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A Message about Phoenicia

23 (A)This is a message about Tyre.

Howl with grief, you sailors out on the ocean! Your home port of Tyre has been destroyed; its houses and its harbor are in ruins. As your ships return from Cyprus, you learn the news. Wail, you merchants of Sidon! You sent agents across the sea to buy and sell the grain that grew in Egypt and to do business with all the nations.

City of Sidon, you are disgraced! The sea and the great ocean depths disown you and say, “I never had any children. I never raised sons or daughters.”

Even the Egyptians will be shocked and dismayed when they learn that Tyre has been destroyed.

Howl with grief, you people of Phoenicia! Try to escape to Spain! Can this be the joyful city of Tyre, founded so long ago? Is this the city that sent settlers across the sea to establish colonies? Who was it that planned to bring all this on Tyre, that imperial city, whose merchant princes were the most honored men on earth? The Lord Almighty planned it. He planned it in order to put an end to their pride in what they had done and to humiliate their honored ones.

10 Go and farm the land, you people in the colonies in Spain! There is no one to protect you any more.[a] 11 The Lord has stretched out his hand over the sea and overthrown kingdoms. He has commanded that the Phoenician centers of commerce be destroyed. 12 City of Sidon, your happiness has ended, and your people are oppressed. Even if they escape to Cyprus, they will still not be safe.

13 (It was the Babylonians, not the Assyrians, who let the wild animals overrun Tyre. It was the Babylonians who put up siege towers, tore down the fortifications of Tyre, and left the city in ruins.[b])

14 Howl with grief, you sailors out on the ocean! The city you relied on has been destroyed.

15 A time is coming when Tyre will be forgotten for seventy years, the lifetime of a king. When those years are over, Tyre will be like the prostitute in the song:

16 Take your harp, go round the town,
    you poor forgotten whore!
Play and sing your songs again
    to bring men back once more.

17 When the seventy years are over, the Lord will let Tyre go back to her old trade, and she will hire herself out to all the kingdoms of the world. 18 The money she earns by commerce will be dedicated to the Lord. She will not store it away, but those who worship the Lord will use her money to buy the food and the clothing they need.

Footnotes

  1. Isaiah 23:10 Verse 10 in Hebrew is unclear.
  2. Isaiah 23:13 Verse 13 in Hebrew is unclear.

A Prophecy Against Tyre

23 A prophecy against Tyre:(A)

Wail,(B) you ships(C) of Tarshish!(D)
    For Tyre is destroyed(E)
    and left without house or harbor.
From the land of Cyprus
    word has come to them.

Be silent,(F) you people of the island
    and you merchants(G) of Sidon,(H)
    whom the seafarers have enriched.
On the great waters
    came the grain of the Shihor;(I)
the harvest of the Nile[a](J) was the revenue of Tyre,(K)
    and she became the marketplace of the nations.

Be ashamed, Sidon,(L) and you fortress of the sea,
    for the sea has spoken:
“I have neither been in labor nor given birth;(M)
    I have neither reared sons nor brought up daughters.”
When word comes to Egypt,
    they will be in anguish(N) at the report from Tyre.(O)

Cross over to Tarshish;(P)
    wail, you people of the island.
Is this your city of revelry,(Q)
    the old, old city,
whose feet have taken her
    to settle in far-off lands?
Who planned this against Tyre,
    the bestower of crowns,
whose merchants(R) are princes,
    whose traders(S) are renowned in the earth?
The Lord Almighty planned(T) it,
    to bring down(U) her pride in all her splendor
    and to humble(V) all who are renowned(W) on the earth.

10 Till[b] your land as they do along the Nile,
    Daughter Tarshish,
    for you no longer have a harbor.
11 The Lord has stretched out his hand(X) over the sea
    and made its kingdoms tremble.(Y)
He has given an order concerning Phoenicia
    that her fortresses be destroyed.(Z)
12 He said, “No more of your reveling,(AA)
    Virgin Daughter(AB) Sidon, now crushed!

“Up, cross over to Cyprus;(AC)
    even there you will find no rest.”
13 Look at the land of the Babylonians,[c](AD)
    this people that is now of no account!
The Assyrians(AE) have made it
    a place for desert creatures;(AF)
they raised up their siege towers,(AG)
    they stripped its fortresses bare
    and turned it into a ruin.(AH)

14 Wail, you ships(AI) of Tarshish;(AJ)
    your fortress is destroyed!(AK)

15 At that time Tyre(AL) will be forgotten for seventy years,(AM) the span of a king’s life. But at the end of these seventy years, it will happen to Tyre as in the song of the prostitute:

16 “Take up a harp, walk through the city,
    you forgotten prostitute;(AN)
play the harp well, sing many a song,
    so that you will be remembered.”

17 At the end of seventy years,(AO) the Lord will deal with Tyre. She will return to her lucrative prostitution(AP) and will ply her trade with all the kingdoms on the face of the earth.(AQ) 18 Yet her profit and her earnings will be set apart for the Lord;(AR) they will not be stored up or hoarded. Her profits will go to those who live before the Lord,(AS) for abundant food and fine clothes.(AT)

Footnotes

  1. Isaiah 23:3 Masoretic Text; Dead Sea Scrolls Sidon, / who cross over the sea; / your envoys are on the great waters. / The grain of the Shihor, / the harvest of the Nile,
  2. Isaiah 23:10 Dead Sea Scrolls and some Septuagint manuscripts; Masoretic Text Go through
  3. Isaiah 23:13 Or Chaldeans