Be ashamed, O Sidon: for the sea has spoken, even the strength of the sea, saying, I travail not, nor bring forth children, neither do I nourish up young men, nor bring up virgins.
All Commentaries on Isaiah 23:4 Go To Isaiah 23
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
Divine Providence has compassed us about and cut off all excuse. All openings to people’s equivocating arts are in every way closed. A Gentile, one without the law, is brought forward to confound the iniquity of those that are under the law; which is well and summarily shown by the prophet, when he says, “Be ashamed, O Sidon, says the sea.” For in Sidon we have a figure of the steadfastness of those settled upon the foundation of the law, and in the sea of the life of the Gentiles. Accordingly, “Be ashamed, O Sidon, says the sea,” because the life of those under the law is convicted by the life of Gentiles, and the conduct of people in a state of religion is put to confusion by the conduct of those living in the world, so long as the first do not, even under vows, observe what they hear enjoined in precepts. The latter by their manner of life keep those ways so that they are not in any wise bound by legal enactments.
