Commentaries:
Barnes' Notes
Take an harp - This is a continuation of the figure commenced in the previous verse, a direct command to Tyre as an harlot, to go about the city with the usual expressions of rejoicing. Thus Donatus, in Terent. Eunuch., iii. 2, 4, says:
' Fidicinam esse meretricum est ;'
And thus Horace:
' Nec meretrix tibicina, cujus
Ad strepitum salias .'
1 Epis. xiv. 25.
Thou harlot that hast been forgotten - For seventy years thou hast lain unknown, desolate, ruined.
Make sweet melody ... - Still the prophet keeps up the idea of the harlot that had been forgotten, and that would now call her lovers again to her dwelling. The sense is, that Tyre would rise to her former splendor, and that the nations would be attracted by the proofs of returning prosperity to renew their commercial contact with her.
Other Barnes' Notes entries containing Isaiah 23:16:
Isaiah 5:12
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