Albert Barnes Commentary Isaiah 23:16

"Take a harp, go about the city, thou harlot that hast been forgotten; make sweet melody, sing many songs, that thou mayest be remembered." — Isaiah 23:16 (ASV)

Take an harp - This is a continuation of the figure commenced in the previous verse, a direct command to Tyre as a harlot, to go about the city with the usual expressions of rejoicing. Thus Donatus, in Terent. Eunuch., iii. 2, 4, says:

‘Fidicinam esse meretricum est;’

And thus Horace:

‘Nec meretrix tibicina, cujus
Ad strepitum salias.’
1 Epis. xiv. 25.

Thou harlot that hast been forgotten - For seventy years you have lain unknown, desolate, ruined.

Make sweet melody ... - Still the prophet keeps up the idea of the harlot that had been forgotten, and that would now call her lovers again to her dwelling. The sense is, that Tyre would rise to her former splendor, and that the nations would be attracted by the proofs of returning prosperity to renew their commercial contact with her.