Isaiah 23:8-9

There is hardly a passage in the whole prophecy of Isaiah more full and comprehensive than what is contained in these verses, to set forth man's nothingness, and the Lord's all-sufficiency. The Prophet puts forth the subject in the form of a question; as if speaking after the manner of men, nothing can be competent to overthrow a people, whose very merchants are princes. Yes, saith the Prophet, answering his own question; the Lord of Hosts, who razed Tyre, can and will destroy it. Reader, take home the precious instruction, from the history of nations in their rise and fall, to your own individual instance, in all the circumstances of life, and learn from it that solemn truth of Jesus, in the interesting question he put, and which answers itself: what is a man profited though he gain the whole world, if he lose his own soul? Mark 8:36; Luke 12:16.