Ezekiel 28 KJV
Prophecy Against the King of Tyre
Ezekiel Chapter 28: Prophecy Against the King of Tyre
The oracle merges royal hubris with cherub imagery by describing the king as both 'the anointed cherub that covereth' and an Edenic figure 'upon the holy mountain of God,' a fusion absent from other prophetic taunts against foreign rulers.
1he word of the LORD came again unto me, saying,
2 Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyrus, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thine heart is lifted up, and thou hast said, I am a God, I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas; yet thou art a man, and not God, though thou set thine heart as the heart of God:
3 Behold, thou art wiser than Daniel; there is no secret that they can hide from thee:
4 With thy wisdom and with thine understanding thou hast gotten thee riches, and hast gotten gold and silver into thy treasures:
5 By thy great wisdom and by thy traffick hast thou increased thy riches, and thine heart is lifted up because of thy riches:
6 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thou hast set thine heart as the heart of God;
7 Behold, therefore I will bring strangers upon thee, the terrible of the nations: and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of thy wisdom, and they shall defile thy brightness.
8 They shall bring thee down to the pit, and thou shalt die the deaths of them that are slain in the midst of the seas.
9 Wilt thou yet say before him that slayeth thee, I am God? but thou shalt be a man, and no God, in the hand of him that slayeth thee.
10 Thou shalt die the deaths of the uncircumcised by the hand of strangers: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD.
11 Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
12 Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.
13 Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.
14 Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.
15 Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.
16 By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.
17 Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee.
18 Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffick; therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee.
19 All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee: thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more.
20 Again the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
21 Son of man, set thy face against Zidon, and prophesy against it,
22 And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Zidon; and I will be glorified in the midst of thee: and they shall know that I am the LORD, when I shall have executed judgments in her, and shall be sanctified in her.
23 For I will send into her pestilence, and blood into her streets; and the wounded shall be judged in the midst of her by the sword upon her on every side; and they shall know that I am the LORD.
24 And there shall be no more a pricking brier unto the house of Israel, nor any grieving thorn of all that are round about them, that despised them; and they shall know that I am the Lord GOD.
25 Thus saith the Lord GOD; When I shall have gathered the house of Israel from the people among whom they are scattered, and shall be sanctified in them in the sight of the heathen, then shall they dwell in their land that I have given to my servant Jacob.
26 And they shall dwell safely therein, and shall build houses, and plant vineyards; yea, they shall dwell with confidence, when I have executed judgments upon all those that despise them round about them; and they shall know that I am the LORD their God.
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Did You Know?
The oracle merges royal hubris with cherub imagery by describing the king as both 'the anointed cherub that covereth' and an Edenic figure 'upon the holy mountain of God,' a fusion absent from other prophetic taunts against foreign rulers.
Nine of the gemstones enumerated in the king's covering (v. 13) match stones from the high priest's breastplate in Exodus 28, implying the Tyrian monarch is accused of illicitly assuming priestly mediation between heaven and earth.
The phrase 'thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee' applies the language of flawless creation exclusively reserved elsewhere for divine handiwork, thereby casting the king's fall as a second, mercantile version of the primordial expulsion.
The shift from addressing a human 'prince of Tyrus' (nagid) in verses 1-10 to a cosmic 'king' (melek) who walked among 'stones of fire' suggests a deliberate double reference that later interpreters exploited to distinguish earthly ruler from spiritual power.
The closing restoration oracle for Israel (vv. 24-26) immediately follows Tyre's judgment, framing the city's commercial downfall as the necessary precondition for the surrounding nations to 'know that I am the LORD' when Israel dwells securely in its land.
Commentary & Study Notes Jamieson-Fausset-Brown (1871) ยท Public Domain Because, &c. โ repeated resumptively in Eze 28:6. The apodosis begins at Eze 28:7. "The prince of Tyrus" at the time was Ithobal, or Ithbaal II; the name implying his close conโฆ
Classic verse-by-verse commentary on Ezekiel 28 from Jamieson, Fausset & Brown (1871). Covers: Prophetical dirge on the king of tyre, as the culmination and embodiment of the spirit of carnal pride and self-sufficiency of the whole state. The fall of zidon, the mother city. The restoration of Israel in contrast with tyre and zidon.
- 2
- Because, &c. โ repeated resumptively in Eze 28:6. The apodosis begins at Eze 28:7. "The prince of Tyrus" at the time was Ithobal, or Ithbaal II; the name implying his close connection with Baal, the Phยnician supreme god, whose representative he was. I am a god, I sit in... seat of God... the seas โ As God sits enthroned in His heavenly citadel exempt from all injury, so I sit secure in my impregnable stronghold amidst the stormiest elements, able to control them at will, and make them subserve my interests. The language, though primarily here applied to the king of Tyre, as similar language is to the king of Babylon (Isa 14:13, 14), yet has an ulterior and fuller accomplishment in Satan and his embodiment in Antichrist (Da 7:25; 11:36, 37; 2Th 2:4; Re 13:6). This feeling of superhuman elevation in the king of Tyre was fostered by the fact that the island on which Tyre stood was called "the holy island" [SANCONIATHON], being sacred to Hercules, so much so that the colonies looked up to Tyre as the mother city of their religion, as well as of their political existence. The Hebrew for "God" is El, that is, "the Mighty One." yet, &c. โ keen irony. set thine heart as... heart of God โ Thou thinkest of thyself as if thou wert God.
- 3
- Ezekiel ironically alludes to Ithbaal's overweening opinion of the wisdom of himself and the Tyrians, as though superior to that of Daniel, whose fame had reached even Tyre as eclipsing the Chaldean sages. "Thou art wiser," namely, in thine own opinion (Zec 9:2). no secret โ namely, forgetting riches (Eze 28:4). that they can hide โ that is, that can be hidden.
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