Isaiah 23:3

And by great waters the seed of Sihor,.... Sihor is the river Nile in Egypt; it had its name from the black colour of its waters, as in Jeremiah 2:18 hence called by the Greeks Melas, and by the

And by great waters the seed of Sihor, the harvest of the river, is her revenue; and she is a mart of nations. By great waters - the wide waters of the sea. Seed - the grain, or crop, as in 1 Samuel 8:15; Job 39:12.

By great waters; by the sea, which is very fitly called the great waters, ; understand, cometh, or is brought to her. The seed of Sihor; the corn of Egypt, wherewith Egypt abounded, and furnished divers other parts of the world, whence it was called the granary of the Roman empire; which also was easily conveyed by sea from Egypt to Tyre, and thence to divers other countries. This is called seed, here, as also , and elsewhere, by a usual metonymy; and the seed of Sihor, because it grew up the more abundantly because of the overflow of the river, as all sorts of authors have noted. For Sihor is nothing else but Nilus, as appears from , which is called Sihor, as by the Greeks it was called Melas, from its black colour. And this and no other river seems to be that Sihor, which is so oft mentioned as one of the bounds of the land of Canaan, as , &c., because that land, at least in that extent which God allotted and gave it to the Israelites, though they through neglect or cowardice might not actually possess it, did reach to one of the branches of that river. And indeed, if Sihor be not Nilus, that great and neighbouring river is not named in all the Scripture, which seems very improbable. The harvest of the river: this clause explains the former; that plentiful harvest of corn which comes from the influence and inundation of Nilus, which is emphatically called the river, as here, so also ,9, as Euphrates is in other texts of Scripture. Is her revenue; is as easily procured and plentifully enjoyed by her, as if it grew in her own territories. A mart of nations; a place to which all nations resort for traffic.

Isaiah 23:3 And by great waters the seed of Sihor, the harvest of the river, [is] her revenue; and she is a mart of nations.Ver. 3. And by great waters the seed of Sihor,] i.e., Of Nile, by the overflowing whereof Egypt is made exceeding fertile, being styled the "granary of the world." Tyre was much enriched by its store thereto transported through the midland sea, called here great waters.

(3) By great waters the seed of Sihor . . .—Sihor (“the dark river”) is as in Jeremiah 2:18, a Hebrew name for the Nile. The corn-trade with Egypt (Ezekiel 27:7, adds the linen-trade) was naturally a chief branch of Tyrian commerce. Practically, indeed, as the Egyptians had no timber to build ships, and, for the most part, hated the sea, their navy consisted of Phœnicians. Tyre practically reaped the harvest that sprang from the inundation of the Nile. For “mart,” read gain. The “great waters” are those of the great sea, i.e., of the Mediterranean.

Verse 3. The seed of Sihor - "The seed of the Nile"] The Nile is called here Shichor, as it is Jeremiah 2:18, and 1 Chronicles 13:5. It had this name from the blackness of its waters, charged with the mud which it brings down from Ethiopia when it overflows, Et viridem AEgyptum nigra fecundat arena; as it was called by the Greeks Melas, and by the Latins Melo, for the same reason. See Servius on the above line of Virgil, Georg. iv. 291. It was called Siris by the Ethiopians, by some supposed to be the same with Shichor. Egypt by its extraordinary fertility, caused by the overflowing of the Nile supplied the neighbouring nations with corn, by which branch of trade the Tyrians gained great wealth.

3. The easiest translation would be: and on great waters the seed of Shihor, the harvest of the Nile, (was) her revenue, and it (i.e. her revenue) was the gain of the nations. Shihor might be a name for the Nile, as in Jeremiah 2:18; and the meaning would be that the revenue of Tyre (or Phœnicia) was derived from the sea-traffic in Egyptian grain. This was no doubt the case to some extent; but to suppose that the corn trade with Egypt was a principal source of wealth to Tyre is contrary to all the information we possess. The expression of the thought, moreover, is involved and enigmatic, and even if we call to our aid the subtle suggestion that Tyre, with no agriculture of her own, nevertheless reaped a rich harvest by her command of the sea, the idea is still unworthy of Isaiah, and of the rest of this poem. The translation mart in E.V., instead of “gain” or “merchandise” is hardly justifiable.

And by great waters - That is, by the abundant-waters, or the overflowing of the Nile. Tyre was the mart to which the superabundant productions of Egypt were borne (see Ezek.

3. By great waters — Across the sea to Egypt. The grain of the Nile land (called here Sihor, black, the black deposits of yearly fertile mud) is Tyre’s revenue. Egypt was the great emporium of the nations.