1A portent concerning Tyre.
Wail, O Tarshish ships,
When they came from the land of Kittim,
it was revealed to them.
2Be still, you coastland dwellers,
traders of Sidon.
3over the many waters.
Grain of Shihor, harvest of the Nile, her yield,
and she became the trade of nations.
4Be ashamed, Sidon,
for the sea has said,
the stronghold of the sea:
“I did not labor, did not give birth,
and I did not nurture young men,
nor raise up virgin girls.”
5When Egypt heard of it,
they shook as when hearing of Tyre.
6Pass on to Tarshish,
wail, you coastland dwellers.
7Is this your reveling one,
from days of yore, her ancient past,
whose feet led her
to sojourn far away?
8Who has counseled this
whose traders are nobles,
her merchants notables of the land?
9The LORD of Armies counseled it
to profane the pride of all splendor,
to debase all notables of the land.
10Pass through your land like the Nile,
O Daughter of Tarshish—
11His hand He stretched over the sea,
He made kingdoms quake.
The LORD has charged concerning Canaan
to destroy her strongholds.
12And He said: You shall no longer revel,
oppressed Virgin Daughter of Sidon.
Rise, cross over to Kittim.
There, too, you shall have no respite.
13Look, the land of the Chaldeans,
this is the people that is no more.
Assyria founded it for ships,
they put up their siege-towers,
laid waste its citadels,
turned it into ruins.
14Wail, O Tarshish ships,
for your stronghold has been sacked.
15And it shall happen on that day that Tyre shall be forgotten for seventy years, like the days of a single king. At the end of the seventy years it shall be with Tyre as the song about the whore:
16Take up a lyre, go round the town,
so that you remember.
17And it shall happen at the end of the seventy years that God shall single out Tyre, and she shall go back to her whore’s pay and go whoring with all the kingdoms of the world on the face of the earth. 18But her trade and her whore’s pay shall be consecrated to the LORD. It shall not be stocked and shall not be stored, but her trade shall be for those dwelling before the LORD, eating their fill, and for rich attire.
CHAPTER 23 NOTES
Click here to advance to the next section of the text.
1. for their house is sacked. The Masoretic Text reads mibayit, “from within” (or “from a house”). This translation assumes that a scribe inadvertently transposed a mem at the end of the word, which would be a possessive plural suffix, to the beginning, and that the original text had beytam.
When they came from the land of Kittim, / it was revealed to them. Some scholars identify the land of Kittim with Cyprus, although that is not entirely certain. In any case, the Phoenicians were great seafaring merchants, as this poem repeatedly reminds us; what is envisioned here is that one such party of merchants, on their return from a Mediterranean voyage, discover that their city has been devastated.
2. Be still. Many interpreters argue that the meaning of this verb is “moan” or “howl,” in consonance with “wail” at the beginning of the first line of the poem. A supposed Akkadian cognate is cited as evidence. But the word domu everywhere else means “to be still,” or “silent,” and there is no reason that the poet could not have imagined two antithetical responses to disaster—wailing and then dumbfounded silence.
Your agents. The translation emends milʾ ukh, “they filled you,” to malʾ akhayikh, “your agents.”
3. Shihor . . . Nile. Both names refer to the same river. The second might be an editorial gloss on the first or a simple poetic apposition.
4. I did not labor, did not give birth. The point of this speech is not entirely clear, but since in prophecies of destruction, young men (baḥurim) and virgins (betulot) are often said to be killed, they being the icons of a people’s pride and joy, what the sea may be saying is: I had no part in bringing these young men and women into the world and rearing them, so if they have perished, it is not my affair.
5. as when hearing of Tyre. This probably means that “it” refers to the destruction of Sidon, the other chief Phoenician city, and that the report of the destruction of Tyre reached Egypt first.
7. Is this your reveling one, / . . . whose feet led her / to sojourn far away? Tarshish (verse 6) would have been one of the distant Mediterranean ports to the west plied by Phoenician ships. The Phoenicians in fact were great colonizers, establishing major centers in North Africa and as far away as Spain.
8. crowned Tyre. The Hebrew maʿ atirah is, more literally, “crown-wearing.”
10. Pass through your land like the Nile. This might mean: just as the Nile runs through all of Egypt, Tyre is enjoined to pass through all her land.
there is no more a harbor. The meaning of the word rendered as “harbor” is not entirely certain, but this sense seems likely. For Tyre, a coastal city dependent on seafaring trade, to be without a harbor is the ultimate sign of devastation.
11. Canaan. This reference may seem anomalous, but there is no textual warrant for changing it to the name of one of the Phoenician cities. It may simply be the case that the poet viewed the coastal stretch from Canaan north into Phoenicia as a single continuum, a notion echoed in the modern scholarly usage that speaks of a “Syro-Canaanite” culture.
12. There, too, you shall have no respite. The distant regions that were either trading partners or sites of colonization for the Phoenicians now can offer them neither refuge nor comfort.
13. the land of the Chaldeans. The switch of viewpoint to Mesopotamia is intended to offer an object lesson to Sidon and Tyre: just as the Chaldeans became a “people that is no more,” so now will be the fate of the Phoenicians. It must be said that scholarly attempts to tie in this prophecy of the destruction of Tyre and Sidon with a particular historical event have not been convincing, and it could be that this is all a kind of prophetic fantasy rather than the report of an event.
15. the song about the whore. This is a rare moment when the prophet incorporates a piece of the popular culture of his times into his text, though from the two lines quoted, it is difficult to recover the narrative content of the song.
16. forgotten whore. The implication seems to be that she is a whore who has long been neglected by her clients, perhaps because she is past her prime.
Play sweetly many songs, / so that you remember. This image is clearly plaintive: the forgotten whore is enjoined to play the lyre and sing songs—perhaps love songs—that will help her recall the days gone by when she was much sought after.
17. her whore’s pay. Despite the effort of most translations to bowdlerize this as “trade” or “free,” the unambiguous meaning of the Hebrew ʾetnan is payment received by a prostitute for her sexual services. The Israelites, a nation of farmers and pastoralists in the earlier biblical period, viewed the trade-based economy of their northern neighbors as an activity of shady dealing, a kind of prostitution. Tyre is imagined, after a canonical period of seventy years following her destruction, renewing her former trade ties, returning to her old whoring ways.
18. But her trade and her whore’s pay shall be consecrated to the LORD. How this will come about is in no way explained. Somehow, the again prosperous Tyre will funnel her profits to Judah, enabling a life of luxury for the people dwelling in the LORD’s presence (the sense of “before the LORD”), which is to say, in the vicinity of the Jerusalem temple.