Commentaria in Isaiam
Chapter Twenty-three
Synopsis of the Chapter
He foretells the destruction of Tyre by Nabuchodonosor, because the Tyrians, enemies of the Jews, rejoiced at the storming of Jerusalem: he describes therefore the disaster of Tyre from its former glory and wealth. Secondly, verse 15, he foretells that Tyre after seventy years shall be restored, and return to its former merchandise and wealth. Moreover, Alcazar, on the Apocalypse, notes that he takes Tyre for pagan Rome, as if here its destruction, and that of paganism, through conversion to Christ, were described. But this is mystical, not literal, nor genuine.
1. The burden of Tyre. Howl, O ye ships of the sea, for the house is destroyed from whence they were wont to come: from the land of Cethim it is revealed to them. 2. Be silent, ye that dwell in the island: the merchants of Sidon passing over the sea have filled thee. 3. The seed of the Nile in many waters, the harvest of the river is her revenue: and she is become the mart of the nations. 4. Be thou ashamed, O Sidon: for the sea speaketh, even the strength of the sea, saying: I have not been in labour, nor brought forth, nor brought up young men, nor brought up virgins. 5. When it shall be heard in Egypt, they shall be sorrowful when they shall hear of Tyre. 6. Pass over the seas, howl, ye inhabitants of the island. 7. Is not this your city, which gloried from of old in her antiquity? her feet shall carry her far off to sojourn. 8. Who hath taken this counsel against Tyre, formerly crowned, whose merchants were princes, her traders the nobles of the earth? 9. The Lord of hosts hath designed it, to pull down the pride of all glory, and bring to disgrace all the glorious ones of the earth. 10. Pass through thy land as a river, O daughter of the sea, thou hast a girdle no more. 11. He stretched out his hand over the sea, he troubled the kingdoms: the Lord hath given a charge against Chanaan, to destroy the strong ones thereof. 12. And he said: Thou shalt glory no more, O virgin daughter of Sidon, thou that sufferest oppression: arise, and pass over the sea to Cethim, there also thou shalt have no rest. 13. Behold the land of the Chaldeans, there was no such people, Assur founded it: they have led away the strong ones thereof into captivity, they have undermined the houses thereof, they have made it a ruin. 14. Howl, O ye ships of the sea, for your strength is laid waste. 15. And it shall come to pass in that day, that thou, O Tyre, shalt be forgotten for seventy years, according to the days of one king: and after seventy years there shall be unto Tyre as the song of a harlot. 16. Take a harp, harlot that hast been forgotten, go about the city, sing well, sing many a song, that thou mayst be remembered. 17. And it shall come to pass after seventy years, that the Lord shall visit Tyre, and shall bring her back again to her hire: and she shall commit fornication again with all the kingdoms of the earth upon the face of the earth. 18. And her merchandise, and her hire shall be sanctified to the Lord: they shall not be kept nor laid up: for her merchandise shall be for them that shall dwell before the Lord, that they may eat to fulness, and be clothed for a long time.
1. The burden of Tyre.—Note: Tyre in Hebrew and Syriac is called tsor (whence Tor, whence Tyrus), as if you said fortified, or narrow, or rocky, because it is built on a rock. By Gellius and others it is called Sarra, now Sur. It is the metropolis of Phoenicia, the mistress of the sea, and by the convenience of its place the emporium of the whole world; most famous in sacred as well as in profane histories for its navigation, and consequently for its wealth, luxury and vices.
First, Isaias describes and paints to the life, first, the devastation of the city and the cessation of naval commerce with the Sidonians and Egyptians, verses 1–3; secondly, the shame or sorrow of these at the condition of Tyre, 4, 5; thirdly, the migration of the Tyrians to foreign abodes, 6, 7.
Secondly, he declares the causes of so great a calamity, its execution, its instruments and its duration, namely the judgment of God and his will: first, bringing the pride of the city down to such ignominy, 8, 9; secondly, stripping Tyre of riches, strength and honours, and not allowing her to find rest through her colonies, 10–12; thirdly, using the Chaldeans to enslave the inhabitants and to bring ruin upon her buildings, 13; fourthly, leaving Tyre in oblivion for seventy years, 15, 16. To this it contributed not a little that the Tyrians dye cloths purple from the red juice of the cut sea-murex or shellfish, which is also called ostrum. Hence this colour is called Tyrian and Sarran purple, which is the garment of kings and princes; hence Virgil: “And the wool glowed with Tyrian purple.” The same: “That he may drink from a jewel and sleep on Sarran purple.” Hence in Flemish this cloth is called scarlaken, as if Sarlaken.
Secondly, Tyre was formerly four stadia distant from the mainland, according to Q. Curtius, book 4 of the Life of Alexander; but according to St. Jerome and Pliny, book 5, chapter 19, 700 paces. Hence Ezechiel says she is situated in the heart, that is, in the midst of the sea. But hear Pliny: “Tyre was formerly an island in the high sea, divided by seven hundred paces, but now joined to the mainland by the works of Alexander when he besieged it. Once famed for the cities she begot, Leptis, Utica, and that rival of the Roman empire, greedy of the world, Carthage, and Gades, founded outside the world. Now all her nobility consists in the shellfish and the purple. Her circuit is nineteen thousand paces, including Palaetyrus. The town itself covers twenty-two stadia. Thence the towns Euhydra, Sarepta and Ornithon; and Sidon, maker of glass, and parent of Boeotian Thebes.”
Hence, thirdly, Tyre so flourished that Venice, Paris and Antwerp cannot be compared with her; so that, if you look at the commerce of Tyre, she was the market of the whole world; if at her fortification, she should be called a citadel rather than a city; if at her magnificence and glory, she was the queen of cities. Hence here, verse 8, she is called crowned; and Ezechiel, chapter 28, verse 14, compares her king to the Angel Cherub, in glory and pride, and consequently in downfall and punishment. If you look at her wealth, pomp and luxury, she seemed a world rather than a city. So that St. Jerome, at verse 8, says that what the ambassador of Pyrrhus said of Rome may be said of Tyre: “I have seen a city of kings”; as many senators as I saw in the senate-house at Rome, so many kings I saw. Lastly, if you ask her antiquity, the Annals and Berosus teach that Tyre, a little after the flood, took its beginning and name from Tyras, who was the seventh of the sons of Japhet; whence here, verse 7, she is said to have gloried in her antiquity. So William of Tyre, book 13 of the Sacred War, chapter 1. Fourthly, on account of this pride and luxury Tyre was besieged and laid waste. Fifthly, he defines the lot and vicissitude toward Tyre, whose commerce he will see first, in the time following those years, flourish again, 17; and which secondly, in later years at last, embracing the worship of the true God, will obtain a nobler fortune through Christ, 18.
Salmanasar besieged it by sea; but in vain, as Josephus testifies, Antiquities, book 9, chapter 15; secondly, Nabuchodonosor, after the destruction of Jerusalem, besieged it for thirteen years and laid it waste, so that fishermen dried their nets and seines there, says Ezechiel; for because it lay in the sea farther from the land, he therefore ordered an infinite multitude of the army to bring together stones and mounds and to fill up this strait, that it might be attacked from the mainland, and so he made a peninsula out of an island: which labour was so great that Ezechiel says every head of those carrying stones and baskets of earth was made bald, and all the shoulders of the soldiers rubbed bare; and that therefore God, whose vengeance they served, gave them as a kind of wages, that is, as a liberal gift, the spoils and wealth of Egypt. In like manner again, after 250 years, it was laid waste by Alexander the Great, as Curtius testifies, book 4. See William of Tyre and Adrichomius under Tyre.
Mystically, St. Jerome on Ezechiel, chapter 26: Nabuchodonosor is the devil; Tyre is the proud soul, dissolute in luxury, whom the demon straitens, constrains and kills. Again, St. Bernard, sermon 10, On the Burden of Tyre: “The name of Tyre,” he says, “is interpreted anguish: whose burden is in the bitterness of penance, in the labour of continence, in bodily sickness. What then? Is there no burden in this bodily exercise, or in the observance of regular discipline? Why not labour and continence?
What is more laborious, what more difficult, what is kept with more danger? what is more easily lost? And there is another straitness of the heart, which self-love makes; contrary to which is breadth of heart, which the love of God and of neighbour makes. Self-love proceeds from one’s own will. He therefore who loves his own will, to him another’s will is a burden: and therefore he seeks the things that are his own, not those of others. To all things which his own will suggests he is ready; to those enjoined him, sluggish and slow. Of such the Apostle says: Men shall be lovers of themselves. These, assuredly, shall not escape the weight of the punishment which is written in the burden of Tyre.”