A Chiastic Reconfiguration Of Isaiah 23
Kuruvilla Thomas
Bangalore
Published on 4 September 2026 *
Introduction
This study treats Isaiah 23 as a cryptochiasmus in order to arrive at a coherent reconfiguration of the text ( see definition of cryptochiasmus in [1] ). If you wish to skip the technicalities of a chiastic parse, you may read starting from Section 4 of the Discussion section, which has the reconfigured text.
Isaiah 23 predicts Alexander's conquest of ancient Tyre and other cities in Phoenicia. The prophecy also predicts that, after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70AD, most of the Judahites will move to South India, and that modern "Tyre", a great centre of trade and export in China, will be dismantled at the start of Christ's reign over the world.
Discussion
1. Presuppositions
We base our parse of Isaiah 23 on the assumption that it refers to 3 periods:
- Phoenicia is devastated by Alexander the Great (c 332BC).
- Jerusalem is destroyed in 70AD and the Judahites leave Judea (after 73AD).
- Modern "Tyre" is devastated but is restored after 70 years (2030AD-2100AD).
2. Parsing the chiasmus
We will use the NIV Bible for this parse.
Parsing this chiasmus involves dividing portions of the text into the three categories above. We will call the time of the Conquest of Phoenicia Period 1, the First Jewish–Roman War Period 2 and the start of Christ's reign over the world Period 3.
Categorizing Isaiah 23
vs 1b belongs to Period 3. Modern "Tyre" is destroyed. We categorise this short passage as Period 3, so that the Period 3 passage below has a corresponding subunit.vs 2-5 belong to Period 1. Phoenicia is devastated by Alexander.
vs 6-7 belong to Period 2. Jerusalem is destroyed in 70AD, and the Christian Judahites move to another land. We expect to see this Period in all cryptochiastic passages.
vs 8-12 belong to Period 1. The aftermath of Alexander's devastation. Phoenicia is devastated and its people flee.
vs 13-18 belongs to Period 3. Modern "Babylon" (of Rev 17) is destroyed (vs 13 does not "fit" ancient Babylon). Modern "Tyre" will be restored as a great centre of trade and export after 70 years and it will do God's work (the profits of the Tyre of Period 1 were not dedicated to God).
Original text
We color-code the chiastic units of the original text (NIV) below for easy visual identification using: red for Period 1, blue for Period 2 and green for Period 3. We have retranslated parts of the text.
Isaiah 23 1b Wail, you ships of Tarshish! For Tyre is destroyed and left without house or harbor. From the land of Kittim [a] word has come to them.
2 Be silent, you people of the coastland,[b] you merchants of Sidon, whom the seafarers have enriched. 3 On the great waters, the grain of the Shihor, [c] the harvest of the Nile was the revenue of Tyre, and she became the marketplace of the nations.
4 Be ashamed, Sidon; the sea, the strength of the sea, will say: [d] “I do not labor nor give birth; I do not rear sons nor bring up daughters.” [e] 5 When word comes to Egypt, they will be in anguish at the report from Tyre.
6 Cross over to Tarshish. Wail, you people of the coastland [f].
7 Is this your city of revelry, the old, old city? Her feet have taken her to settle in far-off lands. [g]
8 Who planned this against Tyre, the bestower of crowns, whose merchants are princes, whose traders are renowned in the earth? 9 The Lord Almighty planned it, to bring down her pride in all her splendor and to humble all who are renowned on the earth.
10 Till your land as they do along the Nile, Daughter Tarshish, for you no longer have a harbor. 11 The Lord has stretched out his hand over the sea and made its kingdoms tremble. He has given an order concerning Phoenicia that her fortresses be destroyed. 12 He said, “No more of your reveling, Virgin Daughter Sidon, now crushed!
“Up, cross over to Kittim [h]; even there you will find no rest.”
13 Look at the land of the Babylonians, this people that is now of no account! The Assyrians have made it a place for desert creatures; they raised up their siege towers, they stripped its fortresses bare and turned it into a ruin.
14 Wail, you ships of Tarshish; your strength [i] is destroyed! 15 At that time Tyre will be forgotten for seventy years, according to the days of one king [j]. At the end of seventy [k] years, it will happen to Tyre as in the song of the prostitute:
16 “Take up a harp, walk through the city, you forgotten prostitute; play the harp well, sing many a song, so that you will be remembered.”
17 At the end of seventy years, the Lord will restore Tyre, and she will return to her lucrative prostitution. She will [l] ply her trade with all the kingdoms on the face of the earth. 18 Yet her profit and her earnings will be set apart for the Lord; they will not be stored up or hoarded. Her profits will go to those who live before the Lord, for abundant food and fine clothes.
Retranslation notes for Isaiah 23:
[a] vs 1 "Kittim" instead of "Cyprus".
[b] vs 2 "coastland," instead of "island and".
[c] vs 3 "waters, the grain of the Shihor," instead of "waters came the grain of the Shihor;".
[d] vs 4 "the sea, the strength of the sea, will say" instead of "and you fortress of the sea, for the sea has spoken". Partly based on the KJV.
[e] vs 4 "I do not labor nor give birth; I do not rear sons nor bring up daughters" instead of "I have neither been in labor nor given birth; I have neither reared sons nor brought up daughters". Changed tense based on the KJV.
[f] vs 6 "Tarshish. Wail, you people of the coastland" instead of "Tarshish; wail, you people of the island".
[g] vs 7 "city? Her feet have taken her to settle in far-off lands." instead of "city, whose feet have taken her to settle in far-off lands?".
[h] vs 12 "Kittim" instead of "Cyprus".
[i] vs 14 "strength" instead of "fortress".
[j] vs 15 "according to the days of one king" instead of "the span of a king’s life".
[k] vs 15 "At the end of seventy" instead of "But at the end of these seventy".
[l] vs 17 "restore Tyre, and she will return to her lucrative prostitution. She will" instead of "deal with Tyre. She will return to her lucrative prostitution and will".
3. Building the reconfigured text
From this parse, it appears that Isaiah 23 forms a cryptochiasmus as below:A1 vs 1b Period 3. Modern "Tyre" is dismantled
B1 vs 2-5 Period 1. Phoenicia is destroyed
X vs 6-7 Period 2. Jerusalem is destroyed in 70AD
B2 vs 8-12 Period 1. God destroys Phoenicia
A2 vs 13-18 Period 3. "Tyre" will recover after 70 years
We now reconfigure the passages in the right order based on the chiastic structure above and based on the ordering rules of a cryptochiasmus [1].
We lead with central pivot point 'X'. The corresponding subunits (for example, subunit A1 corresponds to A2) are placed contiguously to form units (for example, A1,A2 is a unit) so that we get a list of such units.
The sequence selected for rearrangement is:
X [A1,A2] [B1,B2] (1)
Translating (1) into verse numbers, we get:
vs 6-7 [vs 1b, vs 13-18] [vs 2-5, vs 8-12] (2)
We arrive at the reconfigured passage in the next section by rearranging the verses so they are in sequence (2).
4. Isaiah 23 Reconfigured
Jerusalem is destroyed in 70AD and the Judahites leave Judea (after 73AD) (vs 6-7)Modern "Tyre" is devastated but is restored after 70 years (2030AD-2100AD) (vs 1b, vs 13-18)
Chiasmus 1: "Babylon" and one of its subsidiaries, "Tyre", are destroyed (2030AD) (vs 1b, vs 13-15a)
Chiasmus 2: God restores "Tyre" after 70 years (2100AD) (vs 15b-18)
Phoenicia is devastated by Alexander the Great (c 332BC) (vs 2-5, vs 8-12)
5. A Commentary on the Reconfigured Text
5.0 The Title of the Prophecy (vs 1a)
Chapter 23 1a A prophecy against Tyre:
This prophecy predicts the destruction of ancient Tyre by Alexander, and also the devastation of modern "Tyre".
Some of the words used in this chapter take on different meanings in different Periods:
- Tyre refers to the ancient Phoenician trading city in Period 1, and to Hong Kong in China, a centre of trade and export, in Period 3.
- Kittim is Greece in Period 1, and China in Period 3. See appendix below for details.
- Tarshish is Carthage (now Tunis in Tunisia) in Period 1 and a city, probably Muziris, on the Malabar coast in India (present-day Kerala) in Period 2; "Ships of Tarshish" generically refers to vessels of international trade in Period 3. See appendix below for details.
5.1 Jerusalem is destroyed in 70AD and the Judahites leave Judea (after 73AD) (vs 6-7)
This Period is arranged in the form of a single-unit chiasmus:A1 vs 6 The Judahites leave Judea and settle in Tarshish (after 73AD)
X vs 7a Jerusalem is destroyed (70AD)
A2 vs 7b The Judahites leave Judea and settle in Tarshish (after 73AD)
We propose that this chiasmus is read from the middle in the sequence: [X], [A1,A2].
Subunit A1: The Judahites leave Judea and settle in Tarshish (after 73AD) (vs 6)
6 Cross over to Tarshish. Wail, you people of the coastland.
After the destruction of Jerusalem, the majority of the Judahites moved to Tarshish, a port city along the Malabar coast in south-western India (modern Kerala) (See appendix below for details on Tarshish.). There they often mourned for the homeland that they had forever left behind (this prediction is phrased as an exhortation).
Judahites had lived on this wealthy coast of India from the time of Solomon (cf. 2 Chronicles 9:21, 1 Kings 10:22); the apostle Thomas came to India, c 52AD, primarily to convert these Judahites to Christianity (see Matthew 10:5-6). In this Period, after the devastation of the Roman war, the Christian Judahites of Judea also moved to this region, presumably to escape persecution. So all the Judahites in this region were Christian, and their descendants are the Malayali Christians of today; the coming Messiah, who must be a Judahite of the line of David (Isaiah 11:1), will most likely come from this community.
This passage continues in the corresponding Subunit A2 below.
Pivot X: Jerusalem is destroyed (70AD) (vs 7a)
In this pivot, Isaiah comments on the devastation of Jerusalem - the once great city had become a smoking ruin after the Roman attack in 70AD.
7a1 Is this your city of revelry,
Jerusalem, like Tyre, had become a city of Godless revelry by this time of its destruction (see Isa 22:1-2). God, through the Romans, destroyed the city and killed most of its residents as punishment for their sins (see [2] for more information on this Period).
7a2 the old, old city?
Jerusalem was an ancient, storied city that had existed even at the time of Melchizedek and Abraham under the name Salem (Gen. 14:18–20, Psalms 76:2). God had given David the city so that it would be the capital of His nation of Israel, and the location of His temple (2 Samuel 5:6-12, 6:12-19). The Judahites were justifiably proud of the city and greatly mourned its loss.
Subunit A2: The Judahites leave Judea and settle in Tarshish (after 73AD) (vs 7b)
7b Her feet have taken her to settle in far-off lands.
Most of the non-Christian Judahites were killed in the war, and the Romans took the few that remained in Jerusalem into slavery in exile (see [2] for more information on this Period). The Christian Judahites escaped this slaughter (Matt 24:15-16), but they gradually drifted away to other parts of the Middle East and to India. Eventually almost none of the Judahites remained in the land in the aftermath of this war.
5.2 Modern "Tyre" is devastated but is restored after 70 years (2030AD-2100AD) (vs 1b, vs 13-18)
In this Period, Kittim refers to China, and "Ships of Tarshish" refer to carriers of any type that are used for international trade (ships, planes, trains, electronic media) engaged in trade of any kind (goods, services, finance, etc.). (See appendix for more details on Tarshish and Kittim).
We believe that the "Tyre" of this Period (that is also mentioned in Joel 3:4) is Hong Kong, because:
- Hong Kong, like ancient Tyre, is a great export hub and centre of world trade.
- Like Tyre, Hong Kong, on the southern coast of China, is geographically suited for international trade. It is an island off the coast but intimately connected to the mainland and dependent on the mainland for export merchandise.
- We believe this "Tyre" is associated with China because Kittim is mentioned - Kittim is a name for China in prophecy (See appendix). ( In a related prophecy in Joel 3:5, Javan is mentioned - Javan is another name for China in this Period, see appendix.)
This Period is structured as a series of 2 chiasmi.
Chiasmus 1: "Babylon" and one of its subsidiaries, "Tyre", are destroyed (2030AD) (vs 1b, vs 13-15a)
A1 vs 1b "Tyre" is destroyed
X vs 13 "Babylon" is destroyed by the "Assyrians"
A2 vs 14-15a "Tyre" is destroyed
We propose that this chiasmus is read from the middle in the sequence: [X], [A1,A2].
Subunit A1: "Tyre" is destroyed (vs 1b)
1b Wail, you ships of Tarshish!
For Tyre is destroyed
and left without house or harbor.
From the land of Kittim
word has come to them.
Modern "Tyre", Hong Kong, one of the great trading and financial centres of the world, is destroyed, and international shipping companies ("Ships of Tarshish") are distressed at the loss. An announcement ("word") comes from China ("Kittim") that "Tyre" is shut down ("Tyre" - along with the 4 major manufacturing and export hubs of China - is dismantled by the "craftsmen" of Zechariah 1:18-21 [3]).
( According to Joel 3:4-8, the reason that the "Tyre" of this Period is punished is that it sold the people of God, the Israelites, as slaves to "Javans" - "Javan" is another name for the Chinese. After "Tyre" is destroyed, the wicked among the people of "Tyre" will themselves be sent into slavery in Israel.)
Pivot X: "Babylon" is destroyed by the "Assyrians" (vs 13)
13 Look at the land of the Babylonians, this people that is now of no account! The Assyrians have made it a place for desert creatures; they raised up their siege towers, they stripped its fortresses bare and turned it into a ruin.
Satan's evil worldwide organization of "Babylon" (Rev 17) is destroyed forever ("a place for desert creatures") by the righteous among the people of "Assyria", the Beast Empire (see Rev 17:16) (Assyria, the first king of Rev 17:10, was Satan's chief empire in Isaiah's time and here represents Satan's Beast empire). Note that "Babylon" is an organization and not a literal nation, so this passage is mostly figurative.
When "Babylon" is destroyed in 2030AD, the Beast empire is also destroyed, China is greatly weakened, and so is "Tyre" (see Unit A).
Subunit A2: "Tyre" is destroyed (vs 14-15a)
This subunit continues from the corresponding Subunit A1 above.
14 Wail, you ships of Tarshish; your strength is destroyed! 15a At that time Tyre will be forgotten for seventy years, according to the days of one king.
"Tyre" will not be a centre of international trade for 70 years ("the strength of the ships of Tarshish is destroyed"). We propose that China will retain control over Hong Kong for around a 100 years, from 1997AD to around 2100AD ("according to the days of one king"), before the city is leased out again, this time to the New Israel.
Chiasmus 2: God restores "Tyre" after 70 years (2100AD) (vs 15b-18)
A1 vs 15b-16 "Tyre" resumes international trade
X vs 17a God restores "Tyre" after 70 years
A2 vs 17b-18 "Tyre" resumes international trade
We propose that this chiasmus is read from the middle in the sequence: [X], [A1,A2].
Subunit A1: "Tyre" resumes international trade (vs 15b-16)
15b At the end of seventy years, it will happen to Tyre as in the song of the prostitute:
16 “Take up a harp, walk through the city,
you forgotten prostitute;
play the harp well, sing many a song,
so that you will be remembered.”
At the end of 70 years, "Tyre" will market its trading services around the world again; the "song of the prostitute" is about prostitutes advertising their services through music, and it may have been a well-known ditty in Isaiah's time.
Pivot X: God restores "Tyre" after 70 years (vs 17a)
17a At the end of seventy years, the Lord will restore Tyre, and she will return to her lucrative prostitution.
After the 70 years, God will take control of "Tyre" through the New Israel, and He will restore it to its former status as a lucrative centre of trade.
The "prostitute" metaphor alludes to the promiscuous international communication and transportation that are required of a trading hub - the negative connotation of "prostitute" does not apply in this context.
Subunit A2: "Tyre" resumes international trade (17b-18)
17b She will ply her trade with all the kingdoms on the face of the earth. 18 Yet her profit and her earnings will be set apart for the Lord; they will not be stored up or hoarded. Her profits will go to those who live before the Lord, for abundant food and fine clothes.
During the Millennial Reign "Tyre's" great profits will benefit the righteous people of God, whereas, before the Millennial Reign, it was controlled by Satan worshippers, and most of the enormous profits from its operations were hoarded, to be used later to enforce tyrannical control of the world by Satan.
5.3 Phoenicia is devastated by Alexander the Great (c 332BC) (vs 2-5, vs 8-12)
In this Period, the names Tyre and Tarshish retain the original meanings they had at the time of the prophecy. Tyre was a Phoenician city along the coast of what is present-day Lebanon. "Tarshish" was Carthage (modern Tunis in Tunisia, northern Africa), the capital of the Carthaginian/Punic empire that dominated parts of the western Mediterranean. Carthage was originally a colony founded by Tyre and was dependant on Phoenicia for trade revenue.
This Period is arranged in the form of a single-unit chiasmus:
A1 vs 2-5 The aftermath of Alexander's attack on Phoenicia
X vs 8-9 It is God who brings this disaster on Phoenicia
A2 vs 10-12 The aftermath of Alexander's attack on Phoenicia
Subunit A1: The aftermath of Alexander's attack on Phoenicia (vs 2-5)
2 Be silent, you people of the coastland, you merchants of Sidon, whom the seafarers have enriched. 3 On the great waters, the grain of the Shihor, the harvest of the Nile was the revenue of Tyre, and she became the marketplace of the nations.
The bustling commercial hub of Phoenicia is stupefied into silence ("be silent") after Alexander's rampage through their land (see also Zech. 9:2-4). Phoenicia was a collection of city-states that specialised in trade along the coastland of what is present-day Lebanon; Sidon was its "mother" state and the port city of Tyre was its wealthiest city. The producers of the fertile Nile region ("Shihor" is another name for the Nile - see Jer. 2:18) in Egypt sent their abundant produce to Phoenicia. Their goods were distributed inland to parts of Asia, like the wealthy Mesopotamian region, and by sea ("great waters") to the Mediterranean region and to other parts of the world (cf. 1 Kings 10:22). Through trades such as this, Phoenicia had grown into an important centre of international commerce.
4 Be ashamed, Sidon; the sea, the strength of the sea, will say: “I do not labor nor give birth; I do not rear sons nor bring up daughters”
Phoenicia was a thalassocracy, its domain was the sea, and Sidon, one of its dominant states, was its founding city. Over the years, it had built up a network of hundreds of tiny colonies around the Mediterranean and elsewhere that acted as its trading posts. After this defeat by Alexander, Sidon, "the sea, the strength of the sea", was no longer the productive "mother" state that births prosperous colonies - it became a part of the Greek Empire. The people of Sidon are "shamed" by this loss of wealth and prestige.
5 When word comes to Egypt, they will be in anguish at the report from Tyre.
The wealthy producers and traders of Egypt are in pain at the loss of their primary partner in commerce.
Pivot X: It is God who brings this disaster on Phoenicia (vs 8-9)
8 Who planned this against Tyre, the bestower of crowns, whose merchants are princes, whose traders are renowned in the earth? 9 The Lord Almighty planned it, to bring down her pride in all her splendor and to humble all who are renowned on the earth.
The merchants of Tyre were rich, powerful and famous around the world, and this disaster is punishment from God for their pride and arrogance at their worldly success (cf. Isaiah 2:12). The great city of Tyre had created many daughter cities, some of which, notably Carthage, had grown quite large, turning their leaders into princes; these wealthy are also punished for their pride.
Subunit A2: The aftermath of Alexander's attack on Phoenicia (vs 10-12)
10 Till your land as they do along the Nile, Daughter Tarshish, for you no longer have a harbor.
Carthage ("Daughter Tarshish"), which had been a master of Mediterranean maritime trade through its connections with Tyre, is advised to seek other sources of income, now that Phoenician trade is destroyed - Carthage is counselled to turn to agriculture ("till the land") like the people of the Nile. Around this time, the city of Carthage acquired some of the surrounding land in Africa and became quite famous for its agriculture, especially for its wine and olives.
So now the Phoenicians who fled to Carthage must toil as farmers, a far less lucrative occupation than their previous one of traders; God has taken away the wealth and power that made them a proud and arrogant people.
11a The Lord has stretched out his hand over the sea and made its kingdoms tremble.
The colonies that Phoenicia created all along the Mediterranean ("over the sea") are in terror, because their parent nation is destroyed.
11b He has given an order concerning Phoenicia that her fortresses be destroyed. 12 He said, “No more of your reveling, Virgin Daughter Sidon, now crushed! “Up, cross over to Kittim; even there you will find no rest.”
Phoenicia's fortresses - particularly Sidon and and Tyre - have been crushed by the Greeks, so the Phoenicians are forced to stop revelling in their wealth and flee. The people of Phoenicia usually fled to nearby Cyprus (a part of Kittim) when attacked, but Cyprus is also controlled by their Greek attackers. Sidon is called "Virgin Daughter Sidon" according to the practice of the time of comparing great cities to beautiful young ladies (cf., for ex. Isaiah 16:1). ( Note that Sidon represents all of Phoenicia in vs 12.)
Conclusion
With this chiastic reconfiguration of the text, we have shown that Isaiah 23 contains prophecies on the devastation of great cities/centres of trade in 3 distinct Periods. The fall of ancient Tyre and its allied cities in Period 1 seems to be a type of the fall of modern centres of international trade in China in Period 3.
Appendix
The following are more detailed definitions of some of the terms in this chapter.
Kittim was a son of Javan and grandson of Japheth (see Gen 10:1-5), and his descendants make up a portion of the modern Chinese people. It appears that the tribe of Kittim had initially moved west from Babel to occupy the region of Greece for a time, before moving east to China (see Gen 10:5) - regions of Greece continued to be called Kittim (Dan 11:30) and Javan (see Dan 11:2 in Hebrew) long after they left. Note that Northern China was called Cathay, which was derived from Kittim.
Tarshish was a son of Javan and grandson of Japheth (see Gen 10:1-5), and his descendants, like those of Kittim, moved west from Babel to the region that is now called Tunisia in Northern Africa, before gradually migrating to the far-east (see Gen 10:5). Some of the places that they occupied along the way remained named after them long after they left. So "Tarshish", in the Bible, primarily refers to Carthage in North Africa after that nation was established c. 814BC (see Jonah 1:3). However, before that, around Solomon's time, it primarily referred to a region along the western coast of India; we believe this based on the unique cargo manifest and the frequency of the trips detailed in 2 Chronicles 9:21 and 1 Kings 10:22. Tarshish was likely a port city, probably Muziris, in the land of Ophir (see 1 Kings 22:48) along India's Malabar Coast (now the state of Kerala).
Ships of Tarshish Ancient Tarshish in India was widely known for its trade and its trading ships - vessels that were sufficiently sturdy for the strong monsoon winds of the Arabian Sea. So the Bible has, in several places, adopted "Ships of Tarshish" as a generic term for all seaworthy vessels (see 2 Chron. 20:36, 1 Kings 22:48, Psalm 48:7) and, in prophecy, for modern international transportation of all kinds, even aircraft (see Isaiah 60:9).
References
[1] A Definition of Cryptochiasmus[2] A Chiastic Reconfiguration Of "The 70 Weeks Of Daniel"
[3] A Chiastic Reconfiguration Of Zechariah 1-6
[4] A Chiastic Reconfiguration Of Joel
* First version published on October 27 2021.