Isaiah 23

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¹The pronouncement concerning Tyre: Wail, you ships of Tarshish, For Tyre is destroyed, without house or harbor; It is reported to them from the land of Cyprus. ✦ ²Be silent, you inhabitants of the coastland, You merchants of Sidon; Your messengers crossed the sea ✦ ³And were on many waters. The grain of the Nile, the harvest of the River was her revenue; And she was the market of nations. ✦ ⁴Be ashamed, Sidon, For the sea speaks, the stronghold of the sea, saying, “I have neither been in labor nor given birth, I have neither brought up young men nor raised virgins.” ✦ ⁵When the report reaches Egypt, They will be in anguish over the report of Tyre. ✦ ⁶Pass over to Tarshish; Wail, you inhabitants of the coastland. ✦ ⁷Is this your jubilant city, Whose origin is from antiquity, Whose feet used to bring her to colonize distant places? ✦ ⁸¶Who has planned this against Tyre, the bestower of crowns, Whose merchants were princes, whose traders were the honored of the earth? ✦ ⁹The Lord of armies has planned it, to defile the pride of all beauty, To despise all the honored of the earth. ✦ ¹⁰Overflow your land like the Nile, you daughter of Tarshish, There is no more restraint. ✦ ¹¹He has stretched His hand out over the sea, He has made the kingdoms tremble; The Lord has given a command concerning Canaan to demolish its strongholds. ✦ ¹²¶He has said, “You shall not be jubilant anymore, you crushed virgin daughter of Sidon. Arise, pass over to Cyprus; even there you will find no rest.” ✦ ¹³Behold, the land of the Chaldeans—this is the people that did not exist; Assyria allocated it for desert creatures—they erected their siege towers, they stripped its palaces, they made it a ruin. ✦ ¹⁴Wail, you ships of Tarshish, For your stronghold is destroyed. ✦ ¹⁵Now on that day Tyre will be forgotten for seventy years like the days of one king. At the end of seventy years it will happen to Tyre as in the song of the prostitute: ✦ ¹⁶Take your harp, wander around the city, You forgotten prostitute; Pluck the strings skillfully, sing many songs, That you may be remembered. ✦ ¹⁷It will come about at the end of seventy years that the Lord will visit Tyre. Then she will go back to her prostitute’s wages and commit prostitution with all the kingdoms on the face of the earth. ✦ ¹⁸Her profit and her prostitute’s wages will be sacred to the Lord; it will not be stored up or hoarded, but her profit will become sufficient food and magnificent attire for those who dwell in the presence of the Lord. ✦

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Where this chapter connects

Isa 23 ·11 Ezek 27 ·10 Rev 18 ·9 Ezek 26 ·7 Gen 10 ·6 Ezek 28 ·5 Jer 25 ·5 Isa 2 ·5

Christ at the center

Isaiah sees him most clearly: the virgin's son Immanuel, the child on David's throne, the shoot from Jesse, the light to the nations, and above all the Suffering Servant pierced for our transgressions (ch. 53).

How Isaiah 23 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.

Resources, by level

Lay

★ Start hereVideoBibleProject — video overviews & word studiesBibleProject · 5–10 min · Free · evangelical
Free animated overviews of every book of the Bible, plus themes and Hebrew/Greek word studies — the best visual on-ramp to any book. (Biblical-theology, broadly evangelical, not distinctly Reformed.)
★ Start hereAudioThrough the WordThrough the Word · ~10 min/chapter · Free · evangelical
A clear ~10-minute audio teaching for every one of the Bible's 1,189 chapters — the most systematic free way to study chapter by chapter.

Pastoral

SermonChuck Smith — C2000 SeriesChuck Smith · Free · evangelical
Free verse-by-verse audio through the entire Bible from the founder of Calvary Chapel.

Seminary

★ Start hereCommentaryThe Book of Isaiah (NICOT)John N. Oswalt · Paid · evangelical
The standard evangelical commentary on Isaiah — thorough and devotionally warm.

Commentaries & study tools

VideoBibleProject — Isaiah videosBibleProject · Lay · Free · evangelical
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
VideoWatch teaching on Isaiah 23YouTube · Lay · Free
Sermons and chapter teaching from across YouTube.
CommentaryEnduring Word — Isaiah 23David Guzik · Lay · Free · evangelical
Readable, verse-by-verse exposition of the whole chapter.
CommentaryMatthew Henry on IsaiahMatthew Henry · Pastoral · Free · evangelical
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
ReferenceBlue Letter Bible — Isaiah 23Blue Letter Bible · Seminary · Free
Interlinear, lexicon, and study tools across the chapter.

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