,
    for you no longer have a harbor.
¹¹ The Lord has stretched out his hand over the sea
    and made its kingdoms tremble.
He has given an order concerning Phoenicia
    that her fortresses be destroyed.
¹² He said, “No more of your reveling,
    Virgin Daughter Sidon, now crushed!

“Up, cross over to Cyprus;
    even there you will find no rest.”
¹³ Look at the land of the Babylonians,^[c]
    this people that is now of no account!
The Assyrians have made it
    a place for desert creatures;
they raised up their siege towers,
    they stripped its fortresses bare
    and turned it into a ruin.

¹⁴ Wail, you ships of Tarshish;
    your fortress is destroyed!

¹⁵ At that time Tyre will be forgotten for seventy years, the span of a king’s life. But at the end of these seventy years, it will happen to Tyre as in the song of the prostitute:

¹⁶ “Take up a harp, walk through the city,
    you forgotten prostitute;
play the harp well, sing many a song,
    so that you will be remembered.”

¹⁷ At the end of seventy years, the Lord will deal with Tyre. She will return to her lucrative prostitution and will ply her trade with all the kingdoms on the face of the earth. ¹⁸ Yet her profit and her earnings will be set apart for the Lord; they will not be stored up or hoarded. Her profits will go to those who live before the Lord, for abundant food and fine clothes.

Footnotes

1. Isaiah 23:3 Masoretic Text; Dead Sea Scrolls Sidon, / who cross over the sea; / your envoys ³ are on the great waters. / The grain of the Shihor, / the harvest of the Nile,
2. Isaiah 23:10 Dead Sea Scrolls and some Septuagint manuscripts; Masoretic Text Go through
3. Isaiah 23:13 Or Chaldeans