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Isaías 23

BLIVRE · Chapter 23/66

1Revelação sobre Tiro:Uivai, navios de Társis, pois ela está arruinada, sem sobrar casa alguma, nem entrada [nela] . Desde a terra do Chipre isto [lhes] foi informado.

2Calai-vos, moradores do litoral; vós mercadores de Sidom, que vos enchíeis [pelos] que atravessavam o mar.

3E sua renda era os grãos de Sior, a colheita do Nilo, [que vinha] por muitas águas. Ela era o centro de comércio das nações.

4Envergonha-te, Sidom; pois o mar falou, a fortaleza do mar disse: Eu não tive dores de parto, nem de mim nasceu criança; nunca criei meninos nem eduquei virgens.

5Quando as notícias [chegarem] ao Egito, eles se angustiarão com as informações de Tiro.

6Passai-vos a Társis; uivai, moradores do litoral!

7É esta a vossa alegre cidade? A que existia desde os tempos antigos? Eram os pés dela que a levavam para alcançar lugares distantes?

8Quem foi, pois, que determinou isto contra Tiro, a que dava coroas, que cujos mercadores eram príncipes, e cujos comerciantes eram os mais ilustres da terra?

9Foi o SENHOR dos exércitos que determinou isto, para envergonhar o orgulho de sua beleza, e humilhar a todos os ilustres da terra.

10Passa-te como o rio à tua terra, ó filha de Társis, [pois] já não há mais fortaleza.

11Ele estendeu sua mão sobre o mar, [e] abalou aos reinos; o SENHOR deu uma ordem contra Canaã, para destruir suas fortalezas.

12E disse: Nunca mais te encherás de alegria, ó oprimida virgem, filha de Sidom; levanta-te, passa ao Chipre; e alinda ali não terás descanso.

13Olhai para a terra dos Caldeus, este que deixou de ser povo. A Assíria a fundou para os que moravam no deserto; levantaram suas fortalezas, e derrubaram seus palácios; transformou-a em ruínas.

14Uivai, navios de Társis; porque destruída está vossa fortaleza.

15E será naquele dia, que Tiro será esquecida por setenta anos, como dias de um rei; [mas] ao fim de setenta anos, haverá em Tiro [algo] como a canção da prostituta:

16Toma uma harpa, rodeia a cidade, ó prostituta esquecida; toca boa música, [e] canta várias canções, para que tu sejas lembrada.

17Pois será que, ao fim de setenta anos, o SENHOR visitará a Tiro, e voltará à sua atividade, prostituindo-se com todos os reinos do mundo que há sobre a face da terra.

18Mas seu comércio e seus ganhos como prostituta serão consagrados ao SENHOR; não serão guardados nem depositados; mas seu comércio será para os que habitam perante o SENHOR, para que comam até se saciarem, e tenham roupas de boa qualidade.

📖 Chapter study

Summary

A lament over the fall of Tyre, the great Phoenician trading city, whose maritime commerce and wealth would be destroyed. After seventy years of being forgotten, however, Tyre would resume its trade, this time dedicated to the Lord.

Explanation

Tyre was the most important port city of antiquity, an international trading center known for its ships and merchants who reached as far as distant Tarshish (probably in present-day Spain). The comparison of Tyre to a prostitute who resumes her 'trade' after being forgotten uses an image common in prophetic literature to describe a city whose identity was profitable commerce above all else. At the end, there is a note of redemption: even Tyre's profit would, in the future, be consecrated to the Lord, showing that God can redirect even wealth gained in pagan contexts toward His own purposes. The application today is to remember that material prosperity has no eternal value if it is not connected to something greater than profit itself.

Fun facts

  • Tyre was so commercially influential that archaeologists have found traces of the distinctive Phoenician purple dye (extracted from a sea mollusk) at trading sites throughout the Mediterranean, confirming the reach described in the text.
  • The 'seventy years' of Tyre being forgotten is the same number used for Judah's Babylonian exile (Jeremiah 25:11), a number the Hebrew prophets seemed to use as a symbol of a complete cycle of punishment.

Verse-by-verse explanation

  1. Isaías 23:1Tarshish and Chittim (Cyprus) were destinations and ports of call along Phoenician shipping routes. The oracle is directed at Tyre, the great port city, and the warning reaches its ships first.
  2. Isaías 23:2Calls the inhabitants of the island, the island city of Tyre, whose prosperous merchants from neighboring Sidon crossed the seas trading, to be silent — the silence marks the abrupt end of that activity.
  3. Isaías 23:3Explains where Tyre’s wealth came from: grain from Egypt carried by the Nile, turning the city into a great international trading hub, a meeting point between nations.
  4. Isaías 23:4Sidon is called to be ashamed, because the sea itself, personified as a maritime stronghold, declares it has borne no children — an image of total barrenness, the end of a city that once thrived and grew.
  5. Isaías 23:5Just as the news of Egypt’s fall caused shock, the news of Tyre’s fall will cause the same kind of grief among the nations that depended on it.
  6. Isaías 23:6Calls the inhabitants to cross over to Tarshish, a distant port, fleeing and mourning the loss of their own city.
  7. Isaías 23:7A bitter, rhetorical question: is this the same festive, ancient city that must now flee far away, exiled by its own feet, with none of its past glory left?
  8. Isaías 23:8Calling Tyre “the crowning city” describes its role as a city that enriched and gave prestige to kings and merchants throughout the region. Its traders were treated like princes because of the city’s commercial power.
  9. Isaías 23:9Explains the reason behind the fall: the LORD of hosts Himself planned this to humble the pride of so much wealth and bring down the most honored of the earth — direct judgment against the excess of commercial pride.
  10. Isaías 23:10Calls the “daughter of Tarshish,” Tyre’s trading colony, to spread out freely like a river, since there is no longer a central port controlling the trade.
  11. Isaías 23:11God stretches out His hand over the sea and shakes entire kingdoms: it was He who ordered the destruction of Canaan’s strongholds, including Tyre and Sidon.
  12. Isaías 23:12God declares that the “oppressed virgin,” Sidon, will never again rejoice as before; even fleeing to Cyprus, she will find no rest there.
  13. Isaías 23:13Chaldea, the region where Babylon was located, had been raised up by Assyria itself as an outpost in the wilderness. It is a real historical detail about how ancient empires founded and later lost control of their own creations.
  14. Isaías 23:14Repeats the call to mourning for the ships of Tarshish, since the power sustaining this entire maritime trade network has been destroyed.
  15. Isaías 23:15Tyre’s seventy years of being forgotten describe a long but not eternal period of commercial irrelevance. After that, the text says Tyre returns to trading, called prostitution as a common metaphor of the time for dealing with any nation without fixed loyalty, not literally about sex.
  16. Isaías 23:16In an ironic image, Tyre is compared to a forgotten prostitute who must play the harp and sing through the streets just to be remembered again — a way of saying the city will need to start from scratch to recover its commercial fame.
  17. Isaías 23:17After the seventy years mentioned in the previous verse, God will “visit” Tyre again, and it goes back to trading with all the nations of the world, with the same opportunistic commercial spirit compared to prostitution.
  18. Isaías 23:18But this time, Tyre’s trading profits will be dedicated to the LORD, not hoarded as treasure — the earnings will support those who serve God, with food and lasting clothing, a transformation of the purpose of the city’s wealth.

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