When New York City’s Wall Street crashed in 1929, fear and uncertainty gripped the whole world. Many banks and businesses closed. Ordinary people lost their jobs along with their life savings. The Great Depression followed. Something similar happened when the ancient city of Tyre fell to Assyria. Famous for their wealth, Tyre made its money as the premier trading center of the Mediterranean world. The city was located on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea, about one hundred miles northwest of Jerusalem. With the forest-covered mountains of Lebanon behind them, it’s easy to see how Tyre, Sidon, and other cities of Phoenicia got into the successful business of freighting lumber to places like Egypt and other parts of the world. Their ports were excellent and their ships were legendary. Those ports and ships become the focus of Isaiah 23, the final chapter of the prophet’s oracles against the nations (chapters 13-23). This one is all about the downfall of Tyre’s influence in commercial trading on the high seas. Highly regarded as “the merchant of the nations,” Tyre’s collapse will bring economic pain even to distant lands. The ships of Tarshish (in Spain, at the other end of the Mediterranean) wail at the reports. And Egypt, the breadbasket of the Mediterranean, weeps because of the effect on her trade in grain (v 1-7). Whatever the historical pressures that brought about Tyre’s destruction, Isaiah wants us to know that it was the LORD’s doing. Tyre will fall according to the eternal purposes of the Holy One of Israel, and these purposes are not arbitrary. They have exalted themselves against the Creator, proudly trusting in their own wealth instead of recognizing their dependence on Him. This self-sufficient spirit is always a danger for those blessed with great wealth (v 8-14). For seventy years, Tyre will lie dormant under God’s judgment, and then He will allow the city to regain some of its former prominence. Yet what will she do with her new lease on life? She will return to her old “prostitution.” Once again she will charm the merchants of the world in order to gain a profit. This was a culture where nothing was sacred and everything had a price (v 15-16). But God will redeem this materialistic culture, for Isaiah looks out into the far distant future when Tyre’s profits will be given over to the LORD. Eventually the vast wealth of the whole earth will be consecrated to Him. God owns it and loans it, but all of it will return to Him. In the world to come, greed will be gone, and God’s people will delight in Him and His gifts forever (v 17-18). For further meditation: