Ezekiel 28:1-26 - Arthur Peake's Commentary on the Bible

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Bible Comments

Ezekiel 28. Tyre's Fall from Heaven. In a remarkable passage, Ezekiel now conceives the pride of Tyre as incarnate in her king. The detail is often obscure and difficult, reminiscent of a mythological background similar to Genesis 3. The commercial genius and success of Tyre flushed her with impious pride: she fancied herself divine. But her marvellous wisdom was only commercial wisdom; she had no instinct for the worship of anything but herself and her abounding prosperity: so the terrible Babylonians must come and lay them low in an unhonoured death (Ezekiel 28:1-10). A dirge is then sung over the fallen genius of Tyre, impersonated by her king. Once he had walked in the garden of God, fair, wise, and resplendent, companion of the cherubs who guard the holy abode; but for his pride he was hurled out of Paradise symbol of the ruin to which Tyre's commercial pride will bring her. (In Ezekiel 28:12 the meaning of thou sealest up the sum is quite uncertain, as also tabrets and pipes in Ezekiel 28:13. For the anointed cherub that covereth (Ezekiel 28:14), which is more than obscure, should possibly be read (set) among the cherubs was thy dwelling. The last clause of Ezekiel 28:16 should perhaps be read, the cherubs with whom thou hadst converse, drove thee out, etc. cf. LXX. The fiery stones suggests the supernatural glories of the sacred mountain. [It should perhaps be mentioned that J. G. Frazer (Adonis, Attis, Osiris, i. 114f.) connects the walking in the midst of the stones of fire with the custom of the fire-walk, which may have been an amelioration of an earlier custom of burning alive, or, as is suggested in Balder the Beautiful, ii. 1ff., merely a stringent form of purification. A. S. P.] For sanctuaries in Ezekiel 28:18, perhaps holiness. In Ezekiel 28:16-19 the conduct and fate of the king tend to be merged in that of the city.)

Zidon shares in the doom of Tyre (Ezekiel 28:20-23), and their destruction is meant to prepare the way for the ultimate restoration of Israel, and the glory and holiness of Yahweh, which the restoration of Israel and the destruction of her enemies will so signally illustrate (Ezekiel 28:24-26). These verses (Ezekiel 28:24-26) really furnish us with the key to the whole section Ezekiel 28:25-26.

Related Commentaries of Ezekiel 28:1

Ezekiel 28:1-26

1 The word of the LORD came again unto me, saying,

2 Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyrus, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thine heart is lifted up, and thou hast said, I am a God, I sit in the seat of God, in the midsta of the seas; yet thou art a man, and not God, though thou set thine heart as the heart of God:

3 Behold, thou art wiser than Daniel; there is no secret that they can hide from thee:

4 With thy wisdom and with thine understanding thou hast gotten thee riches, and hast gotten gold and silver into thy treasures:

5 By thy greatb wisdom and by thy traffick hast thou increased thy riches, and thine heart is lifted up because of thy riches:

6 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thou hast set thine heart as the heart of God;

7 Behold, therefore I will bring strangers upon thee, the terrible of the nations: and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of thy wisdom, and they shall defile thy brightness.

8 They shall bring thee down to the pit, and thou shalt die the deaths of them that are slain in the midst of the seas.

9 Wilt thou yet say before him that slayeth thee, I am God? but thou shalt be a man, and no God, in the hand of him that slayethc thee.

10 Thou shalt die the deaths of the uncircumcised by the hand of strangers: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD.

11 Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,

12 Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.

13 Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius,d topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.

14 Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.

15 Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.

16 By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.

17 Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee.

18 Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffick; therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee.

19 All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee: thou shalt be a terror,e and never shalt thou be any more.

20 Again the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,

21 Son of man, set thy face against Zidon, and prophesy against it,

22 And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Zidon; and I will be glorified in the midst of thee: and they shall know that I am the LORD, when I shall have executed judgments in her, and shall be sanctified in her.

23 For I will send into her pestilence, and blood into her streets; and the wounded shall be judged in the midst of her by the sword upon her on every side; and they shall know that I am the LORD.

24 And there shall be no more a pricking brier unto the house of Israel, nor any grieving thorn of all that are round about them, that despised them; and they shall know that I am the Lord GOD.

25 Thus saith the Lord GOD; When I shall have gathered the house of Israel from the people among whom they are scattered, and shall be sanctified in them in the sight of the heathen, then shall they dwell in their land that I have given to my servant Jacob.

26 And they shall dwell safelyf therein, and shall build houses, and plant vineyards; yea, they shall dwell with confidence, when I have executed judgments upon all those that despise them round about them; and they shall know that I am the LORD their God.