Isaiah 23:8

Who hath taken this counsel against Tyre, the crowning city, whose merchants are princes, whose traffickers are the honourable of the earth?

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(8) The crowning city.—The participle is strictly transitive in its force. Tyre was the distributor of crowns to the Phœnician colonies. The Vulg., however, gives “crowned.”

Whose merchants are princes.—It is a fact worth noting in the history of language that the word for “merchants” here, and in Hosea 12:7; Proverbs 31:24, is the same as that for Canaanite. The traffickers of the earth were pre-eminently of that race.

Benson Commentary

Isaiah 23:8-9. Who hath taken this counsel against Tyre? — Words of admiration. Who, and where, is he that could imagine, or durst attempt such a thing as this? This is the work of God, and not of man. The crowning city — Which was a royal city, and carried away the crown from all other cities: whose merchants are princes — Equal to princes for wealth, and power, and reputation. The Lord of hosts hath purposed it — This is the Lord’s own doing; to stain the pride of all glory — God’s design is, by this example, to abase the pride of all the potentates of the earth, that they may see how weak they are when he sets himself against them.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

23:1-14 Tyre was the mart of the nations. She was noted for mirth and diversions; and this made her loth to consider the warnings God gave by his servants. Her merchants were princes, and lived like princes. Tyre being destroyed and laid waste, the merchants should abandon her. Flee to shift for thine own safety; but those that are uneasy in one place, will be so in another; for when God's judgments pursue sinners, they will overtake them. Whence shall all this trouble come? It is a destruction from the Almighty. God designed to convince men of the vanity and uncertainty of all earthly glory. Let the ruin of Tyre warn all places and persons to take heed of pride; for he who exalts himself shall be abased. God will do it, who has all power in his hand; but the Chaldeans shall be the instruments.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Who hath taken this counsel? - To whom is this to be traced? Is this the work of man, or is it the plan of God? - questions which would naturally arise at the contemplation of the ruin of a city so ancient and so magnificent. The object of this question is to trace it all to God; and this perhaps indicates the scope of the prophecy - to show that God reigns, and does all his pleasure ever cities and kingdoms.

The crowning city - The distributer of crowns; or the city from which dependent towns, provinces, and kingdoms had arisen. Many colonies and cities had been founded by Tyre. Tartessus in Spain, Citium in Cyprus, Carthage in Africa, and probably many other places were Phenician colonies, and derived their origin from Tyre, and were still its tributaries and dependants (compare Ezekiel 27:33).

Whose merchants are princes - Princes trade with thee; and thus acknowledge their dependence on thee. Or, thy merchants are splendid, gorgeous, and magnificent like princes. The former, however, is probably the meaning.

Whose traffickers - (כנעניה kı̂ne‛âneyhâ, Canaanites). As the ancient inhabitants of Canaan were "traffickers or merchants," the word came to denote merchants in general (see Job 41:6; Ezekiel 17:4; Hosea 12:7; Zephaniah 1:1 l). So the word Chaldean came to mean astrologers, because they were celebrated for astrology.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

8. Who—answered in Isa 23:9, "The Lord of hosts."

crowning—crown-giving; that is, the city from which dependent kingdoms had arisen, as Tartessus in Spain, Citium in Cyprus, and Carthage in Africa (Eze 27:33).

traffickers—literally, "Canaanites," who were famed for commerce (compare Ho 12:7, Margin).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Who hath taken this counsel against Tyre? words of admiration: who and where is he that could imagine or durst attempt such a thing as this? This is the work of God, as is expressed, Isaiah 23:9, and not of man.

The crowning city; which was a royal city, Jeremiah 25:22, and called a kingdom, Ezekiel 28:2,12, and carried away the crown from all other cities, and crowned herself and her, citizens with glory and delights.

Whose merchants are princes; equal to princes for wealth, and power, and reputation.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Who hath taken this counsel against Tyre, the crowning city,.... Which had a king over it, to whom it gave a crown; and which crowned its inhabitants with riches and plenty, and even enriched the kings of the earth, Ezekiel 27:33 this is said as wondering who could lay a scheme to destroy such a city, or ever think of succeeding in it; who could take it into his head, or how could it enter into his heart, or who could have a heart to go about it, and still less power to effect the ruin of such a city, which was the queen of cities, and gave laws and crowns, riches and wealth, to others; surely no mere mortal could be concerned in this; see Revelation 13:3,

whose merchants are princes; either really such, for even princes and kings of the earth traded with her, Ezekiel 27:21 or they were as rich as princes in other countries were:

whose traffickers are the honourable of the earth; made rich by trafficking with her, and so attained great honour and glory in the world; see Revelation 18:3.

Geneva Study Bible

Who hath taken this counsel against Tyre, the {m} crowning city, whose merchants are princes, whose traders are the honourable of the earth?

(m) Who makes her merchants like princes.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

8, 9. This is the execution of Jehovah’s purpose, and therefore irreversible.

the crowning city] Or, the crown-giver. Tyre is rightly so-called, inasmuch as some of her colonies (Kition, Tarshish and Carthage) were ruled by kings, subject to the mother-city.

whose traffickers] The word is probably the gentilic noun “Canaanite” which is used with the sense of “trader” in Job 41:6 [Heb. 40:30]; Proverbs 31:24; Zechariah 14:21, as the collective name “Canaan” is in older passages (Hosea 12:7; Zephaniah 1:11). It was of course from the commercial proclivities of the Phœnicians themselves that the word acquired this secondary significance amongst the Hebrews. The petty trade of Palestine seems to have been largely in the hands of Tyrian dealers (Nehemiah 13:16 ff.) and hence a Canaanite came to mean a merchant, just as a Chaldæan came to mean an astrologer and a Scotchman in some parts of England meant a pedlar.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 8. - Who hath taken this counsel? Who can have conceived the thought of destroying a city at once so powerful and so conducive to the advantage of other states? The answer is given in the next verse. The crowning city; i.e. "the dispenser of crowns." Either to the governors of her colonies, or perhaps to the other cities of Phoenicia Proper. It is not quite clear whether the kings of those cities needed the sanction of Tyro to confirm them on their thrones, or not. The Hebrew word used must certainly be rendered "crowning," and not "crowned." Whose merchants are princes. Not actually sovereigns, but the chief men in the state under the king. Traffickers; literally, Canaanites. But the ethnic name seems to have early acquired the secondary meaning of "traders" (see Proverbs 31:24; Job 41:6). Isaiah 23:8

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

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 determined it, to desecrate the pomp of every kind of ornament, to dishonour the chief men of the earth, all of them." The exclamation "howl ye" (hēillu) implies their right to give themselves up to their pain. In other cases complaint is unmanly, but here it is justifiable (compare Isaiah 15:4). In Isaiah 23:7 the question arises, whether ‛allizâh is a nominative predicate, as is generally assumed ("Is this, this deserted heap of ruins, your formerly rejoicing city?"), or a vocative. We prefer the latter, because there is nothing astonishing in the omission of the article in this case (Isaiah 22:2; Ewald, 327, a); whereas in the former case, although it is certainly admissible (see Isaiah 32:13), it is very harsh (compare Isaiah 14:16), and the whole expression a very doubtful one to convey the sense of לכם אשר עליזה קריה הזאת. To ‛allizâh there is attached the descriptive, attributive clause: whose origin (kadmâh, Ezekiel 16:55) dates from the days of the olden time; and then a second "whose feet brought her far away (raglaim construed as a masculine, as in Jeremiah 13:16, for example) to dwell in a foreign land. This is generally understood as signifying transportation by force into an enemy's country. But Luzzatto very properly objects to this, partly on the ground that רגליה יבלוּה (her feet carried her) is the strongest expression that can be used for voluntary emigration, to which lâgūr (to settle) also corresponds; and partly because we miss the antithetical ועתּה, which we should expect with this interpretation. The reference is to the trading journeys which extended "far away" (whether by land or sea), and to the colonies, i.e., the settlements founded in those distant places, that leading characteristic of the Tyro-Phoenician people (this is expressed in the imperfect by yobiluâh, quam portabant; gur is the most appropriate word to apply to such settlements: for mērâchōk, see at Isaiah 17:13). Sidon was no doubt older than Tyre, but Tyre was also of primeval antiquity. Strabo speaks of its as the oldest Phoenician city "after Sidon;" Curtius calls it vetustate originis insignis; and Josephus reckons the time from the founding of Tyre to the building of Solomon's temple as 240 years (Ant. viii. 3, 1; compare Herod. ii. 44). Tyre is called hammaēatirâh, not as wearing a crown (Vulg. quondam coronata), but as a distributor of crowns (Targum). Either would be suitable as a matter of fact; but the latter answers better to the hiphil (as hikrı̄n, hiphrı̄s, which are expressive of results produced from within outwards, can hardly be brought into comparison). Such colonies as Citium, Tartessus, and at first Carthage, were governed by kings appointed by the mother city, and dependent upon her. Her merchants were princes (compare Isaiah 10:8), the most honoured of the earth; נכבּדּי acquires a superlative meaning from the genitive connection (Ges. 119, 2). From the fact that the Phoenicians had the commerce of the world in their hands, a merchant was called cena‛ani or cena‛an (Hosea 12:8; from the latter, not from cin‛âni, the plural cin‛ânim which we find here is formed), and the merchandise cin‛âh. The verb chillēl, to desecrate or profane, in connection with the "pomp of every kind of ornament," leads us to think more especially of the holy places of both insular and continental Tyre, among which the temple of Melkarth in the new city of the former was the most prominent (according to the Arrian, Anab. ii. 16, παλαιότατον ὧν μνήμη ἀνθρωπίνη διασώζεται). These glories, which were thought so inviolable, Jehovah will profane. "To dishonour the chief men:" lehâkēl (ad ignominiam deducere, Vulg.) as in Isaiah 8:22.