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The Lord Will Judge Tyre

23 This is an oracle[a] about Tyre:
Wail, you large ships,[b]
for the port is too devastated to enter![c]
From the land of Cyprus[d] this news is announced to them.
Lament,[e] you residents of the coast,
you merchants of Sidon who travel over the sea,
whose agents sail over the deep waters.[f]
Grain from the Shihor region,[g]
crops grown near the Nile[h] she receives;[i]
she is the trade center[j] of the nations.

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Footnotes

  1. Isaiah 23:1 tn See note at Isa 13:1.
  2. Isaiah 23:1 tn Heb “ships of Tarshish.” This probably refers to large ships either made in or capable of traveling to the distant, western port of Tarshish.
  3. Isaiah 23:1 tc The Hebrew text reads literally, “for it is destroyed, from a house, from entering.” The translation assumes that the mem (מ) on בַּיִת (bayit) was originally an enclitic mem suffixed to the preceding verb. This assumption allows one to take בַּיִת as the subject of the preceding verb. It is used in a metaphorical sense for the port city of Tyre. The preposition min (מִן) prefixed to בּוֹא (boʾ) indicates negative consequence: “so that no one can enter.” See BDB 583 s.v. מִן 7.b.
  4. Isaiah 23:1 tn Heb “the Kittim,” a designation for the people of Cyprus. See HALOT 504-05 s.v. כִּתִּיִּים.
  5. Isaiah 23:2 tn Or “keep quiet”; NAB “Silence!”
  6. Isaiah 23:3 tc The Hebrew text (23:2b-3a) reads literally, “merchant of Sidon, the one who crosses the sea, they filled you, and on the deep waters.” Instead of מִלְאוּךְ (milʾukh, “they filled you”) the Qumran scroll 1QIsaa reads מלאכיך (“your messengers”). The translation assumes an emendation of מִלְאוּךְ to מַלְאָכָו (malʾakhav, “his messengers”), taking the vav (ו) on וּבְמַיִם (uvemayim) as improperly placed; instead it should be the final letter of the preceding word.
  7. Isaiah 23:3 tn Heb “seed of Shihor.” “Shihor” probably refers to the east branch of the Nile. See Jer 2:18 and BDB 1009 s.v. שִׁיחוֹר.
  8. Isaiah 23:3 tn Heb “the harvest of the Nile.”
  9. Isaiah 23:3 tn Heb “[is] her revenue.”
  10. Isaiah 23:3 tn Heb “merchandise”; KJV, ASV “a mart of nations”; NLT “the merchandise mart of the world.”