to cross over · verb, qal imperative, 2nd person masculine plural
Tarshish
תַּרְשִׁ֑ישָׁהtar.Shi.shah
H8659
Tarshish · proper noun, a place name + directional suffix
howl
הֵילִ֖ילוּhei.Li.lu
H3213
to howl (with a wailing tone) or yell (with a boisterou… · verb, hiphil imperative, 2nd person masculine plural
inhabitants
יֹ֥שְׁבֵיYo.she.vei
H3427
properly · verb, qal active participle, masculine plural construct
isle
אִֽי'I
H339
properly · noun, common masculine singular absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Isaiah 23:12 And he said, Thou shalt no more rejoice, O thou oppressed virgin, daughter of Zidon: arise, pass over to Chittim; there also shalt thou have…
Isaiah 16:7 Therefore shall Moab howl for Moab, every one shall howl: for the foundations of Kir-hareseth shall ye mourn; surely they are stricken.
Isaiah 21:15 For they fled from the swords, from the drawn sword, and from the bent bow, and from the grievousness of war.
Isaiah 23:10 Pass through thy land as a river, O daughter of Tarshish: there is no more strength.
Isaiah 23:1-2 The burden of Tyre. Howl, ye ships of Tarshish; for it is laid waste, so that there is no house, no entering in: from the land of Chittim it…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Isaiah 23:1-14
Tyre being a sea-port town, this prophecy of its overthrow fitly begins and ends with, Howl, you ships of Tarshish; for all its business, wealth, and honour, depended upon its shipping; if that be ruined, they will be all undone. Observe,
I. Tyre flourishing. This is taken notice of that her fall may appear the more dismal. 1. The merchants of Zidon, who traded at sea, had at first replenished her, Isa 23:2. Zidon was the more ancient city, situated upon the same sea-cost, a few leagues more to the north, and Tyre was at first only a colony of that; but the daughter had outgrown the mother, and become much more considerable. It may be a mortification to great cities to think how they were at…
Pass . . . over--Escape from Tyre to your colonies as Tarshish (compare Isa 23:12). The Tyrians fled to Carthage and elsewhere, both at the siege under Nebuchadnezzar and that under Alexander.
John Gill on Isaiah 23:6
Pass ye over to Tarshish,.... Either to Tartessus in Spain, or to Tarsus in Cilicia, which lay over against them, and to which they might transport themselves, families, and substance, with greater ease; or "to a province of the sea", as the Targum, any other seaport; the Septuagint says to Carthage, which was a colony of the Tyrians; and hither the Assyrian (u) historians say they did transport themselves; though Kimchi thinks this is spoken, not to the Tyrians, but to the merchants that traded with them, to go elsewhere with their merchandise, since their goods could no more be disposed of in that city as usual.
Howl, ye inhabitants of the isle: of Tyre, as in Isaiah 23:2 or of every isle…
Pass ye over to Tarshish. He addresses not only the inhabitants of Tyre, but foreigners who were connected with them by trading, and bids them go elsewhere and seek new harbours: and he mentions Cilicia, which was opposite to Tyre, as if he had said, "That shore, which was wont to be well supplied with harbours, will henceforth be forsaken, so that ships will sail in a very different direction;" for when a harbour or a mercantile city has been ruined, merchants commonly go in search of another.
Howl, ye inhabitants of the island. [107] "Island," as we have formerly explained, is here put for "islands;" for the change of number is very customary with Hebrew writers. He foretells that they wi…
The Church Fathers
(Verse 6.) Cross over, O sea! Cry out, you who dwell on the island! Once again, they have carried Carthage across the sea and to Tharsis, seventy ships. We read in the histories of the Assyrians that the besieged Tyrians, seeing no hope of escape, fled to Carthage, either to other islands of the Ionian and Aegean seas. Hence it is said in Ezekiel: No wages were given to him, nor to his army from Tyre (Ezek. 29); because all the wealth of the city has been transferred, and all its nobles have abandoned it empty.
(Verse 6, 7.) Go to Carthage: howl, you who dwell in this island. Is this not your insult from the beginning before it was handed over? They will lead it far on foot to wander. That which follows: They will lead it far on foot to wander, is added from Hebrew, and is prenoted by an asterisk, that is, by illuminating stars. O Tyrians who dwell in narrowness and reside on the island, who are exposed on all sides to the waves of trials, depart from it, and go to Carthage, that is, to Tharsis, and hasten to true joy, mourning for ancient sins, and for the old insult, which either you yourselves inflicted on others, or suffered from them. But I give this command for a reason: because you see your city Tyre about to be moved from its original seats and purpose, when they have humbled their necks to the Gospel of the Savior, after having cast away their old error. So that those who previously dwelled in narrowness may withdraw farther and become strangers and inhabitants of the teaching of the Lord, the Savior.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Isle — The radical sense of the Hebrew word seems to be “habitable places,” as opposed to water, and in this sense it occurs in (Isaiah 42:15) Hence it means secondarily any maritime district, whether…
Tarshish · .Commerce and wealth of — .Commerce and wealth of
Tyre · Prophecies respecting: Inhabitants of, to emigrated to other countries — Prophecies respecting: Inhabitants of, to emigrated to other countries
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
The inhabitants of Tyre, who desired to escape from death or transportation, are obliged to take refuge in the colonies, and the farther off the better: not in Cyprus, not in Carthage (as at the time when Alexander attacked the insular Tyre), but in Tartessus itself, the farthest off towards the west, and the hardest to reach. "Pass ye over to Tarshish; howl, ye inhabitants of the coast! Is this your fate, thou full of rejoicing, whose origin is from the days of the olden time, whom her feet carried far away to settle? Who hath determined such a thing concerning Tzor, the distributor of crowns, whose merchants are princes, whose traders are the chief men of the earth? Jehovah of hosts hath d…
