Chapter 23
Tyre and Sidon
1 Oracle on Tyre:
Wail, ships of Tarshish,
for your port is destroyed;
From the land of the Kittim
the news reaches them.(A)
2 Silence! you who dwell on the coast,
you merchants of Sidon,
Whose messengers crossed the sea
3 over the deep waters,
Whose revenue was the grain of Shihor, the harvest of the Nile,
you who were the merchant among the nations.(B)
4 Be ashamed, Sidon, fortress on the sea,
for the sea has spoken,
“I have not been in labor, nor given birth,
nor raised young men,
nor reared young women.”
5 When the report reaches Egypt
they shall be in anguish at the report about Tyre.
6 Pass over to Tarshish,
wail, you who dwell on the coast!
7 Is this your exultant city,
whose origin is from old,
Whose feet have taken her
to dwell in distant lands?
8 Who has planned such a thing
against Tyre, the bestower of crowns,
Whose merchants are princes,
whose traders are the earth’s honored men?
9 The Lord of hosts has planned it,
to disgrace the height of all beauty,
to degrade all the honored of the earth.(C)
10 Cross to your own land,
ship of Tarshish;
the harbor is no more.
11 His hand he stretches out over the sea,
he shakes kingdoms;
The Lord commanded the destruction
of Canaan’s strongholds:(D)
12 Crushed, you shall exult no more,
virgin daughter Sidon.
Arise, pass over to the Kittim,
even there you shall find no rest.(E)
13 Look at the land of the Chaldeans,
the people that has ceased to be.
Assyria founded it for ships,
raised its towers,
Only to tear down its palaces,
and turn it into a ruin.(F)
14 Lament, ships of Tarshish,
for your stronghold is destroyed.
15 On that day, Tyre shall be forgotten for seventy years, the lifetime of one king. At the end of seventy years, the song about the prostitute will be Tyre’s song:
16 Take a harp, go about the city,
forgotten prostitute;
Pluck the strings skillfully, sing many songs,
that you may be remembered.
17 At the end of the seventy years the Lord shall visit Tyre. She shall return to her hire and serve as prostitute with all the world’s kingdoms on the face of the earth.(G) 18 But her merchandise and her hire shall be sacred to the Lord. It shall not be stored up or laid away; instead, her merchandise shall belong to those who dwell before the Lord, to eat their fill and clothe themselves in choice attire.
Footnotes
- 23:1–17
- 23:1
- 23:3
- 23:4
- 23:6–7
- 23:11
- 23:13
- 23:15
- 23:17–18
Cross references
- 23:1 : Jer 25:22; Ez 26; Am 1:9; Zec 9:2, 4.
- 23:3 : Ez 27:3.
- 23:9 : Is 14:24–27; 22:11; Ez 28:7.
- 23:11 : Is 14:27; Ps 65:8.
- 23:12 : Ez 28:21–22.
- 23:13 : Is 13:21; 34:14; Jer 50:39.
- 23:17 : Rev 17:5; 18:3, 11, 13.
