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.
When I shall have gathered the house of Israel ... then shall they dwell in their land ... And they shall dwell safely therein. Fulfilled in part at the restoration from Babylon, when Judaism, so far from being merged in paganism, made inroads, by conversions, on the idolatry of surrounding nations. The full accomplishment is yet future, when Israel, under Christ, shall be the center of Christendom: of which an earnest was given in the woman from the coasts of Tyre and Sidon who sought the Saviour (Matthew 15:21; Matthew 15:24; Matthew 15:26-28: cf. Isaiah 11:12).
Dwell safely - (Jeremiah 23:6, "In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely").
Remarks:
(1) Ethbaal or Ithobaal was, at the time of this prophecy, the king of Tyre, and the representative of the Phoenician idol-god Baal, whose name he bore. Like Herod in ages long subsequent, he was tempted, in the pride of his heart, which was "lifted up" through the loftiness of his position as head of such a wealthy and prosperous community, to claim the honour which belongs to God alone. As God sits enthroned on high, beyond the reach of injury, so, thought the King of Tyre, "I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas" (Ezekiel 28:2), secure from assault, guarded by the stormy elements, at the same time that I control them at will, and make them subservient to my interests. God by fearful judgments scattered to the winds these blasphempous pretensions.
(2) Herein the King of Tyre represents the self-deifying spirit of the men of the coming last age, when man shall flatter himself that, by the triumphs of his skill, and by the progress of human discoveries in science, he shall become completely Lord of the elements, and independent of God, so that "there is no secret that can be hidden from him" (Ezekiel 28:3) in the natural world, which is the only world these self-willed fools recognize. Already this spirit is manifesting itself among many of our so-called men of science, who think they can penetrate all the secret mysteries of God as well as among our mercantile and manufacturing men of worldly intelligence. To all such God speaks in keen and awful irony, "Behold (in thine own imagination) thou art wiser than Daniel," and that "no secret" can escape thee, because "with thy wisdom and with thine understanding thou hast gotten thee riches, and thine heart is lifted up because of thy riches" (Ezekiel 28:4-5): "Yet thou art but man, and not God, though thou set thine heart as the heart of God" (Ezekiel 28:2). It shall be just when the last apostasy under Antichrist, the final development of this spirit of deification of human intelligence, shall have attained the height of its blasphemous self-glorification, that God shall in a moment turn man's boasted "wisdom" into foolishness, and destroy the self-deceiving dupes with the breath of His rebuke (Ezekiel 28:6-10), and bring them and the beast, the false prophet, and Satan the Arch-deceiver, "down to the pit" (Ezekiel 28:8; Revelation 19:20; Revelation 20:10). Then shall it be shown, in the terrible reality of God's jealousy for His own honour, that the self-deifier is "a man, and no god, before Him that slayeth" all blasphemous pretenders (Ezekiel 28:9).
(3) In the person of the King of Tyre another sample, as it were, was given of man being put on his trial under most favourable circumstances; that is to say, all that beauty, sagacity, and wealth could do for him was done for him and his people. In respect to advantage of position and external circumstances they were like Adam and Eve "in Eden, the garden of God" (Ezekiel 28:13). No precious stone that is to be found in the bed of the ocean or in the dark mines of the earth was withheld from Tyre and her king. Joy and gladness attended him and them from the first. Like the consecrated "cherubim covering" the mercy-seat of the ark with overshadowing wings, so the King of Tyre shielded with his covering arm, like a god, the interests of Tyre (Ezekiel 28:14). As the beau-ideal of humanity, he stood in ambitious aspirations "upon the holy mountain of God," walking up and down "in the midst of the stones of fire," which were the "paved work of sapphire" described in Exodus (Exodus 24:10; Exodus 24:17) as under the feet of the God of Israel.
But whereas once the King of Tyre, Hiram, feared the God of Israel, whose temple he helped Solomon to build; now the King of Tyre, as a second Adam, has fallen from his high estate by "iniquity" (Ezekiel 28:15): "the multitude of his merchandise," which was his boast, became his bane, through selfishness, covetousness, and "violence" (Ezekiel 28:16). Therefore God 'casts him out of the ideal mountain of God as profane.' His "beauty," in which he trusted, caused his "heart" to be "lifted up," to his ruin, and the "brightness" of his glory dazzled his eyes, so that his "wisdom" becam e "corrupted" (Ezekiel 28:17): and then God "cast him to the ground," as a warning to all "kings" who should "behold" him, of the consequence of blasphemous pride. His very elevation as ideally in the "sanctuary" of God, and "amidst the stones of fire," was the very ground of his being "devoured" by the "fire from the midst" of his own elevated position (Ezekiel 28:18): for spiritual and temporal privileges, when abused, become the source of destruction to the apostate. The fire that does not purify destroys (Matthew 3:11-12).
(4) Hence, we see that if it were possible for man to be placed under the most favourable circumstances that can be imagined-as, for instance, in Eden, the garden of God, or even in heaven itself-he could not enjoy its blessedness, or long remain there, without a holy, heavenly, and Christlike mind. As Satan fell from heaven, and Adam from Paradise, because each stood in his own strength, so we cannot but fall, however great our privileges, and however favoured we be in position, unless we be made conformable to the mind and will of God by the power of the Holy Spirit.
(5) Zidon, too, the parent city of guilty Tyre, the headquarters of the idolatry of Ashtoreth and Tammuz, and the seducer of Israel to paganism, was to be made an example of by the judgments inflicted on her before all nations, that they might know God as the Holy One who will not suffer His glory to be given to another with impunity.
(6) Thus, the way shall be prepared for mercy to Israel at last. The pricking briers and grieving thorns which the pagan nations around proved to be in relation to Israel, by their idolatries and through her sinful weakness, are hereafter to exist no more (Ezekiel 28:24). Israel shall then be "gathered from the people among whom they are scattered" (Ezekiel 28:25), and "shall dwell safely, and with confidence" in her own land (Ezekiel 28:26): above all, not only through her long discipline of chastizements, but also through "the judgments executed upon all those that have despised her," she shall be brought to "know the Lord as her God." The promise belongs also to the spiritual Israel, the Church of the redeemed elect. Ere long the thorns of temptation and the briers of ungodliness within and without the visible Church, which so harass the saints, shall be utterly removed, and forever: sorrow and sighing sin and death, shall cease, and the saints shall dwell in everlasting joy and security in the heavenly Canaan, "knowing God as their God," not merely "in part," but "face to face," and perfectly, "even as also they are known" (1 Corinthians 13:12).