2 Chronicles 9:21 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

The ships of Tarshish— That this was some place in the East Indies, appears, as Bochart thinks, from the commodities, elephants' teeth, apes, and peacocks, brought from thence; and because the ships sent thither were built at Ezion-geber, on the Red Sea. He is of opinion, that this Tarshish was properly the promontory Cory, on the north of the island of Ceylon, which, according to him, was the land of Ophir, whither the ships of Solomon went. If this opinion be admitted, Tarshish may seem to have been so called from being the farthest place then known eastward, as Tarshish in Spain was westward; just as we from the East Indies call part of America, since discovered, the West Indies. But, after all that Bochart has written on this subject, I must not omit to observe, that another very ingenious writer is of opinion, that the Tarshish to which Solomon's fleet sailed, was no other than the Tarshish in Spain, whither the Phoenicians had before traded with vast advantage; that he fitted out his fleet from Ezion-geber on the Red Sea, because he had no other convenient port on the Mediterranean; that this fleet coasted along the shore of Africa, and, doubling the cape of Good Hope, came to Tarshish in Spain, and thence back again the same way. In this manner our author accounts for their spending so long a time as three years in their voyage out and home; and remarks, that Spain and the coast of Africa furnish all the commodities which Solomon's fleet is said to have brought back: and to confirm this, it seems certain, from the account given by Herodotus, lib. 4: cap. 42 that in the reign of Necus, or Pharaoh Necho, king of Egypt, above six hundred years before Christ, some Phoenicians sent out by him did, in like manner, set sail from the Red Sea, and coast round Africa to the straits of Gibraltar; though indeed, instead of going back by the cape of Good Hope, they returned to Egypt the third year by the Mediterranean. See Nature Displayed, vol. 4:, and Parkhurst's Lexicon on the word.