Lloyds Of London pride themselves on having on their register details of shipping worldwide. They can tell you where a named ship is at any time, whether it is in port or on the high seas. It is a remarkable institution, respected by all nations, but if you were to ask them for particulars of the ships of Tarshish they would be unable to help you, for no such fleet is known to them.
As students of Bible prophecy we should know a great deal more than Lloyds of London, because the Bible tells us that, at the end, the ships of Tarshish will be playing a very active part in world trade and commerce, just as they did 2,500-3,000 years ago.
If Lloyds know nothing about such a phenomenal undertaking, how do we propose to set about unravelling the secrets of this great enterprise, which will rival Tyre in the days of her greatness, when all the merchants of the known world traded in her ‘fairs’? History shows quite clearly that the Phoenicians were the people of antiquity who match up to the Biblical merchants of Tarshish. It may be asked, Why do we not find that name in the Old Testament? The answer, according to The People’s Bible Encyclopedia,’ is that Phoenicia is a Greek name not translated into Hebrew; but all ancient maps clearly identify its situation.
The People’s Bible Encyclopedia says: “Phoenicia occupied a narrow strip of coastline, extending from Mount Casius (Jebel Kraad) to Carmel, open to the Mediterranean but walled in on the east by Mount Bargylus and by Lebanon, which rises from six to ten thousand feet above sea level in places. The length of the coast is two hundred miles and the breadth of the land from two to thirty miles. Thus four thousand square miles is a ‘liberal’ estimate according to Rawlinson (Story of Phoenicia). In size and shape Phoenicia resembles New York State, east of the Hudson and Lake George. In combination with its diminutive size with far reaching influence, it reminds us of Athens, Venice or England”. (It should be noted that this was written over one hundred years ago.)
Surely we must be blind if we cannot see the significance of the statement by the historian, because it shows Phoenicia and Tyre were microcosms of the latter-day merchants of Tarshish, even to the size and shape of the power base, and this was ordained in the foreknowledge and plan of Almighty God. This part of New York State is the financial centre of America, which depends upon its institutions for trading worldwide; and in the final analysis it has built up America to become the most powerful nation ever.’ Its ultimate crash is foretold in the promises concerning latter-day Tyre.
Here are some more paragraphs from The Peoples’ Bible Encyclopedia:
“The people, according to Tyrian, Arabian and Babylonian tradition, originally lived on the Arabian shores, Erythrean Sea or Persian Gulf. Driven west by hostile neighbours about 2,400 B.C. ( Lenormant & Chevallier, Ancient History of the East) they journeyed westwards to the Mediterranean sea coast. For some 2,000 years until 400 B.C. they became a great and remarkable nation, separate from all others, with striking and peculiar characteristics, drawing unto themselves the eyes of the civilised world, and played an important part in history (Rawlinson, pp. 22,23). Being confined by their narrow coast territory, and prevented from spreading inland by larger more powerful nations, they turned to sea and thus made themselves, for a longtime, masters of the whole world of commerce and navigation”.
The Phoenicians had no predecessors nor any rivals, and for centuries the Mediterranean was a Sidonian lake (Rawlinson, p. 87). They founded Citium in Cyprus, also Italian in Crete. They had establishments on many islands and coasts of the Aegean Sea from Rhodes to Thasos on the Thracian coast, where Herodotus saw and admired their mining works a thousand years later (Hd. 647). Thence they entered the Black Sea following the coast of Asia Minor till they reached Colchis, famed for the Golden Fleece. From these regions they brought the gold of Colchis and the Arincaspians, the tin of the Iberians, and the Albanians’ lead and silver from the same region; from the Chalybes, in what was afterwards Pontos, excellent bronze, refined iron, and above all, steel ( L. & C. ii p. 163)”.
“Then came a series of misfortunes, culminating with the capture and destruction of Sidon which had been the Queen City of Phoenicia. The fall of Sidon was followed by a half-century of darkness. When the light of history dawns again, we see a new order of things, with Tyre at the head. Its king was known as ‘King of the Sidonians’ (not king of Sidon). All the business in respect of the general interests of Phoenicia, its commerce, its colonies, concluding foreign treaties and disposition of the military and naval forces of the confederation, was decided by the king (L. & C., 175). The Greek seas were lost and the Phoenicians’ settlements in those regions were almost all destroyed.
The Phoenicians therefore turned westward along the coast of Africa. Utica was made the starting point, from whence they discovered Spain and founded Gades (Cadiz). To the land of the Turti or Turditani, they transferred the name Tharsis primitively applied to a part of Italy, the country of the Tyrrhenian Pelasgians (id. 177). Southern Spain or Baetica thus became Tarshish ( Tartessus). There, the Phoenicians traded for silver, iron, tin, lead, gold, cinnabar, honey, wax, and pitch (Ezek ch. 27). They also took possession of Malta and the whole of the coast of Sicily. They established factories on the coast of Sardinia, where they found wool, copper and argentiferous lead”.
“Under the sponsorship of Necho 11 (2 Kgs.23:29,35) a Phoenician ship circumnavigated Africa, sailing out by the Red Sea and returning through the Mediterranean. Full details of this wonderful voyage are to be found in Herodotus 4:42, Grote (History of Greece) and Rawlinson (Story of Phoenicia). Their characteristics were first, flexibility and tact, as shown by their success in colonisation and in ingratiating themselves with such a multitude of nations, civilised and uncivilised, but with all their flexibility they had immense depth and force of character.
The thousand years of Phoenician greatness, the dangers with which they had been confronted and the vicissitudes through which they had passed may be taken as indications of a tough fibre and vital energy, not the heritage of many nations (Rawlinson, p. 27). That they combined a ‘capacity for the hardest work’ with ‘a love of dreamy ease’ is shown by the unwearied activity of the nation throughout its whole career in shipbuilding, in manufactures, in mining, in colonisation and in commerce. No people of antiquity passed habitually more laborious days than did the bulk of the Phoenician nation, and none more enjoyed the delights of rest from toil and indulgence in comfortable ease when the active business of life was accomplished (ibid). Especially they were religious.
The temple was the centre of attraction in each of their cities, and the piety of the people was very evident from the costly and abundant offerings with which the people adorned their temples. They were the first systematic traders, miners and metallurgists, the greatest investors, the boldest mariners, the greatest colonisers; whilst elsewhere, despotism overshadowed as with a pall the whole East world, they could boast a government approaching to constitutionalism: of all the nations of their time, they stood the highest in practical arts and science (Rawlinson, 38:39). They were masons, carpenters, shipbuilders, weavers, dyers, glassblowers, metal workers, navigators, discoverers beyond all others: they were the first to affront the dangers of the open ocean in their specially large and strongly built ships, the first to steer by the polar star, the first to make known to the civilised nations the remoter regions of Asia, Africa and Europe: so numerous were the ships of Tarshish that they became a synonym for a ship that could undertake long ocean voyages ( Sayce, High. Crit., p. 130).”.
Having in as few words and as lucidly as it is possible dealt with the merchants and ships of Tarshish of antiquity (history books tell the full story), I fully believe that twentieth-century history clearly indicates that the latter-day Sidon and Tyre must be Britain and America; Britain for long years assuming the role of chief world coloniser and supreme in commerce and sea power. The long list of superlatives paid to Sidon matches absolutely those paid by the world to Britain; most certainly the eyes of the world were centred upon her. Isaiah 23:1-14 provides a perfect epilogue to the downfall of the latter-day Sidon and Tyre.
Two world wars reduced Britain from being the world’s foremost power to a mere second-rate figure in the councils of the nations. Her colonies have gone, and, like Sidon of old, Britain has been replaced by America, the latter-day Tyre; and we cannot deny that America has taken over the role of chief of the merchants of Tarshish just as prophecy, correctly interpreted, foretells: “Because thine heart is lifted up, and thou hast said, I am a God, I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas; yet thou art a man, and not God, though thou set thine heart as the heart of God: behold, thou art wiser than Daniel; there is no secret that they can hide from thee” (Ezek. 28:2,3).
The god that America worships is the ‘almighty dollar’. By their traffic in the wisdom of commerce they became the richest, most powerful nation in the world, even as the prophet, in strong condemnatory terms, foretold. Today we see them trying to assume the role of the Lord God, in ruling among the nations,3 yet we know that “the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He will, and setteth up over it the basest of men” (Dan. 4:17).
The writing is on the wall for the latter-day Tyre, and the decree has gone forth for her downfall, but that is not part of our subject. There is an old saying, ‘history repeats itself, and this has never been more true than in the case of the historical record of Britain and America. As we have already stated, the eyes of all the world had, at one period, been upon Britain, but she is no longer queen of the latter-day merchants of Tar-shish. That honour has been taken over by America, the Tyre of the latter days.
With her drive, technology, initiative and inventiveness, America has scaled heights found before only in science fiction. Nuclear-powered submarines are able to cruise for weeks submerged even under the polar ice. Spaceships depart and return with incredible precision. Her satellites roam the heavens, again imitating the role of the Lord God, Whose eyes the Scriptures declare are everywhere (Ps. 139:7-12).
Certainly America has scored a great ‘first’ in technological achievement in sending spaceships to the moon, their crews walking on the moon’s surface, sending back to earth pictures of the moonscape and then returning safely to earth again. The laser is also a remarkable development which America hails as one of the ultimate issues of peace or war. The computer, another innovation developed by America, has brought a new language to the industrial and political world. So we could go on and on, showing how Britain and America typify so closely Sidon and Tyre of prophecy.
Now we will set readers’ minds at rest regarding the ships of Tarshish. We have been talking about the latest generation of’ ships’. Some cruise under the oceans, others sail through the clouds. This article is interested in those which sail through the clouds. Lloyds of London do not list these ‘ships’, but you will find them listed in the pages of Interavia Aerospace Directory for 1985. This directory reveals the identity of the latter-day ships of Tarshish, which sail through the sky, over the ocean to every country under the sun.
Pan American is the world’s largest international airline, covering North and South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Australasia—literally the whole world. Pan American uses Boeing jets for its ‘ocean fleet’. A recent advertisement in The National Geographic Magazine (Sept. 1985) featured the latest Pan American ‘Clipper Ocean Pearl’, and almost nonchalantly stated: “We are in the process of refurbishing our fleet, spending one million dollars on every Clipper”. The name on the fuselage, Clipper Ocean Pearl, exudes the sense of a beautiful ship racing across the oceans of the world at full speed. A letter from Pan American’s Director of Public Relations confirms this. He writes: “I can tell you each of Pan Am’s aircraft (of all types) are given ‘Clipper’ names originally after those of ships of that type built in the U.S. yards”.
So from every angle I contend it is impossible to dismiss the identity of Britain and America as the merchants of Tarshish of prophecy. According to The Sunday Times for August 25 1985 “there are 1,500 Boeing jet planes flying world wide”.
Finally, a quotation from Isaiah 60:8,9 is a particularly appropriate ending: “Who are these that fly as a cloud ( seaborne ships can hardly fly as a cloud), and as the doves to their windows?”. Here surely is a clear use of aerospace parlance to describe, in prophetic language, the latter-day ships of Tarshish which the Lord God has dictated shall bring the sons of Israel “from far, their silver and their gold with them”. Yes, the great ships “that fly as a cloud” will be ready for the great work God has assigned them.
References
- All historical quotations are taken from The People’s Bible Encyclopedia.
- The Times, 11.85; the bicentenary issue examined “the world’s most powerful nation as it prepares for the challenges of the year 2000”.
- Moorhead Kennedy in The Times (26.1.86), writing about his experience as a hostage for 444 days in Teheran, said he had been 21 years in the foreign service and was third highest-ranking officer in the embassy. After his release he resigned from the service, declaring, “America thinks and acts as if we are God’s chosen instrument, and assumes that the rest of the world thinks or should think as we do. We have imposed ourselves and our culture and humiliated many peoples”.
Jacob’s Prophecy in Gen 49 and Other Discussion Questions