118 Michael L. Barré Reference to the destruction of the port city of Tarshish (zjm // vyvrt) in v. 10 is particularly appropriate just before v. 11b, in which the prophet speaks directly of Yahweh’s destructive purpose: “With regard to Canaan Yahweh has ordered // that its harbors/port cities be destroyed [hyzw[m (18) dmvl]”. (2) Verse 10 fits here also because of several verbal connections to the second colon of v. 11b. The two terms that make up this second colon refer back to two of the words restored in v. 10. (a) dmv forms a parallel word-pair with dba which is attested 13x in the OT (19). (b) z/[m; has a connection with zjom! that is both semantic and sonic: the two terms are synonymous in this context and identical in terms of sound except for a single phoneme (20). Second, a look at the larger context shows that the proposed reading fits better than the MT. (1) As restored, v. 10 is formally very similar to the poem’s inclusion (vv. 1a, 14). All three verses begin with an imperative and conclude with yk + a verb of destruction (ddv or dba) + a reference to a port city: v. 1a Wail ... for destroyed is tybm(21) v. 14 Wail ... for destroyed is your port city (ˆkz[m) v. 10 Cross over . . . for perished is Tarshish (2) The MT takes vyvrtAtb as the subject of the feminine imperative yrb[. But this does not accord with the rest of the poem. Four other feminine —————— and derives rather from zw[, “to seek refuge”. The root and the same nominal form are attested in Arabic with this meaning (ma÷˝d = z/[m;; see H. WEHR, A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic [Ithaca, NY 31976] 656). In the MT the root of the nominal form is often confused with zz[, as may be seen from the frequent erroneous doubling of the zayin in this word. The term properly means “a place of refuge” > “haven.” In the context of this poem the “haven” in question is a haven for ships, i.e., a harbor. This meaning of zw[m in the poem has been recognized by H. WILDBERGER, Isaiah 13-27 (Continental Commentary; Minneapolis 1997) 405. (18) Read hyzw[m with 1QIsaa instead of the MT’s hynz[m, which is probably a conflation of zw[m and ˆw[m (see S. TALMON, “Aspects of the Textual Transmission of the Bible in Light of Qumran Manuscripts”, Textus 4 [1964] 124). (19) Num 33,52; Deut 4,26; 7,24; 9,3; 28,20.51.63; Isa 26,14; Jer 48,8; Ezek 25,17; Esth 3,13; 7,4; Dan 7,26 (Aramaic). This word-pair was noted by Y. AVISHUR, Stylistic Studies of Word-Pairs in Biblical and Ancient Semitic Literatures (AOAT 210; Neukirchen-Vluyn 1984) 240, 472. (20) In Isa 23,1-14 there are in fact three terms for “harbor/port city”, all of which are closely related as to sound: z/[m; (vv. 4, 11b [read hyzw[m—see n. 18], 14), zjom; (v. 10), and a/bm; (v. 1 [MT: a/Bmi]) = “entrance” > “port of entry” (see NAB/REB and Ezek 27,2). These three words—and they alone in this poem—have the following three features in common: all of them are bisyllabic, begin with m, and have an ˝-˛ vowel pattern. (21) The fact that the first and last verses of the poem form an inclusion and are identical but for the last word — tybm and ˆkz[m — argues that these two words are synonymous and that the former is actually the name of a port city on the Phoenician trade routes (probably on Cyprus). It may be the “harbortown” connected with an important commercial center, of whose name no trace has been preserved in the historical record (it is only by the luck of discovery — certain Ugaritic tablets — that we know the name of Ugarit’s main port, Ma(÷)˙˝du). The MT (mis)understands tybm as “from/without a house”, although it may preserve the correct consonants of the name. (The striking alliteration awbm tybm indicates that at least the first two letters may well be correct.) If this hypothesis is right, each of the terms for “port” in the poem — awbm, zjm, and zw[m — is in parallelism with the name of a port city: mbyt, Tarshish, and Sidon respectively (Sidon is parallel to µyh zw[m, “seaport”, in v. 4). The first city-name, mbyt, is associated with two of these terms: with awbm by means of “terrace parallelism” (see WATSON, Classical Hebrew Poetry, §8.3