“Be thou ashamed, O Zidon: for the sea hath spoken, even the strength of the sea, saying, I travail not, nor bring forth children, neither do I nourish up young men, nor bring up virgins.”
Be ashamed, O Sidon, for the sea has spoken, the stronghold of the sea, saying: "I have neither labored nor given birth; I have not reared young men nor brought up maidens." The personification of the sea and Tyre establishes the oracle's mythic dimensions, suggesting that cosmic forces respond to and express judgment. The refusal to have labored or born fruit suggests either the stripping away of Tyre's productivity or a primordial statement that the sea itself—the chaos—will not sustain the human order built upon it. The failure to rear young men and maidens represents the severing of the generational continuity upon which societies depend. This verse suggests that judgment reaches to fundamental levels of human reproduction and societal continuation, not merely to economic systems.
COMMUNITY REFLECTIONS
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