Ezekiel 28King James Version
Against the prince of Tyre, who has said 'I am a God.' Then a lament over the king of Tyre that seems to reach past him into the fall of a primal being. Thou wast in Eden, the garden of God. Thou wast the anointed cherub. Thy heart was lifted up because of thy beauty. Christians have long read this as a glimpse of the fall of Satan.
Two oracles against the prince and king of Tyre. The prince claims to be a god, wise as Daniel, enthroned in the heart of the seas. God says he is a man and will die like one. The king of Tyre is a more cosmic figure: the anointed cherub in Eden, perfect in beauty, walking among stones of fire, until iniquity was found in him and he was cast out. This figure is consumed by fire and becomes ashes.
Pride in one's own wisdom and beauty is the corruption that falls from the highest state to the lowest: the king of Tyre's trajectory is a mirror of a primordial fall.
17: "Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee." Beauty and wisdom without humility become the instruments of ruin.
Around 587 BC. The prince of Tyre, likely Ithobaal III, ruled a city whose wealth made its leaders feel effectively invincible. The Eden imagery in the second oracle takes the oracle out of simple politics and into something more cosmic: this is not just about one king but about the deepest human pattern of pride.
The prince of Tyre who declares himself divine; the king of Tyre as the cosmic, Edenic figure; the foreigners who strip and humiliate the prince; the LORD who pronounces both oracles.
Verses 12 to 19 are the most theologically dense passage in Ezekiel and have generated centuries of commentary. Whether the 'anointed cherub' refers to a primordial being, a mythological figure drawn from Canaanite sources, or an extended metaphor for human pride is debated. The passage has been read in many traditions as a description of the fall of Satan, though that reading is not required by the text.
For when you watch someone brilliant and capable destroy themselves through their own self-regard. The chapter traces the arc from magnificent to ash: the fall is as complete as the height was great.
1The word of the LORD came again unto me, saying,
2Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyrus, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thine heart is lifted up, and thou hast said, I am a God, I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas; yet thou art a man, and not God, though thou set thine heart as the heart of God:
3Behold, thou art wiser than Daniel; there is no secret that they can hide from thee:
4With thy wisdom and with thine understanding thou hast gotten thee riches, and hast gotten gold and silver into thy treasures:
5By thy great wisdom and by thy traffick hast thou increased thy riches, and thine heart is lifted up because of thy riches:
6Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thou hast set thine heart as the heart of God;
7Behold, therefore I will bring strangers upon thee, the terrible of the nations: and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of thy wisdom, and they shall defile thy brightness.
8They shall bring thee down to the pit, and thou shalt die the deaths of them that are slain in the midst of the seas.
9Wilt thou yet say before him that slayeth thee, I am God? but thou shalt be a man, and no God, in the hand of him that slayeth thee.
10Thou shalt die the deaths of the uncircumcised by the hand of strangers: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD.
11Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
12Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.
13Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.
14Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.
15Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.
16By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.
17Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee.
18Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffick; therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee.
19All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee: thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more.
20Again the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
21Son of man, set thy face against Zidon, and prophesy against it,
22And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Zidon; and I will be glorified in the midst of thee: and they shall know that I am the LORD, when I shall have executed judgments in her, and shall be sanctified in her.
23For I will send into her pestilence, and blood into her streets; and the wounded shall be judged in the midst of her by the sword upon her on every side; and they shall know that I am the LORD.
24And there shall be no more a pricking brier unto the house of Israel, nor any grieving thorn of all that are round about them, that despised them; and they shall know that I am the Lord GOD.
25Thus saith the Lord GOD; When I shall have gathered the house of Israel from the people among whom they are scattered, and shall be sanctified in them in the sight of the heathen, then shall they dwell in their land that I have given to my servant Jacob.
26And they shall dwell safely therein, and shall build houses, and plant vineyards; yea, they shall dwell with confidence, when I have executed judgments upon all those that despise them round about them; and they shall know that I am the LORD their God.