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Bible Dictionaries
Sidon
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or (Σιδών, ethnic Σιδώνιοι)
Sidon, called ‘Great Zidon’ (Joshua 11:8), was one of the maritime cities of Phcenicia, about 25 miles N. of Tyre, its ‘rival in magnitude, fame, and antiquity’ (Strabo, xvi. ii. 22). After the coming of Alexander the Great, whom Sidon rapturously welcomed and Tyre frantically opposed, the two cities shared the same political fortunes, being for two centuries bones of contention between the Greek kings of Syria in the north and Egypt in the south. So long, however, as their civic autonomy was secure, their factories busy, their overseas traffic prosperous, the quarrels of their alternate overlords did not greatly trouble them. And, while their wealth was apparently almost as great as ever, they added a new interest to life by learning the language and assimilating the culture of Greece. They were not now a mere race of merchant princes or pedlars, wholly absorbed in getting and spending. Strabo says that in his time-the beginning of our era-the Sidonians not only ‘cultivate science and study astronomy and arithmetic, to which they are led by the application of numbers and night sailing, each of which concerns the merchant and seaman,’ but there are ‘distinguished philosophers, natives of Sidon, as Bcethus, with whom I studied the philosophy of Aristotle, and Diodotus his brother’ (xvi. ii. 24).
The two sister cities now consistently advocated a policy of peace with all their neighbours. Not possessing a fraction of the army and navy with which they once defied empires, they could no longer assert themselves even when they were in the right. When Herod Agrippa was ‘highly displeased with the Tyrians and Sidonians’ (Acts 12:20), they indulged in no useless heroies. Raising no question as to whether the king’s displeasure was just or not, and facing the plain fact that ‘their country was fed from the king’s country,’ they looked about for a friend at Court and humbly asked for peace. If there was any thought of peace with honour, it was suppressed. Dependents could not afford to be angry, and the king could do no wrong. To this had great Sidon and proud Tyre now come.
No details are given of our Lord’s visit to Sidon, though it is definitely stated that He came through it, or at least its surrounding territory (reading διά not καί in Mark 7:31, with the best Manuscripts ), on His way to Decapolis, which He probably reached by the highway over the Lebanon to Damascus (see H. J. Holtzmann, Die Synoptiker3, 1901 [Handkommentar zum NT], and A. B. Bruce, Expositor’s Greek Testament , ‘Mark,’ 1897, in loc). Nothing is known of the actual introduction of Christianity into Sidon. One of its bishops attended the Council of Nicaea in a.d. 325.
‘Sidonian’ was originally an ethnic name like ‘Hittite,’ Sidon and Heth being named together as sons of Canaan in Genesis 10:15. In Homer ‘Sidonia’ is equivalent to Phcenicia and ‘Sidonian’ to Phcenician. In the Latin poets, too, when the adjective qualifies such words as ‘Dido’ (Virg. aen. xi. 74), ‘nautae,’ ‘rates,’ ‘murex,’ ‘vestis,’ ‘chlamys,’ it means Phcenician. The modern town, called by the Arabs Saida, has about 15,000 inhabitants. Some very remarkable sarcophagi have been found in the necropolis to the S.E. of the town.
Literature.-E. Robinson, Biblical Researches in Palestine2, 3 vols., 1856, ii. 478 ff.; O. Hamdy-Bey and T. Reinach, La Nécropole royale de Sidon, 1892-96; C. Baedeker, Palestine and Syria2, 1894.
James Strahan.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Sidon'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/s/sidon.html. 1906-1918.
