Isaiah 23:15
ESV
In that day Tyre will be forgotten for seventy years, like the days of one king. At the end of seventy years, it will happen to Tyre as in the song of the prostitute:
NIV
At that time Tyre will be forgotten for seventy years, the span of a king’s life. But at the end of these seventy years, it will happen to Tyre as in the song of the prostitute:
NASB
Now on that day Tyre will be forgotten for seventy years like the days of one king. At the end of seventy years it will happen to Tyre as in the song of the prostitute:
CSB
On that day Tyre will be forgotten for seventy years—the life span of one king. At the end of seventy years, what the song says about the prostitute will happen to Tyre:
NLT
For seventy years, the length of a king’s life, Tyre will be forgotten. But then the city will come back to life as in the song about the prostitute:
KJV
And it shall come to pass in that day, that Tyre shall be forgotten seventy years, according to the days of one king: after the end of seventy years shall Tyre sing as an harlot.
NKJV
Now it shall come to pass in that day that Tyre will be forgotten seventy years, according to the days of one king. At the end of seventy years it will happen to Tyre as in the song of the harlot:
What does Isaiah 23:15 mean?
Isaiah has written the final word on the destruction of the city of Tyre. It will happen and it is coming. He has called for all who depend on her and honor her to mourn and wail (Isaiah 23:14). He has made it clear that the Lord who will destroy her and Sidon as an act of judgment. This reckoning will be due to Tyre's pride and the false honor heaped upon her by others (Isaiah 23:9).Tyre will be fully and utterly incapacitated. Alexander the Great succeeded in wiping Tyre out in 332 BC. The city was also conquered by the Assyrians, and the Babylonians well before that. It is unknown, exactly, to which destruction in Tyre's future Isaiah is pointing. What is clear is that it will put Tyre out of commission as a functioning and independent seaport for seventy years.
The city will be "forgotten." The prophet means that shippers from other nations won't even consider taking their goods to and through Tyre during that time. Since Isaiah describes those seventy years "as the days of one king," some commentators speculate that he may not have had an exact number of years in mind. Commentators suggest that Isaiah uses seventy 70 years as a way of saying a long time, using the time a long-lived king might reign over a nation.
That season will end, though. Tyre will again begin to thrive as a center of trade, shipping, and prosperity. Yet Isaiah does not describe this return to prominence as a glorious victory. Rather, it is like a prostitute coming out of retirement (Isaiah 23:16). This is not a return to form to Tyre's glory days.
