EZEKIEL 28 COMMENTARYEDITED BY GLENN PEASE

A Prophecy Against the King of Tyre

1 The word of the Lord came to me:

BARNES, "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.

CLARKE, "Eze_28:2Thou 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.

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GILL, "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:

HENRY 3-7, "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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JAMISON, "Eze_28:1-26. Prophetical dirge on the king of Tyre, as the culmination and embodiment of the spirit of carnal pride and self-sufficiency of the whole state. The fall of Zidon, the mother city. The restoration of Israel in contrast with Tyre and Zidon.

K&D 1-10, "Fall of the Prince of TyreEze_28:1. And the word of Jehovah came to me, saying, Eze_28:2. Son of man, say to the prince of Tyre, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Because thy heart has lifted itself up, and thou sayest, “I am a God, I sit upon a seat of Gods, in the heart of the seas,” when thou art a man and not God, and cherishest a mind like a God's mind, Eze_28:3.Behold, thou art wiser than Daniel; nothing secret is obscure to thee; Eze_28:4.Through thy wisdom and thy understanding hast thou acquired might, and put gold and silver in thy treasuries; Eze_28:5. Through the greatness of thy wisdom hast thou increased thy might by thy trade, and thy heart has lifted itself up on account of thy might, Eze_28:6. Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Because thou cherishest a mind like a God's mind, Eze_28:7. Therefore, behold, I will bring foreigners upon thee, violent men of the nations; they will draw their swords against the beauty of thy wisdom, and pollute thy splendour. Eze_28:8. They will cast thee down into the pit, that thou mayest die the death of the slain in the heart of the seas. Eze_28:9. Wilt thou indeed say, I am a God, in the face of him that slayeth thee, when thou art a man and not God in the hand of him that killeth thee? Eze_28:10. Thou wilt die the death of the uncircumcised at the hand of foreigners; for I have spoken it, is the saying of the Lord Jehovah. - This threat of judgment follows in general the same course as those addressed to other nations (compare especially Ezekiel 25), namely, that the sin is mentioned first (Eze_28:2-5), and then the punishment consequent upon the sin (Eze_

28:6-10). In Eze_28:12 מל is used instead of נגיד, dux. In the use of the term נגיד to designate the king, Kliefoth detects an indication of the peculiar position occupied by the prince in the commercial state of Tyre, which had been reared upon municipal foundations; inasmuch as he was not so much a monarch, comparable to the rulers of Bayblon or to the Pharaohs, as the head of the great mercantile aristocracy. This is in harmony with the use of the word נגיד for the prince of Israel, David for example, whom God chose and anointed to be the nâgīd over His people; in other words, to be the leader of the tribes, who also formed an independent commonwealth (vid., 1Sa_13:14; 2Sa_7:8, etc.). The pride of the prince of Tyre is described in Eze_28:2 as consisting in the fact that he regarded himself as a God, and his seat in the island of Tyre as a God's seat. He calls his seat שב מ , not “because his capital stood out from the sea, like the palace of God from the ocean of heaven” (Psa_104:3), as Hitzig supposes; for, apart from any other ground, this does not suit the subsequent description of his seat as God's mountain (Eze_28:16), and God's holy mountain (Eze_28:14). The God's seat and God's mountain are not the palace of the king of Tyre, but Tyre as a state, and that not because of its firm position upon a rocky island, but as a holy island (ἁγία νῆσος, as Tyre is called in Sanchun. ed. Orelli, p. 36), the founding of which has been glorified by myths (vid., Movers, Phoenizier, I pp. 637ff.). The words which Ezekiel puts into the mouth of the king of Tyre may be explained, as Kliefoth has well expressed it, “from the notion lying at the foundation of all natural religions, according to which every state, as the production of its physical factors and bases personified as the native deities of house and state, is

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regarded as a work and sanctuary of the gods.” In Tyre especially the national and political development went hand in hand with the spread and propagation of its religion. “The Tyrian state was the production and seat of its gods. He, the prince of Tyre, presided over this divine creation and divine seat; therefore he, the prince, was himself a god, a manifestation of the deity, having its work and home in the state of Tyre.” All heathen rulers looked upon themselves in this light; so that the king of Babylon is addressed in a similar manner in Isa_14:13-14. This self-deification is shown to be a delusion in Eze_28:2; He who is only a man makes his heart like a God's heart, i.e., cherishes the same thought as the Gods. לב, the heart, as the seat of the thoughts and imaginations, is named instead of the disposition.

This is carried out still further in Eze_28:3-5 by a description of the various sources from which this imagination sprang. He cherishes a God's mind, because he attributes to himself superhuman wisdom, through which he has created the greatness, and might, and wealth of Tyre. The words, “behold, thou art wiser,” etc. (Eze_28:3), are not to be taken as a question, “art thou indeed wiser?” as they have been by the lxx, Syriac, and others; nor are they ironical, as Hävernick supposes; but they are to be taken literally, namely, inasmuch as the prince of Tyre was serious in attributing to himself supernatural and divine wisdom. Thou art, i.e., thou regardest thyself as being, wiser than Daniel. No hidden thing is obscure to thee (עמם, a later word akin to the Aramaean, “to be obscure”). The comparison with Daniel refers to the fact that Daniel surpassed all the magi and wise men of Babylon in wisdom through his ability to interpret dreams, since God gave him an insight into the nature and development of the power of the world, such as no human sagacity could have secured. The wisdom of the prince of Tyre, on the other hand, consisted in the cleverness of the children of this world, which knows how to get possession of all the good things of the earth. Through such wisdom as this had the Tyrian prince acquired power and riches. חיל, might, possessions in the broader sense; not merely riches, but the whole of the might of the commercial state of Tyre, which was founded upon riches and treasures got by trade. In Eze_28:5 ת ברכל is in apposition to ברב ת and is introduced as explanatory. The fulness of its wisdom ,הכמshowed itself in its commerce and the manner in which it conducted it, whereby Tyre had become rich and powerful. It is not till we reach Eze_28:6 that we meet with the apodosis answering to 'יען גבה וגו in Eze_28:2, which has been pushed so far back by the intervening parenthetical sentences in Eze_28:2-5. For this reason the sin of the prince of Tyre in deifying himself is briefly reiterated in the clause 'יען תת וגו (Eze_28:6, compare Eze_28:2), after which the announcement of the punishment is introduced with a repetition of לכן in Eze_28:7. Wild foes approaching with barbarous violence will destroy all the king's resplendent glory, slay the king himself with the sword, and hurl him down into the pit as a godless man. The enemies are called עריצי ים violent ones ,גof the peoples - that is to say, the wild hordes composing the Chaldean army (cf. Eze_30:11; Eze_31:12). They drew the sword “against the beauty (יפי, the construct state of of thy wisdom,” i.e., the beauty produced by thy wisdom, and the beautiful Tyre (יפיitself, with all that it contains (Eze_26:3-4). יפעה, splendour; it is only here and in Eze_28:17 that we meet with it as a noun. The king himself they hurl down into the pit, i.e., the grave, or the nether world. תי ממ the death of a pierced one, substantially the ,חללsame as תי מ תי The plural .ערלים ממ and תי מ here and Jer_16:4 (mortes) is a pluralis

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exaggerativus, a death so painful as to be equivalent to dying many times (see the comm. on Isa_53:9). In Eze_28:9 Ezekiel uses the Piel מחלל in the place of the Poelלל חלל as ,מח in the Piel occurs elsewhere only in the sense of profanare, and in Isa_51:9 and Poel is used for piercing. But there is no necessity to alter the pointing in consequence, as we also find the Pual used by Ezekiel in Eze_32:26 in the place of the Poal of Isa_53:5. The death of the uncircumcised is such a death as godless men die - a violent death. The king of Tyre, who looks upon himself as a god, shall perish by the sword like a godless man. At the same time, the whole of this threat applies, not to the one king, Ithobal, who was reigning at the time of the siege of Tyre by the Chaldeans, but to the king as the founder and creator of the might of Tyre (Eze_28:3-5), i.e., to the supporter of that royalty which was to perish along with Tyre itself. - It is to the king, as the representative of the might and glory of Tyre, and not merely to the existing possessor of the regal dignity, that the following lamentation over his fall refers.

COFFMAN, "Verse 1

PROPHECY AGAINST TYRE CONCLUDED;

AGAINST TYRE'S RULER;

AGAINST TYRE'S KING;

AGAINST SIDON;

AGAINST THE PRINCE OF TYRE (Ezekiel 28:1-10)

Ezekiel 28:1-5

"The word of Jehovah came again unto me, saying, Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyre, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: because thy 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 man

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and not God, though thou didst set thy heart as the heart of God; - behold thou art wiser than Daniel, there is no secret that is hidden from thee; by thy wisdom and by thine understanding thou hast gotten thee riches; and hast gotten gold and silver into thy treasures; by thy great wisdom and by thy traffic hast thou increased thy riches, and thy heart is lifted up because of thy riches."

"Say unto the prince of Tyre ..." (Ezekiel 28:2). This paragraph contrasts with the paragraph beginning in 5:11, which is addressed to "the king of Tyre." Cooke noted that the words "prince of Tyre" refer to the actual "ruler of Tyre," namely, Ithbaal I; and from this the conclusion is mandatory that the "king of Tyre" is a different person from Ithbaal. Those scholars are therefore in error who treat this whole chapter as a prophecy against "the king of Tyre." Two different persons are most surely addressed in this chapter.

"Eichrodt noted that these first ten verses directed against Ithbaal do not reveal any personal details either about his character or his political activity that betray any exceptional wickedness. The things mentioned are in such general terms that any Tyrian king might have qualified as the target. Therefore, it is the kingship per se that is being prosecuted and sentenced here in the person of Ithbaal its representative."[1]

This horribly wicked self-deification of Tyre was directly related to the satanically induced rebellion of mankind in the matter of the construction of the Tower of Babel, where such humanistic self-deification began; and Tyre, being an outstanding representative of the same thing, in all likelihood prompted the special attention God gave to the disaster that happened to Satan in Ezekiel 28:11-19. The great deduction being required from this is that, "If Satan himself failed to get away with it, who are mortal men that they should follow his shameful example into certain disaster."

"I am a god ..." (Ezekiel 28:2), This arrogant and conceited boast was repeated in Ezekiel 28:6,9. It was the type of atheism which God was certain to punish. Herod Agrippa I had himself installed as a god down at Caesarea; but an angel of God executed him within the same hour (Acts 12).

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God's reply to the conceited boast of godhead on the part of Tyre's ruler was simple enough. "Wilt thou yet say before him that slayeth thee, I am god? but thou art man, and not God; I have spoken it, saith the Lord Jehovah." (Ezekiel 28:9-10). As Thompson stated it, "God always has the last word!"[2]

"Behold, thou art wiser than Daniel ..." (Ezekiel 28:3). "This Daniel is not the Biblical Daniel, but may have been the Daniel mentioned in the pagan literature of Ugarit, who lived about 1400 B.C."[3] A comment like this is totally untrue, there being no evidence whatever to sustain it. It resulted only from the evil prejudice of radical scholars against the Book of Daniel, which was so vigorously endorsed and approved by the Son of God Himself. The current crop of commentators who parrot this old shibboleth of the radical critics are simply not doing any thinking at all for themselves. As Thompson noted, "It is quite impossible to say dogmatically that the Daniel here is the same as the Daniel in the Ugaritic Daniel."[4]

In the year 588 when Ezekiel wrote this, Daniel had already been hailed by no less an authority than the king of Babylon as "the wisest man on earth." Nebuchadnezzar actually fell upon his face and worshipped Daniel, and stated before the whole world that, "I know that the spirit of the holy gods is in thee, and that no secret troubleth thee" (Daniel 2:46; 4:9). Daniel was, in fact the deputy king of Babylon; he sat in the king's gate; he was the second ruler in the kingdom; and all of this had already been known throughout the whole world of that period for fourteen years at the time Ezekiel wrote.[5]

Notice that Ezekiel here used almost the same words of these passages in Daniel, such as, "no secret is hidden from thee," almost identical with the words of Nebuchadnezzar, "no secret troubleth thee." In the light of these stubborn facts, what thoughtful person can possibly imagine that the name "Daniel" could possibly have called to mind any person who ever lived upon the earth, other than the mighty Daniel at the fight hand of Nebuchadnezzar. Of all the foolish canards the radicals ever came up with, we shall nominate this one as one of the worst. (See my commentary on Daniel, Vol. IV of our Major Prophets Series, regarding the integrity and authenticity of the Book of Daniel.)

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"Thy heart is lifted up ..." (Ezekiel 28:5). This was no light offense. "Man had here gone beyond the limits set by God Himself for man's self-glorification."[6]

PETT, "Verse 1-2

‘The word of Yahweh came to me again saying, “Son of man, say to the prince (nagid) of Tyre, thus says the Lord Yahweh.”

This new oracle comes with a deliberate contrast between ‘a prince’ in contrast with a Sovereign Lord. The King of Tyre is to recognise that before the Lord Yahweh he is but a ‘prince’, a warleader subject to an overall commander, as the early ‘princes’ of Israel were to Yahweh. It is a deliberate downgrading of the king because of the king’s own upgrading of himself.

Verses 1-10

Oracle Against the Nagid of Tyre.

Here the King of Tyre is called ‘the Nagid of Tyre’. Nagid (prince) is a title elsewhere restricted in the singular to princes and leaders of Israel. (Some see Daniel 9:26 as an exception, but that might tell us something about their interpretation of Daniel 9:26). Thus the use here would seem to be a sarcastic one, comparing him to a Prince of Israel. But in contrast to princes of Israel he saw himself as a god. Thus he is further condemned. The prince referred to was probably Ithobal II.

Note how the charges against Tyre have built up. Firstly she gloated at the riches she would receive now that Jerusalem was destroyed (Ezekiel 26:2). Then she proclaimed herself ‘perfect in beauty’ (Ezekiel 27:3) and as almost invincible. Now

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her king claims godlikeness. And Tyre shares in his god-like status. All that is said about the king also applies to his people.

PULPIT, "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 Ezekiel 28:12 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 (Ezekiel 7:27; Ezekiel 12:20, el al.). The King of Tyro at the time was Ithobal or Ethbaal III. (Josephus, 'Contra Apion,' Ezekiel 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.

2 “Son of man, say to the ruler of Tyre, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says:

“‘In the pride of your heart you say, “I am a god;I sit on the throne of a god in the heart of the seas.”But you are a mere mortal and not a god,

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though you think you are as wise as a god.

BARNES, "Eze_28:2Thou 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.

CLARKE, "Say unto the prince of Tyrus - But who was this prince of Tyrus? Some think Hiram; some, Sin; some, the devil; others, Ithobaal, with whom the chronology and circumstances best agree. Origen thought the guardian angel of the city was intended.

I am a god - That is, I am absolute, independent, and accountable to none. He was a man of great pride and arrogance.GILL, "Ezekiel 28:2

Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyre,.... Whose name was Ethbaal, or Ithobalus, as he is called in Josephus; for that this was Hiram that was in the days of Solomon, and lived a thousand years, is a fable of the Jewish Rabbins, as Jerom relates: this prince of Tyre is thought by some to be an emblem of the devil; but rather of antichrist; and between them there is a great agreement, and it seems to have a prophetic respect to him: thus saith the Lord God, because thine heart is lifted up: with pride, on account of his wisdom and knowledge, wealth and riches, as later mentioned: and thou hast said, I am a god; this he said in his heart, in the pride of it, and perhaps expressed it with his lips, and required divine homage to be given him by his subjects, as some insolent, proud, and haughty monarchs have done; in which he was a lively type of antichrist, who shows himself, and behaves, as if he was God, taking upon him what belongs to God; pardoning the sins of men; opening and shutting the gates of heaven; binding men's consciences with laws of his own making, and dispensing with the laws of God and man; and calling himself or suffering himself to be called God, and to be worshipped as such; See Gill on 2Th_2:4,

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I sit in the seat of God; in a place as delightful, safe and happy, as heaven itself, where the throne of God is; so antichrist is said to sit in the temple of God, in the house and church of God; where he assumes a power that does not belong to him, calling himself God's vicegerent, and Christ's vicar; see 2Th_2:4, and the Arabic version here renders it "in the house of God": it follows, in the midst of the seas; surrounded with them as Tyre was, and lord of them as its king was; sending his ships into all parts, and to whom all brought their wares; thus the whore of Rome is said to sit upon many waters, Rev_17:2, yet thou art a man, and not God; a frail, weak, mortal man, and not the mighty God, as his later destruction shows; and as the popes of Rome appear to be, by their dying as other men; and as antichrist will plainly be seen to be when he shall be destroyed with the breath of Christ's mouth, and the brightness of his coming: though thou set thine heart as the heart of God; as if it was as full of wisdom and knowledge as his; and thinkest as well of thyself, that thou art a sovereign as he, and to be feared, obeyed, and submitted to by all.

JAMISON, "Because, etc. — repeated resumptively in Eze_28:6. The apodosis begins at Eze_28:7. “The prince of Tyrus” at the time was Ithobal, or Ithbaal II; the name implying his close connection with Baal, the Phoenician supreme god, whose representative he was.

I am a god, I sit in ... seat of God ... the seas — As God sits enthroned in His heavenly citadel exempt from all injury, so I sit secure in my impregnable stronghold amidst the stormiest elements, able to control them at will, and make them subserve my interests. The language, though primarily here applied to the king of Tyre, as similar language is to the king of Babylon (Isa_14:13, Isa_14:14), yet has an ulterior and fuller accomplishment in Satan and his embodiment in Antichrist (Dan_7:25; Dan_11:36, Dan_11:37; 2Th_2:4; Rev_13:6). This feeling of superhuman elevation in the king of Tyre was fostered by the fact that the island on which Tyre stood was called “the holy island” [Sanconiathon], being sacred to Hercules, so much so that the colonies looked up to Tyre as the mother city of their religion, as well as of their political existence. The Hebrew for “God” is El, that is, “the Mighty One.”

yet, etc. — keen irony.set thine heart as ... heart of God — Thou thinkest of thyself as if thou wert God.

COKE, "Ezekiel 28:2. I am a god— These words are an insolent boast of self-sufficiency; as if he had said, "I neither fear any prince, nor stand in need of any assistance; I am seated in a place of impregnable strength; the seas surround me; I am freed from the assaults of an enemy." See Isaiah 23:9 and Lowth.

TRAPP, "Ezekiel 28:2 Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyrus, Thus saith the 11

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; [Ezekiel 28:3] yea, to be the sum and perfection of all wisdom; [Ezekiel 28:12] to excel the high priest in all his ornaments, os humerosque Deo similis [Ezekiel 28:13] yea, to be above Adam (ib.); above the cherubims; [Ezekiel 28:14] lastly, to be God himself, and to sit in his seat. [Ezekiel 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." [Proverbs 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 2 Thessalonians 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.

POOLE, "Verse 2

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Unto; of.

The princes; king, whose name was either Ethbaal, or Ithobaal.

Thine heart is lifted up; thou art waxen proud, and aspirest above all reason, and boastest extravagantly in thyself, state policy, and power.

Hast said; thought, imagined, or flattered thyself.

A god; or the mighty and strong one, for so the Hebrew is, and perhaps were better so rendered; he gloried in his strength, as if he were a god. The like you have Isaiah 14:14.

In the seat of God: as a magistrate he did bear the name and authority of God; but he thought not of this; he dreams of the stateliness, strength, convenience, safety, and inaccessibleness of his seat, as if he were safe and impregnable as heaven itself.

A man, subject to all the casualties, sorrows, and distresses of man’s state and life, thou art Adam, of earth, not El, nor like unto the Mighty One in heaven.

Thou set thine heart as the heart of God; thou hast entertained thoughts which become none but God, thou hast projected things which none but God can effect, thou hast promised thyself perpetual peace, safety, riches, and happiness in thyself, and from thyself.

PETT, "Verse 2

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“Because your heart is lifted up, and you have said, ‘I am a god (or ‘I am El’), I sit in the seat of the gods (or ‘of God’), in the midst of the seas’. Yet you are a man and not a god (or ‘not El’), although you set your heart as the heart of the gods.”

There has been much debate about what this king actually claimed for himself. Usually Mediterranean kings, in contrast with Egyptian pharaohs, did not see themselves as fully divine, but rather as chosen servants of the gods. However, there were exceptions, and taking it at face value this was one. Certainly he was guilty of overweening pride. But this king also appears to have seen himself as a god, or at least as a godlike figure (there were various levels of gods), and Tyre as the seat of the gods. And this view would have been expected of his people. This in itself brought Tyre under condemnation. They had usurped the throne of God.

But he is warned that he is in fact only a man. He is not a god (compare Isaiah 31:3), even though he has set his heart on god-like status..

El was the father figure among the gods, but the word also simply meant ‘a god’, or sometimes God, especially in poetry. The plural ‘elohim’ could mean ‘gods’, or when applied to Yahweh ‘God’ (the plural showing intensity), or even ‘heavenly beings’.

PULPIT, "I am a God. We are reminded of Isaiah's words (Isaiah 14:13, Isaiah 14:14) as to the King of Babylon. Did Ezekiel emphasize and amplify the boasts of Ethbaal, with a side-glance at the Chaldean king, who also was lifted up in the pride of his heart (Daniel 4:30)? For like examples, see the boast of Hophra, in Ezekiel 29:3; and the praise given to Herod Agrippa by the Tyrians (Acts 12:21). It is noticeable that St. Paul's description of the man of sin (2 Thessalonians 2:4) presents the same picture in nearly the same words. I sit in the seat of God, etc. Tyro was known as the Holy Island. The city was thought of as rising from its waters like the rock-throne of God. Though thou set thy heart. The words remind us of the temptation in Genesis 3:5. To forget the limitations of human ignorance and weakness, to claim an authority and demand a homage which belong to God, was the sin of the Prince of Tyre, as it had been that of Sennacherib, as it was of Nebuchadnezzar, as it has been since of the emperors of Rome, and of other rulers.

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3 Are you wiser than Daniel[a]? Is no secret hidden from you?

BARNES, "Eze_28:3Thou art wiser than Daniel - The passage is one of strong irony. Compare Eze_14:14; Dan_6:3.

CLARKE, "Thou art wiser than Daniel - Daniel was at this time living, and was reputable for his great wisdom. This is said ironically. See Eze_14:14; Eze_26:1.

GILL, "Behold; thou art wiser than Daniel,.... That is, in his own opinion; or it is ironically said. The Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic versions, render it by way of interrogation, "art thou not wiser than Daniel?" who was now at the court of Babylon, and was famous throughout all Chaldea for his knowledge in politics, his wisdom and prudence in government, as well as his skill in interpreting dreams. The Jews have a saying, that "if all the wise men of the nations were in one scale, and Daniel in the other, he would weigh them all down.'' And perhaps the fame of him had reached the king of Tyre, and yet he thought himself wiser than he; see Zec_9:2, antichrist thinks himself wiser than Daniel, or any of the prophets and apostles; he is wise above that which is written, and takes upon him the sole interpretation of the Scriptures, and to fix the sense of them: there is no secret that they can hide from thee; as he fancied; he had sagacity to penetrate into the councils of neighbouring princes, and discover all plots and intrigues against him; he understood all the "arcana" and secrets of government, and could counterwork the designs of his enemies. Antichrist pretends to know all mysteries, and

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solve all difficulties, and pass an infallible judgment on things; as if he was of the privy council of heaven, and nothing was transacted there but he was acquainted with it, and had full knowledge of the mind of God in all things.

JAMISON, "Ezekiel ironically alludes to Ithbaal’s overweening opinion of the wisdom of himself and the Tyrians, as though superior to that of Daniel, whose fame had reached even Tyre as eclipsing the Chaldean sages. “Thou art wiser,” namely, in thine own opinion (Zec_9:2).

no secret — namely, forgetting riches (Eze_28:4).that they can hide — that is, that can be hidden.

TRAPP, "Ezekiel 28:3 Behold, thou [art] wiser than Daniel; there is no secret that they can hide from thee:

Ver. 3. Behold, thou art wiser than Daniel.] That oracular man, who was πανσοφος, as one saith of Homer, και παντα ανθρωπεια επισταμενος, the most wise and knowing man alive. His name was now up at Babylon; and Ezekiel, his contemporary, commendeth him; so doth the Baptist, Christ; and Peter, Paul. [Ephesians 3:15] Though there had been a breach between them, [Galatians 2:14] there was no envy. But such another braggart as this in the text was Richardus de Sancto Victore, a monk of Paris, who said that himself was a better divine than any prophet or apostle of them all. (a) But how much better, saith Gregory, (b) is humble ignorance than proud knowledge!

POOLE, " Thou art wiser, in thy own thoughts of thyself, than Daniel, who was then famous for his wisdom, which was imparted to him from Heaven, Ezekiel 14:20 Daniel 1:20 2:20,48.

That they can hide from thee; that any sort of men can conceal, that thine adversaries shall contrive against thee to thy danger or hurt: all this ironically said.

pett, "Verse 3

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“Behold, you are wiser than Daniel. There is no secret that they can hide from you.”

Again we are confronted by the question as to who is meant by Dani’el (compare on Ezekiel 14:14; Ezekiel 14:20). It is quite possible that Ezekiel is comparing him with that great contemporary figure Daniel (Daniyye’l, an alternative form. Compare Do’eg (1 Samuel 21:7; 1 Samuel 22:9) spelled Doyeg in 1 Samuel 22:18; 1 Samuel 22:22) who had risen so high in the court of the king of Babylon and had become a folk-hero to his people. He was renowned for his wisdom (Daniel 1:17; Daniel 1:20) and vision (Daniel 2:19) and as the one to whom the secrets of God were revealed (Daniel 2:22; Daniel 2:28; Daniel 2:30; Daniel 2:47). As the message of the prophecy was for Israel and not for Tyre, who would probably never receive it, the fact that Tyre might not have known much about Daniel is irrelevant, although Daniel was by now such a powerful figure (Daniel 2:48) that he had probably already become a legend in his own time, even in Tyre.

Alternately there may be in mind some patriarchal figure like the Dan’el described at Ugarit, the Dispenser of fertility, who was seen as upright and as judging the cause of the widow and the fatherless. That Dan’el would certainly be known to the Tyrians.

Either way the point is that he claimed to have supernatural knowledge, to a knowledge of all secrets greater than Daniel’s, and that Ezekiel is deriding him for it, while agreeing that he has a certain kind of wisdom. There is wry sarcasm here, for had he been a knower of all secrets he would have known the secret of his own downfall.

PULPIT, "Ezekiel 28:3

Thou art wiser than Daniel, etc. There is, of course, a marked irony in the words. Daniel was for Ezekiel—and there seems something singularly humble and pathetic in the prophet's reverence for his contemporary—the ideal at once of righteousness (Ezekiel 14:14) and of wisdom. He was a revealer of the secrets of the future, and read the hearts of men. His fame was spread far and wide through the Chaldean

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empire. And this was the man with whom the King of Tyro compared himself with a self-satisfied sense of superiority, and he found the proof of his higher wisdom in his wealth. Here, again, I venture to trace a side-thrust at Nebuchadnezzar and his tendencies in the same direction," Is not this great Babylon, which I have builded?"

4 By your wisdom and understanding you have gained wealth for yourselfand amassed gold and silver in your treasuries.

GILL, "With thy wisdom and with thy understanding thou hast gotten thee riches,.... Through skill in navigation and trade, for which the Tyrians and their princes were famous, they acquired great wealth: so antichrist, by carnal policy, and hellish subtlety, has amassed vast treasures together; the sale of pardons and indulgences has brought immense riches into the pope's coffers: and hast gotten gold and silver into thy treasures; in great quantities; see Rev_18:3.

TRAPP, "Ezekiel 28:4 With thy wisdom and with thine understanding thou hast gotten thee riches, and hast gotten gold and silver into thy treasures:

Ver. 4. With thy wisdom thou hast gotten thee riches.] Which yet is not every wise man’s happiness. Aelian (a) observeth that the wisest and best of the Grecians were

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very poor, as Socrates, Aristides, Phocion, Ephialtes, Epaminondas, Pelopidas, Lamachus, and others. Fortuna fere favet fatuis: nescio quomodo, bonae mentis soror, est paupertas, saith he in Petronius. (b) Piety goeth oft yoked with poverty.

POOLE, " With thy wisdom; by thy policy in government, and by thy skill in trading, for he speaks of that kind of prudence to which these names are given.

Gotten, or

made, so the word. Riches; power and might, so the Hebrew, as well as wealth and riches, and so the Gallic version reads

puissance; the princes of Tyre had been prudent, and so increased their power and interest.

Into thy treasures; into both his own private purse, and into the public treasuries too.

PETT, "Verse 4-5

“By your wisdom and by your understanding you have obtained for yourself riches, and you have obtained gold and silver into your treasuries. By your great wisdom and by your trading you have increased your riches, and your heart is lifted up because of your riches.”

The wisdom the king and his subjects had was the wisdom as to how to make themselves rich through trading. He knew how to accumulate the riches that would destroy him by making him too presumptious, and he had put all his efforts into it. The world stood back and admired, for the world admires nothing more than the

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ability to become rich, but he and they would be much wiser if they considered their end (Psalms 73:17).

5 By your great skill in trading you have increased your wealth,and because of your wealth your heart has grown proud.

CLARKE, "By thy great wisdom - He attributed every thing to himself; he did not acknowledge a Divine providence. As he got all by himself, so he believed he could keep all by himself, and had no need of any foreign help.

GILL, "By thy great wisdom and by thy traffic,.... Or, "by thy great wisdom in thy traffic" (i); through great skill in trade and commerce: hast thou increased thy riches; to a very great degree, a prodigious bulk; so antichrist has done, especially through trafficking with the souls of men, which is one part of his merchandise, as it was of Tyre, Rev_18:13, and thine heart is lifted up because of thy riches; which are apt to puff up and make men highminded, and swell them with a vain opinion of themselves, and to make haughty, insolent, and scornful, in their behaviour to others; thus elated with worldly grandeur and riches, the whore of Rome is represented as proud, vain, and haughty, Rev_18:7.

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TRAPP, "Verse 5

Ezekiel 28:5 By thy great wisdom [and] by thy traffick hast thou increased thy riches, and thine heart is lifted up because of thy riches:

Ver. 5. Thine heart is lifted up because of thy riches.] Like as the higher the flood riseth, the higher also doth the boat that floateth thereon. A small blast will blow up a bubble, so will a few paltry pounds puff up a carnal heart.

By thy great wisdom.] Here God did nothing. And such, for all the world, saith Oecolampadius, are our freewill men, with their ego feci, this I did. Such feci’s I did it’s are no better than faeces, dregs saith Luther; that is, dregs and dross.

POOLE, " Thy great wisdom: here the eminent degree of this prince’s wisdom is owned.

And by thy traffic: and might as well be spared, for as it is not in the Hebrew, so it rather obscures than clears the text; let it be read, By thy great wisdom in thy traffic, and it is very plain, and so the French reads it increased; made great or enlarged.

Thy riches; thy power, as Ezekiel 28:4.

Is lifted up; exalts itself, carrieth it loftily and proudly above thy neighbours, which is not good; above thyself, which is worse; and above God too, which is worst of all, as Ezekiel 28:2.

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Thy riches; thy puissance at home and abroad, by nature and art.

6 “‘Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord says:“‘Because you think you are wise, as wise as a god,

GILL, "Therefore thus saith the Lord God,.... Now follows the punishment threatened, because of all this pride, haughtiness, and blasphemy: because thou hast set thine heart as the heart of God; seeking thine own glory; setting up thyself above all others; assuming that to thyself which belongs to God; and making thyself equal to him, or showing thyself as if thou wast God; See Gill on Eze_28:2.

COFFMAN, ""Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Because thou hast set thy heart as the heart of God, therefore, behold, 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. They shall bring thee down to the pit; and thou shalt die the death of them that are slain, in the heart of the seas. Wilt thou yet say before him that slayeth thee, I am god? but thou art man, and not God, in the hand of him that woundeth thee. Thou shalt die the death of the uncircumcised by the hand of strangers: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord Jehovah."

THE PUNISHMENT ASSIGNED

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Here we have the verdict awaiting Ithbaal the ruler of Tyre and his wicked city. He would die a shameful and disgraceful death, "the death of the uncircumcised." "God here mocked his claim of being `a god,'"[7] pointing out that he certainly would not claim any such thing in the hands of those who would slay him. "The strangers" referred to were the hosts of the armies of Nebuchadnezzar.

"Thou shalt die the death ..." (Ezekiel 28:8). The words here are literally "die the deaths," as reflected in some of the older versions. "The plural was for emphasis, meaning "a death so painful as to be the equivalent of dying many times."[8]

TRAPP, "Ezekiel 28:6 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD Because thou hast set thine heart as the heart of God;

Ver. 6. Because thou hast set thine heart as the heart of God.] Thou thinkest thy wisdom to be divine, and thyself the only one. The Tyrians were famous for their great wisdom, [Zechariah 9:2] and they are said to be the inventors of many arts; yet should they not have overly weaned themselves in this sort; which because they did, let them hear their doom.

POOLE, " Hast set thine heart: see Ezekiel 28:2.

As the heart of God, who doth, as justly he may, design himself, his own glory, in all he designeth and worketh, and take the glory to himself; thou hast done so too, designed thy own greatness, and gloried in it.

PETT, "Verses 6-8

‘Therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh, “Because you have set your heart as the heart of the gods, therefore behold I will bring strangers on you, the terrible of the

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nations, and they will draw their swords against the beauty of your wisdom and they will mar your brightness. They will bring you down to the pit, and you will die the deaths of those who are slain in the heart of the seas.”

His whole attitude towards Yahweh and towards his own exalted status, and that of his city, was such that he had brought on himself his own punishment. He had set his heart to be one among the gods, so he and his people would be destroyed bymen, by ‘strangers’, by the most terrible of the nations (Babylon - Ezekiel 30:11; Ezekiel 31:12; Ezekiel 32:12). He had claimed to be perfect in beauty, a beauty revealed in wisdom, as one who shone before the world, so this beauty will be destroyed by the swords of men, and this brightness defiled by men, and he will go down into the grave where all men go. He will die as so many of his seamen have died before him, swallowed up by the sea, which in his case is represented by the enemy hosts. (Although many would no doubt be tossed into the harbour and literally be swallowed up by the sea). Such will be his ‘god-like’ end.

7 I am going to bring foreigners against you, the most ruthless of nations;they will draw their swords against your beauty and wisdom and pierce your shining splendor.

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CLARKE, "I will bring strangers upon thee - The Chaldeans.

GILL, "Behold, therefore, I will bring strangers upon thee,.... The Chaldean army, who not only lived at a distance from Tyre, but were unknown to them, not trading with them; nor are they mentioned among the merchants of Tyre: these, in the mystical sense, may design the angels that shall pour out the vials on the antichristian states, the kings of Protestant nations: the terrible of the nations; as the Babylonians were, very formidable to the world, having conquered many countries, and their armies consisting of men of all nations, mighty, courageous, and expert in war; and alike formidable will the Protestant princes be to the antichristian powers, when they shall with their united strength attack them: and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of thy wisdom; their beautiful city and spacious buildings, the palaces of their king and nobles, their walls and towers erected with so much art and skill; or their forces, the men of war within their city, which made their beauty complete, so well skilled in military affairs, Eze_27:10, or their ships, and the merchandise of them, and the curious things brought in them: even everything that was rich and valuable, the effect of their art and wisdom: all which may be applied to the city of Rome, when it will be taken, ransacked, and burnt, Rev_18:8, and they shall defile thy brightness; profane thy crown, cast down thy throne, destroy thy kingdom, and all that is great and glorious in thee; thus the whore of Rome shall be made bare and desolate, Rev_17:16. The Targum renders it, "the brightness of thy terror;'' which shall no more strike the nations, or affect them.

HENRY 7-8, "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

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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.

JAMISON, "therefore — apodosis.strangers ... terrible of the nations — the Chaldean foreigners noted for their ferocity (Eze_30:11; Eze_31:12).against the beauty of thy wisdom — that is, against thy beautiful possessions acquired by thy wisdom on which thou pridest thyself (Eze_28:3-5).defile thy brightness — obscure the brightness of thy kingdom.

TRAPP, "Ezekiel 28:7 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.

Ver. 7. Behold, therefore I will briny strangers upon thee.] Who shall not at all regard thy great wisdom, but grasp after thy wealth, and suck thy blood for it. Neither will they favour thee the more because thou art a king, but slay thee the rather, and say, Hunc ipsum quaerimus, This we seek ourselves, This is the right bird, as that soldier said who slew the most valiant King of Sweden at the battle of Lutzen.

POOLE, " Will bring; cause to come.

Strangers; a foreign people, called strangers for their multitude, and to intimate how little regard they would have to the Tyrian glory; these strangers were the Babylonian forces. The terrible of the nations; a fierce, violent, and cruel nation,

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Habakkuk 1:7,8.

The beauty of thy wisdom; those beautiful things, in which thy wisdom appeared; either thy noble, regular, and strong buildings, or thy beautiful well-stored arsenal and army, or the unparalleled rarities, which all but rudest soldiers would esteem, and spare these monuments of thy wisdom. Defile; pour contempt and stain.

Thy brightness; thy royal dignity, depose thee from thy throne, and kill thy authority and thy person.

PULPIT, "Ezekiel 28:7

I will bring strangers, etc. These are, of course, the hosts of many nations that made up the Chaldean army (comp. the parallel of Ezekiel 30:11 and Ezekiel 31:12). The beauty of thy wisdom is that of the city on which the prince looked as having been produced by his policy.

8 They will bring you down to the pit, and you will die a violent death in the heart of the seas.

GILL, "They shall bring thee down to the pit,.... Or, "to corruption" (k); to the grave, the pit of corruption and destruction; so antichrist shall go into perdition, into the

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bottomless pit from whence he came, Rev_17:8, and thou shalt die the deaths of them that are slain in the midst of the seas; that die in a sea fight, whose carcasses are thrown overboard, and devoured by fishes.

JAMISON, "the pit — that is, the bottom of the sea; the image being that of one conquered in a sea-fight.

the deaths — plural, as various kinds of deaths are meant (Jer_16:4).of them ... slain — literally, “pierced through.” Such deaths as those pierced with many wounds die.

COKE, "Ezekiel 28:8. Thou shalt die, &c.— "Thou shalt die the deaths of those who perished in the flood:" deaths, in the plural, as intimating a still farther punishment even after death; such as that impious race experienced, and such as this haughty prince had well deserved by his mad pride and blasphemous impiety. And therefore with the same emphasis the prophet says, Ezekiel 28:10. Thou shalt die the deaths, the double death, of the uncircumcised;—that is, of unbelievers and enemies to God. This is not the only place in this prophesy where the destruction by the deluge is alluded to: for this, and the fall of angels, being two of the greatest events that ever happened, and the most remarkable of God's judgments; it is very natural for the prophets to recur to them, when they would raise their style in the description of the fall of empires and of tyrants. Thus we find a very beautiful allusion to both those great events in this same prediction of our prophet, of the downfal of Tyre and its haughty prince in the 26th and following chapter. As the style of this prophet is wonderfully adapted to the subject of which he treats, he compares the destruction of this famous maritime city to a vessel shipwrecked in the sea, and so sends them to the people of old time, as he calls them, chap. Ezekiel 26:20. (where it should certainly be so rendered) who were swallowed up in the universal deluge. Their prince he compares to the prince of the rebel angels, whose pride had given him such a dreadful fall. See chap. Ezekiel 26:18-20, Ezekiel 27:26. See Peters on Job, p. 373 and the note on Ezekiel 28:14. Instead of, Them that are slain, Houbigant reads, Them who are wounded.

TRAPP, "Ezekiel 28:8 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.

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Ver. 8. They shall bring thee down to the pit.] There shall lie the greatness of the god of Tyre.

And thou shalt die the death.] Death will make no difference between a prince and a peasant, a lord and a lowly. The mortal scythe is master of the royal sceptre.

POOLE, " These strangers shall slay thee, which is a blemish to the honour of a king thus to be brought to the pit.

The pit; a usual periphrasis of death and the grave.

The deaths; in the plural, because of the many terrors, dangers, and wounds such meet with, the successive deaths, slain, drowned, eat of fish, cast upon shore, and become meat to sea fowl.

In the midst of the seas; if literally understood, thou shalt die as other common mariners, and be cast overboard; if figuratively, seas for great distresses, then amidst multitude of deep distresses thou shalt meet with more than one death, be often dying.

PULPIT, "Ezekiel 28:8, Ezekiel 28:9

The effect of the Chaldean invasion was to bring the king down to the nether world of the dead. In the use of the plural "deaths" we have a parallel to the "plurima morris imago" of Virgil ('AEneid,' 2.369). And this death was not to be like that of a hero-warrior, but as that of those who are slain in the midst of the seas, who fall, i.e; in a naval battle, and are cast into the waters. Would he then repeat his boast, I am God?

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9 Will you then say, “I am a god,” in the presence of those who kill you?You will be but a mortal, not a god, in the hands of those who slay you.

CLARKE, "Wilt thou yet say before him that slayeth thee - Wilt thou continue thy pride and arrogance when the sword is sheathed in thee, and still imagine that thou art self-sufficient and independent?

GILL, "Wilt thou yet say before him that slayeth thee, I am God?.... When thou art in the enemies' hands, and just going to be put to death, wilt thou then confidently assert thy deity, and to his face tell him that thou art God? surely thy courage and thy confidence, thy blasphemy and impiety, will leave thee then; a bitter sarcasm this! and so the pope of Rome, the antichristian beast, when taken, and just going to be cast into the lake of fire along with the false prophet, will not have the impudence to style himself God, or to call himself Christ's vicar on earth: but thou shalt be a man, and no god, in the hand of him that slayeth thee; that is, thou shalt appear to be a poor, weak, frail, mortal, trembling, dying man, when got into the hand of the enemy, and he is just going to put an end to thy life; where will be then thy boasted deity?

HENRY, "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,

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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.

JAMISON, "yet say — that is, still say; referring to Eze_28:2.but, etc. — But thy blasphemous boastings shall be falsified, and thou shalt be shown to be but man, and not God, in the hand (at the mercy) of Him.

TRAPP, "Ezekiel 28:9 Wilt thou yet say before him that slayeth thee, I [am] God? but thou [shalt be] a man, and no God, in the hand of him that slayeth thee.

Ver. 9. Wilt thou say before him that slayeth thee, I am God?] That will prove a poor plea, and thou wilt soon be confuted, as afterwards great Alexander confuted his flatterers, when, being wounded in fight, he showed them his blood.

POOLE, " A cutting taunt, or sarcasm: What will become of thy godship then? Wilt thou then dream of immortality and almighty power, when thine enemy is cutting thy throat?

Thou shalt be a man; appear thou to thyself and others to be a mortal, weak, conquered man, who dieth a sacrifice to the conqueror’s pride and cruelty.

NISBET, "THE DOOM OF PRIDE‘A man, and no God.’Ezekiel 28:9I. At the time of this prophecy Ethbaal was King of Tyre—the representative of the Phœnician Sun-Deity, whose name he bore. Like Herod, he was tempted, in the pride of his heart, to claim the honour which belongs to God alone. He sat on the throne of God, in the midst of the seas. No precious stone from the bed of ocean or the mines of earth was withheld from him. As the cherubim covered the ark with outspread wings, so did he cover the interests of Tyre. He seemed to stand as the beau-ideal of humanity, on the very sapphire pavement described in Exodus

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(Ezekiel 24:10; Ezekiel 24:17). But his beauty, of which he was so conscious, caused his heart to be lifted up to his ruin, and the brightness of his glory dazzled his eyes, so that God cast him to the ground as a warning of the terrible consequences of pride.

II. We are strongly reminded, in this marvellous description, of Adam, standing in his native innocence and beauty in Eden; and especially of Satan, before his fall.—Behind the figure of the King of Tyre rises that of the prince or god of this world, when as yet he was the unfallen son of the morning. The creature may be placed in the most favourable circumstances that can be imagined—as, for instance, in Eden, the garden of God, or even in heaven itself—but he cannot remain there if his heart becomes its own centre, or lifted up with pride. We cannot stand for a moment unless we are indwelt by the Spirit of God. The records of the world are full of those who thought they could stand, but who fell, because they had not made God their strength. But the Israel of God shall dwell safely, and shall know the Lord. O blessed day, when we shall rest for ever with God, knowing Him even as we are known!

Illustration

‘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. 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

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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.’

PETT, "Verse 9-10

“Will you yet say before him who slays you, ‘I am a god’. But you are a man and not a god in the hands of him who wounds you. You will die the deaths of the uncircumcised by the hand of strangers. For I have spoken it says the Lord Yahweh.”

His protestation to be a god will not help him when he meets his slayers. To them his exalted claims will mean nothing. To them he will be but a man who bleeds. And he will die an ignominious death at their hand, the hand of strangers. To an Israelite to die uncircumcised was to die in shame, it was the worst of all deaths for it indicated that men died outside the covenant.

10 You will die the death of the uncircumcised at the hands of foreigners.

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I have spoken, declares the Sovereign Lord.’”

CLARKE, "The deaths of the uncircumcised - Two deaths, temporal and eternal. Ithobaal was taken and killed by Nebuchadnezzar.

GILL, "Thou shalt die the deaths of the uncircumcised,.... Or the death of the wicked, as the Targum; the first and second death, temporal and eternal: the former by the hand of strangers, the Chaldeans, in various shapes; and the latter will follow upon it: it may denote the various kinds of death which the inhabitants of Rome will die when destroyed, some by famine, some by pestilence, and others by fire; when these plagues shall come upon her in one day, Rev_18:8. for I have spoken it, saith the Lord God; and therefore it shall surely come to pass; strong is the Lord that will judge, condemn, and destroy mystical Babylon, or Tyre.

JAMISON, "deaths of ... uncircumcised — that is, such a death as the uncircumcised or godless heathen deserve; and perhaps, also, such as the uncircumcised inflict, a great ignominy in the eyes of a Jew (1Sa_31:4); a fit retribution on him who had scoffed at the circumcised Jews.

TRAPP, "Ezekiel 28:10 Thou shalt die the deaths of the uncircumcised by the hand of strangers: for I have spoken [it], saith the Lord GOD.

Ver. 10. Thou shalt die the death of the uncircumcised.] Not only a temporal, but an eternal death, as they must needs do that are out of the covenant of grace, whereof circumcision was the seal. This is the sad catastrophe of such as dream of a deity. Of which number were Caligula, Herod, Heliogabalus, Dioclesian, and other monsters, uncircumcised vice gods, as we may, in the worst sense, best term them.

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POOLE, " The deaths: Ezekiel 28:8. A twofold death, temporal and eternal.

Of the uncircumcised; of the wicked, or an accursed death: the Jews do express a vile and miserable death thus. Or, the uncircumcised, i.e. heathens, cruel and merciless men, shall slay thee; and this suits with what follows in the verse, and this was ignominious with the Jews, 1 Samuel 31:4.

I have spoken it, saith the Lord God; O thou proud, self-admiring prince! slight not what is threatened, for God, the God of truth, hath spoken it.

PULPIT, "Ezekiel 28:10

The climax comes in the strongest language of Hebrew scorn. As the uncircumcised were to the Israelite (1 Samuel 17:36; 1 Samuel 31:4), so should the King of Tyro, unhonored, unwept, with no outward marks of reverence, be among the great cues of the past who dwell in Hades. Ezekiel returns to the phrase in Ezekiel 31:18; Ezekiel 32:24. The words receive a special force from the fact that the Phoenicians practiced circumcision before their intercourse with the Greeks (Herod; 2.104).

11 The word of the Lord came to me:

BARNES, "The dirge of the prince of Tyre, answering to the dirge of the state. The passage is ironical; its main purpose is to depict all the glory, real or assumed, of “the prince of Tyrus,” in order to show how deplorable should be his ruin.

GILL, "Moreover the word of the Lord came unto me,.... After the prophecy concerning the ruin of the prince of Tyre, the word of the Lord came to the prophet, ordering him to take up a lamentation on the king of Tyre:

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HENRY, "As after the prediction of the ruin of Tyre (ch. 26) followed a pathetic lamentation for it (ch. 27), so after the ruin of the king of Tyre is foretold it is bewailed.

I. This is commonly understood of the prince who then reigned over Tyre, spoken to, Eze_28:2. His name was Ethbaal, or Ithobalus, as Diodorus Siculus calls him that was king of Tyre when Nebuchadnezzar destroyed it. He was, it seems, upon all external accounts an accomplished man, very great and famous; but his iniquity was his ruin. Many expositors have suggested that besides the literal sense of this lamentation there is an allegory in it, and that it is an allusion to the fall of the angels that sinned, who undid themselves by their pride. And (as is usual in texts that have a mystical meaning) some passages here refer primarily to the king of Tyre, as that of his merchandises, others to the angels, as that of being in the holy mountain of God. But, if there be any thing mystical in it (as perhaps there may), I shall rather refer it to the fall of Adam, which seems to be glanced at, Eze_28:13. Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God, and that in the day thou wast created.II. Some think that by the king of Tyre is meant the whole royal family, this including also the foregoing kings, and looking as far back as Hiram, king of Tyre. The then governor is called prince (Eze_28:2); but he that is here lamented is called king. The court of Tyre with its kings had for many ages been famous; but sin ruins it. Now we may observe two things here: -

K&D 11-19, "Lamentation over the King of TyreEze_28:11. And the word of Jehovah came to me, saying, Eze_28:12. Son of man, raise a lamentation over the king of Tyre, and say to him, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Thou seal of a well-measured building, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. Eze_28:13. In Eden, the garden of God, was thou; all kinds of precious stones were thy covering, cornelian, topaz, and diamond, chrysolite, beryl, and jasper, sapphire, carbuncle, and emerald, and gold: the service of thy timbrels and of thy women was with thee; on the day that thou wast created, they were prepared. Eze_28:14. Thou wast a cherub of anointing, which covered, and I made thee for it; thou wast on a holy mountain of God; thou didst walk in the midst of fiery stones. Eze_28:15. Thou wast innocent in thy ways from the day on which thou wast created, until iniquity was found in thee. Eze_28:16. On account of the multitude of thy commerce, thine inside was filled with wrong, and thou didst sin: I will therefore profane thee away from the mountain of God; and destroy thee, O covering cherub, away from the fiery stones! Eze_28:17. Thy heart has lifted itself up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom together with thy splendour: I cast thee to the ground, I give thee up for a spectacle before kings. Eze_28:18. Through the multitude of thy sins in thine unrighteous trade thou hast profaned thy holy places; I therefore cause fire to proceed from the midst of thee, which shall devour thee, and make thee into ashes upon the earth before the eyes of all who see thee. Eze_28:19. All who know thee among the peoples are amazed at thee: thou hast become a terror, and art gone for ever. - The lamentation over the fall of the king of Tyre commences with a picture of the super-terrestrial glory of his position, so as to correspond to his self-deification as depicted in

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the foregoing word of God. In Eze_28:12 he is addressed as חתם This does not .תכניתmean, “artistically wrought signet-ring;” for חתם does not stand for חתם , but is a participle of חתם , to seal. There is all the more reason for adhering firmly to this meaning, that the following predicate, מלא -is altogether inapplicable to a signet ,חכמהring, though Hitzig once more scents a corruption of the text in consequence. תכנית, from תכן, to weigh, or measure off, does not mean perfection (Ewald), beauty (Ges.), façon (Hitzig), or symmetry (Hävernick); but just as in Eze_43:10, the only other passage in which it occurs, it denotes the measured and well-arranged building of the temple, so here it signifies a well-measured and artistically arranged building, namely, the Tyrian state in its artistic combination of well-measured institutions (Kliefoth). This building is sealed by the prince, inasmuch as he imparts to the state firmness, stability, and long duration, when he possesses the qualities requisite for a ruler. These are mentioned afterwards, namely, “full of wisdom, perfect in beauty.” If the prince answers to his position, the wisdom and beauty manifest in the institutions of the state are simply the impress received from the wisdom and beauty of his own mind. The prince of Tyre possessed such a mind, and therefore regarded himself as a God (Eze_28:2). His place of abode, which is described in Eze_28:13 and Eze_28:14, corresponded to his position. Ezekiel here compares the situation of the prince of Tyre with that of the first man in Paradise; and then, in Eze_28:15 and Eze_28:16, draws a comparison between his fall and the fall of Adam. As the first man was placed in the garden of God, in Eden, so also was the prince of Tyre placed in the midst of paradisaical glory. עדן is shown, by the apposition גן הים to be used as the proper name of Paradise; and this view is not ,אto be upset by the captious objection of Hitzig, that Eden was not the Garden of God, but that this was situated in Eden (Gen_2:8). The fact that Ezekiel calls Paradise גן־עדן in Eze_36:35, proves nothing more than that the terms Eden and Garden of God do not cover precisely the same ground, inasmuch as the garden of God only occupied one portion of Eden. But notwithstanding this difference, Ezekiel could use the two expressions as synonymous, just as well as Isaiah (Isa_51:3). And even if any one should persist in pressing the difference, it would not follow that בעדן was corrupt in this passage, as Hitzig fancies, but simply that גן defined the idea of עדן more precisely - in other words, restricted it to the garden of Paradise.

There is, however, another point to be observed in connection with this expression, namely, that the epithet גן אלהים is used here and in Eze_31:8-9; whereas, in other places, Paradise is called גן יהוה (vid., Isa_51:3; Gen_13:10). Ezekiel has chosen Elohim instead of Jehovah, because Paradise is brought into comparison, not on account of the historical significance which it bears to the human race in relation to the plan of salvation, but simply as the most glorious land in all the earthly creation. the prince of Tyre, placed in the pleasant land, was also adorned with the greatest earthly glory. Costly jewels were his coverings, that is to say, they formed the ornaments of his attire. This feature in the pictorial description is taken from the splendour with which Oriental rulers are accustomed to appear, namely, in robes covered with precious stones, pearls, and gold. מסכה, as a noun ἁπ. λεγ.., signifies a covering. In the enumeration of the precious stones, there is no reference to the breastplate of the high priest. For, in the first place, the order of the stones is a different one here; secondly, there are only nine stones named instead of twelve; and lastly, there would be no intelligible sense in such a

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reference, so far as we can perceive. Both precious stones and gold are included in the glories of Eden (vid., Gen_2:11-12). For the names of the several stones, see the commentary on Exo_28:17-20. The words 'מלאכת תפי åגו' s - which even the early translators have entirely misunderstood, and which the commentators down to Hitzig and Ewald have made marvellous attempts to explain - present no peculiar difficulty, apart from the plural נקבי, which is only met with here. As the meaning timbrels, tambourins (aduffa), is well established for תפים, and in 1Sa_10:5 and Isa_5:12 flutes are mentioned along with the timbrels, it has been supposed by some that נקבים must signify flutes here. But there is nothing to support such a rendering either in the Hebrew or in the other Semitic dialects. On the other hand, the meaning pala gemmarum(Vulgate), or ring-casket, has been quite arbitrarily forced upon the word by Jerome, Rosenmüller, Gesenius, and many others. We agree with Hävernick in regarding נקביםas a plural of נקבה (foeminae), formed, like a masculine, after the analogy of נשים, etc., and account for the choice of this expression from the allusion to the ,פלגשיםhistory of the creation (Gen_1:27). The service (מלאכת, performance, as in Gen_39:11, etc.) of the women is the leading of the circular dances by the odalisks who beat the timbrels: “the harem-pomp of Oriental kings.” This was made ready for the king on the day of his creation, i.e., not his birthday, but the day on which he became king, or commenced his reign, when the harem of his predecessor came into his possession with all its accompaniments. Ezekiel calls this the day of his creation, with special reference to the fact that it was God who appointed him king, and with an allusion to the parallel, underlying the whole description, between the position of the prince of Tyre and that of Adam in Paradise.

(Note: In explanation of the fact alluded to, Hävernick has very appropriately called attention to a passage of Athen. (xii. 8, p. 531), in which the following statement occurs with reference to Strato, the Sidonian king: “Strato, with flute-girls, and female harpers and players on the cithara, made preparations for the festivities, and sent for a large number of hetaerae from the Peloponnesus, and many signing-girls from Ionia, and young hetaerae from the whole of Greece, both singers and dancers.” See also other passages in Brissonius, de regio Pers. princ. pp. 142-3.)The next verse (Eze_28:14) is a more difficult one. את is an abbreviation of אתה ,את, as in Num_11:15; Deu_5:24 (see Ewald, §184a). The hap. leg. ממשח has been explained in very different ways, but mostly according to the Vulgate rendering, tu Cherub extentus et protegens, as signifying spreading out or extension, in the sense of “with outspread wings” (Gesenius and many others.). But משח does not mean either to spread out or to extend. The general meaning of the word is simply to anoint; and judging from משחחand משחה, portio, Lev_7:35 and Num_18:8, also to measure off, from which the idea of extension cannot possibly be derived. Consequently the meaning “anointing” is the only one that can be established with certainty in the case of the word ממשח. So far as the form is concerned, ממשח might be in the construct state; but the connection with כ anointing, or anointed one, of the covering one, does not yield any admissible ,הס

sense.A comparison with Eze_28:16, where כרוב כ הס occurs again, will show that the

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which stands between these two words in the verse before us, must contain a ,ממשחmore precise definition of כרוב, and therefore is to be connected with כרוב in the construct state: cherub of anointing, i.e., anointed cherub. This is the rendering adopted by Kliefoth, the only commentator who has given the true explanation of the verse. ממשח is the older form, which has only been retained in a few words, such as מרמס in Isa_10:6, together with the tone-lengthened a (vid., Ewald, §160a). The prince of Tyre is called an anointed cherub, as Ephraem Syrus has observed, because he was a king even though he had not been anointed. כ הס is not an abstract noun, either here or in Nah_2:6, but a participle; and this predicate points back to Exo_25:20, “the cherubim covered (ככים .the capporeth with their wings,” and is to be explained accordingly (סConsequently the king of Tyre is called a cherub, because, as an anointed king, he covered or overshadowed a sanctuary, like the cherubim upon the ark of the covenant. What this sanctuary was is evident from the remarks already made at Eze_28:2concerning the divine seat of the king. If the “seat of God,” upon which the king of Tyre sat, is to be understood as signifying the state of Tyre, then the sanctuary which he covered or overshadowed as a cherub will also be the Tyrian state, with its holy places and sacred things. In the next clause, ונתתי is to be taken by itself according to the accents, “and I have made thee (so),” and not to be connected with בהר We are .קדשprecluded from adopting the combination which some propose - viz. “I set thee upon a holy mountain; thou wast a God” - by the incongruity of first of all describing the prince of Tyre as a cherub, and then immediately afterwards as a God, inasmuch as, according to the Biblical view, the cherub, as an angelic being, is simply a creature and not a God; and the fanciful delusion of the prince of Tyre, that he was an El (Eze_28:2), could not furnish the least ground for his being addressed as Elohim by Ezekiel. And still more are we precluded from taking the words in this manner by the declaration contained in Eze_28:16, that Jehovah will cast him out “from the mountain of Elohim,” from which we may see that in the present verse also Elohim belongs to har, and that in Eze_28:16, where the mountain of God is mentioned again, the predicate קדש is simply omitted for the sake of brevity, just as ממשח is afterwards omitted on the repetition of כרוב כ .הסThe missing but actual object to נתתי can easily be supplied from the preceding clause, - namely, this, i.e., an overshadowing cherub, had God made him, by placing him as king in paradisaical glory. The words, “thou wast upon a holy mountain of God,” are not to be interpreted in the sense suggested by Isa_14:13, namely, that Ezekiel was thinking of the mountain of the gods (Alborj) met with in Asiatic mythology, because it was there that the cherub had its home, as Hitzig and others suppose; for the Biblical idea of the cherub is entirely different from the heathen notion of the griffin keeping guard over gold. It is true that God placed the cherub as guardian of Paradise, but Paradise was not a mountain of God, nor even a mountainous land. The idea of a holy mountain of God, as being the seat of the king of Tyre, was founded partly upon the natural situation of Tyre itself, built as it was upon one or two rocky islands of the Mediterranean, and partly upon the heathen notion of the sacredness of this island as the seat of the Deity, to which the Tyrians attributed the grandeur of their state. To this we may probably add a reference to Mount Zion, upon which was the sanctuary, where the cherub covered the seat of the presence of God. For although the comparison of the prince of Tyre to a cherub was primarily suggested by the description of his abode as Paradise, the epithet כ הס shows that the place of the cherub in the sanctuary was also

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present to the prophet's mind. At the same time, we must not understand by הר Mount Zion itself. The last clause, “thou didst walk in the midst of (among) fiery stones,” is very difficult to explain. It is admitted by nearly all the more recent commentators, that “stones of fire” cannot be taken as equivalent to “every precious stone” (Eze_28:13), both because the precious stones could hardly be called stones of fire on account of their brilliant splendour, and also being covered with precious stones is not walking in the midst of them. Nor can we explain the words, as Hävernick has done, from the account given by Herodotus (II 44) of the two emerald pillars in the temple of Hercules at Tyre, which shone resplendently by night; for pillars shining by night are not stones of fire, and the king of Tyre did not walk in the temple between these pillars. The explanation given by Hofmann and Kliefoth appears to be the correct one, namely, that the stones of fire are to be regarded as a wall of fire (Zec_2:9), which rendered the cherubic king of Tyre unapproachable upon his holy mountain.

In Eze_28:15, the comparison of the prince of Tyre to Adam in Paradise is brought out still more prominently. As Adam was created sinless, so was the prince of Tyre innocent in his conduct in the day of his creation, but only until perverseness was found in him. As Adam forfeited and lost the happiness conferred upon him through his fall, so did the king of Tyre forfeit his glorious position through unrighteousness and sin, and cause God to cast him from his eminence down to the ground. He fell into perverseness in consequence of the abundance of his trade (Eze_28:16). Because his trade lifted him up to wealth and power, his heart was filled with iniquity. מלו for מלאו, like מל for א מל in Eze_41:8, and נשו for נשאו in Eze_39:26. כ ת is not the subject, but the object to מלו; and the plural מלו, with an indefinite subject, “they filled,” is chosen in the place of the passive construction, because in the Hebrew, as in the Aramaean, active combinations are preferred to passive whenever it is possible to adopt them (vid., Ewald, §294b and 128b). מלא is used by Ezekiel in the transitive sense “to fill” (Eze_8:17 and Eze_30:11). the midst, is used for the interior in a physical sense, and not in a spiritual one; and ,תו

the expression is chosen with an evident allusion to the history of the fall. As Adam sinned by eating the forbidden fruit of the tree, so did the king of Tyre sin by filling himself with wickedness in connection with trade (Hävernick and Kliefoth). God would therefore put him away from the mountain of God, and destroy him. חלל with מן is a pregnant expression: to desecrate away from, i.e., to divest of his glory and thrust away from. ואבד is a contracted form for ואאבד (vid., Ewald, §232h and §72c). - Eze_28:17and Eze_28:18 contain a comprehensive description of the guilt of the prince of Tyre, and the approaching judgment is still further depicted. על cannot mean, “on account of thy splendour,” for this yields no appropriate thought, inasmuch as it was not the splendour itself which occasioned his overthrow, but the pride which corrupted the wisdom requisite to exalt the might of Tyre, - in other words, tempted the prince to commit iniquity in order to preserve and increase his glory. We therefore follow the lxx, Syr., Ros., and others, in taking על in the sense of una cum, together with. ראוה is an infinitive form, like אהבה for ת though Ewald (§238e) regards it as so extraordinary ,ראthat he proposes to alter the text. ראה with ב is used for looking upon a person with malicious pleasure. בעול רכלת shows in what the guilt (ון עול) consisted (ע is the construct state of עול). The sanctuaries (miqdâshim) which the king of Tyre desecrated by the unrighteousness of his commerce, are not the city or the state of Tyre, but the

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temples which made Tyre a holy island. These the king desecrated by bringing about their destruction through his own sin. Several of the codices and editions read מקדש in the singular, and this is the reading adopted by the Chaldee, Syriac, and Vulgate versions. If this were the true reading, the sanctuary referred to would be the holy mountain of God (Eze_28:14 and Eze_28:16). But the reading itself apparently owes its origin simply to this interpretation of the words. In the clause, “I cause fire to issue from the midst of thee,” כ מת is to be understood in the same sense as כ ת in Eze_28:16. The iniquity which the king has taken into himself becomes a fire issuing from him, by which he is consumed and burned to ashes. All who know him among the peoples will be astonished at his terrible fall (Eze_28:19, compare Eze_27:36).

If we proceed, in conclusion, to inquire into the fulfilment of these prophecies concerning Tyre and its king, we find the opinions of modern commentators divided. Some, for example Hengstenberg, Hävernick, Drechsler (on Isa 23), and others, assuming that, after a thirteen years' siege, Nebuchadnezzar conquered the strong Island Tyre, and destroyed it; while others - viz. Gesenius, Winer, Hitzig, etc. - deny the conquest by Nebuchadnezzar, or at any rate call it in question; and many of the earlier commentators suppose the prophecy to refer to Old Tyre, which stood upon the mainland. For the history of this dispute, see Hengstenberg, De rebus Tyriorum comment. (Berol. 1832); Hävernick, On Ezekiel, pp. 420ff.; and Movers, Phoenizier, II 1, pp. 427ff. - The denial of the conquest of Insular Tyre by the king of Babylon rests partly on the silence which ancient historians, who mention the siege itself, have maintained as to its result; and partly on the statement contained in Eze_29:17-20. - All that Josephus (Antt. x. 11. 1) is able to quote from the ancient historians on this point is the following: -In the first place, he states, on the authority of the third book of the Chaldean history of Berosus, that when the father of Nebuchadnezzar, on account of his own age and consequent infirmity, had transferred to his son the conduct of the war against the rebellious satrap in Egypt, Coelesyria, and Phoenicia, Nebuchadnezzar defeated him, and brought the whole country once more under his sway. But as the tidings reached him of the death of his father just at the same time, after arranging affairs in Egypt, and giving orders to some of his friends to lead into Babylon the captives taken from among the Judaeans, the Phoenicians, the Syrians, and the Egyptians, together with the heavy armed portion of the army, he himself hastened through the desert to Babylon, with a small number of attendants, to assume that government of the empire. Secondly, he states, on the authority of the Indian and Phoenician histories of Philostratus, that when Ithobal was on the throne, Nebuchadnezzar besieged Tyre for thirteen years. The accounts taken from Berosus are repeated by Josephus in his c. Apion (i. §19), where he also adds (§20), in confirmation of their credibility, that there were writings found in the archives of the Phoenicians which tallied with the statement made by Berosus concerning the king of Chaldea (Nebuchadnezzar), viz., “that he conquered all Syria and Phoenicia;” and that Philostratus also agrees with this, since he mentions the siege of Tyre in his histories (μεμνημένος τῆς Τύρου πολιορκίας). In addition to this, for synchronistic purposes, Josephus (c. Ap. i. 21) also communicates a fragment from the Phoenician history, containing not only the account of the thirteen years' siege of Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar in the reign of Ithobal, but also a list of the kings of Tyre who followed Ithobal, down to the time of Cyrus of Persia.

(Note: The passage reads as follows: “In the reign of Ithobal the king, Nebuchadnezzar besieged Tyre for thirteen years. After him judges were appointed. Ecnibalus, the son of Baslachus, judged for two months; Chelbes, the son of 41

Abdaeus, for ten months; Abbarus, the high priest, for three months; Myttonus and Gerastartus, the sons of Abdelemus, for six years; after whom Balatorus reigned for one year. When he died, they sent for and fetched Merbalus from Babylon, and he reigned four years. At his death they sent for his brother Eiramus, who reigned twenty years. During his reign, Cyrus ruled over the Persians.”)The siege of Tyre is therefore mentioned three times by Josephus, on the authority of Phoenician histories; but he never says anything of the conquest and destruction of that city by Nebuchadnezzar. From this circumstance the conclusion has been drawn, that this was all he found there. For if, it is said, the siege had terminated with the conquest of the city, this glorious result of the thirteen years' exertions could hardly have been passed over in silence, inasmuch as in Antt. x. 11. 1 the testimony of foreign historians is quoted to the effect that Nebuchadnezzar was “an active man, and more fortunate than the kings that were before him.” But the argument is more plausible than conclusive. If we bear in mind that Berosus simply relates the account of a subjugation and devastation of the whole of Phoenicia, without even mentioning the siege of Tyre, and that it is only in Phoenician writings therefore that the latter is referred to, we cannot by any means conclude, from their silence as to the result or termination of the siege, that it ended gloriously for the Tyrians and with humiliation to Nebuchadnezzar, or that he was obliged to relinquish the attempt without success after the strenuous exertions of thirteen years. On the contrary, considering how all the historians of antiquity show the same anxiety, if not to pass over in silence, such events as were unfavourable to their country, at all events to put them in as favourable to their country, at all events to put them in as favourable a light as possible, the fact that the Tyrian historians observe the deepest silence as to the result of the thirteen years' siege of Tyre would rather force us to the conclusion that it was very humiliating to Tyre. And this could only be the case if Nebuchadnezzar really conquered Tyre at the end of thirteen years. If he had been obliged to relinquish the siege because he found himself unable to conquer so strong a city, the Tyrian historians would most assuredly have related this termination of the thirteen years' strenuous exertions of the great and mighty king of Babylon.

The silence of the Tyrian historians concerning the conquest of Tyre is no proof, therefore, that it did not really take place. But Eze_29:17-20 has also been quoted as containing positive evidence of the failure of the thirteen years' siege; in other words, of the fact that the city was not taken. We read in this passage, that Nebuchadnezzar caused his army to perform hard service against Tyre, and that neither he nor his army received any recompense for it. Jehovah would therefore give him Egypt to spoil and plunder as wages for this work of theirs in the service of Jehovah. Gesenius and Hitzig (on Isa 23) infer from this, that Nebuchadnezzar obtained no recompense for the severe labour of the siege, because he did not succeed in entering the city. But Movers (l.c. p. 448) has already urged in reply to this, that “the passage before us does not imply that the city was not conquered any more than it does the opposite, but simply lays stress upon the fact that it was not plundered. For nothing can be clearer in this connection than that what we are to understand by the wages, which Nebuchadnezzar did not receive, notwithstanding the exertions connected with his many years' siege, is simply the treasures of Tyre;” though Movers is of opinion that the passage contains an intimation that the siege was brought to an end with a certain compromise which satisfied the Tyrians, and infers, from the fact of stress being laid exclusively upon the neglected plundering, that the termination was of such a kind that plundering might easily have taken place, and therefore that Tyre was either actually conquered, but treated mildly from wise considerations, or else submitted to the Chaldeans upon certain 42

terms. But neither of these alternatives can make the least pretension to probability. In Eze_29:20 it is expressly stated that “as wages, for which he (Nebuchadnezzar) has worked, I give him the land of Egypt, because they (Nebuchadnezzar and his army) have done it for me;” in other words, have done the work for me. When, therefore, Jehovah promises to give Egypt to Nebuchadnezzar as a reward or wages for the hard work which has been done for Him at Tyre, the words presuppose that Nebuchadnezzar had really accomplished against Tyre the task entrusted to him by God. But God had committed to him not merely the siege, but also the conquest and destruction of Tyre. Nebuchadnezzar must therefore have executed the commission, though without receiving the expected reward for the labour which he had bestowed; and on that account God would compensate him for his trouble with the treasures of Egypt. This precludes not only the supposition that the siege was terminated, or the city surrendered, on the condition that it should not be plundered, but also the idea that for wise reasons Nebuchadnezzar treated the city leniently after he had taken possession. In either case Nebuchadnezzar would not have executed the will of Jehovah upon Tyre in such a manner as to be able to put in any claim for compensation for the hard work performed. The only thing that could warrant such a claim would be the circumstance, that after conquering Tyre he found no treasures to plunder. And this is the explanation which Jerome has given of the passage ad litteram. “Nebuchadnezzar,” he says, “being unable, when besieging Tyre, to bring up his battering-rams, besieging towers, and vineae close to the walls, on account of the city being surrounded by the sea, employed a very large number of men from his army in collecting rocks and piling up mounds of earth, so as to fill up the intervening sea, and make a continuous road to the island at the narrowest part of the strait. And when the Tyrians saw that the task was actually accomplished, and the foundations of the walls were being disturbed by the shocks from the battering-rams, they placed in ships whatever articles of value the nobility possessed in gold, silver, clothing, and household furniture, and transported them to the islands; so that when the city was taken, Nebuchadnezzar found nothing to compensate him for all his labour. And because he had done the will of God in all this, some years after the conquest of Tyre, Egypt was given to him by God.”(Note: Cyrill. Alex. gives the same explanation in his commentary on Isa 23.)

It is true that we have no historical testimony from any other quarter to support this interpretation. But we could not expect it in any of the writings which have come down to us, inasmuch as the Phoenician accounts extracted by Josephus simply contain the fact of the thirteen years' siege, and nothing at all concerning its progress and result. At the same time, there is the greatest probability that this was the case. If Nebuchadnezzar really besieged the city, which was situated upon an island inf the sea, he could not have contented himself with cutting off the supply of drinking water from the city simply on the land side, as Shalmanezer, the king of Assyria, is said to have done (vid., Josephus, Antt. ix. 14. 2), but must have taken steps to fill up the strait between the city and the mainland with a mound, that he might construct a road for besieging and assaulting the walls, as Alexander of Macedonia afterwards did. And the words of Eze_29:18, according to which every head was bald, and the skin rubbed off every shoulder with the severity of the toil, point indisputably to the undertaking of some such works as these. And if the Chaldeans really carried out their operations upon the city in this way, as the siege-works advanced, the Tyrians would not neglect any precaution to defend themselves as far as possible, in the event of the capture of the city. They would certainly send the possessions and treasures of the city by ship into the colonies, and thereby place them in security; just as, according to Curtius, iv. 3, they sent off their families to Carthage, when 43

the city was besieged by Alexander.This view of the termination of the Chaldean siege of Tyre receives a confirmation of no little weight from the fragment of Menander already given, relating to the succession of rulers in Tyre after the thirteen years' siege by Nebuchadnezzar. It is there stated that after Ithobal, Baal reigned for ten years, that judges (suffetes) were then appointed, nearly all of whom held office for a few months only; that among the last judges there was also a king Balatorus, who reigned for a year; that after this, however, the Tyrians sent to Babylon, and brought thence Merbal, and on his death Hiram, as kings, whose genuine Tyrian names undoubtedly show that they were descendants of the old native royal family. This circumstance proves not only that Tyre became a Chaldean dependency in consequence of the thirteen years' siege by Nebuchadnezzar, but also that the Chaldeans had led away the royal family to Babylonia, which would hardly have been the case if Tyre had submitted to the Chaldeans by a treaty of peace.If, however, after what has been said, no well-founded doubt can remain as to the conquest of Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar, our prophecy was not so completely fulfilled thereby, that Tyre became a bare rock on which fishermen spread their nets, as is threatened in Eze_26:4-5, Eze_26:14. Even if Nebuchadnezzar destroyed its walls, and laid the city itself in ruins to a considerable extent, he did not totally destroy it, so that it was not restored. On the contrary, two hundred and fifty years afterwards, we find Tyre once more a splendid and powerful royal city, so strongly fortified, that Alexander the Great was not able to take it till after a siege of seven months, carried on with extraordinary exertions on the part of both the fleet and army, the latter attacking from the mainland by means of a mound of earth, which had been thrown up with considerable difficulty (Diod. Sic. xvii. 40ff.; Arrian, Alex. ii. 17ff.; Curtius, iv. 2-4). Even after this catastrophe it rose once more into a distinguished commercial city under the rule of the Seleucidae and afterwards of the Romans, who made it the capital of Phoenicia. It is mentioned as such a city in the New Testament (Mat_15:21; Act_21:3, Act_21:7); and Strabo (xvi. 2. 23) describes it as a busy city with two harbours and very lofty houses. But Tyre never recovered its ancient grandeur. In the first centuries of the Christian era, it is frequently mentioned as an archbishop's see. From a.d. 636 to a.d. 1125 it was under the rule of the Saracens, and was so strongly fortified, that it was not till after a siege of several months' duration that they succeeded in taking it. Benjamin of Tudela, who visited Tyre in the year 1060, describes it as a city of distinguished beauty, with a strongly fortified harbour, and surrounded by walls, and with the best glass and earthenware in the East. “Saladin, the conqueror of Palestine, broke his head against Tyre in the year 1189. But after Acre had been taken by storm in the year 1291 by the Sultan El-Ashraf, on the day following this conquest the city passed without resistance into the hands of the same Egyptian king; the inhabitants having forsaken Tyre by night, and fled by sea, that they might not fall into the power of such bloodthirsty soldiers” (Van de Velde). When it came into the hands of the Saracens once more, its fortifications were demolished; and from that time forward Tyre has never risen from its ruins again. Moreover, it had long ceased to be an insular city. The mound which Alexander piled up, grew into a broader and firmer tongue of land in consequence of the sand washed up by the sea, so that the island was joined to the mainland, and turned into a peninsula. The present Sûr is situated upon it, a market town of three or four thousand inhabitants, which does not deserve the name of a city or town. The houses are for the most part nothing but huts; and the streets are narrow, crooked, and dirty lanes. The ruins of the old Phoenician capital cover the surrounding country to the distance of more than half an hour's journey from the present town gate. The harbour is so thoroughly choked up

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with sand, and filled with the ruins of innumerable pillars and building stones, that only small boats can enter. The sea has swallowed up a considerable part of the greatness of Tyre; and quite as large a portion of its splendid temples and fortifications lie buried in the earth. To a depth of many feet the soil trodden at the present day is one solid mass of building stones, shafts of pillars, and rubbish composed of marble, porphyry, and granite. Fragments of pillars of the costly verde antiquo (green marble) also lie strewn about in large quantities. The crust, which forms the soil that is trodden today, is merely the surface of this general heap of ruins. Thus has Tyre actually become “a bare rock, and a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea;” and “the dwelling-places, which are now erected upon a portion of its former site, are not at variance with the terrible decree, 'thou shalt be built no more'“ (compare Robinson's Palestine, and Van de Velde's Travels). - Thus has the prophecy of Ezekiel been completely fulfilled, though not directly by Nebuchadnezzar; for the prophecy is not a bare prediction of historical details, but is pervaded by the idea of the judgment of God. To the prophet, Nebuchadnezzar is the instrument of the punitive righteousness of God, and Tyre the representative of the ungodly commerce of the world. Hence, as Hävernick has already observed, Nebuchadnezzar's action is more than an isolated deed in the prophet's esteem. “In his conquest of the city he sees the whole of the ruin concentrated, which history places before us as a closely connected chain. The breaking of the power of Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar stands out before his view as inseparably connected with its utter destruction. This was required by the internal theocratic signification of the fact in its relation to the destruction of Jerusalem.” Jerusalem will rise again to new glory out of its destruction through the covenant faithfulness of God (Eze_28:25-26). But Tyre, the city of the world's commerce, which is rejoicing over the fall of Jerusalem, will pass away for ever (Eze_26:14; Eze_27:36).

COFFMAN, ""Moreover the word of Jehovah came unto me, saying, Son of man, take up a lamentation over the king of Tyre, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. Thou wast in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, the 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 in thee; in the day that thou wast created they were prepared. Thou wast the anointed cherub that covereth: and I set thee, so that thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till unrighteousness was found in thee. By the abundance of thy traffic they filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore have I cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God; and I have destroyed thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. Thy heart was lifted up because of thy beauty; thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I have cast thee to the ground; I have laid thee before kings, that they may behold thee."

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THE EXAMPLE OF SATAN; HERE CALLED "KING OF TYRE" (Ezekiel 28:11-19)

There is not a line of this that can be applied to any other being who ever lived, except Satan! The ridiculous allegation of some that, "Ezekiel here refers to a legend,"[9] or to "A Phoenician version of the account in Genesis,"[10] or to some alleged `myth' concerning a divine garden, an abode of bliss. As Cooke pointed out, however, "Such a myth has not been discovered!"[11] Thus there is no evidence whatever, except in the imaginations of wicked men, of any such mythological tale as the radical critics love to find here. We do not believe there is any such myth, or that there ever has been. Besides that, we shall show, shortly, that every line of the prophecy here has its application in the Genesis account of the existence of Satan in the Garden of Eden, not as a resident there, but as an intruder.

As Canon Cook noted:

"Idolatrous kings in the eyes of God's prophets were antagonists of God. In them was embodied the principle of evil opposing the divine government of the world. Therefore some of the Fathers saw not merely a hostile monarch upon the throne, but the prince of this world, even Satan."[12]

The very sin which resulted in the casting of Satan out of heaven and down to the earth was that of "pride"; and therefore the pride of the Tyrian kings afforded a marvelous opportunity for the prophet to call up from the Word of God the example of what happened to Satan, as a sufficient warning to all the proud kings who every lived.

"Thou wast in Eden ..." (Ezekiel 28:13). No student of God's Word can be ignorant of the meaning of "Eden." It was that garden where Adam and Eve had been placed by the Lord, and into which Satan appeared as an intruder to seduce Eve and precipitate the fall of the human race. After this clause, the rest of the description

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must be applied to Satan before his appearance in Eden.

"Every precious stone was thy covering ..." (Ezekiel 28:13). This description applies to Satan before he appeared in Eden, before he was "cast down to earth" (Ezekiel 28:17). because he appeared to Eve, not in such a covering as that mentioned here, but as a serpent.

"Thou wast the anointed cherub ..." (Ezekiel 28:14). The clear meaning of this is that the character spoken of was an angel of God, the word "cherub" cannot mean anything else. The theory of the "myth" disappears in this verse. God tell us who the "King of Tyre" here was. He was a perfect angel in whom unrighteousness was found, after which God threw him out of heaven and down to earth. The critics have done their best to get rid of this verse, rendering it, "Thou wast with the cherubs;"[13] but as McFadyen admitted that does not get rid of the meaning, which would then be, "Among the cherubs was thy dwelling,"[14] certainly indicating his place among the angels of God, and as one of them.

"Thou wast upon the holy mountain of God ..." (Ezekiel 28:14). Most of the scholars we have consulted misread this as another name for the Garden of Eden. This is not correct. Going all the way back to Ezekiel 28:13, the description must be applied to Satan before his appearance in Eden. The mountain of God therefore applies to the status of Satan while he was "with the cherubs." It is our opinion that "the mountain of God" here is the equivalent of "The Majesty on High," (Hebrews 1:3), certainly not the garden of Eden. Satan's being in Eden came later, after God removed him from "the Majesty on High" by casting him to the ground (earth).

"Perfect from the day that thou wast created ..." (Ezekiel 28:15). Such a statement as this was never made concerning any human being who ever lived on earth. Only of an angel of God, or some other super-human being could this have been spoken. As Howie said, "Obviously, this is no description of any ordinary flesh-and-blood human being."[15]

"They filled the midst of thee with violence ... and thou hast sinned ..." (Ezekiel 47

28:16). These words return to Ithbaal, the literal ruler of Tyre, but only for the purpose of making the application from the life of Satan.

"Therefore have I cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God; and I have destroyed thee, O covering cherub ..." (Ezekiel 28:16). The application is clear enough. Just as Satan lost his place in the mountain of God, the king of Tyre, and all other proud kings, shall lose their place in the destruction God prepares for them.

"Amidst the stones of fire ..." (Ezekiel 28:14,16). This further confirms our view that the very presence of God is meant by "the mountain of God," and by the place where Satan was at first. In the earlier symbols of the presence of God found in Ezekiel, the appearance of the Lord's feet as though heated to a glorying brightness in a furnace, the lightnings, etc. fit this mention of the "stones of fire."

Before leaving this narrative, we present the opinions of Tertullian and Origen as altogether reasonable and intelligent explanations of our text.

"This description, it is manifest, properly belongs to the transgression of the angel, and not to the prince's; for none among human beings was either born in the Paradise of God, not even Adam himself, who was rather translated thither; nor placed with a cherub on God's holy mountain, that is to say, `the Heights of Heaven,' from which the Lord testifies that Satan fell. It is none else than the very author of sin!"[16]

"This paragraph cannot at all be understood of a man, but of some superior power which had fallen away from a higher position and which had been reduced to a lower and worse condition. Seeing then that such are the words of the prophet, who is there who can so enfeeble these words as to suppose that the reference is to some man or saint? We are of the opinion, therefore, that these words are spoken of a certain angel."[17]SIZE>

However, the advocates of the position which we believe to be correct on this 48

chapter are not confined to ancient times. We are happy indeed to report that C. L. Feinberg, a current scholar of the greatest ability, writing as recently as 1884 has the following:

"We cannot follow those views which inject into this chapter without support a foreign and false mythology, a legendary atmosphere, or a hypothetical ideal personality. The importation into this chapter of mythology or some pagan legend must be resisted. The grand lesson of the chapter is that, `If Satan, who was far greater than Ithbaal of Tyre received just punishment for the arrogation unto himself of divine prerogatives, then the proud ruler of Tyre cannot expect to escape the consequences of his own declaration that, "I am a god."'"

In our own view, any other interpretation of this narrative is founded upon the unchristian assumption that Ezekiel here used some pagan tale and that God is not the author of these verses. The text flatly declares that God is the author of this chapter, and we believe it.

COKE, "Ezekiel 27:11. Gammadims— Tutelar images. Spencer. Fuller supposes these Gammadims to have been Phoenicians. The Hebrew word גמדים gammadim is derived from גמד gamad, which signifies to be contracted, narrowed, &c. and Parkhurst is of opinion that these people were the inhabitants of the country about Tripoli in Syria, formerly called the Αγχων or Elbow of Phoenicia, from its being narrowed, and projecting into the sea in that form. See Parkhurst on the word גמדgamad.

EBC 11-19, "The lamentation over the fall of the prince of Tyre (Ezekiel 28:11-19) reiterates the same lesson with a boldness and freedom of imagination not usual with this prophet. The passage is full of obscurities and difficulties which cannot be adequately discussed here, but the main lines of the conception are easily grasped. It describes the original state of the prince as a semi-divine being, and his fall from that state on account of sin that was found in him. The picture is no doubt ironical; Ezekiel actually means nothing more than that the soaring pride of Tyre enthroned its king or its presiding genius in the seat of the gods, and endowed him with attributes more than mortal. The prophet accepts the idea, and shows that there was

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sin in Tyre enough to hurl the most radiant of celestial creatures from heaven to hell. The passage presents certain obvious affinities with the account of the Fall in the second and third chapters of Genesis; but it also contains reminiscences of a mythology the key to which is now lost. It can hardly be supposed that the vivid details of the imagery, such as the "mountain of God," the "stones of fire," "the precious gems," are altogether due to the prophet’s imagination. The mountain of the gods is now known to have been a prominent idea of the Babylonian religion; and there appears to have been a widespread notion that in the abode of the gods were treasures of gold and precious stones, jealously guarded by griffins, of which small quantities found their way into the possession of men. It is possible that fragments of these mythical notions may have reached the knowledge of Ezekiel during his sojourn in Babylon and been used by him to fill up his picture of the glories which surrounded the first estate of the king of Tyre. It should be observed, however, that the prince is not to be identified with the cherub or one of the cherubim. The words "Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth, and I have set thee so" (Ezekiel 28:14) may be translated "With the cherub I set thee"; and similarly the words of Ezekiel 28:16, "I will destroy thee, O covering cherub,’" should probably be rendered "And the cherub hath destroyed thee." The whole conception, is greatly simplified by these changes, and the principal features of it, so far as they can be made out with clearness, are as follows: The cherub is the warden of the "holy mountain of God,’" and no doubt also (as in chapter 1) the symbol and bearer of the divine glory. When it is said that the prince of Tyre was placed with the cherub, the meaning is that he had his place in the abode of God, or was admitted to the presence of God, so long as he preserved the perfection in which he was created (Ezekiel 28:15). The other allusions to his original glory, such as the "covering" of precious stones and the "walking amidst fiery stones," cannot be explained with any degree of certainty. When iniquity is found in him so that he must be banished from the presence of God, the cherub is said to destroy him from the midst of the stones of fire-i.e., is the agent of the divine judgment which descends on the prince. It is thus doubtful whether the prince is conceived as a perfect human being, like Adam before his fall, or as an angelic, superhuman creature; but the point is of little importance in ideal delineation such as we have here. It will be seen that even on the first supposition there is no very close correspondence with the story of Eden in the book of Genesis, for there the cherubim are placed to guard the way of the tree of life only after man has been expelled from the garden.

But what is the sin that tarnished the sanctity of this exalted personage and cost him his place among the immortals? Ideally, it was an access of pride that caused his

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ruin, a spiritual sin, such as might originate in the heart of an angelic being.

"By that sin fell the angels: how can man, then

The image of his Maker, hope to win by it?"

His heart was lifted up because of his beauty, and he forfeited his godlike wisdom over his brilliance (Ezekiel 28:17). But really, this change passing over the spirit of the prince in the seat of God is only the reflection of what is done on earth in Tyre. As her commerce increased, the proofs of her unjust and unscrupulous use of wealth were accumulated against her, and her midst was filled with violence (Ezekiel 27:16). This is the only allusion in the three chapters to the wrong and oppression and the outrages on humanity which were the inevitable accompaniments of that greed of gain which had taken possession of the Tyrian community. And these sins are regarded as a demoralisation taking place in the nature of the prince, who is the representative of the city; by the "iniquity of his traffic he has profaned his holiness," and is cast down from his lofty seat to the earth, a spectacle of abject humiliation for kings to gloat over. By a sudden change of metaphor the destruction of the city is also represented as a fire breaking out in the vitals of the prince, and reducing his body to ashes-a conception which has not unnaturally suggested to some commentators the fable of the phoenix which was supposed periodically to immolate herself in a fire of her own kindling.

PETT, "Verse 11-12

‘Moreover the word of Yahweh came to me, saying, “Son of man, take up a lamentation for the King of Tyre, and say to him, Thus says the Lord Yahweh.”

‘Moreover the word of Yahweh came to me --.’ The introduction demonstrates that this is a new oracle, in the form of a lamentation. ‘King of Tyre’ was probably the title the king took for himself as king of a city state, and the first part of the poem

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then emphasises his extravagant claims.

‘Thus says the Lord Yahweh.’ However the king may see himself he must recognise, as must Israel, that he is subject to the word of the Lord Yahweh to Whom he is subject.PETT, "Verses 11-19

Lamentation for the King of Tyre (Ezekiel 28:11-19).

This oracle is in the form of a lamentation for the King of Tyre, with his great, exaggerated claims and his certain destruction. There are no good grounds for applying it to Satan except in the sense that extreme evil and arrogance stems from him. It rests on a ‘glorified’ view of Eden based on man’s own estimate of what is desirable, riches and wealth, and must probably be seen as illustrating the extravagant claims of the King of Tyre in connection with the primeval ‘garden’, as interwoven with the story of Eden to bring out that he was but human and had shared in the fall.

The King of Tyre probably spoke in terms of Dilmun (the Sumerian Eden), or some other form of ‘original Paradise’, where gods and men intermingled, describing his own glorious origin. The point is probably that he claimed for himself a pre-existence and semi-divine status in that mythical world of prehistory, possibly though an ancestral line whom he saw as ‘godlike’ from the beginning of time and reproduced in each succeeding king. This view could well have been supported by his musings in the temple as he walked in the holy temple garden, founded on an artificial mountain of the gods, and containing statues of the cherubim. Such exaltation in men can always produce dangerous ideas.

Excavations at Gebal (Byblos) have revealed a carved representation of cherubim supporting the throne of the king, and similar winged creatures are found abundantly around the ancient world.

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The king’s view of himself is then taken by Ezekiel and his God, and interwoven with the story of Eden, the real primeval Paradise, to depict his true status, this being for the consumption of the house of Israel as they contemplated the glory that was Tyre and the extreme claims of its king, which they may have half believed.

We must remember that sacred gardens were often connected with temples, as were ‘mountains’ of the gods. Thus ‘the garden of the gods’ and ‘the mountain of the gods’ may simply in the end have been a sacred temple garden on an artificial mountain in which the king walked as the representative of deity, thought of by him, as he exalted himself in his thoughts and before his people, in terms of an original Paradise.

12 “Son of man, take up a lament concerning the king of Tyre and say to him: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says:

“‘You were the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.

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BARNES, "Eze_28:12To “seal the sum” is to make up the whole measure of perfection. Compare the Septuagint

CLARKE, "Thou sealest up - This has been translated, “Thou drawest thy own likeness.” “Thou formest a portrait of thyself; and hast represented thyself the perfection of wisdom and beauty.” I believe this to be the meaning of the place.

GILL, "Take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus,.... Who is before called the prince of Tyre; and who he was See Gill on Eze_28:2, the bishop of Rome was first only a "nagid", a prince, ruler, governor, and leader in the church; afterwards he became a king, a head, even over other kings, princes, and states; perhaps this may also point to his twofold power, secular and ecclesiastical, and so he is represented by two beasts, Rev_13:1, here a lamentation or funeral ditty is ordered to be taken up and said for him, to denote his certain destruction and ruin; though some have thought the fall of the angels, and others the fall of Adam, is referred to; several passages are interpreted of Adam in the Talmud (l): and say unto him, thus saith the Lord God, thou sealest up the sum; or "pattern" (m); of everything that is excellent; thou art in all things, consummately so, as that nothing could be added; that is, in his own esteem and account. Junius thinks it refers to the sealing of goods exported, for which a duty was to be paid, without doing which merchandise was not allowed. Antichrist would not suffer any to buy or sell but such as receive his mark or seal on their right hand, or in their forehead, Rev_13:16. Cocceius renders it, "the sealer of the measure" (n); and takes it to be an allusion to the custom of sealing measures, used in buying and selling; and that it respects the man of sin, who takes upon him the power of making rules and canons for faith and practice: full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty; a most accomplished man for parts and person in his own conceit: antichrist assumes to himself a perfect knowledge of the Scriptures, and sets up himself as an infallible judge of controversies; and glories in the splendour and order of his church, and the government of it.

HENRY 12-15, "What was the renown of the king of Tyre. He is here spoken of as having lived in great splendour, Eze_28:12-15. He as a man, but it is here owned that he was a very considerable man and one that made a mighty figure in his day. (1.) He far exceeded other men. Hiram and other kings of Tyre had done so in their time; and the reigning king perhaps had not come short of any of them: Thou sealest up the sum full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. But the powers of human nature and the prosperity of human life seemed in him to be at the highest pitch. He was looked upon to be as wise as the reason of men could make him, and as happy as the wealth of this world and the

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enjoyment of it could make him; in him you might see the utmost that both could do; and therefore seal up the sum, for nothing can be added; he is a complete man, perfect in suo genere - in his kind. (2.) He seemed to be as wise and happy as Adam in innocency (Eze_28:13): “Thou hast been in Eden, even in the garden of God; thou hast lived as it were in paradise all thy days, hast had a full enjoyment of every thing that is good for food or pleasant to the eyes, and an uncontroverted dominion over all about thee, as Adam had.” One instance of the magnificence of the king of Tyre is, that he outdid all others princes in jewels, which those have the greatest plenty of that trade most abroad, as he did: Every precious stone was his covering. There is a great variety of precious stones; but he had of every sort and in such plenty that besides what were treasured up in his cabinet, and were the ornaments of his crown, he had his clothes trimmed with them; they were his covering. Nay (Eze_28:14), he walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire, that is, these precious stones, which glittered and sparkled like fire. His rooms were in a manner set round with jewels, so that he walked in the midst of them, and then fancied himself as glorious as if, like God, he had been surrounded by so many angels, who are compared to a flame of fire. And, if he be such an admirer of precious stones as to think them as bright as angels, no wonder that he is such an admirer of himself as to think himself as great as God. Nine several sorts of previous stones are here named, which were all in the high priest's ephod. Perhaps they are particularly named because he, in his pride, used to speak particularly of them, and tell those about him, with a great deal of foolish pleasure, “This is such a precious stone, of such a value, and so and so are its virtues.” Thus is he upbraided with his vanity. Gold is mentioned last, as far inferior in value to those precious stones; and he used to speak of it accordingly. Another thing that made him think his palace a paradise was the curious music he had, the tabrets and pipes, hand-instruments and wind-instruments. The workmanship of these was extraordinary, and they were prepared for him on purpose; prepared in thee, the pronoun is feminine - in thee, O Tyre! or it denotes that the king was effeminate in doting on such things. They were prepared in the day he was created,that is, either born, or created king; they were made on purpose to celebrate the joys either of his birthday or of his coronation-day. These he prided himself much in, and would have all that came to see his palace take notice of them. (3.) He looked like an incarnate angel (Eze_28:14): Thou art the anointed cherub that covers or protects; that is, he looked upon himself as a guardian angel to his people, so bright, so strong, so faithful, appointed to this office and qualified for it. Anointed kings should be to their subjects as anointed cherubim, that cover them with the wings of their power; and, when they are such, God will own them. Their advancement was from him: I have set thee so.Some think, because mention was made of Eden, that it refers to the cherub set on the east of Eden to cover it, Gen_3:24. He thought himself as able to guard his city from all invaders as that angel was for his charge. Or it may refer to the cherubim in the most holy place, whose wings covered the ark; he thought himself as bright as one of them. (4.) He appeared in as much splendour as the high priest when he was clothed with his garments for glory and beauty: “Thou wast upon the holy mountain of God, as president of the temple built on that holy mountain; thou didst look as great, and with as much majesty and authority, as ever the high priest did when he walked in the temple, which was garnished with precious stones (2Ch_3:6), and had his habit on, which had precious stones both in the breast and on the shoulders; in that he seemed to walk in the midst of the stones of fire.” Thus glorious is the king of Tyre; at least he thinks himself so.

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JAMISON, "sealest up the sum — literally, “Thou art the one sealing the sum of perfection.” A thing is sealed when completed (Dan_9:24). “The sum” implies the full measure of beauty, from a Hebrew root, “to measure.” The normal man - one formed after accurate rule.

COKE, "Ezekiel 28:12. Thou sealest up, &c.— Thou seal of likeness, full, &c. Houbigant. The prophet compares the king of Tyre to a valuable seal-ring worn on the finger.

TRAPP, "Ezekiel 28:12 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.

Ver. 12. Take up a lamentation for the king of Tyre.] Who shall have little leisure to lament for himself, his destruction shall be so sudden. See on Ezekiel 27:2.

Thou sealest up the sum,] i.e., Thou art a pattern of perfection, in thine own conceit at least; for a seal hath in it the perfect form of him that is thereby represented, and then is a letter perfected when the last act of setting to a seal is done to it. (a) Tu es omnibus numeris absolutum exemplar; so Vatablus and the Tigurines.

POOLE, " A lamentation: see Ezekiel 27:2.

The king; called prince, Ezekiel 28:2.

Thou sealest up the sum; in the search into the frame of thy government, the management of it, the prosperity thereof, and its glory, power, riches, and confederacies, thou dost think thyself but just to thy kingdom to account it the perfect idea of a good government, that in the Tyrian state nothing is wanting that might be required in a good government, in the best government, and so sealest to

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the premises; thus vainly puffed up, thou wilt have it that fulness of wisdom and perfection of beauty are in thee, but neither thy wisdom shall prevent or defeat the attempts of thine enemies, nor thy beauty charm their rage; thou shalt fall by them.

PETT, "Verses 12-14

“You seal up the sum, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty,

You were in Eden, the garden of the gods (or ‘of God’)

Every precious stone was your covering,

The sardius, the topaz and the diamond,

The beryl, the onyx and the jasper,

The sapphire, the carbuncle and the emerald,

Gold were the workings of your tabrets and pipes in you.

In the day that you were created they were prepared.

You (along with) an anointed covering cherub, and I established you,

And you were on the holy mountain of God,

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You walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.”

Having nothing to go on except this description we must beware of becoming too fanciful. It is describing the king’s view of himself (and Tyre’s), but found here as interwoven by Ezekiel in terms of Eden. The connection between this and the original Eden is found in the name, in the fact of the garden, in the presence of a cherub, in the fact of the king’s being ‘created’, and in his final fall and expulsion. The Israelites would recognise immediately that this whole scenario diminished him to being simply a created and fallen man.

The garden and cherub (or similar creatures) and holy mountain could be found frequently in pagan temples. We are probably therefore to see this in terms of the king walking in bejewelled splendour in the hallowed temple gardens, arranged on an artificial mountain as found in such temples, where there was an image of a cherub, and musing proudly on his deity in terms of the original Paradise of the gods. But as reinterpreted by Ezekiel for the sake of the house of Israel.

‘You seal up the sum (or ‘plan’ or ‘blueprint’ or ‘example’, compare Ezekiel 43:10), full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.’ RSV has ‘you were the signet of perfection’. This would depict his claim as being that of someone of total perfection, full of wisdom and beautiful in his perfection.

Others would translate as ‘you were the one sealing the plan.’ Here the idea would seem to be of the one who finalised and established the grand plan on which Tyre’s prosperity was built. ‘Full of wisdom’ would tie in well with this (see Ezekiel 28:4) and ‘perfect in beauty’ is used of the glorious ship of trade (see Ezekiel 27:3) which originally carried out the plan. Possibly both ideas, that of absolute perfection, and that of the glorious planner, were thought of as included.

‘You were in Eden, the garden of the gods (or ‘of God’).’ Possibly the king boasted of having walked in the primeval garden (through his ancestors?), but we must probably also connect this claim with the holy temple garden which he saw as its

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present manifestation and in which he walked continually. Ezekiel tacks on ‘Eden’ to relate this primeval garden to the Garden of Eden.

It may however be that Lebanon was known as ‘the garden of the gods’ (compare on Ezekiel 31:8-9; Ezekiel 31:18) because of the splendour of its trees, especially the cedars of Lebanon.

‘Every precious stone was your covering --.’ He was clothed in splendour, surrounded by precious stones. This was man’s view of glory and perfection as it would be experienced in the mythical garden. And it left him without excuse, for with these blessings what excuse could there be for sin? But in the real garden what mattered was innocence, riches and clothes were irrelevant. That is the contrast. Thus the connection in Ezekiel’s mind may well have been that instead of nakedness and then the fig leaf, he had bejewelled garments, but they served him no better. He did not avoid sin and his nakedness was not covered.

The stones listed are nine (three sets of three indicate completeness and perfection), and were reminiscent of the high priest’s breastplate except that there there were twelve stones (Exodus 28:17-20). In fact LXX has twelve here, but that was probably an expansion with the high priest’s breastplate in mind.

‘Gold were the workings of your tabrets and pipes in you.’ The idea of splendour continues. The meaning of the word for ‘pipes’ (nekeb) is unknown. Its only other use is in Joshua 19:33 (in the name Adami-nekeb) where a ‘pass’ or ‘hollow’ has been suggested, but tabrets or timbrels were musical instruments, thus the suggestion of a musical instrument as a translation for nekeb (something hollowed out?) Golden musical instruments may well have been in use in a pagan temple, and have been connected with a primeval Paradise.

‘In the day that you were created they were prepared.’ The reference to his being originally ‘created’ is a further reminder of his earthliness. These things only became available when he was created. They were not his permanent right. It may be that the king saw himself as the reproduction of a long line of divine kings (as

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with the Pharaoh), stretching back to the primeval garden from where he ‘came’ , thus the reference may be back to the first king. But Ezekiel stresses that it is a reminder that his source was earthly, for the primeval garden, the Garden of Eden was prepared for a created man, not a demi-god.

‘You (‘were’ or ‘were with’ understood) an anointed covering cherub, and I established you, and you were on the holy mountain of God. You walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.’ Mountains were seen as the abode of the gods, and many a temple had within it an artificial mountain representing the home of the gods. Does this mean that the king had depicted himself as a guardian cherub, a demi-god committed to the protection of the gods, especially Baal Melkart the Tyrian god? Or is the idea that he claimed to be a god, even a personification of Melkart, protected by a guardian Cherub and that he is being reminded that he was set in the garden on the holy mountain by Yahweh, for all that is done, is done by Yahweh? Either way it represents his proud assumption of some kind of divinity as he walked in the temple garden on the mountain of the gods, so that Yahweh here has to remind him that anything he has, has come from Yahweh, for Yahweh is the Creator, and in all Yahweh is in control.

His claim to be a divinity protected by a guardian cherub, or that he was himself a guardian cherub, no doubt also encouraged the Tyrians with the thought that it made their fortress even more impregnable.

‘The stones of fire.’ This is probably a reference to the covering of jewels previously mentioned. There may also be the thought that precious stones fell around him from the skies. But some have suggested connection with Phoenician cult practises where an effigy of the god was burned so as to bring about his resuscitation. This ritual of burning a god has been suggested from depictions on a bowl from Sidon and is said to be evidenced in the cult of Melkart at Tyre.

PULPIT, "Ezekiel 28:12

Thou sealest up the sum, etc. The noun is found only there and in Ezekiel 43:10, 60

where it is translated "pattern," but is cognate with the word rendered" tale" (equivalent to "measure") of Exodus 5:13, and "measure" in Ezekiel 45:11. The probable meaning is, Thou settest the seal to thy completeness (perfection). Thou deemest that thou hast attained the consummation of all beauty and wisdom. The LXX. and the Vulgate give, "Thou art a seal;" and this suggests a parallelism with Jeremiah's works to Coniah (Jeremiah 22:24). The words were, of course, written with a keen irony. This was what the King of Tyro thought of himself.

13 You were in Eden, the garden of God;every precious stone adorned you: carnelian, chrysolite and emerald, topaz, onyx and jasper, lapis lazuli, turquoise and beryl.[b]Your settings and mountings[c] were made of gold; on the day you were created they were prepared.

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BARNES, "Eze_28:13Thou hast been in Eden - “Thou” wast etc. The prince of Tyrus is ironically described as the first of creation; but at the same time the parallel is to be maintained in his fall from glory. Like Adam in the enjoyment of paradise, he shall be like Adam in his fall.Every precious stone - All the stones here named are found in the High priest’s breastplate Exo_28:17-20, but their order is different, and three stones named in Exodus (the third row) are wanting. The prophet may purposely have varied the description because the number twelve (that of the tribes of Israel) had nothing to do with the prince of Tyrus, and he wished to portray, not a high priest, but a king, having in view a figure which was to a Jew, especially to a priest, the very type of magnificence.Tabrets - (or, drums) and “pipes” were a common expression for festivity and triumph.

CLARKE, "Thou hast been in Eden - This also is a strong irony. Thou art like Adam, when in his innocence and excellence he was in the garden of Eden!

Every precious stone was thy covering - For a description of these stones see the note on Exo_28:17.

GILL, "Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God,.... Not only in Eden, but in the garden which was in Eden, and was of the Lord's immediate planting; and therefore called the garden of God, as well as because of its excellency, fragrancy, and delight; not that the king of Tyre was literally there, or ever dwelt in it; but his situation in Tyre was as safe, and as pleasant and delightful, as Adam's was in the garden of Eden, at least in his own imagination. So the Targum, "thou delightest thyself with plenty of all good things and delectable ones, as if thou dwellest in the garden of God;'' in the mystical sense, this designs the church of God, which is an Eden, a garden, a paradise; see Son_4:12 and where antichrist first appeared, and took his seat, and seated himself as if he was God, 2Th_2:4, every precious stone was thy covering; not only the covering of his head, his crown, was decked with jewels and precious stones of all sorts; but his clothes, the covering of his body, were adorned with them. So the Targum, "all precious stones were set in order upon thy garments.''

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Kimchi renders it "thine hedge", or "fence" (o); and takes it to be an hyperbole, as if his house, or garden, or vineyard, were fenced with precious stones. This fitly describes the whore of Rome arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones, Rev_17:4. The pope's triple crown is stuck with them, and a cross of precious stones is upon his slipper, when he holds out his toe to be kissed: the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold. Writers differ very much about these stones; and it is difficult to say what answer to the Hebrew words here used. The stone "sardius", or the sardine stone, is of a blood colour, commonly called a cornelian, and is found in Sardis and Sardinia, from whence some say it has its name. The "topaz" is a hard transparent stone, said to be of a beautiful yellow or gold colour by those who confound it with the chrysolite; otherwise the true topaz is of a fine green colour, as Pliny (p) and Isidore (q); the best is what is found in Ethopia, Job_28:19. The "diamond" is a precious stone, the first in rank, value, hardness and lustre; the most perfect colour is the white. The "beryl" is a stone of a pale green colour, thought to be the diamond of the ancients: the word is "tarshish", and thought by some the "chrysolite". The "onyx" resembles a man's nail, from whence it has its name: the word "shoham" here used is supposed to mean the "sardonyx", a compound of the "sardian" and "onyx" stones. The "jasper" is a stone of various colours and spots, variegated like a panther; hence the Targum here renders it "pantherin"; the most valuable is the green spotted with red or purple. The "sapphire" is a stone of an azure colour or sky blue, exceeding hard and transparent. The "emerald" is of an exceeding fine green colour, very bright, and clear, and delightful to the eye; but is rather intended by the next word, as the "carbuncle" by this, which is a stone of the ruby kind, and very rare; see Isa_54:12. "Gold" is mentioned along with them, and last of all, as being less valuable; but chiefly because these stones were set in gold, as the Targum paraphrases it; these are nine of the stones which were in the breastplate of the Jewish high priest (r), whom the king of Tyre might have knowledge of and imitate, as it is certain the pope of Rome does in some things: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created; either born into the world; or made a crowned king; against which time, drums, and pipes, and such like instruments of music, were prepared in Tyre, and at them made use of by way of rejoicing: and as this was literally true of the king of Tyre at his coronation, so of the bishop of Rome at his creation and inauguration, which is attended with bells ringing, drums beating, trumpets sounding; and so in mystical Babylon is heard, though the time is coming when it will not be heard, the voice of harpers, musicians, pipers, and trumpeters, Rev_18:22.

JAMISON, "in Eden — The king of Tyre is represented in his former high state (contrasted with his subsequent downfall), under images drawn from the primeval man in Eden, the type of humanity in its most Godlike form.

garden of God — the model of ideal loveliness (Eze_31:8, Eze_31:9; Eze_36:35). In the person of the king of Tyre a new trial was made of humanity with the greatest earthly advantages. But as in the case of Adam, the good gifts of God were only turned into ministers to pride and self.63

every precious stone — so in Eden (Gen_2:12), “gold, bdellium, and the onyx stone.” So the king of Tyre was arrayed in jewel-bespangled robes after the fashion of Oriental monarchs. The nine precious stones here mentioned answer to nine of the twelve (representing the twelve tribes) in the high priest’s breastplate (Exo_39:10-13; Rev_21:14, Rev_21:19-21). Of the four rows of three in each, the third is omitted in the Hebrew, but is supplied in the Septuagint. In this, too, there is an ulterior reference to Antichrist, who is blasphemously to arrogate the office of our divine High Priest (Zec_6:13).tabrets — tambourines.pipes — literally, “holes” in musical pipes or flutes.created — that is, in the day of thine accession to the throne. Tambourines and all the marks of joy were ready prepared for thee (“in thee,” that is, “with and for thee”). Thou hadst not, like others, to work thy way to the throne through arduous struggles. No sooner created than, like Adam, thou wast surrounded with the gratifications of Eden. Fairbairn, for “pipes,” translates, “females” (having reference to Gen_1:27), that is, musician-women. Maurer explains the Hebrew not as to music, but as to the setting and mounting of the gems previously mentioned.

COKE, "Ezekiel 28:13. Thou hast been in Eden, &c.— Thou wast as Eden, &c. Houbigant. "As thy situation was pleasant, so wast thou plentifully supplied with every thing which could contribute to render thy life agreeable." A state of paradise, in the common acceptation, denotes a condition every way complete and happy. But this expression alludes to the felicity which Adam enjoyed in paradise before his fall. There is something, says Mr. Peters, in this prophesy of Ezekiel, which might incline one to think, that the garden of Eden, or paradise, was become by this time, with the Jews, the happy seat of good souls in their state of separation; for, describing the pride and vanity of the prince of Tyre, and his boasted happiness, he expresses it by this phrase, Thou hast been in Eden, the garden of God; as blessed and happy in thine own imagination, as the first man, in paradise, shall we say?—Or rather (for he seems to speak of it as a state of felicity still subsisting somewhere) as good souls in the regions of the blessed, the celestial paradise. This last seems the more probably to be the meaning, because the prophet ascends a step higher in the following verse, and places this ambitious prince where he had placed himself in his own thoughts, among the angels of God, and that in the superior orders. Thou art the anointed cherub, &c. Nay, we are told, Ezekiel 28:2 that his heart was so lifted up as to say, I am a god, I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas. See Dissert. p. 399. Instead of, Prepared in thee, we may read, Prepared for thee.

TRAPP, "Ezekiel 28:13 Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone [was] thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx,

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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.

Ver. 13. Thou hast been in Eden.] As a bird of paradise, or as a tree growing there -(a)

“ γαγενημενον εκ Dιος ερνος.” - Hom.

Thou art equal to Adam in the state of innocence; and thy Tyre is no whit inferior to the garden of God.

“ Flores in pratis fragrant, et purpura campis:

Gemma coloratis fulget speciosa lapillis. ”

Every precious stone was thy covering.] Not thy diadem only was decked with them, as the Pope’s triple crown is at this day with gems of greatest value, but thy royal robe - not inferior, haply, to that of Demetrius, king of Macedonia, which none of his successors would wear propter invidiosam impendii magnificentiam, it was so extreme stately and costly - yea, thy pantofies possibly, as Dioclesian’s the emperor holding forth his feet to be kissed, as doth also the Pope at this day, who hath the cross in precious stones set upon his pantofle, to the great reproach of Christianity.

The sardius, topaz, and the diamond.] Nine of those rich stones that were set in the high priest’s rationale or breastplate. See on Ezekiel 28:2.

The workmanship of thy tabrets.] At thy birth, and at thine inauguration, there was great mirth made, concrepantibus tympanis, tibiis et tubis. What a deal of joy and

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jollity was there lately expressed in many places for the birth of the prince of Spain.

POOLE, " Thou hast been; thou hast dwelt and reigned.

In Eden; in the midst of all delights; and though nature made thy lot a very barren rock, thy art and industry, added to that of thy progenitors, have made it as pleasant, rich, and beautiful as Eden, that place of all desirable enjoyments.

The garden of God: this is explicative of the former; a garden is a place of delight, and men have made some delightful to a wonder, but none ever like that God planted: this of Tyre came as near as any, and yet ungrateful and atheistical Tyre dreams of Divine power and stability, forgetting human frailty and uncertainty.

Every precious stone; every sort of rich stones.

Thy covering, bought to adorn thy crown, thy robes, thy bed, &c.

The sardius; of a red, and by some said to be the ruby.

Topaz; of a yellowish green.

The diamond; of clear, waterish, sparkling colour.

The beryl; of a sea-green colour, the best.

The onyx resembles the whiteness of the nail of a man’s hand.

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The jasper; of divers colours, but the best green.

The sapphire; of sky colour, or blue.

The emerald; green interspersed with golden spots.

The carbuncle; of flame colour.

Gold; beside the abundance of which in their public treasures, much was used about the clothes and robes of this proud prince; it is like these precious stones were set in gold, that they might the safer be put upon his garments. This was the accoutrement of solemnities, especially of the coronation, as appears in the close of the verse.

The workmanship of thy tabrets, & c: now the prophet notes their joys, music and songs; both to wind or loud music, and to softer music, as the lute and tabret, in the day of their king’s coronation, and all this music on instruments of most exquisite make, and of their own artists’ work too; in this they exceeded as in the other.

Wast created; either born, for the birth of princes hath been celebrated with great joys; or rather in the day of this king’s coronation, or investiture in the kingdom and royal dignity.

PULPIT, "Ezekiel 28:13

Thou hast been in Eden, etc. The words are suggestive, as showing that Ezekiel was familiar with the history of Genesis 2:1-25 and Genesis 3:1-24. (compare the mention of Noah, in Ezekiel 15:1-8 :14, 20). To him the King of Tyre seemed to claim a position like that of Adam before his fall, perfect in beauty and in wisdom,

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the lord of the creation. And in that fancied Eden he stood, so he thought, not like Adam, "naked and ashamed," but like one of the cherubim that guarded the gates of the primeval Paradise (Genesis 3:24), covered with all imaginable splendor. Ezekiel returns to the phrase in Ezekiel 31:8, Ezekiel 31:16, Ezekiel 31:18 and Ezekiel 36:35. Other instances meet us in Joel 2:3 and Isaiah 51:3. Every precious stone. All the stones named are found in the list of the gems on the high priest's breastplate (Exodus 28:17-20; Exodus 39:8-14). Three, however, of those gems are wanting—those in the third row of the breastplate—which are not named elsewhere; and the order is not the same. The LXX. makes the two lists identical, apparently correcting Ezekiel by Exodus. St. John (Revelation 21:19) reproduces his imagery in his vision of the foundation stones of the New Jerusalem, but naturally returns to the fullness of the symbolic number—twelve. Possibly the description of gold and bdellium and onyx (or beryl), as in Genesis 2:11, Genesis 2:12, may have suggested the thought that Eden was a land of jewels. The workmanship of thy tabret and pipes; better, the service. The Authorized Version and Revised Version follow Luther. Keil agrees as to "tabret" (so Genesis 31:27; Isaiah 5:12; elsewhere, as in Exodus 15:20 and Job 21:12, the Authorized Version gives "timbrels"), but takes the latter word (not found elsewhere) as identical with its feminine form, and meaning "female." He sees in the clause, accordingly, a picture of the pomp of the Tyrian king, surrounded by the odalisques of the harem, who, with their timbrels, danced to his honor as their lord and king (camp. Isaiah 23:16; Exodus 15:20; 1 Samuel 18:6). Havernick, who agrees with Keil, calls attention to a passage in Athenaeus, in which Strafe, a Sidonian king, is said to have prepared for a great festival by bringing girls who played on the flute and harp from all parts of Greece. Others, however (Smend), find in both the words articles of jewelry, pearls perforated or set in gold (as in Exodus 28:20), and so see in them the conclusion of the description of the gorgeous apparel of the king. Furst takes the words as meaning musical instruments that were of gold set with jewels. Ewald, following out the Urim and Thummim idea, takes the gems as the subject of the sentence, and translates, "they were for the work of thine oracles and divining." On the whole, the interpretation given above seems preferable. In the day that thou wast created. The words point to the time of the king's enthronement or coronation. It was then that he appeared in all his supreme magnificence. Had Ezekiel been a witness of that ceremony?

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14 You were anointed as a guardian cherub, for so I ordained you.You were on the holy mount of God; you walked among the fiery stones.

BARNES, "Eze_28:14Thou art - Better,” Thou” wert. “the anointed cherub that covereth” In the temple the cherubim and all holy things were consecrated and anointed with oil (Exo_30:26 ff). The prince of Tyre was also anointed as a sovereign priest - covering or protecting the minor states, like the cherubim with outstretched wings covering the mercy-Seat.Thou wast upon the holy mountain - As the cherub was in the temple on the holy mountain, so the prince of Tyre was presiding over the island-city, rising like a mountain from the deep.Stones of fire - i. e., bright and shining. Decked with bright jewels, the prince walked among jewels in gorgeous splendor.

CLARKE, "Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth - The irony is continued; and here he is likened to the Cherub that guarded the gates of Paradise, and kept the way of the tree of life; or to one of the cherubs whose wings, spread out, covered the mercy-seat.

Thou mast upon the holy mountain of God - The irony is still continued; and now he is compared to Hoses, and afterwards to one of the chief angels, who has walked up and down among the stones of fire; that is, thy floors have been paved with precious stones, that shone and sparkled like fire.Lucan, describing the splendor of the apartments of Cleopatra, queen of Egypt, speaks in nearly a similar language: -

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Nec summis crustata domus, sectisque nitebatMarmoribus, stabatque sibi non segnis achates,Purpureusque lapis, totusque effusus in aulaCalcabatur onyx;Pharsal. lib. x.Rich as some fane by slavish zealots reared,For the proud banquet stood the hall prepared:Thick golden plates the latent beams infold,And the high roof was fretted o’er with gold.Of solid marble all the walls were made,And onyx e’en the meaner floor inlaid;While porphyry and agate round the courtIn massy columns rose, a proud support.Of solid ebony each post was wrought,From swarthy Meroe profusely brought.With ivory was the entrance crusted o’er,And polished tortoise hid each shining door;While on the cloudy spots enchased was seenThe trusty emerald’s never-fading green.Within the royal beds and couches shone,Beamy and bright with many a costly stone,The glowing purple rich.Rowe.

GILL, "Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth,.... In allusion to the cherubim over the mercy seat, which covered it with their wings; and which, as the ark of the testimony and all the vessels of the tabernacle were anointed, were so likewise; in all probability the king of Tyre is called a "cherub" because of his wisdom and power; "anointed", because of his royal dignity; and "that covereth", because of his office, which was to protect his people; all which he either was, or ought to be, or was in his own opinion so: antichrist makes great boasts of his wisdom, power, and authority, as a teacher, pastor, or bishop, the cherubim being symbolical of the ministers of the word; and of his being anointed by men, that he may be the cover and shield of the church; and of his being the Lord's anointed, and the vicar of Christ, and head and protector of the church, as he calls himself (s). The Targum understands all this of regal power, and renders it, "thou art a king anointed for a kingdom:'' and I have set thee so; from whom all kings have their sceptres, crowns, and kingdoms; and by whom they reign; and who can put them down as well as set them up at his pleasure. It may be rendered, "I have given thee" (t); or suffered thee to be so, as the word "give" is often used; it is by divine permission that antichrist has taken such power to himself, and in judgment to them over whom he rules, who are given up to

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believe a lie; yea, God "put", or, as it is in the original text, "gave" it into the hearts of the kings to agree and give their kingdom to the beast, Rev_17:17, thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; not on Sinai, nor on Zion; on neither of which was the king of Tyre; nor was this literally true of him; for to say, as Kimchi does to illustrate it, that Hiram king of Tyre assisted Solomon with materials to build the temple, is very foreign; but this is true of the antitype of the king of Tyre, antichrist; who has set his foot on God's holy mountain the church; here he first appeared and stood, as before observed on the preceding verse: thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire; which some understand of the precious stones with which the king of Tyre was adorned, which glittered like fire; though rather they design the people of God, those living lively stones of which the spiritual house is built; who, for their clear light, and burning zeal and love, may be said to be as stones of fire; and among these the bishop of Rome, or the antichristian king of Tyre, first walked: so Kimchi interprets them of the Israelites, who were a holy people; and Jarchi of the kings of Israel, who were as the ministering angels; the seraphim perhaps he means, so called from their burning and flaming love. The Targum is, "and over the holy people thou hast thought to rule.''

JAMISON, "anointed cherub — Gesenius translates from an Aramaic root, “extended cherub.” English Version, from a Hebrew root, is better. “The cherub consecrated to the Lord by the anointing oil” [Fairbairn].

covereth — The imagery employed by Ezekiel as a priest is from the Jewish temple, wherein the cherubim overshadowed the mercy seat, as the king of Tyre, a demi-god in his own esteem, extended his protection over the interests of Tyre. The cherub - an ideal compound of the highest kinds of animal existence and the type of redeemed man in his ultimate state of perfection - is made the image of the king of Tyre, as if the beau ideal of humanity. The pretensions of Antichrist are the ulterior reference, of whom the king of Tyre is a type. Compare “As God ... in the temple of God” (2Th_2:4).I have set thee — not thou set thyself (Pro_8:16; Rom_13:1).upon the holy mountain of God — Zion, following up the image.in ... midst of ... stones of fire — In ambitious imagination he stood in the place of God, “under whose feet was, as it were, a pavement of sapphire,” while His glory was like “devouring fire” (Exo_24:10, Exo_24:17).

COKE, "Verses 14-16Ezekiel 28:14-16. Thou art the anointed cherub, &c.— Peters observes upon these verses, that the king of this proud city, who it seems affected divine honours, is compared to an anointed cherub, or one of the chiefs and rulers of the angelical host, thus remarkably described, as one that was perfect in his ways from the day

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that he was created, till iniquity was found in him. Ezekiel 28:15 one who had his place of residence upon the holy mountain of God, and walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire, or among the stars. But now to be cast down, &c. See Ezekiel 28:16. Whoever compares this place in Ezekiel with the parallel place in Isaiah 14:12; Isaiah 14:32 where the downfal of the king of Babylon is foretold in the same prophetic language, will soon perceive that they throw a reciprocal light upon each other; and that the fall of angels is alluded to in both. The beauty and propriety of these allusions of the prophets will appear with greater lustre, when it is considered that the host of heaven were the objects of the heathen idolatry; both the visible and invisible host, as well angels, as the lights of heaven; for the superstition seems to have been originally the same, as the worship of the heavenly bodies terminated in the worship of those angels or intelligences who were believed to animate and conduct them: and hence we see a reason why the angels are called stars and morning stars in Scripture; as in Job 38:7 and so here the covering cherub is the same with Lucifer, son of the morning, in Isaiah. Thus, while the prophets describe the overthrow of an idolatrous prince or state by a fallen angel, or a falling star, they only make their gods to tumble with them. See Dissert. on Job, p. 374. Houbigant renders the 16th verse, From the multitude of thy merchandize, the midst of thee hath been filled with iniquity, and thou art become guilty. Therefore will I cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God, and I will take thee, O cherub, and thy shadow away from the midst of the sparkling stones.

TRAPP, "Ezekiel 28:14 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.

Ver. 14. Thou art the anointed cherub.] Or, Thou art a cherub ever since I anointed thee for protector. (a) As the cherubims cover the ark with their wing, so dost thou thy people; and therefore takest upon thee as if an earthly angel.

Thou wast upon the holy mountain of God.] Thou hast been in heaven: or, at least, on Mount Sinai with Moses, where God appeared with millions of his angels, having a fiery pavement under his feet. [Exodus 24:10]

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In the midst of the stones of fire,] i.e., Of seraphims, say some, those flaming creatures of lightnings and thunderbolts, say others, which thou hurlest about at thy pleasure.

“ Saevum praelustri fulmen ab arce venit. ”

POOLE, " Thou art the anointed cherub: I would rather keep the order of the words in the Hebrew, which the French also keep, Thou art a cherub, anointed, a protector, or one who covereth for defence. For thy wisdom, power, and excellency, like a cherub or angel; for the sacredness of thy person and office, as the anointed of God; for the exercise of thy power and office, as a shield or a protector of the weak; thus thou art, or thinkest thyself to be, and pridest thyself herein.

I have set thee so; I, whom thou forgettest, I have made thee so, set thee above others; this should have been matter of thanks and humility, not of pride and atheism. Thus the sarcasm is continued, and he is upbraided for his insolence.

Thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; or thus, in the holy mountain a god thou hast been; so it is an irony, and suits the rest; or else, in pursuance of our version, thou wast advanced to kingly dignity, (which David calls a mountain, Psalms 30:7 Jeremiah 51:25 Daniel 2:35) a sacred office, and of Divine institution and consecration, and thou hast in pride exalted thyself above me, as well as above men.

Walked up and down, in proud and stately manner, surrounded every way in thy chambers and beds and clothes with stones that sparkle like fire, thy crown, thy throne, thy chariots, thy umbrellas or canopies, glistering and dazzling beholders; as if thus also thou wouldst contend with God, who is clothed with light.

PULPIT, "Ezekiel 28:14

The anointed cherub that covereth. The word for "anointed" is not found 73

elsewhere, but is cognate in form with that which is commonly so rendered. The Vulgate, however, tracing it to another root, gives extentus et protegens, and is followed by Luther, Gesenius, Ewald, and others. Keil and Hengstenberg accept "anointed." The sequence of thought seems to be as follows: The splendor-of the King of Tyre had suggested the idea of Eden the garden of God. This, in its turn, led on to that of the cherub that was the warder of that garden (Genesis 3:24). The Paradise of God is pictured as still existing, and the cherub—we remember how prominent the word and the thing had been in Ezekiel's thoughts (Ezekiel 1:10; Ezekiel 10:1-16)—is there (according as we take the above words) either as its anointed, i.e. "consecrated," ruler, or as extending the protection of its overshadowing wings far and wide as the cherubim of the tabernacle extended their wings over the ark (comp. Exodus 25:20; Exodus 33:22; 1 Kings 8:7). Those cherubim, we may remember, were actually anointed (Exodus 30:2, Exodus 30:6). The King of Tyro boasted that he was, like them, consecrated to his office as king "by the grace of God." In that earthly Paradise the prophet saw the "holy mountain of God," the Olympus, so to speak, of the Hebrews, the throne of the Eternal (compare the Meru of India, the Albard of Iran, the Asgard of German poetry). Isaiah's words as to the King of Babylon (Isaiah 14:13, Isaiah 14:14) present a suggestive parallel. In the midst of the stones of fire. The words receive their interpretation partly from Genesis 3:24; partly from 2 Samuel 22:9, 2 Samuel 22:15; Psalms 18:8, Psalms 18:12; Psalms 120:4. The cherub's sword of fire is identified with the lightning-flash, and that in its turn with the thunderbolts of God. Out of the throne of God went thunders and lightnings (Exodus 19:16). The "Flammantia maenia mundi" of Lucretius (1. 73) offers a suggestive parallel. The King of Tyre, like the King of Babylon (Isaiah 14:13, Isaiah 14:14), is painted as exulting in that attribute of the Divine glory.

BI 14-16, "Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God.The religious claims of the British coloniesLet Britain recognise, not merely the elements of her greatness in her commercial relations, but the type of her majesty in a state, planted like itself in the midst of the seas, enthroned queen of the nations whom she overshadowed with her powers. Let her look at the character of her own crimes, and consider the peril of corresponding visitations; let her look to her obligations and her responsibilities; and, as the chief of these, hearken to the claims of her colonies.I. The obligations arising from her position. “Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth,” etc. If this glowing and magnificent description was true of Tyre, it can lose nothing in its application to Britain. In arts and in arms, in commerce and in agriculture, in facility of local position and fertility of soil—secure from invasion, prolific in produce,

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rich in cultivation, replenished with merchandise, powerful in political relations, redundant in population—above all, unrivalled in religious advantages; all these secured by a civil constitution peculiar to herself, balancing the national interests, and destroying the elements of internal discord and division: what more can be enjoyed to give national prosperity and preeminence? But whence flows the tide of greatness? and to whom is Britain indebted for her supremacy? It is not self-produced; it cannot be self-sustained: “I have set thee so.” Not to know, not to feel, not to acknowledge this, is the source of national decay and ruin. We are exalted to sovereignty, and entrusted with dominion, that the parent state may be to her widely spread and numerous colonies “the anointed cherub that covereth.” She owes them political protection, to gather them under her wings, like the eagle: but she owes them also religious instruction; she should engage in a holy traffic, infinitely advantageous to them, and, for the wealth which they pour into her bosom, repay them with durable riches and righteousness.II. The responsibility of her vast extent of territory. The statesman may contemplate this prodigious dependency upon the crown of his country with unmixed emotions of pride and exultation; I see in it, primarily, a corresponding magnitude of national responsibility. It were superfluous here to recount the names and localities of her dominions; but it is of importance to call to mind that the colonial territory of Britain has put under her responsibility not only so many more bodies, but so many more souls; that it is not over inert matter, but over spirit and life, that she rules; that a population vastly surpassing her own is of equal value with her own; that one immortal spirit of all these millions is of more worth than the material universe, and must remain indestructible, in happiness or misery, when the heavens are no more; and that the present all-fluctuating, transient, uncertain existence is the only period to fix its destiny irreversibly and forever. Her responsibility is heightened by the moral condition of that vast extent of territory over which she rules; and which, participating the depravity of fallen nature, common to all presents peculiarities of corruption or of destitution characteristic of the particular states in which they are respectively placed.III. The reparation due from oppressors. “Iniquity was found in thee. By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned.” Ambition has been charged, and justly charged, with trampling upon the rights and liberties of mankind, turning the fruitful land into barrenness, beating down with unsparing force and cruelty whatever withstood its advance, outraging every principle, if expediency required its sacrifice, wasting human life remorselessly in furtherance of its plans, and deluging the earth with blood. What has Commerce to say, in answer to the accusation, should every one of these imputations be alleged against her? Have her crimes been fewer? Have the injuries inflicted upon society been less aggravated, and has the love of money been less powerful than the love of fame? Has the lust of dominion been more persevering and reckless than the cupidity of accumulation? Let the colonies of Britain, even Christian Britain, stand forth and give their testimony, in vindication of the sentiment of the text. It is true, much is without remedy: the early victims of oppression are out of the reach of the oppressor; even a nation’s repentance cannot recall a single departed spirit from its dreadful abode; but the children are in the place of the fathers. A debt of crime is incurred which the consecrated energies of the nation alone can repay; let the inheritors of the wrongs of their ancestors remove and redress all their grievances in the ample compensation which the parent state has it yet in her power to effect, in sending to them the glad tidings of salvation. The slave trade has been abolished in vain, and in vain are you now proclaiming liberty to the captive, if this great obligation be neglected. You have not given freedom to the slave thoroughly until you

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have given him the Gospel; heavier, invisible, infrangible chains remain when you have taken the yoke from his shoulders and struck the fetters from his limbs.IV. The sentence pronounced against national guilt. “I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God,” etc. This judgment proceeds on two principles. The one is a personal degradation: “I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God.” It is national irreligion. The privileges of the Gospel have been neglected or despised; they shall be removed; they shall be insulted no longer; the prosperity that made them of no account shall be withdrawn also. The other principle on which judgment proceeds is relative, commercial, colonial, bears expressly upon the point discussed. “Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries,” etc. Every part of this sentence is full of meaning. It is the soul that has been trifled with; it is the blood of souls that is required; it is the blood of the souls of “poor innocents,” who knew not what they did, abandoned to ignorance, to negligence, to misery. The negligence is palpable, multiplied; the consequences deplorable; yet insensibility and security fortify the guilty city, even in the midst of impending retribution; and they justify themselves under the scrutiny of that eye from which nothing can be concealed. The judgment threatened is just. Again, as in a glass, the crimes, the danger, and the duty of the country are alike apparent, and the religious claims of her colonies depicted. Jerusalem is not, because of these oppressions, combined with this other neglect of the souls of those depending upon her; and shall we altogether escape?V. An irresistible appeal to her christian principles. “Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God.” This is the highest of all possible distinctions; the greatest of all possible blessings. And if it were but a presumptuous imagination in the heart of the king of Tyre, or a figure the strongest that could be imagined, of security and felicity, it is unquestionably a reality with us, a reality in respect to privilege; whether a reality in respect to principle, remains to be perceived, and will be determined by the hold which the appeal, So irresistible in its own nature, made to these principles in reference to these claims, shall have upon the conviction, the concurrence and the energies of the nation at large, and upon the hearts, consciences, and exertions of professors of religion in particular. For it is the work of the nation, and it is the work of the nation in her magnitude, and it has wherewithal to occupy all the labour and talent that can be brought to bear upon it. Here differences should be merged in the prominent object of general concernment, of universal utility, and faithful allegiance to our common Lord. Here, if ever, all envy and strife, all doubts and surmisings, all malice and evil speaking—at all times so unbecoming the Gospel of Christ, so unworthy Christian character, so hateful in themselves, so pernicious in their effects, so opposed to the spirit of our Master—should be laid aside; remembering, that during the time that is consumed in contention the work of God must stand still. Here there should be no emulation, but such as should call forth holy ardour and brotherly affections and stir up to love and to good works. (W. B. Collyer, D. D.)

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You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created till wickedness was found in you.

BARNES, "Eze_28:15The “perfection” was false, unsuspected until the “iniquity” which lay beneath was found out.

CLARKE, "Thou wast perfect in thy ways - The irony seems still to be kept up. Thou hast been like the angels, like Moses, like the cherubs, like Adam, like God, till thy iniquity was found out.

GILL, "Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created,.... From the time that Tyre became a kingdom, or this king was set over it, everything was wisely conducted, and all things happily succeeded; so when the church of Rome was first formed in the times of the apostles, it was laid on a good foundation; it was set up according to the rule of the word; its bishop or pastor was one of a sound judgment, a good life and conversation, and so continued In succession for a considerable time; these held the true faith and doctrine of Christ, and kept it incorrupt, and lived holy lives: till iniquity was found in thee; pride, blasphemy against God, and contempt of his people, as well as violence and deceit; all this was found in the king of Tyre in later times: so in the church of Rome, when the man of sin was revealed, there were pride, haughtiness, and ambition, found in it; blasphemy against God and Christ, and the saints: false doctrine, false worship, superstition, and idolatry.

HENRY, "2. Let us now see what was the ruin of the king of Tyre, what it was that stained his glory and laid all this honour in the dust (Eze_28:15): “Thou wast perfect in thy ways; thou didst prosper in all thy affairs and every thing went well with thee; thou hadst not only a clear, but a bright reputation, from the day thou wast created, the day of thy accession to the throne, till iniquity was found in thee; and that spoiled all.” This may perhaps allude to the deplorable case of the angels that fell, and of our first parents,

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both of whom were perfect in their ways till iniquity was found in them. And when iniquity was once found in him it increased; he grew worse and worse, as appears (Eze_28:18): “Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries; thou hast lost the benefit of all that which thou thoughtest sacred, and in which, as in a sanctuary, thou thoughtest to take refuge; these thou hast defiled, and so exposed thyself by the multitude of thy iniquities.” Now observe,JAMISON, "perfect — prosperous [Grotius], and having no defect. So Hiram was

a sample of the Tyrian monarch in his early days of wisdom and prosperity (1Ki_5:7, etc.).till iniquity ... in thee — Like the primeval man thou hast fallen by abusing God’s gifts, and so hast provoked God’s wrath.

TRAPP, "Ezekiel 28:15 Thou [wast] perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.

Ver. 15. Thou wast perfect in thy ways] As the evil angels also were; but now it is otherwise. Heaven spued out them in the very first act of their sin, and soon after they were created. Look thou therefore to speed accordingly, since iniquity is found in thee. Potentes potenter torquebuntur.

POOLE, "I think the prophet continues his irony: The prince of Tyre would be a god. Yes. Now God is perfect in all his ways or works; and thou, O prince, wert so too. Wert thou, and from thy original? But remember what a god is he, that hath a beginning, that was created, that at last was found full of iniquity! And this reproof and taunt leads us to look with the prophet from the proud claim of this prince to his great miscarriages. If any else will think all these things in the 14th and 15th verses to be asserters of God’s bounty to this prince, and of his great magnificence and state, in hyperboles and allusions, nothing I have said shall contradict them, for they have their liberty, as I have mine, to think what seems most like the truth.

PETT, "Verse 15

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‘You were perfect in your ways from the day that you were created until unrighteousness was found in you.’

The theme of Eden continues. The king probably depicting his own continuing perfection. But Ezekiel brings him down to earth and likens him to Adam and connects him with the fall, and then illustrates it from reality. The same phrase could of course been said of Adam, perfect in his ways until unrighteousness was found in him. So the fall of the king and of Tyre, which their ways reveal, is likened to that of Adam. They share in the fall of mankind.

PULPIT, "Ezekiel 28:15

Thou wast perfect in thy ways. The glory of the King of Tyre was, the prophet goes on to say, conditional. He began his reign in righteousness, but afterwards iniquity was found in him. And the root of that iniquity was the pride of wealth engendered by the greatness of his commerce (Ezekiel 28:16). He was no longer like the cherub who guarded the Paradise of God, but like Adam when he was east out from it. Wealth and pride had tempted him to violence and to wrong, and he was no longer an "anointed" or consecrated, but a profaned and desecrated, king. The, "stones of fire," the thunders and lightnings of the Divine Majesty, should no longer protect him.

16 Through your widespread trade you were filled with violence, and you sinned.

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So I drove you in disgrace from the mount of God, and I expelled you, guardian cherub, from among the fiery stones.

CLARKE, "I will cast thee as profane - Thou shalt be cast down from thine eminence.

From the midst of the stones of fire - Some, supposing that stones of fire means the stars, have thought that the whole refers to the fall of Satan.

GILL, "By the multitude of thy merchandise,.... With the several nations of the earth, who came to the markets and fairs of Tyre, and to whom she sent her goods: they have filled the midst of thee with violence; or, as the Targum, "thy treasures are filled with rapine;'' with ill gotten goods, as the pope's coffers are through his merchandise of the souls of men, and the great trade that is driven in pardons and indulgences: and thou hast sinned; by this unjust and ungodly way of dealing: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God; Mount Zion, the church of the living God, where he dwells, and is worshipped, and on which the Lamb stands with his hundred and forty and four thousand, having his name and his Father's on their foreheads, Rev_14:1, these will have no communion with the church and pope of Rome; will not receive his mark, nor worship his image; from this mountain, and the inhabitants of it, he stands excluded as a profane person, with whom they will have nothing to do; and hence he persecutes them to the utmost of his power: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire; from among the people of God, who have the clear light of the Gospel, and a sincere love for Christ; these withdrew themselves from his jurisdiction and government; and with whom his name, power, and authority perish, especially when they shall have got the victory over him, Rev_15:1. Kimchi paraphrases it, "from the midst of the saints who are the Israelites, comparable to stones of fire;''

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and Jarchi's note is, "that thou mayest not take a portion with the righteous;'' have no part, lot, or fellowship with them. The Targum is, "I will destroy thee, O king that art anointed, because thou thoughtest to rule over the holy people.''

HENRY 16-18, "What the iniquity was that was the ruin of the king of Tyre. [1.] The iniquity of his traffic (so it is called, Eze_28:18), both his and his people's, for their sin is charged upon him, because he connived at it and set them a bad example (Eze_28:16):By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thus thou hast sinned. The king had so much to do with his merchandise, and was so wholly intent upon the gains of that, that he took no care to do justice, to give redress to those that suffered wrong and to protect them from violence; nay, in the multiplicity of business, wrong was done to many by oversight; and in his dealings he made use of his power to invade the rights of those he dealt with. Note, Those that have much to do in the world are in great danger of doing much amiss; and it is hard to deal with many without violence to some. Trades are called mysteries; but too many make them mysteries of iniquity. [2.] His pride and vain-glory (Eze_28:17): “Thy heart was lifted up because of thy beauty; thou wast in love with thyself, and thy own shadow. And thus thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of the brightness, the pomp and splendour, wherein thou livedst.” He gazed so much upon this that it dazzled his eyes and prevented him from seeing his way. He appeared so puffed up with his greatness that it bereaved him both of his wisdom and of the reputation of it. He really became a fool in glorying. Those make a bad bargain for themselves that part with their wisdom for the gratifying of their gaiety, and, to please a vain humour, lose a real excellency.

(2.) What the ruin was that this iniquity brought him to. [1.] He was thrown out of his dignity and dislodged from his palace, which he took to be his paradise and temple (Eze_28:16): I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God. His kingly power was high as a mountain, setting him above others; it was a mountain of God, for the powers that be are ordained of God, and have something in them that is sacred; but, having abused his power, he is reckoned profane, and is therefore deposed and expelled. He disgraces the crown he wears, and so has forfeited it, and shall be destroyed from the midst of the stones of fire, the precious stones with which his palace was garnished, as the temple was; and they shall be no protection to him. [2.] He was exposed to contempt and disgrace, and trampled upon by his neighbours: “I will cast thee to the ground(Eze_28:17), will cast thee among the pavement-stones, from the midst of the precious stones, and will lay thee a rueful spectacle before kings, that they may behold thee and take warning by thee not to be proud and oppressive.” [3.] He was quite consumed, his city and he in it: I will bring forth a fire from the midst of thee. The conquerors, when they have plundered the city, will kindle a fire in the heart of it, which shall lay it, and the palace particularly, in ashes. Or it may be taken more generally for the fire of God's judgments, which shall devour both prince and people, and bring all the glory of both to ashes upon the earth; and this fire shall be brought forth from the midst of thee. All God's judgments upon sinners take rise from themselves; they are devoured by a fire of their own kindling. [4.] He was hereby made a terrible example of divine vengeance. 81

Thus he is reduced in the sight of all those that behold him (Eze_28:18): Those that know him shall be astonished at him, and shall wonder how one that stood so high could be brought so low. The king of Tyre's palace, like the temple at Jerusalem, when it is destroyed shall be an astonishment and a hissing, 2Ch_7:20, 2Ch_7:21. So fell the king of Tyre.

JAMISON, "filled the midst of thee — that is, they have filled the midst of the city; he as the head of the state being involved in the guilt of the state, which he did not check, but fostered.

cast thee as profane — no longer treated as sacred, but driven out of the place of sanctity (see Eze_28:14) which thou hast occupied (compare Psa_89:39).

TRAPP, "Ezekiel 28:16 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.

Ver. 16. By the multitude of thy merchandise.] Many merchants think they may do anything for their own advantage; cheating and overreaching pass for virtues with them. (a)

And thou hast sinned.] By suffering it so to be; for there is a passive injustice as well as an active.

I will cast thee.] I will bring thee down with a vengeance, and make thee an example of that rule, Great sins have great punishments. (b)

POOLE, " By the multitude; by, or in, or according to (as the Gallic version) the multitude or greatness of thy trading: in Tyre were merchants that traded in very great adventures, with vast stocks, and in mighty cargoes.

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With violence; thy merchants have by craft, where that would, and by violence where craft would not, compassed their unjust designs, as noted, Ezekiel 27:36. This injustice and violence grew as their trade did, and filled the city with guilt as fast as that did with wealth.

Thou hast sinned: either as one trading among them, thou hast violated justice to promote thine own and their gain, or hast connived at thy merchants when they oppressed all they could; or hast, contrary to justice and equity, supported them in their violence, and judged for them against oppressed strangers. Thou who weft a king, and wouldst be thought a god, is this like to God, who hates violence, loves justice, relieveth the stranger, and righteth the oppressed?

I will cast thee out: these abominable things hast thou done, and now, as an abominable thing, I will throw thee out, either of thy throne and kingly dignity, see Ezekiel 28:14, or thy fancied and imagined heaven, where thou wouldst be a god, for such gods of violence and injustice deserve to be cast out with the aspiring angels.

Destroy thee; utterly destroy.

O covering cherub: see Ezekiel 28:14.

PETT, "Verse 16

“Therefore have I cast you as profane from the mountain of God,

And I have destroyed you (by means of the) covering cherub from the midst of the stones of fire.”

Note that he is not said to be cast out of the Garden but out of ‘the mountain of

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God’. That is because his proud boast was to dwell among the gods. Thus his punishment fits his claim. And he loses not only his supposed divinity, but also his glorious apparel. He is to be totally humiliated. (This would be particularly apposite if ‘the garden of the gods’ was seen as Lebanon).

The reading in of ‘by means of the’ is required by the parallelism, both poetically and in comparison with the story of Eden. Having demonstrated that in spite of all his pretensions the King of Tyre was created by Yahweh and was a fallen sinner, he will now be called on to follow the fallen sinner’s fate. He will be driven out by the very guardian cherub whose protection he had boasted about.

Thus the downfall he was about to experience is likened to being cast out and stripped of his bejewelled clothing (the stones of fire). He will be left ‘naked’, revealed as what he really was.

(This problem as to exactly what the king represented himself to be arises because of the requirements of metre in poetry. Words had to be omitted to maintain the metre. Possibly at the time conventions made clear what was meant).

PULPIT, "Ezekiel 28:17

Thine heart was lifted up, etc. In yet another point Ezekiel sees the fall of Adam reproduced in that of the Tyrian king. He had forfeited his beauty and his wisdom through the pride which sought for a yet greater glory by a false and counterfeit wisdom (Genesis 3:6). I will cast thee, etc. The words are better taken, as in the Revised Version, in the past tense, I have cast thee … I have laid thee before kings. Pride was to have its fall, as in Isaiah 23:9. The very sanctuaries, the temples which made Tyre the "holy island," were defiled by the iniquities through which the wealth that adorned them had been gained. The "fire," instead of being a rampart of protection, should burst forth as from the center of the sanctuary to destroy him. Is there an implied allusion to the fiery judgment that fell on Nadab and Abihu (Le Isaiah 10:2) and on Korah and his company (Numbers 16:35)? The doom of Sic transit gloria mundi was already passed on her.

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17 Your heart became proud on account of your beauty,and you corrupted your wisdom because of your splendor.So I threw you to the earth; I made a spectacle of you before kings.

GILL, "Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty,.... Riches, wealth, power, and authority; see Eze_28:5, as the pope of Rome is, because of his dignity, the pomp and splendour of the Roman church, and the gaudy appearance it makes: thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness; outward lustre and glory, which dazzled his eyes so that he could not see things in a true light; but neglecting the word of God, and setting up his own infallibility, corrupted his doctrine and worship, and became foolish, stupid, and sottish: I will cast thee to the ground; from the throne and pinnacle of honour, to the lowest state and condition:

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and I will lay thee before kings: prostrate at the feet of them, who heretofore has set his feet on the necks of them; or he shall fall before them, and be destroyed by them, when they shall hate the whore, and make her desolate, and burn her flesh with fire, Rev_17:16, that they may behold thee; with contempt and disdain, and as an instance and example of divine vengeance.

JAMISON, "brightness — thy splendor.lay thee before kings — as an example of God’s wrath against presumptuous pride.

TRAPP, "Ezekiel 28:17 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.

Ver. 17. Thine heart, &c.] Fastus inest pulchris.

By reason of thy brightness.] Thine own splendour hath dazzled thee. Magna cognatio est, ut rei sic et nominis, divitiis et vitiis.

That they may behold thee.] And beware by thee.

POOLE, "Verse 17

Thine heart was lifted up: see Ezekiel 28:2,5.

Thy beauty: see Ezekiel 28:12.

Converted thy wisdom; depraved or lost thy wisdom, by reflecting and gazing on thy own glory, state, wealth, and magnificence, and hast forgotten thou art a man; thou exaltest thyself above man, above thy neighbour kings.

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I will cast thee to the ground; I will bring down thy pride, dethrone thee, and make thee sit in the dust; sully and darken all thy brightness.

Lay thee before kings; or, set thee before men of thy quality, who are, as thou, apt to forget men, themselves, and God, as he who, though he said not, I am God, yet, atheist-like, asked,

Who is God, that I should obey him? That they may behold thee; or, that thou mayst be a spectacle, an example and warning to them; or, that they see thee in chains, or an abused captive, and despise thee.

PETT, "Verse 17

“Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty,

You corrupted your wisdom by reason of your splendour,

I have cast you to the ground, I have exposed you before kings,

That they may see you (as you are).”

The great advantage Tyre had had did not have good consequences, it corrupted her rather than uplifting her. It caused her to become proud and vain, so that she forgot true wisdom. It is the fear of Yahweh that is the beginning of wisdom, and they had forgotten it. So she will be cast to the ground and exposed before kings, those very kings over whom she had lorded herself. They would see her as she really was.

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18 By your many sins and dishonest trade you have desecrated your sanctuaries.So I made a fire come out from you, and it consumed you,and I reduced you to ashes on the ground in the sight of all who were watching.

CLARKE, "Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries - Irony continued. As God, as the angels, as the cherubim, thou must have had thy sanctuaries; but thou hast defiled them: and as Adam, thou hast polluted thy Eden, and hast been expelled from Paradise.

GILL, "Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities,.... Or, "thy palaces", as Kimchi; the palace of the king, and the palaces of the nobles, where much iniquity was committed, and which was the cause of their being defiled or destroyed by the Chaldeans; or it may design their sacred places, their temples, where their gods were worshipped, and idolatry committed. This may be applied to the places of religious worship among the Papists, their churches; which,

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instead of being adorned, are defiled with their images and image worship, and other acts of superstition and will worship: by the iniquity of thy traffic; as by bringing in ill gotten goods into the sacred places of Tyre, as they were accounted, so by selling pardons; praying souls out of purgatory for money; by simony, or buying and selling ecclesiastical benefices; and such like spiritual merchandise in Roman churches: therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee; sin, and the punishment of it, as Kimchi; which, for sin committed in the midst of them, should consume as fire; or some from among themselves, that should stir up and cause internal divisions, which should issue in their ruin; as the unclean spirit that shall go out of the mouth of the beast, dragon, and false prophet, to gather the antichristian kings to battle, will end in their ruin, Rev_16:14. The Targum is, "I will bring people who are strong as fire, because of the sins of thy pride they shall destroy thee.'' Alexander, when he took Tyre, ordered all the inhabitants to be slain, excepting those that fled to the temples, and the houses to be set on fire (u); which literally fulfilled this prophecy; and which may also have respect to the destruction of Rome by fire, because of the sins committed in it, Rev_18:8, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth, in the sight of all them that behold thee; the kings and merchants of the earth, who shall stand and look on the city as it is burning, and when reduced to ashes; which denotes the utter destruction of it, Rev_18:9. The Targum is, "I will give thee as ashes on the earth, &c.' and shall be no more accounted of.

JAMISON, "thy sanctuaries — that is, the holy places, attributed to the king of Tyre in Eze_28:14, as his ideal position. As he “profaned” it, so God will “profane” him (Eze_28:16).

fire ... devour — As he abused his supposed elevation amidst “the stones of fire” (Eze_28:16), so God will make His “fire” to “devour” him.

COFFMAN, ""By the multitude of thine iniquities, in the unrighteousness of thy traffic, thou hast profaned thy sanctuaries; therefore have I brought forth a fire from the midst of thee; it hath devoured thee, and I have turned thee into ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee. All them that know thee among the peoples shall be astonished at thee: thou art become a terror, and shall never more have any being."

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"A fire from the midst of thee ..." (Ezekiel 28:18). Significantly, it was fire from within the king of Tyre himself that devoured him. This is the way it is with the vast majority of sinful men; it is the fires of ambition, pride, and lust from within themselves which eventually issues forth in their destruction.

Thus, we find that the narrative here is not merely founded upon the Genesis account of Satan's having been in Eden, but it anticipates portions of Revelation 12 in the fact of a cherub having cast Satan out of heaven. In Revelation, the name of that cherub was revealed as that of the archangel himself, namely, Michael! Thus, as F. F. Bruce noted, "This passage in Ezekiel has contributed some details to the picture of the fall of Satan."[18]coke, "Ezekiel 28:18. Therefore will I bring forth a fire, &c.— This was verified by Alexander the Great, who besieged, took, and set the city on fire. See Bishop Newton's Prophesies, vol. 1:

TRAPP, "Ezekiel 28:18 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.

Ver. 18. Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries,] i.e., Thy kingly palaces, where thou art looked upon and honoured as a god, but a wretched one, and which for stateliness may vie with my sanctuary. Add hereto, that as none might come into the temple but priests only; so none might come into the palace but confiding persons. The Turks at this day suffer no stranger to come into the presence of their emperor, but first they clasp him by the arms, under colour of doing him honour, but indeed to bereave him of the use of his hands, lest he should offer him any violence. (a)

Therefore will I bring forth a fire in the midst of thee.] Thou shalt perish by thine own sins, as a house is burnt by fire kindled within itself.

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And I will bring thee to ashes.] Which shall remain as a lasting monument of the divine displeasure; as did the ashes and cinders of Sodom; and Herodotus saith the same of the ashes of Troy.

POOLE, " Thou who shouldst have kept all pure in religion, as thou art king, pretending to Divinity, has polluted it.

Thy sanctuaries: still there is, as all along from the 14th verse I think there hath been, much of an irony deriding this proud prince, an allusion to his pretended godship. A god hath his sanctuaries, and thou thine, but they nasty, polluted ones.

By the multitude, by the greatness as well as number,

of thine iniquities. The iniquity of thy traffic; impieties, irreligion, and atheism of thy merchants, as well as by their injustice, falsehood, and oppressions, by their perjuries, breaking covenants confirmed in the temples at the altars, or in the name of their gods; when thy trade thrived by these, thou and they have thought there was nothing sacred, nor any god above thee.

I will bring forth a fire; some civil dissension or occasion of thy injustice shall, like a fire,

rise from the midst of thee, among thy injured malcontents.

It shall devour thee; which, like fire in the house, shall burn all up, and waste all, thou shalt never quench it: thy discontented subjects applying themselves to Nebuchadnezzar with addresses for his favour, power, and royal justice to relieve them, and to right his own subjects oppressed by Tyre in their trade, shall enkindle Nebuchadnezzar’s rage, and he shall never be appeased but in thy ruin.

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I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth; thou shalt be burnt to ashes, and these cast on the earth to be scattered abroad, and trampled under feet.

In the sight of all them that behold thee; all this done, that all about thee may see, fear, and reverence the justice, power, and holiness of the God of heaven, who ruleth among men, and knows how to abase proud atheists.

PETT, "Verse 18-19

“By the great quantity of your iniquities,

In the wrong behaviour resulting from your trade,

You have profaned your sanctuaries,

So I have brought forth a fire from the midst of you,

It has consumed you,

And I have turned you to ashes on the earth,

In the sight of all those who saw you.

All those who know you among the peoples,

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Will be appalled at you,

You are become a frightening warning (literally ‘terrors’),

And you will never be any more.”

The doom of Tyre is now portrayed. It comes not only from her pride but from all her sins of greed, and dishonesty, and violence, and jealousy, and lack of concern for others, revealed through her activities. Thus her very sanctuaries were profaned. This was very much an Israelite thought. Other gods were not concerned about morality, but Yahweh was. But it confirms that we are to see ‘the king of Tyre’ as a human king who had made extravagant claims, but had revealed his humanness by his behaviour, thus profaning the sanctuaries that he had seen as evidence of his divinity.

Thus Tyre is to be destroyed by a fire from within her. The seeds of her own destruction came from within her because of her sins. The fire, instead of revivifying her, will destroy her. She will be turned to ashes and all the nations will look on appalled. And her total extinction will be a warning for ever.

BI 18, "By the iniquity of thy traffic.Corruption in commerceThe tendency is to measure all things by a money standard. The business that cannot be ruled by Christianity is wrong. What this does for a land, if it grows unchecked, is to make men sell the best things. Phoenicia did, and the spirit of her people died. Her inhabitants became the ministers of vice in every Eastern city. And the man eaten up by love of gain is preparing for himself and all he influences a like fate. Men object that business is a sort of neutral world in which the maxims of New Testament morality cannot come into play. But if this is true, either Christianity cannot be a faith for the whole of a man’s life, or the business that cannot be ruled by it is wrong. It is to rule my eating and drinking, my clothing and housing of myself and mine, my buying and selling, my work am! play. Whatsoever ye do, “buying or booking,” do all in the name of the Lord Jesus. But men object today that the severity of the competition by which they are pressed makes some moral laxity in the conduct of business most difficult to avoid. They

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have to contend with others who are not hampered by scrupulosity in the methods by which they obtain orders or make profits. Some time ago, the Rev. Mr. Carter, the Secretary of the Christian Social Union, informs us, the Oxford branch of that society sent out a number of queries to practical men on the subject of commercial morality. In answer to the question: “Do you find it difficult to apply the principles of Christian truth and justice to the conduct of business?” two employers write: “Business is based on the gladiatorial theory of existence. If Christian truth and justice is not consistent with this, business is in a bad case.” A commercial traveller writes: “Not only difficult, but impossible, for a man is not master of himself. If one would live, and avoid the bankruptcy court, one must do business on the same lines as others do, without troubling whether, the methods are in harmony with the principles of Christian truth and justice or not. A draper’s assistant answers: “Extremely so. The tendency to misrepresent, deceive, or take unfair advantage under circumstances that daily offer the opportunity of so doing is generally too strong to resist where self-interest is the motive power of action, the conventional morality the only check. To me they appear to be opposing principles—the first of self-sacrifice, the second of self-interest.” Another says: “If it were possible to do away with competition, the excuse and justification for a large proportion of commercial immorality would be gone.” As it is, it is quite plain that honourable trade has to meet with and fight what is unjust. As Arthur Hugh Clough says in one of his poems “Thou shalt not covet, but tradition Approves all forms of competition.” (G. T. Forbes, M. A.).

19 All the nations who knew you are appalled at you;you have come to a horrible end and will be no more.’”

CLARKE, "Thou shalt be a terror - Instead of being an object of adoration thou shalt be a subject of horror, and at last be destroyed with thy city, so that nothing but thy name shall remain. It was entirely burnt by Alexander the Great, as it had been before by

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Nebuchadnezzar.

GILL, "All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee,.... At thy fall; that such a mighty city, and powerful prince, should be destroyed at once; that, from such a height of prosperity, they should be brought to so low an estate of adversity; this will be the astonishment of kings, merchants, and others, that knew the riches, power, and flourishing estate of Rome, as before observed: thou shalt be a terror; to the said persons, who will be afraid to come nigh for fear of the same torments and punishment, Rev_18:10, or, though thou "hast been a terror"; or "terrors"; exceeding terrible to others in time past, yet now, as the Targum, "I will give thee (or make thee) as if thou wast not:'' and never shalt thou be any more; as thou hast been, or after thy last destruction; so mystical Tyre or Babylon shall be no more, when once destroyed, Rev_18:21.

TRAPP, "Ezekiel 28:19 All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee: thou shalt be a terror, and never [shalt] thou [be] any more.

Ver. 19. Thou shalt be a terror.] As kings exceed all others in glory, so their fall is oft with so great ignominy, that they become a wonder and a terror to all people.

POOLE, " All that have heard, seen, or formerly known thy riches, power, allies, wisdom, and vigilance, shall be astonished at thee; be amazed at the certain news of thy great fall, from greatest glory to greatest reproach.

Thou shalt be a terror to all that hear the bruit hereof:

though thou hast been a terror, so the Hebrew, to others by thy puissance and arms, thou shalt never be so again for ever: and this word hath been made good; Tyre never rose to that greatness as to be feared by her neighbours.

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PULPIT, "Ezekiel 28:19

Thou shalt be a terror, etc. The knell of doom, as heard in Ezekiel 27:36, rings out again. The same judgment falls alike on the city and on its king. The question when and in what manner the prediction received its fulfillment has been much discussed. Josephus ('Ant.,' 10.11. 1; 'Contra Apion,' 1.19) states that Nebuchadnezzar besieged the island Tyre and Ithobal (Ethbaal III.) for thirteen years; that, on his father's death, leaving his Phoenician and other captives to be brought by slower stages, he himself hastened to Babylon, and that afterwards he conquered the whole of Syria and Phoenicia; but he does not say, with all the Tyrian records before him, that the city was actually captured by him. It has been inferred, indeed, from Ezekiel 29:18, that Nebuchadnezzar's siege of Tyre ended in, at least, partial failure, that he and his army had no "wages" for their work, i.e. that the spoil of the city was meager and disappointing. Possibly the merchant-princes of the city had contrived to carry off part of their treasures in their ships. On the other hand, it may be noted

A Prophecy Against Sidon

20 The word of the Lord came to me:

BARNES, "Prophecy against Zidon. Zidon (mod. Saida) was more ancient than Tyre and was the original metropolis of Phoenicia Gen_10:19, but in the times of Phoenician greatness it ever played a subordinate part. Only once Jdg_10:12 do we find the “Zidonians” in conflict with Israel. The evil which they did was the seducing them to idolatry (compare Eze_28:24), as in the case of Jezebel, daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Zidonians 1Ki_16:31. The capture of Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar increased the importance of Zidon, which was a wealthy and flourishing town when Artaxerxes Ochus destroyed it. It has rallied from time to time, but has never attained to any great consequence, though not in such complete ruin as Tyre.

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GILL, "Son of man, set thy face against Zidon,.... An ancient city, near to Tyre, and in confederacy with it, greatly given to idolatry and superstition; and may design all the antichristian states in the communion of the church of Rome: and prophesy against it; the prophet is bid to look towards this place with a stern countenance, as before against Tyre; threatening it with ruin, and prophesying of it, in the following manner.

HENRY 20-26, "God's glory is his great end, both in all the good and in all the evil which proceed out of the mouth of the Most High; so we find in these verses. 1. God will be glorified in the destruction of Zidon, a city that lay near to Tyre, was more ancient, but not so considerable, had a dependence upon it and stood and fell with it. God says here, I am against thee, O Zidon! and I will be glorified in the midst of thee, Eze_28:22. And again, “Those that would not know be gentler methods shall be made to know that I am the Lord, and I alone, and that I am a just and jealous God, when I shall have executed judgments in her, destroying judgments, when I shall have done execution according to justice and according to the sentence passed, and so shall be sanctified in her.” The Zidonians, it should seem, were more addicted to idolatry than the Tyrians were, who, being men of business and large conversation, were less under the power of bigotry and superstition. The Zidonians were noted for the worship of Ashtaroth; Solomon introduced it, 1Ki_11:5. Jezebel was daughter to the king of Zidon, who brought the worship of Baal into Israel (1Ki_16:31); so that God had been much dishonoured by the Zidonians. Now, says he, I will be glorified, I will be sanctified. The Zidonians were borderers upon the land of Israel, where God was known, and where they might have got the knowledge of him and have learned to glorify him; but, instead of that, they seduced Israel to the worship of their idols. Note, When God is sanctified he is glorified, for his holiness is his glory; and those whom he is not sanctified and glorified by he will be sanctified and glorified upon, by executing judgments upon them, which declare him a just avenger of his own and his people's injured honour. The judgments that shall be executed upon Zidon are war and pestilence, two wasting depopulating judgments, Eze_28:23. They are God's messengers, which he sends on his errands, and they shall accomplish that for which he sends them. Pestilence and blood shall be sent into her streets; there the dead bodies of those shall lie who perished, some by the plague, occasioned perhaps through ill diet when the city was besieged, and some by the sword of the enemy, most likely the Chaldean armies, when the city was taken, and all were put to the sword. Thus the wounded shall be judged; when they are dying of their wounds they shall judge themselves, and others shall say, They justly fall. Or, as some read it, They shall be punished by the sword, that sword which has commission to destroy on every side. It is God that judges, and he will overcome. Nor is it Tyre and Zidon only on which God would execute judgments, but on all those that despised his people Israel, and triumphed in their calamities; for this was now God's controversy with the nations that were round about them, Eze_28:26. Note, When God's people are under his correcting hand for their faults he takes care, as he did concerning malefactors that were scourged, that they shall not seem vile to those that are about them, and therefore takes it ill of those who despise them and so help forward the affliction when he is but a little displeased, Zec_1:15. God regards them even in their low estate; and

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therefore let not men despise them. 2. God will be glorified in the restoration of his people to their former safety and prosperity. God had been dishonoured by the sins of his people, and their sufferings too had given occasion to the enemy to blaspheme (Isa_52:5); but God will now both cure them of their sins and ease them of their troubles, and so will be sanctified in them in the sight of the heathen, will recover the honour of his holiness, to the satisfaction of all the world, Eze_28:25. For, (1.) They shall return to the possession of their own land again: I will gather the house of Israel out of their dispersions, in answer to that prayer (Psa_106:27), Save us, O Lord our God! and gather us from among the heathen; and in pursuance of that promise (Deu_30:4), Thence will the Lord thy God gather thee. Being gathered, they shall be brought in a body, to dwell in the land that I have given to my servant Jacob. God had an eye to the ancient grant, in bringing them back, for that remained in force, and the discontinuance of the possession was not a defeasance of the right. He that gave it will again give it. (2.) They shall enjoy great tranquillity there. When those that have been vexatious to them are taken off they shall live in quietness; there shall be no more a pricking brier nor a grieving thorn, Eze_28:24. They shall have a happy settlement, for they shall build houses, and plant vineyards; and they shall enjoy a happy security and serenity there; they shall dwell safely, shall dwell with confidence, and there shall be none to disquiet them or make them afraid, Eze_28:26. This never had full accomplishment in the body of that people, for after their return out of captivity they were ever and anon molested by some bad neighbour or other. Nor has the gospel-church been ever quite free from pricking briers and grieving thorns; yet sometimes the church has rest, and believers always dwell safely under the divine protection and may be quiet from the fear of evil.But the full accomplishment of this promise is reserved for the heavenly Canaan, when all the saints shall be gathered together, and every thing that offends shall be removed, and all griefs and fears for ever banished.

JAMISON, "Zidon — famous for its fishery (from a root, Zud, “to fish”); and afterwards for its wide extended commerce; its artistic elegance was proverbial. Founded by Canaan’s first-born (Gen_10:15). Tyre was an offshoot from it, so that it was involved in the same overthrow by the Chaldeans as Tyre. It is mentioned separately, because its idolatry (Ashtaroth, Tammuz, or Adonis) infected Israel more than that of Tyre did (Eze_8:14; Jdg_10:6; 1Ki_11:33). The notorious Jezebel was a daughter of the Zidonian king.

K&D 20-26, "rophecy Against Sidon and Promise for IsraelThe threatening word against Sidon is very brief, and couched in general terms, because as a matter of fact the prophecy against Tyre involved the announcement of the fall of Sidon, which was dependent upon it; and, as we have already observed, Sidon received a special word of God simply for the purpose of making up the number of the heathen nations mentioned to the significant number seven. The word of God against Sidon brings to a close the cycle of predictions of judgment directed against those heathen nations which had given expression to malicious pleasure at the overthrow of the kingdom of Judah. There is therefore appended a promise for Israel (Eze_28:25, Eze_28:26), which is really closely connected with the threatening words directed against the heathen nations, and for which the way is prepared by Eze_28:24. The

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correspondence of נקדשתי בה (I shall be sanctified in her) in Eze_28:22 to נקדשתי בם (I shall be sanctified in them) in Eze_28:25, serves to place the future fate of Israel in antithesis not merely to the future fate of Sidon, but, as Eze_28:24 and Eze_28:26clearly show, to that of all the heathen nations against which the previous threats have been directed.Eze_28:20-24

And the word of Jehovah came to me, saying, Eze_28:21. Son of man, direct thy face towards Sidon, and prophesy against it, Eze_28:22. And say, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Behold, I will be against thee, O Sidon, and will glorify myself in the midst of thee; and they shall know that I am Jehovah, when I execute judgments upon it, and sanctify myself upon it. Eze_28:23. I will send pestilence into it, and blood into its streets; slain will fall in the midst of it by the sword, which cometh upon it from every side; and they shall learn that I am Jehovah. Eze_28:24. And there shall be no more to the house of Israel a malignant thorn and smarting sting from all round about them, who despise them; but they shall learn that I am the Lord Jehovah. - Jehovah will glorify Himself as the Lord upon Sidon, as He did before upon Pharaoh (compare Exo_14:4, Exo_14:16-17, to which the word נכבדתי in Eze_28:22, an unusual expression for Ezekiel, evidently points). The glorification is effected by judgments, through which He proves Himself to be holy upon the enemies of His people. He executes the judgments through pestilence and blood (vid., Eze_5:17; Eze_38:22), i.e., through disease and bloodshed occasioned by war, so that men fall, slain by the sword (cf. Eze_6:7). Instead of נפל we have the intensive form נפלל, which is regarded by Ewald and Hitzig as a copyist's error, because it is only met with here. Through these judgments the Lord will liberate His people Israel from all round about, who increase its suffering by their contempt. These thoughts sum up in Eze_28:24 the design of God's judgments upon all the neighbouring nations which are threatened in Ezekiel 25-28, and thus prepare the way for the concluding promise in Eze_28:25 and Eze_28:26. The figure of the sting and thorn points back to Num_33:55, where it is said that the Canaanites whom Israel failed to exterminate would become thorns in its eyes and stings in its sides. As Israel did not keep itself free from the Canaanitish nature of the heathen nations, God caused it to fell these stings of heathenism. Having been deeply hurt by them, it was now lying utterly prostrate with its wounds. The sins of Canaan, to which Israel had given itself up, had occasioned the destruction of Jerusalem (Ezekiel 16). But Israel is not to succumb to its wounds. On the contrary, by destroying the heathen powers, the Lord will heal His people of the wounds which its heathen neighbours have inflicted upon it. ן ,סלsynonymous with ן סל in Eze_2:6, a word only found in Ezekiel. ממאיר, on the contrary, is taken from Lev_13:51 and Lev_14:44, where it is applied to malignant leprosy (see the comm. on the former passage). - For השאטים תם see Eze_16:57 ,א and Eze_25:6.

COFFMAN, ""And the word of Jehovah came unto me, saying, Son of man, Set thy face toward Sidon, and prophesy against it, and say, I am against thee, O Sidon; and I will be glorified in the midst of thee; and they shall know that I am Jehovah, when I shall have executed judgments in her, and shall be sanctified in her. For I will send pestilence into her, and blood into her streets; and the wounded shall fall in the

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midst of her, with the sword upon her on every side; and they shall know that I am Jehovah. And there shall be no more a pricking brier unto the house of Israel, nor a hurting thorn of any that are round about them, that did despite unto them; and they shall know that I am the Lord Jehovah. Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: When I shall have gathered the house of Israel from the peoples among whom they are scattered, and shall be sanctified in them in the sight of the nations, then shall they dwell in their own land which I gave to my servant Jacob. And they shall dwell securely therein; yea, they shall build houses, and plant vineyards, and shall dwell securely, when I have executed judgments upon all that do them despite round about them; and they shall know that I am Jehovah their God."

PROPHECY AGAINST SIDON

"Prophesy against it (Sidon) ..." (Ezekiel 28:21). There were many things in Sidon that called for the judgment of God against them, not the least of which was Jezebel's outrageous establishment of the entire apparatus of Baal worship in the very heart of Israel itself.

"Thus the Sidonian `brier' had indeed pricked Israel";[19] but God here promises judgments against Sidon that will remove such a nuisance from the harassing position they had enjoyed so long in their dealings with God's people.

Also, the last two verses here indicate the return of Israel to Palestine and God's gathering of them from all the nations into which they had been scattered.

"All of these Phoenician cities had been a constant source of temptation and annoyance to God's people for ages; and the promise here is that as soon as God shall have restored the captives to Palestine and has executed judgments upon the pagan nations which had gloated over their captivity, the Israelites should again enjoy all of their ancient privileges; and the nations would be compelled to ascribe to Jehovah, as the covenant God of Israel, all of the honor and glory that were due him."[20]

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The fact that very little of this ever actually came to pass as prophesied here was due to the widespread failure of the Jews to live up to the solemn terms and conditions upon which such glorious promises rested. Jeremiah 17:7:10 should be read in connection with every wonderful promise that God made to Israel or to any other nation.

By the times of Jesus Christ, racial Israel had totally departed from the God of their fathers; and, as spelled out by the apostle Paul in the first two chapters of Romans, the hardening of the apostate people had become final; and from the racial stock of the old Israel Jesus Christ was able to rescue only a small remnant from which nucleus the New Israel, that is, the Church of Jesus Christ was launched with the life-giving gospel of the New Dispensation. Because of this near-universal sinfulness of the Old Israel, many of the glorious things God promised and had intended to do for them never occurred at all.

EBC 20-23, "A short oracle on Sidon completes the series of prophecies dealing with the future of Israel’s immediate neighbours (Ezekiel 28:20-23). Sidon lay about twenty miles farther north than Tyre, and was, as we have seen, at this time subject to the authority of the younger and more vigorous city. From the book of Jeremiah, [Jeremiah 25:22;, Jeremiah 27:3] however, we see that Sidon was an autonomous state, and preserved a measure of independence even in matters of foreign policy. There is therefore nothing arbitrary in assigning a separate oracle to this most northerly of the states in immediate contact with the people of Israel, although it must be admitted that Ezekiel has nothing distinctive to say of Sidon. Phoenicia was in truth so overshadowed by Tyre that all the characteristics of the people have been amply illustrated in the chapters that have dealt with the latter city. The prophecy is accordingly delivered in the most general terms, and indicates rather the purpose and effect of the judgment than the manner in which it is to come or the character of the people against whom it is directed. It passes insensibly into a prediction of the glorious future of Israel, which is important as revealing the underlying motive of all the preceding utterances against the heathen nations. The restoration of Israel and the destruction of her old neighbours are both parts of one comprehensive scheme of divine providence, the ultimate object of which is a demonstration before the eyes of the world of the holiness of Jehovah. That men might know that He is Jehovah, God alone, is the end alike of His dealings with the heathen and with His

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own people. And the two parts of God’s plan are in the mind of Ezekiel intimately related to each other; the one is merely a condition of the realisation of the other. The crowning proof of Jehovah’s holiness will be seen in His faithfulness to the promise made to the patriarchs of the possession of the land of Canaan, and in the security and prosperity enjoyed by Israel when brought back to their land a purified nation. Now in the past Israel had been constantly interfered with, crippled, humiliated, and seduced by the petty heathen powers around her borders. These had been a pricking brier and a stinging thorn (Ezekiel 28:24), constantly annoying and harassing her and impeding the free development of her national life. Hence the judgments here denounced against them are no doubt in the first instance a punishment for what they had been and done in the past; but they are also a clearing of the stage that Israel might be isolated from the rest of the world, and be free to mould her national life and her religious institutions in accordance with the will of her God. That is the substance of the last three verses of the chapter; and while they exhibit the peculiar limitations of the prophet’s thinking, they enable us at the same time to do justice to the singular unity and consistency of aim which guided him in his great forecast of the future of the kingdom of God. There remains now the case of Egypt to be dealt with; but Egypt’s relations to Israel and her position in the world were so unique that Ezekiel reserves consideration of her future for a separate group of oracles longer than those on all the other nations put together.

PETT, "Verses 20-22

‘And the word of Yahweh came to me saying, “Son of man, set your face towards Zidon, and prophesy against it, and say ‘Thus says the Lord Yahweh. Behold I am against you O Zidon, and I will be glorified in the midst of you.’ ” ’

Zidon is to be included in the condemnation of her co-partner. By what would happen to Zidon Yahweh would be glorified, as He would by what happened to Tyre. The great partnership that exalted itself against Yahweh would be destroyed. The antipathy between the gods of Tyre and Zidon and the God of Israel was a long running one, continuing since the days of Elijah, when Phoenician religion under Ahab and Jezebel had reduced the true worship of Yahweh to dire straits. Now the final triumph of Yahweh would be revealed.

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PETT, "Verses 20-24

The Oracle Against Zidon (Ezekiel 28:20-24).

This short oracle against Zidon seems almost tacked on to those to Tyre as a postscript. Perhaps it was in order to make up the number seven, or perhaps it was simply in order to make clear that Zidon shared Tyre’s condemnation, but it makes clear that after the first four nations, condemned together, the two important targets were Tyre and Egypt. Zidon, who through the centuries had been twinned with Tyre, is included as a co-partner with Tyre, sharing her fate, and in fact no charge is laid against her, probably because that is seen as included in the oracles against Tyre with which she had such close relations. If we keep bad company we must accept the consequences.

21 “Son of man, set your face against Sidon; prophesy against her

BARNES, "Prophecy against Zidon. Zidon (mod. Saida) was more ancient than Tyre and was the original metropolis of Phoenicia Gen_10:19, but in the times of Phoenician greatness it ever played a subordinate part. Only once Jdg_10:12 do we find the “Zidonians” in conflict with Israel. The evil which they did was the seducing them to idolatry (compare Eze_28:24), as in the case of Jezebel, daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Zidonians 1Ki_16:31. The capture of Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar increased the importance of Zidon, which was a wealthy and flourishing town when Artaxerxes Ochus destroyed it. It has rallied from time to time, but has never attained to any great consequence, though not in such complete ruin as Tyre.

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GILL, "Son of man, set thy face against Zidon,.... An ancient city, near to Tyre, and in confederacy with it, greatly given to idolatry and superstition; and may design all the antichristian states in the communion of the church of Rome: and prophesy against it; the prophet is bid to look towards this place with a stern countenance, as before against Tyre; threatening it with ruin, and prophesying of it, in the following manner.

JAMISON, "Zidon — famous for its fishery (from a root, Zud, “to fish”); and afterwards for its wide extended commerce; its artistic elegance was proverbial. Founded by Canaan’s first-born (Gen_10:15). Tyre was an offshoot from it, so that it was involved in the same overthrow by the Chaldeans as Tyre. It is mentioned separately, because its idolatry (Ashtaroth, Tammuz, or Adonis) infected Israel more than that of Tyre did (Eze_8:14; Jdg_10:6; 1Ki_11:33). The notorious Jezebel was a daughter of the Zidonian king.

TRAPP, "Ezekiel 28:21 Son of man, set thy face against Zidon, and prophesy against it,

Ver. 21. Set thy face against Zidon.] An ancient and eminent city of Phoenicia, little inferior to Tyre: in Joshua it is called "Zidon the great." [Joshua 11:8] A very superstitious place, and a great enemy to God’s people.

POOLE, " Set thy face: see Ezekiel 20:46 21:2.

Against Zidon; neighbour and confederate of Tyre.

Prophesy against it; declare her sins, approaching sorrows, and my judgments against her.

PULPIT, "Ezekiel 28:21

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Set thy face against Zidon. The relation of this city to Tyre was one of sufficient independence to justify a separate oracle for the completeness of the prophet's arrangement of his messages (Ezekiel 27:8; Joel 3:4; Jeremiah 25:22; Zechariah 9:2). It was sufficiently identified with it not to call for any long description. It is assumed that her sins were of the same kind and required a like punishment.

22 and say: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says:

“‘I am against you, Sidon, and among you I will display my glory.You will know that I am the Lord, when I inflict punishment on you and within you am proved to be holy.

BARNES, "Be glorified ... be sanctified - Or, “get Me glory ... have shown Myself holy” (and in Eze_28:25).

CLARKE, "I am against thee, O Zidon - Sidon for a long time had possessed the 105

empire of the sea and of all Phoenicia, and Tyre was one of its colonies; but in process of time, the daughter became greater than the mother. It seems to have been an independent place at the time in which Tyre was taken; but it is likely that it was taken by the Chaldeans soon after the former.

GILL, "The eternal Jehovah, the only true God, the Maker of heaven and earth; this is said by way of preface to the prophecy, and to assure of the fulfilment of it, as well as in opposition to the gods of the Zidonians: behold, I am against thee, O Zidon; angry with thee, and will come out against thee in my wrath, because of thine idolatries and impieties. The Targum is, "behold, I send my fury upon thee, O Zidon:'' I will be glorified in the midst of thee; not by the conversion of them; nor by acts of religious worship truly performed by them: by prayer, confession of sin, or thanksgiving; but by his judgments executed in the midst of them; by pouring out the vials of his wrath on them, as it follows: and they shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall have executed judgments in her; for the Lord is known, by the judgments he executes, to be that pure, holy, just, and sin avenging God he is, as well as omniscient and omnipotent; and this even Heathens and antichristian persons are obliged to acknowledge, Psa_9:15, and shall be sanctified in her; that is, shall appear, be declared and owned, to be a God, just and holy, in all his ways and works.

JAMISON, "shall be sanctified in her — when all nations shall see that I am the Holy Judge in the vengeance that I will inflict on her for sin.

TRAPP, "Ezekiel 28:22 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.

Ver. 22. Behold, I am against thee.] Heb., I against thee - by an angry aposiopesis.

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I will be glorified,] viz., In thy just destruction.

And shall be sanctified in her.] See on Leviticus 10:3.

POOLE, " To these heathen, yet neighbours of the Jews. the prophet might well suppose the name and greatness of the God of Israel was so known, as to command their attention when he speaketh.

I am against thee; provoked by thy sins, I am an adversary to thee, and as such determined to proceed with thee.

Zidon; a city in the north-west from Canaan, at the foot of Mount Libanus; a king’s seat of old, and from which Tyre descended, as a swarm cast out of that hive, Isaiah 23:2; for it was a great city in Joshua’s time, Joshua 11:8 19:28, and built by Sidon, Canaan’s son, Genesis 10:15 1 Chronicles 1:13; a famous mart full of merchants, like Tyre, and as full of sin as riches.

I will be glorified; when my judgments make my justice, power, holiness, sovereignty, and truth appear, both you Sidonians, and others about, shall confess my glory, and ascribe honour to me. I will vindicate my honour and glory, which by thy sins thou hast eclipsed, and I by judgments will illustrate, as Exodus 14:4,17.

They that dwell in thee, and round about thee, all that are concerned for thee, shall know that I am the Lord: see Ezekiel 6:10.

When I shall have executed judgments in her; so late do sinners come to any due sense of God’s power, justice, and majesty. The hardened sinners learn not by any other way but this, and by this too in the rigours and repeated executions of it.

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Sanctified; owned as holy, reverenced as just, obeyed as sovereign, and submitted to as wise, and mighty, and a hater of violence.

PETT, "Verse 22-23

“And they will know that I am Yahweh when I have executed judgments in her and am sanctified in her. For I will send pestilence into her, and blood in her streets, and the wounded will fall in the midst of her, with the sword at her from every side, and they will know that I am Yahweh.”

Yahweh’s servant Nebuchadnezzar, and his army, will devastate Zidon revealing that Yahweh is different from all gods and fulfils His purposes as the all-powerful One (is ‘sanctified in her’ - compare Ezekiel 38:16; Ezekiel 36:23). They will suffer pestilence and slaughter, regular accompaniments to warfare, and will perish under the sword. The sword may be that of Yahweh (Ezekiel 21:5) or simply represent the swords of Nebuchadnezzar’s army.

Thus will they too realise Who and What Yahweh is, repeated twice at beginning and end for emphasis.

PULPIT, "I will be glorified in … thee. The thought and the phrase come from Exodus 14:4; Le Exodus 10:3. Ezekiel reproduces it in Ezekiel 39:13. God is glorified, or, as in the next clause, sanctified, when his power and holiness are manifested in righteous judgment. (For "sanctified," see Ezekiel 38:16 : Numbers 20:13.)

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I will send a plague upon you and make blood flow in your streets.The slain will fall within you, with the sword against you on every side.Then you will know that I am the Lord.

CLARKE, "And the wounded - chalal, the soldiery. All its supports shall be חללtaken away, and its defenders destroyed.

GILL, "And the wounded - chalal, the soldiery. All its supports shall be taken חללaway, and its defenders destroyed.

TRAPP, "Ezekiel 28:23 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.

Ver. 23. For I will send into her.] These are God’s evil angels.

And the wounded shall be judged in the midst of her.] This was done likely by Nebuchadnezzar; but certainly by Artaxerxes Ochus the Persian, as the prophet Zechariah had foretold, [Zechariah 9:3-5] and as Diodorus Siculus hath left upon record.

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POOLE, " I will send; the pestilence is one of God’s arrows, and he sends it wheresoever it walks; it is one of his sore judgments, and wasteth where it cometh.

Pestilence; the most dreadful of diseases, because most deadly, swift, and comes so immediately from the wrath of God offended with men; this pestilence attends on war, and seldom faileth to make havoc in besieged towns or cities.

Blood; bloody war by an enemy, that shall bring the war to the gates, nay, into the streets of Zidon.

Be judged; fall, be cast down, punished, in the midst of the city.

By the sword; by her enemy’s sword prevailing and conquering.

On every side; a description either of the siege that Zidon should suffer by, or pointing out the multitude of her enemies on every side agreeing against her.

24 “‘No longer will the people of Israel have malicious neighbors who are painful briers and sharp thorns. Then they will know that I am the Sovereign Lord.

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CLARKE, "There shall be no more a pricking brier - Nothing to excite Israel to idolatry when restored from their captivity. Perhaps there is an allusion to Jezebel, daughter of Ethbaal, king of Sidon, and wife to Ahab, king of Israel, who was the greatest curse to Israel, and the universal restorer of idolatry in the land, see 1Ki_16:31. Sidon being destroyed, there would come no encourager of idolatry from that quarter.

GILL, "And there shall be no more a pricking brier to the house of Israel,.... To the church of God, Jews or Gentiles, particularly to the Jews, who will now be converted; all the enemies of Christ and his people will now be destroyed, who have been very grievous and distressing to them by their furious persecutions; the pope and Turk will be no more, nor any of the antichristian powers; the beast and false prophet will be taken and cast into the lake of fire; and there will be none to hurt and destroy in all the holy mountain, Rev_19:20, nor any grieving thorn of all that are round about them that despised them; the same thing in other words as before; wicked men, especially tyrannical princes, furious persecutors of the saints, are like thorns and briers, not only unfruitful, useless, and unprofitable, but pricking, grieving, and hurtful to good men, by their persecutions, revilings, and reproaches, and whose end is to be burned. The Targum of the whole is, "and there shall be no more to the house of Israel a king that doth evil (or hurt), or a governor that oppresses all round about them that spoil them:'' and they shall know that I am the Lord; the house of Israel, the Jews now converted, they shall know the Lord Christ, and acknowledge him to be their Lord and King.

JAMISON, "no more ... brier ... unto ... Israel — as the idolatrous nations left in Canaan (among which Zidon is expressly specified in the limits of Asher, Jdg_1:31) had been (Num_33:55; Jos_23:13). “A brier,” first ensnaring the Israelites in sin, and then being made the instrument of punishing them.

pricking — literally, “causing bitterness.” The same Hebrew is translated “fretting” (Lev_13:51, Lev_13:52). The wicked are often called “thorns” (2Sa_23:6).

Coke, "Ezekiel 28:24. And there shall be no more a prickling briar— Nor shall the house of Israel have any more in all her neighbours who despise her, a pricking briar, or tormenting thorn. Houbigant. That is to say, "My people shall dwell quietly and securely in their own land, when the rest of their wicked neighbours are destroyed, who continually vexed them, and were as so many thorns in their sides." The following verse shews, that this promise relates chiefly to the general

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restoration of the Jews, when all the enemies of truth and of the church of the Almighty are vanquished. See Lowth and Calmet.

REFLECTIONS.—1st, The prince of Tyre is next the subject of the prophetic word. Distinct from the general ruin of his country, a particular warning is given to him.

1. His pride was excessive. His heart was lifted up in high conceit of his own excellence, as if he could rival the monarch of the universe: he said, I am a god; boasted himself as a deity, and perhaps expected divine honours should be paid him. His throne seemed to be fixed firm as that of the Most High, and as glorious in the midst of the seas, which owned his sovereign sway. But he is told, Thou art a man, and not God, a poor, dependent, dying worm; though thou set thine heart as the heart of God, thinking his wisdom and dominion great as those of the eternal Jehovah, and himself as worthy to be feared, obeyed, and worshipped. Two things particularly he valued himself upon. [1.] His wisdom. Thou art wiser than Daniel, in his own opinion at least. The fame of Daniel had perhaps reached even to Tyre, as the most remarkable person for wisdom of all the wise men of the East: but the king of Tyre fancied that he far excelled him, and, with penetration approaching omniscience, would have it believed, there was no secret that could be hid from him. Thus often do we see knowledge puffed up, and the most precious gifts of God perverted to his dishonour. [2.] His wealth. By his wisdom he planned his schemes of commerce, and, riches flowing in as a river upon him, every acquisition filled his mind with loftier imaginations of his own importance: he ascribed his gains, not to God's providence, but his own prudence; and fancied himself thereby exalted above all danger. The boasts of antichrist, 2 Thessalonians 2:4 are expressed nearly in the same language, of whom the prince of Tyre is the type and figure.

2. His doom is read. He boasted himself a god, but he must die as a man. The Chaldeans, the terrible of the nations, from a strange land shall come, and with drawn swords demolish the force of Tyre, defile her beauty, and lay all her proud palaces in the dust; and this vain prince, far from finding respect shewn to that majesty which he counted sacred, shall go to an ignominious grave, like those who are in a sea-fight slain and cast overboard without ceremony, a prey for fishes; and, worse still, he shall die under the curse of God, the deaths of the uncircumcised, eternally undone and lost. And sure is the doom pronounced, since the God of truth

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hath spoken it.

3. This will silence his arrogant pretensions. Such vengeance executed upon him will prove his frailty and vanity; and his boasts of godlike power and wisdom will vanish, when, in the hands of his murderers, he shall be found a weak and helpless worm. Note; Death, at farthest, will make the proudest know that they are but men.

2nd, We have a lamentation over the prince of Tyrus.

1. He was, to appearance, raised to the highest pitch of human prosperity. Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty, complete in every accomplishment of mind and person, and great as the wealth of this world could make him. Thou hast been in Eden, the garden of God, as happy, in appearance, as Adam in the delicious mansions prepared for him in the days of his innocence. Every precious stone adorned him, studded his crown, and glittered on his royal robes. The most curious and exquisite instruments of music were prepared to celebrate his birth or coronation day. Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; alluding perhaps to the golden cherubim that covered the mercy-seat, or to the cherubim which guarded the tree of life in Eden, or rather to the angelic host (see the Notes): so beautiful he seemed, and so mighty to protect his people from every foe. And I have set thee so: to God he owed his advancement, and all the greatness that he possessed. Thou wast upon the holy mountain of God, thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire, adorned with jewels, as God's high-priest when he put on the precious breastplate. Which some interpret of antichrist, assuming infallible wisdom, seated on high in the church of God, dressed in most costly apparel, pretending the authority of Christ to be the head and protector of the church, the mount of God, and usurping authority over the people of God, the stones of fire, who shine bright in all holy conversation.

2. His iniquity brought him to destruction. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, prospered and wast successful, till iniquity was found in thee. [1.] There was iniquity in traffic. In the multitude of merchandize much fraud and violence were practised. For very hard it is to be engaged in a multiplicity of business with clean hands: the mystery of trade is too frequently a mystery of

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iniquity. [2.] He was proud and vain-glorious. Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty; and, gazing on his own excellencies, his wisdom became foolishness: for those who are proud of their attainments, corrupt and spoil what otherwise would be praiseworthy. [3.] Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by idolatrous worship, or the lewd actions commonly practised there. For which multitude of iniquities God threatens to destroy him, utterly to cast him down from his high estate, and cut him off from all his possessions as profane; having abused his station, he justly forfeits it: in the dust the kings shall behold him lie, and take warning by his fall, or exult over him. A fire of divine wrath shall be kindled, consume his city to ashes, and himself in the midst of it; and the beholders, with terror and astonishment, shall wonder at his fearful fall, from which he shall never recover. All which is most applicable to the man of sin, whose coffers are filled with the gainful trade of priestcraft, pardons and indulgences; proud of his dignity, corrupt in his worship, defiling the sanctuary with image-worship and superstition: for which his day of ruin will come, when all his glory will be tarnished, when he shall be cast down with divine judgments, and at last doomed to the lake which burneth with fire for ever and ever. Note; Let all the workers of iniquity tremble: the same sins will assuredly produce the same destruction

3rdly, Two ways God will glorify himself,

1. In the destruction of Zidon. God is her enemy, will execute his judgments upon her, and be sanctified, make his holiness and justice appear in her ruin. The depopulating scourge of pestilence shall be sent upon her, and the wounded shall fall on every side. Thus will God make himself known in the vengeance that he executes.

2. In the restoration and prosperity of his Israel. God will bring them again to their own land, and cause them to dwell safely: the nations around, who despised and vexed them, as briars and thorns, shall be no more; and he will be sanctified in the sight of the heathen, who will be made to own his hand evidently displayed in behalf of his people: and with comfort they shall know him to be the Lord, experiencing his mercy and proving his faithfulness. And this restoration seems to look farther than their return from Babylon, after which they were still frequently beset with enemies; and to have respect to their last recovery, when they shall be admitted into the church; and all the faithful among them shall enter into that eternal rest, where

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the wicked will cease from troubling, and every tear be for ever wiped from their eyes.

TRAPP, "Ezekiel 28:24 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.

Ver. 24. And there shall be no more a pricking brier.] For God will take away the Canaanite out of the land, [Zechariah 14:21] omnem spinum dolorificum: he will by his judgments provide for his own glory, and for his people’s comfort.

POOLE, " No more; the time intended here is, when, after seventy years’ captivity, loathing themselves for their iniquities, and repenting, they return and settle in their own land. Pricking brier, grieving thorn: by these two metaphors the prophet points out the troublesome neighbours of the Jews.

Of all that are round about them; such as Moab, Ammon, Edom, Tyre, and this Zidon, which on all occasions did grieve, wound, and reproach the Jews, and triumph in the fall of the Jews, and were ever ready, being near.

That despised them; contemning both in word and carriage the Jews, their religion, manners, laws, and their God. They shall know that I am the Lord: see Ezekiel 28:22.

PETT, "Verse 24

“And there will be no more a pricking brier to the house of Israel, nor a grieving thorn from any that are round about them, who did them harm. And they will know that I am Yahweh.”

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This general statement applies to Zidon, but it also applies to all the nations yet mentioned. All had constantly at various times tormented Israel, picture vividly in terms of prickly bushes and thorns (compare Numbers 13:55; Joshua 23:13). Soon they would do so no more. So Israel too, along with them, will know that He is Yahweh.

A Promise of Restoration for His people (Ezekiel 28:25-26).

As so often Ezekiel again reminds Israel that God has yet a future for them (Ezekiel 11:17-20; Ezekiel 14:11; Ezekiel 16:60-63; Ezekiel 18:30-31; Ezekiel 20:41-44). In all that is happening He has not deserted them, indeed in the final analysis He only purposes good for them. There is no mention of judgment. This is now seen as technically accomplished, and He looks beyond to future blessing.

PULPIT, "There shall be no more a pricking brier. There is a special appropriateness in Ezekiel's imagery. The words had been used in Numbers 33:55 of the Canaanites at large (comp. Joshua 22:13). Ezekiel applies them to the cities which were the most conspicuous survivors of the old Canaanite races. Israel, he implies, had been wounded with those thorns and briers, had caught (as e.g. in the case of Jezebel) the taint of evil life and evil worship from those races; but for her there is, as in Verse 25, the future of restoration, and when that future comes, the Canaanite cities, with their idolatries and vices, should have passed away forever.

25 “‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: When I gather the people of Israel from the nations where they have been scattered, I will be proved holy through them in the sight of the nations.

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Then they will live in their own land, which I gave to my servant Jacob.

BARNES, "The contrast of the future of Israel with that of the surrounding nations. This prophecy reaches far beyond a mere temporal restoration. It points to times of more permanent security, when from all nations and kingdoms the Church of Christ, the Israel of God, shall be gathered in, when the power of the world shall be forever broken, and the kingdom of Christ shall be established forever.

This transition from the enemies to the people of God closes the portion of the prophecies against the nations in the immediate vicinity of the Israelites, before passing to the more distant Egypt.

CLARKE, "When I shall have gathered the house of Israel - In their long captivity, God had been preparing the land for them so as to make it a safe dwelling; and hence he executed judgments on all the heathen nations round about by means of the Chaldeans. Thus Tyre and Sidon were destroyed, as were the Ammonites and others who had been the inveterate enemies of the Jews. Judgment first began at his own house, then proceeded to the heathen nations; and when they were brought down, then he visited and redeemed his people. Thus God’s ways are proved to be all equal; partialities and caprices belong not to him.

GILL, "Thus saith the Lord God, when I shall have gathered the house of Israel,.... Not at the return of them from captivity in Babylon; for the ten tribes or house of Israel did not then return; though there might some few of those tribes, as a pledge of what would be hereafter; but in the latter day, upon the destruction of antichrist, when all Israel shall be saved: and when they will be collected from the people among whom they are scattered; in the several nations of the world, in Asia, Africa, and Europe: and shall be sanctified in them in the sight of the Heathen; being believed in by them; prayed unto and worshipped in a spiritual manner by them; professed and owned to be their Saviour and Redeemer in the face of the whole world, Christians and even Heathens, whom before they rejected: then shall they dwell in their land that I have given to my servant Jacob; the land of Canaan, given by promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; which last is only here mentioned, because it was his posterity that was to possess

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it; not all Abraham's, only those in the line of Isaac; nor all Isaac's, only those in the line of Jacob; but all his; and this they will do when they are converted in the latter day, and be no more a vagabond people, as they now are.

JAMISON 25-26, "Fulfilled in part at the restoration from Babylon, when Judaism, so far from being merged in heathenism, 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 Savior (Mat_15:21, Mat_15:24, Mat_15:26-28; compare Isa_11:12).

dwell safely — (Jer_23:6).

K&D 25-26, "Eze_28:25-26Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, When I shall gather the house of Israel out of the peoples among whom they have been scattered, I shall sanctify myself upon them before the eyes of the heathen nations, and they will dwell in their land which I have given to my servant Jacob. Eze_28:26. They will dwell there securely, and build houses and plant vineyards, and will dwell securely when I execute judgments upon all who despise them of those round about them; and they shall learn that I Jehovah am their God. - Whilst the heathen nations succumb to the judgments of God, Israel passes on to a time of blessed peace. The Lord will gather His people from their dispersion among the heathen, bring them into the land which He gave to the patriarch Jacob, His servant, and give them in that land rest, security, and true prosperity. (For the fact itself, compare Eze_11:17; Eze_20:41; Eze_36:22.)

TRAPP, "Ezekiel 28:25 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.

Ver. 25. Then shall they dwell in their land.] Provided that they cleave close to me; otherwise I will out them again. It hath been elsewhere noted that the promises are with a condition; which is as an oar in a boat, or stern of a ship, and turns the promise another way.

POOLE, " When seventy years is expired, which is the term of their captive state.

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I shall have gathered; moved the hearts of my people to come together upon Cyrus’s proclamation, and from all parts of that vast kingdom, to prepare for a return to the country most of them never saw: it was God who moved Cyrus to give them leave; it was as much God’s work to stir up the people to return.

The house of Israel; the generality of them, those that were Israelites indeed.

From the people; several nations subjects to the king of Babylon.

Scattered, by the Babylonish king at first, and afterward by incident, necessity, or their own choice.

Shall be sanctified; have vindicated my name, which by them was blasphemed.

In the sight of the heathen: I was dishonoured by the Jews in the sight of the heathen, and I will be honoured by the Jews in their sight, they shall be witnesses of my vindication.

Dwell; settle in peace, and for continuance.

In their land; in a land that is theirs,

their own, as it is often called.

That I have given; their title is of me by deed of gift, not of late, but to one that was long since my servant; to Jacob, father to these returning captives. The Hebrew

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repeats the preposition,

to my servant, to Jacob, with an emphasis, to mind them of God’s faithfulness.

PETT, "Verse 25-26

‘Thus says the Lord Yahweh, “When I have gathered the house of Israel from the peoples among whom they are scattered, and am sanctified in them in the sight of the nations, then will they dwell in their own land which I gave to my servant Jacob. And they will dwell securely in it. Yes they will build houses and plant vineyards and will dwell securely, when I have executed judgment on all those that do them harm round about them, and they will know that I am Yahweh their God.” ’

This promise and its remarkable fulfilment is witnessed in history. Israel was again gathered from the nations and established in Jerusalem, and it once again dwelt safely in the Promised Land (1 Maccabees 14:8-15), and even enjoyed its own independence, although because of its sins and because it had not learned its lessons the period was not very long. The continued fulfilment of the promises always depended on obedience.

But the promise has an even greater fulfilment which Ezekiel could not even have dreamed of, and could only present in terms familiar to himself. For one day God’s people, God’s Israel, will dwell securely in a far better land where they will enjoy far greater blessings, in everlasting contentment (Revelation 22:1-3 based on Ezekiel 47). That is the final fulfilment of the promise.

26 They will live there in safety and will build houses and plant vineyards; they will live in safety

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when I inflict punishment on all their neighbors who maligned them. Then they will know that I am the Lord their God.’”

GILL, "And they shall dwell safely therein,.... There being none to make them afraid, all their enemies being destroyed, and they also under the protection of Christian princes: and they shall build houses and plant vineyards; signifying their continuance in their land, and their enjoyment of the blessings of it. Cocceius understands this of churches gathered in the name of Christ; of which no doubt there will be many in Judea, as in the first times of the Gospel, and more abundantly: yea, they shall dwell with confidence: in the utmost safety and security, having nothing to fear from any quarter: when I have executed judgment upon all those that despise them round about them; took vengeance on them, and utterly destroyed them that despised or spoiled them, even all around them; they will all be cut off, so that there will be none to give them the least disturbance: and they shall know that I am the Lord their God: not only God, as before, Eze_28:24, but their God, their Lord and their God, their Redeemer and Saviour, whom they formerly denied, persecuted, and pierced.

TRAPP, "Ezekiel 28:26 And they shall dwell safely therein, and shall build houses, and plant vineyards; yea, they shall dwell with confidence, when I have executed judgments upon all those that despise them round about them; and they shall know that I [am] the LORD their God.

Ver. 26. And they shall dwell safely therein.] Or, In confidence. And this is reiterated here to show what a mercy of God it is to live secure, and free from the fear of enemies.

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POOLE, " Safely; which is to be understood comparatively, safer than before; it must be accommodated to the circumstances of human condition; in such safety as excludes continual inward cares, and fears, and perplexities, as it is said of Laish, Jude 18:7; or as in the days of Solomon, 1 Kings 4:25; or as Job 11:18,19.

When I have executed judgments: that seems to intimate, that there might be some attempts, as by Sanballat and Tobias, but God blasted these; or it may refer more properly to the destruction of Babylon, and the nations confederate with them, who ruined and despised the Jews.

And they, the returned captives, shall own, and know by experience, that I sin not only the Lord, but their God too.

PULPIT, "Shall build houses, etc. The words sound almost like a direct quotation from Jeremiah 23:6 and Jeremiah 36:28; and, at all events, present a suggestive parallel. The restoration was to include also the blessing of confidence and hope; no longer a groundless and false confidence, like that of Jeremiah 2:37 and Jeremiah 48:13, but one resting on the fact that God was in very deed the Judge of all the earth. We may note, at the close of the chapter, how its juxtaposition of the two Phoenician cities seems to have been present to the mind of the Christ in his references to the judgment that should come upon both of them (Matthew 11:21; Luke 10:13). He himself, it will be remembered, passed through the coasts of Tyre and Zidon (Matthew 15:21), and probably, according to the best text of Mark 7:24, actually trod the streets of the latter city. They supplied some of the great multitude of Mark 3:8, who listened to his teaching.

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