Isaiah 23:1

THE BURDEN OF TYRE

Although this chapter is labeled "The burden of Tyre" in the first verse; yet it actually contains the burden of Tyre, the burden of Sidon, and the burden of the whole of Phoenicia.

There are four divisions in the chapter: (1) a prophecy of doom (Isaiah 23:1-5), (2) God is the executioner of wicked nations (Isaiah 23:6-9), (3) the extent of Tyre's destruction (Isaiah 23:10-14), and (4) the prophecy of Tyre's renewal (Isaiah 23:15-18). This chapter concludes the second major division of the prophecy, concluding the denunciations hurled by the prophet against a dozen nations.

Present-day commentators are reluctant to decide which destruction of Tyre is here prophesied; but the Assyrian "destruction" which is favored by some cannot be fully established. Sure, there were defeats of Tyre by a number of Assyrian invaders; but by paying heavy tribute, and by certain other accommodations the Tyrians were usually able to maintain some semblance of autonomy except in two instances: (1) that of the 13-year siege by Nebuchadnezzar from, 587-574 B.C., and (2) that of Alexander the Great in 332 B.C. which lasted seven months and was completed when Alexander built a mole out to the island city and literally scraped all of it into the sea.[1] Of course, critical commentators are blind to either one of these sieges on account of their absurd dictum about "predictive prophecy." We feel very certain that these are precisely the sieges foretold by the prophecy. In fact, the mention of the Chaldeans in Isaiah 23:13 is the only proof of this needed.

Isaiah 23:1-5

"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 Kittim it is revealed to them. Be still ye inhabitants of the coast, thou whom the merchants of Sidon, that pass over the sea, have replenished. And on great waters the seed of the Shihor, the harvest of the Nile was her revenue; and she was the mart of nations. Be thou ashamed, O Sidon; for the sea hath spoken, the stronghold of the sea, I have not travailed, nor brought forth, neither have I nourished young men, nor brought up virgins. When the report cometh to Egypt, they shall be sorely pained at the report of Tyre."

TYRE

This city was one of the first great cities on earth. Herodotus gave the date of its founding as 2300 B.C.[2] It stood for many centuries as the prime example of commercialism; and Hailey believed that it was in its capacity as a center of commerce that it received God's prophetic condemnation here. Having already proclaimed the doom of great political and military powers, as well as the centers of decadent paganism, God, as Hailey saw it, was here denouncing "the world capital of commerce."[3] We cannot fully agree with this, because Tyre in this chapter represents the entire coastal country. She is identified with Sidon in Isaiah 23:4; and "Tyre and Sidon" are mentioned together throughout the New Testament especially; and, even in the Old Testament, the godless wife of Ahab was identified as the "daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Sidonians." She was the one who murdered the prophets of God, installed Baal as the God of Northern Israel and moved hundreds of pagan priests into the country. Therefore, although the selfish, wicked commercialism of Tyre was indeed condemned by the Lord's denunciation here, that was by no means the full extent of their sins.

It is generally believed that Tarshish, as mentioned here must be identified with Tartessus, a colony of Tyre built upon the southwest coastline of Spain "beyond the Pillars of Hercules, which was the center of an important and lucrative commerce."[4]

"No house, no entering in ..." Such words as these denoted the total ruin of Tyre, something that did not occur until the ruin of the city by Nebuchadnezzar; and even in that conquest, Tyre continued "for the life of one king (seventy years)," in a sense "forgotten" and of no particular importance till later. The fulfillment of this line "no house ... no entering in" took place in the siege by Alexander in 332 B.C. It happened like this: After taking the Tyre on the coast, Alexander tore down all the houses of Tyre, using them to construct a mole all the way out to the island city itself, which was literally scraped into the sea. The critics, of course, would date this prophecy, not merely "after the exile"[5] but after 332 if they dared; but Alexander himself indicated belief in these very prophecies. See the full discussion of this in my Commentary on Daniel (Vol. 1 of the Major Prophets), pp. 9-11.

"Merchants of Sidon ..." Here Sidon stands for Tyre and all of Phoenicia. The ships of Tarshish (Isaiah 23:1) are the same vessels referred to here as "ships of Sidon." After all, Sidon was the mother city of Tyre; and, "Old coins, excavated from the ruins of Tyre, carry the legend, "The metropolis of the Sidonians."[6]

"On great waters the seed of the Shihor ..." This is a reference to the extensive products of the Nile valley usually carried by the ships of Tarshish and Sidon to the great cities of the Mediterranean. "`Shihor' is related to the word `black,' which is given to the Nile river because of the black sediment carried by that river in its annual overflow."[7] This name for the Nile also occurs in Jeremiah 2:18, and in 1 Chronicles 8:5.

"Be thou ashamed, O Sidon ..." (Isaiah 23:4) "Sidon, called the mother of Tyre in Isaiah 23:12, is here represented as deeply affected by the calamity of her daughter."[8] For the people of antiquity, childlessness was as great a disgrace as any other calamity; and Sidon's daughter Tyre having been mined is here designated as the shame of Sidon.

Isaiah 23:5 refers to the pain that was supposed to come to Egypt over the fall of Tyre. As Rawlinson suggested, "Egypt bore no great affection toward any foreign nation";[9] but, as Tyre was a buffer stronghold on the Egyptian border, the fall of it would indeed be a source of pain and apprehension on the part of the Egyptians. Whatever nation would be strong enough to take Tyre could reasonably be expected to launch a campaign against the Nile valley also.