Tyre’s “70 Years” in Isaiah 23,15-18 Many scholars have noted a number of incursions into the Isaianic corpus that may be ascribed to a redaction during the second part of Josiah’s reign (627- 609 BCE) (1). A pivotal text in this proposed redaction is Isa 23,15-18, which serves as the climax of the book’s foreign nation oracles and pertains to the status of Tyre. Though the chapter may be attributed in large part to an original 8th century oracle addressing the dominance of Sennacherib over Phoenician territory, vv. 15-18 have been viewed as secondary accretions that reinterpret the polemical force of the original text (2). In its current context, the verses point to the period when the foreign nations, including the city- state of Tyre, will fall subject to YHWH’S rule in place of that of Assyria and prepares the 7th century audience for the material in Isa 24–27 that presents the interests of the Josianic court as part of the prophet Isaiah’s message for the Israelite nation (3). Central to the ascription of these verses to the Josianic era is the reference to a 70-year period of divine chastisement against Tyre found in vv. 15 and 17. Scholars who advocate a Josianic provenance of these verses date the beginning of this period to 701, the year Sennacherib campaigned against the west-Semitic states that included both Phoenicia and Judah, thus arriving at 631 — roughly a decade into Josiah’s reign — as the end of this period of chastisement (4). Further, 701 would serve as an appropriate date for the foundation of time-span that culminates in the reign of Josiah, as it is with the events of 701 (or events associated with that year) that the Zion tradition emerged as a dominant theological stream that would inform Deuteronomic/ Deuteronomistic discourse (5). Interpreting the events of 701 for both Jerusalem and Tyre as the will of YHWH only strengthens the ideological basis of the Deuteronomistic literature that emerged under Josiah. A chronological problem arises, however, when considering Isa 23,15-18 in relation to 701 and why the authors chose the number 70 to denote the duration of the chastisement of Tyre. Though Josiah was on the throne in 631, Assurbanipal still held power over Assyria (and, consequently, over Judah). Though the Chronicler later states that Josiah (1) For an overview, see M. SWEENEY, King Josiah of Judah. The Lost Messiah of Israel (Oxford 2001) 234-37. (2) M. SWEENEY, Isaiah 1–39 (FOTL; Grand Rapids, MI 1996) 306-310; J. Blenkinsopp (Isaiah 1–39 [AB; New York – London – Toronto – Sydney – Auckland 2000] 345) views the verses as secondary but dates them to a considerably later period. (3) SWEENEY, King Josiah, 247-248. (4) H.J. KATZENSTEIN (The History of Tyre [Jerusalem 1973] 296-297) discusses the historical concomitance of this dating. See also SWEENEY, Isaiah 1–39, 309-310. (5) On the significance of the events of 701 and the consequent centrality of a Jerusalem-centric worldview, see B. HALPERN, “Jerusalem and the Lineages in the Seventh Century BCE: Kinship and the Rise of Individual Moral Liability”, Law and Ideology in Monarchic Israel (ed. B. HALPERN – D.W. HOBSON) (JSOTSS, 124; Sheffield 1991) 11- 107. For ideological/typological connections between Hezekiah and Josiah, see SWEENEY, King Josiah, 64-76.