Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comJamieson Fausset Brown Commentary - Isaiah 23:13 - 23:13
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Behold - Calling attention to the fact, so humiliating to Tyre, that a people of yesterday, like the Chaldees, should destroy the most ancient of cities, Tyre.
was not - had no existence as a recognized nation; the Chaldees were previously but a rude, predatory people (Job 1:17).
Assyrian founded it - The Chaldees (“them that dwell in the wilderness”) lived a nomadic life in the mountains of Armenia originally (Arphaxad, in Gen 10:22, refers to such a region of Assyria near Armenia), north and east of Assyria proper. Some may have settled in Mesopotamia and Babylonia very early and given origin to the astrologers called Chaldees in later times. But most of the people had been transferred only a little before the time of this prophecy from their original seats in the north to Mesopotamia, and soon afterwards to South Babylonia. “Founded it,” means “assigned it (the land) to them who had (heretofore) dwelt in the wilderness” as a permanent settlement (so in Psa 104:8) [Maurer]. It was the Assyrian policy to infuse into their own population of the plain the fresh blood of hardy mountaineers, for the sake of recruiting their armies. Ultimately the Chaldees, by their powerful priest-caste, gained the supremacy and established the later or Chaldean empire. Horsley refers it to Tyre, founded by an Assyrian race.
towers thereof - namely, of Babylon, whose towers, Herodotus says, were “set up” by the Assyrians [Barnes]. Rather, “The Chaldees set up their siege-towers” against Tyre, made for the attack of high walls, from which the besiegers hurled missiles, as depicted in the Assyrian sculptures [G. V. Smith].
raised up - rather, “They lay bare,” namely, the foundations of “her (Tyre’s) palaces,” that is, utterly overthrew them (Psa 137:7).