Welcome to the Quick Study on Isaiah. This week, chapter 23. The part we’re looking at is the fulfilled oracle. If you’re not quite to chapter 23, you can find all the other chapter quick studies here.
Let’s pray.
Lord it’s always good to see fulfillment of Your Word. This is how we know the yet to be fulfilled words will be fulfilled. Amazing thing we can learn just studying. Help us take this lesson and let it build our trust, built our confidence, encourage us and give us endurance to live out our lives in the here and now Kingdom. Thank you, Lord. Amen.
Please read Isaiah 23:14-18 and the footnote too.
14 Wail, O ships of Tarshish,
For your stronghold [of Tyre] is destroyed.
15 Now in that day Tyre will be forgotten for seventy years, like the days of one king. At the end of seventy years it will happen to Tyre as in the prostitute’s song:
16 Take a harp, walk around the city,
O forgotten prostitute;
Play the strings skillfully, sing many songs,
That you may be remembered.
17 It will come to pass at the end of seventy years that the Lord will remember Tyre. Then she will return to her prostitute’s wages and will play the [role of a] prostitute [by trading] with all the kingdoms on the face of the earth. 18 But her commercial gain and her prostitute’s wages will be [g]dedicated to the Lord; it will not be treasured or stored up, but her commercial gain will become sufficient food and stately clothing for those who dwell (minister) in the presence of the Lord.
Footnotes
- [g] Isaiah 23:18 Tyre was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar in 572 b.c. and lay desolate for seventy years. The new city built on the island was taken by Alexander the Great in 332 b.c. Eventually Christianity prevailed at Tyre. Jesus visited there (Matt 15:21) and so did Paul (Acts 21:3-6). In his commentary on Isaiah Eusebius says that when the church of God was founded in Tyre, much of its wealth was consecrated to God and presented for the support of ministers. This is also the testimony of Jerome, the Latin church father writing in the fourth century.
Prophecy, or Oracle, fulfilled. Doesn’t that build your confidence? What He’s said, will happen. What He’s done before He can most certainly do again. More than we can imagine. Praise His Holy Name.