Bible Commentaries

Inner History

Isaiah 23:6). That is an ironical expression. The people are mocked when through sin they have lost their strength. Go away to your remotest colony, and sit down with those whom you have called tributaries and dependents. O thou once overfed and over-pampered glutton, go sit down in the kitchen when the fire is out, and make a banquet for thyself on thy memory! How proud had Tyre been! How she thrived upon her corn trade in Egypt! Egypt had no timber, and therefore could not build ships; and if she had had a whole Bashan full of oaks she never would have cut a plank, for Egypt from time immemorial detested the sea. You never caught an Egyptian on the sea if he could stow himself away anywhere else. The Tyrian liked the sea, did not care how broad it was, or deep; he had a spirit of locomotion and daring and enterprise, and wherever the corn was the man of Tyre might be seen. Tyre enriched herself with the harvests of the Nile; she thought Sihor flowed for her advantage; the harvest of the river was her revenue, and she was a mart of nations. Honour to whom honour is due. She had acquired a great position in the world, and therefore she must have had elements of character of conspicuous value. It is idle to deny the energy, the capacity, the force of any man who has ascended to the top and planted his banner there. He has to be accounted for, and reckoned with; and he will never be brought down by sneers. Tyre was a haughty lady. To know what Tyre was we have only to read Ezekiel xxvi-xxviii. There we have a full-length portraiture of Tyrus; "O thou that art situate at the entry of the sea, which art a merchant of the people for many isles, Thus saith the Lord God; O Tyrus, thou hast said, I am of perfect beauty. Thy borders are in the midst of the seas, thy builders have perfected thy beauty. They have made all thy ship boards of fir trees of Senir: they have taken cedars from Lebanon to make masts for thee. Of the oaks of Bashan have they made thine oars; the company of the Ashurites have made thy benches of ivory, brought out of the isles of Chittim. Fine linen with broidered work from Egypt was that which thou spreadest forth to be thy sail; blue and purple from the isles of Elishah was that which covered thee" ( Ezekiel 27:3-7). Only a prophet dare have challenged such strength and splendour. The prophecies should be read not retrospectively but prospectively, as they were uttered, and we should see the great men of old hurling their thunders against evident might, pomp, grandeur, settled and immutable reputation.

A wonderful thing is this, that when the Spirit of God is in a man he cares for no city, how great soever it may be, though he himself may not have whereon to lay his head. There Isaiah 23:8). The speaker cannot drop his satire; he has got accustomed to it now; he is in his best vein of mockery. The crowning city was Tyre because she distributed crowns to the Phoenician colonies,—so to say, she kept a whole cupboard full of crowns, and took one out after another, and gave to the little colonies that they might play at being kingdoms. "Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher; all is vanity." But Tyre was proud of her dignities! "Haran, and Canneh, and Eden, the merchants of Sheba, Asshur, and Chilmad, were thy merchants. There were thy merchants in all sorts of things, in blue clothes, and broidered work, and in chests of rich apparel, bound with cords, and made of cedar, among thy merchandise. The ships of Tarshish did sing of thee in thy market: and thou wast replenished, and made very glorious in the midst of the seas" ( Ezekiel 27:23-25). Then the "rowers" of Tyre—the men who, so to speak, rowed the beautiful city as upon a river—brought her into great waters, and whilst she was there the east wind broke her. O that east wind! that eternal resource of God! So Tyre was overwhelmed:—

But the question arose: Who did all this? How did all this come to pass? The answer is sublime:—

"The Lord of hosts hath purposed it, to stain the pride of all glory, and to bring into contempt all the honourable of the earth.... He stretched out his hand over the sea, he shook the kingdoms: the Lord hath given a commandment against the merchant city, to destroy the strongholds thereof ( Isaiah 23:9, Isaiah 23:11).

There is a "who" in history. We find that who in the eighth verse: "Who hath taken this counsel against Tyre?" "Who" is not a word we apply to a dog, but to a Isaiah 23:12). Here we have the irony again. Go into the little island, shrink within the smallest bounds: O thou mighty England, Great Britain and Ireland, go and sit upon a stone, and dine upon gravel and sand! "Behold the land of the Chaldeans" ( Isaiah 23:13). What is the meaning of that challenge? The meaning is that Tyre learned from Chaldea. Let one country learn from another. Do not let history be wasted upon our statesmen and leaders and merchants. Study the history of the world if you would study the history of your own town. Always read the little in the light of the great. Be sure to have the right atmosphere, the right point of view, the right perspective, or you may be imagining that a thing is great only because it is near. The philologist does not scruple to say that if a man knows only one language he knows none. There is an obvious sense in which that is true. It may be said to be distinctively and peculiarly true of the English tongue, which has about it the flavour of nearly all countries, and is the most difficult of all languages to acquire. So it is about our business, about our parish, about our city, and about our country: we know nothing about any of these until we know something about the whole scheme of things. We must know that even a straight line drawn upon a globe dips, and loses its straightness. We must remember that a city, any city, how proud, great, mighty, rich soever, is to be judged in the light of the history of cities. Tyre must ponder Chaldea.

How true the Bible is to itself in making everything turn upon character! Now what have you done? What is your spirit? Are you haughty or humble? Is your greatness moral, or only financial? What is covered by your fine linen with broidered work from Egypt? Do you cover wounds and bruises with these decorated plasters? What is your soul? This is God's answer. "Son of Ezekiel 28:2-8). The Lord will not have two gods. He will not have any rival. "Wilt thou yet say before him that slayeth thee, I am God? but thou shalt be a Ezekiel 28:9-10). The rampant boaster should be brought down to the dust. Our strength is in our modesty. What hast thou that thou hast not received? We have seen men of boastful temper, who have mocked others, sold up in the public market-place without a soul to buy in a chair for the overthrown boaster to sit down upon. Character is everything. Character is dignity. There may be no money in the bank, but see how the head holds itself up, and how the eye has an upward turn in it that means, I seek a country out of sight; I am but a stranger and a pilgrim, with hardly time to put off my sandals and lay down my staff; I yearn for the city of light. Character is courage. "The wicked flee when no man pursueth: but the righteous are bold as a lion." What is this character? It can only be a creation of God. Character is not one of the arts or manufactures. There is less manipulation about a character than about anything else. A picture may be painted, but not a character. Character is the real man, the inward soul- man, the spirit- man, the very plasm of being. Blessed be God that it is so, for otherwise how many men would be mistaken: they are so rough externally, they have had so few advantages; they have been battled against and overthrown, until quite a tone of defiance has entered into their daily speech, but in their souls they are chastened, and refined, and pure, and trustful. This is the miracle of God. Character only can be regenerated and reconstructed and guaranteed by all the energy of heaven. "Ye must be born again." We have greater advantages than ever Tyre had: how are we using them? "I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment, than for you." Let us consider this well, and be wise.