Numbers 24:24

24:24 Ships will come from the coast of Kittim, ¹ 

and will afflict Asshur, ²  and will afflict Eber,

and he will also perish forever.” ³ 

Isaiah 23:1

The Lord Will Judge Tyre

23:1 Here is a message about Tyre:

Wail, you large ships, ⁴ 

for the port is too devastated to enter! ⁵ 

From the land of Cyprus ⁶  this news is announced to them.

Isaiah 23:12

23:12 He said,

“You will no longer celebrate,

oppressed ⁷  virgin daughter Sidon!

Get up, travel to Cyprus,

but you will find no relief there.” ⁸ 

Jeremiah 2:10

2:10 Go west ⁹  across the sea to the coasts of Cyprus ¹⁰  and see.

Send someone east to Kedar ¹¹  and have them look carefully.

See if such a thing as this has ever happened:

Ezekiel 27:6

27:6 They made your oars from oaks of Bashan;

they made your deck ¹²  with cypresses ¹³  from the Kittean isles. ¹⁴ 

Daniel 11:30

11:30 The ships of Kittim ¹⁵  will come against him, leaving him disheartened. ¹⁶  He will turn back and direct his indignation against the holy covenant. He will return and honor ¹⁷  those who forsake the holy covenant.

[24:24]  ¹ tc The MT is difficult. The Kittim refers normally to Cyprus, or any maritime people to the west. W. F. Albright proposed emending the line to “islands will gather in the north, ships from the distant sea” (“The Oracles of Balaam,” JBL 63 [1944]: 222-23). Some commentators accept that reading as the original state of the text, since the present MT makes little sense.

[24:24]  ² tn Or perhaps “Assyria” (so NCV, TEV, CEV, NLT).

[24:24]  ³ tn Or “it will end in utter destruction.”

[23:1]  ⁴ tn Heb “ships of Tarshish.” This probably refers to large ships either made in or capable of traveling to the distant western port of Tarshish.

[23:1]  ⁵ tc The Hebrew text reads literally, “for it is destroyed, from a house, from entering.” The translation assumes that the mem (מ) on בַּיִת (bayit) was originally an enclitic mem suffixed to the preceding verb. This assumption allows one to take בַּיִת as the subject of the preceding verb. It is used in a metaphorical sense for the port city of Tyre. The preposition min (מִן) prefixed to בּוֹא (bo’) indicates negative consequence: “so that no one can enter.” See BDB 583 s.v. מִן 7.b.

[23:1]  ⁶ tn Heb “the Kittim,” a designation for the people of Cyprus. See HALOT 504-05 s.v. כִּתִּיִּים.

[23:12]  ⁷ tn Or “violated, raped,” the point being that Daughter Sidon has lost her virginity in the most brutal manner possible.

[23:12]  ⁸ tn Heb “[to the] Kittim, get up, cross over; even there there will be no rest for you.” On “Kittim” see the note on “Cyprus” at v. 1.

[2:10]  ⁹ tn Heb “For go west.”

[2:10]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “pass over to the coasts of Kittim.” The words “west across the sea” in this line and “east of” in the next are implicit in the text and are supplied in the translation to give geographical orientation.

[2:10]  ¹¹ sn Kedar is the home of the Bedouin tribes in the Syro-Arabian desert. See Gen 25:18 and Jer 49:38. See also the previous note for the significance of the reference here.

[27:6]  ¹² tn Or “hull.”

[27:6]  ¹³ tc The Hebrew reads “Your deck they made ivory, daughter of Assyria.” The syntactically difficult “ivory” is understood here as dittography and omitted, though some construe this to refer to ivory inlays. “Daughter of Assyria” is understood here as improper word division and the vowels repointed as “cypresses.”

[27:6]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “from the coastlands (or islands) of Kittim,” generally understood to be a reference to the island of Cyprus, where the Phoenicians had a trading colony on the southeast coast. Many modern English versions have “Cyprus” (CEV, TEV), “the coastlands of Cyprus” (NASB), “the coasts of Cyprus” (NIV, NRSV), or “the southern coasts of Cyprus” (NLT).

[11:30]  ¹⁵ sn The name Kittim has various designations in extra-biblical literature. It can refer to a location on the island of Cyprus, or more generally to the island itself, or it can be an inclusive term to refer to parts of the Mediterranean world that lay west of the Middle East (e.g., Rome). For ships of Kittim the Greek OT (LXX) has “Romans,” an interpretation followed by a few English versions (e.g., TEV). A number of times in the Dead Sea Scrolls the word is used in reference to the Romans. Other English versions are more generic: “[ships] of the western coastlands” (NIV, NLT); “from the west” (NCV, CEV).

[11:30]  ¹⁶ sn This is apparently a reference to the Roman forces, led by Gaius Popilius Laenas, which confronted Antiochus when he came to Egypt and demanded that he withdraw or face the wrath of Rome. Antiochus wisely withdrew from Egypt, albeit in a state of bitter frustration.

[11:30]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “show regard for.”