CHAPTER XXIII _Prophecy denouncing the destruction of Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar,_ _delivered upwards of one hundred and twenty years before its_ _accomplishment, at a period when the Tyrians were in great_ _prosperity, and the Babylonians in abject subjection to the_ _Assyrian empire; and, consequ... [ Continue Reading ]
Verse Isaiah 23:2. _BE STILL _- "Be silent"] Silence is a mark of grief and consternation. See Isaiah 47:5. Jeremiah has finely expressed this image: - "The elders of the daughter of Zion sit on the ground, they are silent: They have cast up dust on their heads, they have girded themselves with... [ Continue Reading ]
Verse Isaiah 23:3. _THE SEED OF SIHOR _- "The seed of the Nile"] The Nile is called here _Shichor_, as it is Jeremiah 2:18, and 1 Chronicles 13:5. It had this name from the _blackness_ of its waters, charged with the mud which it brings down from Ethiopia when it overflows, _Et viridem_ _AEgyptum n... [ Continue Reading ]
Verse Isaiah 23:4. _BE THOU ASHAMED, O ZIDON_] Tyre is called Isaiah 23:12, the daughter of Sidon. "The Sidonians," says _Justin_, xviii. 3, "when their city was taken by the king of Ascalon, betook themselves to their ships, and landed, and built by Tyre." Sidon, as the mother city is supposed to b... [ Continue Reading ]
Verse Isaiah 23:7. _WHOSE ANTIQUITY IS OF ANCIENT DAYS_ - "Whose antiquity is of the earliest date"] Justin, in the passage above quoted, had dated the building of Tyre at a certain number of years before the taking of Troy; but the number is lost in the present copies. Tyre, though not so old as S... [ Continue Reading ]
Verse Isaiah 23:10. _O DAUGHTER OF TARSHISH_] Tyre is called the daughter of Tarshish; perhaps because, Tyre being ruined, Tarshish was become the superior city, and might be considered as the metropolis of the Tyrian people; or rather because of the close connexion and perpetual intercourse betwee... [ Continue Reading ]
Verse Isaiah 23:13. _BEHOLD THE LAND OF THE CHALDEANS_] This verse is extremely obscure; the obscurity arises from the ambiguity of the agents, which belong to the verbs, and of the objects expressed by the pronouns; from the change of number of the verbs, and of gender in the pronouns. The MSS. giv... [ Continue Reading ]
Verse Isaiah 23:14. _HOWL, YE SHIPS_] The Prophet Ezekiel hath enlarged upon this part of the same subject with great force and elegance: - "Thus saith the Lord JEHOVAH concerning Tyre: - At the sound of thy fall, at the cry of the wounded, At the great slaughter in the midst of thee, shall not... [ Continue Reading ]
Verse Isaiah 23:15. _ACCORDING TO THE DAYS OF ONE KING_] what is, of one _kingdom_; see Daniel 7:17; Daniel 8:20. Nebuchadnezzar began his conquests in the first year of his reign; from thence to the taking of Babylon by Cyrus are _seventy_ years, at which time the nations subdued by Nebuchadnezzar... [ Continue Reading ]
Verse Isaiah 23:17. _AFTER THE END OF SEVENTY YEARS_] Tyre, after its destruction by Nebuchadnezzar, recovered, as it is here foretold, its ancient trade, wealth, and grandeur; as it did likewise after a second destruction by Alexander. It became Christian early with the rest of the neighbouring co... [ Continue Reading ]