23:4 Be ashamed, O Sidon,
for the sea 1 says this, O fortress of the sea:
“I have not gone into labor
or given birth;
I have not raised young men
or brought up young women.” 2
25:2 Indeed, 3 you have made the city 4 into a heap of rubble,
the fortified town into a heap of ruins;
the fortress of foreigners 5 is no longer a city,
it will never be rebuilt.
1 tn J. N. Oswalt (Isaiah [NICOT], 1:430-31) sees here a reference to Yam, the Canaanite god of the sea. He interprets the phrase מָעוֹז הַיָּם (ma’oz hayyam, “fortress of the sea”) as a title of Yam, translating “Mighty One of the Sea.” A more traditional view is that the phrase refers to Sidon.
2 tn Or “virgins” (KJV, ASV, NAB, NASB).
sn The sea is personified here as a lamenting childless woman. The foreboding language anticipates the following announcement of Tyre’s demise, viewed here as a child of the sea, as it were.
3 tn Or “For” (KJV, NAB, NASB, NRSV).
4 tn The Hebrew text has “you have made from the city.” The prefixed mem (מ) on עִיר (’ir, “city”) was probably originally an enclitic mem suffixed to the preceding verb. See J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:456, n. 3.
5 tc Some with support from the LXX emend זָרִים (zarim, “foreigners”) to זֵדִים (zedim, “the insolent”).