“The sea” and “the stronghold of the sea” are poetic references to Tyre. Without Tyre, Sidon, as a city closely associated with Tyre, would not be secure. Sidon is therefore called upon to be ashamed. Tyre is personified as a childless woman who says she has never given birth. The city speaks as if she never had any fortune.
4 Be ashamed, O Sidon, for the sea has spoken, the stronghold of the sea, saying: “I have neither labored nor given birth, I have neither reared young men nor brought up young women.”