Yahweh’s word came again to me, saying,
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Yahweh’s word came again to me, saying,
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The word of the LORD came again unto me, saying,
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And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying:
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John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Eze 28:1 The word of the LORD came again…
Eze 28:1 The word of the LORD came again unto me, saying,
Ver. 1. The word of the Lord.] See on Eze 18:1.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain We had done with Tyrus in the foregoing chapter,…
We had done with Tyrus in the foregoing chapter, but now the prince of Tyrus is to be singled out from the rest. Here is something to be said to him by himself, a message to him from God, which the prophet must send him, whether he will hear or whether he will forbear.
I. He must tell him of his pride. His people are proud (Eze 27:3) and so is he; and they shall both be made to know that God resists the proud. Let us see, 1. What were the expressions of his pride: His heart was lifted up, Eze 28:2. He had a great conceit of himself, was puffed up with an opinion of his own sufficiency, and looked with disdain upon all about him. Out of the abundance of the pride of his heart he said, I am a god; he did not only say it in his heart, but had the impudence to speak it out. God has said of princes, They are gods (Psa 82:6); but it does not become them to say so of themselves; it is a high affront to him who is God alone, and will not give his glory to another. He thought that the city of Tyre had as necessary a dependence upon him as the world has upon the God that made it, and that he was himself independent as God and unaccountable to any. He thought himself to have as much wisdom and strength as God himself, and as incontestable an authority, and that his prerogatives were as absolute and his word as much a law as the word of God. He challenged divine honours, and expected to be praised and admired as a god, and doubted not to be deified, among other heroes, after his death as a great benefactor to the world. Thus the king of Babylon said, I will be like the Most High (Isa 14:14), not like the Most Holy. "I am the strong God, and therefore will not be contradicted, because I cannot be controlled. I sit in the seat of God; I sit as high as God, my throne equal with his. Divisum imperium cum Jove Caesar habet - Caesar divides dominion with Jove. I sit as safely as God, as safely in the heart of the seas, and as far out of the reach of danger, as he in the height of heaven." He thinks his guards of men of war about his throne as pompous and potent as the hosts of angels that are about the throne of God. He is put in mind of his meanness and mortality, and, since he needs to be told, he shall be told, that self-evident truth, Thou art a man, and not God, a depending creature; thou art flesh, and not spirit, Isa 31:3. Note, Men must be made to know that they are but men, Psa 9:20. The greatest wits, the greatest potentates, the greatest saints, are men, and not gods. Jesus Christ was both God and man. The king of Tyre, though he has such a mighty influence upon all about him, and with the help of his riches bears a mighty sway, though he has tribute and presents brought to his court with as much devotion as if they were sacrifices to his altar, though he is flattered by his courtiers and made a god of by his poets, yet, after all, he is but a man; he knows it; he fears it. But he sets his heart as the heart of God; "Thou hast conceited thyself to be a god, hast compared thyself with God, thinking thyself as wise and strong, and as fit to govern the world, as he." It was the ruin of our first parents, and ours in them, that they would be as gods, Gen 3:5. And still that corrupt nature which inclines men to set up themselves as their own masters, to do what they will, and their own carvers, to have what they will, their own end, to live to themselves, and their own felicity, to enjoy themselves, sets their hearts as the heart of God, invades his prerogatives, and catches at the flowers of his crown - a presumption that cannot go unpunished.
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2. We are here told what it was that he was proud of. (1.) His wisdom. It is probable that this prince of Tyre was a man of very good natural parts, a philosopher, and well read in all the parts of learning that were then in vogue, at least a politician, and one that had great dexterity in managing the affairs of state. And then he thought himself wiser than Daniel, Eze 28:3. We found, before, that Daniel, though now but a young man, was celebrated for his prevalency in prayer, Eze 14:14. Here we find he was famous for his prudence in the management of the affairs of this world, a great scholar and statesman, and withal a great saint, and yet not a prince, but a poor captive. It was strange that under such external disadvantages his lustre should shine forth, so that he had become wise to a proverb. When the king of Tyre dreams himself to be a god he says, I am wiser than Daniel. There is no secret that they can hide from thee. Probably he challenged all about him to prove him with questions, as Solomon was proved, and he had unriddled all their enigmas, had solved all their problems, and none of them all could puzzle him. He had perhaps been successful in discovering plots, and diving into the counsels of the neighbouring princes, and therefore thought himself omniscient, and that no thought could be withholden from him; therefore he said, I am a god. Note, Knowledge puffeth up; it is hard to know much and not to know it too well and to be elevated with it. He that was wiser than Daniel was prouder than Lucifer. Those therefore that are knowing must study to be humble and to evidence that they are so. (2.) His wealth. That way his wisdom led him; it is not said that by his wisdom he searched into the arcana either of nature or government, modelled the state better than it was, or made better laws, or advanced the interests of the commonwealth of learning; but his wisdom and understanding were of use to him in traffic. As some of the kings of Judah loved husbandry (Ch2 26:10), so the king of Tyre loved merchandise, and by it he got riches, increased his riches, and filled his treasures with gold and silver, Eze 28:4, Eze 28:5. See what the wisdom of this world is; those are cried up as the wisest men that know how to get money and by right or wrong to raise estates; and yet really this their way is their folly, Psa 49:13. It was the folly of the king of Tyre, [1.] That he attributed the increase of his wealth to himself and not to the providence of God, forgetting him who gave him power to get wealth, Deu 8:17, Deu 8:18. [2.] That he thought himself a wise man because he was a rich man; whereas a fool may have an estate (Ecc 2:19), yea, and a fool may get an estate, for the world has been often observed to favour such, when bread is not to the wise, Ecc 9:11. [3.] That his heart was lifted up because of his riches, because of the increase of his wealth, which made him so haughty and secure, so insolent and imperious, and which set his heart as the heart of God. The man of sin, when he had a great deal of worldly pomp and power, showed himself as a god, Th2 2:4. Those who are rich in this world have therefore need to charge that upon themselves which the word of God charges upon them, that they be not high-minded, Ti1 6:17.
II. Since pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall, he must bell him of that destruction, of that fall, which was now hastening on as the just punishment of his presumption in setting up himself a rival with God. "Because thou hast pretended to be a god (Eze 28:6), therefore thou shalt not be long a man," Eze 28:7. Observe here,
1. The instruments of his destruction: I will bring strangers upon thee - the Chaldeans, whom we do not find mentioned among the many nations and countries that traded with Tyre, ch. 27. If any of those nations had been brought against it, they would have had some compassion upon it, for old acquaintance-sake; but these strangers will have none. They are people of a strange language, which the king of Tyre himself, wise as he is, perhaps understands not. They are the terrible of the nations; it was an army made up of many nations, and it was at this time the most formidable both for strength and fury. These God has at command, and these he will bring upon the king of Tyre.
2. The extremity of the destruction: They shall draw their swords against the beauty of thy wisdom (Eze 28:7), against all those things which thou gloriest in as thy beauty and the production of thy wisdom. Note, It is just with God that our enemies should make that their prey which we have made our pride. The king of Tyre's palace, his treasury, his city, his navy, his army, these he glories in as his brightness, these, he thinks, made him illustrious and glorious as a god on earth. But all these the victorious enemy shall defile, shall deface, shall deform. He thought them sacred, things that none durst touch; but the conquerors shall seize them as common things, and spoil the brightness of them. But, whatever becomes of what he has, surely his person is sacred. No (Eze 28:8): They shall bring thee down to the pit, to the grave; thou shalt die the death. And, (1.) It shall not be an honourable death, but an ignominious one. He shall be so vilified in his death that he may despair of being deified after his death. He shall die the deaths of those that are slain in the midst of the seas, that have no honour done them at their death, but their dead bodies are immediately thrown overboard, without any ceremony or mark of distinction, to be a feast for the fish. Tyre is likely to be destroyed in the midst of the sea (Eze 27:32) and the prince of Tyre shall fare no better than the people. (2.) It shall not be a happy death, but a miserable one. He shall die the deaths of the uncircumcised (Eze 28:10), of those that are strangers to God and not in covenant with him, and therefore die under his wrath and curse. It is deaths, a double death, temporal and eternal, the death both of body and soul. He shall die the second death; that is dying miserably indeed. The sentence of death here passed upon the king of Tyre is ratified by a divine authority: I have spoken it, saith the Lord God. And what he has said he will do. None can gainsay it, nor will he unsay it.
3. The effectual disproof that this will be of all his pretensions to deity (Eze 28:9): "When the conqueror sets his sword to thy breast, and thou seest no way of escape, wilt thou then say, I am God? Wilt thou then have such a conceit of thyself as thou now hast? No; thy being overpowered by death, and by the fear of it, will force thee to own that thou art not a god, but a weak, timorous, trembling, dying man. In the hand of him that slays thee (in the hand of God, and of the instruments that he employed) thou shalt be a man, and not God, utterly unable to resist, and help thyself." I have said, You are gods; but you shall die like men, Psa 82:6, Psa 82:7. Note, Those who pretend to be rivals with God shall be forced one way or other to let fall their claims. Death at furthest, when we come into his hand, will make us know that we are men.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain The word of the Lord came again unto me,....…
The word of the Lord came again unto me,.... With another prophecy; as before against the city of Tyre, now against the king of Tyre:
saying; as follows:
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain A prediction of the ruin of the king of…
A prediction of the ruin of the king of Tyre, ver. 1-10. A lamentation for him, ver. 11-19. A prediction of the destruction of Zidon, ver. 20-23. The restoration of Israel, ver. 24-26.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain The first part of this chapter relates to a…
CHAPTER XXVIII
The first part of this chapter relates to a King of Tyre,
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probably the same who is called in the Phoenician annals
Ithobalus. He seems to have been a vain man, who affected
Divine honours. The prophet treats his foolish pretensions
with severe irony, and predicts his doom, 1-10.
He then takes up a funeral dirge and lamentation over him, in
which his former pomp and splendour are finely contrasted with
his fall, in terms that seem frequently to allude to the fall
of Lucifer from heaven, (Isa 14:12 c.,) 11-19.
The overthrow of Sidon, the mother city of Tyre, is next
announced, 20-23
and the chapter concludes with a promise to the Jews of
deliverance from all their enemies, and particularly of their
restoration from the Babylonish captivity, 24-26.
NOTES ON CHAP. XXVIII
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain The prophecy against the prince of Tyre. Throughout the…
The prophecy against the prince of Tyre. Throughout the east the majesty and glory of a people were collected in the person of their monarch, who in some nations was worshipped as a god. The prince is here the embodiment of the community. Their glory is his glory, their pride his pride. The doom of Tyre could not be complete without denunciation of the prince of Tyre. Idolatrous nations and idolatrous kings were, in the eyes of the prophet, antagonists to the true God. In them was embodied the principle of evil opposing itself to the divine government of the world. Hence, some of the fathers saw upon the throne, not simply a hostile monarch, but “the Prince of this world, spiritual wickedness (or wicked spirits) in high places.” Whenever evil in any way domineers over good, there is a “prince of Tyrus,” against whom God utters His voice. The “mystery of iniquity is ever working, and in that working we recognize the power of Satan whom God condemns and will destroy.
Eze 28:2
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Thou hast said, I am a god - Compare Eze 29:3; Dan 4:30; Act 12:22; 2Th 2:4.
I sit in the seat of God - Words denoting the speaker’s pride; but the situation of the island-city, full of beauty, in the midst of the blue water of the Mediterranean, gives force to the expression. Compare the words describing the lot of Tyre as having been in Eden Eze 28:13.
Thou art a man - Rather, thou art man.
Eze 28:3
Thou art wiser than Daniel - The passage is one of strong irony. Compare Eze 14:14; Dan 6:3.
Eze 28:9
But thou shalt be a man - Rather, yet art thou man.
Eze 28:10
The uncircumcised - The pagan idolaters as opposed to the covenant-people.
The prophecy against the prince of Tyre. Throughout the east the majesty and glory of a people were collected in the person of their monarch, who in some nations was worshipped as a god. The prince is here the embodiment of the community. Their glory is his glory, their pride his pride. The doom of Tyre could not be complete without denunciation of the prince of Tyre. Idolatrous nations and idolatrous kings were, in the eyes of the prophet, antagonists to the true God. In them was embodied the principle of evil opposing itself to the divine government of the world. Hence, some of the fathers saw upon the throne, not simply a hostile monarch, but “the Prince of this world, spiritual wickedness (or wicked spirits) in high places.” Whenever evil in any way domineers over good, there is a “prince of Tyrus,” against whom God utters His voice. The “mystery of iniquity is ever working, and in that working we recognize the power of Satan whom God condemns and will destroy.
Eze 28:2
Thou hast said, I am a god - Compare Eze 29:3; Dan 4:30; Act 12:22; 2Th 2:4.
I sit in the seat of God - Words denoting the speaker’s pride; but the situation of the island-city, full of beauty, in the midst of the blue water of the Mediterranean, gives force to the expression. Compare the words describing the lot of Tyre as having been in Eden Eze 28:13.
Thou art a man - Rather, thou art man.
Eze 28:3
Thou art wiser than Daniel - The passage is one of strong irony. Compare Eze 14:14; Dan 6:3.
Eze 28:9
But thou shalt be a man - Rather, yet art thou man.
Eze 28:10
The uncircumcised - The pagan idolaters as opposed to the covenant-people.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain 1And the word of Jehovah came to me, saying,…
CHAPTER 28
1And the word of Jehovah came to me, saying, 2Son of man, say to the prince of Tyre, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Because thy heart is high, and thou sayest, I am God, the seat of the gods I occupy in the heart of the seas; and thou art man, and not God, and thou makest thy heart as the heart of the Godhead: 3Behold, thou art wiser than Daniel; nothing concealed is dark to 4thee: In thy wisdom and in thy prudence thou hast made for thee wealth, 5and makest [procurest] gold and silver in thy treasures: In the fulness of thy wisdom in thy traffic thou didst increase thy wealth, and thy heart was high in thy wealth: 6Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Because thou makest 7thy heart as the heart of the Godhead; Therefore, behold, I bring strangers upon thee, the violent of the heathen; and they draw their swords upon the 8beauty of thy wisdom, and they dishonour thy shining beauty. To the grave they will bring thee down, and thou diest the death of the pierced through 9in the heart of the seas. Wilt thou say and [still] say, I am God, in the presence of him that slayeth thee? and thou art man, and not God, in the 10hand of him that pierceth thee through! Deaths of the uncircumcised shalt thou die in the hand of strangers: for I have spoken: sentence of the Lord 11Jehovah. And the word of Jehovah came to me, saying, 12Son of man, raise a lamentation over the king of Tyre, and say to him, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Thou confirmedst the measure, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty! 13In Eden, the garden of God, wast thou; every precious stone was thy covering, Sardine, topaz, and diamond, Tarshish-stone, onyx, and jasper, sapphire, carbuncle, and emerald, and gold: the work of thy kettledrums and of thy pipes was with thee; in the day that thou wast made they were prepared. 14Thou cherub of the anointing, that covered; and I have given thee [therefor, thereto]; upon the holy mountain of God wast thou, in the midst of fiery stones 15thou didst walk. Blameless wast thou in thy ways from the day that thou 16wast made, till perverseness was found in thee. In the abundance of thy merchandise they filled thy midst with mischief, and thou sinnedst; and I will profane thee from off the mountain of Godhead; and I will destroy thee, 17covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. Thy heart was high in thy beauty; thou didst corrupt thy wisdom on account of thy shining beauty; to the earth will I throw thee down; I give thee before kings, that 18they may look upon thee. From the multitude of thy iniquities, in the corruptness of thy traffic, thou hast profaned thy sanctuaries; and I will make fire go forth from the midst of thee, which burns thee up; and I will give thee 19to ashes upon the earth in the eyes of all who see thee. All who know thee among the people are amazed at thee; for terrors thou art become, and thou art no more even to eternity.
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20And the word of Jehovah came to me, saying, 21Son of man, direct thy face toward Zidon, and prophesy upon it, 22And say, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah; Behold, I [come] upon thee, Zidon, and glorify Myself in the midst of thee: and they know that I am Jehovah, when I do judgments in [oh] her, 23and sanctify Myself in her. And I send pestilence into her, and blood into her streets; and the pierced-through fall in the midst of her by the sword upon her round about; and they know that I am Jehovah. 24And there shall no more be to the house of Israel a pricking thorn and a smarting sting from all round about them, who despised them; and they know that I am the Lord Jehovah. 25Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, When I gather the house of Israel from the peoples among whom they have been scattered, then I sanctify Myself in them before the eyes of the heathen, and they dwell upon their 26ground which I have given to My servant Jacob. And they dwell upon it in security, and build houses, and plant vineyards, and dwell in security, when I do judgments on all who despised them of those round about them; and they know that I, Jehovah, am their God.
Eze_28:3. Sept.: μη σοφωτερος εἱ συ; … ἠ σοφοι οὐκ ἐπαιδευσαν σε ἐν τῃ ἐπιστημῃ αὐτων;
Eze_28:4. μη ἐν τῃ ἐπιστημῃ σου; …
Eze_28:5. ἠ ἐν τῃ πολλῃ; …
Eze_28:7. Sept.: ἀλλοτριους λοιμους ἀπο ἐθνων … ἐπι σε κ. ἐπι το καλλος … και στρωσουσιν το καλλος σου εἰς ἀπωλειαν.
Eze_28:8. Και καταβιβασουσιν σε,
Eze_28:9. Sept., Vulg., Syr., Ar. read: הורגיך and מחלליך.
Eze_28:12. Sept.: ... Συ εἰ ἀποσφραγισμα ὁμοιωσεως … κ. στεφανος καλλους—חותָם, or in stat. const.—For חכנית some codices read חבנית.
Eze_28:13. Another reading: כעדן = quasi Eden. Sept.: ἐν τῃ τρυφῃ τ. παραδεισου … κ. ἀεγυριον κ. χρυσιον κ. λιγυριον κ. ἀχατην κ. ἀμεθυστον κ. χρυολιθον κ. βηρυλλιον κ. ὀνυχιον κ. χρυσιον ἐνεπλησας τους θησαυρους σου, κ. τας ἀποθηκας σ. ἐν σοι. Ἀφ’ ἡς ἡμερας ἐκτισθης συ.— Vulg.: In deliciis parodisi … aurum opus decoris tui; et foramina tua in die—
Eze_28:14. Sept.: μετα Χερουβ, ἐθηκα σε ἐν ὀρει … ἐγενηθης ἐν μεσῳ.—Vulg.: Tu Cherub extentus et protegens,—
Eze_28:15. (Ἐγενηθης) ἀμωμος ἐν ταῖς ἡμεραις σου—
Eze_28:16. Ἀπο πληθους … ἐπληθυνας τ. ταμιεια σου … κ. ἐτραυματισθης ἀπο ὀρους … κ. ἠγαγεν σε το Χερουβ το συσκζον. Vulg.: … repleta sunt interiora tua—
Eze_28:17. Sept.: ... διεφθαρη ἡ ἐπιστημη … μετα του καλλους σου δια τ. πληθος τ. ἁμαρτιων σου ἐπι τ. γην—
Eze_28:18. και ἀδικιων τ. ἐμποριας. Vulg.: polluisti sanctificationem tuam—(Some codd. read.: עונך sing. and מקדשך.)
Eze_28:19. ... ἀπωλεια ἐγενου—nihili factus es—
Eze_28:22. ... και γνωση—Sept. for בה read twice בך; Chal., Ar., a few, בם.
Eze_28:23. Sept.: ... ἐν σοι περικυκλῳ σου—
Eze_28:24. Και οὐκετι ἐσονται σκολοψ πικριας κ. ακανθα ὀδυνης—
Eze_28:25. … και συναξω … ἐκ τ. χωρων οὑ … ἐκει … ἐνωπιον τ. λαων των ἐθνων. Sept. read: שם.
Eze_28:26. … ἐν ἐλπιδι … ὁ Θεος αὐτων, κ. ὁ Θεος τ. πατερως αὐτων.
EXEGETICAL REMARKS
Eze_28:1-10. The Prophecy on the Prince of Tyre
Eze_28:1. There is first, therefore, a prophecy of judgment, as in Ezekiel 26, with reference to Tyre.
Eze_28:2. נגיד; Meier: one who holds together, a governor, director. In Ethiopic, Nĕgus is king, Gesen.: he who goes before, duke, doge. The special prominence given to this person, designated king in Eze_28:12, was natural from the marked parallel with Jerusalem; comp. Eze_17:19. But there was expressed in the kingdom, and especially in the case of Tyre, also a characteristic state-constitution. Small as many of the Phœnician cities were, each still had its king, and Tyre, in particular, kept by a hereditary kingdom, so that even in the latest times only those related to the old royal house were admitted to the throne. This kingdom combined with a rich and powerful aristocracy the mercantile interest, the gains of commerce, which founded it (Eze_28:16). After the analogy of Carthage, a senate stood by the side of the king, of the old families, which must in many respects have limited him, so that the Oriental despotism could not develope itself here. According to Josephus, it was Ethbaal II.; but not the person, only the position comes into consideration, and especially as in him the mercantile power of Tyre had its proud, secure representative.—As elsewhere also (Ezekiel 25), so here the sinning goes first on to Eze_28:6.—The self-exaltation which is ascribed to him has respect, on one side, to the high opinion entertained of himself; on the other, to the same in connection with his dwelling-place. What is to be made account of in the latter respect is plain from the assertion, I am God,—to be distinguished from the likeness of the Most High (אדמה לעליון) in Isa_14:14, also from Act_12:22; it expresses the heathenish-mythological consciousness. The rock on which Tyre was built is at the same time to be viewed in its connection with the oft-mentioned temple. The Phœnician myth represented the two islands as moving about in the sea, until an eagle was sacrificed as an atonement. Down to the third century Tyrian coins exhibit the two islands, with the inscription, ἀμβρόσεε πέτρε (immortal rock). According to Sanchoniathon, Astarte, when wandering through the world, consecrated a star that fell down before her eyes to the island Tyre. The foundation of the temple to Melkarth was represented by its priests as contemporaneous with that of the city—about 2750 b. c. So Herodotus relates; and Arrian calls it the oldest sanctuary known in the annals of mankind. Thus מושב אלהים is sufficiently explained; while Hengst. still thinks of an “absolute inaccessibleness,” and Hitzig of the circumstance that this kingly residence “sprang up out of the water, as the palace of God out of the heavenly ocean.” [“Sanchoniathon expressly calls it ‘the holy island’; and it is known that the Tyrian colonies all reverenced it as the mother-city of their religion, not less than the original source of their political existence. It was only in the spirit of ancient heathenism to conclude, that a state which was not only strong by natural position, and by immense maritime resources, but also stood in such close connection with the divine, might be warranted in claiming, through its head, something like supernatural strength and absolute perpetuity of being.”—P. F.]—In the heart of the seas is an echo from Eze_27:4; Eze_27:25-26.—The rejoinder, and thou art man, etc., is sharp, yet at the same time sober—the simple contrast between man and God (El).—And thou makest thy heart, etc., continues the thou sayest, as well explaining לכך גבה, as giving forth the speech that naturally flowed from it, the thoughts, the ebullitions of a heart which was the heart of Godhead.—Hitzig: נתן indicates what is made.
Eze_28:3 begins an interlude, which, however, does not picture forth the imagination of his being God, to which the mention of Daniel would as little suit as what thereafter follows; but rather proceeds on the ground of the admitted manhood, and so does only the more feelingly censure the loftiness of spirit. It needs not be understood either as a question, or as spoken ironically. Behold, what exists, according to thy mistaken notion; it shows the being wiser than Daniel to be merely an imagination. There hence arises, at the same time, a clear confirmation of the book of Daniel (comp. Hengst. here), since Daniel’s wisdom was at any rate well known in the circle of Ezekiel, one also recognised at the Chaldean court, and therefore to be held up against the Tyrian sovereign. On the כל־סתום, that to him nothing concealed, secret, was unknown, comp. Dan_2:10-11; Dan_2:19; Dan_4:6. Here also, indeed, is only a man, but with a generally admitted superhuman, truly divine wisdom, which God had in reality given (that is the main element in the comparison with Daniel), which he has not, as thou hast done, in his imagination appropriated to himself. Hengst. lays stress also upon the statesmanlike, the really princely position of Daniel, which so excellently grounded the kind of counter-position assigned him in relation to the king of Tyre.
Eze_28:4 goes a step deeper still, namely, to the real standpoint of the Tyrian prince,—his wisdom and prudence in the matter of worldly riches (1Ki_4:29). In connection therewith, one naturally thinks of the traditions according to which an ancestor of the royal house was the first sailor, who was borne to the island in the hollow trunk of a tree, and there erected pillars to the wind and fire; that the forefathers of the Tyrian kings alleged they had found purple on the island (the Tyrian colour, scarlet, the lack-dye of Sor).—חיל is presently specified in the gold and silver.—אוצר is: provisions, treasure, treasury (Zec_9:2-3).
Eze_28:5. However great this wisdom might be, however much and varied its manifestations, it centred in the merchandise; and with the growth which accrued to the wealth, the heart also became swollen, as its self-elation found in that wealth its proper element.
Eze_28:6 connects itself in a summary way with Eze_28:2, and prepares for the conclusion in Eze_28:7, which joins the punishment to the course of sin that had just been described.—עריץ, terrible, powerful and violent: those who are so pre-eminently above others—the Chaldeans (Eze_26:7). Hitzig: “Against (why not upon?) the beauty of thy wisdom.” What is meant is: that the beauty of the mercantile state of things in Tyre was the offspring of the wisdom which distinguished its king, יפי and יפעה are almost the same, the latter, however, indicating more the shine or glitter of the beauty. The shine of the beauty may be referred. especially to the princehood of Tyre. [Ewald: “they draw their swords upon thy most beautiful wisdom.”] חלל, to pierce through, Pi. to dishonour, to make common.
Eze_28:8. בור=שׁחת, Eze_26:20.—The plural ממותי, deaths, admits of explanation partly from the representative character of the Tyrian princehood, partly from the feeling therewith connected, of his dying in the death of every Tyrian that was slain. Hengst. compares Eze_29:5; Gen_14:10. Others: as the pierced through dies of many death-wounds (Eze_21:30; Eze_21:19 [25]). Even without rendering חלל, “profane,” there is a pointing back to וחללי in Eze_28:7 in this way, namely, that the princehood should at last share the fate of every one who was pierced through, and, stripped of all splendour, should be cast into the grave.
Eze_28:9. The word here goes still farther back than ומתה in Eze_28:8, and transfers the scene to the very moment of being killed, and confronts the vaunting discourse (in Eze_28:2). לפני חרגך, Eze_21:16 [11].—The extremely cutting argumentation, and thou art man, etc.—מחללך, Pi. =מחולל, Poel (Isa_51:9)
Eze_28:10. מותים, plur. from מָוֶת, comp. at Eze_28:8.—ערל is uncircumcised (comp. Eze_44:9; Isa_52:1); for Jews, on account of the sacramental import of circumcision, it designates the heathen world as outside the covenant of God (1Sa_17:36; 1Sa_31:4, barbari?). The opposite in Num_23:10 : “the death of the righteous.” Also for the Tyrian, as here, it is hardly to be understood without the circumcision reported by Herodotus of the Phœnicians (II. 104). Earlier, in Eze_28:8 : as every one that is pierced through; here there is an ascension: as a non-Tyrian through strangers.
Eze_28:11-19. Lamentation over the Prince of Tyre
Now Eze_28:11, as Ezekiel 27
Eze_28:12. The lamentation is in fitting adaptation to the person who was just killed. Comp. at Eze_27:2.—In the connection with מלא חכמה and כליל יפי, which in themselves, and after what has preceded, are quite clear, חותם תכנית cannot possibly be rendered, with Hitzig: “thou art a curiously wrought seal-ring.” Ewald has: “O thou seal of the completion.” חותם means: to cut in, to impress with a seal, to seal; therefore partic.: thou wast sealing. Also חוֹתָם, the seal-ring, is properly the impressor. The transferred signification: to seal, that is: to attest, to confirm, to verify, recommends itself through תכנית (from תכן, to determine exactly, to weigh), the measure, the determinate, that which must have a certain amount (Eze_43:10); accordingly: thou confirmedst the measure, thou fulfilledst, madest the right measure good; therefore a threefold thing is boasted of the Tyrian kingdom: measure, wisdom, and beauty. The first of these may be said against despotism; comp. at Eze_28:2. [“According to the present text and punctuation, the expression plainly means: thou art the one sealing exactness (the noun חותם denoting anything that is of an exact or perfect nature). To say of the king of Tyre that he sealed up this, was in other words to declare him every way complete: he gave, as it were, the finishing stroke, the seal, to all that constitutes completeness; or, as we would now say it, he was a normal man—one formed after rule and pattern. Hence it is immediately explained by what follows: ‘full of wisdom and perfect in beauty’ in this stood his sealing completeness.”—P. F.]
Eze_28:13. In Eden; comp. Eze_36:35; Isa_51:3. And the delightsome land, wherein the garden for primeval man lay, brings up the garden of God (El, not Jehovah); Eze_31:8-9; Gen_13:10. As the Tyrian king himself was certainly not God, but what was said of him in Eze_28:12, so his dwelling was unquestionably not מושׁב אל, the habitation of God; it might, however, be named paradisiacal, since all fulness of what was pleasant, and all possible magnificence, surrounded the same, covered it (מסכתך). Hitzig freely: “every precious stone was thy figure-work;” because out of the stones the figuration of the ring must be composed! The transition to every precious stone brings to remembrance Gen_2:11-12. The distribution of the particulars forms three groups, each having three precious stones, rounded oil by the gold, which makes ten (the symbolical number of completeness). This emblematic representation of kingly greatness and glory, therefore, carries no respect to the breastplate of the high priest and its twelve stones, where also they are ranged in a different order; comp. however, on the signification of the particular names, at Exo_28:17 sq., 39:10 sq. Comp. also here at Eze_1:16; Eze_1:26; Eze_27:16.—מלאכה may signify business, performance, work, also goods. Manifestly music is meant by it here, as the older expositors have rendered, an ordinary accompaniment of the pomp of royalty (comp. Pan. 3:5)! תף is therefore the (hand) kettledrum, as a specimen of all instruments that were struck (תפף); and נקב will be the pipe (from נקב, to push through, bore through), for the wind instruments as they were then constructed. [Ges. takes תף for the socket in which the gem is put, and נקב as ring-socket. Ewald: “were appointed for thy oracle and soothsaying work on the day of thy creation.” He would take it ironically: the man—who might be called the seal, that is, the consummation, etc., was once certainly as the first of all men in paradise (Job_15:7), so that he has a completeness beyond any other person—took, doubtless, for his holy ornament, which covered him from the first day of his life, all the twelve stones of the high priest’s oracle-sign, and was doubtless made by God a cherub upon the mountain of the gods, and was also, doubtless, unblameable from his birth—only, alas! till his guilt was discovered! Others thought of נְקֵבָה, the female (woman). So Häv.: “the service of thy kettledrums and of thy women was ready for thee on the day of thy creation,” which (by a reference to Gen_1:27) must indicate the king’s entrance on his government, and the ladies of his harem, who surrounded him with dance and song.]—On the הבראך, comp. Ezekiel 21:35 [Eze_21:30]. With the creation of this princedom, as it took in Tyre precedence of the still older Zidon, there forthwith existed all sorts of parade and glory, such as could be found only in kings’ courts. (כונן, Pual from כון?). Firm and well prepared did this kingdom start into being.
Eze_28:14. As the colour given to the representation has already, with its kettledrums and its pipes, forsaken Eden and paradise, and “the day of creation” does not quite constitute the Tyrian king a second Adam—as the whole representation generally appears to take into account only the very ancient origin on which this kingdom prided itself, perhaps also not without some touch of irony—so certainly the cherub here has little or nothing at all to do with paradise (comp. at Ezekiel 1; Eze_9:3; Ezekiel 10); for it is unnecessary for the following context to think of the history of the Tyrian kingdom after the analogy of the history of the fall. Rather may we suppose that the designation of cherub points simply to the temple at Jerusalem, and especially to the most holy place there. There is thereby symbolized out of the history of this kingdom that historical epoch when it came through Hiram II. into connection with David and with Solomon, so important, in particular, for the design of the temple-building, and important also for the commerce of Tyre. Already, as architect of the temple of Solomon (and that Hiram was a connoisseur as well as a promoter of the building art is testified by Josephus, in addition to what is said in the Bible, from the fragments of Dius and Menander in his possession), the king of Tyre takes beside Solomon in this respect a position which makes his appearance under a name borrowed from the architecture of the holy of holies, the cherub, not unsuitable. That cherub is applied to him only symbolically is rendered plain by the otherwise incomprehensible addition of ממשׁח, that is, of the anointing, which imports as much as: anointed cherub, therefore: who is king. What Hengst. concludes from Exo_30:22 sq., that “anointed” = holy, because all the vessels of the temple were anointed, to impress on them the character of holiness, runs out to this result, that the king of Tyre, as king, was res sacra, because God had communicated to him of His greatness—therefore, that he is said to be anointed because he was king. Since הסוכך, “the covering,” repeated in Eze_28:16, refers to Exo_25:20, and we know (comp. Doctrinal Reflections on Ezekiel 9) that the cherubim, screening with their wings the ark of the covenant, symbolized the life of creation, confessing, as it actually does, the heavenly King, the Holy One in Israel, the Most High over all, so it is not out of the way if the king of Tyre, who has shown himself to be, along with Solomon, the protector of the temple,—a building which unquestionably culminated in the most holy place,—should, agreeably to this testimony, be honoured as “the anointed cherub that covereth.” Yea, as the whole creation serves the eternal King of Israel, so also has the Tyrian kingdom served Him in His house at Jerusalem (on which also Isa_23:18 leans), and thus a proper contrast to the self-elevation in Eze_28:2; Eze_28:5 is brought out, as is expressly said through the immediately following נתתיך, I have given thee. Upon the holy mountain of God is here, therefore, as always, to be understood of the temple-mount at Jerusalem (2 Chronicles 3.), where He right truly was, as architect of the temple. And because there the sanctuary for the ministrations of the priestly service in Israel was executed through him, and in the high priest of Israel the whole Israelitish priesthood culminated, it might be said, with reference to the high-priestly Urim and Thummim, of the Tyrian king, that “he walked in the midst of stones of fire.”
[Other Explanations.—Häv. thinks that the king of Tyre was named cherub as the ideal of a creature (so, too, Bähr previously in his Symbolik); ממשׁח is with him to be distinguished from משׁיח, an anointed object (Exo_30:26), and הסוכך is as much as: a reflection of the divine glory. He thinks of a holy gods’-mountain (Isa_14:13), wherein the king of Tyre, as one of those mighty mountain-gods (1Ki_20:23) whom the Tyrians honoured, was located; and the fiery stones were, according to Häv., those in the temple of Herculus as the fire-god, which may have been illuminated. Hengst. takes the cherub, with Häv., as a representation of the earthly creature-life in its highest grade, and in its highest perfection; which, however, cannot be conceived of as proper to the Tyrian king. As “covering,” he covered Tyre so long as God’s favour was with him and his people. The mountain of God must be his elevation to the holy mount of God, a participation in the divine greatness (Psa_30:8); and the fiery stones correspond to the walls of fire, which indicate the divine protection (Zec_2:9). Ewald: “thou—into the wide-covering cherub, into that I make thee;” and from the holy mountain of the gods rush down the sparkling stones of fire, namely, thunderbolts against the wicked (!). Hitzig, like the Sept., takes את as אֶת, with: “beside the cherub, etc., so have I set thee;” then: “cherub of the width of the covering.” But he is in some doubt; he thinks by the mountain of God might be meant Horeb; but it might be the Albordsch of Asiatic mythology, and in the stones of fire there lies at bottom the idea of a Vulcan. One sees the despair which attaches to every rationalistic exposition.]
[The rationalistic explanations of this singular passage are certainly bold and unsatisfactory enough; but our author’s own appears to make greatly too much account of the historical relation of Hiram to the temple at Jerusalem, and too little of the poetical element which pervades the representation. “It is one of the most highly figurative representations of prophecy, and is only to be compared with Isaiah’s lamentation, Ezekiel 16, over the downfall of the king of Babylon, It characteristically differs from this, however, in that, while it moves with equal boldness and freedom in an ideal world, it clothes the ideal, according to the usage of our prophet, in a historical drapery, and beholds the past revived again in the personified existence of which it treats. It is a historical parable. The kings of Tyre are first personified as one individual, an ideal man—one complete in all material excellence, perfect manhood. And then this ideal man, the representative of whatever there was of greatness and glory in Tyre, and in whom the Tyrian spirit of self-elation and pride appear in full efflorescence, is ironically viewed by the prophet as the type of humanity in its highest states of existence upon earth. All that is best and noblest in the history of the past he sees in imagination meeting in this new beau-ideal of humanity. It was he who in primeval time trod the hallowed walks of paradise, and used at will its manifold treasures, and regaled himself with its corporeal delights. It was he who afterwards appeared in the form of a cherub—ideal compound of the highest forms of animal existence—type of humanity in its predestined state of ultimate completeness and glory; and, as such, had a place assigned him among the consecrated symbols of God’s sanctuary in the holy mount, and the immediate presence of the Most High. Thus, occupying the highest spheres of created life, and familiar even with the sight of the divine glory, he knew what it was to dwell amidst the consuming fire, and to walk as on burning stones of sapphire (Exo_24:10). So thou thinkest, thou ideal man, thou quintessence of human greatness and pride—thou thinkest that manhood’s divinest qualities, and most honourable conditions of being, belong peculiarly to thyself, since thou dost nobly peer above all, and standest alone in thy glory. Let it be so. But thou art still a man, and, like humanity itself in its most favoured conditions, thou hast not been perfect before God: thou hast yielded thyself a servant to corruption, therefore thou must be cast down from thine excellency, thou must lose thy cherubic nearness to God, etc. … So that the cry which the prophet would utter through this parabolical history in the ears of all is, that man in his best estate—with everything that art or nature can bring to his aid—is still corruption and vanity. The flesh can win for itself nothing that is really and permanently good; and the more that it can surround itself with the comforts and luxuries of life, the more only does it pamper the godless pride of nature, and draw down upon itself calamity and destruction.”—P. F.]
Eze_28:15. To wish to bring תמים into connection with Adam’s sinless constitution, has against it the expression בדרכיך, in thy ways. It is simply the contrast to the expression: perverseness was found in thee; therefore: blameless in thy walk. One might suppose, after the exposition given of the walking in the midst of the fiery stones in Eze_28:14, an allusion to the וְתֻמִּים! The earlier procedure of the kingdom of Tyre, as seen in the fellowship it then maintained with the David and Solomon of Israel, must be viewed as set over against the corruption into which it latterly fell (Eze_26:2; Eze_27:3; Eze_28:2 sq.). A dogmatic antithesis, such as Hengst. supposes, is not to be imagined.
Eze_28:16. Here now follows the origin of the perverseness that was found in him, namely, in his vast commerce (Eze_28:5); and so one has to think of the Tyrian kingdom as carrying on and plying merchandise, and that in all sorts of ways, by which it fell into pernicious and sinful courses.—מלו, indeterminate as to its subject, or (Hengst.): thy inhabitants (?); more properly: fellow-citizens, subjects, if they are not to be regarded as the merchants from all countries. Rosenm. preferred the intransitive signification of the verb: “through the multitude, etc., was thy interior filled.” [Hitzig: מְלוֹא=מְלוֹ, “the filling of thy interior was injustice.”] Thus, in place of the former blamelessness, there has come to be a ground for punishment. Hence for the punishment there must now, through God, be a withdrawal from the relations once held to Israel, the most elevated reminiscences of its history, as through God it had been introduced to these. This lies in מהר; and that it is contemplated as a holy downfall, with a view to the building up of the sanctuary in Israel at the time, we perceive from the ואחללך—ch. 7:21, 22. [Hitzig: “and thou, covering cherub, art quite rooted out”!!]—For the rest, comp. at Eze_28:14.
Eze_28:17. The discourse here, with גבה׳, again reverts to the subject announced at the very beginning (Eze_28:2), the corruption of the Tyrian kingdom: the proud self-elation in or on account of his beauty; comp. at Eze_28:7. The higher man raises himself, so much the poorer does he become as to his wisdom. A proud man, a fool; so it is said in common life, for this special reason, that the splendour of wealth, the whole attractive display of its outward position, so apt to bewitch strangers even and to beget envy, brings the possessor so much the sooner and the more to a self-pleasing condition. This is distinctly involved in the על, on account of, which does not need to be taken as = with, together with. Ewald: “thou hast lost thy wisdom upon thy splendour.”—The self-destruction and annihilation (שׁחת) of such self-elation corresponds, as to time, with the casting down effected by God (על־ארץ), and, with respect to the preceding glory, with the abandonment to the astounded and at the same time malicious gaze of those who were companions as to rank and position. Hengst. remarks that ראה, with ב, marks the affecting contemplation, especially with a joyful participation. לראוה, the infinitive form, like לדאבה, לאהבה.
Eze_28:18. מרב עוניך is parallel with ברב רכלתך in Eze_28:16, and בעיל רכלתך throws light on עוניך.—The profanation proceeded from the moral offence; the unrighteous mammon in commerce brought along with it sin and guilt. After what is said in Eze_28:16 in reference to God as to the profaning, the words חללת מקדשׁיך can occasion no difficulty. The sanctuaries of the Tyrian kingdom are those holy reminiscences regarding the mountain of God and the sanctuary of the Lord, and of Israel’s high-priesthood. One cannot possibly serve God and mammon. (Others have thought of the temple, which Tyre made on his holy island (?!). With Hengst. every sort of greatness ordained by God, or of glory distributed by Him, is a sanctuary.)—The fire, according to Hitzig, must be the perverseness with which his interior was penetrated, as fire bound up in him (!!). Some, too, have under it thought of a traitor, who would pass over to Nebuchadnezzar. Vatke has also mentioned the phœnix, giving itself to be burnt. It is a biblical form of speech, frequently used, for the punishment of divine wrath which comes from sin, and which, as is evident from the term ashes, was to annihilate the kingdom of Tyre (Eze_19:12).—ואתנך, contrast to ונתתיך in Eze_28:14.—The seeing once more emphasizes the spectacle, which will be presented to every one in the subject so judged.
Eze_28:19. Here at last is the conclusion. With the seeing with the eyes there is conjoined the knowing, the understanding with the spirit.—Comp. Eze_26:16. They are prophetic preterites.—Eze_27:36; Eze_26:21.
Eze_28:20-26. The Prophecy on Zidon
Eze_28:20-21. The brief and supplementary manner in which this prophecy respecting Zidon is introduced arose from the backgoing character of this city, though it was more ancient than Tyre (hence sung of by Homer, while Tyre is not), and, according to such tradition, still very commonly represented the Phœnician state (for example, Isa_23:4; Isa_23:12); comp. Gen_10:15; Gen_49:13. On coins, as among the Greeks, Zidon is called the metropolis of Tyre. On account of its still always preserved independence, whence it took part in the coalition against Babylon (Jeremiah 27),—one may say, the Genoa of the old world,—there was due to it a word, however short, especially since, as a representative of Canaan, with which no such relations were maintained as between Tyre and Israel under Hiram and Solomon, it formed most fitly the contrast for the promise which bore respect to the people of God. Comp. Jdg_10:12.
Eze_28:21. צידון, that is, “fishing,” which indicates the earliest employment of its inhabitants, lay in a plain, which resembled an orchard, several hours’ walk along the sea, and had a summer and a winter harbour; at present a small, insignificant place. Of the old fortress there still remains a square tower. Fishing and traffic in fish are still practised there.
Eze_28:22. הנני עליד, as at Eze_26:3.—ונככדתי; comp. Exo_14:4; Exo_14:17-18. May a preparation have been intended, through this reference to Egypt, for what follows in Ezekiel 29.? In such a being sanctified, or in God sanctifying Himself, as is done by means of a judicial punishment, there is presupposed the certainty that Zidon would not have sanctified Him. The impressive transition from the second to the third person makes the fact appear, in a manner, as already accomplished, so that one speaks of Zidon as of such a person.
Eze_28:23. For which sort of judgments see Eze_5:17. Pestilence in connection with war,—that in the houses; this as the shedding of blood in the streets, as is presently brought vividly out.—ונפלל, Pil. equivalent to Kal, but strengthening, enhancing, as also alliterating; producing a resemblance of sound which has in it something graphic (Häv.). Continually, as it were, the pierced-through fall.—The sword, through which God will act upon them, comes upon Zidon from round about, so that there is no escape.—The representation of the predicted judgment is kept general. With Zidon the analogous prophecies respecting judgment first reach their end. And thus also can the following be joined to it the more fitly.
Eze_28:24. The point of contrast is presented by the idea of neighbourhood—the nearer (Ezekiel 25), or the more remote, as was the case with Tyre and Zidon; it is said expressly: from all round about them. On סלון, comp. at Eze_2:6. Ges.: “like the young shoots and twigs of the palm.”—ממאיר, partic. Hiph. from מָאַר, to thrust; intransitive: to be sharp, bitter. Ges.: “raising bitter pain.” קוץ is something cutting, stinging.—כָאֵב, to bend oneself for pain, hence Hiph.: to cause pain.—The Promise, accordingly, amounts to this, that the sensible pain which the people of Israel must have experienced through the contempt of their neighbours shall cease in the future. The figurative representation is a marked repetition of Num_33:55; the pain experienced was punishment; comp. Gen_15:18 sq.; Jos_13:19; Jdg_1:31-32; Jdg_3:3. But now the Lord accomplishes what His people had slightingly neglected. Comp. also Eze_16:57.—The negative side is followed by the positive in Eze_28:25; the scornful heathen go down, but the people in whom the Lord sanctifies Himself, in contrast to them, come gloriously up. Comp. Eze_11:17; Eze_20:41.—The change, also, from Israel to Jacob, is to be noticed, and the relation of house of Israel to My servant Jacob.
Eze_28:26. In consequence of the added definition׃ לבטח, in security, it is repeated that they should dwell upon their home-soil. בָּטַח, according to Meier: to stretch forth oneself, i.e. give away oneself, confide; hence: to be careless, secure. Ges.: the same derived from a primary meaning, “to be void, empty.”—But also the secure possession in the confidence of faith is in this comforting promise repeated, and finally, such grace of God is again, and still more expressly than before, set over against the divine judgments. Comp. besides, Isa_65:21. Hitzig: “the first וישׁבו preceding the building and planting is inchoative: they settle down; the second: they are established, dwell, or abide.” Hengst. remarks: “It is designed to meet the despair which, after the opening of the siege of Jerusalem, had become the most formidable enemy. So that here, in the onesidedness which so commonly adheres to prophecy, because everywhere connecting itself with definite temporal relations and issues, only the light side of the future of the covenant-people is brought into view. Along with that there was also a shady side, which is supplied by the successors of Ezekiel, Zechariah and Malachi. A great national judgment was destined to follow the Chaldean.” Häv.: “This is the eternal blessing which rests upon Israel, that it shall one time attain to a blessed peace, while the heathen powers shall lie under the penal judgment of God.” He calls to mind the gathering through the gospel. That here, as in Eze_26:20, in the shape of a brief glance into the future, there are traits of Messianic colouring, is manifest. Comp. also at Amo_9:14.
DOCTRINAL REFLECTIONS
1. The time for the fulfilment of these prophecies against the aliens, where no dates of a definite nature are to be found in the prophecies themselves, depends on the kind of realization applied to them. Tholuck admits of a wide interval “in the relation between truth and reality in the prophecies.” But when he presently, again, limits the principle, that “the mode of realization may be to us a matter of indifference,” since “the simply religious spirits” are to be distinguished from divine seers, nothing is gained but the arbitrary definition that the prophets, “though not uniformly, yet in great part, saw the truth of the future not merely in abstracto, but under the concrete veil of their historical realization.” And what is meant by “seeing the truth in abstracto”? Is there not a self-contradiction in this as applied to the prophets, to whom the ideas presented themselves as matters of fact, and these facts in this or that actual form? There must, first of all, be admittedly something of human weakness, especially in the subsequent reproduction of the previously received divine communications and visions. Many an intermediate link in this way was lost; but thereby the end came so much nearer to the beginning, the ultimate background to the foreground. In this and other respects there is the dust of finiteness on these prophetic paintings, which but so much the more furnishes a pledge of their divine origin. With this agrees what is said in 1Pe_1:10-12,—said, indeed, with reference to the time of the Christian salvation, yet admitting also of a more general application,—where there is ascribed to the prophets an “inquiring” and “searching into,”—a matter of study, therefore, also for them, since, when the meaning had not been expressly made manifest to them, they sought for traces [of the fulfilment], and made trial of them in regard to the times which lay near at hand. If their prophecies had been the product of their own spirit, such want of knowledge in regard to the cases in question, and their procedure in consequence thereof, must have been strange; but in this way we have, with their searching concerning their prophecies, perhaps the proper soul of their so-called literary activity.
2. In the prophecies of judgment contained in the earlier chapter [i.e. Ezekiel 25], the execution of the judgment rests wholly in the hand of God. So upon Ammon, upon Moab, upon the Philistines; only in respect to Edom was it said that the accomplishment would be made specially through Israel. The divine sentence speaks throughout of the extirpation of the very name. As regards place and time, no other fulfilment could lie nearer to the prophet and his contemporaries than that through Nebuchadnezzar. That this was only the beginning of the end could not be concluded without some insight into the divine patience, and the manifestation of Christ in the flesh. Still more clearly do these relations discover themselves in the case of Tyre.
3. The transition to Tyre is made by our prophet through the Philistines. Considered generally, this has its ground in the heathenish character of the race. More specially, for their appearance in this connection, account has been made of a notice (see Movers, Phœn. ii. 313), according to which the Zidonians, after they had (b. c. 1209) been brought into subjection by the Philistines, laid the foundation of the island-city of Tyre. Lenormant (Manuel d’ Hist. Anc. de l’Orient), and, leaning upon him, M. Busch, have woven thence the story, that a Philistine fleet, sailing from Askalon, had surprised Zidon, and put an end to the hitherto Zidonian supremacy. Thus would the Philistines, as having furnished the occasion for the origination of Tyre, have had their proper place assigned them, in a historical-genetical respect, at the close of Ezekiel 25 and before the beginning of Ezekiel 26 of Ezekiel. M. Duncker (Hist. of Antiq. i. 519) merely says: “In the year b. c. 1254, a number of the Zidonian race emigrated from Zidon, and over against Old Tyre, upon an island-rock, beside the temple of Melkarth, founded New Tyre. This New Tyre grew into a commonwealth with the old city on the land. The strengthening which Tyre hereby received put it in the position of setting up a rivalry with the commerce and the colonization of Zidon. From b. c. 1100 Tyre saw herself at the head of the Phœnician cities.”
4. Tyre, as very commonly happens with commercial states, and still more with commercial cities, presents, in the few and disconnected things that we know of its history, an image of ups and downs, and inversely. Commonly it is said, in connection with our chapter, that Tyre was then at the summit of its power. But this might rather be said of the times of David and Solomon (Duncker, p. 520). For the period under consideration it comes nearer to the truth to say, that Tyre had again revived, and continued to maintain a certain precedence among the Phœnician cities. For though the revolt of Kition in Cyprus had been suppressed, and the island stronghold of Tyre had under King Elulæos successfully withstood the Assyrians (Salmanassar), yet the dependent relationship of the Phœnician cities toward Assyria from the year b. c. 900 became more and more marked, and Tyre had to stretch all her powers to preserve her position, or again to make it good. During the Assyrian siege it lost its last colony in the Thracian seas, namely, Thasos; and an Assyrian fleet ere long robbed it anew of the island of Cyprus, which it had again reconquered. A memorial stone in the Berlin Museum commemorates this success of Salmanassar against Tyre. According to Lenormant’s representation (ii. p. 313; Busch, p. 247 sq.), while Salmanassar, b. c. 720–15, had been successfully resisted, there were, about b. c. 700, decided failures against Sennacherib, who conquered the island Tyre, and set up there a vassal (Toubaal) as king. The bas-reliefs in the rocks of Nahr el Kelb, around Beirût, even to the present time, according to Lenormant, bear witness to the complete subjection of Phœnicia by Sennacherib (? Sargana-Salmanassar!), and the overthrow of the Tyrian supremacy. (If this French representation were to be trusted, the prophecy of Isaiah in Ezekiel 23 would have to be applied to it, though the Chaldeans were already to be descried in the distance; and Ezekiel would connect with the restoration which intervened (Isa_23:15 sq.) the prophecy of a new judgment upon Tyre by the hand of the Chaldeans, as generally the judgment upon Tyre. But also in the otherwise general representation, which knows only of the unsuccessful siege of the island-city by Salmanassar, is the reference thereto of the prophecy of Isaiah in its first aspect to be held fast. What Isaiah predicts in Ezekiel 23 accords quite well with the Assyrian issue of things. For Salmanassar did subject the Phœnicians to himself, and also Old Tyre (Joseph. Antiq. ix. 4. 2), so that Salmanassar could cause himself to be glorified at Lykos beside the monuments of the Egyptian Ramses. The five years’ siege assuredly did not pass without inflicting serious injuries; and it is anyhow matter of fact, that King Elulæos recognised the sovereignty of Assyria, for he henceforth took the title of Pha (פחה), that is, governor, vassal. As the Chaldeans and the siege, through Nebuchadnezzar, emerge behind the Assyrian, the prophecy of Isaiah certainly has a much more distant background, precisely as is the case also with Ezekiel.) That the catastrophe at Jerusalem should have inspired new courage into Tyre, called forth words that were expressive of new hopes (Eze_26:2), is sufficiently explained not through any position she occupied on the height of power, but rather through the relations which arose out of events in connection with Assyria. (As Lenormant mentions (ii. p. 314), if the Tyrian ascendency had been ill borne by the other Phœnician cities, since Tyre in many ways abused her position (comp. at Eze_27:8 sq.), there would hence, on this side, have been no farther interest for Tyre; also, at the end of the Assyrian period, it is rather Zidon which appears at the head of an insurrectionary movement against the son of Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, as is testified by an inscription. That Zidon was worsted in the affair is shown by an inscription found in the British Museum, which represents Tyre, indeed, as among the tributaries of Assyria, but takes no notice whatever of Zidon.) In consequence of the decay of the Assyrian power, Egypt also, through Pharaoh Nechoh, attained to the position of making the Phœnician states subject to it. This took place at the period to which belongs the circumnavigation of Africa, through Tyrian mariners in the employ of the king of Egypt. During this whole time, however, and in spite of the Assyrian supremacy, the merchandise of Tyre flourished, and there was no diminution of the resources and wealth which it brought to the hand of Tyre. The place, so favourably situated, always raised itself anew; its walls were rebuilt, so that, in its re-established condition, it was able to offer resistance to Nebuchadnezzar.
5. The determination respecting the issue of the thirteen years’ siege of the island Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar has been, on one side, made dependent on Eze_29:17 sq., while on another, Gesenius, Winer, Hitzig have turned to a wrong account the silence which is observed upon the consequence of the siege in question, in the passages quoted by Josephus regarding it (Antiq. x. 11, con. Ap. i. 21).1 They thence draw the conclusion that the Chaldeans did not get the city into their power, nor inflict any damage upon it. The silence, however, observed in this respect, especially when it is practised by Phœnician historiographers, speaks rather for the opposite view. For if the siege had really been without any result, how should it have made for the side in question, that no notice was taken of Nebuchadnezzar’s leaving his affair with Tyre in an unfinished state ? The very honourable report for Tyre, of its having withstood a thirteen years’ siege, which is given by Josephus from the original sources, does not exclude the supposition that the siege ended in a capitulation (in 573), but involves the assumption of a corresponding pressure through Nebuchadnezzar; although in this Chaldaic siege of Tyre, as in the Assyrian, a much wider and more comprehensive view must be taken (as already said) of the prophetic announcements pointing in that direction. The evidence for the subjection of Tyre to the sovereignty of Babylon may be seen in Movers, ii. 1, p. 448 sq., 461 sq.; comp. Häv. Comm. p. 429 sq. On King Ethbaal being obliged to abdicate, or however the act may be designated, Nebuchadnezzar brought in Baal in his place. The royal family was carried away to Babylon. Berosus says that all Phœnicia became subject to Nebuchadnezzar. At all events, we see the Tyrians, and Phœnicians generally, in a still more marked state of dependence upon Babylon than formerly on Assyria. Twice, as we learn from Assyrian sources, did the people of Tyre receive their king from Babylon—with which Hitzig compares 1Ki_12:2 sq.; but Delitzsch rightly judges 2Ki_24:12; 2Ki_24:14, Dan_1:3, more worthy of comparison, for the quite undoubted supremacy of the Persians over all Phœnicia appears plainly as the taking over of a subject-relationship which had already existed under the Chaldeans. “How also should princes have been brought back by the Tyrians, who had not long before sought refuge in a court so hostile to Tyre as Babylon was?” (Häv.) As Lenormant represents the matter (ii. p. 318 sq.), the city on the mainland was first attacked by Nebuchadnezzar, taken, and wholly destroyed. There upon came Nebuchadnezzar in person (b. c. 574), to press forward the slumbering work; and now the island-city was taken by storm, sacked, and partly destroyed. A number of the people had previously escaped by sea to Carthage. Tyre henceforth merely vegetated; Carthage was her heiress.
6. Tyre, in the prophets, comes into consideration not in a political respect, but as the representative, the might, of the world’s commerce. Jehovah and Mammon is the counterpart to Jerusalem and Tyre. “This last” (says Delitzsch) “gained as peacefully as possible the treasures of the nations, and secures for itself the advantage it won by means of colonies and factories.”
7. The judgment upon Tyre is history—an entire development of judgment even to utter extinction, as is now most clearly manifest. Assyria is in this judgment-history one chapter, Nebuchadnezzar also one, and Alexander the Great still another: Assyria the type of the Chaldeans, the Chaldeans the type of the Macedonians—each one surpassing the other in the power of inflicting judgment, like wave upon wave of the sea, till the flood had overwhelmed all (comp. Eze_26:3; Eze_26:19). “The deeds of Nebuchadnezzar rank with the prophet for more than an isolated fact. In the conquest by that monarch, he beholds from the historical ground of the present the whole mass of destruction concentrated, which links itself in history thereto as a closely connected chain of events. The might of Tyre, broken by Nebuchadnezzar, coincides in his view with the entire annihilation of the same. This was demanded by the internal theocratic significance of that fact in relation to the destruction of Jerusalem. The conquest of Tyre by the same hand which struck the city of God has the counter signification of a future glory (Eze_29:21; Eze_28:25-26). Nebuchadnezzar inflicts on Tyre the death-wound, and its whole subsequent existence is a struggle with death” (Häv.). The Macedonian conqueror first destroyed Old Tyre; then out of the ruins he constructed a mound to the island—the idea having been suggested to him, it is said, by Hercules appearing in a dream, and from the temple in the island stretching out the hand to him; and at last, by means of treachery, he conquered the island-city in the seventh month, and dealt with it so severely, that what remained of it was but the ashes of the Tyre which had formerly existed (comp. Eze_28:18). After this manner is prophecy and fulfilment to be made out. That Tyre still, even in Jerome’s time, was an active place of trade, he had no difficulty in understanding, because he took into account, on the other side, the ancient world-wide ascendency of the Tyrian state. From the time of Alexander the island Tyre continued to be united to the mainland: its sacred position in the sea had reached its end. A pathway conducted every one quietly over to the once splendid harbour of ships, and the alluvial deposits from the sea continually added to this connecting mound, while on the other hand the waves wasted the rock (Plin. Hist. Nat. v. 17; Pomp. Mela. i. 12; Ptol. v. 15). Alexandria became the centre of the world’s commerce. From the hands of the Seleucidæ the city passed under the sway of the Romans; and it is known as still existing in the Gospels, and in the book of Acts (Act_21:3 sq.). In the early times of Mahommedanism it fell into the hands of the Arabians. The crusades in the 12th century again lent to it a sort of poetic glimmer; but at the end of the 13th century it was brought to desolation by the Saracens. “Where once waved the forest of the ships of Tarshish” (says Sepp, Jerusalem and the Holy Land, ii. p. 409), “there scarcely now rise out of the water two well-rigged keels of English merchants; commerce has found another centre. The lucrative trade in purple cloth passed over to the Jews, who as merchants and dyers pervaded the Lebanon, and in the Greek cities, as at Thebes, founded purple-dyeing establishments. Venice transplanted to itself from Tyre the manufacture of glass. The rocky part of the old island actually serves, according to the prophetic word, as a place merely for the spreading of fishing-nets. Under the sand of the old island there are still discovered traces of streets, etc. Thus has the pride of the old sea-princess been humbled, and she wears now none but a beggar’s attire. From the time of Abulfeda onwards into the 17th century, all travellers represent Tyre as a heap of ruins, with broken up arches and vaults, towers cast down, and shaky walls, so that the inhabitants had to shelter themselves in the hollow places that remained between portions of the rubbish. Maundrell did not find a single dwelling-house in good preservation, but only a couple of fishermen occupying a sort of vaults. To the present time it is not frequented by Jews, so little is there now of chaffering and trading in the old merchant-city. Something is done in corn and tobacco, which grows upon the western side of the place. The earthquake of 1837 drove into flight those who were not destroyed by it. Only the knowledge of ancient times and a number of waving palms lend an interest to the Tyre of the present day.” Comp. Hengst. de Rebus Tyriorum, p. 88 sq.
8. Cocceius makes application of Tyre spiritually to the great city which commits fornication with all nations, and desires to install herself in the place of Jerusalem, and interprets the prince of Tyre as a hieroglyph of the Pope. He does not deny the historical basis, but it is to him an allegory.
9. The special prophecy upon the Tyrian kingdom, and the lamentation in Ezekiel 28, receive also a light from particular points in the history of Tyre—not so much through the revolt which, in the twenty-sixth year after the death of Hiram II., drove the legitimate dynasty from the throne, and the horrors which led a part of the old Tyrian race to emigrate with Elissa (Dido), and found Carthage—as rather through the translation of the government, after the death of the king introduced by Nebuchadnezzar,2 to judges, who were chosen from among the priests and considerable men of Tyre. Hävernick is of opinion that the appearance of judges in the midst of a regular succession of Tyrian kings might only be regarded as a Chaldaic arrangement for the punishment of insubordination or the like; just as Tyre was deprived by Alexander of its ancient constitution, in the way of punishment. For, as Ezekiel 28 shows, the kingdom belonged to the pride of Tyre, as generally, according to the Oriental mode of contemplation, and especially would it do so with a race of such old renown as the Tyrian. Internal factions might readily enough have called into existence rival kings, but never the removal of the kingly state altogether.
10. The prophetic collocation, Tyre and Zidon (Joel 4. [3.] 4; Zec_9:2; Isaiah 28.; Jer_25:22; Jer_27:3; Jer_47:4; here in Ezek.; comp. on the other hand, 1Ch_22:4; Ezr_3:7),—not a geographical or political point of view,—determines the New Testament allusion to both in this order. From its antiquity alone the mention of Zidon would admit of explanation. In the Pentateuch, as in Homer, notice is taken only of it; its name stands for Phœnicia at large. The ups and downs, also, experienced by Tyre occasionally brought Zidon to the summit, or, at least, placed Tyre at her side; so, too, it is in the highest degree probable, that the governors of Syria and Phœnicia, who succeeded one another, would probably in their own interest not allow the old rivalry between Zidon and Tyre to remain untouched. While the Chaldean conquest humbled Tyre, Zidon appears to have from the first bowed to the conqueror, and still more so afterwards. But anyhow, under the Persian rule, Zidon appears as “the first city of Phœnicia, and its kings take precedence of those of Tyre, and of the other states” (Duncker, ii. p. 738; Herzog, Realencyc. 11. p. 626). About the middle of the 4th century, when, in the self-consciousness of its position as at the head of the Phœnician States, it had revolted under Artaxerxes Ochus (b. c. 351), it was again destroyed by the Persians, and required to be built anew—whereupon it readily submitted to Alexander the Great. We learn from Diodorus, that at the fall of the city 40,000 perished; and Artaxerxes also sold the burnt ruins for the sake of the gold and silver they contained. Under the Macedonians and Romans, Zidon was nothing but a provincial city; at the time of Cæsar pre-eminently a Jewish city. After coming into view in the time of the crusades,—being destroyed again and again by the Saracens, Crusaders, Mongols,—it still exists, and has some exports of silk, cotton, and gall-nuts. This survey of Zidon also confirms with reference to Ezekiel the far-reaching view of his prophetic word.
11. Neteler remarks on our chapter: “Through the most extraordinary wonders God placed His covenant-people on such a height, that all the Chaldeans must bow before the giant spirit of Daniel, and Nebuchadnezzar himself proclaim to the whole world that there is no god who can deliver as the God of Israel. Nebuchadnezzar and his Chaldeans consequently had the calling, as heroes standing in the service of God, to overthrow the Hamitic worldly power, and to prepare the way for the kingdom of God.”
12. Schmieder says, that the threatening of the Lord against the historical Tyre was as little accomplished to the full through Nebuchadnezzar as the similar one against Babylon (Isa_13:20), and many other threatenings, which were proclaimed for the very purpose that they might not need to be executed. Certainly God promises only to conversion the removal of the threatened punishment (Jer_18:7-8); but He sometimes also mitigates the punishment, where the measure of sin has not been so full, or the means for conversion may have been exhausted (Mat_11:21-22). The historical Tyre is only an imperfect type of the spiritual Tyre, on which account the severest threatening was uttered against it, though still not in its entire severity was it executed. This early denunciation of judgment, this sparing alleviation as to the execution, begins already at Gen_2:17, etc. In Ezekiel 28 the prophet exhibits, first, the highest glory of the true king, who has been set up by God, as it can alone perfectly appear in Christ (Eze_28:12-15); and second, the deep fall of the king, who would make himself a god, as such fall shall only be completely manifested in the Man of Sin, and in the Prince of this world. The king of Tyre is a type of both,—of the King of the kingdom of heaven by his office, of the prince of darkness by his misuse of the dignity, his pride and fall. Thus does Ezekiel teach us to understand and explain the history of the world.
Footnotes:
[1]The point which Josephus, in the first passage, confirms from different authors is, that Nebuchadnezzar had been “a more energetic, more enterprising, and more prosperous man than the kings who had been before him.” Thus Berosus, in the third book of his Chaldean History, writes of his deeds—that with a part only of his father’s host, and while himself but a stripling, he had vanquished those who were in a State of revolt—τεταγμενος σατραπης ἐν τῳ Αἰγυπτῳ και τοις περι την Κοιλην Συριαν και την Φοινικην τοποις, και την χωραν ἐκ ταυτης της ἀρχης ὑπο αὐτου βασιλειαν ἐποιησατο. On the report of the death of his father, και καταστησας τα κατα την Αἰγυπτον πραγματα κ. την λοιπην χωραν, and after entrusting the Jewish, Phœnician, and Syrian prisoners to certain of his friends, to convey them to Babylon, together with the heavy-armed soldiers and baggage, he himself went thither and assumed the government. Megasthenes, also (Book 2. of his Indian History), is cited by Josephus, and Diokles (Book II. of his Persian History); finally, Philostratus, by whom it is said, as well in his Indian as his Phœnician History, that Nebuchadnezzar besieged Tyre thirteen years. If this long siege was to serve as a proof of Nebuchadnezzar’s practical energy, and, in particular, of his extraordinary prosperity. Josephus could not have been of opinion that Nebuchadnezzar had been obliged to withdraw from Tyre without result. That Josephus was convinced of the agreement of the profane writers with the historical accounts of his own people in the point under consideration, is still more clear from his work against Apion. He there repeats from Berosus. what, he had elsewhere said upon Nebuchadnezzar, that the latter, after the revolt of Egypt and Judea, obtained the mastery over all—Egypt, Syria. Phœnicia, Arabia; and that he surpassed all the Chaldean and Babylonian kings who had been before him by his deeds, for which he again quotes the words of Berosus, and in the following section (20) adds, that in such things “the Chaldean history must be deemed trust worthy”,—.οὐ μην ἀλλα κἀν τοις ἀρχαιοις των Φοινικων συμφωνα τοις ὑπο Βηρωσσου λεγομενοις ἀναγεγραπται, περι του των Βαβυλωνιων βασιλεως, ὁτι και την Συριανν και την Φοινικην ἁπασαν ἐκεινος κατεστρεψατο. With this, also, he says, Philostratus agrees, in the place where he makes mention of the siege of Tyre, and Megasthenes; so that that siege is throughout to be understood in the light of the result stated, that “he overthrew all Syria and Phœnicia.”
[2]This person, called in the Phœnician sources from which Josephus draws in his con. Apion. § 21 (where he mentions for the third time the siege of Tyre), Baal—succeeding, and in connection with the siege, Ithobal, was most probably made, or at least confirmed as king by Nebuchadnezzar; whereupon, after ten years, “judges were appointed, who judged the people”; after them “reigned Balatorus”; and “after his death they sent and brought Merbalus from Babylon, who reigned”; lastly, “after his death they sent for his brother Hirom.”
HOMILETICAL HINTS
On Ch. 28
Eze_28:2-11. “The prophet had the more reason to bring forward the king of Tyre in his fall, as he thus obtains a counterpart to the glorious rise of the kingdom of Israel in Christ” (Hengst.).—“God resisteth the proud, 1Pe_5:5. Whoever, therefore, is proud has God for his enemy” (Stck.). “I am God—many, indeed, will not speak plainly out; but they bear themselves so as if no one had the right to say anything to them. God may well enough call governors gods, but they are not themselves to assume anything on that account, else their divinity will soon come to a disgraceful end with Dagon, 1. Sam. 5:3, 4” (B. B.).—“The new wisdom teaches, man is God, and there is no God except in man—which points to the man of sin, 2Th_2:4, whose typical foreshadowing the king of Tyre was” (Schmieder).—“It belongs to the nature of God to be and have everything out of Himself; to the nature of man, to derive all from the fulness of God” (Hengst.).—“Nothing is more foolish than when a man forgets his human condition” (Stck.).—Thou sayest, I am rich, etc., see Rev_3:17.
Eze_28:3. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of true wisdom.—“Our wisdom puffs us up, when love fails” (H. H.).—“Imaginary wisdom hinders prayer for the true wisdom” (St.).—The worldly wisdom of Daniel, as compared with that of the prince of Tyre.
Eze_28:4. The husbandman, also, gathered much into his granary; yet he was a fool, whose soul was that night to be required of him, Luke 12.
Eze_28:5. God demands the heart; mammon lifts it up, that it may not betake itself to God.—No one can become happy by means of riches.
Eze_28:6. The king of Tyre and the king of Babylon, Dan_4:27.—“The punishment for pride is humiliation” (H. H.).—“To come from a pit to a high position is an agreeable change, as with Joseph and David; but the coming for the ungodly is in the opposite direction” (Stck.).—God must bring us to the height, and keep us in the height, if we are not to fall from all real and imaginary heights into the depths of the abyss.
Eze_28:9. “In the day of trouble men employ quite another language than in prosperity, nay, learn then what they would not learn throughout their whole life” (Stck.).
Eze_28:10. “Balaam desired to die the death of the righteous” (Stck.).—The death of the ungodly is death manifold—bodily, spiritual, eternal.
Eze_28:11-19. Even this lamentation shows that God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked.—“Impress of the original, therefore the image of God, Heb_1:2. More exactly: he who not only in himself, but also in all his works, expresses the prototype. This Jesus testifies of Himself, John v.19, 36” (Schmieder).
Eze_28:13 sq. To whom much is given, of him also shall much be required.—The great spirits, who think the law was not given for them, in the judgment.—“So also we must regard as precious stones Christ and His name, the Holy Spirit, faith, the prophets, God’s word, the sacraments, the virtues, the patience of the saints, the forgiveness of sins, etc.—with which a false Christ seeks to bedeck and to adorn himself, Rev_17:4” (B. B.).—“Ungodly people have their Eden in this world, but believers seek it in heaven” (St.).
Eze_28:15. “On the common ground of hereditary corruption, there still are in the life of individuals and of whole nations differences, times of comparative innocence as well as of deep declension, provoking the judgments of God. As a rule, youth is the better time; the older the worse. Sin, when not combated, is continually on the increase,” etc. (Hengst.)—“It does not always happen that they who promise well in youth shall be the same in advanced life, for many change their habits” (St.).—“Every man flatters himself, and every king is flattered by his Tyre” (Schmieder).
Eze_28:16. The perils of merchandise for entire peoples, and for individuals.—“They who aim at being rich fall into dangerous snares” (Stck.).
Eze_28:17. “The foundation of wisdom is humility, which sees things as they are, has an open eye for one’s own weaknesses and the excellences of others, and is on its guard against dangerous undertakings, Psa_131:1. The ‘brightness’ received into the heart blinds the eye, so that one regards himself alone as great, everything else as little, and rushes wantonly into dangers for which he is not prepared, adventures upon paths which lead to perdition—as the combat (of Tyre) with the flourishing Chaldean monarchy. But haughtiness itself works its own ruin. This is the rock on which all the heathen powers of the old world were wrecked” (Hengst.).—“But God-fearing kings will thence derive the instruction that the king, not less than the meanest subject, has to pray daily to God on his knees for a wise and humble heart” (Schmieder).—The dust of kings appears and is treated exactly as the dust of the very poorest. Sursum corda, but in the right sense!—Our heart should be a sanctuary of God.
Eze_28:18-19. “The fire of lust and covetous desire draws after it the other fire of judgment” B. B.).—“A destruction like that of Sodom in the olden time, in which the sin-root of Canaan first came to full development, while the judgment upon Tyre forms the close of the long series of judgments upon the Canaanites” (Hengst.).—“On the other hand, he who does the will of God abides for ever, 1Jn_2:17” (Stck.).—“Where thou wilt not be for ever, there seek for thyself no fixed abode” (B. B.).
Eze_28:20. “In the judgments of God shines forth His glory, so that men are obliged to confess that He is righteous, and that His judgments are righteous” (Stck.).
Eze_28:24. “God’s judgment on the ungodly tends to the good of His church” (Cr.).—God sets His own free at length.—“How easily is a thorn drawn out!” (Stck.)—“How well is it to be under the protection of the Lord Messiah, and under His gracious wings to dwell securely!” (Tüb. B.)—“Hence has it been fully made good through Christ, as Zacharias says (Luk_1:74 sq.), that we are redeemed from the hand of our enemies to serve Him without fear,” etc. (H. H.)—“Then do believers first come to their true and perfect rest, when all their bodily and spiritual enemies have been rooted out” (O.).—“This prophecy is fulfilled in the Christian Church, which is the true seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Those born under the Old Covenant were in bondage, while believers under the New Testament are free” (Cocceius).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 1–10. The sin of the prince of Tyre (Eze_28:1-5),…
1–10. The sin of the prince of Tyre (Eze_28:1-5), and his destruction (Eze_28:6-10)
The prince of Tyre of the time was probably Ithobal II. It is not, however, any individual prince that the prophet threatens, but the ruler of Tyre, who is the embodiment of the spirit of the proud commercial city. The sin with which the prophet charges the prince is pride of heart and self-deification. The prince—who is but the impersonation of the spirit of the community—was very wise, wiser than Daniel (Eze_28:3). His wisdom expressed itself and found scope in his commerce and manufactures and in his arts. These produced wealth and splendour, which led to ungodly arrogance (Eze_28:4-5): the prince said, I am God, I dwell in the abode of God (Eze_28:2). For this deifying of himself in his own mind he shall be brought down. Strangers, the most terrible of the nations, shall assail him, and he shall die the death of the uncircumcised—those whose bodies are unburied or unhonoured in their burial.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain From the city the prophet passes to its ruler,…
From the city the prophet passes to its ruler, who concentrated in himself whatever was most arrogant and boastful in the temper of his people. He is described here as a" prince," in Ver. 12 as "king," and the combination of the two words points probably to some peculiarity of the Tyrian constitution. "Prince" it will be remembered, is constantly used by Ezekiel of Zedekiah. (Eze_7:27 Eze_12:20, el al.) The King of Tyro at the time was Ithobal or Ethbaal III (Josephus, "Contra Apion," 1:21), who had taken part with Pharaoh-Hophra and Zedekiah in the league against Nebuchadnezzar, Ezekiel"s description of what one may call his self-apotheosis may probably have rested on a personal knowledge of the man or of official documents.
HOMILIES BY J.D. DAVIES Vers. 1-10. Pride"s terrible fall.
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A real king incorporates in himself all that is best and mightiest in the people. The aims, and enterprises, and ambitions, and spirit of the nation should find a place in his breast. He is a mirror, in which the life of the empire is reflected. Whether he leads or whether he follows the bent of the nation"s will (and, in part, he will do both), he becomes the visible exponent of the nation"s life. All that is good in the empire, and all that is evil, blossoms in him. Hence this message.
I SUPERIOR WISDOM LEADS TO SUCCESS IN COMMERCE. "With thy wisdom and with thine understanding thou hast gotten thee riches." So far, no sin was committed. It is God"s will that the rocks of earth should disclose their treasures of silver and gold. It is God"s will that the nations of the earth should interchange their products. The wisdom requisite for enterprise and commerce God himself gives. "Say not in thine heart, My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth; but thou shalt remember the Lord thy God, for he it is who giveth thee power to get wealth." Far-reaching sagacity, careful plan, prudent thrift, and bold adventure bring stores of wealth. "The hand of the diligent maketh rich.
II COMMERCIAL SUCCESS LEADS TO STATE MAGNIFICENCE. More or less in every human breast there is a hunger for dignity, luxury, magnificent display. As soon as means are forthcoming this hunger will satiate itself. Nor is it merely a matter of personal satisfaction. It lends importance to the man; it lends importance to the state; it impresses other people other nations with a sense of superiority. It obtains homage and deference from men, and this is delicious. How otherwise can wealth be expended? The king cannot consume more food, unless it be to his injury. Expenditure on dress soon reaches its utmost limit. Therefore wealth can find outlets only on palatial buildings, pompous equipages, and martial defenses.
III STATE MAGNIFICENCE BREEDS A SPIRIT OF VAIN ASSUMPTION. The tendency of all material possession is to foster a feeling of self-importance. The adulation of others strengthens this feeling. Every addition of influence or power contributes to this inward vanity. In proportion to a king"s poverty of mind will he over-estimate his importance. He looks upon his granite ramparts and upon his vast armaments, and imagines himself unconquerable. All other monarchs flatter him. He is easily cajoled into the belief that he possesses a clear superiority among men yea, positive supremacy. He conceives that be is cast in a mould unlike that of mortals that he is deathless and divine. He demands honors which belong to God alone. Instead of making his perilous position secure by the ramparts of God"s friendship, he makes God an enemy.
IV PROFANE ASSUMPTION IS DESTINED TO A TERRIBLE REVERSE. "Thou shalt die the deaths of the uncircumcised by the hand of strangers." A castle built without foundation is sure, sooner or later, to fall. In proportion to the loftiness of the erection will, in such a case, be the greatness of the catastrophe. Instead of being secure and permanent as God, he will find himself vulnerable as a man, frail as a flower at noonday. The spears of those he had despised will pierce his flesh as they would the flesh of another man; and when another king the king of terrors riding furiously on his pale horse, shall confront him, his heart will be the victim of such remorse and shame as other mortals have never known. Better far not to be lifted up than to be lifted up and then cast down. The momentum of a body falling from a dizzy height is terrible: what is the momentum of a lost soul?
V GOD"S WORD IS MIGHTIER THAN ALL HUMAN RESOURCES. "I have spoken it, saith the Lord God." In the largest sense it is true that we cannot go against the word of the Lord. God"s word is the forthputting of his thought, purpose, will. It is omnipotent resolve interpreted into speech. "He spake, and it was done." A word becomes a world. A breath of God sweeps the earth like a tornado. A promise is a ladder by which we can climb to the skies; it is a ship that will bear us away safely to the eternal haven. One word of God is a feast that will nourish the life of our soul for ages. It is a refuge in which we may securely hide. Jehovah"s word is a rampart, from behind which we may calmly defy ten thousand foes. It is a wall of fire that never has been broken through. That word is more worth than all bankers" coffers than all Californian mines. It is a title-deed to immortality and to heaven. D.
HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON Vers. 1-10. The course and doom of arrogance.
This prophecy is directed against "the Prince or, "King" of Tyre" (Ver. 1), and was doubtless meant lot him particularly; but it may be taken that he was representative of his court and of his people, and that the denunciation and doom here recorded apply to the state as well as to its head. We have suggested to us the course as well as the doom of arrogance.
I IT BEGINS IN A DANGEROUS AND IRREVERENT COMPLACENCY. The consciousness of power or of priority is found to be a pleasant thing, and it need not be any wise associated with evil. "It is often the gift of God; it is often the result of such natural advantages as Tyro possessed. It may give a pure and honest joy to the heart; and when it leads to gratitude and ends in blessing, it is good in every light and at every turn. But when, as is only too often the case, it gives rise to an unwholesome complacency of spirit, which ascribes too much to its own sagacity and too little to the Divine favor, then it stands on perilous ground (Vers. 4, 5). Indeed, it has already begun to depart from the highway of wisdom and goodness; for this is not the spirit of godliness, but of irreverence.
II IT PASSES ON TO A WEAK AND FOOLISH EXAGGERATION, Its heart is "lifted up" (Ver. 2). It magnifies its own capacities, its own virtues, its own achievements. It conceals its own errors, defects, misdoings, so that they are not visible to its own eyes. It thinks much "more highly of itself than it ought to think," and supposes itself capable of accomplishing that to which it is wholly unequal. It thinks itself a Daniel (Ver. 3) when it is not.
III IT ENDS IN IMPIOUS PRESUMPTION. It says, "I am a god, I sit in the seat of God" (Ver. 2). There have been many men and there have been some "world-powers Babylon, Macedon, Rome, Spain who (which) have arrogated to themselves an authority and a power little (if any) short of the Divine. They have believes themselves able to act as a Divine providence, determining who or what should be raised up or cast down, supposing that their will could be impressed upon the institutions, or the peoples, or the Churches of their age. They have claimed a homage and assumed a function which belong to none but the Most High himself. Thus human arrogance places on its own haughty head the crown of a daring and impious assumption.
IV IT BRINGS UPON ITSELF THE SEVERE CONDEMNATION OF GOD. (Text; see 2Sa_22:28; Isa_2:11; Dan_4:37; Luk_1:51; Jam_4:6)
V IT IS DOOMED TO DESTRUCTION. (Vers. 6, 10.) The strong terms of the text speak of:
1. The decisive and successful antagonism of those who have been despised, but who prove to be "terrible" and victorious (Ver. 7, former part).
2. The loss of all that has been most prized (Ver. 7, latter part).
3. Uttermost ruin (Ver. 8). And this is the fate of the haughty-hearted. They suffer the most mortifying humiliation in the discovery to themselves and exposure to others of their false pretensions; the loss of their high position and forfeiture of all that they once held in so tight a grasp; the ruin, material or moral, which is fitly described as "death." They "go down to the pit.
Let us learn:
1. To guard our power and our success by cultivating the spirit of humility and of gratitude.
2. To gain the approval of our Lord by employing our position and our privilege to bless our neighbors, so that we may win his smile and not suffer his reproach.
3. To humble our heart, if it should be lifted up, that we may gain God"s mercy and not endure the penalty of our sin. C.
HOMILIES BY W. JONES Vers. 1-10. The Prince of Tyre; or, the expression and punishment of pride.
word of the Lord came again unto me, saying, Son of man, say unto the Prince of Tyre," etc. Following the prophecies concerning the city and state of Tyre, and completing them, Ezekiel delivers these concerning the king of the famous city. They apply to him, not only as a person, but as the representative of the people in their prosperity, power, and pride. "Throughout the East," says the "Speaker"s Commentary," "the majesty and glory of a people were collected in the person of their monarch, who in some nations was not feared as a man, but actually worshipped as a god.... The prince is here the embodiment of the community. Their glory is his glory, their pride his pride. The doom of Tyre could not be complete without denunciation of the Prince of Tyre." Our subject has two chief divisions.
I THE EXPRESSION OF PRIDE BY MAN. (Vers. 2-6.)
1. Pride of personality. "Thine heart is lifted up, and thou hast said, I am a god" (Ver. 2; cf. Isa_14:14) There are other instances of exceeding pride recorded in the sacred Scriptures; e.g. "Pharaoh King of Egypt said, My river is mine own, and I have made it for myself". (Eze_29:3) Nebuchadnezzar said, "Is not this great Babylon, which I have built for the royal dwelling-place?" etc.. (Dan_4:30) Herod accepted the homage of the people who greeted him as a god. (Act_12:21, Act_12:22) But the Prince of Tyre, in claiming to be a god, goes beyond these examples. It is as if he upheld the city and state, maintained the prosperity and power of his people, and gave them all their glory. It is a claim of independence and self-sufficiency. In it pride reaches its most daring and blasphemous development, as weak, mortal, sinful man sets himself as a rival even unto God.
2. Pride of position. "I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas" (Ver. 2). This proud boast of the Tyrian prince is partly accounted for by "the situation of the island-city, full of luxury and beauty, in the midst of the blue water of the Mediterranean." Moreover, Tyre was regarded by many as a sacred island. Fairbairn says that "Sanchoniathon expressly calls it "the holy island;" and it is known that the Tyrian colonies all reverenced it as the mother-city of their religion, not less than the original source of their political existence. It was only in the spirit of ancient heathenism to conclude that a state which was not only strong by natural position, and by immense maritime resources, but also stood in such close connection with the Divine, might be warranted in claiming, through its head, something like supernatural strength and absolute perpetuity of being.
3. Pride of wisdom. "Behold, thou art wiser than Daniel; there is no secret that they can hide from thee." Three facts concerning the wisdom of the Prince of Tyro are here brought to light.
(1) He laid claim to pre-eminent wisdom. He looked upon himself as being wiser than Daniel. It is implied that the extraordinary wisdom of Daniel was at this time generally and widely known and acknowledged. "The prophet presumes it to be acknowledged that Daniel stands on the highest stage of wisdom attainable by man." When he made known unto Nebuchadnezzar the dream which that monarch had forgotten, he did that of which the wise men of Chaldea had declared, "It is a rare thing that the king requireth, and there is none other that can show it before the king, except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh". (Dan_2:11) Hence, as Hengstenberg remarks, for the Prince of Tyro "to declare himself wiser than Daniel, is at once to transcend the stage of man, and make himself equal with God.
(2) This wisdom had special reference to the discovery of secrets. The proud prince boasted that no secret could be hidden from him (Ver. 3). The comparison with Daniel is still maintained. "The secret" of the forgotten dream of Nebuchadnezzar was revealed unto Daniel in a "vision of the night", (Dan_2:19) and then communicated by him to the troubled king. And on a subsequent occasion that king said to him, "I know that the spirit of the holy gods is in thee, and no secret troubleth. (Dan_4:9) But the Prince of Tyro boasted that his wisdom transcended even this; and from his proud boast we infer that his wisdom was not genuine. True wisdom humbles its possessor. Where it really is, as knowledge increases reverence also increases.
(3) The aim of this wisdom was the increase of their material riches. "By thy wisdom and by thine understanding thou hast gotten thee riches," etc. (Vers. 4, 5), However great this wisdom might have been, however varied its manifestations, its great aim was the secular prosperity of the state. It did not look beyond the material and temporal to the spiritual and eternal. It was bounded by time and that little portion of this world over which the Prince of Tyre reigned. What a contrast it presents in this respect from the wisdom which is commended in the sacred Scriptures!
4. Pride of richer. (Vers. 4, 5.) In our survey of Ezekiel 26 and 27, we noticed the abounding commercial prosperity of Tyre. Its merchants lived as princes. Its wealth was exceeding great. And as its king contemplated these immense riches his heart exulted in the sense of his own wisdom, importance, and power. "Thine heart is lifted up because of thy riches." In all self was supreme. In his treasures, in his wisdom, in his might, in the security of his situation, he recognizes no person or power greater than himself. Verily he regarded himself as a god.
II THE PUNISHMENT OF PRIDE BY GOD. (Vers. 6-10.) Since "pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall," the Prince of Tyro must soon meet with a severe check to his unbridled arrogance. The prophet proclaims his doom. Notice:
1. The nature of this punishment.
(1) The abasement of his glory. "They shall draw their swords against the beauty of thy wisdom, and they shall defile thy "brightness" (Ver. 7). We have seen that the great end for which the Prince of Tyro employed his wisdom was the promotion of their mercantile success, and the consequent increase of their riches. So that the beauty of his wisdom was the commercial prosperity of the state, which he viewed as its choicest result. Their affluence and success, their luxury and splendor, would be diminished, and their glorying in these things would be abased.
(2) The slaughter of his life. "They shall bring thee down to the pit; and thou shalt die the deaths of them that are slain in the heart of the seas. The plural is used here deaths, because the king, the central personage, the animating breath of the whole people, as the king is called in Lam_4:20, dies as it were many deaths-dies in each of his slain subjects" (Hengstenberg) Here is death in dishonor: "The deaths of them that are slain in the heart of the seas." "For kings to be slain by foreigners is dishonorable; when slain, not to be buried as kings is a greater dishonor; to be cast out, and drowned as common men, is a height of dishonor." Here is death in sin: "Thou shalt die the deaths of the uncircumcised by the hand of strangers." The uncircumcised denotes the heathen world in contradistinction to the covenant people of God. The death of the uncircumcised is the exact opposite of "the death of the righteous". (Num_23:10)
2. The Author of this punishment. "Thus saith the Lord God Behold, I will bring strangers upon thee, etc. (Ver. 7). God himself, in the operations of his providence, would thus bring down his pride of heart and vain-glorious boasting.
3. The instruments of this punish ment. "I will bring strangers upon thee, the terrible of the nations." The Chaldeans were strangers to the Tyrians. They are not mentioned (in Eze 27) amount the peoples who traded with Tyre. They were a people of a strange language, and their army was drawn from countries which were strange to the proud people of the island-city. And they were "terrible." They were powerful and violent beyond all others in that age the dread conquerors of all whom they assailed. They came against Type, and, after long persistence, humbled the proud city.
4. The consequence of this punishment. "Wilt thou say before him that slayeth thee, I am God" but thou art man, and not God, in the hand of him that woundeth thee" (Ver. 9). The proud boasting of the Prince of Tyre would be effectually silenced. He would learn not only that he was not a god, sitting in the seat of God, but a man, whose honor could be laid in the dust, and who could be slain by a world-power mightier than that in which he had gloried. God will certainly bring down the pride of those who exalt themselves against him. "The lofty looks of man shall be brought low, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the Lord alone shall be exalted". (Isa_2:11) This was strikingly exemplified in Pharaoh. (cf., Exo_5:2 Exo_12:29-32) in Nebuchadnezzar, Dan_4:29-37) and in Act_12:21-23)
5. The certainty of this punish ment. "I have spoken it, saith the Lord God" (Ver. 10). And his word did not fail of fulfillment.
CONCLUSION. Learn:
1. The danger of prosperity generating pride. "When flowers are full of heaven-descended dews, they always hang their heads; but men hold theirs the higher the more they receive, getting proud as they get full" (Beecher). Let the prosperous guard against this danger.
2. The certainty of pride meeting with punish merit. (Cf. Pro_11:2 Pro_16:5, 18 18:12 29:23; Mat_23:12; Jam_4:6) W.J.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyrus.
Eze_28:1-10
Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyrus.
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The causes of national decadence
Who has not sometimes, standing on Brooklyn Bridge, and looking off on the forests of masts, or upon the fleets sailing back and forth upon the river, or at the great warehouses upon one side and the homes beautiful and happy upon the other--who has not sometimes called up in his imagination the picture of Ephesus or Athens or Corinth, where great ships once rode at anchor, whose old-time harbour is now a great morass? Who has not wondered whether the time may not come in some far future age when men shall come and look on the ruins of this great bridge and the ruins of this great city and the harbour filled up with its own filth, and will regret it as we regret the forgotten splendours of Mexico or of Central America? Decay is on all mens institutions. Persia, Babylon, Greece, Rome, Venice, Spain, all lived out their life as we are living ours, and all fell into their decay, their senility, and their grave. Are we to follow them? I do not know. But this I know: that behind all these institutions, behind all these governments and laws, there is an eternal law manifested and revealed. I know not how long this republic shall endure; but I know this, that behind all kingdoms and republics, in them and by them, is manifested the eternal kingdom of God; nay, the very governments that set themselves against that kingdom to break down and destroy it are speaking, whether they will or they will not, the word that endureth forever. Tell me what lessons you have to teach us, O you nations of the past! And Babylon lifts up her voice and says, I have to teach you this: that any nation that puts its foot on the neck of prostrate humanity seals its death warrant and hastens to its own doom. And Greece says, I have this to tell you: that no art, no philosophy, no culture, can save from death the nation that is immoral. And Rome says, I have this to tell you: that no power of law will make a nation safe and strong if there be corruption eating out the heart of it. And Venice says, I have this to say to you: that no nation is rich, though its fleets sail all seas, if it be poor in manhood. And Spain says, I have this to say to you: that pride, for the nation as for the individual, cometh before a fall! And then I wonder, as I look upon my own dear native land, whether she will learn these lessons writ so large in all the history of the past. Whether we are to illustrate by our own stupendous and awful ruin that, though a nation have power and culture and wealth and law and pride, it perishes without a God; or whether we shall rather teach this: that a nation whose kings are uncrowned kings, and who beckons from far across the sea the ignorant, the unlearned, and the incompetent, is strong and enduring, because it has enshrined God in its heart and has founded itself on that judgment and that justice which are the foundations of His throne. What the history of the future shall have for our dear land, who can tell? But whether this nation is born to teach a lesson by its folly or its wisdom, by its fidelity or by its infidelity, back of all these transitory and decaying nations stands writ the truth of Him who in national life is speaking, and whose word endureth forever. (T. De Witt Talmage.)
Pride and folly of accumulation of wealth
H.W. Beecher strikingly compares the great heaps of wealth that some men pile up to the Pyramids of Egypt. There they stand, looking grand on the outside, but within they contain only the dust of kings. So with these fine appearing fortunes which have been heaped up in forgetfulness of Gods service. They contain within only the dust of what might have been a kingly character.
Tyre a sacred city
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, 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. (A. R. Fausset.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain PROPHETICAL DIRGE ON THE KING OF TYRE, AS THE…
PROPHETICAL DIRGE ON THE KING OF TYRE, AS THE 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 (Chap. 28)
EXEGETICAL NOTES.—“In this chapter we have a sublime threnody on the prince of Tyre, couched in language of the keenest irony. His fall is first of all traced to his insufferable pride, which is described in the most glowing terms (Eze_28:2-6). His merited punishment is next announced (7–10). The prophet, in obedience to the divine command, then proceeds to deliver the funeral dirge, exaggerating the dignity and magnificence of the fallen monarch, with which he contrasts his utter degradation (11–19). Then follows a prediction announcing the fall of the mother-city, Zidon (20–23). And the chapter concludes with promises of deliverance to the Jews, and their restoration to prosperity in their own land.”—Henderson.
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Eze_28:2. “The prince of Tyrus.” The monarch of Tyre, at the time of Ezekiel’s prophecy, was Ithbaal II. The latter part of this compound name implies his close connection with Baal, the Phœnician supreme God, whose representative he was. “I am a God, I sit in the seat of God.” “The seat of God is a seat which, in its absolute inaccessibleness, is like the seat of God in heaven. He sets or makes his mind like the mind of God; he has so pushed himself into the height that in his folly he arrogates to himself what God claims to Himself by right. It belongs to the nature of God, to be and to have all from Himself; to the nature of man, to derive all from the fulness of God. If man imagines himself to subsist as God in himself, this is the greatest of all perversities, which cannot remain unpunished, because God does not give His glory to another. The fundamental passage is Isa_14:14, where the king of Babylon compares himself with the Most High. The general divine name, Elohim, the Godhead, stands as usual, where there is a contrast of man and God, of earth and heaven.”—(Hengstenberg.)
Eze_28:3. “Wiser than Daniel.” Daniel had, at this time (B.C. 588), been chief of the wise men of Babylon for about fourteen years. “Daniel’s wisdom must have been generally known and acknowledged, especially among the Jews in the Chaldean exile; for Ezekiel presupposes that the King of Tyre knew of Daniel, and certainly as one whom no other but himself excelled in wisdom; so that Daniel can be no mere Jewish celebrity, but must have proved his wisdom on the theatre of the world. To Daniel is ascribed not merely wisdom, but even a special kind of it, that to which nothing hidden was dark. The King of Babylon says of Daniel in Eze_4:6, “I know that the spirit of the holy gods is in thee, and no secret troubleth thee.” Daniel had appeared as one from whom no secret was hidden in the very beginning of his career, and thereby laid the foundation of his prominent position.”—(Hengstenberg.)
Eze_28:7. “The terrible of the nations.” The foreigners, barbarians, the terrible ones of the nations. These were the Chaldean foreigners, noted for their ferocity (Isa_1:11; Isa_25:2; Eze_31:12).
Eze_28:8. “Thou shalt die the deaths.” “Deaths, a peculiar form in the plural, to indicate emphatically the most violent death. The death of the king of Tyre is compared to that of those slain in a sea-engagement, and cast into the deep.”—(Henderson). “The plural here and Jer_16:4 is a pluralis exaggerativus, a death so painful as to be equivalent to dying many times.”—(Keil).
Eze_28:12. “Thou sealest up the sum.” The literal rendering is, “Thou art the one sealing the sun of perfection.” Seals were used for the purpose of authenticating or securing anything. When it is said, therefore, that the King was the seal of perfection, the meaning is, that he could not be surpassed in riches, splendour, or power. The sum-total of all that was illustrious concentrated in him. He vindicated to himself all that mortal could pretend to.”—(Henderson).
Eze_28:13. “Thou hast been in Eden, the garden of God.” “The prophet places the monarch in the primitive abode of man, with which was associated every idea of pleasure and delight. It is quite a lowering of the subject to suggest with Michaelis that he might have had a summer residence in the beautiful valley of the cedars of Lebanon, whither he retired during the hot season of the year. Eden was called the garden of God because it was of His plantation, and formed the delightful scene of His Divine manifestations to the first pair To have been there conveys the idea of the most distinguished honour and felicity. Taking occasion from his reference to Eden, with which the Bible history connects the existence of bdellium and onyx-stones, Ezekiel, with his usual minuteness, gives a detailed account of the precious gems which adorned the regal state. The nine precious stones here specified correspond to those with the same names in the description of the high priest’s breastplate (Exo_39:10-13).”—Henderson.
Eze_28:14. “The anointed cherub that covereth.” Ezekiel, as a priest, employs imagery drawn from the Jewish temple. Like the cherubim overshadowing the mercy seat, the King of Tyre—a demi-god in his own esteem—spread his protecting wings over his dominions. “The holy mountain of God.” “To this his illimitable ambition aspired. In imagination he occupied Mount Zion, the dwelling place of the Most High.”—(Henderson). “Thou hast walked up and down.” As priest (1Sa_2:30; 1Sa_2:35).
Eze_28:15. “Thou wast perfect in thy ways … till iniquity was found in thee.” “The rectitude with which the monarch commenced his reign may be illustrated by a reference to the history of Hiram (1Ki_5:7); but having in process of time become corrupt through the uninterrupted commercial prosperity of the Tyrian state, he indulged in unscrupulous acts of injustice and cruelty, on account of which merited punishment is here denounced.”—(Henderson).
Eze_28:18. “Thy sanctuaries.” The king is said to possess sanctuaries in regard to the ideal position ascribed to him (Eze_28:14). “Any greatness consecrated by God, any glory imparted by Him, may be regarded as a sanctuary, the desecration of which by the foeffee is followed by desecration by the feudal lord. The idea of the sanctuary is that of separation from the world, which exerts all its destructive powers in vain against the gift imparted by God, so long as the possessor remains in the right position towards God.”—(Hengstenberg.) “From the midst of thee.” The king is here regarded as comprehending in himself the city and the people.
Eze_28:20. “Against Zidon.” “Zidon was a very ancient Phœnician city, otherwise famous for its fishery, (hence its name from Zud ‘to fish’), and afterwards for its extended and flourishing commerce both by sea and land. It became so noted for the manufacture of glass and other articles of luxury, that the epithet Sidonia ars was used by the ancients to denote whatever was elegant or magnificent. According to Strabo, the Zidonians were celebrated for their skill in astronomy, philosophy, navigation, and all the liberal arts. Zidon was founded by the first-born of Canaan (Gen_10:15); and was situated, according to Straoo, two hundred stadia to the north of Tyre. Favoured by its position on the coast of the Mediterranean, it early became celebrated for its commerce. In the time of Jacob, it is mentioned in connexion with shipping (Gen_49:13); and in that of Joshua, it is celebrated as a ‘Great’ city (Jos_11:8; Jos_19:28). It lay within the boundary of the land assigned to the tribe of Asher; but was never conquered by the Israelites (Jdg_1:31). At the present day, the town of Saida, a little to the west; occupies its site. It has a fine old ruined tower projecting far into the sea, with a bridge of many arches that was built to reach it. In Mat_11:22, Tyre and Zidon are coupled together.” (Henderson).
Eze_28:24. “A pricking.” The word occurs elsewhere only in Lev_13:51-52; Lev_14:44, and is used of the “fretting leprosy.” The Sidonian briar had wounded Israel.
Eze_28:25. “And shall be sanctified in them in the sight of the heathen.” “These cities, which had been a constant source of annoyance to their neighbours, and to none more than to the Jews, being rendered powerless, the people of God, restored from Babylon to their own land, should enjoy all their ancient privileges, and all around them be compelled to ascribe to Jehovah, as their covenant God, the glory due to His name.”—(Henderson.)
HOMILETICS
Eze_28:1-19.
THE KING OF TYRE
Consider the prophet’s description of this King.
I. As the incarnation of earthly pride and self-sufficiency. The pride and vain glory of the nation, the history of its prosperity and of the corruptions that led to its fall, are, by the imagination of the prophet, supposed to be embodied in an ideal Prince of Tyre. This prince is regarded as the incarnation of the carnal pride, self-sufficiency, and wickedness of the whole state. He is the sum-total of the wickedness of the entire nation, but his chief offence is pride; or rather pride is the spring and fountain of all his iniquities. His pride manifested itself in two forms:—
1. In assuming to be God. “Thou hast said, I am God, I sit in the seat of God” (Eze_28:2). Beyond this, it is not possible for human arrogance to go. Not content with adopting the title of God, he must needs seize upon the functions of the Divine government. Many will not state this pretence in words, but they act as if neither God nor man had a right to say anything to them. Not to acknowledge God’s rights over us is to throw off His authority, and to become a God unto ourselves. In such a spirit as this to sit in judgment on His dealings, as if we could correct Him, is to commit a daring iniquity. It is “to snatch from His hand the balance and the rod.” His pride also showed itself:—
2. In the conceit of wisdom, (Eze_28:3). As he thought that he possessed all wisdom in himself, so he would pray for none. In his own imagination he was wiser than Daniel, who was the wisest man of whose fame he had heard. The Chaldeans confessed Daniel’s wisdom (Dan_2:10-11). He had done what they admitted was beyond human power. He stood upon the highest stage of wisdom attainable by man. For this prince to declare himself wiser than Daniel was to transcend the stage of humanity, and to make himself equal with God. And further, Daniel had predicted the coming of God’s universal kingdom (Dan_2:44). This prince proudly thought that he could convict Daniel of error, seeing he had established himself as the God of this world. The prophet ascribes to Daniel a special kind of wisdom,—that to which nothing was dark or hidden (Dan_4:9). “There is no secret that they can hide from thee,” says the prophet when interpreting the thoughts of this proud prince (Eze_28:3). The prince of Tyre also boasted of his wisdom to get riches,—of that practical wisdom which can show material results that dazzle and impress the minds of men (Eze_28:5-6). And Daniel also was remarkable for this kind of wisdom. He was a great public man, and not merely a solitary thinker. He was the statesman among the prophets. But we are not to. regard the prophet as merely making a comparison between one wise man and another, as this world counts wisdom. Daniel ascribed all his wisdom to God above. Therefore the wisdom of these two men could not be compared by the same scale (Dan_2:20; Dan_2:28-30; Dan_2:45).
II. His punishment.
1. Great humiliation. The Chaldean foreigners, noted for their great ferocity, would descend upon the nation (Eze_28:7). All the beautiful possessions acquired by this prince’s boasted wisdom would be spoiled. The oblivion and dishonour of the grave would be the fittest natural image of his humiliation. “They shall bring thee down to the pit” (Eze_28:8). He would die many “deaths,” for as the king he would die in each of his slain subjects.
2. His great pretentions would not save him from destruction. “Wilt thou yet say before him that slayeth thee, I am God?” (Eze_28:9). The hope that he cherished in the day of his prosperity will fail him before the enemy. Then will it be manifest that he is man and not God. In the day of adversity he shall have to learn another language.
3. He shall have punishment in kind. He defiled the nation by his pride, and now he is desecrated in turn. His “brightness” was to be “defiled,” his person to be profaned (Eze_28:9). [The second “slayeth” in this verse should be rendered “profaneth.”] 4 His punishment demands a sad lamentation. Consider what he once was. He was highly endowed (Eze_28:12). He enjoyed as it were, a glory like unto the first man in Paradise (Eze_28:13). He once had the beauty of youth, and was in a state of comparative innocence (Eze_28:15). Nations degenerate towards their old age. Now he had gone the way of old-world nations, who were all wrecked by pride (Eze_28:17). It was sad to think of all his labours and pains coming to nought. All that exalts itself against God is nothing, and will come to nothing. He only that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.
Consider this Prince of Tyre:—
III. As a prelude of Antichrist. Antichrist is one who being only man claims to be God. The King of Tyre was a type of this man of sin (2Th_2:3-4). In our own age there are various forms of this spirit of Antichrist.
1. The spirit of lawlessness. St. Paul speaks of this in 2 Thess. 7, 8, where “the mystery of iniquity” is literally “the mystery of lawlessness,” and “that Wicked,” that lawless one. The growing spirit of disregard to all authority, human and divine, is an instance of this apostacy. It is a state of things in which every man is a law unto himself.
2. “The religion of humanity.” This age in its pride of knowledge has produced some bold enough to make the blasphemous assertion that there is no God save humanity. And Unitarianism also has a natural tendency to drift into the same form of blasphemy. It shrinks from saying “Christ is God,” yet cannot rest in this denial, but boldly says “Man is God.”
3. Popery. When men lost their faith in Christ as the real, though invisible Head of His Church; when the God-man, because he could be no longer seen or touched or handled, appeared to be far off, they yearned for a substitute. They lent questionable honours and ambiguous titles to a Pope. They invested with the powers of Christ the man who had placed himself in the seat of Christ. All such blasphemies as these spring from one bitter root in human nature—the tendency in man to yield to the tyranny of the visible. The truth is forgotten, that “the Head of every man is Christ.” Wherever by the speculations or actions of men Christ is dethroned, there will not fail many to arise to claim the vacant seat.
(Eze_28:20-23.)
THE PROPHECY AGAINST ZIDON
1. God’s aim in His judgments. It is to make Himself known what a dreadful, just, and holy God He is, and that He may be declared by men to be so. God would destroy Zidon by pestilence and war, that He might be glorified and sanctified in her. She would not give glory to God before; the Lord would therefore fetch His glory out of her by His judgments, and make others see the same, so that they might confess Him to be a God of power, justice, and holiness. (Psa_9:16.)
2. It is the Lord that sends judgments upon cities and persons. “I will send into her pestilence, and blood into her streets.” It is the Lord gives commissions as to the prophets to prophecy judgments against a city, so to the judgments themselves, to come to and upon them. Let none stumble by looking at the instruments, they are the sword in God’s hand, He causes it to wound and to kill.—(Greenhill.)
(Eze_28:24).
I. Some general observations from hence, that wicked men are thorns.
1. Their acquaintance is not desirable. Familiarity with them is dangerous (Pro_24:1). They may be honourable or eminent, yet we should neither envy them nor affect their company: and why? “For their heart studieth destruction, and their lips talk of mischief.” They are the “seed of the serpent,” and cannot cordially close with the “seed of the woman.” There is enmity between their seeds. “The best of them is as a briar; the most upright is sharper than a thorn hedge.”
2. Answerable fruit is to be expected from them. Thorns and briers must bring forth fruit suitable for their natures. A corrupt tree cannot bring forth good fruit. Wickedness proceeds from the wicked, it is natural to them to do wickedly, and nothing else: fire comes out of brambles, and devours the cedars of Lebanon (Jdg_9:15). The Lord’s servants should see to it, that briers and brambles overrun not all the field and, vineyard of God. They do grow high, great, spread, and are like to endanger much if they be not dealt with. There are thorns and briers in all places; there are state brambles, city thorns, and church briers: such were in the church of Galatia, which Paul wisheth were cut off (Gal_5:12), because they scratched and troubled them: and David’s resolution was, to thrust away as thorns all the sons of Belial who troubled the state and city of Jerusalem (2Sa_23:6). And in Psa_101:8, he saith, “I will early destroy all the wicked of the Land; that I may cut off all wicked doers from the city of the Lord.” Here was a man after God’s own heart, that would not suffer pricking thorns and grieving briers.
II. Some more general observations from the words of the verse.
1. The church and people of God live amongst thorns. The church is a lily among thorns (Son_2:2). Jerusalem was amidst heathenish nations. Christ and His apostles were among scribes and Pharisees, whose spirits were thorny. Hence we ought to infer—
(1.) That God’s people ought to take heed how they walk. Men who live and walk among briers and thorns had need have their eyes in their heads; they may otherwise be entangled in the briers and miserably scratched.
(2.) Then it is not strange if God’s people be scratched sometimes by wicked men They will tear and rend their names, states, comforts, peace, privileges.
(3.) Then see a reason why God’s people cannot carry on His work with more speed. When thorns are in the way, things move slowly. When good seed was sown, the thorns hindered the growth of it. When Joshua went about taking Ai, there was Achan, a great thorn, in the way; when Nehemiah was in the work of the Temple, Tobias and Sanballat were thorns in the way.
2. The church and people of God shall not always be among briers and thorns. They shall have a time of freedom. “There shall be no more a pricking brier and a piercing thorn.” This was made good to the Jews in the letter after their return. The nations which had been thorns to them the Lord destroyed. This promise refers also to the Gospel times; the Lord is making way for it now. This should draw out our spirits in prayer unto the Lord to hasten the time, and that He would make good what he hath promised (Isa_55:13).
3. Wicked men have ill thoughts of God’s people. They slight them. The briers and thorns round about the house of Israel despised them and scorned them (Psa_79:4).—Greenhill.
(Eze_28:25)
The Jews were scattered into the Eastern countries, over several provinces of the King of Babylon, and here the Lord promiseth to gather them out thereof, and to return them to their own land.
1. God’s people have no fixed, certain habitation in this world, but are subject to scatterings. The Church was “scattered throughout all the regions of Judea and Samaria” (Act_8:1; Heb_11:37).
2. God hath a care of His scattered people. He will sanctify His name in bringing them into a safe and happy condition. They shall be brought into Canaan, that is into the Church, which Canaan represents. As the Jews were gathered out of Babylon, and the provinces thereof, into their own land, so shall all the elect be brought into the Church of God, where is peace, safety, and confidence, where they shall find God a habitation, a vineyard. (Isa_11:10). The Lord Christ was a great gatherer (Luk_11:23; Luk_14:16-17; Luk_14:21; Luk_14:23).
3. God’s end in gathering His people. That they may sanctify Him, and that He may be sanctified by them. God’s power, faithfulnes and goodness, appear in His gathering them and bringing them out of their enemies’ hands; and so way is made for His praise and honour, and that before their enemies.—(Greenhill).
(Eze_28:24-26.)
God’s judgments on the ungodly tend to the good of His Church. God sets His own free at length. The promise has been fully made good through Christ, as Zacharias says, that we are “redeemed from the hand of our enemies to serve Him without fear.” (Luk_1:74.) Then do believers first come to their true and perfect rest, when all their bodily and spiritual enemies have been rooted out. This prophecy is fulfilled in the Christian Church, which is the true seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Those born under the Old Covenant were in bondage, while believers under the New Testament are free,—(Lange.)
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain The King of Tyre
The King of Tyre
The overweening pride of the prince of Tyre, which has led him to claim to be a god, is rebuked, and his destruction by strangers is foretold (Eze_28:1-10). He is compared to an inmate of Eden, the garden of God, who is cast out for his sin (Eze_28:11-19).
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2. The prince of Tyrus] the king of Tyre at this time was Ithobalus (Ethbaal) II.
3. Daniel] a type of wisdom here, as of righteousness in Eze_14:14, Eze_14:20. Ezekiel's references to Daniel suggest a sage of ancient times rather than a youthful contemporary in Babylonia.
7. Strangers] the Babylonians.
10. Deaths of the uncirçumcised] a phrase for an ignominious end. So in Eze_31:18; Eze_32:19, Eze_32:21, Eze_32:25, Eze_32:32.
12. Thou sealest, etc.] an obscure phrase, alluding in some way to the wisdom of the king of Tyre.
13. Thou hast been (RV 'wast') in Eden, etc.] Ezekiel here evidently refers to a legend similar to the story of the Fall in Genesis 3. His use of it seems to indicate that in his day it had not been fixed in the biblical form.
Every precious stone] the stones mentioned are the same as those in the first, second, and fourth rows of stones on the high priest's breastplate (Exo_28:17-20). Gold.. tabrets.. pipes] rather, 'of gold was the workmanship of thy sockets and grooves,' referring to the setting of the precious stones.
14. Thou art (RV 'wast') the anointed cherub] more probably, 'thou wast with the.. cherub.' The holy mountain] another phrase for the garden of God.
16. I will destroy (RV 'have destroyed') thee, O covering cherub] more probably, 'the covering cherub hath destroyed thee,' i.e. expelled thee. As it stands the passage describes the fall of a cherub, but the alternative renderings in Eze_28:14-16 bring it more into line with Genesis 3, the cherub being the guardian of the garden, and the prince of Tyre a privileged inmate of it, who is driven out for the sin of pride.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain Eze 28:1-26. The prince of Tyrus, or, as he…
Eze 28:1-26. The prince of Tyrus, or, as he is also called, the king, was, according to the Jewish historian Josephus, Ithobalus, known in the Phoenician annals as Ithobaal II. He was the consummation of the pride and wealth of Tyrus; the terrible pride of the city headed up in him. His heart was so lifted up that he claimed to be a god and that he occupied the very seat of God. He boasted of greater wisdom than the wisdom of Daniel. He is a type of the final Antichrist, the man of sin. Behind the wicked prince and king, there is seen another power, Satan.
Satan was the power behind the throne of the Tyrian king, as Satan is still the god of this age, who controls the kingdoms of the world. Inasmuch, then, as Tyrus is a type of the commercial glory of the world, its wealth and pride, foreshadowing the final great world-city or world-system, Babylon, the ruler of Tyrus, spoken of as prince, foreshadows the Antichrist; while as king, Satan himself stands behind him as the domineering power. The descriptions given of Satan as an unfallen being show that he was originally a marvelous being, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. From Jude’s Epistle, we learn that even Michael still recognized in him the grandeur of his unfallen past, and did not bring a railing accusation against him (Jud 1:8-10). He was in Eden, the garden of God, and every precious stone was his covering. It is a description of Satan’s original place and of his great beauty. Furthermore, he was the anointed cherub that covereth; the Lord had set him to be this. As the anointed, divinely chosen cherub he held an exalted position in connection with the government of the throne of God. Everything shows that this majestic creature possessed a place of great dignity, being “upon the holy mountain of God,” walking up and down in the midst of the stones of fire, he was ever present and moving about in the fiery glory of a holy and righteous God. “Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created till unrighteousness was found in thee.”
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In Eze 28:20-26 the judgment upon Zidon, some twenty miles north of Tyrus, is predicted. For some years Zidon was even more prominent than Tyrus. She was burnt after a revolt against Artaxerxes Ochus in 351 B.C., but later rebuilt.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain God’s Judgment upon the Prince of Tyre
God’s Judgment upon the Prince of Tyre
v. 1. The word of the Lord came again unto me, saying,
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v. 2. Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyrus, the ruler of the great commercial capital arid metropolis, Thus saith the Lord God, He who holds in his hand the fate of empires as well as of individuals, Because thine heart is lifted up, in sinful, blasphemous pride, and thou hast said, I am a God, a claim advanced by many heathen rulers who demanded for themselves divine veneration, I sit in the seat of God, on the throne of the one heavenly Ruler Himself, in the midst of the seas, considering the stronghold of his capital impregnable as far as men and the forces of nature were concerned; yet thou art a man, merely a lowly and mortal human being, and not God, though thou set thine heart as the heart of God, not only imagining himself to hold the position of God, but also thinking of himself as possessing, and able to use, the almighty power of God;
v. 3. behold, thou art wiser than Daniel, that is, the Tyrian ruler held this opinion concerning himself, he placed his knowledge and understanding above that of the wisest man of his time; there is no secret that they can hide from thee, this assertion on the part of the heathen prince again placing him on the level of Daniel with his revelations concerning the future;
v. 4. with thy wisdom and with thine understanding, particularly his business acumen, thou hast gotten thee riches, his business sagacity having brought its own reward, and hast gotten gold and silver into thy treasures, so that the wealth of this commercial metropolis of the world, as later that of Venice, was almost unbelievably great;
v. 5. by thy great wisdom, with which he credited himself, and by thy traffic, the trade which had been established in the course of the centuries, hast thou increased thy riches, and thine heart is lifted up because of thy riches, this being the effect which the possession of wealth has in the majority of cases:
v. 6. therefore thus saith the Lord God, taking up the thought of verse 2 once more, for the intervening statements are intended, of course, only as an ironical concession, picturing the empty boastfulness of the heathen ruler, in his overwhelming opinion of himself, Because thou hast set thine heart as the heart of God, ascribing an honor to himself which only the one true God possesses:
v. 7. behold, therefore I will bring strangers upon thee, invaders from foreign lands, the terrible of the nations, for the Chaldeans were known for the fierceness of their natures; and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of thy wisdom, for the showiness of the trade and commerce of Tyre was the offspring of the busines s acumen with which the king prided himself, and they shall defile thy brightness, literally, "profane thy shining beauty," treating it with mocking disrespect, destroying it with rough ruthlessness.
v. 8. They shall bring thee, namely, the ruler himself, down to the pit, and thou shalt die the deaths of them that are slain in the midst of the seas, the expression denoting that the prince, as it were, died the death of every inhabitant of Tyre who was slain, his fate overtaking him as in a mighty shipwreck.
v. 9. Wilt thou yet say before Him that slayeth thee, I am God? Would the Tyrian prince, after the sentence of God had gone into effect, still make such extravagant claims for himself and his power anti wisdom? But thou shalt be a man and no God, that is, he would be given proof positive to that effect, in the hand of Him that slayeth thee, namely, completely at the mercy of the one and only Ruler of the universe.
v. 10. Thou shalt die the deaths of the uncircumcised, such as the godless heathen deserve by their blasphemous pride, by the hand of strangers, in further humiliation upon him and in just retribution upon him who had probably often scoffed at the Jews; for I have spoken it, saith the Lord God. Though the unbelievers jeer at the fact, yet it remains true that the Lord resents every insult offered his saints and will in due time take his revenge upon his enemies.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 the word of Yahweh came
the word of Yahweh came
This is an idiom that is used to introduce something that God told his prophets or his people. See how you translated this in Ezekiel 3:16. AT: "Yahweh spoke this message" or "Yahweh spoke these words" (See: Idiom)
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Son of man
"Son of a human being" or "Son of humanity." God calls Ezekiel this to emphasize that Ezekiel is only a human being. God is eternal and powerful, but humans are not. AT: "Mortal person" or "Human"
Your heart is arrogant
Here "heart" represents the will or thoughts of the ruler of Tyre. AT: "You are arrogant" (See: Metonymy)
arrogant
falsely believing oneself to be importantbelieving oneself to be important
I will sit in the seat of the gods
"I will sit on the throne of the gods." Here sitting in the seat of the gods represents claiming to be in the same exalted position as if he were one of the gods. (See: Metaphor)
heart of the seas
"middle of the seas." See how you translated this in Ezekiel 27:4.
you make your heart like the heart of a god
Here "heart" represents the mind or thinking. A god thinks of himself as better than people. AT: "you think that you have the mind of a god" or "you have allowed yourself to think that you are better than other people" (See: Metonymy and Simile)
you think that you are wiser than Daniel
Here the ruler of Tyre compares himself to Daniel the prophet in how wise he thought he was. (See: Simile)
translationWords
word of God
Son of Man
rule
Tyre
Lord Yahweh
heart
arrogant
false god
God
wise
Daniel
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 28:1-19 The third panel against Tyre (see study note…
28:1-19 The third panel against Tyre (see study note on 26:1–28:19) addresses and condemns its ruler, the prince of Tyre, for his pride. He personifies the city of Tyre, so his fate represents Tyre’s fate. In his arrogance, the prince of Tyre laid claim to divinity and the power that goes with it, asserting that he sat on a divine throne, ruling the chaotic, untamable seas. The reality, however, was otherwise; he was only a man. • This chapter and Isa 14 (about the king of Babylon) have often been interpreted as referring to the heavenly conflict between God and Satan, “the prince of demons” (Matt 12:24). However, this view ignores the historical nature of both passages. Tyre and Babylon were real places and their kings were real men whose great power was matched by great pride. The king of Tyre’s claim to be a god proved hollow. The political powers that oppose God and his people may be agents of Satan in his struggle against God. The sure demise of such human rulers foreshadows God’s ultimate triumph over all the forces of darkness. Every power that sets itself up against the living God will be brought to destruction.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.