10 Listen, O daughter, give attention and incline your ear:
Forget your people and your father’s house;
11 Then the King will desire your beauty.
Because He is your Lord, bow down to Him.
12 The daughter of Tyre will come with a gift;
The rich among the people will seek your favor.13 The King’s daughter is all glorious within;
Her clothing is interwoven with gold.
14 She will be led to the King in embroidered work;
The virgins, her companions who follow her,
Will be brought to You.
15 They will be led forth with gladness and rejoicing;
They will enter into the King’s palace.16 In place of your fathers will be your sons;
You shall make them princes in all the earth.
17 I will cause Your name to be remembered in all generations;
Therefore the peoples will give You thanks forever and ever.
There are a couple of verses here that remind us of something we forget all too often–which is that we need to forget the past more often. Okay, so perhaps forget isn’t the right word, but it makes for a fun contrast… At any rate, verse 10 does indeed tell the daughter of the King of Tyre to forget her father’s house. And in verse 16, she is reminded to look to the future of her sons instead of hanging on to her ancestors.
There could be other reasons for this advice, but as a princess of Tyre, she may be tempted to compare her past life with the current one. She might desire so much the comforts of home that she forgets to enjoy (let alone be thankful for) the blessings she has as a queen in Israel. Her relationship with her husband (and her new people) is going to suffer if she is continually thinking of what she has left behind.
For us, this can look differently in a variety of circumstances. We don’t simply look to the future because it is “bright and shiny”. Rather, we leave behind what is done and over because God has more for us to do. We look to His future plans, so that we can be useful tools in the hands of the master craftsman, rather than useless oddities collecting dust on a shelf.
God remains the same, but to think that he will do the same exact things in the same exact way, century after century, is naive and foolish. One only has to look back a century or two to see how dramatically our culture has shifted. But again, we must keep our eyes focused on our King, just like the daughter of Tyre. Learn from the past, but don’t get stuck in it. Look to God’s plans, and follow his leading in all you do. Then, you will be able to “give Him thanks forever and ever” as you see his works unfold in your life and in those around you.