(Verse 13, 14.) Behold the land of the Chaldeans, such a people has never existed: Assyria laid it waste, they led away its strong men, they dug up its houses, they reduced it to ruins. Wail, O ships of the sea, for your strength is destroyed. For as it was said before: His feet will travel a great distance in exile; and again, Cross over your land like a river, and the people of Tyre will be doubly afflicted, those who fled and crossed over to Cyprus, and those who remained in the city. About those who had fled, he says above: Rising up, cross over to Cethim, there also there will be no rest for you. About those who remained and were led into captivity, he says: Behold, the inhabitants of the land of the Chaldeans, whose power no other people had before, and which was founded by the Assyrians, they have led mighty men of Tyre. They not only dug up the walls, but also all the dwellings of the city, and turned it into ruins. Therefore, because some have fled and others have been captured, howl, O ships, whether of the sea or of Carthage; for your trade and colony have been destroyed. At the same time, consider how he praised the Chaldeans. He did not say that such a people will no longer exist: for indeed, the kingdom of the Romans is more powerful and harsher; but, there was not one before. He who denied the previous things, has conceded the following things.
“Howl,” he says—he repeats it—“O you ships of Carthage, for your strength is laid waste. And it shall come to pass in that day, Tyre shall be abandoned;” and below, “but after seventy years, Tyre shall be as the song of a harlot.” Behold what words the prophet employs, and how he does not avoid the baseness of words of this kind. We ourselves sometimes avoid them, not because our tongue is more chaste than theirs, but our authority inferior. For very great is the force of words in the vivid exposition of such things, so that they who do not blush at their sins blush at least at the names of their sins. “Tyre shall be,” he says, “as the song of a harlot.” Beware, lest, when someone sees those dances being performed, and unseemly words being sung, he says, “Behold, Tyre has become the song of a harlot.”
Furthermore, the Hebrews claim that Tarshish generally represents the sea, as in the psalms: “With a violent wind, you will destroy the ships of Tarshish,” that is, the sea, and in Isaiah: “Wail, ships of Tarshish.” I recall speaking about this several years ago in a letter to Marcella. The prophet, therefore, was not seeking to flee to a specific place, but he was hastening to continue toward wherever it was the sea would take him. Indeed, a terrified fugitive is rightly more interested in seizing the first opportunity to sail than he is in selecting a place of refuge. This also we are able to say: he who thought that “God is known in Judea” only and that “his name is great in Israel” only, once he felt him in the waves of the sea, confessed and said, “I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord of heaven who made the sea and the dry land.” But if he made the sea and the dry land, how can you who abandoned the dry land think it possible to avoid the Creator of the sea in the midst of the sea? At the same time, the salvation and conversion of the sailors taught him that the great multitude at Nineveh could also be saved by confessing like he did.We are able to say of our Lord and Savior that he left his native homeland, assumed flesh and, in a manner of speaking, fled from heaven and came to Tarshish. That is, [he came] to the sea of this world, about which it is said elsewhere: “This is the sea, great and vast, where there are creatures without number and animals both small and large. Ships navigate there with the dragon whom you formed to play in it.”
(Verse 14.) Howl, O ships of Carthage: for your strength is gone. The ships of Carthage, that is to say Tharsis, are commanded to howl: for they have not perished, as mentioned above, or will not come; but their strength has perished. Tharsis, according to another interpretation, is translated into our language as completion of six, or joy. However, we read that this world was made in six days, which according to ecclesiastical traditions will be consummated afterwards. Therefore, all the good things of this world, and the toil of all mortals, are compared to the uncertain course of ships, because they will soon perish and all the strength of sailors will be dissolved. Hence, it is written in Solomon: The wise man ascends to strong cities and destroys their fortifications (Prov. XXI, 22). Whatever is composed of heretics, worldly wisdom, and the art of opposing doctrines, the ecclesiastical man destroys and teaches that they should be subject to his teachings.
[AD 420] Jerome on Isaiah 23:13-14