(12) Thou oppressed virgin.--Strictly speaking, the noun and adjective are incompatible, the latter conveying the sense of "defiled," or "deflowered." Till now Tyre had known no defeat. Her fortress was a virgin citadel. Now the barbarian conqueror was to rob her of that virginity.

Pass over to Chittim.--With a keen irony the prophet gives a counsel which he declares will be of no avail. They may flee to Chittim (Cyprus); but the power of the Assyrians would reach them even there. Once and again the inscriptions of the Assyrian kings record how they subdued and took tribute from "Yatnan," the "island in the sea of the setting sun," which can be none other than Cyprus (e.g., Sargon in Records of the Past, vii. 26).

Verse 12. - He said. Jehovah continues his threatenings. The oppressed virgin, daughter of Sidon - or rather, the oppressed virgin-daughter of Sidon - may he either. Tyre, which, according to some, was built by fugitives from Zidon, or Phoenicia generally, of which Zidon, as the "firstborn" (Genesis 10:15), was a sort of mother. Pass over to Chittim (comp. ver. 6). Chittim (Cyprus) was a nearer refuge than Tarshish, and far more easily reached; but, on the other hand, it was much less safe. Sargon and Esarhaddon both of them exercised dominion over it; and when Abdi-Milkut, King of Sidon, fled there in the reign of the latter, the Assyrian monarch pursued him, caught him, and "cut off his head" (G. Smith, 'Eponym Canon,' p. 137). Still, it was so often sought by princes flying from Phoenicia when attacked by Assyria, that cuneiform scholars call it "the usual refuge of the Phoenician kings" ('Transactions of Bibl. Archaeology Society,' vol. 4. p. 86). There also shalt thou have no rest. Cyprus submitted to Sargon ('Records of the Past,' vol. 7. p. 26), and again to Esarhaddon (ibid., vol. 8. p. 108). It was included in the dominions of Asshur-bani-pal (G. Smith, 'History of Asshur-bani-pal,' pp. 31, 32). After Nebuchadnezzar's conquest of Tyre, it was annexed by Egypt (Herod., 2:182), on the conquest of which country by Cambyses it became Persian. The Phoenicians had "no rest" there after Assyria had once found her way to the island.

23:1-14 Tyre was the mart of the nations. She was noted for mirth and diversions; and this made her loth to consider the warnings God gave by his servants. Her merchants were princes, and lived like princes. Tyre being destroyed and laid waste, the merchants should abandon her. Flee to shift for thine own safety; but those that are uneasy in one place, will be so in another; for when God's judgments pursue sinners, they will overtake them. Whence shall all this trouble come? It is a destruction from the Almighty. God designed to convince men of the vanity and uncertainty of all earthly glory. Let the ruin of Tyre warn all places and persons to take heed of pride; for he who exalts himself shall be abased. God will do it, who has all power in his hand; but the Chaldeans shall be the instruments.And he said, thou shalt no more rejoice,.... Not meaning that she should never more rejoice, but not for a long time, as Kimchi interprets it; when her calamity should come upon her, her jovial time, her time of mirth, jollity, and revelling, would be over for a time; for, at the end of seventy years, she should take her harp, and sing again, Isaiah 23:15 for the words seem to be spoken of Tyre, concerning whom the whole prophecy is; though some think Zidon is here meant, which, being near, suffered at the same time with Tyre, or quickly after:

O thou oppressed virgin! Tyre is called a "virgin", because of her beauty, pride, and lasciviousness, and because never before subdued and taken: and "oppressed", because now deflowered, ransacked, plundered, and ruined, by Nebuchadnezzar:

daughter of Zidon: some think Zidon itself is meant, just as daughter of Zion means Zion herself, &c.; but it may be also observed, that such cities that have sprung from others, or have their dependence on them, are called their daughters; so we read of Samaria and her daughters, and Sodom and her daughters, Ezekiel 16:46 and so Tyre is called the daughter of Zidon, because it was a colony of the Zidonians (f); and at first built and supported by them, though now grown greater than its mother:

arise, pass over to Chittim; to the isle of Cyprus, which was near them, and in which was a city called Citium; or to Macedonia, which was called the land of Chittim, as in the Apocrypha:

"And it happened, after that Alexander son of Philip, the Macedonian, who came out of the land of Chettiim, had smitten Darius king of the Persians and Medes, that he reigned in his stead, the first over Greece,'' (1 Maccabees 1:1)

or to the isles of the Aegean and Ionian seas; or to Greece and Italy; which latter sense is approved by Vitringa, who thinks the islands of Corsica, and Sardinia, and Sicily, are meant, which were colonies of the Tyrians; and so in Isaiah 23:1,

there also shalt thou have no rest; since those countries would also fall into the enemy's hands, either the Babylonians, or the Medes and Persians, or the Romans; into whose hands Macedonia, Carthage, and other colonies of the Tyrians fell, so that they had no rest in any of them.

(f) Justin ex Trogo, l. 18. c. 3.