Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Isaiah 23:3

Copyright Ó 2014 J. Neely
Isaiah 23:3ues

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.