Ezekiel - Lesson 29

Lesson number 29, who laments the king of Tyre's demise, Ezekiel 28 11 to 19. The interpretive problems posed by Ezekiel 28 11 to 19 begin with Yahweh's opening command to Ezekiel to raise a lament, the Hebrew word is kinah, over the king of Tyre. Following the pronouncement of the death sentence upon him in verses 6 to 11 that we heard in the previous session, a funeral song would indeed be appropriate. However, even though Ezekiel has shown himself a master of the dirge firm, d-i-r-g-e, which is a funeral song, we saw these in chapter 19, 26, 15 to 18, and 27, and we'll see a few more yet with the oracles against the pharaoh and the Egyptians. But this oracle looks nothing like a typical dirge. Overt expressions of grief are lacking entirely. There is no oy vey here. Rather than grieving the king of Tyre's death, the concern here is to vindicate Yahweh in his judgment upon the man. Indeed, the oracle sounds more like a divine judgment speech than a lament. That’s the first issue. Stylistically, this panel is so irregular, it is difficult to decide whether to classify it as prose or poetry. It displays some standard components of poetry, figurative language, unusual vocabulary, archaisms, old words, parallelism, unusual word order, and the breakup of stereotyped phrases like the garden of Eden now becomes garden in one line and Eden in the other. But many poetic features are missing. The lines are inconsistent in length, balanced parallelism is actually rare, and while consecutives of particular Hebrew construction in prose are very common. A third issue, the so-called 3-2 kina meter, 1-2-3-1-2, 1-2-3-1-2, that's common in dirges. It’s limited to a few lines here, so he's not following the model. Fourth, although hints of once-now scheme are evident, as we saw in chapter 26 with reference to Tyre, we do note references to the king's glorious past in verses 12 to 14 and his subsequent demise in verses 16b to 18, but the entire panel is cast in the past tense. Five, unlike the laments for Tyre in 26, 17 to 18, and 26, 30 to 35, here an embedded lament is actually missing. Nobody’s weeping, which raises several questions. Where is the lament in this text? Who is lamenting here? Raise a lament for the king of Tyre. Who's lamenting? Well, in his public transmission of this message, Ezekiel neither tells anyone to lament nor describes anyone actually lamenting. Then why and who is lamenting? As we work through this passage, we may recognize a few subtle hints. Although formal structural indicators are absent from verses 11 to 19, after the preamble, the content of the prophecy proper divides into three parts, without the usual formulas. First, we have an imaginative description of the king of Tyre's superlative wealth and glory, drawing heavily on mythological traditions. That’s verses 12b to 14. Second, we have a presentation of the king of Tyre's hubris again and Yahweh's response, verses 15 to 18. The text is irregular, but not chaotic, as it alternates accusations and declarations of judgment. And then at the end, we have a declaration of the king's demise to end this text in verse 19. So let's begin with a look at the preamble, verses 11 to 12. The following message of Yahweh came to me, human son of man, raise a lament over the king of Tyre and say to him, thus has Adonai Yahweh declared. Well, after opening with a customary word event formula, Yahweh commanded Ezekiel to prophesy by raising a lament over the king of Tyre. Now, instead of addressing the king as Nagid, prince, as we saw in verse 2, Yahweh identifies him as Melech Tzor, the king of Tyre. Because the patron deity of Tyre was Baal-mel-qart, Baal, king of the city, some interpreters suggest the prophet was not speaking to the human ruler of Tyre, but to the city's divine patron, Baal-mel-qart. However, the tight links with verses 1 to 10, particularly the references to the ruler's trade, suggest that the Melech, the king, was the same person as the one who had been introduced as prince in verse 2. Although Ezekiel had presented Yahweh as the subject of Malak to reign, Yahweh reigns as king in 2033, in this book the noun Melech always refers to an earthly human king, such as the king of Babylon in 7, 29, 2 to 3, or Egypt 27, 33, in 28, 17 we have kings of the earth, or the Davidic ruler 34, 24, and 37, 25, only twice of an Israelite king, but it's a futuristic kind of statement. We move then from the introduction, the preamble, to the king of Tyre's superlative status and glory, verses 12b to 14. Ezekiel's presentation of the king of Tyre involves highly imaginative and colorful imagery, but the text is difficult to interpret for many reasons. I shall try to keep it simple by summarizing the way God looks upon the king of Tyre. Now we have got God's view, not the king of Tyre's view, as we had it in verses 1 to 10. First of all, notice God's view of the status of the king of Tyre. Interpretive challenges begin, though, with the opening announcement, you are the signet or the seal of perfection. We know the expression signet ring as a ring with an inscription on it, which could be in the form of a signature, a family crest, or a logo, or a commemorative celebration, like the Chicago Cubs World Series rings or the Chicago Blackhawks Stanley Cup rings. We know signet rings. However, in the ancient world, signets functioned as stamps to authenticate documents. The seals used in the ancient world varied greatly in form and design. In Mesopotamia, they tended to be cylinder seals decorated with mythological scenes, but scarab and stamp seals were more common in Egypt and Palestine. In Israel and the countries nearby, seals were generally made of precious or semi-precious stones and often featured a skillfully engraved insignia of the owner. Some found by archaeologists have a hole for a string so it could be worn around the neck rather than fastened on finger rings. Seals were used for a variety of purposes, as pledges, Genesis 38, 18, for adornment, Exodus 28, 11, 21, and 26, but especially, as I mentioned, to seal letters, 1 Kings 21, 8, and legal documents, Jeremiah 32, 11, 14, and Nehemiah 9, 38, and of course, in the book of Revelation as well. Seals functioned as insignias of authority and authenticity. Possession of the seal of a superior was a mark of great honor. Slaves did not have seals, but high officials in the king did. They signified the bearer, the one who bore the seal, had been deputized to sign documents on the king's behalf. You see this in Genesis 41, 42 of Joseph. Only the owner of a seal or one deputized by him had the right to open documents bound and sealed with these stamped bullae, clay balls over the knot of a string that bound a scroll. Only authorized persons could break it, remember the image in Revelation 5, 1 to 2. Who is worthy to break the seal? But if Ezekiel's identification of the king, a human being, as the seal, if that seems odd, we need to note that in Jeremiah 22, 24, and Haggai 2, 23, the prophets identified Jehoiakim and Zerubbabel, respectively, as Yahweh's signets, his seals. By my life, the declaration of the Lord, even if Conniah, Jehoiakim, the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, were the signet ring on my right hand, still I would tear you off and deliver you into the hand of those who seek your life and into the hand of those of whom you fear, that is, the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and the hand of the Chaldeans. That's Jeremiah 22, 24 to 25.But Haggai, on that day, the declaration of Yahweh's oath, I will take you, O Zerubbabel, my servant, the son of Shealtiel, and we could say a descendant of Jehoiakim, the declaration of the Lord, and I will install you as a signet ring, for I have chosen you, the declaration of Yahweh's oath, Haggai 2, 23. Now Zerubbabel was a descendant of Jehoiakim who was in exile with Ezekiel and the last survivor of the Davidic house. In both texts, before the watching world, Yahweh treated the Davidic descendant as his insignia of his claim upon Israel, and to the Israelites they signified Yahweh's authority over them. This is precisely how we should treat the king of Tyre here, though we will learn very quickly that this was metaphorical language. Ezekiel will explain the metaphor in the verses that follow. Ezekiel used three expressions to describe this seal. First, it was a seal of perfection, which means it was perfectly designed, proportioned, and crafted. He reinforced this quality with the ultimate in beauty, as good as it gets. Second, it was full of wisdom. Royal seals in the ancient world were not only made of precious stone with their exquisitely crafted designs, they were also works of human art. While seal of perfection and the ultimate in beauty may apply to the seal itself, these phrases refer to the person whom this seal represented. He, the king of Tyre in this case, was full of wisdom. As we noted with reference to the prince in 28.3-4, the word chokmah, wisdom, denotes fundamentally skill in the craft or skillfully crafted. This could relate to the seal itself. Exodus 30-35 describes Bezalel as one filled with the divine spirit, ruach Elohim, wisdom, and understanding, knowledge, and all craftsmanship. The sequel highlighted Bezalel's craftsmanship in precious metals and engraving and setting of gemstones like those on the high priest's breast piece. However, it seems that now Ezekiel's attention had shifted from the signet, the seal, to the person whom it represented. The emphasis on the king's wisdom links with the preceding panel, verses 1-10, where Yahweh had credited the prince's wealth and ultimately pride to his wisdom. In verses 3-4, Yahweh had described him as wiser than Daniel. Well taken together, this triad, three special phrases, highlighted the status, magnificence, and beauty of the king of Tyre. But to this point, we have heard no hint of anything illicit in his conduct or in his attitudes. Rather, Yahweh has portrayed the king as the height of nobility, the crown jewel of his creation. His identification as a seal hints at a special status conferred by one higher than himself. In verse 13a, we hear Yahweh instructs us on the domain of the king of Tyre. The first line of verse 13 identifies his realm as Eden, the garden of God, which in the second century B.C. translators of the Greek Septuagint rendered as, you were in the luxury of the paradise of God. The name Eden comes from a verb, adan, to enrich, to make abundant. An Aramaic form of this root, adan, appears in the 9th century B.C. bilingual Tel Fikariya inscription of Hadayisi opposite Akkadian, a word which clearly means, who enriches the regions. It has something to do with flourishing. As an Israelite, Ezekiel could have characterized this as the garden of Yahweh, Genesis 13.10, Isaiah 51.3, rather than the garden of God, which is what the ancient Aramaic Targums actually read here. However, he was dealing with a Tyrian king, the king of Tyre, for whom the patron deity was Melkart, and garden of Yahweh would have implied alien notions. These oracles are colored to fit the location of the target. The same phenomenon happens later in 31.8-9, where both Eden and garden of God reappear in an oracle against the king of Egypt, rather than garden of Yahweh. When Yahweh spoke of the king of Tyre in Eden, he adapted a well-known biblical story of the garden of Eden as a utopian realm of prosperity and joy. Remember Genesis 2-3? And compare Ezekiel 36-35, where Eden returns. However, given this link to the Israelite story of creation, Ezekiel's literary brush painted the king of Tyre as an Adam figure, Adam, in the garden of Eden, Genesis 2-3. In verse 13b, we hear of the glory of the king of Tyre. Speaking for Yahweh, Ezekiel dropped the subject of the garden immediately and turned to his primary concern, the occupant of the garden, envisioned as a figure magnificently decked out in gold and jewels. The list of gemstones opens with a theme statement, of precious stones of every kind was your covering, and it ends with a reference to the gold base on which they were mounted, literally, and of gold it was woven. But now Ezekiel was mixing his metaphors. He had just spoken of the king of Tyre himself as a beautifully crafted jeweled seal, but now he spoke of this seal being adorned with a series of gemstones, many of which were exploited by ancient jewelers in crafting signets. This portrayal assumed the precious stones, Evan-Yikara, functioned as decoration for the king's garments, analogous to the jewels adorning the chestpiece of Israel's high priest, Exodus 28 17 to 20 and 39 10 to 13. Indeed, a comparison between Ezekiel's list of gemstones and those of the high priest suggests Ezekiel's catalog list was inspired by that chestpiece, which shouldn't surprise us since Ezekiel himself was a priest. Let’s compare these. Both lists, the high priest's list and this one, group the stones in triads, in three, probably reflecting their arrangement in rows. Second, they start out identically with Odum and Pitida. These are two special kind of gemstones, same words. Ezekiel's second triad is identical to the fourth in Exodus, so they're switching rows. Fourth, although the order is reversed, the stones in Ezekiel's third triad are identical to Exodus's second triad. The most obvious difference is the deletion of one entire set of three in Ezekiel. He has only nine rather than twelve. This problem is more than corrected in the Septuagint of Ezekiel, which not only restores the full complement of stones but retains the order of Exodus 28 17 and 39 10 to 13. And then the translators added silver and gold in the very middle, so they fixed what they viewed to be a problem. While the differences in modern translation reflect the problems the Hebrew names for these gemstones pose, this need not concern here. The point is the magnificent garments of this person reflected his glory and status in the garden on the day that he was created. He's a created being. Even the special verb comes from Genesis 1 27. The ancient Aramaic Targum from about the third century AD offers an interesting interpretation of all of this. Here's what the Targum reads. You were in Eden, the garden of God. All kinds of jewels adorned your robe. You saw with your own eyes the ten canopies that I made for the primal Adam, made of carnelian, topaz, and diamonds, barrel of the Mediterranean sea, and spotted stone, sapphire, emerald, smaragd, and fine gold. They showed him at his wedding all the works of creation, and the angels were running before him with timbrels and with flutes. So on the day when Adam was created, they were prepared to honor him. But after that he went astray and was expelled from there. You too did not take a lesson from him, but rather your heart became haughty, and you did not reflect wisely on your body that you are made of orifices and organs which you need for excretion, and it is impossible for you to survive without them. They were designed for you from the day on which you were created. That's a very creative interpretation of this text from about the third century AD. But how are modern readers to envisage the historical king of Tyre? Are these jewels part of his costume, like the chest piece worn by the Israelite high priest? And does this make this character a priestly figure? More importantly, does this usage of the metaphor make Adam into a priest in the Garden of Eden? Well, here I advise caution. Against the grain of many today, I find nothing in Genesis 1 to do that suggests that the biblical author perceived Eden or the world as a temple or Adam as a priest serving God cultically in the temple. This opinion is very popular today, and I am a minority, I am sure. But in the ancient world, temples were viewed as homes for the deity, as was Israel's temple in Jerusalem. But God did not create the world because he was homeless. His home is in heaven. Adam and his descendants were created to govern the world for God. In the pre-fall world, there was no need for temples or priests in that mediatorial sense. That was necessary only after the fall. We should also be aware that in the ancient Near Eastern world, kings often wore what we call pectorals, an article worn around the neck or hung down over the chest reflecting their status within the court or before the deity. You can go to the big museums of the world where they have on display pectorals used by ancient Mesopotamian and Egyptian kings. Although the concept of royal pectorals was widely known, since Ezekiel was a priest himself, we should not be surprised that if he talked about a magnificent pectoral for this king, he saw it as decorated with precious stones, and he would naturally be inspired by the one worn by the Israelite high priest. But we should not make more of the links to Aaron's garb than necessary. The text contains no direct reference to this chest piece. The word covering, mesuka, in verse 13 is too vague to secure this identification. Indeed, it seems the priestly prophet deliberately used this word mesuka to prevent identification with the pouch of judgment, choshen mishpat, that is, the breast piece, Exodus 28, 15. Furthermore, apart from the list of gemstones, the allusion in this oracle are all either to Genesis 1 to 3 or, dare we say it, extra-biblical mythologies. The designation of the king as the seal of perfection recalls the creation of the first man as the representative and administrative deputy of God. Not the high priest, but he is the image of God put there to govern the garden and the world, ultimately. Eden and the garden of God designate the paradise context in which he was placed. Even the appearance of gold and precious stones harmonizes perfectly with a primeval antecedent. Compare the references to gold and bdellium and onyx stones in Genesis 2, 12. And finally, even though the people in Ezekiel's audience were spiritually compromised, they would scarcely have tolerated the image of a pagan king dressed in the most sacred of all Israelite garb. If the prophet resisted speaking of Eden as the garden of Yahweh, verse 13, to avoid incongruencies when dealing with Tyre, as a priest he would have been even more sensitive about blurring the boundaries between a Tyrian king and the Israelite high priests. The correspondences between the high priest's list of gemstones and those on the king of Tyre's pectoral may indeed have been influenced by the prophet's priestly heritage, but his deviations from the official list suggest he was taking the motif in a new and creative direction. In this satirical context, he had no interest in identifying the king of Tyre with a high priest of Israel. For a priest, the catalog of gemstones were stereotypical, and he cited these nine to clarify what he meant by every precious stone, and he gives us a list of nine. This list offered a convenient way to depict the wealth and splendor of the king of Tyre. This monarch was adorned, mesukkah, by the dazzling collection of precious stones, perhaps even from head to toe. In verse 14, the Lord shifts to the divinely ordained role of the king of Tyre. You are the anointed cherub. As the guardian I appointed you, you were on the holy mountain of God. You walked back and forth among stones of fire. Verse 14 is difficult at many levels, but to grasp Ezekiel's intent, we need to recognize three critical details. First, the king of Tyre was the one anointed and charged by God to secure the well-being and flourishing of his Eden, the garden of God. The expression is difficult, but it means something like the anointed cherub who is stretched out or who overshadows or who covers or protects. As we observed in Ezekiel 1 and 10, cherub designates a composite figure involving animal parts often with multiple heads that builders of palaces and temples erected outside the gates or as part of the gate structure to safeguard the space within the walls of the garden. They were guardians. But this cherub was different from those that carried the throne chariot that Ezekiel saw by the river Kemar in chapter 1, or that carried away the glory of Yahweh in chapters 8 to 10, or the cherub associated elsewhere with the ark of the covenant. His location in Eden tempts us to associate him with a cherubim with a flaming sword that Yahweh stationed at the entrance of the garden to prevent Adam and Eve in their rebellious state from regaining access to the tree of life, Genesis 3 24, which says he drove out the man and at the east of the garden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life, Genesis 3 24. Ezekiel's figure was not a cherub kruv, that is one among many, but he was the cherub whom God anointed and who functioned as the covering, his cherub par excellence. Second, the king of Tyre was on the holy mountain of God. On the surface the expression holy mountain of God suggests a connection either with Sinai, Exodus 3 1 and 18 5 and 24 13, or the temple in Jerusalem, Mount Zion, Psalm 48, mountain of his holiness. While Genesis 2 to 3 did not mention a mountain in Eden, the fact that a river flowed away from the garden and spread out in four directions suggests it was minimally on an elevated plateau. This plateau was called the mountain of God, not because this was his temple, but because the whole place belonged to God. The king was here by God's invitation, and he had access to God like Moses had on Mount Sinai. Indeed, God had appointed him as his image to be his deputy to take care of the garden. Accordingly, when Yahweh Elohim walked about in the garden in the cool of the day, Genesis 3 8, he came as its owner to converse with his vice-regent to check in on how things were going. It's a natural scene. Third, this king walked about in the garden among the stones of fire. But what were these stones of fire? Did this image suggest he had supernatural powers enabling him to walk through fire unscathed by the flames or the heat? I don't think so. I think it's best to interpret these stones of fire as more decorative gemstones reflecting the light of the sun and sparkling like fire, which match the king's garments and the picture of Eden in Genesis 2 11 to 12, which speaks of a river that flowed around the whole land of Havilah where there is gold, and the gold of that land is good, and bedellium and onyx stone are there. And I think this bedellium and onyx stone, he mentions only two, but I think it's shorthand for all kinds of stones. We might find reinforcement for this interpretation by a remarkable analogue in a fragment in the Gilgamesh epic from Mesopotamia, which describes the arrival of the hero in the garden of the gods. It's a broken text, but here is what we have. When he achieved, he came close, he came out in front of the sun, brightness was everywhere, but then it becomes especially interesting. All kinds of thorny, prickly, spiky bushes were visible, blossoming with gemstones. Carnelian bore fruit, hanging in clusters, lovely to look at. Lapis lazuli bore foliage, they bore fruit and were delightful to view. And then there's a gap, and then we hear, in fronds of white papardilu stone, that's another gemstone, and he lists other stones like brambles and thorn bushes of precious stones, carob trees of abashmu stone, subu stone, hematite, riches and wealth, turquoise. And then it ends, as Gilgamesh walked around. He's walking around here. That's an amazing, it's a broken text. I wish we had the whole thing, but here Gilgamesh finds himself in this garden dressed in jewels. But this raises a second question concerning the cherub. What did Ezekiel mean when he talked about this king walking back and forth among the stones of fire? Well, unlike sculptured stationary cherubs that decorated ancient palace hallways or guarded the entrances of important buildings and grounds, and unlike the sword-wielding cherub that Yahweh placed at the entrance to the Garden of Eden after Adam and Eve were expelled, this figure is mobile. He walks back and forth. But here Ezekiel used a special form of the Hebrew verb hithalek, which occurs in Genesis 13, 14 to 17, where God instructed Avram, later Abraham. He said, look up, gaze in every direction, the entire landscape that you see I will give to you and your descendants forever. Walk up and down, hithalek, same verb, from one end of the land to the other because I am giving this to you, Genesis 13, 14 to 17. This anointed cherub's activity was perfectly normal. God had installed him as governor of this land to protect and manage it on his behalf and for the garden's sake and for God's glory. This was all legitimate. His brilliantly bejeweled garb matched the status of the estate, signaling to all creatures inside the garden and those who threatened it from outside that he governed this space for the well-being of the garden and the glory of his divine master. Now whatever the background of Ezekiel's image of the king of Tyre in all his glory, the announcement that Yahweh had appointed him to this position in the garden, that's entirely orthodox. The sovereign lord of history was also behind the literal throne of Tyre. The king was Yahweh's officially designated signet, his guardian cherub, the gardener of his mountain. In 28, 15 to 18, the subject changes to the king's response to this glorious role and status with which Yahweh had endowed him, his hubris and Yahweh's response. In verse 15, this prophecy makes a significant turn, shifting from a celebration of the king of Tyre's status, glory and role. It becomes suddenly a judgment oracle. Having gone to extravagant lengths to explain the originally divinely appointed status of the king, Ezekiel described the king's response to his assignment and then Yahweh's reaction. In short, his glory went to his head and his soul rotted within him. Verses 15 to 18 divide into three parts, each of which consists of an accusation and an announcement of judgment. The verbs in the latter are all cast as prophetic perfects, past tense. They involve imminent future events, but they declare them as if they are already accomplished. The first accusation and divine response comes in verses 15 to 16.You were blameless in your behavior from the day you were created. That's a good start. Until misconduct was found in you. Oops. In the abundance of your trade, you were filled to the core with violence, and you sinned. So I banished you from the mountain of God and destroyed you, O guardian cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. Now, this first accusation contrasts the king of Tyre's original blamelessness, that's the once-now pattern, with his latter-day corruption, characterizing the man as blameless after Hithole, he walks about in the garden, invites comparison with Noah, who was also blameless and walked with God, Genesis 6, 9. And Abraham, who, as we saw, was charged by God to walk before me and be blameless, Genesis 17, 1. However, the primary inspiration for Ezekiel's description of the king derives from Israel's creation traditions, stories in the Bible. As Imago Dei, the image of God, Adam was created to represent God and deputized to rule the world for him, who had crowned him with glory and majesty and put all things under his feet, as Psalm 8 celebrates. The reuse of the verb to create, bara, in verse 15, compared Genesis 1, 27, reinforces this link.The motif of the garden and the king's guardianship over it derives from Genesis 2 to 3. But Ezekiel also drew his image of expulsion because of sin from Eden. The success of the king of Tyre's trading ventures had brought with it a transformation in his character. Instead of fulfilling his charge under God, he practiced unrighteousness, al-latha. Compare this with 320 and 18.8, this word we've seen elsewhere. He filled the place with violence, chamas, and he committed sin, notions that Yahweh will expand in the following verses. Yahweh announced his reaction with two parallel clauses. First, he banished him from the mountain of God. Again, the prophetic priests use a special verb here, expressing the notion of to desecrate, to profane. The sanctity of the garden and its keeper have been implicit throughout the preceding description. The king of Tyre's role was a sacred trust in a sacred place on behalf of the awesomely holy God. However, by his sin, the king had violated the sanctity of the garden and rendered himself unfit for his role. Therefore, Yahweh, who is the speaker in this entire oracle, had every right to treat him as profane, to banish him from the garden and remove him from this glorious environment. Verses 15 and 16. In verse 17, we have the second accusation and divine response. You became proud because of your beauty. You corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor. So I cast you to the ground and made a spectacle of you before kings that they might stare at you. In this second accusation, Ezekiel identified the king's fundamental defect and in so doing brought his hearers back to the primary notion of the first panel that we saw in the last session in verses 2 and 7. The king's beauty, Yophi, had yielded hubris in his heart, and the brilliance of his visage had corrupted his rational powers, chokmah. Neither beauty nor wisdom themselves were to be disparaged. There's nothing wrong with beauty, and there's nothing wrong with wisdom. On the contrary, these were qualities that God had invested in the king to authorize and enable him to rule the garden of God. However, imagining himself to be the Lord of this holy mountain, he strutted his splendor before the rulers of the world. How appropriate, therefore, that he should also be cast down in their sight, verse 17b. The image of Yahweh responding by hurling the king down to the ground evokes an iconoclastic picture of an idol being hurled down and lying in ruins on the ground, like the image of Dagon in 1 Samuel 5. However, since the word Eretz was also used of the netherworld, we saw this in 26, 19 to 20, here it may function as a variant of Shachat, the pit, with reference to the king of Egypt in chapter 32. But how far the mighty have fallen! The one whom God had appointed to be his signet, the guardian, the gardener of the divine estate, was banished and consigned to Sheol. In verse 18, we have the third accusation and divine response. By the magnitude of your iniquities, your twisted behavior, your twisted thinking, in your unscrupulous trade, you have desecrated your sanctuaries. So I sent fire out from your midst, and it consumed you. I reduced you to ashes on the ground, in the sight of all who gazed at you. Here the prophet returned to the king's iniquitous pursuit of his commercial ventures. With the increase in trade had come increased iniquity and unrighteousness, and the consequent defiling of the sacred place with his evil actions. The plural, sanctuaries, here reflects all the elements that make up the sacred precinct on God's holy mountain. Now Yahweh was no longer speaking of Eden as the holy mountain, but now he was talking about the temple in the city of Tyre, in which the king supposedly sat as the enthroned deity. The nature of Yahweh's final judgment of the king of Tyre is not clear. The syntax suggests the fire God sent burst forth from within the cherub himself and consumed him from the inside out, perhaps implying that sin brings with it its own punishment. However, we may also understand in your midst more generally as from within the sacred complex, the little world that you've created for yourself, again highlighting the appropriateness of the judgment. Because his responsible walk, verse 14, had turned into an arrogant swagger, the stones of fire, previously symbols of glory, would flare up and consume him in a final conflagration. In verse 19, we hear of the impact of the king of Tyre's demise. All who know you among the peoples are appalled over you. You have become a horror. You will be no more forever. The concluding refrain of the oracle against the king of Tyre bears a horrifying note of finality. The proud ruler, the envy of the nations, was gone forever, leaving the bystanders paralyzed with shock. Can't believe this has happened. The theological implications drawn from this pair of oracles, 1 to 10 and then 11 to 19, the theological implications depend to some extent upon one's view of the traditions that underlie it. Apart from the assumption that in his proclamation Ezekiel was inspired by God, we know that he got his message from God, what was the source of the imagery in this prophecy against this prince, this king of Tyre? And was this a prophecy concerning Satan and his fall? As many readers will probably argue, and many hearers of this lesson will argue. How shall we answer this question? First, earlier in verses 2 and 9, Yahweh had declared emphatically, you are human and not divine, which I suppose suggests that he's actually a human king he's talking about, rather than the king of evil. Second, the numerous allusions to Genesis 1 to 3 link this cherub not with the devil, but with the first man, Adam, of Genesis 2 to 3. This is most obvious in the setting of verses 11 to 19 in Eden, the garden of God. But echoes of the original Adam are evident in the characterization of the prince of Tyre in the first panel, as well as in the description of the cherub in the second. Like the king of Tyre, the first man was created by God, was divinely authorized to rule over the garden as king. Being unsatisfied with the status of Adam, he sought, claimed divinity, willing to be like God, knowing everything, and he was punished for this hubris by humiliation and death. However, Ezekiel did not have only Genesis 2 to 3 in mind. The twofold reference to creation using the verb bara, in the beginning God created bara, the heavens and the earth, and then later in Genesis 1, 27, he created man. You don't find this verb in Genesis 2 and 3. It's in Genesis 1. This links the second panel, at least, with the first creation account in Genesis, which is framed by this same verb, Genesis 1, 1 and 2, 4a. Third, throughout chapters 26 to 28, Ezekiel spoke about the historical city of Tyre and its historical ruler. This is a metaphorical portrayal of political realities in the prophet's own time. Nothing here suggests a heavenly realm or a supernaturally demonic figure. The guy thinks he's in heaven, he controls heaven, but that's not what Ezekiel is talking about. It's a delusion. Despite these facts and these factors, during the second temple period, that is, between the Testaments, the view developed that Ezekiel 28 was based upon a tradition of an angelic fall closely associated with the fall of humanity. Since that time, since the time of origin, many Christians have equated the king of Tyre with Lucifer equals Satan, the brilliant one, son of the morning, Hailel ben Shechar, mentioned in Isaiah 14, 12. How are you fallen, O day star, son of the dawn? How you are cut down to the ground, you who have laid the nations low, thus ESV. Based on the Latin vulgate word for morning star, Lucifer, that's a common noun, it's not a name at that point, the versions authorized by King James read Lucifer as a proper noun. They put a capital L on it. However, no modern English translation renders the word as a name. Remarkably, in Revelation 8, 10, when we hear an echo of Isaiah 14, 12, the Greek used a different expression, the third angel blew his trumpet, and a great star, Aster Megas, fell from heaven, blazing like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water. While this text seems to borrow the concept from Isaiah 14, 12, John in that one changes the vocabulary. Now Ezekiel was probably aware of Isaiah's oracle against Babylon, Isaiah 14, 12, and adapted it to the Tyrian context, it's Tyre now he's talking about. But this does not mean we should read Revelation back into Isaiah, and certainly not into Ezekiel. For Ezekiel's original audience, this prophecy had nothing to do with Satan or the circumstances of the fall of one who had previously been one of the cherubs attending the throne of God. That's actually missing here. Those who interpret the oracle historically reject that approach. Had he got this far in his commentary in Ezekiel, Calvin's response to the diabolical, that is, the devil's fall interpretation, would probably have sounded something like his comments on Isaiah 14, on which Calvin wrote, The exposition of this passage which some have given, as if it referred to Satan, has arisen from ignorance, for the context plainly shows that these statements must be understood in reference to the king of the Babylonians, and in brackets I now put Tyre in our case. But when passages of Scripture are taken up at random, and no attention is paid to the context, we need not wonder that mistakes of this kind frequently arise. Yet it was an instance of very gross ignorance to imagine that Lucifer, with a capital L, Prince, King of Tyre in our context, was the king of devils, and that the prophet gave him this name. But as these inventions have no probability whatever, let us pass them by as useless. Ezekiel's prophecy is indeed couched in extravagant mythological terms, but the primary referent within the context is clearly the human king of Tyre, so far Calvin. Brevard Childs rightly observes that the mythological motifs are employed for illustrative purposes, I would say rhetorical purposes, as extended figures of speech. In any case, for this prophet and his professional colleagues, not to mention Hebrew historiographic narrators, human rebellion was problem enough. We should not expect the first testament to offer a detailed treatment of the origin of the demonic. That's not our problem. Our problem is our sin, not the devil's. Despite the links with earlier biblical accounts, Ezekiel's concern was not primarily to transmit ancient traditions to challenge the arrogance of the Tyrian state in the face of Yahweh's purposes. In communicating this prophetic word to his fellow exiles, Ezekiel challenged all subsequent readers to hear the message of God. Now, in addition to the preceding theological significance of this passage relating to the background of Ezekiel's metaphor, it raises several universal practical implications for us in our own worlds. What is God's word to us in this text? We have heard most of these before. First, this passage teaches that pride goes before the fall.As noted, taking a leaf out of Isaiah's notebook, Isaiah 14, Ezekiel had delivered a powerful lesson on the self-destructive danger of hubris, pride, arrogance. Yahweh casts the prophet's satirical story in the classical form of a tragedy. Divinely endowed with beauty, status, wisdom, and wealth, the prince was offered every opportunity for genuine greatness. But as with Jerusalem, Yahweh's wife in chapter 16, God's gracious gifts became the occasion for perversion. Like Adam in the original Garden of Eden, the king of Tyre was not satisfied with signet, deputy, gardener status. He arrogated to himself the status of divine lord. But the biography of this ruler is repeated every day. There is none so vulnerable to the judgment of God as the one preoccupied with his or her own divinely endowed beauty, wisdom, prosperity, and status. Second, Yahweh is the lord of all history. He appoints rulers even over pagan nations and states to manage his estates with equity, justice, and humility. However, the exploitation of a divinely bestowed privilege to satisfy one's personal greed and ambition calls for divine intervention. In Yahweh's ability to humble the proud lay the hopes of Israel. The remnant of God's people may be languishing in exile, but that did not mean God had conceded his throne to other deities, Marduk or anyone else, let alone to other mortals. Even the king of Tyre, the envy of the nations, must answer to Yahweh. This point, which will be greatly expanded in the oracles against the Egyptians, offers a timely lesson for Ezekiel's countrymen at the personal and national level. Third, forceful communicators of divine truth marshal every conceivable means for the clear and effective delivery of the message. This is rhetoric. Ezekiel's adaptation of ancient traditions offers a striking paradigm for the modern communicator. When dealing with people outside one's own tradition, we need to tell stories with which they can identify. Tyre. This story would be right at home in Tyre. Communicators do not thereby accord them the same truth value they recognize in the words received from God. These are merely homiletical and literary devices, but credibility and vitality are both served when the messenger understands both his audience and his subjects. Finally, in answer to the question, who laments in this passage? Remember, we opened with that. It seems best to interpret this oracle as Yahweh's own lament over the king of Tyre. But the rhetorical strategy sends the interpretation to an even greater tragedy than the fall of this great Phoenician city. This is also God's lament over the demise of Adam, the human race, which included Ezekiel, Ben-Adam, and the Judeans, but with them the people of Israel as a whole and the entire human species that the Israelites represented microcosmically. This text reminds us that when God sent our ancestors Adam and Eve out of the garden, he was not celebrating. It brought him no joy. Yes, he had to judge human rebellion, but he did so with a very heavy heart. When God destroyed the world through the great deluge because of human hubris, rebellion and sin had reached an intolerable level, he didn't celebrate over the judgment, his fury unleashed on all creation. On the contrary, as Genesis 6.6 declares, Yahweh struggled, was passionately exercised, necham, over the fact that he had made mankind on the earth and had troubled him deeply in his heart. And Yahweh struggled in his heart when he brought in the Assyrians to destroy the northern kingdom of Israel and scatter the remnant of the population all over the Assyrian empire. And then when he brought the Babylonians in to punish the Judeans for their treasonous behavior against him, God struggled internally. And Yahweh was grieved in his heart when he had to deal with the arrogance of the super image of himself, the king of Tyre. This was no picnic in the park for him. But it reminds us all again how precious human life is, even the life a tyrant like the king of Tyre was. But it's precious to God. Every human being is an image of God. Sennacherib of Assyria was an image of God. So were Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, Caligula and Nero of Rome, Adolf Hitler of Austria, Joseph Stalin, the Georgian tyrant of the Soviet Union, Saddam Hussein of Iraq and Osama bin Laden, and in our day, Vladimir Putin. The Lord finds no joy in their demise. No, he laments whenever images of himself suffer the consequences of their rebellion and feel the full force of his fury. And when we see high-profile political and military and religious characters being cast out into the pits of Sheol, we need to declare, there but for the grace of God go I. May the Lord help us to recognize how precious all life is to God. May he spare us the folly of hubris and may he remind us daily, as those whom he invites to walk with him and represent him in the world, that we would walk humbly with him. In the words of Micah, he has told you, O human being, Adam, what is good and what Yahweh asks of you, namely, to do justice, to love kindness, chesed, and to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6.8.