Ezekiel - Lesson 28

Lesson number 28, The Prince of Tyre. Pride comes before the fall. Ezekiel 28, 1 to 10. We need to begin by talking about the relationship between Ezekiel 28, 1 to 10 and 28, 11 to 19. These are two oracles which have in their crosshairs the king of Tyre. Ezekiel 28, 1 to 19 is at the same time one of Ezekiel's most intriguing artistic creations and one of the most difficult passages in the entire book. This means that once more my interpretation is in soft lead pencil and subject to modification in response to new insights by the community of faith that studies these texts and the response of people who hear us present our views of the critical issues. At the beginning of this consideration of Ezekiel's oracles against foreign nations, chapters 25 to 32, we considered the ending of this chapter verses 20 to 26. At that time, I noted how critical these verses are for understanding all the prophecies in this OAN, oracles against the nations, in this whole collection. Our concern in this study and the next lesson will be verses 1 to 19. Thankfully, while the text poses many challenges for interpreters, the basic message is clear. Human hubris, pride, must be answered by divine judgment. However, once we decide to look at this text as we have it, we need to ask whether Ezekiel intended for us to interpret verses 1 to 19 as a single oracle or as two separate pronouncements consisting of verses 1 to 10 and 11 to 19, respectively. On the surface, these seem to represent two original, separate pronouncements that the person who collected and arranged Ezekiel's prophecies brought together because of common themes and a common target. The forms of prophetic formula in verses 1 to 2a and 11 to 12a seem to signal two separate prophetic events when Yahweh addressed the prophet and declared two oracles that he was to pass on to his audience of fellow exiles. This division is reinforced with, for I have spoken, followed by the signatory formula, the declaration of the Lord Yahweh at the end of verse 10, suggesting a conclusion to the preceding utterances. The prophet has stamped his declaration with Yahweh's signature. Concerning verse 12, it contains three formulas regularly attached at the beginning of cited divine oracles. You have the word-event formula, the word of Yahweh came to me saying. You have the command to prophesy, human, raise a lament over the king of Tyre and say to him. And then you have the citation formula, thus has the Lord Yahweh declared. Although verses 2b to 10 and 12b to 19 share a common theme and contain many parallel expressions, if we place these two texts side by side, we see they develop the theme in two quite different and fascinatingly different ways. So, we have, let's make the comparison quickly, a comparison of 28.1 to 10 and 28.11 to 19. With respect to genre, the first, 28.10, is a judgment speech, the second is a lament. With respect to literary style, the first is standard narrative prose, the second is elevated prose, if not poetry. Third, with respect to addressee, the first is addressed to the prince of Tyre, the second, the king of Tyre, Melektzor rather than Nagidzor. In the first, the issue is his arrogant claim. In the second is his glorious reality. In the first, the form of punishment is through agents of judgment. In the second, it's by Yahweh himself. In the first, the role of the nations, they appear as agents of judgment. In the second, they are witnesses to Yahweh's judgment. Even so, we should not exaggerate the differences. Even if Ezekiel originally delivered these two as separate segments, by bringing them together, the inspired editor of the book, probably Ezekiel himself, I think, though he didn't sign his name, but whoever did it, invited us to interpret them together. Indeed, together they seem to tell a single story from two points of view. Stylistically, they are linked by Yahweh's announced assessments of the same principal character. In verse 2, he says, you are human. In verse 3, he says, you are wise. Then when you move to the second one, in verse 12, you are a seal. And verse 14, you are a cherub. And then in verse 15, you are perfect. The sort of announcement in each case, the declaration of the reality, has the similar kind of echoing form. Well, it seems a story was circulating among the exiles that involved a primeval royal figure, divinely endowed with special status and nobility, which Yahweh had recast into an oracle of judgment because an historical figure, the actual king of Tyre, had perverted what was his by divine gift into an occasion for hubris, overweening arrogance. Although the two subsections bear the marks of different genres, when we read them together, we observe the intensified motif of dramatic reversal. In both, because of hubris, a colossal figure is reduced to nothing. Indeed, taken together, this is biblical and prophetic satire at its best. First, Yahweh and his commissioned prophet contrast the royal figure's inflated self-esteem with the humiliation awaiting him with a direct quotation. In the first, he says, You have said, I am a god, and I occupy the seat of gods in the heart of the sea. Verse 2. But note the concluding refrain in verse 19. All who know you among the peoples are appalled over you. You have become a horror. You will be no more forever. That's quite a change. Second, Ezekiel recognized the qualities in the royal figure that have made his rise possible and painted them in positive strokes. Positive. Note especially the praise of the king's wisdom in verses 3 to 4, in verse 12 and 14 to 15 and 17. He is a wise person. Third, these oracles describe the royal figure's wealth and power by cataloging articles he cherished but were symbolized especially by the king's pectoral, his fancy neck ornament. Verse 13. You were an Eden, the garden of God. Every kind of precious stone adorned you, carnelian, peridot, and moonstone, chrysolite, onyx, and jasper, lapis lazuli, turquoise, and emerald, along with gold, the craftsmanship of your beauty and your mountings in you. They were firmly set on the day you were created. Fourth, Ezekiel employed metaphorical imagery to intensify the reversal. But the image is striking. The royal figure is a cherub, generally perceived as a composite animal figures, for which we should go back to chapter one, the creatures holding up the Lord's chariot. In chapter 10, we discover those are cherubs as well. However, the prophet did not simply tell the story about this person. In the first, he's called a prince, and the second, he's called a king. He told this story to the royal figure. The prince, the king of Tyre, was the addressee. Hypothetical, of course. I doubt whether Ezekiel actually went to visit the king of Tyre. Furthermore, through direct quotation of the addressee's thoughts and detailed description of his wisdom and wealth, the prophet draws us into the mind and the values of the king. But this is a rhetorical ploy, exposing the hedonism of the prophet's audience and warning us who hear the story today of our own destiny if we persist in our egotistical ways. Well, with his information on how the prophet works with his words, speech acts, the first 10 verses will be the subject of the remainder of this lesson. Let’s begin with a preamble, 28.1-2a. The following message of Yahweh came to me. Human, son of man, say to the prince of Tyre. Well, following the usual formulas alerting the reader to a new prophetic event, Yahweh charged Ezekiel to speak directly to the prince of Tyre. The title Nagid, prince, is common elsewhere in the first testament, but it occurs only here in Ezekiel. The noun derives from a root, Nagid, which we know best from verb forms that mean to declare, to make known, and the noun neged, which refers to what is in front, what is obvious, what is before him. Hence, the conspicuous person at the front of a procession. He’s been elevated to that status. Scholars refer to the spelling of Nagid as an I-class passive. Nagid, like Mashiach, Messiah, Navi, prophet, Nasi, another word for prince, an elevated one in Ezekiel 34.24. And I, Yahweh, will be their God, and my servant David shall be prince, Nasi. It's a different word, but it has that same I-class final vowel. I am Yahweh, I have spoken. In the narratives of Samuel, Nagid is often used of David. But now your kingdom will come. Yahweh has sought out a man after his own heart, mind, and Yahweh has charged him to be prince, ruler, Nagid, over his people, because you have not kept what Yahweh commanded you, talking to Saul here in 1 Samuel 13.14. And in 2 Samuel 7.8, now therefore, this is the great chapter on the Davidic covenant. Therefore, this is what you must say to my servant David, Nathan, that is, thus says Yahweh of heaven's armies, I took you from the pasture, from tending the sheep, to be prince, ruler, over my people Israel, 2 Samuel 7.8. It is unclear why Ezekiel used this word only here, but as we can see by definition, as a passive form, it suggests that the prince of Tyre was not a self-made man. He's one who has been elevated. He hasn't elevated himself. Just as Samuel, the mouthpiece of Yahweh, had declared David king over Israel, so someone else had declared this person Nagid and installed him as king of Tyre. Well, who do you think that could be? Who is this prince of Tyre? Outside this text in the first testament, the title Nagid is applied to foreign rulers only three times, Daniel 9.6, 2 Chronicles 32.21, and Psalm 76.13. The last reference is especially significant because it pairs princes, Nagidim, plural, with kings of the earth, suggesting that in common usage, Nagid could function equivalently to Melek, or Nasi, also prince. Hence the easy switch to Melek in verse 12. But Nagid may have been preferred in this initial position to prevent misunderstanding. In contrast to Melek, which was used of both earthly and divine rulers, this expression is used only for humans, not for gods. At the same time, since the term is loaded theologically, referring primarily to one designated by God, it anticipates the divine appointment described in the second panel, verses 12 to 14. The oracle against the prince of Tyre takes up the rest of verses 2 to 20, but it exhibits a clear structure signaled by because, ya'an, in verse 2, and therefore, la'qeyn, in verse 6. These expressions are repeated in verses 6 to 7. In this context, because signals the announcement of the charges by the divine judge who sits enthroned in the heavens as opposed to this puppet king in Tyre, while therefore signals the sentence declared by the same judge and secures verses 1 to 10 as a judgment genre. This is a legal case. Remarkably, if we discount the summary restatement of the charges in verse 6, by word count, the lengths of the charges in verses 2b to 5 and the sentence in verses 7 to 10 are identical. You see this halving, h-a-l-v-i-n-g.Ezekiel designs his oracles in halves. Here they're both elements. The charges and the sentence are 43 words in Hebrew. Did the prophet actually count? It makes you think that this is intentionally composed as an elevated kind of prose text. So let's look at the charges against the prince of Tyre in verses 2b to 5. Thus has the Lord Yahweh declared, because you have become arrogant and have said, I am a god, I occupy the seat of the gods in the heart of the seas, though you are merely a human being and no god at all, and you have claimed the intelligence of gods. Look, you are indeed wiser than Daniel, no secret baffles you. By your wisdom and your understanding, you have gained wealth for yourself and you have accumulated gold and silver in your treasuries. By your superior wisdom through your trade, you have increased your riches, but on account of your wealth, you have become arrogant. The charge that Yahweh leveled against the prince of Tyre is simple and direct. Because you've become arrogant, literally, your heart has been lifted up. Your mind, you've got an exaggerated self-esteem. The phrase, gaval lev, will appear again in verse 5, creating an effective envelope structure for the accusation, and it'll come back in verse 17, providing an important link between the two panels of this chapter. There we read, verse 17, your heart was lifted up because of your beauty. The idiom, to lift up the heart or to have a heart lifted up, is part of an extensive Hebrew vocabulary of pride. You see examples in Psalm 131.1, Proverbs 18.12, 2 Chronicles 12.16, and 32.25. Moses had provided Israel with a written Torah, and he prescribed it as reading, required reading, for the future kings, precisely to prevent his heart-mind from being elevated. Deuteronomy 17.20. That's why he's supposed to read the Torah every day that he sits on the throne, that his heart be not lifted up above his countrymen. Remarkably, as the prophet had done in the previous oracles against Bnei Amon, 25.1-7, Moab 25.8-11, and Tyre, the city, 26.1-3, he presented the point of view of the prince, the target of this satire. He presented his point of view through direct speech. The prince's statement expressed three fantastic dimensions of hubris. First, the king claimed to be divine, eil ani, I am a god. Because this is the only place where Ezekiel uses the epithet El, some argue the king was not only arrogating to himself the status of divinity, but he was also identifying with El, the high god of the Canaanites, the wife of Asherah, and the father of all the other gods in the pantheon. This is possible because the Tyrians were Phoenicians who represented all that was left of the ancient Canaanites. But elsewhere, Ezekiel always spoke of the true God as Elohim, God with a capital G. However, several considerations argue against this interpretation, requiring us to treat El here as a generic word for God, not the name of the high god, but simply divinity. There are several factors here. First, in the following clause, the prince declared, I occupy the seat of gods. Here Elohim is clearly a generic designation for divinity as the correlative of El. Second, when the prophet restated his charge in verse 9, he said, You have said, I am a god, Elohim, this time, not El, but Elohim ani. Third, in the present context, the antithesis is not between a lesser god, Baal, or any other deity claiming the status of El, the high god, but between a human, Adam, and deity. A similar contrast occurs in Isaiah 31.3. The Egyptians are human, Adam, and not divine, El. Fourth, although El may have been the head of the pantheon in second millennium B.C. Ugarit, the patron deity of Tyre was not El. This was not the high god of Tyre, but Baal Melkart, also known as Baal Shammam, Baal of the heavens. Five, the syntax demands a generic interpretation. In Hebrew, the predicate subject order of El ani contrasts with the Lord's, Yahweh's, oft-repeated self-introduction ani Yahweh. If you want to say, I am a particular person, you put the ani, I, first. I am Yahweh, ani Yahweh. If you turn those around, it means, I am a Yahweh. But of course, that makes no sense. Here you have El ani, and when you've got the ani, the pronoun, after the predicate, or after the noun, then you know that you have a generic identity. He is classifying him, not identifying him. Hosea 11.9 provides the closest analog to the present statement. There we read, for I am a god, and not a man, ki el ano ki, well lo ish. Perhaps the prophet used el, which represents Canaanite il, alif, I, el, because this was the most common Semitic word for divinity, generally. This would add local Tyrian color to the oracle. God speaks in human language. He is an NLT, New Living Translation sort of God. When speaking about the people of Tyre, he expressed his thoughts the way Tyrians would have expressed them. We do this as well. If translators intend to render the Bible in American English so people grasps the point, and the reading evokes equivalent effect, they do not render Hebrew hine or Greek edu with behold. That’s an old English word. They may still use it over there in England, though I've lived there. I've never heard anybody use it. But people in our country who have not grown up with the King James Bible or translations in that tradition never use behold. Folks who shop at Home Depot or Target would say, look, see. Or in more formal context, perhaps, take note, check it out, something like that. To Ezekiel and all Orthodox Yahwists, to claim divinity was to identify oneself with Yahweh. But this claim would even have shocked Phoenicians. Whereas the notion of divine kingship, kings were gods, that was common in Egypt, this was not the case either in Mesopotamia or the region of Syria and Palestine. The present claim may intentionally allude to the name of the king of Tyre at this time, that is, Ethbael III, whose name meant Baal is with him, or to his successor known from Josephus simply as Baal. That's interesting to name a person with the name of a god. So that's the first claim. He claimed high status. Second, he actually claimed divine authority. He's not just divine, he has divine authority. From his position in the heart of the seas, he imagined himself to be seated on the throne of gods, Moshav Elohim. Like throne of ill in the Canaanite Ugaritic texts, the term Moshav refers not to a dwelling place but to the object on which a king sat. It's a word for the throne. Superficially, the location of this throne in the heart of the seas, Beleiv Yamim, this recalls El's dwelling place at the source of the two rivers and the springs of the two oceans that we find in a Canaanite mythological text from Ugarit. But this is a herring. As we observe in 27.4, 25 to 26, and 32, here in the heart of the seas is not where El lives back there. It refers simply to the city's insular marine location. Tyre was located on an a half a mile from the mainland. And he takes himself, he imagines himself from this throne, this is my throne, I rule everything. This observation makes this statement even more striking. In the ancient world, people generally perceived gods as seated on a throne in the palace on a high mountain, as in Greek, Mount Olympus or Baal's Mount Zaphon, to which Psalm 48 verses 1 and 2 allude. You know this psalm, great is Yahweh and greatly to be praised in the city of our God. His holy mountain, beautiful in elevation, is the joy of all the Mount Zion in the far north, Zaphon. This is the city of the great king. Well, in Canaanite mythology, Zaphon was a mountain way up north. That was Baal's Olympus. In our text, the prince of Tyre imagined his island fortress rising out of the seas and this pimple of rock becoming some such mountain, which might have justified his claiming authority belonging to deity. How the king exercised this illusion of divine power, Ezekiel does not say here, though verse 5 hints at high-handed mercantile practices. But Yahweh would not let the prince get away with this arrogant claim. At the end of verse 2, he put him in his place with a parenthetical comment. You said, I am a god, I am divine, even though you are merely a human being, Adam, and no god at all. In this book, Yahweh constantly reminded the prophet that he was of the genus Adam, human, by addressing him, Ezekiel, as Ben Adam, son of man, human being. The king of Tyre here, he puts in the same category. He may have imagined himself enthroned among the gods, but this was a delusion. People’s imaginations do not establish the nature of the reality. Third, the king claimed not only divine authority, but divine intelligence as well. Unlike the previous statement, Yahweh cast this claim in the form of a charge by the prophet. Translated literally, it reads, you regarded your heart, your mind, like the heart or mind of gods. Against ESV and a few other translations, NIV, NRSV have it right. In this context, lave obviously refers to the seat of thought rather than of the will or the emotions. This is confirmed in verses three to four, which speak explicitly of this prince's superior intelligence, not compassion. Verse three, look, you are indeed wiser than Daniel, no secret baffles you. By your wisdom and your understanding, you've gained wealth for yourself, and you've accumulated gold and silver in your treasuries. By your superior wisdom, through your trade, you have increased your riches, but on account of your wealth, you have become arrogant. The prince may not have had the heart of deity, but he was wiser even than Daniel. As I noted when we were working with chapter 14, many scholars associate this Daniel, spelled Dan-el, as in that chapter, 1414, rather than Dan-ee-el. Many scholars interpret him, this Daniel, with the legendary extra-biblical character who shows up in the Ugaritic Akkatu legend. This legend features a man named Dan-ee-lu rather than Ezekiel's fellow Judean exile in Nebuchadnezzar's court, and rather than a historical figure renowned for both his wisdom and piety. Against the critics, there is no reason why a person could not have established such a reputation for excellence in both areas within Ezekiel's exilic lifetime. The book of Daniel portrays this young Judean as an exceptionally gifted man from whom no secrets were hidden. Daniel 2, 19-23, 4, 7, 8, 5, 13, and 14, etc. In any case, in the Hebrew scriptures, the term chokmah, wisdom. You claim to be wiser than Daniel. This word wisdom was capable of a wide range of meanings. Skill in the craft. The person, Bezalel, who crafted the things, the objects, and the coverings for the tabernacle was wise. He had a special gift. It can mean academics understanding 1 Kings 5, 9-14. Solomon was writing proverbs about all kinds of things. It can mean shrewdness, 1 Kings 3, 16-28. You're very clever. You can plot schemes. Or administrative ability, Deuteronomy 34, 9. And then ethical and religious wisdom, Proverbs 1, 2-7. The fool has said in his heart there is no God, but the first principle of wisdom is the fear of the Lord. This is all Chokmah. To ancient Near Easterners, wisdom was the key to success, and it involved both intellectual power and prudence, the ability to apply well what one knows in one's head. Well, Daniel had risen to the top in the Babylonian court because of his wisdom. According to Ezekiel 28, 4-5, the prince of Tyre apparently had the same gift in superior measure. But he was not satisfied with being at the top of a human court, like Daniel was. He imagined himself as ruler over all the gods as well. Yahweh described the Tyrian king's wisdom in extravagant terms. On the one hand, God acknowledged that this king possessed special insights into secrets and mysteries hidden from ordinary humans. But what impressed the prophet about the prince's wisdom, and we should say, what impressed God, who's behind this oracle, was his chokmah and understanding tevunah. This was the material success it brought him. That's what proved he was such a clever person. The present pairing of wisdom and understanding is typical of our biblical wisdom writings. According to Proverbs 8, 1, 21, 30, etc., a wise person is clever, able to govern his life so that desired goals are achieved. That's a wise person. The gold and silver that the prince of Tyre accumulated in his treasuries provided concrete proof of his administrative and commercial acumen. Indeed, we now learn that the prosperity that had featured so prominently in chapter 26 and 27 was the result of deliberate and official royal policy comparable to Solomon's in 1 Kings 1.35, and the traditional association of his wisdom with trade and wealth in 1 Kings 10. This guy is a Solomon kind of figure. Significantly, neither Yahweh nor Ezekiel scolded the prince of Tyre for his shrewdness or for amassing vast wealth. Neither brilliance nor riches are or is reprehensible. The problem arises in our response to brilliance and riches. The wisdom that had brought him his wealth led to hubris, arrogance, overweening pride. It was this inordinate pride that provoked Yahweh's ire. In verses 6 to 10, we come to the announcement of the sentence on the prince of Tyre. Given the literary distance from the original accusation in verse 2 and the announcement of the sentence, Ezekiel recapitulated the basic charge before pronouncing the divine response. Therefore, thus has the Lord Yahweh declared, because you claimed the intelligence of gods, rendered more literally, because you fixed your heart, mind, as the heart and mind of gods. In short, the prince claimed to be divine. This was the same hubris we, as human beings, demonstrated in the Garden of Eden, where we declared, we want to be like God, Genesis 3. We will hear more echoes of the creation story in verses 11 to 19.Presumably, in the present case, Yahweh had in mind not only the prince's arrogance because of his wealth, but also because he dared to interfere with his plan of using the Lord's plan of using the Babylonians to punish the Judeans for their covenantal infidelity to him. The prophet opened his declaration of Yahweh's response with, Therefore, look at me, shocker. God showed up, look at me. The prince was unaware that he would answer to Yahweh. However, if he had the audacity to claim prerogatives of deity, then let him prepare for a direct encounter with the true divine Lord of history. In this instance, Yahweh answered this arrogance by commissioning other agents to carry out a sentence most appropriate for the offense. He began by introducing his agent. However, rather than identifying him by name, Nebuchadnezzar, or title, King of Babylon, he introduced him by his style intentionally to terrify the prince of Tyre. I am bringing strangers against you, the most ruthless of nations. They will unsheathe their swords against the magnificence of your wisdom, and they will desecrate your splendor. They will send you down to the pit, and in the heart of the seas you will die the death of the slain. Normally, the term stranger, zarim, refers simply to foreigners, as we saw in 11.9. But here the word has religious overtones. When a stranger forces his way into the palace of a king, this constitutes an act of rebellion or even war. But when a stranger forces his way into the temple, this is an act of sacrilege. And if this prince thinks he is a god, then he perceives his palace as a temple. But Ezekiel also characterized these strangers as the most ruthless of nations. We'll hear this again in chapter 30 and 31 and 32, talking about the Egyptians. The verb aratz denotes to cause to tremble, to terrorize. Although the vocabulary differs slightly, this expression is shorthand for what Moses had said in Deuteronomy 28, 49 to 52, of those whom Yahweh would send against his own people if they persisted in rebellion. Here it is, Deuteronomy 28. That's from Deuteronomy. According to the Lord's plan, the assault on the prince would involve three actions, which, while directed at the human monarch, reflected the way an attacking army would treat images of deity in the temple. If the king of Tyre would claim the status of a god, then let him put up with the treatment of a god at the hands of invaders. First, the nations will attack the source of the prince's pride, the symbols of his wealth and glory. The expression for attack, herik herav, means literally, they will empty the swords. Well, that speaks of removing the sword from its scabbard and using it as a weapon against the target. However, whereas in 5.2 and 12 and 12.14 the subject had been Yahweh who empties his sword, here those who empty the sword are his human agents. The expression for the magnificence of your wisdom, literally, the beauty of your wisdom, this refers to the glory of Tyre with its beautiful buildings and other treasures, the fruits of the prince's shrewd commercial enterprises that Nebuchadnezzar on the mainland could see in a half a mile away across the sea. Second, the invaders will desecrate the prince's radiant splendor visage, the choice of verb to profane, desecrate. That's the same word Yahweh had used of desecrating his own sanctuary in 24.21 and ascribed to the action a fundamentally religious quality. This word is not normally associated with simply invading a king's palace or the king's royal compound. It speaks of defiling sacred objects or space. But Ezekiel coined a new word to identify that space. Here the object of desecration is yifah, splendor. This word recurs below in verses, verse 17, but it's found nowhere else in the first testament. The expression comes from the root wafah, to shine forth, to send out beams. The noun refers to the radiance, the awe-inspiring glow inherent in divine and royal palaces and persons, like the glow of a gilded face of an idol when the sun shines on it from the east as it rises. In religious context, it was used particularly of theophanic manifestations, theophanies. That is, when God appears, Deuteronomy 33.2, Psalm 52, Psalm 82.3 and 94.1. Third, the strangers will send the prince down to the netherworld. For the realm of departed dead, Yahweh used, here he used, shachat, which probably means something like place of decomposition. This usage is relatively rare in the first testament, whereas in 1904 and 8 Ezekiel had used homonym shachat as a trap for game. Here it serves as a synonym for the more common boar pit, which we encountered in chapter 26 and will encounter again in chapters 31 and 32. The last comment in verse 8 clarifies the prince's fate. In the heart of the seas you will die the deaths of the slain. The prince who imagined himself to be God will exchange his falsely secure position in the heart of the seas for the world of the dead. The word for slain literally is one who is pierced. It refers to persons who have been murdered or executed and have not been given a proper burial, Ezekiel 6.4. They land up in a part of Sheol where honorable people do not want to go. This statement is shocking. The one who dared to claim the status of deity and demanded to live among the gods, nay, not only live among them, to sit over the gods, he must join the dead in the least desirable apartments of Sheol. For this man the way up led down as far as he could go. The religious allusions continue in verse 9 as Ezekiel continued his portrayal of the invaders as enemies encroaching upon sacred space and storming the residence of the king who thinks he is a god.But this prince clung desperately to his delusion. Will you insist on claiming I am a god even in the presence of your killers, verse 9? As a god, the prince thought no enemy could challenge him in his sanctuary. However, Yahweh negated this fatal delusion with a direct rebuttal. You are merely a human being, Adam, and no god at all. The king of Tyre was a mere mortal, and he would not escape the ultimate indignity, desecration, and death at the hands of strangers. Ezekiel had already hinted at the prince of Tyre's ignominious fate in Sheol. He would find himself in part of the netherworld reserved for the most despicable kinds of folks, murderers, and criminals who have been executed, or rebels who have been slain and then not afforded a proper burial, verse 8. In verse 10, the prophet added insult to injury. The death of the uncircumcised, you will die at the hands of strangers. Ezekiel would pick up the notion of the fate of the uncircumcised, Areli, again in 3118 and expand on it in 3217-32. Like most other ancient Near Easterners, the Phoenicians practiced circumcision. By contrast, Philistines, who were European Carothites, Cretans in origin, they did not observe this practice and were therefore regarded by people who lived in this part of Asia as uncivilized. The Semites of Canaan considered them uncivilized. This disposition surfaced in David's racist comment when he faced Goliath, the Philistine, in 1 Samuel 17-26. David said to the men who stood by with him, What shall be done for the man who kills this Philistine and takes away the reproach from Israel? For who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God? Now, Ezekiel's usage of the term here was metaphorical. In Israel, circumcision was the sign and seal of membership in the covenant community, Genesis 17, which in time became a symbol of cultural superiority. To call anyone uncircumcised was an insult. As far as Ezekiel was concerned, for this man to be sentenced to join the uncircumcised meant being consigned to the most undesirable compartment of the netherworld, along with other vile and unclean and uncivilized persons. The concluding declaration and signatory formula sealed the prince of fate.I have spoken the declaration of the Lord Yahweh. Because verses 1-10 are so tightly tied to verses 11-19, I shall leave fuller discussion of the theological implications of this text for that study in the next session, especially the relationship of this text to the fall of Satan, as many believe. For now, I will simply review what we already know from the oracles against the nations in chapters 25-27. First, in the words of the Israelite sage, pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall, Proverbs 16-18. But rarely do we see pride rise to such extreme heights in the scriptures. Oh yes, ambition rises high, as it did in Genesis 3, and again in Genesis 11 with the building of the tower they tried to storm the gates of heaven, the tower of Babylon, Babel. But the biography of this ruler is repeated every day. There are none so vulnerable to God's judgment as those preoccupied with their own, albeit divinely endowed, beauty, their own wisdom, their own prosperity, status, and who in the process imagine themselves to be divine. In ancient Egypt, kings viewed themselves as divine, but this was never part of the Semitic culture of Canaan or Mesopotamia. Rather, they viewed themselves to be sons of God, that is, vassals and dependents on the deity, which would normally have been true of the king of Tyre as well. The Japanese have a long-standing tradition of emperors like Hirohito viewing themselves as divine, and the people happily accepted that until the end of the Second World War. In Rome, Julius Caesar was officially deified as the Divine Julius, and Caesar Augustus's title was Son of the Divine One. But for him, the expression meant much more than it did in the biblical world. In our time, we have democratized this horrific notion with productions like American Idol or entertainers giving themselves names like Ugly God, a rapper and songwriter born in Indiana. He began his career with a stage name of Pussy Bacon, but when his parents objected, he changed it to Ugly God, G-O-D, capital G. How dare we challenge God this way? Or how about Sean Corey Carter, better known as the rapper Jay-Z, who calls himself Jehovah because he considers himself the god of rap. And what does it say about a culture that idolizes people who call themselves God while celebrating their achievements, and then sell crack in Brooklyn and their entrepreneurial talents? They peddle drugs for profit. I hear reminiscences of the prince of Tyre. With Habakkuk, I say to God, how can you tolerate this? Habakkuk 1, 1-4. You’ve said, there is no god but one, and this sort of idolatry is totally out of place in a kingdom ruled by righteousness where the citizen's primary goal is the glory of God, the one true and living God, and the well-being of others. That's the goal, rather than the glory of self. We, the Lord's people, should never be comfortable with this, and if our successes go to our heads like the prince of Tyre's did, we too stand under the threat of divine fury. Second, we learn again, as we have many times already in Ezekiel, Yahweh is the Lord of all history. Ezekiel has this radically theocentric view of life and reality. God appoints rulers, even over pagan nations and states, and God endows them with wisdom to manage his estate with equity, justice, and humility. That’s the point. However, the exploitation of a divinely bestowed privilege to satisfy one's personal greed and ambition calls for divine intervention. But in Yahweh's ability to humble the proud lay the hope of Israel. In Ezekiel's day, the remnant of God's people may have been languishing in exile, but that did not mean he had conceded his throne to other deities, let alone mortals. Even the king of Tyre, the envy of the nations, must answer to him. This point, which will be greatly expanded in the oracles against the Egyptians that follow, offered a timely lesson for Ezekiel's countrymen at the personal and national level, and it offers a timely message for us also at the personal and national level. May God keep us humble.