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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.

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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.

12 He said,
“You will no longer celebrate,
oppressed[a] virgin daughter Sidon!
Get up, travel to Cyprus,
but you will find no relief there.”[b]

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Footnotes

  1. Isaiah 23:12 tn Or “violated, raped,” the point being that Daughter Sidon has lost her virginity in the most brutal manner possible.
  2. Isaiah 23:12 tn Heb “[to the] Kittim, get up, cross over; even there there will be no rest for you.” On “Kittim” see the note on “Cyprus” at v. 1.

10 Go west[a] across the sea to the coasts of Cyprus[b] and see.
Send someone east to Kedar[c] and have them look carefully.
See if such a thing as this has ever happened:

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Footnotes

  1. Jeremiah 2:10 tn Heb “For go west.”
  2. Jeremiah 2:10 tn Heb “pass over to the coasts of Kittim.” The words “west across the sea” in this line and “east of” in the next are implicit in the text and are supplied in the translation to give geographical orientation.sn The Hebrew term translated Cyprus (“Kittim”) originally referred to the island of Cyprus but later was used for the lands in the west, including Macedonia (1 Macc 1:1; 8:5) and Rome (Dan 11:30). It is used here as part of a figure called merism to denote the lands in the west as opposed to Kedar, which was in the east. The figure includes polar opposites to indicate totality, i.e., everywhere from west to east.
  3. Jeremiah 2:10 sn Kedar is the home of the bedouin tribes in the Syro-Arabian desert. See Gen 25:18 and Jer 49:38. See also the previous note for the significance of the reference here.