Isaiah 23
The Burden against Tyre
(Ezekiel 26:1–21)
¹ This is the burden against Tyre: Wail, O ships of Tarshish,1 for Tyre is laid waste, without house or harbor. Word has reached them from the land of Cyprus.2
² Be silent, O dwellers of the coastland, you merchants of Sidon, whose traders have crossed the sea.3
³ On the great waters came the grain of Shihor; the harvest of the Nile was the revenue of Tyre; she was the merchant of the nations.
⁴ Be ashamed, O Sidon, the stronghold of the sea, for the sea has spoken: “I have not been in labor or given birth. I have not raised young men or brought up young women.”
⁵ When the report reaches Egypt, they will writhe in agony over the news of Tyre.
⁶ Cross over to Tarshish; wail, O inhabitants of the coastland!
⁷ Is this your jubilant city, whose origin is from antiquity, whose feet have taken her to settle far away?
⁸ Who planned this against Tyre, the bestower of crowns, whose traders are princes, whose merchants are renowned on the earth?
⁹ The LORD of Hosts planned it, to defile all its glorious beauty, to disgrace all the renowned of the earth.
¹⁰ Cultivate 4 your land like the Nile, O Daughter of Tarshish; there is no longer a harbor.
¹¹ The LORD has stretched out His hand over the sea; He has made kingdoms tremble. He has given a command that the strongholds of Canaan be destroyed.
¹² He said, “You shall rejoice no more, O oppressed Virgin Daughter of Sidon. Get up and cross over to Cyprus— even there you will find no rest.”
¹³ Look at the land of the Chaldeans 5— a people now of no account. The Assyrians destined it for the desert creatures; they set up their siege towers and stripped its palaces. They brought it to ruin.
¹⁴ Wail, O ships of Tarshish, for your harbor has been destroyed!
¹⁵ At that time Tyre will be forgotten for seventy years—the span of a king’s life. But at the end of seventy years, it will happen to Tyre as in the song of the harlot:
¹⁶ “Take up your harp, stroll through the city, O forgotten harlot. Make sweet melody, sing many a song, so you will be remembered.”
¹⁷ And at the end of seventy years, the LORD will restore Tyre. Then she will return to hire as a prostitute and sell herself to all the kingdoms on the face of the earth.
¹⁸ Yet her profits and wages will be set apart to the LORD; they will not be stored or saved, for her profit will go to those who live before the LORD, for abundant food and fine clothing.