THE PRINCE OF PEACE 291
capitals of Phoenicia : " Tyre and (or with ) Sidon, 1 because (or although ) she is very wise"
How Tyre especially showed her worldly wisdom, and the great material prosperity which she attained thereby, we see in the 3rd verse : " And Tyre built herself a strong hold, and heaped up silver as the dust, and fine gold as the mire of the street? The words in the Hebrew are vatibhen Tsor matsor. There is a kind of play on the word Tyre (Tsor]. The similarity of the sound and meaning may be somewhat imitated, as Dr. Wright suggests, by the English rendering, " Tyre built herself a tower" though the Hebrew word " matsor " has a much wider significance than the English "tower." "Tyre" (Tsor) was perhaps, in the first instance, so called because of her natural strength, or strong fortifications, the word suggesting a rocky stronghold. But she was not satisfied with that she built herself in addition a matsor a strong rocky fortress. This refers, no doubt, to the new Tyre, which was on an island thirty stadia (about seven hundred paces) from the mainland. This new Tyre is called in Isa. xxiii. 4, E n Tiyip, maoz hayyam, " the stronghold of the sea," because, although very small in extent, it was surrounded by a wall a hundred and fifty feet high, and was so strong a fortification that Shal- maneser besieged it for five years without success, and Nebuchadnezzar for thirteen years, and apparently was unable to conquer it. This is confirmed by the heathen historian Diodorus Siculus, who says, " Tyre had the greatest confidence owing to her insular position and fortifications, and the abundant stores she had pre pared." Thus, thinking herself doubly strong and im pregnable, she gave herself up, as the capital of Phoenicia, to commercial enterprise, and " heaped up silver as the
1 Sidon is regarded as an annexe of Tyre, which, as Keil points out, answers to the historical relation in which the two cities stood to one another. Tyre was, indeed, originally a colony of Sidon, but it very soon overshadowed the mother city, and rose to be the capital of all Phoenicia, so that even in Isaiah and Ezekiel the prophecies concerning Sidon are attached to those concerning Tyre, and its fate appears interwoven with that of Tyre. Hence, after the mere mention of Sidon, Tyre only is spoken of in vexs. 3 and 4 of this prophecy.
