Bible Commentaries

IV. PROPHECY AGAINST TYPE

Isaiah 23

All the nations hitherto mentioned, bordering on Judah, come under the power of Assyria. But Tyre, according to verse13, is to fall a prey to the Chaldæans. This prophecy is placed last on account of its fulfilment belonging to a time subsequent to the supremacy of Assyria. Tyre was not only the head of the minor Phœnician states, but was also the mistress of the sea, both for commerce and war; and for these two reasons was the most important ally of Egypt. He who would attack Egypt from the north must first seek to possess himself of Tyre, which was the bulwark of Egypt. Assyria had long an eye on Egypt. They were, in fact, natural rivals. Shalmaneser, rightly perceiving the importance which Tyre had for his plans against Egypt, made himself master of Phœnicia, with exception of insular Tyre, which he blockaded for five years, and sought, by cutting off its supply of water, to force to surrender. Whether he succeeded in this attempt cannot be definitely ascertained. In any case Tyre suffered no great loss. Our prophecy must have had its rise at this time. For further particulars see below in remarks on Isaiah 33:15-18. Rationalistic interpreters place this alternative before us in regard to the genuineness of the prophecy. Either the prophecy refers to a conquest of Tyre by the Assyrians—in that case it is genuine; or it is intended to announce a conquest by the Chaldaeans—in that case it is spurious. It is admitted that it bears the marks of having Isaiah for its author. But it is judged impossible for Isaiah to have announced the Chaldæans as the conquerors of Tyre. I believe it would be more scientific not to regard this as impossible, but to treat it as a problem. Even Knobel defends the authenticity of the prophecy against the shallow objections drawn from language and history by Hitzig and Movers (Tübingen Quarterly Journal III. p506 sqq.). Movers afterwards modified his view so as to allow chapter23. to be genuine, but revised and altered by Jeremiah (Phoen. II:1, p396, Note). Knobel defends also its integrity against Eichhorn, Ewald and Meier. The Isaiah 23:15-18 stand and fall with the expression “the land of the Chaldæans,” Isaiah 23:13. The piece consists of two parts, of which the first ( Isaiah 23:1-14) has for its subject the fall of Tyre, the second (vers15–18) Tyre’s restoration.

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a) The fall of Tyre

Isaiah 23:1-14

1 The 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.

2 Be ¹still, ye inhabitants of the isle;

Thou whom the merchants of Zidon, that pass over the sea,

Have replenished.

3 And by great waters the seed of Sihor,

The harvest of the river, is her revenue;

And ²she is a mart of nations.

4 Be thou ashamed, O Zidon; for the sea hath spoken,

Even the strength of the sea, saying,

³I travail not, nor bring forth children,

Neither do I nourish up young men,

Nor bring up young virgins.

5 ⁴As at the report concerning Egypt,

So shall they be sorely pained at the report of Tyre.

6 Pass ye over to Tarshish;

Howl, ye inhabitants of the isle.

7 ⁵Is this your joyous city,

Whose antiquity is of ancient days?

⁶Her own feet shall carry her afar off to sojourn.

8 Who hath taken this counsel against Tyre, ⁷the crowning city;

Whose merchants are princes,

Whose traffickers are the honourable of the earth?

9 The Lord of hosts hath purposed it,

To ⁸stain the pride of all glory,

And to bring into contempt all the honorable of the earth.

10 Pass through thy land as a river,

O daughter of Tarshish:

There is no more ⁹strength.

11 He stretched out his hand over the sea;

He shook the kingdoms.

The Lord hath given a commandment ¹⁰against ¹¹the merchant city

To destroy the ¹²Strongholds thereof.

12 And 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.

13 Behold, the land of the Chaldeans;

This people was not:—

¹³Till 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.

14 Howl, ye ships of Tarshish;

For your strength is laid waste.

TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL

Isaiah 23:1. הילילי which is first found in Joel ( Isaiah 1:5; Isaiah 1:11; Isaiah 1:13), occurs besides in Isaiah only in the first prophecy against Babylon ( Isaiah 13:6 here evidently borrowed from Joel) and in the form הֵילִילִי in the Massa against the Philistines ( Isaiah 14:31).

[סְחַר is obviously the construct state, and is referred by Ewald to סַחַר, by Gesenius to an assumed form סָחָר.—D. M.].

[Delitzsch pertinently asks, “Who does not in these words hear Isaiah speak?”—D. M.].

Isaiah 23:5. בִּ before שׁמע marks coincidence, שֵׁמַע is the accusative of time.

Isaiah 23:7. ַעלִּיזָה (comp. Isaiah 22:2) involves perhaps an allusion to the Phœnician female name Elissa. יוֹבִיל (הֵבִיא=) is to lead, to bring. מרחוק afar (comp. on Isaiah 22:3).

Isaiah 23:11. מעזניה is treated by some, e.g., Olshausen, as an anomaly; by others it is supposed capable of explanation. We must agree with those who regard it as an anomalous form which has arisen by some oversight.

Isaiah 23:13. בַּחִין, Keri בַּחוּן from בָּחַן explorare is the specula, turris exploratoria. The word occurs only here. עוֹרְרוּ Pilel from ערר (= עָרָה nudum esse, Isaiah 22:6, עוּר Habakkuk 3:9) nudare, to make naked, i.e., to uncover by overturning. The conjugation Pilel only here, Pilpel Jeremiah 51:58. מַפֵלָה besides only Isaiah 25:2. Comp. מֵפָלָה Isaiah 17:1.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

1. The Prophet in the first place calls upon the Tyrian mariners sojourning in Tarshish far from their home, to break forth into loud lamentation. as the tidings have come to them across the land of Chittim that their home is destroyed, and a return thither is no longer possible ( Isaiah 23:1). Then in a brief word stillness, eternal silence is enjoined on insular Tyre, that had been hitherto the noisy centre of the Phœnician commerce, the great negotiator between Egypt with its abundance of products and the other nations (verses2,3). Then Zidon is reminded of the shame it will feel, when, on coming to the site of Tyre, it will find no children there, but only the dead rock and unfruitful sea (verse4). Egypt, too, learns the report, and is affrighted ( Isaiah 23:5). Nothing remains for Tyre but to flee to Tarshish, as its ships can no more return to Tyre ( Isaiah 23:6). Next, the Prophet makes a comparison between what Tyre was and what it is. The terrible blow falls on a joyous city having a wide dominion from ancient time ( Isaiah 23:7). But from whom does this whole purpose respecting Tyre proceed? From Jehovah who humbles all pride ( Isaiah 23:8-9), who liberates the nations hitherto oppressed by Tyre ( Isaiah 23:10), who rules over sea and nations, in order to exercise judgment on the haughty Phœnicians, who now must flee into distant countries, to find even there no rest ( Isaiah 23:11-12). But what people will be the instrument in Jehovah’s hand to execute this judgment? It will be the people of the Chaldaeans, hitherto not a nation, but who will one day make Assyria a habitation for the beasts of the desert. This people sets up its siege apparatus against Tyre, throws down the high buildings, and reduces the city to ruins ( Isaiah 23:13). With the cry, “Howl, ye ships of Tarshish, for your strength is laid waste,” the discourse closes as it began ( Isaiah 23:14).

2. The burden of Tyre——revealed to them.

Isaiah 23:1. Attention has properly been called to the fact that the first Massa (xiii.) was directed against Babylon, the greatest worldly power possessing supreme dominion on the land, the rich and luxurious consumer of all precious productions of the earth; and that, on the other hand, the last Massa has for its subject the first power on the sea, the centre of the world’s commerce, the great purveyor of all things that are costly, or that minister to enjoyment. Here too we can add that the worldly power first threatened with a Massa, is according to Isaiah 23:13 to execute the judgment on the one last threatened. The ships of Tarshish (comp. on Isaiah 2:16) are addressed by metonymy instead of the mariners sailing in them. The form of expression is singularly brief and concise. They are to howl בִּי שֻׁדַּד, i.e. that it has been laid waste, that a destruction, a devastation has taken place ( Isaiah 15:1), and such a one as excludes the mariners from their house and home, and from a return home (בּוֹא the opposite of יָצָא, e.g., in designating the setting of the sun). מִן has a negative signification, and the force of an ecbatic conjunction, marking the result. That the destruction which renders it impossible for the Tyrian mariners to return home is the destruction of Tyre itself, is self-evident. The Prophet is too sparing of his words to say that. This sad news has come from the land of the Chittim to the Tyrian mariners far away from their home. The report reached Chittim first, and thence was carried to Tarshish. They do not learn the news in Chittim, but it comes from it; for the text is “from the land,” not “in the land.” The name Chittim is found in Citium, Κίττιον, Κίτιον, Κήτιον, the name of a considerable port in the island of Cyprus. The Chittim are then, in the first place, the inhabitants of the island of Cyprus. In a wider signification, however, the word denotes the islands and maritime countries of the Mediterranean Sea in general ( Isaiah 23:12; Genesis 10:4; Jeremiah 2:10; Ezekiel 27:6; Daniel 11:30), comp. on Jeremiah 2:10. נִנְלָה (comp. Isaiah 22:14; Isaiah 38:12; Isaiah 40:5; Isaiah 53:1) intimates that the report received from the land of the Chittim was a sure one. Therefore they are summoned to howl.

3. Be still——of the nations.

Isaiah 23:2-3. The Prophet passes from the extreme west to the extreme east of the Mediterranean Sea. He calls now to the Tyrians themselves; דּמּוּ, i.e. be silent, be still (the word only here in Isaiah). He means evidently dumb, speechless amazement (comp. Exodus 15:16). אִי is terra maritima, including not only an island but also continental territory having a sea coast (comp. on Isaiah 11:11; Isaiah 20:6). Old Tyre was on the mainland and possessed no harbor. Insular Tyre lay30 stadia north of Palae-Tyrus, and 3 stadia from the mainland. It had excellent harbors, the best on the whole coast of Palestine (Movers,Phoen. II, I, p176). As according to the latter part of Isaiah 23:2, only that Tyre can here be meant which the merchants that pass over the sea filled, we must understand insular Tyre under אִי. The word is masculine, but is here treated as feminine, as the feminine suffix in מִלְאוּךְ refers to אִי. The merchants of Zidon (which was an older city, comp. Justin Isaiah 18:3) filled Tyrus, says the Prophet. Zidon was itself a seaport town, but the port of Tyre was better. The Zidonians had in the 13 th century, B. C, laid out a port and city on the rocky islands of Tyre (comp. Movers,Phoen. II, 313; Justin Isaiah 18:3; Isaiah 18:5). Hiram completed this plan by building the suburb Eurychoros on the east side of the smaller island, and the new city on this smaller island; and at the same time he connected the new city with the western or old city, which was on the larger island. It is readily conceivable that beside the Tyrians, chiefly Zidonian merchants and mariners filled the port and city of insular Tyre. How could old Egypt, a neighboring country, excelling as it once did, all the nations of the East in agriculture and industry, avoid coming into the liveliest intercourse with the great commercial centre, Tyre? The one was necessary to the other. Of late years Ebers in particular (Egypt and the Books of Moses I, p127 sqq.) has shown the ancient connection of Phœnicia with Egypt. The Phœnician alphabet, as can be positively demonstrated in regard at least to the greater part of the letters, is derived from the hieratic written characters of the Egyptians. “In the third millenium B. C,” says Ebers,ut supra, p149, the Phœnicians stood in close intercourse with Egypt, learned from the subjects of the Pharaohs the cursive mode of writing, and communicated the same to all nations of Western Asia and of Europe.” But the Phœnicians received from the Egyptians, not merely intellectual, but also material goods for their own use, and to trade with distant regions: Isaiah 23:3, By great waters,i.e., by the Nile and the sea came the seed of Sihor, and the harvest of the river (comp. on Isaiah 19:7, where a like expression is to be noted) to Tyre, and so became the income of this city, what was gathered into it. Sihor שִׁחֹר Hebraized from Σῖρις the vernacular name of the Upper Nile, but as a Hebrew word formed from the root שָׁחַר, niger fuit, Job 30:30=the black river, Μέλας. The name Sihor denotes undoubtedly the Nile, Jeremiah 2:18; the places ( 1 Chronicles 13:5; Joshua 13:3; Joshua 19:26) are uncertain. The double designation seed of the Nile and harvest of the river is a poetic parallelism which resolves one conception into two, which, it is true, are not equivalent. What was sown and reaped on the Nile the Tyrians gathered in, not to keep it wholly for themselves, but only in order to secure commercial profit by selling it again. Translate the last clause of Isaiah 23:3, “And it (the income of Tyre, what was gathered into it) became the merchandise of the nations.” What the Tyrians brought in from Egypt goes out from them as profitable merchandise to all nations.

4. Be thou ashamed——of the isle.

Isaiah 23:4-6. Who should be more affected by the fate of Tyre than its mother Zidon in the north, and its neighbor and commercial friend Egypt in the south? Zidon is accordingly bidden to be ashamed at suffering the disgrace of seeing her offspring die out in the second generation. Early extinction of race was regarded as a punishment inflicted by God, and awakened the suspicion of either open or secret crime on the part of the person thus visited (comp. the Book of Job). For this reason want of children was a reproach ( Genesis 30:23; Isaiah 4:1; Luke 1:25). By “the sea and the strength (fortress) of the sea,” most interpreters understand the city of Tyre itself, and the complaint I have not travailed nor brought forth,etc., is supposed to mean: I have lost again all the children born of me. But it must appear strange in the highest degree that Tyre, because it is situated in the sea, and lives from the sea, should itself be called “sea.” And “I have not brought forth,” etc.,” is something quite different from “I have lost again my children.” Jerome takes the words “I have not travailed,” etc., as words of the sea used metaphorically: “frustra divitias comportavi, . … illa dives illa luxuriosa et populorum quondam gaudens multitudine, in qua nascebatur turba mortalium, caterva puerorum, juventutis examina, cujus plateae virginum. … ac juvenum. … lusibus perstrepebant, nunc ad solitudinem redacta est.” But even according to this view a meaning is artificially put upon the figurative speech which is not necessarily contained in its terms. I believe that a literal, and not metaphorical interpretation suits better both the context and the words employed. Zidon comes to Tyre, her daughter, to look around her. But with shame must the mother behold the place empty where her daughter with her many children had dwelt. She sees nothing but the sea, and the natural bulwark on which the waves of the sea break, the bare rocks of insular Tyre. And the sea together with the bulwark calls to Zidon, ashamed at the sight: “I have not travailed,” etc, i.e. thou seekest children, but findest nothing else than rock and sea, which do not travail nor bring forth, nor nourish children. [Alexander seems to me to set forth in brief terms the correct view of Isaiah 23:4 : “The Prophet hears a voice from the sea, which he then describes more exactly as coming from the stronghold or fortress of the sea, i.e., insular Tyre as viewed from the mainland. The rest of the verse is intended to express the idea, that the city thus personified was childless, was as if she had never borne children.”—D. M.]. Isaiah 23:5. As Zidon is ashamed after the fall of Tyre so Egypt is terrified. Translate: “when the report comes to Egypt.” The concluding words of the verse seem to contain an empty pleonasm. But this is not the case. The Prophet intends to say: Egypt is affrighted, as the report (reaches, comes to) it, namely, the judgment of Tyre. The terror will correspond to the importance which the fall of Tyre must have both positively and negatively for Egypt. The words of the sixth verse I take as a call uttered by those who have heard the report concerning Tyre, first of all, by the Egyptians. These are forthwith impressed by the thought that nothing further remains for the surviving Tyrians to do than to flee with howling as far away as possible to the opposite end of the earth, to Tarshish. There is yet another reason why Tarshish is the place to which Tyre should flee. There, according to Isaiah 23:1, its ships are staying, which cannot return home, and which are now the only property and refuge of the mother country.

5. Is this your joyous——no rest.

Isaiah 23:7-12. These verses contain words of the Prophet. He contrasts what Tyre was once with what it is now. הזאת, etc., is a question. Must it so happen to you? Must this be your lot, as it were, the end of the song? And must such a conclusion follow the joyful beginning? We feel the antithesis between עליזה and the condition to which זאת points. A joyous, because glorious and powerful city was Tyre, and this foundation of its joy was deep and broad. For its origin (ַקדְמָהprincipium, origo, in Isaiah only here) dates from ancient time, and its power extended to the most distant countries. Herodotus, who was himself in Tyre, relates (II:44) that the priests in the temple of Hercules had declared the age of the city and temple to be2,300 years. As Herodotus was in Phœnicia in the year450 b. c, this would carry back the founding of Tyre to the year2,750 b. c, and Movers (II:1, p135) finds this quite credible. Moreover, this age in comparison with that of the oldest Egyptian things of which we have accounts, would not be a very high one. Comp. Strabo XVI:2, 22; Curt. IV:4. Her feet carried her afar (see on Isaiah 22:3) to dwell. It cannot be objected to our explanation that Tyre reached by ship those distant places, and that therefore not flight into regions beyond the sea, but carrying away into captivity, therefore painful migration on foot is held out in prospect to her. For it is unjustifiable to press the expression “feet,” and we dare not think on a future migration to a distance, because such a thought is here inept. It would be proper in Isaiah 23:6, and also in Isaiah 23:12 it suits the connection; but in Isaiah 23:7 it makes the impression of tautology. Isaiah 23:8. But who is he who had the power to decree this concerning the rich old Tyre of far-reaching might? The Prophet in the following verses shows a great interest in answering this question. Tyre was not merely the wearer of crowns, but also the bestower of crowns (העטיר). This can hardly mean that she herself had crowned kings. (Comp. Hiram, 2 Samuel 5:11; 1 Kings 6:1; Jeremiah 27:3). For many cities had these, which are not for this reason called coronatrices. We must, therefore, think of dependent cities, either Phœnician (therefore the king of Tyre is called Great-king, comp. VaihingerinHerzog’s,R. Encycl. XI. p617 sqq.), or colonial cities. Of Tartessus (Herod1:163; Psalm 72:10) Citium and Carthage (originally) it is expressly stated that they had kings. Comp. Gesenius on this passage, Movers,Phœn. II:1, p529 sqq.; especially p533, 535, 539. Jeremiah too mentions besides the kings of Tyre and Zidon also מַלְכֵּי הָאִי, Jeremiah 25:22. Moreover, the rich and mighty metropolis had also in her midst citizens, who, though only merchants, equalled princes in wealth, pomp and power. How exactly too the Prophet distinguishes שָׂרִים and מְלָכִים. can be seen from Isaiah 10:8. The Phœnicians called their country כְּנַעַן and themselves Canaanites. But because they were the chief representatives of trade, merchants in general are called Canaanites; as at a later period Chaldean denoted an astrologer; Lombard, a money changer; and Swiss, a porter or body guard. Observe that here כנען stands for בנעני (comp. Genesis 15:2, Damascus for Damascene). Above all this pomp and power the might of Jehovah is highly exalted. He has decreed its destruction in order to profane (חִלֵּל) the pride of all glory.—This is to happen by delivering up and casting down into the mire of the earth. From the use of the expression “profane” the conclusion has not improperly been drawn that the Prophet had especially in his mind the famous, magnificent and ancient temples of Tyre (comp. Herodotusut supra). Jehovah purposed further by the ruin of Tyre to humble all the proud (proudest) of the earth. An essential part of this humiliation is that the colonies hitherto drained of their resources for the benefit of the mother country, and kept under rigorous restraint, now become free. This is illustrated by the instance of the most remote colony Tartessus. Tarshish ( Isaiah 23:10) is now told that she may be independent, and may dispose freely of her own territory and products. This verse has been explained in a great variety of ways by the old interpreters. (Comp. Rosenmueller). Since Koppe the explanation which we have given is commonly adopted. As the Nile overflows Egypt (comp. Amos 8:8; Amos 9:5) so shall Tarshish (daughter of Tarshish, comp. on Isaiah 22:4) spread herself without restraint over her own land. This must have been previously prevented; and the phrase “there is no more girdle” must have a meaning that refers to this. The word מֵזַח is found besides only Psalm 109:19. Of the same signification is מְזִיחַ, Job 12:21. Both words can only denote in these places the girdle. This meaning does not well suit the passage before us. But it seems to me that the Prophet by the word “girdle” intends an allusion which is unintelligible to us. Possibly an octroi-line restricting commerce for the benefit of the lords paramount, a cordon or something of a like nature, was designated by a Phœnician term cognate with the Hebrew מֵזַח. How, and by what means does the Lord execute His purpose against Tyre? This is answered in Isaiah 23:11 in general terms. He sets the sea and the kingdoms of the earth for this purpose in motion. Here as little as in Isaiah 23:4 would I understand under “Sea,” Tyre (Hitzig), or all Phœnicia Knobel); nor do I take the expression he stretched out his hand,etc., as meaning that He simply reached His hand over the sea (Delitzsch); for does the Prophet imagine Jehovah to be dwelling on the other side of the sea? But the expression “to stretch the hand over the sea” denotes here, as in Exodus 14:21 (which place the Prophet had perhaps before his eye), such an outstretching of the hand as sets the sea in motion. And so הִרְניז denotes here not to put in terror, trembling; but to put in commotion in order that they may arise to execute what the Lord commands them ( Isaiah 14:16). The second part, of the verse tells for what purpose the sea and kingdoms are put in motion. The Lord has given them a commandment (צִוָּה as Isaiah 10:6 : the pronominal object being omitted, as often happens) against Canaan (בְּנַעַן = Phœnicia, as the Phœnicians themselves gave the country this designation, comp. on Isaiah 23:8) in order to destroy (לַשְׁמִיד comp. on Isaiah 3:8) its bulwarks. The meaning of the whole verse is: Land and sea will conspire to destroy the bulwarks of Tyre. Tyre shall be successfully assailed both by land and sea. But Tyre shall be destroyed not merely for the moment, but permanently (although at first not forever, Isaiah 23:15 sqq.). This is the meaning of Isaiah 23:12. Tyre had been called “joyous” Isaiah 23:7. But the rejoicing shall depart from her. She is now a מעשקה a virgo compressa, vitiata (Pual only here comp. Isaiah 52:4), and such a one does not rejoice. That Tyre is here called “daughter of Zidon,” i.e., Zidonian, is perhaps not merely a generalization of the name Zidon, but possibly at the same time a blow designedly given to the pride of Tyre, which named herself on coins “the mother of the Zidonians” (comp. Movers,Phœn. II:1, p94, 119 sq.), and perhaps called herself so in the time of Isaiah. Tyre must be punished, must be destroyed. Therefore the remnant are summoned to emigrate to Cyprus, into the hitherto dependent colony of Chittim, as the command had already been given ( Isaiah 23:6) to pass over to Tarshish. But Tyre arrives in Chittim, not as mistress, but as an exile without power; a situation which excites in those who had been hitherto oppressed by her the desire to revenge themselves on her. Hence even there poor Tyre finds no rest.

6. Behold, the land——is laid waste.

Isaiah 23:13-14. We had been told ( Isaiah 23:11-12) in general terms how Tyre should be destroyed, and Isaiah 23:13 informs us regarding the particular instrument, i.e., regarding the people that the Lord had destined to execute punishment. We receive from Isaiah 23:13 the impression that the prophetic vision is turned in another direction. It is as if his look were suddenly diverted from west to east. He sees suddenly before him to his own astonishment the land of the Chaldeans. The land of the Chaldeans, not the people! The people he might see everywhere marching, fighting. The land he can behold only in its own place. The very part of the earth’s surface where the country of the Chaldeans lay, apart from its relation to Tyre, was of great importance for the Prophet and his people. Thence should the destroyer of Jerusalem come; there should the people of Judah pass70 years in captivity. And because the look of the Prophet is here for the first time directed to the Chaldeans, he is prompted to characterize them in brief terms. He does this with two, but with two very significant strokes. The first describes the past, the second the future of the people. He first declares—This is the people that was not. He certainly does not mean to say thereby, that the people of the Chaldeans was not at all, or was not in the physical sense. Could the Prophet have known nothing of Nimrod ( Genesis 10:10), nothing of Ur of the Chaldeans, the original home of Abraham? But prophecy, in its grand style, confines, as is well known, the whole history of the world to a few kingdoms; and what does not belong to them is regarded as if it were not. But it was after the Assyrians that the Chaldeans first came upon the theatre of the world’s history. Hence from the prophetic view of history the Chaldeans appear to us a people that hitherto was not. But why does he say הָעָם, the people? If he had said “a people,” this would not have been at all singular. There were such nations without number. But the Chaldeans do not belong to the common nations. They were a leading nation. There were then in the sense of prophecy only two leading nations, i.e., representatives of the worldly power. The one was Assyria; the other, the Chaldeans, had not yet appeared. With the second stroke אַשּׁוּר י׳ לצ׳ he describes the future of the Chaldeans. I decidedly agree here with Paulus and Del. who regard אשׁוּר as the object of יסד placed absolutely before the verb. Ashur—this has it (viz.: the Chaldean nation) set, founded for the beasts of the desert.—This view alone suits the context. If we take Ashur as the subject, then we must connect it with לאהיה as the old versions and some modern interpreters do, but contrary to the Masoretic punctuation. “This people, which is not Assyria,” will then signify either; this people will be more fortunate than the Assyrians (were under Shalmaneser against Tyre), or: this people, when it will be no more Assyrian, or: which is not civilized as the Assyrians. This suffix in יסדה is then referred by all to Tyre. It is manifest that all these explanations of לא היה אשור are arbitrary. But if we take אשור according to the accents as subject of יסדה then this will mean: “Ashur has appointed them to be dwellers of the desert, i.e., Ashur has transplanted them to the Babylonian plain, and made of mountaineers dwellers of the desert.” It is then assumed that the Chaldeans after their first migration from the Carduchian mountains, which event belongs to a very early time, were subsequently strengthened by additional settlers sent by the Assyrian kings (So Knobel, Arnold in Herzog’sR-Enc. II, p628 sqq.). It is certain that there were Chaldeans in Babylonia and in the Armenian mountains. The first point needs no proof; the second point is clear from the narrative of Xenophon (Cyrop. III:1, 34; Anab. IV:3, 4sqq.; V:5, 17; VII:8, 25) and is determined by the statements of Strabo (12:3, 18 sqq.), and of Stephanus Byzantinus (s. v.Χαλδαῖοι), and is also generally acknowledged. It is also quite possible that the Chaldeans separated at a very early time, and that one part remained in the old seats, i.e., in the Karduchian mountains, while another part, pursuing the natural routes, i.e., the river-valleys, migrated to the south, and settled on the lower Euphrates. For according to the Assyro-Babylonian monuments, here lies the mat Kaldi or Kaldu. According to them it extended to the Persian Gulf (comp. Schrader,Cuneiform Inscriptions, p44). With this agree the classic authors who (as Strabo XVI:1, 6, 8) designate this border of the Gulf and the swamps in which the Euphrates loses itself as lacus Chaldaici (Pliny VI:31; comp. Strabo XVI:4, 1, τὰ ἕλη τὰ κατὰ Χαλδαίους). That these regions were even in very remote times peopled by the Chaldeans, is established by the fact that the ancient Ur of the Chaldeans, the home of Abraham, has been lately discovered in Mugheir, which lies south-east of Babylon on the right bank of the Euphrates. For upon all the clay tablets found there in great number, the name U- Ruth -u, i.e., אוּר occurs (comp. Schraderut supra, p 383 sq.). Schrader refers further to an inscription of king Hammurabi dating from the second millennium B. C, composed in the purest Assyrian, in which he states that “II and Bel and the Dragon, the inhabitants of Sumir and Accad (names of tribes and territories in South Babylonia) surrendered to his rule” (ibid. p42). From the language of this inscription it is clear that a Semitic people then dwelt in those regions. But this can have been none other than the people of the Chaldeans. In the tenth century B. C. Asurnasirhabal speaks of the mat Kaldu as a part of his dominion (ibid. p44). Resting on all these grounds Schrader utters the following judgment: We can assume that since the Chaldeans immigrated in the second or third millennium B. C. into these regions on the lower Euphrates and Tigris, they were uninterruptedly the proper ruling nation, the dominant one under all circumstances. On the other hand, they were certainly not aboriginal in the country. They found already there a highly cultivated people of Cushite or Turanian extraction, from whom they borrowed the complicated cuneiform mode of writing. If the Chaldeans on the lower Euphrates and Tigris were not aboriginal, it is natural after what has been said to assume that they migrated from the territories at the source of the Euphrates and Tigris into the region at the mouth of these rivers (comp. Ewald,Hist. I, p 404 sq.). But it is a mere hypothesis derived from this passage, and entirely without evidence, to assume a transplantation of the Chaldeans in later times by Shalmaneser. It is also very questionable whether ציִּים can denote inhabitants of the desert; for the only place which is adduced, Psalm 72:9 ought to exclude the possibility of any other interpretation, in order to be able to counterpoise the weight of all other places where the word signifies “beasts of the desert.” It is questionable, too, whether the very fertile country of Babylon could be described as צִיָהbefore it was visited by the divine judgments (comp13; Jeremiah 1). Many attempts have been made at conjectural emendations of the passage. Ewald would substitute Canaanites, and Meier, Chittim for Chaldeans. Olshausen (Emendations of the Old Testament, p 34 sqq.) would make much greater changes. But all these attempts are capricious and unwarranted. I have already remarked that the view proposed by Paulus and Delitzsch (taking Ashur as the object of יסד placed absolutely before it) alone corresponds to the context. Only in this way is something said of the Chaldeans that briefly, but completely, characterizes them. For they are then described as the people that hitherto had not appeared as the great worldly power, but that will now supplant the Assyrians in this character. There is yet another proof of the accuracy of our view. There are in this paragraph various allusions to the ninth chapter of Amos. Three times Amos employs in that chapter the Piel צִוָּה in the signification of “appoint, order, command,” in which meaning the word occurs here also ( Isaiah 23:11). Amos again ( Isaiah 23:5) twice makes use of the comparison with the overflowing Nile; comp. in our paragraph, Isaiah 23:10. In Amos 9:6, as in אשׁור יסדה לציים, the object of the sentence is placed first absolutely, and then repeated by means of a feminine suffix attached to יסד. In the word Ashur the Prophet has before him the idea of the country and of the city rather than that of the people. Hence the feminine suffix to יסד. Such constructions κατὰ σύνεσινoccur in Hebrew in the most varied forms.—יסד is constituere, to found, to establish ( Habakkuk 1:12; Psalm 104:8). The Chaldeans, says is, make of Ashur, i.e., the country and city, but especially the city, as it were an establishment for beasts of the desert, i.e., a place of residence appointed for them as their legitimate possession and permanent property. Finally we must point to Zephaniah 2:13 sq, as the oldest commentary on this passage. For not only does Zephaniah say clearly what יסד לציים means, but we can also regard his words as a proof of the accuracy of our view in general. For they show that Zephaniah, too, understood this passage of the destruction of Nineveh. When Zephaniah ( Isaiah 2:15) says of Nineveh “This is the rejoicing city,” had he not Isaiah 23:7 of our chapter in his eye? The words “and he will stretch out his hand” ( Zephaniah 2:13) recall “He stretched out his hand” ( Isaiah 23:11). Comp, too, in Zephaniah 2:13צִיָּה כַמִּדְבָּר with the צִיִּים before us. If then there are clear traces that Zephaniah, when he wrote the second chapter of his prophecy, had beside other passages in Isaiah ( Isaiah 13:21; Isaiah 14:23; Isaiah 34:11) also this twenty-third chapter in his mind, and if he gives in his prophecy a description of the ruined Nineveh, which by the word צִי connects itself with our passage, and appears as a more detailed description of what is only slightly indicated by is, may we not in such circumstances be permitted to affirm that Zephaniah understood the place before us as we do? Further, there is contained in Zephaniah’s reference to this passage the proof that it must have been already in existence in his time, consequently in the reign of king Josiah (624 B. C.). If now Zephaniah did not hesitate to understand this passage of the destruction of Nineveh, we will not allow ourselves to be prevented from doing the same, either by the objection of Delitzsch that this would be the only place in which Isaiah prophesies that the worldly supremacy would pass from the Assyrians to the Chaldeans, or by the objections of others who regard it as absolutely impossible that in the time of Isaiah a destruction of Tyre by the Chaldeans should have been foretold. In regard to Delitzsch’s objection, I would wish it to be remarked that the prophecy of Isaiah is related to that of those who come after him, as a nursery is to the plantations that have arisen from it. Do not the germs of the later prophecies originally he to a large extent in the prophecy of Isaiah? Such a germ we have here. The words זה העם to לציים form a parenthesis which quite incidentally, in language brief and enigmatical, and probably not understood by the Prophet himself, deposit a germ which even Nahum and Zephaniah have only partially developed. Not till the time of Jeremiah and after the battle of Car-chemish, which determined Nebuchadnezzar’s supremacy in the earth, could it be completely unfolded. And if I assume that Isaiah could already prophesy the destruction of Nineveh by the Chaldeans, I must much more affirm that he could also predict the destruction of Tyre by the same people. The Assyrian invasion undoubtedly gave occasion to this prophecy. The Assyrians had a design on Egypt. The taking of Samaria, and the attacks on Judah and on the countries lying east and west of it, were only means to that end. We perceive from Isaiah 23:3; Isaiah 23:5 that Tyre then stood in close relation to Egypt. The power of the Tyrians on the sea was naturally of the greatest importance for Egypt. The Assyrians had therefore all the more occasion for depriving Egypt of this valuable ally. Let us add, that Isaiah had then to warn Judah most emphatically against forming an alliance with Egypt. Would not Tyre also have been an object of the untheocratic hopes which the unbelieving Jews placed in Egypt the ally of Tyre? This would aptly explain to us the reason why Isaiah lifted his voice against Tyre also. Israel should trust in no worldly power, therefore not even in Tyre. Tyre too is doomed to destruction; but it will not be destroyed by the Assyrians. This might then readily have been conjectured when the Assyrians were actually engaged in hostilities with Tyre. But it was a part of the task assigned to Isaiah to counteract the dread inspired by Assyria. He therefore declares expressly: another later nation that is not yet a people, namely, the Chaldeans will destroy Tyre. What follows ( Isaiah 23:15 sqq.), agrees with this. The70 years are undoubtedly the years of the Chaldean supremacy. As we observed already, the words זה חעם to ציים ( Isaiah 23:13) are to be treated as parenthetical. With הקימו the Prophet proceeds to describe the action of the people of the Chaldeans, as the appointed instrument for the destruction of Tyre. They set up his watch-towers,i.e., the many set up the watch-towers belonging to the whole body (comp. touching this change of number Isaiah 1:23; Isaiah 2:8; Isaiah 23:23, 26; Isaiah 8:20). With Isaiah 23:14 the paragraph closes as it began.

Footnotes