Pass over to Chittim.—With a keen irony the prophet gives a counsel which he declares will be of no avail. They may flee to Chittim (Cyprus); but the power of the Assyrians would reach them even there. Once and again the inscriptions of the Assyrian kings record how they subdued and took tribute from “Yatnan,” the “island in the sea of the setting sun,” which can be none other than Cyprus (e.g., Sargon in Records of the Past, vii. 26).

Thou shalt no more rejoice - The sense is, that Tyre was soon to be destroyed. It does not mean that it should never afterward exult or rejoice, for the prophet says Isaiah 23:17, that after its destruction it would be restored, and again be filled with exultation and joy.

O thou oppressed Virgin - Lowth renders this, 'O thou deflowered virgin,' expressing the sense of the word המעשׁקה hame‛ushâqâh.

O daughter of Zidon - Isaiah 23:4. "Pass over to Chittim" (see the note at Isaiah 23:1). The idea is, that under the siege the inhabitants of Tyre would seek refuge in her colonies, and the cities that were dependent on her.

There also shalt thou have no rest - It is not improbable that Nebuchadnezzar would carry his arms to Cyprus - on which the city of Citium was - where the Tyrians would take refuge first. Megasthenes, who lived about 300 years before Christ, says of Nebuchadnezzar that he subdued a great part of Africa and Spain, and that he carried his arms so far as the Pillars of Hercules (see Newton, On the Prophecies, xi. 11). But whether this refers to the oppressions which Nebuchadnezzar would bring on them or not, it is certain that the colonies that sprung from Phenicia were exposed to constant wars after this. Carthage was a colony of Tyre, and it is well known that this city was engaged in hostility with the Romans until it was utterly destroyed. Indeed all the dependent colonies of ancient Tyre became interested and involved in the agitations and commotions which were connected with the conquests of the Roman empire.

rejoice—riotously (Isa 23:7).

oppressed—"deflowered"; laying aside the figure "taken by storm"; the Arabs compare a city never taken to an undefiled virgin (compare Na 3:5, &c.).

daughter of Zidon—Tyre: or else, sons of Zidon, that is, the whole land and people of Phœnicia (see on [731]Isa 23:2) [Maurer].

Chittim—Citium in Cyprus (Isa 23:1).

there also … no rest—Thy colonies, having been harshly treated by thee, will now repay thee in kind (see on [732]Isa 23:10). But Vitringa refers it to the calamities which befell the Tyrians in their settlements subsequently, namely, Sicily, Corcyra, Carthage, and Spain, all flowing from the original curse of Noah against the posterity of Canaan (Ge 9:25-27).

O thou oppressed virgin! Tyre is called a "virgin", because of her beauty, pride, and lasciviousness, and because never before subdued and taken: and "oppressed", because now deflowered, ransacked, plundered, and ruined, by Nebuchadnezzar:

daughter of Zidon: some think Zidon itself is meant, just as daughter of Zion means Zion herself, &c.; but it may be also observed, that such cities that have sprung from others, or have their dependence on them, are called their daughters; so we read of Samaria and her daughters, and Sodom and her daughters, Ezekiel 16:46 and so Tyre is called the daughter of Zidon, because it was a colony of the Zidonians (f); and at first built and supported by them, though now grown greater than its mother:

arise, pass over to Chittim; to the isle of Cyprus, which was near them, and in which was a city called Citium; or to Macedonia, which was called the land of Chittim, as in the Apocrypha:

"And it happened, after that Alexander son of Philip, the Macedonian, who came out of the land of Chettiim, had smitten Darius king of the Persians and Medes, that he reigned in his stead, the first over Greece,'' (1 Maccabees 1:1)

or to the isles of the Aegean and Ionian seas; or to Greece and Italy; which latter sense is approved by Vitringa, who thinks the islands of Corsica, and Sardinia, and Sicily, are meant, which were colonies of the Tyrians; and so in Isaiah 23:1,

there also shalt thou have no rest; since those countries would also fall into the enemy's hands, either the Babylonians, or the Medes and Persians, or the Romans; into whose hands Macedonia, Carthage, and other colonies of the Tyrians fell, so that they had no rest in any of them.

(f) Justin ex Trogo, l. 18. c. 3.

(o) For Tyre was never touched nor afflicted before.

(p) Because Tyrus was built by them of Zidon.