4. A famous port or region the location of which has been much disputed. Josephus (.4?*/. i, 6, 1) con- founds it with Tarsus in Cilicia; and in the Sept. version of Isa. xxiii, 1, 10-14, it is rendered Kap- Xri^MV, Carthaf/e. A similar rendering is found in Ezek. xxvii, 12; xxxviii. 13, Kapxi]Sovioi, Carthagin- ians, an identification urged by Davis {Carthar/e, cli. i). As the Yulg. translates it by '-sea" in the passage quot- ed above, so the Sept. in Isa. ii, 16 renders it ba\d<yrTr]Q, a translation followed by Saadias and Luther. The Targums adopt the same translation in some places, and Jerome apologizes for the blinider by saying that "the Hebrews thought Tharsis was their original term for sea ; the noun in common use among them, iam, being a Syriac one." In other places, as 1 Kings xxii, 48, and Jer. X. 9, the Targum gives the peculiar rendering of Xp^"iSX, Afi-ica. Most interpreters, however, are agreed that (with the possible exception of the passage in Chronicles) the allusion is to Tarfessiis in Spain. (In the following review of the Scri|iture references we chiefly follow the article in Kitlo's Ci/clop.)
In the great genealogical table ((ien. x, 4, 5) it is placed among the sons of Javan ; " Elishah and Tar- shish, Kittim and Dodanim. By these were the isl- ands of the Gentiles divided." This refers the mind at once to the north-western parts of the Mediterranean.
To a similar conclusion does other scriptural language lead. In Psa. Ixxii, 10 it is said, -'The kings of Tar- shish and of the isles sliall bring jiresents;" and in 2 Chron. ix, 21 we read, '•The king's (Solomon's) ships went to Tarsliish with the servants of Hiram; every three years once came the ships of Tarshish bringing gold and silver, ivory, and apes and peacocks." Now Hiram's city. Tyre, lay on the jNIediterranean coast, and it is easy to see how Solomon's vessels might be asso- ciated with his in a voyage towards the west to fetch merchandise. In Isa. Ixvi. 19 we flnd Tarshish men- tioned in a way which confirms this view : '• And I will set a sign among them, and I will send those that es- cape of ihem unto the nations (or (ientiles"); to Tar- shish, Pid. and Lud that draw the bow, to Tubal and Javan. to the isles afar ott." These passages make it clear that 'I'arshish lay at a distance from .luda>a, and that that distance was in a north-westerly direction ; and the mention of such names as Luil, Javan, and tlie isles carries the mind to the extreme north-west, and suggests Spain as the place for Tarsliish. But Tar- shish must have been on the sea-coast, for it was fa- mous for its ships. "The ships of Tarshish" were cel- ebrated under that designation, which may have been used in that wide sense in which we s|icak of an East- Indiaman, reference being made rather to the place whither the vessel traded than to that where it was built; or the phrase may have come to denote a particu- lar kind of vessel, i. e. trading or merchant ships, from the celebrity of Tarshish as a commercial port (1 Kings X.22; Psa. xlviii,7; Isa. ii, 16; xxiii, 1-14; lx,9; Ezek. xxvii, 25). These six times do we meet with the phrase, ships or navy of Tarshish; which of itself shows how noted a seaport we have under consideration, if it does not prove also that in process of time the terms had oome to describe vessels according to their occupation rather than their country, as we say " a slaver," denot- ing a ship engaged in the slave-trade (comp. Horat. "scevis Liburnis," Carm. i. 27; " Bithyna carina," i,35; "trabe Cypria," i, 1). In Ezek. xxvii, 12-25 the place is described by its pursuits and its merchandise — "Tar- shish (here again in connection with a western country, Javan, ver. 13) was thy (Tyre's) merchant, in all riches, with silver, iron, tin, and lead, they traded in thy fairs. The ships of Tarshish did sing of thee in thy market, and tliou wast replenished and made very glorious in the midst of the seas." The last words are admirably descriptive of the south-western coast of Sjiain. How could a Hebrew poet better describe the locality where the songs of the sailors of Tarshish made the name of Tyre glorious? Let the reader turn to the map and cast his eye on the embouchure of the Guadalquivir, and say if this .spot is not pre-eminently, when viewed from Palestine, "in the midst of the seas." There is a propriety, too, in the words found in Psa. xlviii, 7 (comp. Ezek. x.xviii, 26), " Thou breakest the ships of Tarshish with an east wind," if we suppose merchant vessels working eastwardly up the INIcditerranean towards Tyre, encountering an east, or rather north-east, gale, which is a very violent and destructive wind to this day. Jeremiah (x, 9) tells us tliat "silver spread into i)lates" was brouglit from Tarshish; and from the connection the silver appears to have been elaborately wrought; whence we iid'er that at one period there was in Tar- shish the never-failing connection found between com- merce, wealth, and art. An important testimony occurs in Ezek. xxxviii, 13, "Sheba and Dedan, and the mer- chants of Tarshish, with all the young lions thereof, shall say unto thee, Art thou come to take a spoil? to carry away silver and gold? to take away cattle and goods, to take a great spoil?" whence it is clear that Tarshish was an opulent place, abouniling in cattle and goods, in silver and gold. We are not sure that the words " the young lions thereof" are intended to be taken literalh'. They may refer to the lion-hearted chiefs of the nation: but if they are understood as im- jdying that lions were literally found in Tarshish. they