Discovery BoxIsaiah 23:4 
Context23:4 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
Isaiah 51:10
Context51:10 Did you not dry up the sea,
the waters of the great deep?
Did you not make 3 a path through the depths of the sea,
so those delivered from bondage 4 could cross over?
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 The Hebrew text reads literally, “Are you not the one who dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep, who made…?”
4 tn Heb “the redeemed” (so ASV, NASB, NIV, NRSV); KJV “the ransomed.”
