Isaiah 23:1
The burden of Tyre. Howl, ye ships of Tarshish; for it is laid waste, so that there is no house, no entering in: from the land of Chittim it is revealed to them. The burden of Tyre. Howl, ye ships of Tarshish; for it is laid waste, so that there is no house, no entering in: from the land of Chittim it is revealed to them.
The verse opens a prophetic burden or message of judgment against Tyre, one of the cities judged in prophecy. It announces that Tyre is laid waste, so that there is no house left and no entering in for ships. It calls the ships of Tarshish to howl or mourn over the laying waste of Tyre. It pictures ships as crying out, showing that a ship can be spoken of as speaking and that a groaning craft is a fitting image. It says the news of Tyre's ruin is revealed to those ships from the land of Chittim.
Chittim means the islands and coasts of the Mediterranean, including Carthage and the islands of the Ionian and Aegean Seas. Chittim is also the name of a descendant of Javan applied to his people's country, probably Cyprus. The news came from Chittim because Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Tyre, and the Tyrians, seeing no other means of escape, fled in their ships and took refuge in Carthage and those Mediterranean islands, so the report reached the ships of Tarshish from there.
The chapter foretells Tyre's destruction by the Chaldeans under Nebuchadnezzar, written about a century before it happened. That Chaldean overthrow is an earlier destruction distinct from Alexander's later destruction, when Tyre's stones and timbers and dust were thrown into the sea to make a causeway or bridge to island Tyre. The prophecy further predicts the escape of many citizens with no rest in their refuges, restoration after seventy years, the length of the destroying king's life, then a second burning and casting into the sea with permanent loss of former importance, yet final devotion to the worship of the true God and reduction to a place used by fishermen, all of which was fulfilled. Its fulfillment, leaving Tyre destroyed and desolate with the ocean sounding over her like a perpetual dirge, demonstrates the scope and accuracy of the prophet's vision and that the Bible bears the impress of the Mind controlling human destiny. With a God in whom there is no variableness, the verse pronounces woe upon unfaithful pastors who sow tares and error among religious creeds and who destroy and scatter the sheep of His pasture.