“Tarshish Has Perished”: The Crux of Isaiah 23,10 Isaiah’s oracle concerning Tyre (Isa 23,1-14) is generally recognized as a text with more than its share of interpretational difficulties. Perhaps the most problematic line in this problematic poem is v. 10. A straightforward translation of the MT would be: “Cross over to your land like the Nile, O Daughter (of?) Tarshish, (the) belt is no more”. Crossing over “like the Nile” makes no sense, nor does “(the) belt is no more”. There can be little doubt that some corruption has occurred in this verse. Any plausible solution to the problems of this line has to “work” in all of the following three areas. First, any emendations to the text should be plausible in terms of Biblical Hebrew grammar and lexicography. The resulting line should make good sense in itself. Second, the emended reading should be recognizable as good Biblical Hebrew poetry (a requirement frequently ignored in proposed emendations of Hebrew poetic texts!). Third, the resulting reading should fit well into the context of this poem. It is incumbent on the one proposing any emendations to the text to show that they fit these requirements. For the purpose of establishing the earlier reading of this verse the most important textual witness is the LXX: ejrgavzou th;n gh'n sou, kai; ga;r ploi'a oujkevti e[rcetai ejk Karchdovno". P.W. Flint, in the most thorough and perceptive treatment of the LXX of this passage to date, translates: “Till your land, for no longer do ships come forth from Carthage (1) [= Tarshish]”(2). According to Flint, this is a very free rendering (3) of the Vorlage: dw[ zjm ˆya vyvrt tbral yk ˚xra ydb[ which he translates: “Till your land, for the boats of Tarshish no longer have a harbour”(4). Literally, of course, dw[ . . . yk is “because for the boats of Tarshish there is no longer a harbor”. The translation understands Tarshish’s situation to be so desperate that she might as well forget her lucrative trading activities on the high seas (as part of the Tyrian-Sidionian trading empire) and turn to farming. I judge Flint’s restoration of the Vorlage to be essentially correct and an important step toward recovering a more original Hebrew text. I say this because with one exception every letter in his proposed Vorlage corresponds to a letter in the MT or one of the Dead Sea Isaiah manuscripts and the letters are in the same sequence except in one case (zjm for the MT’s jzm). The only quibble I have is the letter l. I would eliminate this preposition before tbra because it is unsupported by any of the early Hebrew manuscripts from Qumran or the MT. Moreover, the preposition l is not really necessary (1) P.W. FLINT, “The Septuagint Version of Isaiah 23:1-14 and the Massoretic Text”, Bulletin of the International Organization for LXX and Cognate Studies 21 (1988) 48, n. 57. I am indebted to J.S. Kselman for bringing this article to my attention. (2) In vv. 1, 6, and 10 the LXX translates vyvrt as Karchdwvn. (3) FLINT, “The Septuagint Version of Isaiah 23:1-14”, 39. (4) Ibid., and 48, n. 57.