Isaiah 23:4 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Be thou ashamed, O Zidon— The calamity of Tyre would more nearly affect Sidon as its mother and nurse, who had always cherished and supported her as a daughter, and placed her greatest confidence in this fortress, which she now saw taken, with shame and concern; wherefore, either Tyre herself is here introduced as deploring her desolation, that she might excite a sense of shame in Sidon; or Sidon is introduced bitterly lamenting her desolation, and setting forth the reason of her shame, since in the destruction of Tyre she would be thought desolate and barren. For though she had brought up more sons and daughters, that is, though the Sidonians had planted more colonies in various parts of the world; yet as Tyre was her first-born daughter, the most celebrated, opulent, and as it were a part of herself, even another Sidon, this being destroyed, she would not be thought to have brought forth any children, and deplores her widowhood with bitter tears. The greatness of this grief which the Sidonians as well as other nations should feel upon the fall of Tyre, is defended in the fifth verse, since it should be not less than if men should hear of the total fall of Egypt, the most flourishing of all countries: as a report concerning Egypt would pain the mind; so shall men be sorely pained at the report of Tyre. This is Vitringa's sense of the passage; while others think that the address is made from Tyre to Sidon; as much as to say, "Be ashamed, O Sidon; thou who art a maritime city, populous, well fortified, and whose strength is in the sea, as well as that of Tyre; and who, on this account, promisest to thyself security and prosperity; now behold Tyre, sprung from thee, and equal to thee, the strength of the sea; who is so reduced as to be equally solitary with her who never had any children; all her inhabitants being cut off and destroyed by famine or by war."