2 Be still, you inhabitants of the coast, you whom the merchants of Sidon, that pass over the sea, have replenished.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
Be silent, ye inhabitants of the islands. This is intended to place in a more striking light the ruin of Tyre. There is a change of number in the word island; for although he uses the singular number, yet he means the islands of the Mediterranean sea, and the countries beyond the sea, especially the neighbors who frequently performed voyages to Tyre, and traded with it. He enjoins on them silence and stillness, because they will perform no more voyages to Tyre. He bids them "be silent" like persons who are stunned, on account of the grievous calamity which has befallen them, so that they do not even venture to open their mouth; for it was impossible that the nations who traded there should not feel it to be a heavy stroke, when a mercantile city like this was ruined, just as at the present day Venice or Antwerp could not be destroyed without inflicting great injury on many nations. The merchants of Sidon. He mentions the inhabitants of Sidon in an especial manner, not only on account of their vicinity, but because they had a common origin. Sidon was highly celebrated, but greatly inferior to Tyre. Situated on the sea-shore, it was two hundred furlongs [1] distant from Tyre, and appeared both to be so near it, and to be so closely connected with it by trade, that the poets frequently took Tyre for Sidon, and Sidon for Tyre. The Sidonians, therefore, were unquestionably greater gainers than others by imports and exports, and also by sales and merchandise, in consequence of being so near, and trading with it continually; for the wealth of Tyre overflowed on them, and, as the saying is, they flew under its wings. The result was, that they suffered more severely than others by the destruction of Tyre, and therefore the Prophet afterwards says, (verse 4,) Be ashamed, O Sidon. Who replenished thee. He adds this general expression, either because it was filled with crowds and multitudes of men, when strangers flocked to it from various and distant countries, or because they who performed voyages to it for the sake of gain did, in their turn, enrich the city.
1 - The Roman stadium or furlong = 125 paces = 625 feet. A Roman mile = 1000 paces = 5000 feet. An English mile = 1760 yards = 5280 feet. Therefore a Roman mile is to an English mile as 5000 to 5280, or as 125 to 132; and the number of English miles is to that of Roman miles in the inverse ratio of 132 to 125; so that 200 stadia = 25 Roman miles = somewhat less than 24 English miles. It ought to be remembered, that the author does not profess to state the exact distance, but gives it in round numbers. -- Ed
Be still - This is the description of a city which is destroyed, where the din of commerce, and the sound of revelry is no longer heard. It is an address of the prophet to Tyre, indicating that it would be soon still, and destroyed.
Ye inhabitants of the isle - (of Tyre). The word 'isle' (אי 'iy) is sometimes used to denote a "coast or maritime region" (see the note at Isaiah 20:6), but there seems no reason to doubt that here it means the island on which New Tyre was erected. This may have been occupied even before Old Tyre was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, though the main city was on the crest.
Thou whom the merchants of Zidon - Tyre was a colony from Sidon; and the merchants of Sidon would trade to Tyre as well as to Sidon.
Have replenished - Hebrew, 'have filled,' that is, with merchandise, and with wealth. Thus, in Ezekiel 27:8, Tyre is represented as having derived its seamen from Sidon: 'Theinhabitants of Sidon and of Arvad were thy mariners.' And in Ezekiel 27:9-23, Tyre is represented as having been filled with shipbuilders, merchants, mariners, soldiers, etc., from Gebal, Persia, Lud, Phut, Tarshish, Jayvan, Tubal, Mesheck, Dedan, Syria, Damascus, Arabia, etc.
Be still "Be silent" - Silence is a mark of grief and consternation. See Isaiah 47:5. Jeremiah has finely expressed this image: -
"The elders of the daughter of Zion sit on the ground, they are silent:
They have cast up dust on their heads, they have girded themselves with sackcloth.
The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground."
Lamentations 2:10.
Be still, ye inhabitants of the isle; thou whom the merchants of Zidon, that pass over the sea, have (f) replenished.
(f) Have hunted and enriched you.
Be still, ye inhabitants of the isle,.... Either the isles of Chittim, or other islands that traded with Tyre, the singular being put for the plural, called upon to grieve and mourn, because the city of their merchandise was destroyed, as Kimchi; or of Tyre itself, which being situated at some distance from the shore, was an island itself, until it was joined to the continent by Alexander (q); and even old Tyre might be so called, it being usual in Scripture to call places by the seashore isles; and besides, old Tyre included in it new Tyre, the island, as Pliny (r) suggests; who are instructed to be silent as mourners, and to cease from the hurries of business, which they would be obliged to, and not boast of their power and wealth, as they had formerly done, or attempt to defend themselves, which would be in vain:
thou whom the merchants of Zidon, that pass over the sea, have replenished; Zidon was a very ancient city of Phoenicia, more ancient than Tyre; for Tyre was a colony of the Zidonians, and built by them, and so might be said to be replenished by them with men from the first, as it also was with mariners, Ezekiel 27:8 and likewise with merchants and wares, they being a trading and seafaring people; wherefore they are spoken of as merchants, and as passing over the sea: or this may be understood of the isles replenished with goods by the merchants of Tyre and Zidon, but now no more, and therefore called to mourning.
(q) Plin. Nat. Hist. l. 5. c. 19. (r) Ibid.
Be still--"struck dumb with awe." Addressed to those already in the country, eye-witnesses of its ruin (Lamentations 2:10); or, in contrast to the busy din of commerce once heard in Tyre; now all is hushed and still.
isle--strictly applicable to New Tyre: in the sense coast, to the mainland city, Old Tyre (compare Isaiah 23:6; Isaiah 20:6).
Zidon--of which Tyre was a colony, planted when Zidon was conquered by the Philistines of Ascalon. Zidon means a "fishing station"; this was its beginning.
replenished--with wealth and an industrious population (Ezekiel 27:3, Ezekiel 27:8, Ezekiel 27:23). Here "Zidon," as the oldest city of PhÅnicia, includes all the PhÅnician towns on the strip of "coast." Thus, Eth-baal, king of Tyre [JOSEPHUS, Antiquities, 8.3,2], is called king of the Sidonians (1-Kings 16:31); and on coins Tyre is called the metropolis of the Sidonians.
"Be alarmed, ye inhabitants of the coast! Sidonian merchants, sailing over the sea, filled thee once. And the sowing of Sichor came upon great waters, the harvest of the Nile, her store; and she became gain for nations." The suffixes of מלּא (to fill with wares and riches) and תּבוּאה (the bringing in, viz., into barns and granaries) refer to the word אי, which is used here as a feminine for the name of a country, and denotes the Phoenician coast, including the insular Tyre. "Sidonian merchants" are the Phoenicians generally, as in Homer; for the "great Sidon" of antiquity (Zidon rabbâh, Joshua 11:8; Joshua 19:28) was the mother-city of Phoenicia, which so thoroughly stamped its name upon the whole nation, that Tyre is called צדנם אם upon Phoenician coins. The meaning of Isaiah 23:3 is not that the revenue of Tyre which accrued to it on the great unfruitful sea, was like a Nile-sowing, or an Egyptian harvest (Hitzig, Knobel). Such a simile would be a very beautiful one, but it is a very unlikely one, since the Phoenicians actually did buy up the corn-stores of Egypt, that granary of the ancient world, and housed the cargoes that were brought to them "upon great waters," i.e., on the great Mediterranean. Sichor is a Hebraic form of Siris (the native name of the upper Nile, according to Dionysius Perieg. and Pliny). It signifies the black river (Meals, Eust. on Dion. Per. 222), the black slime of which gave such fertility to the land. "The harvest of the Nile" is not so much an explanation as an amplification. The valley of the Nile was the field for sowing and reaping, and the Phoenician coast was the barn for this valuable corn; and inasmuch as corn and other articles of trade were purchased and bartered there, it thereby became gain (constr. of sachar, Ewald, 213, a, used in the same sense as in Isaiah 18:1-7, Isaiah 45:14, and Proverbs 3:14), i.e., the means of gain, the source of profit or provision, to whole nations, and even to many such. Others render the word "emporium;" but sâchâr cannot have this meaning. Moreover, foreigners did not come to Phoenicia, but the Phoenicians went to them (Luzzatto).
Be still - Hebrews. be silent, boast no more of thy wealth and power. The isle - Of Tyre, which was an island, 'till Alexander joined it to the continent. The title of islands is often given by the Hebrews to places bordering upon the sea. That pass - That are a sea - faring people. Replenished - With manners, and commodities.
*More commentary available at chapter level.