The Prophecy of Isaiah - Lesson 18: "Jerusalem and Tyre" (Isaiah 22:1-23:18)

The Prophecy of Isaiah
Lesson 18: "Jerusalem and Tyre" (Isaiah 22:1-23:18)

1. A Message against Jerusalem (22:1-25)¹

Jerusalem’s Siege (22:1–14)

22 A prophecy against the Valley of Vision:

What troubles you now,

that you have all gone up on the roofs,

² you town so full of commotion,

you city of tumult and revelry?

Your slain were not killed by the sword,

nor did they die in battle.

³ All your leaders have fled together;

they have been captured without using the bow.

All you who were caught were taken prisoner together,

having fled while the enemy was still far away.

⁴ Therefore I said, “Turn away from me;

let me weep bitterly.

Do not try to console me

over the destruction of my people.”

⁵ The Lord, the Lord Almighty, has a day

of tumult and trampling and terror

in the Valley of Vision,

a day of battering down walls

and of crying out to the mountains.

⁶ Elam takes up the quiver,

with her charioteers and horses;

Kir uncovers the shield.

⁷ Your choicest valleys are full of chariots,

and horsemen are posted at the city gates.

⁸ The Lord stripped away the defenses of Judah,

and you looked in that day

to the weapons in the Palace of the Forest.

⁹ You saw that the walls of the City of David

were broken through in many places;

you stored up water

in the Lower Pool.

¹⁰ You counted the buildings in Jerusalem

and tore down houses to strengthen the wall.

¹¹ You built a reservoir between the two walls

for the water of the Old Pool,

but you did not look to the One who made it,

or have regard for the One who planned it long ago.

¹² The Lord, the Lord Almighty,

called you on that day

to weep and to wail,

to tear out your hair and put on sackcloth.

¹³ But see, there is joy and revelry,

slaughtering of cattle and killing of sheep,

eating of meat and drinking of wine!

“Let us eat and drink,” you say,

“for tomorrow we die!”

¹⁴ The Lord Almighty has revealed this in my hearing: “Till your dying day this sin will not be atoned for,” says the Lord, the Lord Almighty.

Shebna and Eliakim (22:15–25)

Shebna: Leadership for His Own Gain (22:15-19)

¹⁵ This is what the Lord, the Lord Almighty, says:

“Go, say to this steward,

to Shebna the palace administrator:

¹⁶ What are you doing here and who gave you permission

to cut out a grave for yourself here,

hewing your grave on the height

and chiseling your resting place in the rock?

¹⁷ “Beware, the Lord is about to take firm hold of you

and hurl you away, you mighty man.

¹⁸ He will roll you up tightly like a ball

and throw you into a large country.

There you will die

and there the chariots you were so proud of

will become a disgrace to your master’s house.

¹⁹ I will depose you from your office,

and you will be ousted from your position.

Eliakim: Leadership to Serve Others (22:20-25)

²⁰ “In that day I will summon my servant, Eliakim son of Hilkiah. ²¹ I will clothe him with your robe and fasten your sash around him and hand your authority over to him. He will be a father to those who live in Jerusalem and to the people of Judah. ²² I will place on his shoulder the key to the house of David; what he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open. ²³ I will drive him like a peg into a firm place; he will become a seat of honor for the house of his father. ²⁴ All the glory of his family will hang on him: its offspring and offshoots—all its lesser vessels, from the bowls to all the jars.

²⁵ “In that day,” declares the Lord Almighty, “the peg driven into the firm place will give way; it will be sheared off and will fall, and the load hanging on it will be cut down.” The Lord has spoken.

2. A Message against Tyre (23:1-18)

Call to Lament (23:1-7)

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  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?

Tyre's Judgment and Future (23:8-18)

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 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, 

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.

Tyre's Ultimate Fate

 

¹ The outline for this lesson was taken from Bryan E. Beyer, Encountering the Book of Isaiah: A Historical and Theological Survey (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2007).