Ezekiel 28

Ezekiel 28:1-10

In this chapter we have, 1. A predation of the fall of the king of

Tyre in the destruction of that city, ver. 1-10. 2. A lamentation taken up for him, though he fell by his own iniquity, ver. 11-19. 3. A prophecy of the destruction of Zidon, which met in the neighbourhood of Tyre, ver. 20-23. 4. A promise of the restoration of God’s stead, though in the day of their calamity they were inflicted over by their neighbours, ver. 24, 25, 26.

1. THE word of the LORD came again unto me, saying, 2. Son 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 fit 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: 3. Behold, ’thou art wise, than Daniel; there is no secret that they can hide from thee: 4. With thy wisdom and with thine understanding thou hast gotten thee riches, and hath gotten good and silver into thy treasures: 5. ‘By thy great wisdom, and by thy traffic hath thou increased thy riches, and thine heart is lifted up because of thy riches: 6. Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD, Because thou hast set thine heart as the heart of God; 7. Behold, therefore, I will bring strangers upon thee, ’the terrible of the nations: and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of thy wisdom, and they shall decile thy brightness. 8. They shall bring thee down to the pit, and thou shalt die the deaths of them that are slain in the midst of the seas. 9. With thou yet say before him that sayeth thee, I am God! but thou shalt be a man and no God in the hand of him that sayeth thee. 10. Thou shalt die the deaths of the uncircumcised, by the hand of strangers: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD.

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

1. His pride was excessive. His heart was lifted up in high conceit of his own excellence, as if he could rival the monarch of the universe: he said, I am a God; heathful himself as a Christ, and perhaps expected divine honours should be paid him. His throne seemed to be fixed from us that of the Most High, and as glorious in the midst of the seas, which owned his sovereign sway. But he is told, Thou art man, and not God, a poor, dependent, dying worm; though thou set thine heart as the heart of God, thinking his wisdom and dominion great as those of the eternal Jehovah, and himself as worthy to be feared, obeyed, and worshipped. Two things particularly he valued himself upon. (1.) His wisdom. Thou art wise than Daniel, in his own opinion at least. The same of Daniel had perhaps reached even to Tyre, as the most remarkable person for wisdom of all the wise men of the east: but the king of Tyre fancied he far excelled him, and, with penetration approaching omniscience, would have it believed, there was no secret could he hid from him. Thus often do we see knowledge puff up, and the most precious gifts of God perverted to his dishonour. (2.) His wealth. By his wisdom he planned his schemes of traffic, and riches flowing in as a river upon him, every acquisition filled his mind with loftier imaginations of his own importance: he adcribed his gains not to God’s providence but his own prudence, and fancied himself thereby exalted above all danger. The boasts of Antichrist, 2 Thess. 21. 4. are expected nearly in the time language; of whom the prince of Tyre is the type and figure.

2. His doom is read. He beathful himself a God, but he must die as a man. The Chaldeans, the terrible of the nations, from a strange land shall come, and with drawn swords demolish the force of Tyre, decile her beauty, and lay all her proud palaces in the dust; and this vain prince, far from finding respect shewn to that majesty he counted sacred, shall go to an ignominious grave, like those who are in a sea-fight slain and call overboard without ceremony, a prey for fishes, v. 8. and, worse still, he shall die under the curse of God, the deaths of the uncircumcised, eternally undone and lost. And sure is the doom pronounced, since the God of truth hath spoken it, v. 10.

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

4. ¶ Moreover, the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, 12. Son of man, ’take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord GOD, Thou sealed up the sun full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. 13. Thou hast been in ‘Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering.

from 10. 11. Thel. i. 4.