Isaiah 23:14

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

Howl, you ships of Tarshish; for your stronghold is laid waste.

World English Bible · Public Domain

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תַּרְשִׁ֑ישׁ

Tarshîysh

H8659

“Tarshish”

Noun, Proper

Appears 28× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Genesis 10:4

Full BDB Definition

Origin: probably the same as H8658 (as the region of the stone, or the reverse)

TWOT: 2547

Tarshish or Tharshish = "yellow jasper" - son of Javan (noun proper masculine) - a Benjamite, son of Bilhan (noun proper masculine) - one of the wise men close to king Ahasuerus of Persia (noun proper masculine) - a city of the Phoenicians in a distant part of the Mediterranean Sea to which the prophet Jonah was trying to flee (noun proper locative) - site unknown but perhaps in Cyprus or Spain - a city somewhere near and accessible to the Red Sea to which ships constructed at Ezion-geber on the Elanitic Gulf on the Red Sea were to sail (noun proper locative)

About this verse

These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →

6: words
6: distinct lemmas
Prophets: section

Shared distinctive vocabulary

תַּרְשִׁ֑ישׁ Tarshish H8659 occurs in 24 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

2 verbs
3 nouns
1 conjunction

Verb forms

הֵילִ֖ילוּ Hiphil · Imperative
שֻׁדַּ֖ד Pual · Perfect

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 11 words from the Hebrew and 11 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — the same length.

A rough comparison of the two English renderings, which tokenize alike — not a word-level alignment.

Word counts can differ between the Hebrew and the Greek without any difference in meaning — e.g. the Hebrew direct-object marker אֵת has no separate Greek word, and Greek often adds the article ὁ.

In the original languages it is 6 Hebrew tokens and 8 Greek tokens — but the two are counted differently (Hebrew bundles its prefixes and suffixes into one token; the Greek is in lemma form), so that isn’t a like-for-like length.

Cross-references

Topical passages linked to Isaiah 23:14 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

Isaiah 23:1 The burden of Tyre. Howl, you ships of Tarshish; for it is laid waste, so that there is no house, no entering in: from the land of Kittim it is revealed to them.
Isaiah 2:16 For all the ships of Tarshish, And for all pleasant imagery.
Isaiah 23:6 Pass over to Tarshish; wail, you inhabitants of the coast.
Ezekiel 27:25–30 The ships of Tarshish were your caravans for your merchandise: and you were replenished, and made very glorious in the heart of the seas.
Revelation 18:11–19 The merchants of the earth weep and mourn over her, for no one buys their merchandise any more;

Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).

Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint

The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.

These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.

Hebrew Isaiah 23:14 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

הֵילִ֖ילוּ אֳנִיּ֣וֹת תַּרְשִׁ֑ישׁ כִּ֥י שֻׁדַּ֖ד מָעֻזְּכֶֽן

Howl, you ships of Tarshish; for your stronghold is laid waste.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Isaiah 23:14 Septuagint · lemma form

ὀλολύζω πλοῖον καρχηδών ὅτι ἀποὀλλύω ὁ ὀχύρωμα σύ

Howl, you⌃ ships of Carthage: for your strong hold is destroyed.

LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain

Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) (Public Domain). How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →

Targum (Aramaic paraphrase)

The Targum is the ancient Jewish Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Scriptures — an interpretive translation, not the Hebrew text itself. Onkelos (literal) and Pseudo-Jonathan (expansive) render the Torah, and Jonathan the Prophets. Coverage is partial: where no permissively-licensed English translation exists for a verse, only the Aramaic is shown. This is verse-level text, not a word-by-word alignment to the Hebrew.

Targum Jonathan Prophets (Joshua–Malachi)

אֵילִילוּ נָחֲתֵי סְפִינֵי יַמָא אֲרֵי אִתְבְּזִיזוּ מְחוֹזֵי תוּקְפֵכוֹן:

Howl, ye that are embarking in ships of the sea, for the seacoast of your strength is spoiled.

Targum Jonathan — Aramaic: “Mikraot Gedolot” (public domain). English: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “London "Chaldee Paraphrase," 1871” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.

Commentary

Notes on Isaiah 23:14 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.

Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →

Commentary source

Trapp's Complete Commentary

John Trapp

Isa 23:14 Howl, ye ships of Tarshish: for your strength is laid waste.

Ver. 14. Howl, ye ships of Tarshish.] He concludeth this prophecy of Tyre’s downfall as he began. {Isa 23:1} The inhabitants of Tarshish, or Tarsus in Cilicia, were great ship masters; they sent a navy of a hundred ships to Xerxes when he went against Greece.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Geneva Bible (1599)

Geneva Bible translators

That is, Tyre by whom ye are enriched.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown

Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown

strength--stronghold (compare Eze 26:15-18).

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Adam Clarke's Commentary

Verse 14. Howl, ye ships] The Prophet Ezekiel hath enlarged upon this part of the same subject with great force and elegance: -

"Thus saith the Lord JEHOVAH concerning Tyre: -

At the sound of thy fall, at the cry of the wounded,

At the great slaughter in the midst of thee, shall

not the islands tremble?

And shall not all the princes of the sea descend from

their thrones,

And lay aside their robes, and strip off their embroidered

garments?

They shall clothe themselves with trembling, they shall

sit on the ground;

They shall tremble every moment, they shall be astonished

at thee.

And they shall utter a lamentation over thee, and shall say

unto thee:

How art thou lost, thou that wast inhabited from the seas!

The renowned city, that was strong in the sea, she and her

inhabitants!

That struck with terror all her neighbours!

Now shall the coasts tremble in the day of thy fall,

And the isles that are in the sea shall be troubled at thy

departure."

Eze 26:15-18.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(14) Howl, ye ships of Tarshish: for your Strength is laid waste.—The prophecy of woe ends as it began in Isa_23:1. The “strength” is the fortress of Tyre.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne

14. The poem closes as it began with an apostrophe to the ships of Tarshish.

your strength) your strong-hold (R.V. as in Isa_23:4).

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John Gill's Exposition

Howl, ye ships of Tarshish,.... As in Isa 23:1. See Gill on Isa 23:1,

for your strength is laid waste; meaning Tyre, a strong seaport, where their ships were safe, and always found vent for their goods and merchandise; and so it was the strength and support of their country; but was now destroyed, and therefore was matter of lamentation and mourning.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible

“Howl ... Isa 23:1.

For your strength - That which has been your support and strength; to wit, Tyre (compare Eze 26:15-18).

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations

Your strength; the city of Tyre, where you found safety and wealth.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Whedon's Commentary on the Bible

Daniel D. Whedon

14, 15. Tyre shall be forgotten seventy years — Shall be of comparatively no account as an object for re-conquest. “Seventy years” is a compact series of decades, denoting at least a full long time; possibly, the figure here is a symbol for the period of a strong dynasty. Prophetic vision takes in things as wholes, be they as to periods longer or shorter. Historically there was nothing to hinder Tyre going on in her commerce, in unostentatious ways, under the Persian rule, till Alexander arose, some two hundred years later than Nebuchadnezzar. Alexander then attacked Tyre, but completed the ruin of her and her commerce more by establishing a great commercial rival, the city of Alexandria, in the western delta of the Nile, B.C. 332, than by his mere conquest of the city.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The Pulpit Commentary

Howl, ye ships of Tarshish (comp. ver. 1). The ships that traded with Tarshish, not those belonging to Tarshish, are intended. Your strength is laid waste; rather, your stronghold; i.e. Tyre itself. The elegy ends as it began, with a statement of the bare fact. Alexander"s destruction of the city was the final and complete fulfillment of the prophecy. The captures by Esarhaddou (G. Smith, "Eponym Canon," pp. 139-142), by Asshur-bani-pal (ibid., pp. 144.145), and by Nebuchadnezzar, were anticipations of the final one, and partial fulfillments of the prophecy.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John Wesley's Explanatory Notes

Your strength - The city of Tyre, where you found safety and wealth.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

J. A. Alexander on Isaiah

Joseph Addison Alexander

“Howl, ships of Tarshish, for destroyed is your stronghold.” The first part of the prophecy here closes very much as it began. The description of Tyre is the same as in v. 4, except that it was there called the fortress of the sea, and here the fortress of the Tyrian ships.

Joseph Addison Alexander, The Prophecies of Isaiah (1846–1847; New York: Scribner, 1870–1878) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Ibn Ezra

Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra

Ships of Tarshish. Ships that go from Tarshish to Tyre with goods.

Ibn Ezra on the Tanakh — English translations: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “Yalkut, Sifsei Chachomim Chumash, Metsudah Publications, 2009” (CC BY 4.0); and “Commentary of Ibn Ezra on Isaiah - trans. by M. Friedlander, 1873” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.

Lesson kit

Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.

Isaiah, in the Prophets, opens this verse with 6 words (6 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is Tarshîysh (“Tarshish”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

What does “Tarshish” (Tarshîysh) contribute to the verse as a whole?
How does Genesis 10:4, which shares the word «Tarshish», read alongside this verse?
The translations on this page render this verse differently — a whole-verse word diff, not a word-by-word alignment. What might account for the different wordings?
«הֵילִ֖ילוּ» is a Hiphil Imperative verb. How does that grammatical form shape the action described?
Compare how Trapp's Complete Commentary and Geneva Bible (1599) read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?

Things to notice

This verse counts 6 Hebrew ↔ 8 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 10 words in this verse.
6 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 6 words in this verse.