Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyrus, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thine heart [is] lifted up, and thou hast said, I [am] a God, I sit [in] the seat of God, in the midst of the seas; yet thou [art] a man, and not God, though thou set thine heart as the heart of God:
Ver. 2. Say unto the prince of Tyrus.] Princes must be told their own, as well as others. It was partly by flattery that this prince was so high flown. His glory, wealth, and wit also had so blown him up that he forgot himself to be a man. Tabaal, Josephus, out of Berosus, calleth him; Diodorus Siculus, Ithobaal; others, Ethbaal. A most proud and presumptuous person he was, and a type of the devil, who is the "king of all the children of pride." Job 41:34 Here he holdeth himself to be wiser than Daniel; Eze 28:3 yea, to be the sum and perfection of all wisdom; Eze 28:12 to excel the high priest in all his ornaments, os humerosque Deo similis Eze 28:13 yea, to be above Adam (ib.); above the cherubims; Eze 28:14 lastly, to be God himself, and to sit in his seat. Eze 28:2 O Lucifer outdeviled! And yet as there were many Marii in one Caesar, so by nature there are many Ethbaals in the best of us; for "as in water face answereth to face, so doth the heart of a man to a man." Pro 27:19 Julius Caesar allowed altars and temples to be dedicated unto him, as to a god; and what wonder, whereas his flatterers told him that the freckles in his face were like the stars in the firmament? a Valladerius told Pope Paul V, and he believed it, that he was a god, that he lived familiarly with the Godhead, that he heard predestination itself whispering to him, that he had a place to sit in council with the Divine Trinity, &c. Prodigious blasphemy! Is not this that "man of sin," that Merum scelus, pure wickedness spoken of by Paul in 2Th 2:4 ? See more of this there. Was it not he that made Dandalus, the Venetian ambassador, roll under his table, and, as a dog, eat crusts there? and that suffered the Sicilian ambassadors to use these words unto him, Domine Deus papa, miserere nostrum; O Lord God the Pope, have mercy upon us. And again, O Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world, grant us thy peace.
In the midst of the seas.] Where none can come at me. Yes, Nebuchadnezzar could, and did, though after thirteen years' siege, as Josephus writeth. A hard tug and hot service he had of it; but yet he did the deed, as did afterwards also Alexander the Great, who never held anything unseizable.
a Sutton.