Isaiah
Isaiah 23
1The burden of Tyre.
Howl, you ships of Tarshish! For it is laid waste, so that there is no house, no entering in. From the land of Kittim it is revealed to them. 2Be still, you inhabitants of the coast, you whom the merchants of Sidon that pass over the sea, have replenished. 3On great waters, the seed of the Shihor, the harvest of the Nile, was her revenue. She was the market of nations. 4Be ashamed, Sidon; for the sea has spoken, the stronghold of the sea, saying, “I have not travailed, nor given birth, neither have I nourished young men, nor brought up virgins.” 5When the report comes to Egypt, they will be in anguish at the report of Tyre. 6Pass over to Tarshish! Wail, you inhabitants of the coast! 7Is this your joyous city, whose antiquity is of ancient days, whose feet carried her far away to travel?
8Who has planned this against Tyre, the giver of crowns, whose merchants are princes, whose traders are the honorable of the earth? 9Yahweh of Armies has planned it, to stain the pride of all glory, to bring into contempt all the honorable of the earth. 10Pass through your land like the Nile, daughter of Tarshish. There is no restraint any more. 11He has stretched out his hand over the sea. He has shaken the kingdoms. Yahweh has ordered the destruction of Canaan’s strongholds. 12He said, “You shall rejoice no more, you oppressed virgin daughter of Sidon. Arise, pass over to Kittim. Even there you will have no rest.”
13Behold, the land of the Chaldeans. This people didn’t exist. The Assyrians founded it for those who dwell in the wilderness. They set up their towers. They overthrew its palaces. They made it a ruin. 14Howl, you ships of Tarshish, for your stronghold is laid waste! 15It will come to pass in that day that Tyre will be forgotten seventy years, according to the days of one king. After the end of seventy years it will be to Tyre like in the song of the prostitute. 16Take a harp; go about the city, you prostitute that has been forgotten. Make sweet melody. Sing many songs, that you may be remembered. 17It will happen after the end of seventy years that Yahweh will visit Tyre. She will return to her wages, and will play the prostitute with all the kingdoms of the world on the surface of the earth. 18Her merchandise and her wages will be holiness to Yahweh. It will not be treasured nor laid up; for her merchandise will be for those who dwell before Yahweh, to eat sufficiently, and for durable clothing.
Commentary
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What others are saying
4 commentators · 47 notes on this chapter
Matthew Henry2
Writes as a pastor rather than a critic. Expect devotional and practical application over historical or linguistic analysis, read through a Reformed covenantal frame — and expect the Old Testament to be read forward toward Christ throughout.
Why this voice is here: The most widely read English commentary for three centuries. Included as a baseline: where Henry and a modern voice diverge, the divergence itself is usually the interesting part.
Tyre being a sea-port town, this prophecy of its overthrow fitly begins and ends with, Howl, you ships of Tarshish; for all its business, wealth, and honour, depended upon its shipping; if that be ruined, they will be all undone. Observe, I. Tyre flourishing…
Here is, I. The time fixed for the continuance of the desolations of Tyre, which were not to be perpetual desolations: Tyre shall be forgotten seventy years, Isa 23:15. So long it shall lie neglected and buried in obscurity. It was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar…
John Gill18
The most exhaustive and the most doctrinally committed here. Expect high — even supralapsarian — Calvinism applied consistently, and unusually heavy use of rabbinic and Talmudic sources for Jewish context. Where a passage bears on election or the will, Gill will read it in one direction, and knowing that in advance is the point.
Why this voice is here: The strongest Calvinist reading available in the public domain, and the best on Jewish background. Read alongside Clarke, not instead of him — between them you get both sides of the argument.
The burden of Tyre,.... Or a prophecy concerning the destruction of it. The Targum is, "the burden of the cup of cursing, to give Tyre to drink.'' This was a famous city in Phoenicia, which exceeded in renown and grandeur all the cities of Syria and Phoenicia…
Be still, ye inhabitants of the isle,.... Either the isles of Chittim, or other islands that traded with Tyre, the singular being put for the plural, called upon to grieve and mourn, because the city of their merchandise was destroyed, as Kimchi; or of Tyre…
And by great waters the seed of Sihor,.... Sihor is the river Nile in Egypt; it had its name from the black colour of its waters, as in Jeremiah 2:18 hence called by the Greeks Melas, and by the Latins Melo: the "seed" of it intends what was sown and grew…
Keil & Delitzsch10
The technical one, and Old Testament only. Expect Hebrew grammar, textual argument, and direct engagement with nineteenth-century critical scholarship — closer to a scholarly apparatus than a devotional read. Where a modern critic claims a text is late or composite, this is where the conservative counter-argument was made.
Why this voice is here: Old Testament only, and heavy going — but the place to look when someone asserts a passage cannot mean what it appears to.
The prophecy commences by introducing the trading vessels of Phoenicia on their return home, as they hear with alarm the tidings of the fate that has befallen their home. "Howl, ye ships of Tarshish; for it is laid waste, so that there is no house, no…
"Be alarmed, ye inhabitants of the coast! Sidonian merchants, sailing over the sea, filled thee once. And the sowing of Sichor came upon great waters, the harvest of the Nile, her store; and she became gain for nations." The suffixes of מלּא (to fill with…
The address to the whole of the coast-land now passes into an address to the ancestral city. Isa 23:4 "Shudder, O Sidon; for the sea speaketh, the fortress of the sea, thus: I have not travailed, nor given birth, nor trained up young men, brought up maidens."…
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown17
The concise option. Three authors split the canon, so the voice shifts between sections. Expect brief, sober, conservative notes that resolve difficulties rather than dwelling on them — useful for orientation, thinner than Gill or Clarke where a passage is genuinely contested.
Why this voice is here: The quickest way to see what the mainstream Reformed reading of a passage is. Start here, then go to Gill or Clarke when it matters.
Be still--"struck dumb with awe." Addressed to those already in the country, eye-witnesses of its ruin (Lam 2:10); or, in contrast to the busy din of commerce once heard in Tyre; now all is hushed and still. isle--strictly applicable to New Tyre: in the sense…
great waters--the wide waters of the sea. seed--"grain," or crop, as in Sa1 8:15; Job 39:12. Sihor--literally, "dark-colored"; applied to the Nile, as the Egyptian Jeor, and the Greek Melas, to express the "dark, turbid" colors given to its waters by the…
Zidon--called on, as being the parent country of Tyre (Isa 23:12), and here equivalent to PhÅ“nicia in general, to feel the shame (as it was esteemed in the East) of being now as childless as if she never had any. "I (no more now) travail, nor bring forth,"…
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