A fishing town made memorable from our Lord’s occasional visits there. Some derive it from the word Tzada, to fish. It was an antient place. (See Josh. xi. 8. Matt. xv. 21.)
The recovery of sight to the blind was predicted to be among the events which should mark the person and acts of the Messiah. (See Isa. lxi. 1, &c. compared with Luke 4: 16 - 21.) But the greatness of the miracle hath not perhaps been considered but by few, equal to its importance, both in its relation to bodily and spiritual blindness. I am free to confess that I did not discover the whole loveliness of it until reading somewhat of the manners and customs among eastern nations.
In many cases of the blind there is not only a loss of vision but a loss of the eyeballs. And in eastern countries, where for capital punishment the eyes are literally scooped from their sockets, it is not simply a restoration to give sight to such miserable eyeless creatures, but it is a new creation. We meet with numberless instances, in the Old Testament Scripture, where such cruel punishments were inflicted. The case of Samson, Judg. 16. 21; the case of Zedekiah, Jer. l2: 11. In the margin of the Bible in the former instance it is, the Philistines bored out his eyes. Now in all such cases there is not only the loss of sight, but the loss of eyes. I beg the reader to connect this idea all along with what is said concerning this feature of character in the Lord Jesus Christ giving sight to the blind, for, it is literally giving eyes also, and consequently a new creation.
Now look at the prediction in this point of view concerning Christ, and it must instantly strike the mind with the fullest conviction that such acts to the bodies of men demonstrated his GODHEAD; for he not only gave vision, but he created eyes. And in respect to the souls of his people, which those miracles to the bodies were intended to set forth, surely here was exhibited the new creation in the most striking manner. Unawakened sinners are represented as dead in trespasses and sins;" Jesus came to give them life. Jesuscame to bind up the broken in heart; and a broken heart is a dead heart. Jesus came to give sight to the blind whose eye - sockets had no eyes, being put out for the capital punishment of high treason, even sin against God. And hence the charter of grace runs in those soul - reviving words: A new heart will I give you, and a right spirit will I put within you; ye shall be my people, and I will be your God." (Ezek. 36. 26, &c.)
or ZIDON, a celebrated city and port of Phenicia, and one of the most ancient cities in the world; as it is supposed to have been founded by Sidon, the eldest son of Canaan, which will carry it up to above two thousand years before Christ. But if it was founded by Sidon, his descendants were driven out by a body of Phenician colonists, or Cushim from the east; who are supposed either to have given it its name, or to have retained the old one in compliment to their god Siton, or Dagon. Its inhabitants appear to have early acquired a preeminence in arts, manufactures, and commerce; and from their superior skill in hewing timber, by which must be understood their cutting it out and preparing it for building, as well as the mere act of felling it, Sidonian workmen were hired by Solomon to prepare the wood for the building of his temple. The Sidonians are said to have been the first manufacturers of glass; and Homer often speaks of them as excelling in many useful and ingenious arts, giving them the title of
Si´don [ZIDON]
In the Old Testament ZIDON, now called Saida, was celebrated city of Phoenicia, on the Mediterranean Sea, twenty miles north of Tyre and as many south of Beyroot. It is one of the most ancient cities in the world, Gen 49:13, and is believed to have been founded by Zidon, the eldest son of Canaan, Gen 10:15 49:13. In the time of Homer, the Zidonians were eminent for their trade and commerce, their wealth and prosperity, their skill in navigation, astronomy, architecture, and for their manufactures of glass, etc. They had then a commodious harbor, now choked with sand and inaccessible to any but the smallest vessels. Upon the division of Canaan among the tribes by Joshua, Great Zidon fell to the lot of Asher, Jos 11:8 19:28; but that tribe never succeeded in obtaining possession, Jdg 1:31 3:3 10:12.\par The Zidonians continued long under their own government and kings, though sometimes tributary to the kings of Tyre. They were subdued successively by the Babyloniaus, Egyptians, Seleucidae, and Romans the latter of whom deprived them of their freedom. Many of the inhabitants of Sidon became followers of our Savior, Mar 3:8, and he himself visited their freedom. Many of them also resorted to him in Galilee, Luk 6:17 . The gospel was proclaimed to the Jews at Sidon after the martyrdom of Stephen, Mal 11:19, and there was a Christian church there, when Paul visited it on his voyage to Rome, Mal 27:3 .\par It is at present, like most of the other Turkish towns in Syria, dirty and full of ruins, thought it still retains a little coasting trade, and has five thousand inhabitants. It incurred the judgments of God for its sins, Eze 28:21-24, though less ruinously than Tyre. Our Savior refers to both cities, in reproaching the Jews as more highly favored and less excusable than they, Mat 11:22 . Saida occupies an elevated promontory, projecting into the sea, and defended by walls. Its environs watered by a stream from their beautiful gardens, and fruit trees of every kind.\par
Si’don. The Greek form of the Phoenician name, Zidon. See Zidon.
("fishing town"); SIDON or ZIDON. Gen 10:9; Gen 10:15; Jos 11:8; Jos 19:28; Jdg 1:31. Sidon was in Asher (Isa 23:2; Isa 23:4; Isa 23:12). An ancient mercantile city of Phoenicia, in the narrow plain between Lebanon and the Mediterranean, where the mountains recede two miles from the sea; 20 miles N. of Tyre. Now Saida. Old Sidon stands on the northern slope of a promontory projecting a few hundred yards into the sea, having thus "a fine naturally formed harbour" (Strabo). The citadel occupies the hill behind on the south. Sidon is called (Gen 10:15) the firstborn of Canaan, and "great Sidon" or the metropolis (Jos 11:8). Sidonians is the generic name of the Phoenicians or Canaanites (Jos 13:6; Jdg 18:7); in Jdg 18:28 Laish is said to be "far from Sidon," whereas Tyre, 20 miles nearer, would have been specified if it had then been a city of leading importance.
Justin Martyr makes (Jdg 18:3) Tyre a colony planted by Sidon when the king of Ascalon took Sidon the year before the fall of Troy. Tyre is first mentioned in Scripture in Jos 19:29 as "the strong city," the "daughter of Sidon" (Isa 23:12.) Sidon and Sidonians are names often subsequently used for Tyre, Tyrians. Thus Ethbaal, king of the Sidonians (1Ki 16:31), is called by Menander in Josephus (Ant. 8:13, section 2) king of the Tyrians. By the time of Zechariah (Zec 9:2) Tyre has the precedency, "Tyrus and Sidon." Sidon revolted from the yoke of Tyre when Shalmaneser’s invasion gave the opportunity. Rivalry with Tyre influenced Sidon to submit without resistance to Nebuchadnezzar. Its rebellion against the Persian Artaxerxes Ochus entailed great havoc on its citizens, Tennes its king proving traitor. Its fleet helped Alexander the Great against Tyre (Arrian, Anab. Al., 2:15).
Augustus took away its liberties. Its population is now 5,000. Its trade and navigation have left it for Beirut. It was famed for elaborate embroidery, working of metals artistically, glass, the blowpipe, lathe, and graver, and cast mirrors. (Pliny 36:26, H. N. 5:17; 1Ki 5:6, "not any can skill to hew timber like unto the Sidonians".) Their seafaring is alluded to (Isa 23:2). Self indulgent ease followed in the train of their wealth, so that "the manner of the Sidonians" was proverbial (Jdg 18:7).. Sidon had her own king (Jer 25:22; Jer 27:3). Sidonian women in Solomon’s harem seduced him to worship Ashtoreth "the goddess of the Sidonians" (1Ki 11:1; 1Ki 11:4; 2Ki 23:13).
Joel reproves Sidon and Tyre for selling children of Judah and Jerusalem to the Grecians, and threatens them with a like fate, Judah selling their sons and daughters to the Sabeans. So Ezekiel (Eze 28:22-24) threatens Sidon with pestilence and blood in her streets, so that she shall be no more a pricking brier unto Israel. Jesus went once to the coasts of Tyre and Sidon (Mat 15:21). Paul touched at Sidon on his voyage from Caesarea to Rome (Act 27:3); by Julius’ courteous permission Paul there "went unto his friends to refresh himself." Tyre and Sidon’s doom shall be more tolerable in the day of judgment than that of those who witnessed Christ’s works and teaching, yet repented not (Mat 11:21-22). On a coin of the age of Antiochus IV Tyre claims to be "mother of the Sidonians," being at that time the capital city.
SIDON (for much of common reference, see Tyre).—A narrow, rocky district as well as a once famous city in Phœnicia, the city being 30 miles S. of Beirût and 26 miles slightly N. by E. of Tyre, and 60 miles N. of Capernaum. Like nearly all settlements on the east coast of the Mediterranean, Sidon owed its location to certain prominent rocks in the sea, which at first served as a breakwater, and then, through gradual connexion with the land, produced a northern and a southern harbour, the latter now filled with sand.
Sidon is so ancient that all certainty as to the origin of its name has vanished. Some have deemed it ‘fishing’-town, others the seat of the worship of a deity Sid. Sidon and the Sidonians are heard of earlier and more influentially than Tyre, which finally distanced its northern rival. All the Phœnician cities seem to have known little but rivalry down to the appearance of such world-powers as Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, Greece, and Rome, which made them all, sooner or later, subject and abject. Each had its ‘king,’ its ‘god,’ its colonies, its coinage. Each sent its trading vessels seaward to the Mediterranean world; landward, each was in touch with the markets of Damascus and the East by means of those caravans of ‘ships of the desert’; each sat as queen over a semicircular domain with a radius of some 15 to 20 miles. Through faction in the 8th cent. b.c. Sidon lost many of her merchants, chiefly to Tyre. At length her limited territory, her merely commercial aim, her being sapped by colonization and dissension, her final surrender of leadership to Tyre, combined with her conquests by the world-powers, left her under the Romans in the days of Christ a merely provincial capital, richer in the vices of ancient paganism than in its virtues. Some from Sidon were in the multitude that thronged Jesus at the Sea of Galilee (Mar 3:8), and Sidon was pronounced more excusable in the day of judgment than the more favoured cities of Jesus’ own country and race (Mat 11:21 f.). The present Saida has about 10,000 inhabitants, and is surrounded by delightful orange groves, beneath which lie archaeological treasures. Beirût, with its Damascus railway and improved harbour, has robbed Sidon of its last vestiges of commerce.
In a sense Sidon was, and in another sense was not, within the limits of the Holy Land. In the ideal distribution of Canaan recorded in Joshua the lot of Asher would seem to have included about all of Phœnicia, extending ‘even unto great Sidon’ (Jos 19:28). The coast cities and their daughter villages, however, remained utterly unconscious of their assignment, while Asher became so assimilated thereto as to retain in Israelitish history little more than a name.
The Revised Version NT 1881, OT 1885 declares that Jesus ‘came through Sidon,’ a distinct and exact statement unknown to the Authorized Version ; and thereon depends our conception whether or not Jesus Himself, from choice, ever went into the way of the Gentiles. Many points as to the primariness, structure, and transmission of the Gospels are illustrated by this case.
Mat 15:21 ff. Authorized Version | Mar 7:24 ff. Authorized Version |
Mat 15:21 Then Jesus went thence, and departed into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon. Mat 15:22 And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, etc. | Mar 7:24 And from thence he arose, and went into the borders of Tyre and Sidon, and entered into an house, and would have no man know it: but he could not be hid. For a certain woman, etc. [A Greek]. |
Mat 15:29 And Jesus departed from thence, and came nigh unto the sea of Galilee; and went up into a mountain, and sat down there. | Mar 7:31 And again, departing from the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, he came unto the sea of Galilee, through the midst of the coasts of Decapolis. [East of the Jordan]. |
After the Revisers’ most conscientious work, with their better evidence, this is the form in which we read the same:
And Jesus went out thence, and withdrew into the parts of Tyre and Sidon. And, behold, a Canaanitish woman came out from those borders, etc. | And from thence he arose, and went away into the borders of Tyre and Sidon. And he entered into an house, and would have no man know it: and he could not be hid. But straightway a woman, etc. [A Greek]. |
Marg. ‘Some ancient authorities omit and Sidon.’ | |
And Jesus departed thence, and came nigh unto the sea of Galilee; and he went up into the mountain, and sat there. | And again he went out from the borders of Tyre, and came through Sidon unto the sea of Galilee, through the midst of the borders of Decapolis. |
B. Weiss sides completely with the ‘some ancient authorities’ of (Revised Version margin) , and reads: Jesus ‘went away into the borders of Tyre.… And again he went out from the borders of Tyre, and came through Sidon unto the sea of Galilee,’ etc. Thus the primary Gospel of Mark, the more ancient Sinaitic and Vatican Manuscripts , Professor Weiss, and the Revisers do not hesitate to depict Jesus as entering Gentile territory (twice), entering a (probably) heathen house, and dispensing blessings upon a pagan woman, going then yet farther ‘through Sidon’ and Decapolis. The more theological First Evangelist, however, and the judicious transcribers disliked so to state the case. So Edersheim: the ‘house in which Jesus sought shelter and privacy would, of course, be a Jewish home’; and ‘by “through Sidon” I do not understand the town of that name, which would have been quite outside the Saviour’s route, but the territory of Sidon’ (Life and Times, ii. 38, 44).
Anything like a direct ‘route’ from the Israelitish borders of Tyre, or of Tyre and Sidon,—for Edersheim emphasizes Matthew’s indication that the woman came from her territory to that of Jesus,—would take one in a south-easterly direction, and therefore away from Sidon. Accordingly, Jesus’ choice to go in a northerly direction, ‘through Sidon,’ shows that He was not taking any near and direct and usual ‘route,’ but for a reason was seeking travel into heathen territory. Mk.’s connexion indicates that Jesus journeyed into the Gentile land with His disciples, on the occasion of the abolition of the Levitical distinctions as to the ceremonially clean and unclean, so as to give to His followers an example and object lesson as to the same. Sidon on the far north was for this reason included, as was the hog-herding Decapolis. It was at Caesarea, a similar Gentile city almost 100 miles nearer Jerusalem, that St. Peter received his fuller lesson on the same subject.
Wilbur Fletcher Steele.
SIDON.—See Zidon.
Ancient Phenician seaport, 67 miles from Caesarea, between Mount Lebanon and the Mediterranean, where Saint Paul stopped on his voyage to Rome (Acts 27). The modern port, Saida, is west of Sidon.
Titular metropolis of Pamphylia Prima. Sidon, situated on the coast of Pamphylia, was a colony of Cumae in Æolia. Dating from the tenth century B.C., its coinage bore the head of Athena (Minerva), the patroness of the city, with a Pamphylian legend. Its people, a piratical horde, quickly forgot their own language to adopt that of the aborigines. For rendering tribute to Alexander they were accorded a Macedonian garrison. A commercial and warlike city, with a powerful navy, it was in continual rivalry with Aspendus. In its waters the fleet of Antiochus the Great, commanded by Hannibal with Sidonian vessels upon the right wing, was beaten by the Rhodians. From that time Sidon was a rendezvous of pirates, above all, a notorious slave market. After the destruction of piracy elsewhere Sidon continued to derive considerable wealth and profit from both these sources. It was the capital of Pamphylia, later of Pamphylia Prima. In the tenth century Constantine Porphyrogenitus called it still a nest of pirates. Its downfall was complete in the fourteenth century, its people having abandoned it by degrees, owing to the Turkish invasions, and lack of water. At present the deserted ruins are called Eski Adalia, Old Attalia, in the sanjak of Adalia and the vilayet of Koniah. They consist of a temple, basilica, gymnasium, aqueduct, public bath, theatre, ramparts, etc. and some inscriptions. Sidon is mentioned in I Machabees, xv, 23, among the cities and countries to which the Roman letter proclaiming their alliance with the Jews was sent. Christianity was early introduced into Sidon. St. Nestor, martyr in 251, was Bishop of Pergi, not of Sidon as Le Quien (Oriens Christ., I, 995) believed The first known bishop was Epidaurus, presiding at the Council of Ancyra, 314. Others are John, fourth century; Eustathius, 381; Amphilochius, 426-458, who played an important part in the history of the time; Conon, 536; Peter, 553; John, 680-692; Mark, 879; Theodore, 1027-1028; Anthimus, present at the Council of Constantinople where Michael Cerularius completed the schism with Rome, 1054; John, then counsellor to the Emperor Michael VII Ducas, presided at a council on the worship of images, 1082; Theodosius and his successor Nicetas, twelfth century. John, present at a Council of Constantinople 1156. The "Notitiae Episcopatuum" continued to mention Sidon as a metropolis of Pamphylia until the thirteenth century. It does not appear in the "Notitia" of Andronicus III. From other documents we learn that in 1315 and for some time previous to that, Sidon had bishops of its own — the Bishop of Sinope was called to the position, but was unable to leave his own diocese; this call was repeated in 1338 and 1345. In 1397 the diocese was united with that of Attalia; in 1400 the Metropolitan of Perge and Attalia was at the same time the administrator of Sidon. Since then, the city has disappeared from history.Sidon was the home of Eustachius of Antioch (see EUSTATHIUS), of the philosopher Troilus, the master of Socrates, himself a teacher; of the celebrated fifth-century ecclesiastical writer Philip; of the famous lawyer Tribonianus (sixth century).-----------------------------------SMITH, Diction. of Greek and Roman Geog. (London, 1870), s.v.; TOMASCHEK, Zur historischen Topographie von Kleinasien im Mittelalter (Vienna, 1891), 59; ALISHAN, Sisseuan (Venice, 1899), 364; TEXIER, Asie Mineure (Paris, 1862), 721 sqq.; LANCKORONSKI, Les villes de la Pamphylie et de la Pisidie (Paris, 1890), 131 seq.; BEAUFORT, Karamania, 147 sqq.; FELLOWS, Asia Minor, 201; LEAKE, Asia Minor, 195 sqq.; RAMSAY, Asia Minor, 420 and passim; WACHTER, Der Verfall des Grieehenturns in Kleinasien im XIV Jahrhundert (Leipzig, 1903), 29 sqq.S. PÉTRIDÈS Transcribed by Joseph E. O’Connor The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XIIICopyright © 1912 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, February 1, 1912. Remy Lafort, D.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
(Óéäþí, ethnic Óéäþíéïé)
Sidon, called ‘Great Zidon’ (Jos_11:8), was one of the maritime cities of Phcenicia, about 25 miles N. of Tyre, its ‘rival in magnitude, fame, and antiquity’ (Strabo, xvi. ii. 22). After the coming of Alexander the Great, whom Sidon rapturously welcomed and Tyre frantically opposed, the two cities shared the same political fortunes, being for two centuries bones of contention between the Greek kings of Syria in the north and Egypt in the south. So long, however, as their civic autonomy was secure, their factories busy, their overseas traffic prosperous, the quarrels of their alternate overlords did not greatly trouble them. And, while their wealth was apparently almost as great as ever, they added a new interest to life by learning the language and assimilating the culture of Greece. They were not now a mere race of merchant princes or pedlars, wholly absorbed in getting and spending. Strabo says that in his time-the beginning of our era-the Sidonians not only ‘cultivate science and study astronomy and arithmetic, to which they are led by the application of numbers and night sailing, each of which concerns the merchant and seaman,’ but there are ‘distinguished philosophers, natives of Sidon, as Bcethus, with whom I studied the philosophy of Aristotle, and Diodotus his brother’ (xvi. ii. 24).
The two sister cities now consistently advocated a policy of peace with all their neighbours. Not possessing a fraction of the army and navy with which they once defied empires, they could no longer assert themselves even when they were in the right. When Herod Agrippa was ‘highly displeased with the Tyrians and Sidonians’ (Act_12:20), they indulged in no useless heroies. Raising no question as to whether the king’s displeasure was just or not, and facing the plain fact that ‘their country was fed from the king’s country,’ they looked about for a friend at Court and humbly asked for peace. If there was any thought of peace with honour, it was suppressed. Dependents could not afford to be angry, and the king could do no wrong. To this had great Sidon and proud Tyre now come.
No details are given of our Lord’s visit to Sidon, though it is definitely stated that He came through it, or at least its surrounding territory (reading äéÜ not êáß in Mar_7:31, with the best Manuscripts ), on His way to Decapolis, which He probably reached by the highway over the Lebanon to Damascus (see H. J. Holtzmann, Die Synoptiker3, 1901 [Handkommentar zum NT], and A. B. Bruce, Expositor’s Greek Testament , ‘Mark,’ 1897, in loc). Nothing is known of the actual introduction of Christianity into Sidon. One of its bishops attended the Council of Nicaea in a.d. 325.
‘Sidonian’ was originally an ethnic name like ‘Hittite,’ Sidon and Heth being named together as sons of Canaan in Gen_10:15. In Homer ‘Sidonia’ is equivalent to Phcenicia and ‘Sidonian’ to Phcenician. In the Latin poets, too, when the adjective qualifies such words as ‘Dido’ (Virg. aen. xi. 74), ‘nautae,’ ‘rates,’ ‘murex,’ ‘vestis,’ ‘chlamys,’ it means Phcenician. The modern town, called by the Arabs Saida, has about 15,000 inhabitants. Some very remarkable sarcophagi have been found in the necropolis to the S.E. of the town.
Literature.-E. Robinson, Biblical Researches in Palestine2, 3 vols., 1856, ii. 478 ff.; O. Hamdy-Bey and T. Reinach, La Nécropole royale de Sidon, 1892-96; C. Baedeker, Palestine and Syria2, 1894.
James Strahan.
The Mediterranean seaports of Tyre and Sidon were the two most important towns of Phoenicia. The Bible frequently mentions the two towns together as a way of referring to Phoenicia in general (Ezr 3:7; Isa 23:1; Isa 23:4; Zec 9:2; Mar 7:24). Sometimes mention of only one of the towns is sufficient. For example, Tyre, being the larger and more prosperous port, may have symbolized the greed and arrogance that Phoenicia as a whole developed because of its international shipping activity (Isa 23:1; Isa 23:8; Isa 23:17; Eze 27:3; Eze 27:25; Eze 28:5; Eze 28:9; Eze 28:16). In the same way Sidon, being a dominant religious centre, fittingly symbolized the corrupt Phoenician religion that at times troubled Israel (Jdg 10:6; 1Ki 16:31-33). (For details of Sidon’s commerce, religion and history see PHOENICIA.)
A non-Jewish city on the coast of
Phoenicia (modern Lebanon).