Isaiah 23

KJV · Chapter 23/66

1The 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.

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

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

4Be 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.

5As at the report concerning Egypt, so shall they be sorely pained at the report of Tyre.

6Pass ye over to Tarshish; howl, ye inhabitants of the isle.

7Is this your joyous city, whose antiquity is of ancient days? her own feet shall carry her afar off to sojourn.

8Who hath taken this counsel against Tyre, the crowning city, whose merchants are princes, whose traffickers are the honourable of the earth?

9The Lord of hosts hath purposed it, to stain the pride of all glory, and to bring into contempt all the honourable of the earth.

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

11He 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.

12And 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.

13Behold 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.

14Howl, ye ships of Tarshish: for your strength is laid waste.

15And 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.

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

17And 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.

18And 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.

📖 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. Isaiah 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. Isaiah 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. Isaiah 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. Isaiah 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. Isaiah 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. Isaiah 23:6Calls the inhabitants to cross over to Tarshish, a distant port, fleeing and mourning the loss of their own city.
  7. Isaiah 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. Isaiah 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. Isaiah 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. Isaiah 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. Isaiah 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. Isaiah 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. Isaiah 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. Isaiah 23:14Repeats the call to mourning for the ships of Tarshish, since the power sustaining this entire maritime trade network has been destroyed.
  15. Isaiah 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. Isaiah 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. Isaiah 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. Isaiah 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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