Isaiah 23:8

Tyre, the crowning city, whose merchants are princes

Tyre, “the crowning city”

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 outafter another, and gave to the little colonies that they might play at being kingdoms (Ezekiel 27:23). (J. Parker, D. D.)

The ancient estimate of trade

This passage reveals to us the estimation in which merchants were held in ancient time. Tyre was celebrated for her commerce. Her traders were renowned because of their wealth. The treasure they amassed gave them rank and position. They were influential and honoured. Trade was not regarded in old time as a menial, but a noble pursuit. The ambitious entered into it as a means to gratify their ambition. It furnished them with a field in which to exercise their faculties and develop their powers. Subsequently the sword gave rank and power,--valour, and not ability, lifted men to thrones: but before the feudal age, in the ancient time, and among the older civilisations, “merchants were princes, and traffickers were the honourable of the earth.” (W. H. Murray.)

The origin of commerce

It is not difficult to ascertain the origin of commerce. It was born of men’s necessities, and was characterised by the spirit of accommodation. Its birth dates back to the first family that existed on the earth. One had what another needed, and for it he had something to give in exchange. From this mutual need sprang trade. It was a family institution, a method by which the several members of the household could benefit themselves and each other. As families increased and population multiplied, trade enlarged the circle of its operations, became more complex and multiform in its action and agents, and at length grew to be a vast system of exchange; the means of universal accommodation by which every person in the community received and bestowed benefits, and acquired the facilities of a larger and happier life. But it still kept its original significance and family spirit. Such was the origin of trade. There was nothing selfish about it; it was not mercenary, it was benevolent and humane. Centuries later, when it had become a profession, and its agents a class among other classes, there was nothing in its parentage of which it need be ashamed, no reason why those who were engaged in it should not be called “the honourable of the earth.” (W. H. Murray.)

Trade gave birth to our modern cities

If we would realise more fully the noble part that merchants have played in the history of the world, and the close relation that commerce has always sustained to human progress, we hare only to investigate the origin of cities and consider the forces that pushed them upward in their growth. It was trade that gave birth to our modern cities; a knot of traders beneath the wails of a castle, feeding the castle and protected by it, adding booth to booth and house to house,--so cities arose, so have they been builded. The same is true today. Commercial facilities and necessities are the forces that build our cities. They represent the material forces and results of civilisation. Each city is a hive, and ships and railways are the bees that bring honey to the hive, bringing it from all the world. They fly everywhere,--these bees with sails and wheels for wings,--their flight girdles the earth, and the rush and roar of their going and returning fill the whole air. Now, cities represent progress. In them you see the results of human invention and skill. Here the artist brings his canvas and the sculptor his marble. Hero the loom is represented by the finest fabrics, and architecture lifts the pillars of her power. In cities oratory finds her school, and eloquence her platform; music her applause, and the poet his wreath. Every city is a record, a testimony, an advertisement. In its congregated forces and results you behold the people who built it. (W. H. Murray.)

Commerce and discovery

Nor would it be well to overlook the use that God has made of commerce in relation to discoveries. The pioneers of civilisation have been ships and traders. The race has, as it were, sailed to its triumphs. (W. H. Murray.)

God in commerce

I. GOD’S PLAN IS TO GIVE EVERY MAN WHAT HE NEEDS PHYSICALLY, MENTALLY, AND SPIRITUALLY.

II. TO REESTABLISH THE FAMILY RELATION AMONG MEN. (W. H. Murray.)

God’s design in commerce

It is not that individuals may be enriched,--that is only an accidental result, one of the minor consequences; the realobject on the part of God, the great result to be achieved, is and will be this: that every man on the face of the whole earth may be supplied with what he needs, in body, mind, and spirit, to the end that he may stand at last clothed in the original beauty and excellence, the likeness of which has for so many ages been lost from the earth. (W. H. Murray.)

Merchants

I. MANY MERCHANTS ARE MUCH TRIED WITH LIMITED CAPITAL.

II. MANY MERCHANTS ARE TEMPTED TO OVERCARE AND ANXIETY.

III. MERCHANTS ARE TEMPTED SOMETIMES TO NEGLECT THEIR HOME DUTIES.

IV. MANY MERCHANTS ARE TEMPTED TO MAKE FINANCIAL GAIN OF MORE IMPORTANCE THAN THE SOUL. (T. De Witt Talmage, D. D.)

The folly of reckless speculation

If ever tempted into reckless speculation, preach to your soul a sermon from the text: “As a partridge sitteth on eggs and hatcheth them not, so riches got by fraud; a man shall leave them in the midst of his days, and at the end he shall be a fool.” (T. DeWitt Talmage, D. D.)

Rivalry in business

Go where you will, in town or country, you will find half a dozen shops struggling for a custom that would only keep up one. And so they are forced to undersell one another; and, when they have got down the prices all they can by fair means, they are forced to get them lower by foul, and to sand the sugar, and sloeleaf the tea, and put, Satan--that prompts them on--knows what, into the bread; and then they don’t thrive--they can’t thrive. God’s curse must be on them. They began by trying to oust each other and eat each other up, and, while they are eating up their neighbours, their neighbours eat them up, and so they all come to ruin together. (C. Kingsley, M. A.)