Introduction: I cannot find a map which delineates the the ‘Land of the Chaldeans’. The best that I can ‘guess’ is that it extended into Lebanon, was basically in the S-E corner of modern Iraq and into modern Syria! I am led by this oracle to believe that the Assyrians had decimated the place and probably re-inhabited the area with people who were sympathetic to themselves, as was their practice. Verses 13-15 seem to include Tyre in the Chaldean homeland. A forecasted 70 years of people being displaced is mentioned in v 17. I assume that Isaiah referring to prostitutes is symbolic of the displaced Chaldeans (as prostitutes are displaced from normal society). The Chaldeans are commanded, as prostitutes use music to charm customers, to do all they can to re-establish themselves and their way of life! Chaldeans are not Arabs nor Persians, but a separate people group. Jesus visited Tyre and Paul tells us that there Christians in Tyre in his time.
13 Behold the land of the Chaldeans! This is the people that was not; Assyria destined it for wild beasts. They erected their siege towers, they stripped her palaces bare, they made her a ruin.
14 Wail, O ships of Tarshish,
for your stronghold is laid waste.
15 In that day Tyre will be forgotten for seventy years, like the days of one king. At the end of seventy years, it will happen to Tyre as in the song of the prostitute:
16 “Take a harp;
go about the city,
O forgotten prostitute!
Make sweet melody;
sing many songs,
that you may be remembered.”
17 At the end of seventy years, the LORD will visit Tyre, and she will return to her wages and will prostitute herself with all the kingdoms of the world on the face of the earth. 18 Her merchandise and her wages will be holy to the LORD. It will not be stored or hoarded, but her merchandise will supply abundant food and fine clothing for those who dwell before the LORD.– Modern day Chaldeans are predominantly Christian, in the broad sense of ‘Christian’, and are scattered worldwide. The suggestion is that they will be productive and maybe even affluent. The phrase ‘Her merchandise and her wages will be holy to the LORD‘ is explainable in different ways. I think that it at least includes the concept of justice and generosity!
Proverbs 16: 11&12 – A just balance and scales are the LORD’S; all the weights in the bag are his work. It is an abomination to kings to do evil, for the throne is established by righteousness.
Prayer: Whatever my circumstances please stop me from being a sluggard and unproductive for Your work, Lord!
As I read it! 