Isaiah 23:10

"Pass through the land as the Nile, O daughter of Tarshish; there is no restraint any more. He hath stretched out his hand over the sea, he hath shaken the kingdoms: Jehovah hath given commandment concerning Canaan, to destroy the stronghold thereof. And he said, Thou shalt no more rejoice, O thou oppressed virgin daughter of Sidon: arise, pass over to Kittim; even there shalt thou have no rest. Behold, the land of the Chaldeans; this people was not; the Assyrians founded it for them that dwell in the wilderness; they set up their towers; they overthrew the palaces thereof; they made it a ruin. Howl, ye ships of Tarshish; for your stronghold is laid waste."

"Pass through the land as the Nile ..." (Isaiah 23:10). This verse is admitted to be obscure in meaning; but Barnes thought that, "Just as a river flows without obstruction through a land, so the inhabitants would be scattered."[13]

Isaiah 23:11 mentions the "destruction" of Tyre, a thing that actually took place only once, in the complete sense, but which also appears in this passage to speak of the destruction by Babylon, the successful termination of that 13-year siege, being certainly a sufficient "destruction" to put the city in a state of having been forgotten for some seventy years.

"Pass over to Kittim; even there shalt thou have no rest ..." (Isaiah 23:12). "Kittim" here is generally held to be the same as the island of Cypress, a colony of Sidon, and one of the stops by ships of Tarshish on their way home to Tyre. On two occasions when Tyre fell, some of the people actually escaped in ships to Cypress.

"Behold, the land of the Chaldeans: this people was not ..." (Isaiah 23:13). Lowth seems to have been correct when he declared that this means, "that they were of no account (Deuteronomy 32:21)," that is, without any significance as a powerful nation. As a matter of fact, Babylon (most surely indicated by this mention of the Chaldeans) was not important at all until, "Some powerful king of Assyria gathered them together and settled them in Babylon."[14] Echoes of this historical fact are in this verse.

The really difficult part of Isaiah 23:13 is in the words, "They overthrew the palaces thereof, they made it a ruin." In our view, the first words of the next verse (Isaiah 23:14) compel us to interpret this as a reference to the overthrow of Tyre, not a victory over Babylon by the Assyrians. They appear in the verse as builders of Babylon, which of course, they were until Babylon rebelled and overthrew Assyria.

"Howl, ye ships of Tarshish; for your stronghold is laid waste ..." (Isaiah 23:14). All scholars admit the difficulty and ambiguity of this passage, and we are extremely suspicious of those who wish to see Isaiah's prophecy here as something which he might have been able to foresee, rather than as authentic predictive prophecy of events centuries after Isaiah lived. Only in those instances of Nebuchadnezzar's capture of Tyre and of Alexander's destruction of it may we actually find such terms as "laid waste" applicable to what happened.

We are delighted to note that a recent dependable scholar agrees with our interpretation that Isaiah 23:13-14 refer to the conquest of Tyre by Babylon, and not by Assyria. He wrote:

"In spite of the difficulties of Isaiah 23:13, since Tyre is the object of Isaiah's burden, it seems that its ruin at the hands of the Babylonians, a people from the desert wilderness, is his topic here ... The following verses bear out this view."[15]

To us, no other interpretation of this admittedly difficult passage is acceptable.

Ezekiel 26:16-21 carries another explicit prophecy of the destruction of Tyre, which also is a prophecy of the total destruction of the city, which actually occurred in 332 B.C. "Thou shalt never be found again ... I shall make thee a desolate city like the cities that are not inhabited ... The isles shall be dismayed at thy departure" (Isaiah 23:18,19,21).