A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 21: The Burden of Tyre

A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 21: The Burden of Tyre 

Since Isaiah chapter 13 and the burden of Babylon, the prophet has announced an entire series of burdens against what may be considered to have been the world of ancient Israel at this time in history, with the death of Ahaz and the first few years after Hezekiah had become king of Judah. In the course of these burdens, there is no mercy for Babylon, nor for the king of Babylon. But there is mercy for the Israel in the burdens of Moab and Damascus. There was also mercy for the Israelites of the “land shadowing with wings”, which are evidently those of the Assyrian deportations who were portrayed as making a future supplication to God. Then there were expressions of hope and mercy for the people of Judah who would flee into Egypt, although they would suffer for having done so, and plausibly also for those who would flee into Arabia. However in the course of those burdens, there was no hope or mercy extended to the Egyptians, Ethiopians, Edomites or Arabians. Then finally, in the Valley of Vision, which was an oracle against Jerusalem, there were continued expressions of hope for the people of Judah in the face of an ominous condemnation, even if that hope is expressed enigmatically in the promise of the Key of David. Now we come to the final burden of the series, and it is the burden of Tyre, and even though Tyre itself is condemned, as Jerusalem had been, there are still messages of hope and mercy for at least a portion of its people, as we shall see here in our discussion of Isaiah chapter 23.

So now, discussing the Burden of Tyre, we must first make an insistence, that the Phoenicians of the Judges and Kingdom periods of ancient Israel certainly had been Israelites, at least for the most part, in spite of the general insistence of modern Jewry that they had been Canaanites. So on most Bible maps which are published today, a land labeled as Phoenicia is demarcated in a manner where it appears to have been separate from the land of the tribes of Israel. But that is not true, and every Bible map which has done so has perpetuated a lie which is contrary to the actual text of Scripture. The evidence of this is seen as early as Judges chapter 5, where in the Song of Deborah the prophetess had lamented that “17 Gilead abode beyond Jordan: and why did Dan remain in ships? Asher continued on the sea shore, and abode in his breaches.”

The word for breaches in that verse is מפרצ or miphrats (# 4664), which Strong’s defined as “a break (in the shore), i.e. a haven.” Gesenius defined it simply as a port. [1] Unfortunately, most of the Book of Joshua is wanting in the Dead Sea Scrolls. However in the Septuagint, in Joshua chapter 19, we read that the borders of Asher included Tyre (19:29) and where the inheritance of Naphtali is described, that tribe had inherited “the walled cities of the Tyrians” (19:35). In verse 35 the versions of Symmachus and Aquila of Sinope support that reading, as well as the Old Latin, Origen’s Hebrew and the Latin Vulgate. In verse 29 the reading is supported by Symmachus. [2] In verse 29 the text of the Septuagint states that “their going forth shall be the sea”, or in the King James Version, “the outgoings thereof are at the sea”, in reference to the borders, and at least some commentators and dictionaries suppose that the verse references the sea of Galilee, which is disingenuous because the eastern border of Asher was with Naphtali and Zebulun, and not even close to the sea of Galilee, or properly, Chinneroth. Rather, the sea was the western border of Asher, the Mediterranean Sea.

As a digression, this is how Anna, a woman of the tribe of Asher who is mentioned in Luke chapter 2 (2:36), had retained knowledge of her ancestry and had been in Jerusalem in the temple at the birth of Christ, because Asher was never completely removed from Tyre by the Assyrians or Babylonians, or even by the later Greeks who had destroyed the island city. The Babylonians had only destroyed the mainland portion of Tyre, but they had never destroyed the island city. When Alexander did destroy it, two hundred and fifty years later, it is evident that by then many of the inhabitants had spread back to the mainland, in the Persian period. In several ways, Tyre was a benefit to Persia in its war against the Greeks.

Later, as Solomon ascended to the throne of Yahweh to rule over Israel, we read in 1 Kings chapter 8: “65 And at that time Solomon held a feast, and all Israel with him, a great congregation, from the entering in of Hamath unto the river of Egypt, before the LORD our God, seven days and seven days, even fourteen days.” This describes Israel as having inhabited all of the coasts of Phoenicia. Hamath was a notable port on the Orontes River. The “entering in of Hamath” was the point where the Orontes River empties into the Mediterranean Sea, so that ships could travel to Hamath.

Then even later, speaking of Jeroboam II, who ruled Israel for nearly the entire first half of the 8th century BC, in 2 Kings chapter 14 we read: “25 He restored the coast of Israel from the entering of Hamath unto the sea of the plain, according to the word of the LORD God of Israel, which he spake by the hand of his servant Jonah, the son of Amittai, the prophet, which was of Gathhepher. 26 For the LORD saw the affliction of Israel, that it was very bitter: for there was not any shut up, nor any left, nor any helper for Israel. 27 And the LORD said not that he would blot out the name of Israel from under heaven: but he saved them by the hand of Jeroboam the son of Joash. 28 Now the rest of the acts of Jeroboam, and all that he did, and his might, how he warred, and how he recovered Damascus, and Hamath, which belonged to Judah, for Israel, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel?” The “sea of the plain” could only describe the Mediterranean Sea in that context, and shows that Judah had possessed the coasts in the days before Jeroboam II. They had been lost to the Assyrians, as we have discussed earlier in this commentary.

It may be contested, that Hiram of Tyre had been called a king even before David had become the king of Israel, as it is recorded in 1 Samuel chapter 5. But there is nothing in the law which would prevent a ruler of a clan from acting as a king over his people in the time of the Judges. In Exodus chapter 18 we read: “25 And Moses chose able men out of all Israel, and made them heads over the people, rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens.” That the people kept this tradition is apparent as late as the time of Solomon, in 1 Chronicles chapter 29. However once David became king, where it was only a few decades since all of Israel had first had a king, we read in 1 Samuel chapter 5: “11 And Hiram king of Tyre sent messengers to David, and cedar trees, and carpenters, and masons: and they built David an house. 12 And David perceived that the LORD had established him king over Israel, and that he had exalted his kingdom for his people Israel's sake.” So there it must be realized that it was Hiram’s acknowledgment of David as king which had led David to “perceive that the LORD had established him king over Israel”, and Hiram and his sons had subsequently served both David and Solomon after him.

Therefore, before and during the time when the Greeks had first begun to use the word Phoenicia to describe the coasts of the land which had belonged to Israel, it was inhabited by the Israelites. While some Canaanites had remained in Sidon, as the Scriptures describe, they were in servitude to the Israelites, and Israelites had also dwelt in Sidon. But wherever there were descriptions of the places where the Israelites had failed to drive out Canaanites, which are found in Judges chapters 1 (1:31) and 3 (3:1-7) and elsewhere. While Hamath is mentioned in Judges chapter 3, the land as far as Hamath was later secured for Israel by David, which is described in 2 Samuel chapter 8. In Judges chapter 1 we learn that Canaanites had remained in Sidon and in several other towns in Asher, but ostensibly, Canaanites had not remained in Tyre, and as the time progressed from Joshua to David, the Canaanites were gradually reduced in the land, as the Scripture also explains in those books. Where Joab conducted the census of the time of David, among all the other places he had counted Israel, he went to both Tyre and Sidon (2 Samuel 24:6-7). 

According to the Greek geographer and historian, Strabo of Cappadocia, the people of the Phoenician colonies of the West had recollections of Tyre, and not Sidon, where he had written in his Geography, Book 16: “Now although the poets have referred more repeatedly to Sidon than to Tyre (Homer does not even mention Tyre), yet the colonies sent into Libya [i.e. Carthage] and Iberia, as far even as outside the Pillars, hymn rather the praises of Tyre.” [3] Ostensibly, Homer did not mention Tyre because he was writing in the context of the Trojan War which had evidently taken place in the opening years of the 12th century BC, and by that time Tyre was not yet a notable city. According to Flavius Josephus, in Book 8 of his Antiquities: “Now that year on which the temple began to be built was already the eleventh year of the reign of Hiram; but from the building of Tyre to the building of the temple, there had passed two hundred and forty years.” [4] If Solomon came to rule around 970 BC, which is reasonable, then Tyre was built around the same time as the Trojan War. But there is evidence that Tyre was much older than that, and in that same place Strabo had called Tyre “the largest and most ancient city of the Phoenicians”. However Strabo’s statement that Tyre was the largest city does not necessarily mean it was the largest in ancient times, and Josephus may have been referring to the building of the island city, or even to a rebuilding or an expansion of Tyre as it was known to the ancient Israelites.

In any event, Phoenicia is only a geographic description which was evidently coined by the ancient Greeks on account of the purple dye for which the coast was noted. The word is derived from a genitive form of the Greek word φοινός, which is blood red, but like the related appellation φοῖνιξ, it may also mean crimson or purple. As a name Φοῖνιξ also described a notable Phoenician, and there it may be noticed that the meaning of the appellation is also the same as the Hebrew term adam, although the Hebrew word cannot be substantively proven to be the origin of the use of the term among the Greeks. In Greek mythology, Phoenix was the brother of Cadmus and Cilix, the sons of Agenor, an ancient king of Tyre. Cilix had given his name to Cilicia, while Cadmus was the legendary founder of Thebes in Greece. According to the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus, Cadmus, along with Danaus the Egyptian, who also settled in Greece, had been in Egypt with Moses and the Israelites before the time of the Exodus [5]. This Cadmus, often called “the Phoenician”, was also often credited by ancient Greek writers as having brought arts and letters to Greece. The mythical Europa, a woman for whom it was said that Europe was named, is described sometimes as the daughter of Phoenix, and sometimes as his sister. While these are only a few of the points we may raise to support our assertions, it is fully apparent that in ancient times there were close connections in ancient history between the Greeks, the Phoenicians, and the Israelites. 

Therefore once we understand that the Phoenicians of the periods of the Judges and the Davidic Kingdom were primarily Israelites, we would also posit the notion that in many ways, the scope of the prophecies concerning Tyre also relates to all of the Israelites who had gone through Tyre to settle in distant places, and we shall see that here. These Israelites would have left on the “ships of Tarshish”, as the Phoenician shipping industry was known throughout the Old Testament, at least from the time of Solomon, as it is recorded in 2 Chronicles chapter 9. So where Isaiah’s burden for Tyre had opened, there is an immediate reference to the ships of Tarshish. Therefore we shall commence with Isaiah chapter 23:

1 The burden of Tyre. Howl, ye ships of Tarshish; for it is laid waste, so that there is no house, no entering in: from the land of Chittim it is revealed to them. 

Tarshish is listed among the sons of Javan, the son of Japheth, in Genesis chapter 10. With all certainty, Tarshish may be identified with Tartessus in what is now southeastern Spain. The other sons of Javan may be identified with various places in the Mediterranean Sea, and Javan himself is the eponymous ancestor of the Ionian Greeks. Borrowing a paragraph from part 14 of our Genesis commentary, titled The Japhethites, there we had explained that: 

The 5th century BC Greek historian Herodotus is writing about a period much earlier than his own, even predating the Trojan War, and speaking of Tartessus in southern Spain he wrote, “This trading town was in those days a virgin port, unfrequented by the merchants.” [6] The Trojan War was about 200 years before King Solomon’s ships, so Herodotus certainly seems to have been accurate, and his having referred to Tartessus as a “trading town” helps to illuminate the Scriptural record. In their Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon, Liddell & Scott readily identify Τάρτησσος as “the Tarshish of Scripture”. But the Carthaginians could only have come to political control of Tarshish at a much later time, as Diodorus Siculus described wars between the Carthaginian Hamilcar Barca and the “Iberians and Tartessians” in the 3rd century BC. [7] The Iberians were also Phoenicians, but not necessarily subject to Carthage. Evidently, Carthage and at least many of the other Phoenician colonies in the Mediterranean had remained loyal to the Tyrians, until Tyre was destroyed by Alexander the Great before the end of the 4th century BC.

According to Flavius Josephus in his treatise Against Apion, where he had attested to have followed the ancient chronicles of Tyre which are now lost, “108 Therein it was recorded that the temple was built by King Solomon at Jerusalem, one hundred forty-three years and eight months before the Tyrians built Carthage”, so Carthage was apparently founded some time around 820 BC. Chittim, or Kittim is also listed as a son of Javan in Genesis chapter 10. As we had explained in that very same commentary:

Both Elishah and Kittim are identified with the island Cyprus, with several varying spellings of these names found in ancient inscriptions. Kittim, usually spelled as Chittim, is the word for Cyprus throughout the Hebrew prophets. Among several inscribed ostraca discovered in Arad, a Biblical town in the south of Judah, which are dated to the period before the destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldaeans, we read: “To Eliashib – and (as) of now: Give the Kittiyim three baths of wine and write the exact date. And from what is left of the old wheat grind up one (kor) of wheat to make bread for them. Serve the wine in punch bowls.” [8] Apparently this Eliashib was a servant and was expected to accommodate guests from Kittim.

However in later times Cyprus had also been colonized by the Phoenicians. In Book 9 of his Antiquities Flavius Josephus had described a revolt of the Cyprians against Tyre, as the Phoenician colonies of Cyprus had been subject to Tyre before the Assyrian conquest of Israel. [9] The lamentation of Tyre in Ezekiel chapter 27 elucidates the fact that Tyre was an Israelite city. Throughout that chapter of Ezekiel, all of the sons of Javan were identified with the trade with Tyre. But in verse 6 of the chapter people from the tribe of Asher (“Ashurites”, #843) are described as dwelling in Cyprus (“Chittim”). In verse 12 the tribe of Dan, referring to Danaan Greeks in this context, brought trade to Tyre along with the tribe of Javan, who were the Ionian Greeks. The Septuagint has a line in verse 18 which is not found in the versions translated from the Masoretic Text, which reads: “... and wool from Miletus; and they brought wine into thy market.” Miletus was an ancient Phoenician settlement in southwest Anatolia. Thales of Miletus, a famous early Greek philosopher, who was said to have been “of Phoenician descent”. [10] However while the translations of Aquila and Symachus have that line, they both had the wool as having come from a place other than Miletus, upon which they do not agree. 

Returning to the text of Isaiah, we shall read the first verse once again:

1 The burden of Tyre. Howl, ye ships of Tarshish; for it is laid waste, so that there is no house, no entering in: from the land of Chittim it is revealed to them. 

The Tyrians, returning to Phoenicia from their trade routes, would first encounter Cyprus, where they may very frequently have stayed for a day or longer before sailing on to the mainland. So naturally they would have learned of the fate of Tyre there once they had arrived.

The reference that “it is laid waste” must be referring to Tyre, and not to Tarshish or Chittim. For reason that it is destroyed, there is no house, and ostensibly no port. But the destruction of ancient Tyre is not mentioned in the historical books of Scripture, although it is also prophesied in other books of the prophets. Tyre is lamented in Ezekiel, along with its king. In Amos, whose prophetic ministry had surely run its course by this point in the ministry of Isaiah, we read in Amos chapter 1: “9 Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Tyrus, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they delivered up the whole captivity to Edom, and remembered not the brotherly covenant: 10 But I will send a fire on the wall of Tyrus, which shall devour the palaces thereof.”

This also demonstrates that the Tyrians were of Israel, as they were part of the “brotherly covenant” with the Israelites. But during the time of the divided kingdom there had been divisions between Judah, Samaria and Damascus, and as Assyria had begun invading the lands to the north of Ephraim, the Tyrians as well as the rulers of other cities fell tribute to the Assyrians. Therefore those cities were necessary allies of Assyria and contributed to its wars, with both money and troops, including the wars against Samaria and Judah. This we shall discuss with verse 2: 

2 Be still, ye inhabitants of the isle; thou whom the merchants of Zidon, that pass over the sea, have replenished. 

The isle may refer to Cyprus, or to the island portion of Tyre. The Sidonians would also have been Israelites, however it is evident throughout the Scriptures that in Isaiah’s time there certainly had been Canaanites among them. At least some of the merchants may have been Canaanites, especially in the later time of the divided kingdom. But the Canaanites of Sidon were slaves in the days of David and Solomon, and they would ostensibly have remained slaves throughout the time of the divided kingdom, except that the politics of the period are not always clear. If they were slaves when the rulers of Sidon had submitted tribute to the Assyrians, they would have very likely remained slaves while Sidon was a willing tributary. While the Scripture focuses on the division of Israel and Judah, during most of that period the northern ten tribes would have been united under the king of Israel at Samaria. But once the Assyrians encroached upon Israel, the kings of Tyre and Sidon had split with Samaria, and showed their allegiance to the Assyrians, and gave tribute while the kings of Israel had revolted.

So as early as the time of Tiglath-Pileser I, who had ruled Assyria in the very late 12th and early 11th centuries BC, towards the end of the Judges period of Israel, we read in part in one of his inscriptions: “I conquered the entire country of Amurru. I received tribute from Byblos, Sidon, and Arvad.” [11] A century later, as Scripture describes, David had taken those places as far north as Hamath. Then about two hundred years later, after the time of David and Solomon and perhaps around the time that Ahab was king of Israel, in an inscription from the reign of Ashurbanipal II, who is said to have ruled Assyria in the early 9th century BC, we read: “The tribute of the seacoast—from the inhabitants of Tyre, Sidon, Byblos, Mahallata, Maiza, Kaiza, Amurru, and (of) Arvad which is (an island) in the sea, (consisting of): gold, silver, tin, copper, copper containers, linen garments with multicolored trimmings, large and small monkeys, 16 ebony, boxwood, ivory from walrus tusk — (thus ivory) a product of the sea,—(this) their tribute I received and they embraced my feet.” [12]

A short time later, in the reign of his successor, Shalmaneser III, Ahab was described in another inscription as having sent ten thousand foot soldiers to join a coalition in battle against the Assyrians. [13] So in a later inscription of that same king, from the eighteenth year of his rule, he describes having defeated a large army which had been sent against him by Hazael of Damascus, and said “At that time I received the tribute of the inhabitants of Tyre, Sidon, and of Jehu, son of Omri.” Then in another record a few years later, we read: “In my twenty-first year, I crossed the Euphrates for the twenty-first time. I marched against the towns of Hazael of Damascus. Four of his larger urban settlements (mahdzu) I conquered. I received tribute from the countries of the inhabitants of Tyre, Sidon, and Byblos.” [14]

It was Jehu who had cut off the house of Ahab, and therefore the house of Omri, but the Assyrians had begun considering all of Israel as the house of Omri and they evidently did not know in detail the internal history of Israel. So this should serve to substantiate our assertion, that even though Tyre and Sidon were Israelite cities, they did not remain united with Samaria during the entire period of the divided Kingdom. Furthermore, they remained tributaries of Assyria throughout the time of the destruction of Samaria and Judah, so siding with Assyria against their own Israelite brethren they were regarded as having “remembered not the brotherly covenant” by the prophet Amos.

In the later days, Tyre remained a tributary to Tiglath-Pileser III, and in a fragmented, undated inscription from his reign we read in part: “I sent an officer of mine, the rabsaq? to Tyre [and received] from Metenna of Tyre 150 talents of gold”, which is no small sum. While the reading of rabsaq had been marked as uncertain in the translation, it correlates to the Rabshakeh sent as an envoy by the Assyrians, in the time of Hezekiah, described in 2 Kings chapter 18 and Isaiah chapter 36. Further on in the same inscription is another reference, where we read in part: “I received tribute from Kushtashpi of Commagene, Rezon of Damascus, Menahem of Samaria, Hiram of Tyre, Sibitti-bi'li of Byblos…” and it goes on to mention Hamath, among several other places further north. [15]

Then much later, in the same inscription in which Sennacherib had recorded the siege of Jerusalem at the time of Hezekiah, we read in part: “In my third campaign I marched against Hatti. Luli, king of Sidon, whom the terror-inspiring glamor of my lordship had overwhelmed, fled far overseas and perished. The awe-inspiring splendor of the "Weapon" of Ashur, my lord, overwhelmed his strong cities (such as) Great Sidon, Little Sidon, Bit-Zitti, Zaribtu, Mahalliba, Ushu (i.e. the mainland settlement of Tyre), Akzib (and) Akko, (all) his fortress cities, walled (and well) provided with feed and water for his garrisons, and they bowed in submission to my feet. I installed Ethba'al (Tuba'lu) upon the throne to be their king and imposed upon him tribute (due) to me (as his) overlord (to be paid) annually without interruption.” [16]

In that inscription, the Akzib which was mentioned along with Tyre is certainly the Achzib which was the border of Asher opposite the sea, in Joshua chapter 19 (19:29). But here Tyre was called Ushu, which was the Assyrian name for the mainland portion of ancient Tyre. The Egyptians had called the mainland city by a similar name, transliterated as Uzu. [17] This may suggest that both the Assyrians and the Egyptians were familiar with the mainland portion of Tyre in more ancient times, and not so much with the island which the Assyrians had evidently called by its Hebrew name.

Even later, in an inscription of Esarhaddon, we read in part: “I conquered Tyre which is (an island) amidst the sea. I took away all the towns and the possessions of Ba'lu its king, who had put his trust on Tirhakah (Tarqu), king of Nubia (Kusu).” [18] While the translation says Nubia, the Assyrian word is for Cush, which should of course be distinguished from Nubia. So it is evident that Tyre had remained a submissive tributary of Assyria through the time of Sennacherib’s siege of Jerusalem, but some time later must have revolted, resulting in the actions of Esarhaddon which were described in this inscription. But a short time later Tyre revolted from him once again, and in a later inscription we read in part: “I crossed the Tigris and the Euphrates at (the time of) their flood; I advanced over the difficult territory (of my route) (as quick-footed) as a wild-ox. In the course of my campaign I threw up earthwork (for a siege) against Ba'lu, king of Tyre who had put his trust upon his friend Tirhakah, king of Nubia (Kusu), and (therefore) had thrown off the yoke of Ashur, my lord, answering (my admonitions with) insolence. I withheld from them (i.e. the inhabitants of besieged Tyre) food and (fresh) water which sustain life. ” [19]

Then again, even later, in the time of Ashurbanipal king of Assyria, Tyre must have revolted yet again and we read: “In my third campaign I marched against Ba'il, king of Tyre, who lives (on an island) amidst the sea, because he did not heed my royal order, did not listen to my personal (lit.: of my lips) commands. I surrounded him with redoubts, seized his communications (lit.: roads) on sea and land. I (thus) intercepted (lit.: strangled) and made scarce their food supply and forced them to submit to my yoke. He brought his own daughter and the daughters of his brothers before me to do menial services. At the same time, he brought his son Iahimilki who had not (yet) crossed the sea to greet me as (my) slave. I received from him his daughter and the daughters of his brothers with their great dowries. I had mercy upon him and returned to him the son, the offspring of his loins. Iakinlu, king of Arvad, living (also) on an island who had not submitted to (any of) the kings of my family, did (now) submit to my yoke and brought his daughter with a great dowry to Nineveh to do menial services, and he kissed my feet.” [20] So at this time, perhaps around 660 BC, Tyre had a prince named Iahimilki, which I would translated to mean “Yahweh is my king”, and Arvad had a king named Iakinlu, which also contains a reference to the God of Israel.

Of the destruction of Ushu, or the mainland portion of Tyre, by the Babylonians after the Babylonians had already destroyed Jerusalem, there is nothing surviving in published inscriptions. So our best witness is the prophet Ezekiel, who had written, as it is found in Ezekiel chapter 29: “ 17 And it came to pass in the seven and twentieth year, in the first month, in the first day of the month, the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, 18 Son of man, Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon caused his army to serve a great service against Tyrus: every head was made bald, and every shoulder was peeled: yet had he no wages, nor his army, for Tyrus, for the service that he had served against it.” Evidently the wealth of the city had been moved to the island before the walls could be breached. The later historical records describing the destruction of the island city by Alexander king of Macedonia substantiate the fact that in his time, the mainland city was still in ruins.

The Judaean historian Flavius Josephus would later state that the siege of Tyre took the Babylonians thirteen years, [21, 22] dating it as having begun in the seventh year of Nebuchadnezzar [22]. However that seems to conflict with the chronology of Ezekiel, who set the conquest of mainland Tyre to the twenty-seventh year of his captivity, in the passage in chapter 29, which would be about seven years later than the twenty-seventh year of Nebuchadnezzar. But Ezekiel chapter 33 states that the news of the destruction of Jerusalem had come to him near the end of the twelfth year of his captivity: “ 21 And it came to pass in the twelfth year of our captivity, in the tenth month, in the fifth day of the month, that one that had escaped out of Jerusalem came unto me, saying, The city is smitten.”

Like Daniel and Jeremiah, the chapters of Ezekiel are not in their original order, so the chronology of the book is not consistent with its arrangement. Both Daniel and Ezekiel had been taken into captivity along with the ten thousand captives from Jerusalem as Nebuchadnezzar had taken Jeconiah, or Jehoiachin, and replaced him on the throne of Judah with Zedekiah, who had in turn ruled for eleven years, as it is recorded in 2 Kings chapter 24. So the prophet states in Ezekiel chapter 33 that Jerusalem was destroyed in the twelfth year of his captivity, which is fully compatible with the duration of the rule of Zedekiah as having been eleven years after the time that the captives were taken.

In the popular chronologies, the fall of Jerusalem is typically assigned to the year 586 BC. By those same chronologies, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon is typically esteemed to have ascended to the throne in 605 BC. So his seventh year would have been about the time when Zedekiah was placed on the throne at Jerusalem. If the siege of Tyre began at that time, in 598 BC, then Tyre would have fallen in 585 BC, while Jerusalem had fallen in 586, and therefore Nebuchadnezzar would have had to carry on two major sieges at the same time, splitting his armies by a distance of over a hundred miles, which is quite unlikely. But according to Ezekiel, Tyre had fallen in the twenty-seventh year of his captivity, which would have been about fifteen years after the fall of Jerusalem, or about 571 BC. So if the siege of Tyre began two years after the fall of Jerusalem in 584 BC, which Ezekiel’s date suggests, then that would be near the twenty-second year of Nebuchadnezzar’s rule, and not the seventh. Then if the siege actually had lasted for thirteen years, 571 BC was about the thirty-fifth year of his rule. Since the chronology of Josephus is often unreliable, we would rather believe Ezekiel.

There is nothing which we have found in published inscriptions which may help us to further clarify the differences and better account for the chronology of the fall of Tyre. Nebuchadnezzar II had ruled Babylon for over forty years, until about 562 BC. One Babylonian inscription, which is fragmentary and undated, mentions provisions for Jehoiachin, king of Judah, and his sons, and also for 126 men of Tyre. [23] But that does not necessarily indicate that Tyre had already been destroyed, because Jeconiah was taken captive before the siege of Tyre could even have begun.

In Ezekiel chapter 29, following Ezekiel’s record of the fall of Tyre, the Word of Yahweh avows that Nebuchadnezzar would find the payment for his service in Egypt. So in another fragmentary inscription, we read in part that “… [in] the 37th year, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Bab[ylon] mar[ched against] Egypt to deliver a battle. [Ama]sis, of Egypt, [called up his a]rm[y] … [ … ]ku from the town Putu-Iaman … distant regions which (are situated on islands) amidst the sea … many … which/who (are) in Egypt … [car]rying weapons, horses and [chariot]s … he called up to assist him and … did [ … ] in front of him . . . he put his trust…” and a note explains that the balance of the inscription is illegible. [24] So if Ezekiel’s chronology is correct, which it seems to be, then Nebuchadnezzar would have received his payment from Egypt here, two years after the fall of Tyre.

Now we shall continue with verse 3 of Isaiah chapter 23:

3 And by great waters the seed of Sihor, the harvest of the river, is her revenue; and she is a mart of nations. 

That Sihor is a reference to a river or canal in Egypt is evident first in Joshua chapter 13 where there is a reference to “Sihor, which is before Egypt” (13:3) and then in Jeremiah chapter 2, where, speaking to the children of Israel in general, the Word of Yahweh asks “18 And now what hast thou to do in the way of Egypt, to drink the waters of Sihor? or what hast thou to do in the way of Assyria, to drink the waters of the river?” So evidently the Tyrians had traded in the produce of this region in quantities large enough that Sihor is worthy of mention here. These three mentions of Sihor are the only times that it is mentioned in Scripture. However here in the second clause in this verse, the Dead Sea Scrolls Bible has “the harvest of the Nile”.

Of course, at this point in Isaiah, some time around 710 BC, Tyre has not yet fallen, but the prophet is speaking in a prophetic past tense, which expresses certainty that the things which are spoken certainly shall come to pass:

4 Be thou ashamed, O Zidon: for the sea hath spoken, even the strength of the sea, saying, I travail not, nor bring forth children, neither do I nourish up young men, nor bring up virgins. 5 As at the report concerning Egypt, so shall they be sorely pained at the report of Tyre. 

We have not neglected to consider the potential interpretation of sea here as an allegory, but in this context we shall not comment in that manner. 

Here it is likely that Isaiah had referred to his own earlier burden of Egypt, which he announced while walking naked and barefoot throughout Judah for three years, and he is professing that this burden will be just as painful for the people to hear.

Now there is another reference to Tarshish:

6 Pass ye over to Tarshish; howl, ye inhabitants of the isle. 7 Is this your joyous city, whose antiquity is of ancient days? her own feet shall carry her afar off to sojourn. 

Before the Roman period, the name Tarshish seems to have faded into obscurity, however in the writings of the Roman historian Livy the name of Tartessus seems to have been supplanted by the names of later tribes, the Turditani and Turduli, who had fought wars with the Carthaginians before the Romans had conquered either Rome or Iberia. [24] However by Roman times the region in which Tartessus was situated had mostly been possessed by the Carthaginians, and in its entirety had become known as Iberia, from the same Hebrew term from which the very name Hebrew was also derived, which is עבר or eber (# 5676-77), which Strong’s defines as “the region across … on the opposite side”, and Iberia was on the opposite side, across the Mediterranean Sea, from either Carthage or Tyre. In the Septuagint, Carthage appears here rather than Tarshish, however the translators of the Septuagint had quite frequently confused many of the names of ancient places and peoples, especially in relation to the Phoenicians. 

The reading of these verses in the Dead Sea Scrolls Bible seem to better represent the sense of the words of the prophet: “6 O you crossing over to Tarshish; wail, you inhabitants of the coast! 7 Is this your happy city whose origin is from the days of old, and whose feet carried her to settle far away?” However we even prefer the reading of verse 7 as it is found in the New American Standard Bible: “7 Is this your jubilant city, Whose origin is from antiquity, Whose feet used to carry her to colonize distant places?” So in either case, the passage suggests over the centuries that many of the people of Tyre, or even the wider region of Israel, had long been migrating to regions beyond the sea.

Now Yahweh God takes credit for the prophesied destruction of Tyre:

8 Who hath taken this counsel against Tyre, the crowning city, whose merchants are princes, whose traffickers are the honourable of the earth? 9 The LORD of hosts hath purposed it, to stain the pride of all glory, and to bring into contempt all the honourable of the earth. 

The merchants are the honorable of the earth, but in the eyes of Yahweh God they are sinners, so He shall bring them to dishonor on account of their sins. [The first shall be last, and the last first.]

In verse 8 where we read “the crowning city,” both the Dead Sea Scrolls Bible and the New American Standard Bible have “the bestower of crowns”, which is the same meaning but which is perhaps more clear in modern English. This seems to suggest that the king or government of ancient Tyre had anointed the kings of its colonies abroad. There is much evidence in Greek histories, that Tyre had long maintained its influence over the colonies which it had founded, which we cannot quantify here. While it is debated by modern historians, it is fully evident, for example, that the Carthaginian invasion of Sicily, which had been held by the Greeks, was timed in order to prevent the Greeks of Italy from coming to the aid of Greece as it was being invaded by the Persians. At the time, Tyre was a tributary of Persia, but Carthage still had an allegiance to Tyre.

Notice here that the merchants of Tyre and Sidon are “the honourable of the earth”, and that they are considered “princes”, or rulers. In the modern capitalist world, the same situation has developed once again, and from the time that the monarchs of Europe were overthrown in the revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries, they have been replaced by the merchant class. These same merchants of Tyre had been in league with Babylon when Israel and Judah were destroyed, although now they themselves will be destroyed, or at least, displaced, by Babylon. So the beast as Babylon also eats its merchants. In any event, with the fall of Tyre they are brought into contempt, ostensibly because their power and influence would be scattered.

10 Pass through thy land as a river, O daughter of Tarshish: there is no more strength. 

Various readings of this passage do not help to clarify its meaning.

From Brenton’s Septuagint: “10  Till thy land; for ships no more come out of Carthage.”

Then from the New American Standard Bible: “10 Overflow your land like the Nile, O daughter of Tarshish, There is no more restraint.”

Then from the Dead Sea Scrolls Bible: “10 Cultivate your own land like the Nile. O daughter of Tarshish, for there is no longer a harbor.” There the reading cultivate is from the scroll designated as 1QIsaiah^a where a note states that another witness, in 4QIsaiah^c, has pass through. 

“Pass through thy land as a river”: Perhaps this is a play on words, as the people, or ships, had been described as passing through the seas, and the people were closely associated with seafaring. “Pass through your land as you would pass through a river” seems to be an appropriate interpretation. The translators of the Dead Sea Scrolls Bible had clearly over-used references to the Nile, which are only fitting within the context of ancient Egypt, where the only river was the Nile, so in that narrow sense, the word for river could mean Nile, however this is Tyre, and not Egypt. 

“Oh daughter of Tarshish”: Tyre was enriched by its merchant trade, and her ships had been called “ships of Tarshish” from ancient times, perhaps because that was part of a regular trade routes. So the term seems to be used pejoratively here. 

“there is no more strength”: the word for strength is מזח or mezach (# 4206) is literally a belt, as Strong’s defines it, or a girdle, as it is defined by Brown, Driver, Briggs. [25] Here we would rather interpret it allegorically as a defense, as something which girds. Tyre having been an Israelite city, Yahweh is its defense, and now He declares that the city has no defense, so it shall fall. Thus we read:

11 He stretched out his hand over the sea, he shook the kingdoms: the LORD hath given a commandment against the merchant city, to destroy the strong holds thereof. 

The first clause here forebodes ominously in reference to the Phoenician settlements abroad, warning them that they shall not escape the judgment of Yahweh.

Although there are other words which mean merchant, the word for Canaan had evidently also been used to describe a merchant, such as in Proverbs chapter 31 where we read: “24 She maketh fine linen, and selleth it; and delivereth girdles unto the merchant.” So here, Canaan is translated as merchant, while in the Dead Sea Scrolls Bible the clause reads: “… the Lord has given orders concerning Canaan to destroy her fortresses.”

It seems that where the land of Israel is referred to as Canaan, that is also a pejorative, just as Isaiah had described the Judahites who would flee to Egypt by saying: “18 In that day shall five cities in the land of Egypt speak the language of Canaan, and swear to the LORD of hosts…” Hebrew was the language of Canaan because Israel had occupied the land of Canaan, and so it is here. Everywhere else that Tyre is described as a merchant city, other words are used, such as cachar (# 5503) and rakal (# 7402). 

12 And he said, Thou shalt no more rejoice, O thou oppressed virgin, daughter of Zidon: arise, pass over to Chittim; there also shalt thou have no rest. 

This continues the warnings to the overseas settlements which had begun in verse 11, that the Tyrians would not have rest even if they depart to dwell in countries across the sea.

Just as Tyre was called the “daughter of Tarshish” as a pejorative, because trade with Tarshish was a source of its wealth, here it is called a “daughter of Zidon” pejoratively, and perhaps because so many Canaanites had remained in Sidon, that the Tyrians had been affected by the Canaanite influences on its people. That is also apparently why the fortresses of Tyre were called after the name of Canaan in the preceding verse. However all of this has also served Yahweh in another way: because in the time of their punishment, His people were to forget from whence they came.

Now there is a curious statement in reference to the Chaldaeans:

13 Behold the land of the Chaldeans; this people was not, till the Assyrian founded it for them that dwell in the wilderness: they set up the towers thereof, they raised up the palaces thereof; and he brought it to ruin. 

This passage makes very little sense in the manner in which it is translated. What did the Assyrians found for the Chaldaeans? Who brought what to ruin?

The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible has verse 13 to say: “Look at the land of the Chaldaeans, this is the people; it was not Assyria. They made Tyre a place for desert creatures [or demons]; they erected her siege towers, they stripped her palaces, they made her a ruin.”

So this verse is prophesying that it would be the Babylonians, and not the Assyrians, who would destroy Tyre, and this is also yet another prophecy of the Babylonian empire, which was not yet an empire at the time when Isaiah had written. At this time, Babylon remains a subject state of the Assyrians.

14 Howl, ye ships of Tarshish: for your strength is laid waste. 15 And it shall come to pass in that day, that Tyre shall be forgotten seventy years, according to the days of one king: after the end of seventy years shall Tyre sing as an harlot. 

The number of years which Tyre would be forgotten is the same number which was prophesied for Jerusalem to lay desolate after its destruction, which is evident in Jeremiah chapter 25. And while the interpretation of that passage is debated, Daniel corroborated its meaning for us in Daniel chapter 9: “2 In the first year of his reign I Daniel understood by books the number of the years, whereof the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem.” History also corroborates Jeremiah, as Jerusalem was destroyed in 586 BC, and the building of the second temple was conducted from 520 and completed in 516 BC.

16 Take an harp, go about the city, thou harlot that hast been forgotten; make sweet melody, sing many songs, that thou mayest be remembered. 

Tyre shall sing as a harlot: Once again, the prophet elucidates the identity of the Tyrians as children of Israel, who were accused of harlotry throughout the words of the prophets because of their desire for trading with the enemies of Yahweh, the surrounding pagan nations. So in Hosea chapter 2 we read: “4 And I will not have mercy upon her children; for they be the children of whoredoms. 5 For their mother hath played the harlot: she that conceived them hath done shamefully: for she said, I will go after my lovers, that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, mine oil and my drink.” In this very manner had the Israelites of Tyre enriched themselves, and now they shall be punished.

While we do not have a detailed account of the period, if Tyre had been destroyed by 571 BC, which is true by any chronology, then by the time that the Persian king Darius had begun planning his attempted conquest of Greece, which commenced with the unexpected Persian loss at the battle of Marathon in 490 BC, Tyre and Sidon would have been bustling with a marked increase in shipbuilding activities. We should not have an account, because the Word of Yahweh here informs us that Tyre would be forgotten, so nobody recorded any such account. However later, the Tyrians began to thrive. In the seventh book of his Histories, Herodotus had written that “The Phoenicians, with the Syrians of Palestine, furnished three hundred vessels” and a little later, “The Phoenician ships were the best sailers in the fleet, and the Sidonians the best among the Phoenicians”, so according to Herodotus, Tyre was outdone by Sidon in that aspect. [26] That the phrase “Syrians of Palestine” was used by Herodotus to describe the people of Judah is evident in his Histories in Book 2, first where he stated that “The Phoenicians and the Syrians of Palestine themselves confess that they learnt the custom of the Egyptians”, which is an incomplete understanding of their common practice of circumcision, and then where he had described a battle which Pharaoh Necho had at Megiddo, which he errantly called Magdolus, and that is the very battle in which king Josiah of Judah had died, in 608 BC. [27] Once again, we see that the Phoenicians are Israel, as they had practiced circumcision according to the account in Herodotus.

17 And it shall come to pass after the end of seventy years, that the LORD will visit Tyre, and she shall turn to her hire, and shall commit fornication with all the kingdoms of the world upon the face of the earth. 

In the Persian period it is apparent that Tyre, the island city, had once again thrived, and for the next two hundred years, until the coming of Alexander the king of Macedonia, the Tyrians waxed powerful once again, powerful enough that they ventured to defy him and not submit to his authority. According to Herodotus, the Phoenicians had furnished the ships with which Xerxes had attempted to conquer the Greeks, as well as many of the pilots. For that, Alexander destroyed the island city for good, and the Greek historians had reported that he used the debris from the ruins of the ancient mainland city to build a rampart so that he could destroy the island, something which the Babylonians had evidently not thought of doing. But in the meantime, for over two hundred years Tyre certainly had committed fornication with all the kingdoms of the earth.

However in spite of that:

18 And her merchandise and her hire shall be holiness to the LORD: it shall not be treasured nor laid up; for her merchandise shall be for them that dwell before the LORD, to eat sufficiently, and for durable clothing. 

That the sins of apostate Israel are holiness to Yahweh seems contrary to our expectations, but evidently Yahweh had used them for His Own purposes, to accomplish His will in the world. So, in a time of Persian domination, the people of Yahweh who remained in ancient Tyre and Sidon would have had sustenance in the harlotry of their rulers. Yahweh would have done that for Israelites, but certainly not for Canaanites. Yet all along, the Tyrians and all of the original and notable Phoenicians were of Israel.

This concludes our commentary on Isaiah chapter 23.

Footnotes

1 Gesenius’ Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament, translated by Samuel Prideaux Tregelles, Baker Books, 1979, p. 499.

2 Origenis Hexaplorum, Fridericus Field, AA. M., Volume I, Clarendon Press, 1875, pp. 381-382.

3 Geography, Strabo, 16.2.22.

4 Antiquities of the Judaeans, Flavius Josephus, 8:62.

5 Library of History, Diodorus Siculus, 40.3.3-8

6 Herodotus, The Histories, 4.152;

7 Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, 25.10.1 ff.

8 Ancient Near Eastern Texts Related to the Old Testament, 3rd edition, James Pritchard, editor, 1969, Harvard University Press, p. 569.

9 Antiquities of the Judaeans, 9.283 ff.

10 The Histories, Herodotus 1:170.

11 Ancient Near Eastern Texts Related to the Old Testament, pp. 274-275.

12 ibid., pp. 275-276.

13 ibid., pp. 278-279.

14 ibid., p. 280.

15 ibid., pp. 282-283.

16 ibid., p. 287.

17 ibid., p. 477.

18 ibid., p. 290.

19 ibid., p. 292.

20 ibid., p. 295.

21 Antiquities of the Judaeans, Flavius Josephus, 10.228.

22 Against Apion, Flavius Josephus, 1.156-159.

23 Ancient Near Eastern Texts Related to the Old Testament, p. 308.

24 History of Rome, Livy (Titus Livius), Loeb Classical Library, various translators, Jeffrey Henderson, ed., Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1919-2021, various passages in Volumes 5, 6 and 8, and in the General Index, Volume 14, p. 544. 

25 The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon, F. Brown, S. Driver and C. Briggs, 1906, reprinted in 2021, Hendrickson Publishers, p. 561.

26 The Histories, Herodotus, 7.89, 7.96.

27 ibid., 2.104, 2.159.