Isaiah 23:3
3 And by great [rab] waters [mayim] the seed [zera`] of Sihor [Shiychowr], the harvest [qatsiyr] of
the river [ya`or], is her revenue [tabuw'ah]; and she is a mart [cachar]
of nations [gowy]. KJV-Interlinear
3 And on many waters your revenue was the
grain of Shihor, the harvest of the Nile; you were the merchant of the nations. ESV
We can take two
things from this verse. Tyre was vastly wealthy and successful and was the
gateway of commerce to the entire world, as it was known back then. And the second thing is, that despite its
vast wealth, its doom was not preventable.
Neither wealth,
sincerity, talent, color of skin, intelligence, insurance, military or economic
might, or anything else under creation, can prevent your destruction, when you
turn away from God.
Tyre received
much of her trade from the Nile region.
Back in ancient
times, the Nile was a rich and prosperous river. The black waters, so called because of the
color of the rich silt that was carried by the river from deep inside of
Africa, is also the meaning of the name of Sihor, namely black.
The location of
Sihor is unknown, but is thought to be somewhere along the delta region of the
Nile just as it entered the Mediterranean Sea.
Not necessarily a city, but the location or source of the trade that came
out of the Nile.
Both the
uncertainty of its location, combined with the flow or prosperous trade, points
to not man as the architect of the trade, but to God, who is the architect of
human history, human and world resources as well as the flow and control of
history overall.
To presume some
sort of superiority over life because of ones wealth or status in the world, is
a false conclusion. For it is God who is
the source of all things, never man, and certainly never you.
The harvest of
the river, further points to the Nile, as it is usually the river being referred
to, when commerce or prosperity is the topic.
The Euphrates is usually referred to as a boundary and not commerce. As well as the location of Tyre which is our
current topic, also points to the Nile being in view here.
Revenue, grain,
harvest and merchant of nations all point to the world as a whole. And that is the real topic here, as this prophecy
is targeted for the final days of history, and demonstrates that in those days,
there will be a huge and prosperous economy that was built up from prior
generations, then modified through micro-management, and then it will systematically
collapse.
