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SIDON

(Heb. ṣîḏôn; Gk. Sidṓn)

Phoenician metropolis and famous harbor in southern Lebanon, some 40 km. (25 mi.) S of Beirut. The modern town of Òaidā lies over the ancient site, and only its perimeter has been explored by archaeology. Sidon had a complex double port consisting of an off-shore island anchorage, with multiple landing places on the shore north of the city. On the south was a large natural haven called the Round Bay. The latest ancient description of the ports of Sidon is in the writings of the 3rd-century c.e. Alexandrian Greek mathematician Achilleus Tatius.

The city is mentioned in Egyptian (¨dn), Hittite, Ugaritic (Òdyn), and Assyrian records of the 2nd millennium b.c.e. During the Amarna Age (14th century), its king Zimr-adda supported the local rebellions against Egyptian authority in the Lebanon. Its Canaanite name was Òidunu, probably derived from the root ṣwd, “hunting, fishing” (cf. Heb. ṣayiḏ). In later Phoenician and Hebrew the name was Òîḏôn, the form also attested in Greek (the Roman author Justin regarded this as a Phoenician word for “fish”).

The statement of Gen. 10:15 that Sidon was the firstborn of Canaan appears to be an allusion to the prominent role played by this city in Canaanite culture. According to Josh. 11:8; 19:29 the Hebrew conquest of the Promised Land extended as far as the territory of Great Sidon (ṣîḏôn rabbâ), and the region was then allotted to the tribe of Asher. Other biblical accounts, however, indicate that Hebrews were not settled in that area of the Lebanon (cf. Judg. 18:28). Greco-Roman writers (Strabo Geog. 16.2.13; Justin 18.3.5) record a tradition that Sidonian refugees rebuilt Tyre after its destruction in the era of the Trojan War.

These later traditions concerning the leading role of Sidon in Phoenicia were also well known to the early Greeks. In the epics of Homer, the title Sidonian is synonymous to the word “Phoenician,” just as in the Bible Sidonian can also refer to the coastal Canaanites in general (1 Kgs. 5:6[MT 20]). Deut. 3:9 preserves a tradition that the Sidonians spoke a distinct dialect, presumably what we now call Phoenician. Among the numerous foreign women Solomon married were “Sidonian” ladies (1 Kgs. 11:1), and Ethbaal, the father of Queen Jezebel, was known to the Hebrews as the “King of Sidonians” (1 Kgs. 16:31) although he was a king of Tyre.

Sidon lost much of her power and prestige under the Assyrian and Babylonian domination of the Levant beginning in the 9th century. Allusions to the decline of Sidon, along with other kingdoms in the region, under the crushing blows of invading imperial armies are found in several prophetic passages in the Bible (Isa. 23:4; Jer. 25:22; 47:4; Ezek. 28:20-27; Joel 3:4[4:4]).

Under the Persian kings, Sidon regained much of her lost glory, territory, and political influence. The Persian emperor Darius I (522-486) ceded the fertile coastal strip from Dor to Jaffa to the Sidonian king Eshmunazor II (ca. 501-487), an act which led to the founding of several Sidonian settlements in this region. During that generation, when the Judeans rebuilt the temple in Jerusalem, the cedars of the Lebanon for its construction were transported by both Sidonians and Tyrians to “the Sea of Jaffa” (Ezra 3:7), perhaps to the settlement at Tell Qasile.

In the Hellenistic era, when Sidon was still competing with Tyre for primacy in Phoenicia, the city minted coins inscribed with the legend “belonging to the Sidonians, metropolis of Cambe, Hipp, Citium, Tyre.” Cambe refers to Carthage — a city founded by Tyrians — while Tyre, located only 35 km. (22 mi.) from Sidon, is listed last. The region of Tyre and Sidon is mentioned in the NT narrative about Jesus and the Canaanite woman (Matt. 15:21-28; cf. Mark 7:24-31).

Bibliography. W. F. Albright, “The Role of the Canaanites in the History of Civilization,” in The Bible and the Ancient Near East, ed. G. E. Wright (1961, repr. Garden City, 1965), 438-87; H. Frost, “The Offshore Island Harbour at Sidon and Other Phoenician Sites in the Light of New Dating Evidence,” International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 2 (1973): 75-94; N. Jidejian, Sidon through the Ages (Beirut, 1971); T. Kelly, “Herodotus and the Chronology of the Kings of Sidon,” BASOR 268 (1987): 39-56.

Robert R. Stieglitz

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

SIDON

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)