16 Through all your trading you have become full of violent ways, and have done evil: so I sent you out shamed from the mountain of God; the winged one put an end to you from among the stones of fire.
For if God did not have pity for the angels who did evil, but sent them down into hell, to be kept in chains of eternal night till they were judged; And did not have mercy on the world which then was, but only kept safe Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when he let loose the waters over the world of the evil-doers; And sent destruction on Sodom and Gomorrah, burning them up with fire as an example to those whose way of life might in the future be unpleasing to him;
But those who have a desire for wealth are falling into danger, and are taken as in a net by a number of foolish and damaging desires, through which men are overtaken by death and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all evil: and some whose hearts were fixed on it have been turned away from the faith, and been wounded with unnumbered sorrows.
Tarshish did business with you because of the great amount of your wealth; they gave silver, iron, tin, and lead for your goods. Javan, Tubal, and Meshech were your traders; they gave living men and brass vessels for your goods. The people of Togarmah gave horses and war-horses and transport beasts for your goods. The men of Rodan were your traders: a great number of sea-lands did business with you: they gave you horns of ivory and ebony as an offering. Edom did business with you because of the great number of things which you made; they gave emeralds, purple, and needlework, and the best linen and coral and rubies for your goods. Judah and the land of Israel were your traders; they gave grain of Minnith and sweet cakes and honey and oil and perfume for your goods. Damascus did business with you because of the great amount of your wealth, with wine of Helbon and white wool. ... for your goods: they gave polished iron and spices for your goods. Dedan did trade with you in cloths for the backs of horses. Arabia and all the rulers of Kedar did business with you; in lambs and sheep and goats, in these they did business with you. The traders of Sheba and Raamah did trade with you; they gave the best of all sorts of spices and all sorts of stones of great price and gold for your goods. Haran and Canneh and Eden, the traders of Asshur and all the Medes: These were your traders in beautiful robes, in rolls of blue and needlework, and in chests of coloured cloth, corded with cords and made of cedar-wood, in them they did trade with you. Tarshish ships did business for you in your goods: and you were made full, and great was your glory in the heart of the seas. Your boatmen have taken you into great waters: you have been broken by the east wind in the heart of the seas. Your wealth and your goods, the things in which you do trade, your seamen and those guiding your ships, those who make your boards watertight, and those who do business with your goods, and all your men of war who are in you, with all who have come together in you, will go down into the heart of the seas in the day of your downfall. At the sound of the cry of your ships' guides, the boards of the ship will be shaking. And all the boatmen, the seamen and those who are expert at guiding a ship through the sea, will come down from their ships and take their places on the land; And their voices will be sounding over you, and crying bitterly they will put dust on their heads, rolling themselves in the dust: And they will have the hair of their heads cut off because of you, and will put haircloth on their bodies, weeping for you with bitter grief in their souls, even with bitter sorrow. And in their weeping they will make a song of grief for you, sorrowing over you and saying, Who is like Tyre, who has come to an end in the deep sea? When your goods went out over the seas, you made numbers of peoples full; the wealth of the kings of the earth was increased with your great wealth and all your goods. Now that you are broken by the seas in the deep waters, your goods and all your people will go down with you. All the people of the sea-lands are overcome with wonder at you, and their kings are full of fear, their faces are troubled. Those who do business among the peoples make sounds of surprise at you; you have become a thing of fear, you have come to an end for ever.
And it will be after the end of seventy years, that the Lord will have mercy on Tyre, and she will go back to her trade, acting as a loose woman with all the kingdoms of the world on the face of the earth. And her goods and her trade will be holy to the Lord: they will not be kept back or stored up; for her produce will be for those living in the Lord's land, to give them food for their needs, and fair clothing.
Do not make yourself unclean in any of these ways; for so have those nations whom I am driving out from before you made themselves unclean: And the land itself has become unclean; so that I have sent on it the reward of its wrongdoing, and the land itself puts out those who are living in it. So then keep my rules and my decisions, and do not do any of these disgusting things, those of you who are Israelites by birth, or any others who are living with you: (For all these disgusting things were done by the men of this country who were there before you, and the land has been made unclean by them;) So that the land may not put you out from it, when you make it unclean, as it put out the nations which were there before you.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible » Commentary on Ezekiel 28
Commentary on Ezekiel 28 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 28
Eze 28:1-26. Prophetical Dirge on the King of Tyre, as the Culmination and Embodiment of the Spirit of Carnal Pride and Self-sufficiency of the Whole State. The Fall of Zidon, the Mother City. The Restoration of Israel in Contrast with Tyre and Zidon.
2. Because, &c.—repeated resumptively in Eze 28:6. The apodosis begins at Eze 28:7. "The prince of Tyrus" at the time was Ithobal, or Ithbaal II; the name implying his close connection with Baal, the Phœnician supreme god, whose representative he was.
I am a god, I sit in … seat of God … the seas—As God sits enthroned in His heavenly citadel exempt from all injury, so I sit secure in my impregnable stronghold amidst the stormiest elements, able to control them at will, and make them subserve my interests. The language, though primarily here applied to the king of Tyre, as similar language is to the king of Babylon (Isa 14:13, 14), yet has an ulterior and fuller accomplishment in Satan and his embodiment in Antichrist (Da 7:25; 11:36, 37; 2Th 2:4; Re 13:6). This feeling of superhuman elevation in the king of Tyre was fostered by the fact that the island on which Tyre stood was called "the holy island" [Sanconiathon], being sacred to Hercules, so much so that the colonies looked up to Tyre as the mother city of their religion, as well as of their political existence. The Hebrew for "God" is El, that is, "the Mighty One."
yet, &c.—keen irony.
set thine heart as … heart of God—Thou thinkest of thyself as if thou wert God.
3. Ezekiel ironically alludes to Ithbaal's overweening opinion of the wisdom of himself and the Tyrians, as though superior to that of Daniel, whose fame had reached even Tyre as eclipsing the Chaldean sages. "Thou art wiser," namely, in thine own opinion (Zec 9:2).
no secret—namely, forgetting riches (Eze 28:4).
that they can hide—that is, that can be hidden.
5. (Ps 62:10).
6. Because, &c.—resumptive of Eze 28:2.
7. therefore—apodosis.
strangers … terrible of the nations—the Chaldean foreigners noted for their ferocity (Eze 30:11; 31:12).
against the beauty of thy wisdom—that is, against thy beautiful possessions acquired by thy wisdom on which thou pridest thyself (Eze 28:3-5).
defile thy brightness—obscure the brightness of thy kingdom.
8. the pit—that is, the bottom of the sea; the image being that of one conquered in a sea-fight.
the deaths—plural, as various kinds of deaths are meant (Jer 16:4).
of them … slain—literally, "pierced through." Such deaths as those pierced with many wounds die.
9. yet say—that is, still say; referring to Eze 28:2.
but, &c.—But thy blasphemous boastings shall be falsified, and thou shalt be shown to be but man, and not God, in the hand (at the mercy) of Him.
10. deaths of … uncircumcised—that is, such a death as the uncircumcised or godless heathen deserve; and perhaps, also, such as the uncircumcised inflict, a great ignominy in the eyes of a Jew (1Sa 31:4); a fit retribution on him who had scoffed at the circumcised Jews.
12. sealest up the sum—literally, "Thou art the one sealing the sum of perfection." A thing is sealed when completed (Da 9:24). "The sum" implies the full measure of beauty, from a Hebrew root, "to measure." The normal man—one formed after accurate rule.
13. in Eden—The king of Tyre is represented in his former high state (contrasted with his subsequent downfall), under images drawn from the primeval man in Eden, the type of humanity in its most Godlike form.
garden of God—the model of ideal loveliness (Eze 31:8, 9; 36:35). In the person of the king of Tyre a new trial was made of humanity with the greatest earthly advantages. But as in the case of Adam, the good gifts of God were only turned into ministers to pride and self.
every precious stone—so in Eden (Ge 2:12), "gold, bdellium, and the onyx stone." So the king of Tyre was arrayed in jewel-bespangled robes after the fashion of Oriental monarchs. The nine precious stones here mentioned answer to nine of the twelve (representing the twelve tribes) in the high priest's breastplate (Ex 39:10-13; Re 21:14, 19-21). Of the four rows of three in each, the third is omitted in the Hebrew, but is supplied in the Septuagint. In this, too, there is an ulterior reference to Antichrist, who is blasphemously to arrogate the office of our divine High Priest (Zec 6:13).
tabrets—tambourines.
pipes—literally, "holes" in musical pipes or flutes.
created—that is, in the day of thine accession to the throne. Tambourines and all the marks of joy were ready prepared for thee ("in thee," that is, "with and for thee"). Thou hadst not, like others, to work thy way to the throne through arduous struggles. No sooner created than, like Adam, thou wast surrounded with the gratifications of Eden. Fairbairn, for "pipes," translates, "females" (having reference to Ge 1:27), that is, musician-women. Maurer explains the Hebrew not as to music, but as to the setting and mounting of the gems previously mentioned.
14. anointed cherub—Gesenius translates from an Aramaic root, "extended cherub." English Version, from a Hebrew root, is better. "The cherub consecrated to the Lord by the anointing oil" [Fairbairn].
covereth—The imagery employed by Ezekiel as a priest is from the Jewish temple, wherein the cherubim overshadowed the mercy seat, as the king of Tyre, a demi-god in his own esteem, extended his protection over the interests of Tyre. The cherub—an ideal compound of the highest kinds of animal existence and the type of redeemed man in his ultimate state of perfection—is made the image of the king of Tyre, as if the beau ideal of humanity. The pretensions of Antichrist are the ulterior reference, of whom the king of Tyre is a type. Compare "As God … in the temple of God" (2Th 2:4).
I have set thee—not thou set thyself (Pr 8:16; Ro 13:1).
upon the holy mountain of God—Zion, following up the image.
in … midst of … stones of fire—In ambitious imagination he stood in the place of God, "under whose feet was, as it were, a pavement of sapphire," while His glory was like "devouring fire" (Ex 24:10, 17).
15. perfect—prosperous [Grotius], and having no defect. So Hiram was a sample of the Tyrian monarch in his early days of wisdom and prosperity (1Ki 5:7, &c.).
till iniquity … in thee—Like the primeval man thou hast fallen by abusing God's gifts, and so hast provoked God's wrath.
16. filled the midst of thee—that is, they have filled the midst of the city; he as the head of the state being involved in the guilt of the state, which he did not check, but fostered.
cast thee as profane—no longer treated as sacred, but driven out of the place of sanctity (see Eze 28:14) which thou hast occupied (compare Ps 89:39).
17. brightness—thy splendor.
lay thee before kings—as an example of God's wrath against presumptuous pride.
18. thy sanctuaries—that is, the holy places, attributed to the king of Tyre in Eze 28:14, as his ideal position. As he "profaned" it, so God will "profane" him (Eze 28:16).
fire … devour—As he abused his supposed elevation amidst "the stones of fire" (Eze 28:16), so God will make His "fire" to "devour" him.
21. Zidon—famous for its fishery (from a root, Zud, "to fish"); and afterwards for its wide extended commerce; its artistic elegance was proverbial. Founded by Canaan's first-born (Ge 10:15). Tyre was an offshoot from it, so that it was involved in the same overthrow by the Chaldeans as Tyre. It is mentioned separately, because its idolatry (Ashtaroth, Tammuz, or Adonis) infected Israel more than that of Tyre did (Eze 8:14; Jud 10:6; 1Ki 11:33). The notorious Jezebel was a daughter of the Zidonian king.
22. shall be sanctified in her—when all nations shall see that I am the Holy Judge in the vengeance that I will inflict on her for sin.
24. no more … brier … unto … Israel—as the idolatrous nations left in Canaan (among which Zidon is expressly specified in the limits of Asher, Jud 1:31) had been (Nu 33:55; Jos 23:13). "A brier," first ensnaring the Israelites in sin, and then being made the instrument of punishing them.
pricking—literally, "causing bitterness." The same Hebrew is translated "fretting" (Le 13:51, 52). The wicked are often called "thorns" (2Sa 23:6).
25, 26. Fulfilled in part at the restoration from Babylon, when Judaism, so far from being merged in heathenism, made inroads by conversions on the idolatry of surrounding nations. The full accomplishment is yet future, when Israel, under Christ, shall be the center of Christendom; of which an earnest was given in the woman from the coasts of Tyre and Sidon who sought the Saviour (Mt 15:21, 24, 26-28; compare Isa 11:12).
dwell safely—(Jer 23:6).