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 heart of the seas, (and thou art a man, and not God,) and thou settest thy heart as the heart of God
God sends Ezekiel with a message for the ruler of Tyre, the richest trading city of the ancient world. The charge is a heart so lifted up that the man calls himself a god — which raises the question, where does pride like that come from?
The man addressed here was a real king of a real place. Commentators name him from ancient records. They also see him as more than one man.
It seems that Ithobalus, as Josephus calls him — Ithbal the second in the Phoenician annals — ruled in the prophet's time. He may well have prompted this stirring and severe, yet magnificent, sketch. He stands as the representative prince of the world of that day... The prince was the head and centre and personification of that pride and wealth found in Tyre as a whole. No form of pride is lower, more blinding, or more corrupting.
His boast about sitting "in the heart of the seas" was not poetry. It described where he lived and what he had built.
The city of Tyre (the name means rock) stood partly on an island off the mainland in the Mediterranean Sea... It had a wonderful commerce... The prophet Isaiah describes this wealthy and influential city as "the bestower of crowns, whose merchants were princes, whose traders were the honored of the earth" (Isa. 23:8).
This claim to be a god did not come from nowhere. It grew out of piled-up wealth — and it repeats the offer made in Eden.
Here is a message to the prince of Tyre. In it we see what his heaped-up wealth, and the power that came with it, did to him: it lifted his heart to a place higher than human... Shocking as this is, it is still the natural outgrowth of what happened in the Garden of Eden. There the evil one's temptation was exactly this: "you will be like God."... It was a place seized, not given by God, and it leads on to seizing that grows still more open and extreme.
God does not answer with words only. In verses 6–10 the judgment makes him feel in his own body that he is only a man.
If he aspired to be God in pretence, he would feel what it is to be man in weakness. The sword of the dreaded foreigner would stain his brightness, and he would die the deaths of those killed in the heart of the seas. The sea would prove then to be no unbreakable shelter, but his most shameful grave.
Ezekiel 28 speaks to two figures: a prince and a king. Writers keep the two apart.
In Ezekiel 28 it is the prince and the king of Tyre that are judged for their pride. Verses 1–10 set before us the prince of this world's glory as a man. He exalts himself and tries to present himself as a god, having gained riches and glory by his wisdom. Verses 11–19 still speak of Tyre, but I think they go much farther. They disclose, though only dimly, the fall and the ways of Satan.
One writer explains why the prince and the king are kept apart:
The word to the prince of Tyre is what he has become in his pride after he is prince; to the king, what he was before he is king — before iniquity was found in him.
The language of this verse does not stay in the past. Kelly notes that many of its phrases are borrowed for later predictions about the Antichrist, the man of sin still to come. Another writer describes that man:
Satan's beauty shall be upon him, his power in him, his seat given to him, and his captives shall serve him... he will exalt himself above every god (Dan. 11:36), be like the Most High (Isa. 14:14), set his heart as the heart of God (Ezek. 28:6), and sit in the temple of God, as the apostle describes him, showing himself that he is God... And there is nothing that marks out this present day of ours more than this spirit in man which claims independence of God.
The verse names a sin that is not rare. One writer traces it back to angels as well as men.
It was pride, the really "original sin," that hideous parent-sin of all succeeding sins, whether among angels, or among men (1 Tim. 3:6; Ezek. 28:2, 17).
- Lifted heart. The charge begins in the heart, not the mouth. Wealth lifted his heart "to a place higher than human," and the boast only voiced what was already there.
- Seized seat. The claim repeats Eden's offer, "you will be like God" — a place seized, not given by God, and it grows bolder from there.
- Plain man. God's reply strips the pretence. He aimed to be God; he would "feel what it is to be man in weakness" in the hand of the man who kills him.
- Deeper shadow. God judges the prince as a man. From verse 11 the king dimly shows Satan's own fall — what he was before iniquity was found in him.
- Same spirit. Scripture borrows these words later for the man of sin. That same claim to independence from God marks our own day.
behold, thou art wiser than Daniel! nothing secret is obscure for thee;
God speaks here to the ruler of Tyre, a real king in Ezekiel's day whose riches had made him enormously proud. God grants him his reputation before demolishing it. He also names Daniel, a man then alive, as the standard of wisdom this prince was said to beat.
Chapter 28 speaks first to a prince and then to a king. The opening verses describe a man, and they name the source of his greatness:
In Ezekiel 28 it is the prince and the king of Tyre that are judged for their pride. Verses 1-10 set before us the glory of the prince of this world as a man. He exalts himself and seeks to present himself as a god, having gained riches and glory by his wisdom.
The two halves of the chapter look at two different moments:
The word to the prince of Tyre is what he has become in his pride after he is prince. The word to the king is what he was before he is king — before iniquity was found in him.
Daniel was not a distant figure to Ezekiel's first readers. He was alive in Babylon, and famous for knowing what no one else could know.
The prince's wisdom exceeded Daniel's; there was no secret hid from him. Who was Daniel? Chief of the wise men in Babylon. "No secret" is clearly a reference to his revealing Nebuchadnezzar's dream, and the writing on the wall at Belshazzar's feast. The prince of Tyre, inspired by Satan, matched and surpassed Daniel in wisdom — in the world's estimation. Here is another mark of the power of the prince of this world. He would not only have Tyre rival Jerusalem in wealth. He would also raise up a man to outrival Daniel, so that he might persuade men that true wisdom was not the gift of God.
That last line is the heart of the verse. Daniel had explained a king's dream and read the writing on a palace wall. One man received his insight; the other claimed it as his own.
How did the prince prove he was wise? By what he had piled up. He was not the only man to reason that way:
It is common to all who amass wealth to give themselves credit for wisdom. So did the prince: wiser than Daniel, he discerned what was hidden from others. Alas! what folly and poverty. Was he rich toward God? No — he had amassed riches, and gold and silver had crowded into his treasury. This was the aim of his wisdom, this its triumph, for it was his own doing. Self, not God, was in all his thoughts.
The same writer sees this ruler as a pattern for a later figure:
This is the typical prince of the world in that day. Many of the expressions used of him are borrowed for the later predictions about the Antichrist, or man of sin, who is still to come.
So what kind of man was Daniel? His most famous moment was not a clever calculation. He kept praying in the open when prayer put his life at risk:
"Wiser than Daniel" (Ezek. 28:3) does not suggest to us, when we look at his conduct here, either worldly prudence or that so-called "moderation" which less committed friends so often recommend to the faithful believer. "Pray in secret," they would have advised. "God will hear you there just as well. Why put God to the test and risk your valuable life, when you could so easily avoid a public display of your piety?" But Daniel did not soothe his conscience that way. He would not compromise his profession by being absent from his usual prayers. He valued the honour of his God above his life.
The verse also does something its speaker never intended. Some deny that Daniel wrote the book that carries his name; this verse stands against them:
Even the critics do not deny that "Daniel was a real person, that he lived in the days of the exile, and that his life was distinguished by the splendour of its faithfulness." The fact is that no prophet has such a testimony to him in the Old Testament as Ezekiel gives twice (Ezekiel 14:14, 20 and Ezekiel 28:3).
The wisdom praised in verse 3 becomes the target of judgment a few verses later. God sends foreign invaders, and their swords fall on the splendour this prince boasted in:
If he aspired to be God in pretension, he would feel what it is to be man in weakness. The sword of the terrible stranger would defile his brightness. He would die the deaths of those who are slain in the heart of the seas. The sea would prove no safe shelter for him then, but his most shameful grave.
- Wisdom's source. True wisdom is a gift from God; the enemy's aim in raising a rival to Daniel was to persuade people otherwise.
- Wisdom counterfeited. The prince outshone Daniel only "in the world's estimation". His fame was real; its source was not God.
- Wisdom banked. He measured his wisdom by his treasury. Anyone who piles up wealth credits himself with wisdom, but this prince was not rich toward God.
- Wisdom contrasted. Daniel's wisdom showed in his refusal to hide his prayers when it cost him. He valued God's honour above his life.
- Wisdom judged. The man who aspired to be God would learn what it is to be man in weakness. The stranger's sword would defile his brightness, and the sea would become his grave.
by thy wisdom and by thine understanding thou hast gotten thee riches, and hast gotten gold and silver into thy treasures;
Tyre's ruler had claimed the seat of God. This verse gives the proof he pointed to: a fortune he built by his own wisdom.
Does skill at making money prove anything about a man before God? The verse names wisdom and understanding, then tracks where they led: gold and silver stored up. One commentator shows how common that self-praise is, and what it cost the prince:
There is no pride baser, more blinding, or more corrupting. No wonder the New Testament brands covetousness as idolatry, and calls the love of money a root of all evil. It is common to all who amass wealth to give themselves credit for wisdom. So did the prince: wiser than Daniel, he discerned what was hidden from others. Alas, what folly and poverty! Was he rich toward God? No — he had amassed riches, and gold and silver had crowded into his treasury. This was the aim of his wisdom, this its triumph, for it was his own doing. Self, not God, was in all his thoughts.
Wisdom can gather a great deal without making the man himself any greater:
Here was a man who had learned to use his wisdom for his own benefit, to give himself a place among men. But that greatness was only acquired. It was not inborn and it was not moral. So it was no real greatness in the sight of God. He gathered riches into his treasury and kept increasing them. But in doing so he debased himself morally, in a way he could not even measure.
The comparison in verse 3 is not random. Daniel was the chief of the wise men in Babylon. He told a king his dream and read the writing on a palace wall. One writer sees a deliberate counterfeit here:
Satan inspired the prince of Tyre. In the world's eyes he matched Daniel in wisdom, and went past him. Here is another mark of the power of the prince of this world. He would not only have Tyre rival Jerusalem in wealth. He would also raise up a man to outdo Daniel, so that he might persuade men that true wisdom was not the gift of God.
Why does trade carry such weight in prophecy? The same writer traces it back to the sentence God passed on the ground in Eden:
By means of commerce Satan tries to make the curse ineffective. The earth was to bring forth thorns and thistles, and man was to eat bread by the sweat of his brow. Satan would get around that sentence. He would bring together the different products of the earth and fill the eye and mind with them. He would try to hide the thorns by spreading a carpet of goods from Tyre over them.
Commentators read this chapter as reaching past the ruler of Ezekiel's day. In history he was a real king; Josephus calls him Ithobalus. But the picture reaches further:
Satan was the power behind the throne of the king of Tyre. Satan is still the god of this age, and he controls the kingdoms of the world. Tyre is a picture of the commercial glory of the world, of its wealth and pride. It foreshadows the final great world-city or world-system, Babylon. So the ruler of Tyre, called prince here, foreshadows the Antichrist. And as king, Satan himself stands behind him as the dominating power.
His claim to be God met its answer in a foreign sword:
If he claimed to be God, he would feel what it is to be a man in weakness. The sword of the terrible stranger would stain his brightness. He would die the deaths of those slain in the heart of the seas. The sea would prove no unbreakable shelter then, but his most shameful grave.
- Wisdom. The prince had real skill and insight. He used them for himself, and self, not God, filled all his thoughts.
- Wealth. That wisdom filled a treasury. The greatness it bought was only acquired — not inborn, not moral, and no greatness at all before God.
- Worship. This kind of pride puts money in God's place. The New Testament brands covetousness as idolatry and calls the love of money a root of all evil.
- World. Tyre's goods are a carpet spread over the thorns. Satan uses trade to hide the curse God put on the ground.
- Wreckage. God taught the man who claimed to be God what it is to be man in weakness. The sea he trusted became his grave.
by thy great wisdom thou hast by thy traffic increased thy riches, and thy heart is lifted up because of thy riches.
In one sentence, God tells Tyre's ruler how he became great: business skill piled up wealth, and the wealth went to his head. That chain ends in judgment — so who was this ruler, and why does wealth swell the heart?
The prophecy speaks to a real ruler in a real port city. One writer names him, and points past him:
The prince of Tyre, who is also called the king, was Ithobalus, according to the Jewish historian Josephus. The Phoenician records call him Ithobaal II. He was the high point of Tyre's pride and wealth; all the terrible pride of the city came to a head in him. His heart was so lifted up that he claimed to be a god and that he occupied the very seat of God. He boasted of greater wisdom than the wisdom of Daniel. He is a picture of the final Antichrist, the man of sin. Behind the wicked prince and king stands another power: Satan.
One writer measures this pride, and the wisdom the prince claimed for himself:
No kind of pride is baser, more blinding, or more corrupting. It lives in selfishness, appeals to selfishness, and is lifted up by it in its grossest form. No wonder the New Testament brands covetousness as idolatry, and calls the love of money a root of all evil… It is common to all who amass wealth to give themselves credit for wisdom. So did the prince: wiser than Daniel, he discerned what was hidden from others. Alas! what folly and poverty. Was he rich toward God? No — he had amassed riches, and gold and silver had crowded into his treasury. This was the aim of his wisdom, this its triumph, for it was his own doing. Self, not God, was in all his thoughts.
The boast reaches for one name in particular:
The prince's wisdom went beyond Daniel's; no secret was hidden from him. Who was Daniel? Chief of the wise men in Babylon. The prince of Tyre, inspired by Satan, equalled and surpassed (in the world's estimation) Daniel in wisdom. Here is another mark of the power of the prince of this world. He would not only have Tyre rival Jerusalem in wealth; he would also raise up a man to outrival Daniel, so that he might persuade men that true wisdom was not the gift of God.
A lifted heart did not stop at self-congratulation; it reached for God's own place. One writer sees the whole thing as an old seed grown tall:
We have now an address to the prince of Tyre. In it we see what the piled-up wealth, and the power that came with it, did to him: it lifted his heart to a place higher than human… Monstrous as all this may be, it is still, after all, the natural growth of what happened in the Garden of Eden itself. There the temptation the evil one offered was plainly, "You will be like God." No doubt that was meant as a moral likeness — "knowing good and evil." Still, it was a place he seized, not one God gave him, and it naturally led to even more open and extreme seizing.
The verse names trade as the source of the wealth. The danger is not the work itself but what it quietly feeds:
Commerce may not be wrong in itself. Still, it opens a wide door to unrighteous ways, and it needs more grace to resist than the open sins of the world… Power and religion may actively stir up ambition and hatred. But trade feeds the covetousness of the heart — secret, and sometimes not even suspected.
The same writer brings it to our own day:
The commerce so famous in that city has spread its wing over the cities of our day. They follow in the steps of Tyre, and with the same unrighteousness they await the same doom… The spirit of Mammon rules the age. Under its influence the truth is twisted, and becomes the profession of covetous men who suppose that gain is godliness. From such we turn away.
The verses that follow answer the boast:
He put himself forward as God. Now he would feel what it is to be a man in weakness. The sword of the dreaded invader would stain his splendour, and he would die the deaths of those killed in the heart of the seas. It would prove no unbreakable shelter then, but his most shameful grave.
- Trade. Business skill is not the sin; it is the soil. Covetousness grows there quietly, unnoticed, while open sin shows itself at once.
- Riches. Gathered wealth gets credited to self. The man rich in gold never asks whether he is rich toward God.
- Wisdom. Claiming to outstrip Daniel served a lie: that real wisdom is a human achievement, not a gift from God.
- Pride. A heart lifted by riches does not stop at self-praise. It climbs toward God's seat, and repeats Eden's offer: you will be like God.
- Ruin. The climb ends with a reminder: he was only ever a man. Cities built on Tyre's pattern are heading for Tyre's doom.
Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah Because thou hast set thy heart as the heart of God,
God tells Ezekiel to speak to the ruler of Tyre, a rich sea-trading city whose prince claimed a seat that belongs to God alone. Verse 6 names the inward claim behind that boast, and the questions are why it draws such a doom, and how far beyond Tyre the words reach.
Verse 6 repeats a charge already made, but now it leads straight into the punishment. One writer draws out the irony:
Had the prince of Tyre only twisted all he knew from being so close to Israel? God would teach him that his responsibility matched what should have been his profit, not his pride. His doom would be all the more severe, certain and swift… If he set himself up as God by his claims, he would feel what it is to be man in weakness. The sword of the ruthless foreigner would defile his brightness. He would die the deaths of those slain in the heart of the seas. The sea would prove no unbreakable shelter, but his most shameful grave.
The claim to be a god grew out of trade, treasure and the standing they bought him:
The prince was the head, the centre and the embodiment of the pride and wealth found in Tyre as a whole. No character of pride is baser, more blinding, or more corrupting. It lives on selfishness, appeals to selfishness, and selfishness lifts it up in its crudest form. No wonder the New Testament brands covetousness as idolatry, and calls the love of money a root of all evil.
Such a boast sounds extreme. One writer traces it back to the first temptation in the garden of Eden:
Monstrous as all this may be, it is still, after all, the natural growth of what happened in the Garden of Eden itself. There the temptation put by the evil one was plain: "You will be like God." No doubt that was meant to be a moral likeness — "knowing good and evil." Yet it was a place seized, not given by God, and it led on to still more open and extreme seizure.
The same writer turns this on every reader rather than leaving it with one ancient king: "Who lifts himself up against God without becoming God to himself, in fact, robbing God of the glory He will not give to another?"
God had already set a man on His own throne once, but on very different terms:
Here we also seem to see reminders of Tyre's dealings with Israel in Solomon's time, when God allowed her to contribute to the temple in Jerusalem. Solomon sat on the throne of the LORD in Israel (1 Chronicles 29:23), as God's representative in that place. God Himself gave him that representative place. The prince of Tyre takes it in a fleshly way, and in independence of God.
Commentators read this chapter in two halves. The opening section deals with a man; the later verses reach further:
In Ezekiel 28 God judges both the prince and the king of Tyre for their pride. Verses 1-10 set before us the prince of this world's glory as a man. He exalts himself and tries to present himself as a god, having gained riches and glory by his wisdom. Verses 11-19 still speak of Tyre, but they go, I think, much further. They disclose, though in a veiled way, the fall and the ways of Satan.
Another writer sets verse 6 beside other prophecies about the enemy still to come:
Before the day of the Lord visits the earth, the wicked one will appear in the full form of Satan's creature… He will exalt himself above every god (Daniel 11:36). He will be like the Most High (Isaiah 14:14), and set his heart as the heart of God (Ezekiel 28:6). He will sit in the temple of God, as the apostle describes him, showing himself that he is God.
The next verse names the ones who carry out the sentence: "foreigners, the most ruthless of the nations." Why such ordinary means?
He cannot receive God's judgment of things as they really are. So God would have to teach him by men like himself, with a lesson of the sword. It would mar all his beauty and bring his brightness to an end. God needed to use no obvious divine power against him; the power of men was enough.
- Heart — The sin starts inside, before any boast: a heart set to match God's heart. God names it as the ground of all that follows.
- Wealth — Trade and treasure fed the heart. It is the pride of covetousness, which the New Testament calls idolatry.
- Eden — The boast is the old offer, "You shall be as God," grown to full size. He seized the place; God never gave it.
- Ahead — The same language returns in the man who will sit in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. Commentators see the later verses reaching to Satan's own fall.
- Man — The answer to "I am a god" is "you are but a man." Ordinary swords in ordinary hands were enough to prove it.
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 tarnish thy brightness.
The prince of Tyre had claimed to be God, safe in the heart of the seas. This verse is God's reply: it names who will come against him, and it shows why the blow lands on his "wisdom" and his "splendor."
The punishment answers the boast. The man who claimed to be God would learn what human weakness feels like, and the sea he trusted would become his grave.
God would teach him that his responsibility matched what should have been his profit, not his pride. His doom would only be the more stern and sure and swift… If he aspired to be God in his pretensions, he would feel what it is to be man in weakness. The sword of the dreaded stranger would defile his brightness. He would die the deaths of those slain in the heart of the seas. The sea would prove then no unbreakable shelter, but his most shameful grave.
The swords are aimed at "the beauty of your wisdom." One writer shows what that wisdom had made the prince, and what he did with it.
The prince was the head and centre and personification of the pride and wealth found in Tyre as a whole. No kind of pride is baser, more blinding, or more corrupting. It lives on selfishness, appeals to selfishness, and selfishness lifts it up in its grossest form. No wonder the New Testament brands covetousness as idolatry, and describes the love of money as a root of all evil… It is common to all who amass wealth to give themselves credit for wisdom. So did the prince. Was he rich toward God? No — he had amassed riches, and gold and silver had crowded into his treasury. This was the aim of his wisdom, this its triumph, for it was his own doing. Self, not God, was in all his thoughts.
after
The same phrase returns later in Ezekiel, in the judgment of Egypt. One writer explains there how God uses such men without approving of them.
Here the prophecy names the instrument of divine vengeance plainly. It is not that God had the smallest sympathy with the terrible of the nations and their drawn swords, nor with the strangers who laid the country waste. But the hour to judge its proud wickedness was at hand, and the worst was the fitting executioner to do the dread work.
Being used by God is no protection for the nation He uses.
Woe to the nation so used if she becomes lifted up with pride at it. For as surely as God rules with justice, so surely shall she be humbled in her turn.
Ezekiel 28 speaks first to a prince and then to a king. Commentators read the two as distinct:
The word to the prince of Tyre is what he has become in his pride after he is prince; to the king, what he was before he is king — before iniquity was found in him… Although a prince, he was only a man; and the "terrible of the nations" — the Chaldeans — would carry out God's wrath.
Another writer sees the prince as a picture of something far larger.
Tyre is a picture of the commercial glory of the world, its wealth and pride. It foreshadows the final great world-city or world-system, Babylon. So the ruler of Tyre, spoken of as prince, foreshadows the Antichrist; while as king, Satan himself stands behind him as the dominating power.
The verse ends with a threat to Tyre's splendour. Travellers who later visited the ruins described what was left.
Travellers are convinced that the waves of the sea now roll where the vast and magnificent palaces of Tyrian wealth and luxury once stood. The storm of God's anger has swept away the monuments of commercial enterprise and prosperity, and they are as if they had never been. Another traveller says he found nothing but a confused heap of broken walls, pillars, vaults and the like, with not so much as one whole house left!
- Boast. The prince claimed to be God. This verse is the reply, and it teaches him "what it is to be man in weakness."
- Target. God aims the swords at "the beauty of your wisdom." Its one aim was riches for himself, and no pride is baser or more blinding than that.
- Instrument. The strangers are the Chaldeans, the most ruthless of the nations. God has no sympathy with them; they are simply "the fitting executioner."
- Power behind. The prince is the visible man. Behind him commentators see Satan as the king. The prince foreshadows the Antichrist, and Tyre the world's final commercial system.
- Outcome. God's word against Tyre's splendour came true. Travellers found broken walls and vaults where its palaces once stood.
They shall bring thee down to the pit, and thou shalt die the deaths of those that are slain in the heart of the seas.
Tyre's ruler had claimed the seat of God. God's reply is that he is only a man. Verse 8 gives the sentence itself. Strangers throw him into the pit, and the sea he called his throne becomes the place where he dies like any other war casualty.
The punishment matches the pride that earned it. What the prince was proudest of becomes the means of his ruin.
He claimed to be God; now he would learn what it is to be a man in weakness. The sword of the terrible stranger would stain his brightness. He would die the deaths of those killed in the heart of the seas. The sea would prove to be no unbreakable shelter, but his most shameful grave. He would die the deaths of the uncircumcised, of men farthest from God.
This boast was not one strange ruler's idea. One writer traces it back to the first temptation.
Shocking as all this may be, it is still, after all, the natural growth of what happened in the Garden of Eden itself. There the temptation the evil one offered was plain: "You shall be as God." No doubt the likeness meant was a moral one — "knowing good and evil." Yet it was a place seized, not given by God, and it led on to still more open and extreme seizing of what was not his.
Tyre grew rich by trade, and its prince stood at the centre of that wealth. One writer names the kind of pride this breeds.
The prince was the head and centre and personification of that pride and wealth found in Tyre as a whole. Nor is there any character of pride baser, more blinding, more corrupting. It lives in selfishness, appeals to selfishness, and is exalted by it in its grossest form. No wonder that the New Testament brands covetousness as idolatry, and describes the love of money as a root of all evil.
Both terms come back later in Ezekiel, where the same judgment falls on other proud nations. The company lying there shows what this sentence means.
Here, after long patience, the judgment sweeps the boastful off the earth and sends them down to the pit. There lie the finest of them, without a single token of relationship to God, "with the uncircumcised." There, in complete weakness and humiliation, lie Assyria, Elam, Meshech and Tubal, Edom, Sidon and other nations north of Palestine. They are ashamed of the might they were once so proud of. They bear their disgrace with all who go down to the pit.
The threat did not stay on paper. One invader came, then a fresh prophecy, then a second invader.
Zechariah, the great prophet after the exile, had already announced the fate of Tyre once more. This was before Alexander came on his mission from God to make an end of the proud and wicked city. "Tyre built herself a stronghold," said the Lord through Zechariah, "and heaped up silver like dust, and fine gold like the mud of the streets." This came after Nebuchadnezzar had destroyed the Tyre on the mainland, and she had become the great island city. Zechariah went on: "See, the Lord will cast her out. He will strike down her power in the sea, and fire will devour her." Alexander did this. He laid proud Tyre in ashes. What evidence that all these words are divine!
The chapter does not stop with a dead king. One writer sees two further figures standing behind this prince.
His heart was so lifted up that he claimed to be a god and that he occupied the very seat of God. He boasted of greater wisdom than the wisdom of Daniel. He is a foreshadowing of the final Antichrist, the man of sin. Behind the wicked prince and king stands another power: Satan.
- Boast — He claimed the seat of God. God's answer is that he is a man, not God.
- Root — The claim is the old Eden offer grown up: a place seized, not given, and seizing it always reaches for more.
- Grave — The sea he called his throne becomes the water he dies in. His fortress turns into his grave.
- Pit — He goes down with "the uncircumcised," the dead who carry no token of relationship to God. They are ashamed of the might they once paraded.
- Reach — Nebuchadnezzar and Alexander proved the words true. Commentators also see in him the coming man of sin, with Satan behind them both.
Wilt thou then say before him that slayeth thee, I am God? but thou shalt be a man, and not God, in the hand of him that pierceth thee.
A king of Tyre had claimed the seat of God. Verse 9 is God's reply — a question he must answer with a sword at his throat, and one that reaches beyond a single Phoenician ruler.
The first ten verses deal with a real ruler of a real trading city.
The prince of Tyre — also called the king — was, according to the Jewish historian Josephus, Ithobalus. The Phoenician records call him Ithobaal II. He was the consummation of the pride and wealth of Tyre; the terrible pride of the city headed up in him. His heart was so lifted up that he claimed to be a god and that he occupied the very seat of God. He boasted of greater wisdom than the wisdom of Daniel. He is a picture of the final Antichrist, the man of sin. Behind the wicked prince and king, another power is seen: Satan.
Wealth fed the claim, and its root goes back to Eden.
Here is an address to the prince of Tyre. In it we see the effect on him of his heaped-up wealth and the power that came with it: it lifted his heart to a place more than human… Monstrous as all this is, it is still only the natural growth of what happened in the Garden of Eden itself, when the evil one's temptation was plainly, "you will be like God."
God does not argue with the boast. He answers it by telling the man how he will die.
He claimed to be God; now he would feel what it is to be man in weakness. The sword of the terrible stranger would stain his brightness, and he would die the deaths of those killed in the heart of the seas. The sea would prove no safe refuge then, but his most shameful grave. He should die the deaths of the uncircumcised, of men farthest from God.
So who carries out the sentence, and how will the boast sound then?
God did not need to put out any open display of divine power against him. The power of men was enough. Would he keep up an argument for his own divinity while facing the weapons of the men who were about to put him to death?
Writers set this beside Babylon's king, who praised his own greatness out loud.
Nebuchadnezzar walked in his palace, admired his own splendour, and said, "Is not this great Babylon, which I have built?" But the Lord was watching that evil. While the proud, self-important word was still in his mouth, the man who exalted himself was brought low.
Commentators read the chapter in two layers, and the second layer begins at verse 11.
Ezekiel 28 depicts the prince and the King of Tyre, both judged for their pride. The one who is the prince of this world's glory (see John 14:30, John 16:11) appears here as a man… There is little doubt that in what follows, in Ezekiel 28:11 to 19, the King of Tyre stands for Satan — the prince and god of this world. He was a creature of God, yet his heart was lifted up. He ruined his own brightness, turned away from God, and became the enemy of God and man. His advantages had been the occasion of his fall.
The same boast reappears at the end of history, on a world scale, and draws the same verdict.
God had been hidden, so to speak, during the time of the other beasts, but His providence still acted… The open revolt had not yet taken place. The fourth beast had not yet said, as Isaiah 47:8 puts it, "I am, and there is no one besides me." Compare what God says to the prince of Tyre: "Will you still say, 'I am a god,' in the presence of those who kill you?" (Ezek. 28:9). God's judgment on this fourth beast will fall on man in open rebellion against Him.
Man tried to climb to God's place. The Son of God took the opposite road.
Man sought independence by sin, and gained a conscience that was already bad, which made him look down, while his pride still claimed everything… The Son of God emptied Himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and humbled Himself by becoming obedient even to death on a cross… A man-god was Satan's bait and man's ruin. The God-man dying in obedience and for redemption is the triumph of truth and grace.
- Wealth: Trade riches lifted this ruler's heart "to a place more than human." Wealth, not want, produced the boast.
- Bait: His claim was Eden's temptation grown up — "you will be like God," worked out in a throne and a treasury.
- Weakness: The man who claimed God's seat will "feel what it is to be man in weakness." Ordinary human swords were enough to prove it.
- Behind: From verse 11 the picture reaches past the man to Satan, whose own advantages became "the occasion of his fall."
- Opposite: A man-god was Satan's bait; the God-man, who emptied Himself and obeyed to the cross, is the answer to it.
Thou shalt die the deaths of the uncircumcised, by the hand of strangers for I have spoken [it], saith the Lord Jehovah.
The prince of Tyre had told the world he was a god, seated in the seat of God in the heart of the seas. Verse 10 is God's reply. He will die like the most godless of men, killed by foreigners. Nothing seals the sentence but God's own word.
The punishment fits the crime. The prince claimed the place of God, so God sends him a death that shows what he really is. And "the death of the uncircumcised" names the company he dies in.
If he aimed to pass himself off as God, he would feel what it is to be a man in weakness, when the sword of the dreaded foreigner stained his splendour... He would die the deaths of the uncircumcised, of men farthest from God.
Two things in the sentence need explaining: who carries it out, and why he is called uncircumcised. One writer answers both.
God needed to use no obvious divine power against him; the power of men was enough... He was uncircumcised and had never learned the lesson of self-judgment, so he would die the death of the uncircumcised by the hand of foreigners, and the Lord seals this as the doom He has pronounced on him.
The prince's claim was not new. One writer traces it back to the first temptation in Eden.
Shocking as all this is, it is still, in the end, the natural growth of what happened in the Garden of Eden itself. There the evil one's temptation was plainly, "You will be like God." No doubt that was meant as a moral likeness — "knowing good and evil." Still, it was a place seized, not given by God, and it led naturally to seizing still more, and more openly.
The first ten verses of the chapter keep the prince on a human scale. That is the point of the judgment: foreigners kill him, and he dies.
Verses 1-10 show us the prince of this world's glory as a man. He lifts himself up and tries to present himself as a god, having gained riches and glory by his wisdom.
Verse 10 leaves him exactly there: a dead man.
Verse 10 closes the account of the prince; the next section turns to the king. Writers connect the two, and they read the second figure as the real power at work in the first.
This is worth noting, because it shows the link between the Prince of Tyre and the King of Tyre (Satan). The Prince of Tyre was plainly a man. God's judgment on him was that he would die the death of the uncircumcised at the hands of foreigners.
That makes this dead prince a preview. What he claimed, another man will claim on a far larger scale.
He was the high point of the pride and wealth of Tyre; the fearful pride of the city came to a head in him. His heart was so lifted up that he claimed to be a god and to hold the very seat of God... He is a foreshadowing of the final Antichrist, the man of sin. Behind the wicked prince and king stands another power: Satan.
God names no army and gives no date. The whole weight of the threat rests on who is speaking — and the ruins of Tyre became the evidence.
What appalling facts we have noticed so far in the history of some of the greatest cities the world ever had! How truly the word of Jehovah has been fulfilled! It is well for those who believe God's testimony enough to tremble at His word!
- Claim. The prince said he sat in the seat of God. His own words are the charge, and the sentence answers them word for word.
- Root. The claim was not new — it grew out of the Eden promise that the creature could be as God, a place "seized, not given by God."
- Exposure. He wanted to be God. Instead he feels "what it is to be a man in weakness," dying the death of "men farthest from God."
- Shadow. Verses 1-10 judge "the prince of this world's glory as a man." What follows points past him to Satan, and this prince foreshadows the Antichrist still to come.
- Certainty. The threat rests on three words — "I have spoken" — and the ruins of Tyre show "how truly the word of Jehovah has been fulfilled."