DRAFT: A Chiastic Reconfiguration Of Isaiah 23
Kuruvilla Thomas
Bangalore
Published on 18 May 2024 *
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. We show with this reconfiguration that the prophecy also predicts that a calamity will affect modern "Tyre", an unspecified centre for international trade, at the start of Christ's Millennial Reign.
Discussion
1. Presuppositions
We base our parse of Isaiah 23 on the assumption that it refers to 3 periods:
- Phoenicia is conquered by Alexander the Great (c 332BC).
- Jerusalem is destroyed in 70AD during the First Jewish–Roman War (66AD–73AD) and the Judahites are scattered.
- Modern "Tyre" is devastated (circa 2027AD) but recovers after 70 years.
2. Parsing the chiasmus
We will use the NIV Bible for this parse.
Parsing this chiasmus involves dividing portions of the text into three categories as above. We will call the time of the Conquest of Phoenicia Period 1, the Destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD Period 2 and the start of Christ's Millennial Reign Period 3.
Categorizing Isaiah 23
vs 1b belongs to Period 3. Modern "Tyre" is destroyed. We categorize this passage as Period 3, so that the Period 3 passage below has a corresponding subunit.vs 2-6 belong to Period 1. Phoenicia is devastated by Alexander. We take the position that only "Tyre" refers to an entity in Period 3 in this prophecy, and so passages mentioning Sidon belong to Period 1.
vs 7 belong to Period 2. Jerusalem is destroyed in 70AD, the Judahites killed, and the remnant scattered. This is the rare verse in the chapter in which no city/region is identified by name. We expect to see this Period in all cryptochiastic passages.
vs 8-13 belong to Period 1. Phoenicia is devastated and its people flee.
vs 14-18 belongs to Period 3. Modern "Tyre" will be restored as a centre of worldwide trade in 70 years (the Tyre of Period 1 did not return to being a great centre of trade after Alexander's assault, and its profits were not dedicated to God). Verse 14 is included here, as its "Ships of Tarshish" matches that of verse 1b (note that with this parse, the "Ships of Tarshish" are only mentioned in Period 3).
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, has spoken: [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, whose feet will take [g] her to settle in far-off lands?
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 Cyprus; 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 [h] is destroyed!
15 At that time Tyre will be forgotten for seventy years, the span of a king’s life. But at the end of these 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.”
17 At the end of seventy years, the Lord will deal with Tyre. She will return to her lucrative prostitution and 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.
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 "for the sea, the strength of the sea, has spoken" instead of "and you fortress of the sea, for the sea has spoken". 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 "coastland" instead of "island".
[g] vs 7 "will take" instead of "have taken". Based on the KJV.
[h] vs 14 "strength" instead of "fortress".
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 devastated
B1 vs 2-6 Period 1. Phoenicia is destroyed
X vs 7 Period 2. Jerusalem is destroyed in 70AD
B2 vs 8-13 Period 1. God destroys Phoenicia
A2 vs 14-18 Period 3. "Tyre" will recover after 70 years
We now reconstruct 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 7 [vs 1b, vs 14-18] [vs 2-6, vs 8-13] (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 during the First Jewish–Roman War (66AD–73AD) and the Judahites are Scattered (vs 7)Modern "Tyre" is Devastated (circa 2027AD) but Recovers after 70 years (vs 1b, vs 14-18)
The Conquest of Phoenicia by Alexander the Great (c 332BC) (vs 2-6, vs 8-13)
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". We date the prophecy to shortly after 689BC, towards the very end of Isaiah's ministry (see comment on vs 13 below).
Some of the words used in this chapter have different meanings in Period 1 and Period 3:
- Tyre refers to the ancient Phoenician city in Period 1, and to an unnamed modern centre of international trade in Period 3.
- Kittim is a region in Greece (probably Cyprus) in Period 1, and China in Period 3. See appendix below for details.
- Tarshish is Carthage (now Tunis in Tunisia) in Period 1, and "Ships of Tarshish" refers to international trade in Period 3. See appendix below for details.
5.1 Jerusalem is Destroyed in 70AD during the First Jewish–Roman War (66AD–73AD) and the Judahites are Scattered (vs 7)
This Period is arranged in the form of a single-unit chiasmus:A1 7a Jerusalem is destroyed and emptied of Judahites
X 7b Jerusalem was an ancient, holy city
A2 7c Jerusalem is destroyed and emptied of Judahites
Subunit A1: Jerusalem is destroyed and emptied of Judahites (7a)
7a Is this your city of revelry,
We imagine that the words of this Period were spoken after the Roman devastation of Jerusalem in 70AD. Jerusalem, like Tyre, had become a city of Godless revelry by this time of its destruction (cf. Isa 22:1-2). The Romans, acting for God, destroyed the city and killed most of its residents as punishment for their sins (see [2] for more information on this Period).
Pivot X: Jerusalem was an ancient, holy city (7b)
7b the old, old city,
Jerusalem was an ancient city that 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).
Subunit A2: Jerusalem is destroyed and emptied of Judahites (7c)
7c whose feet will take her to settle in far-off lands?
Most of the Judahites were killed in the war, and the Romans took the few that remained 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 beyond to escape persecution. Eventually almost none of the Judahites remained in the land in the aftermath of this war.
5.2 Modern "Tyre" is Devastated (circa 2027AD) but Recovers after 70 years (vs 1b, vs 14-18)
Based on the fact that Tyre was one of the great centres of world trade and based on our analysis of Zechariah 1:18-2:9 [3], we believe that "Tyre" in this Period represents a powerful international organization related to trade and commerce, an organization that is a allied with Satan's empire of "Babylon". "Ships of Tarshish" represents international trade - it may refer to carriers of any type (air, land, sea, cargo, passenger, electronic) engaged in trade of any kind (goods, services, finance, etc.). Kittim refers to China. (See appendix for more details on Tarshish and Kittim).
This Period is arranged in the form of a single-unit chiasmus:
A1 1b,14-15a God dismantles "Tyre"
X 15b-16 "Tyre" is revived after 70 years
A2 17-18 God takes control of "Tyre"
Subunit A1: God dismantles "Tyre" (1b,14-15a)
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.
14 Wail, you ships of Tarshish;
your strength is destroyed!
Modern "Tyre", one of the great trading organizations of the world, is dismantled, and international trade ("Ships of Tarshish") is distressed at the loss. An announcement ("word") comes from China ("Kittim"), Satan's world capital at this time, that the world can no longer trade through the organization of "Tyre" ("Tyre" has been dismantled by the "craftsmen" of Zechariah 1:18-2:9, as detailed in [3]).
15a At that time Tyre will be forgotten for seventy years, the span of a king’s life.
"Tyre" will not be an organization of world trade for 70 years. It may be that the angels that rule the nations from the spiritual realm are changed every 70 years ("span of a king's life"), and this may manifest as a regime/dynasty change in the physical realm. So after a regime change, "Tyre" will once again be allowed to trade.
( Note that in Joel 3:4-8, the "Tyre" of this Period is accused of selling the people of God to the "Javans" - "Javan" is another name for the Chinese. As punishment, the people of "Tyre" are themselves sent into exile.)
Pivot X: "Tyre" is revived after 70 years (15b-16)
15b But at the end of these 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.”
After the 70 years, "Tyre" will be restored. The "song of the prostitute" predicts that the organization will advertise its services around the world again; the "song" may have been a well-known poem of the time. 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: God takes control of "Tyre" (17-18)
17 At the end of seventy years, the Lord will deal with Tyre. She will return to her lucrative prostitution and 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.
After the 70 years, God will take control of "Tyre" ("deal with Tyre"), and it will once again become a powerful organization of world trade ("lucrative prostitution"). During the Millennial Reign its profits will benefit the people of God, whereas before the Millennial Reign, major trading hubs were controlled by Satan worshippers, and most of the enormous profits from these operations were hoarded, to be used later to enforce tyrannical control of the world by Satan.
5.3 The Conquest of Phoenicia by Alexander the Great (c 332BC) (vs 2-6, vs 8-13)
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 modern Lebanon. "Tarshish" was Carthage (modern Tunis in Tunisia, northern Africa), the capital of the Carthaginian/Punic empire, which dominated parts of the western Mediterranean. Carthage was originally a colony founded by Tyre and was dependant on it for trade revenue.
This Period is arranged in the form of a single-unit chiasmus:
A1 2-6 Phoenicia and its partners are devastated by Alexander's assault
X 8-9 God had planned this assault by Alexander to punish the proud
A2 10-13 Phoenicia and its partners are devastated by Alexander's assault
Subunit A1: Phoenicia and its partners are devastated by Alexander's assault (2-6)
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") at Alexander's rampage through their land (see also Zech. 9:2-4). Phoenicia, a collection of city-states along the coastland in modern Lebanon, that specialized in trade; 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, has spoken: “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 birthed 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 were in pain at the loss of their primary partner in commerce.
6 Cross over to Tarshish; wail, you people of the coastland.
The women and children of the Phoenician coastland are evacuated to Carthage ("Tarshish"). Carthage, which was at the time the capital of a great empire, offered help, for Carthage had been founded as a colony of Tyre and had maintained close ties with it. ( This escape, that is recorded in history, is a clue that this prophecy is regarding Alexander's conquest, and not the assaults on Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar or by the Assyrians.)
Pivot X: God had planned this assault by Alexander to punish the proud (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 was 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 were also punished for their pride.
Tyre is a type of the great trading centres of the modern world that have similarly acquired extraordinary wealth and worldwide political power. As in the case of Tyre, the powerful modern hubs of international business will be punished for their hubris at the start of the Millennial Reign (see Period 3).
Subunit A2: Phoenicia and its partners are devastated by Alexander's assault (10-13)
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.
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 Cyprus; even there you will find no rest.”
Phoenicia's fortresses - particularly Sidon and and Tyre - were crushed by the Greeks, so the Phoenicians were forced to stop reveling in their wealth and flee. The people of Phoenicia usually fled to nearby Cyprus (Kittim in the Hebrew text) when attacked, but Cyprus was 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.)
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.
Alexander destroyed Phoenicia with the same thoroughness that Sennacherib displayed when he destroyed the vassal city of Babylon (689BC) for its rebellion (one of the reasons we do not believe that this prophecy is regarding Nebuchadnezzar's attack is that Nebuchadnezzar did not destroy Tyre). Isaiah illustrated this prophecy about Tyre with this event from his recent past, helping to date the prophecy to shortly after 689BC - towards the end of his ministry (this ruin of Babylon was a unique and uncharacteristic act by the Assyrians, as they considered Babylon the sacred city of their gods).
Conclusion
With this chiastic reconstruction of the text, we have shown that Isaiah 23 contains prophecies on the devastation of great cities in 3 distinct Periods. The fall of ancient Tyre and its allied cities seems to be a type of the fall of modern centres of international trade.
Appendix
The following are more detailed definitions of some of the significant 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 long 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 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, 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 apparently 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 in the land of Ophir (see 1 Kings 22:48) along India's Malabar Coast.
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
* First version published on October 27 2021.