In Isaiah, chapter twenty-three, verse one, Tyre was a Phoenician center for world commerce on the East coast of the Mediterranean Sea, just north of the Holy Land. Its citizens were wealthy, but also evil and prideful. Therefore, Isaiah prophesied that God would bring that city down for seventy years and then restore it for a time, as in verses eight through nine, “Who hath taken this counsel against Tyre, the crowning city, whose merchants are princes, whose traffickers are the honourable of the earth? 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.”
And continues from verses seventeen to eighteen, “And it shall come to pass after the end of seventy years, that the LORD will visit Tyre, and she shall turn to her hire, and shall commit fornication with all the kingdoms of the world upon the face of the earth. And her merchandise and her hire shall be holiness to the LORD: it shall not be treasured nor laid up; for her merchandise shall be for them that dwell before the LORD, to eat sufficiently, and for durable clothing. God’s people would once again engage in trade with Tyre.
Scripture begins, “The burden of Tyre. Howl, ye ships of Tarshish.” The prophet sees, in vision, the argosies of Tyre speeding on their way homeward across the Mediterranean from Tarshish (Spain), and bids them raise their lamentation over the coming fate of their city. They will hear that their city has been taken, that there is no access to its harbours. At Chittim (Cyprus, or, probably, Citium, the chief Phœnician colony of the island), the tidings which burst upon them were as a revelation, confirming the vague rumours they had heard before.