Ezekiel 28

The word of the LORD came to me again. He said:

1The word of the LORD came again unto me, saying,

Note"The LORD" in small capitals stands where the Hebrew has God's personal name, the four letters YHWH. Jewish readers said "the Lord" aloud instead of pronouncing it, and English Bibles keep that custom by printing LORD. Where the text reads "Lord GOD," the Hebrew has two words: "Lord" (master) followed by that same name.

2"Son of man, say to the ruler of Tyre, 'This is what the Lord GOD says: Your heart is proud. You have said, "I am a god. I sit on the throne of a god, out in the middle of the sea." But you are a man, not a god, even though you think of yourself as a god.

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:

Note"Son of man" is Hebrew for "human being," and it is how God addresses Ezekiel throughout the book, a standing reminder of the gap between the speaker and the man being spoken to. Tyre was a Phoenician trading city on the coast of what is now Lebanon; its main fortress stood on an island half a mile offshore, which is why the ruler can claim to sit enthroned "in the middle of the sea." The word used for him here is a general term for a ruler or leader, not the ordinary word for king; verse 12 switches to "king."

3Look, you are wiser than Daniel. No secret is hidden from you.

3Behold, thou art wiser than Daniel; there is no secret that they can hide from thee:

NoteThe Daniel named here is spelled differently in Hebrew from the Daniel of the book of that name, and he is paired elsewhere in Ezekiel with Noah and Job as figures from the distant past. Ancient texts from Ugarit, north of Tyre, tell of a wise and just ruler called Danel, and many take that legendary figure to be the one a Phoenician king would be measured against. The line is sarcastic.

4By your wisdom and your understanding you have made yourself rich. You have gathered gold and silver into your treasure rooms.

4With thy wisdom and with thine understanding thou hast gotten thee riches, and hast gotten gold and silver into thy treasures:

5By your great skill in trading you have made your riches grow. And now your heart is proud because of what you own.

5By thy great wisdom and by thy traffick hast thou increased thy riches, and thine heart is lifted up because of thy riches:

6So this is what the Lord GOD says: Because you think of yourself as a god,

6Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thou hast set thine heart as the heart of God;

7watch what I will do. I will bring foreigners against you, the most brutal of the nations. They will pull out their swords against your fine wisdom, and they will ruin your splendor.

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.

Note"Foreigners" is a veiled way of naming the invading army. Babylon under Nebuchadnezzar besieged Tyre for thirteen years in Ezekiel's own lifetime.

8They will bring you down to the Pit, the place of the dead. You will die a violent death out in the middle of the sea.

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.

NoteThe Pit is another name for Sheol, the underworld where the Hebrew Bible pictures all the dead going down, powerful and weak alike. It is not a place of punishment; it is simply the realm of the dead, the opposite of the high throne this king imagines for himself.

9Will you still say, "I am a god," to the face of the one who kills you? You will be only a man, not a god, in the hands of those who strike you down.

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.

10You will die the death of the uncircumcised, killed by foreigners. I have spoken, says the Lord GOD.'"

10Thou shalt die the deaths of the uncircumcised by the hand of strangers: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD.

NoteCircumcision marked membership in Israel and was also practiced by several neighboring peoples, so "the uncircumcised" meant outsiders, in Ezekiel's usage, the disgraced dead who are buried apart from the honored. To die "the death of the uncircumcised" is to die shamefully and be denied an honorable burial, not a comment on the king's own body.

11The word of the LORD came to me again. He said:

11Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,

12"Son of man, sing a funeral song for the king of Tyre. Say to him, 'This is what the Lord GOD says: You were the very model of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.

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.

NoteA funeral song, or dirge, was a formal poem with its own limping rhythm, sung over a corpse. Prophets used the form to announce a death that had not yet happened: singing the funeral in advance treats the doom as already accomplished. "You were the very model of perfection" translates a Hebrew phrase whose sense is disputed: it may mean a signet seal of perfect design, or a perfectly measured pattern.

13You were in Eden, the garden of God. Every kind of precious stone covered you: ruby, topaz, and diamond, beryl, onyx, and jasper, sapphire, turquoise, and emerald, and gold as well. The skilled work was prepared for you on the day you were created.

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.

NoteThe nine stones listed overlap heavily with the gems on the high priest's breastpiece in Exodus, though the ancient Hebrew names cannot be matched with certainty to modern gems, which is why translations differ. The last clause is also uncertain: the Hebrew words may mean gold settings and mountings for those stones, or, as the King James took them, tambourines and pipes, musical instruments.

14You were the anointed cherub who guards and covers, and I placed you there. You were on God's holy mountain. You walked back and forth among the stones of fire.

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.

NoteCherubim in the ancient Near East were winged composite creatures, often part animal, that stood guard at temple doorways and flanked royal thrones; they are guardians, not the plump infants of later art. "Anointed" means marked out with oil, the ceremony used to install a king or a priest. God's "holy mountain" is the standard ancient picture of a divine dwelling, a summit where a god holds court. "The stones of fire" appears nowhere else and no one knows exactly what it means, glowing gems, blazing coals, or the fiery ground of the divine mountain have all been proposed.

15You did nothing wrong from the day you were created, until evil was found in you.

15Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.

16Your huge trading business filled you with violence, and you sinned. So I threw you out of the mountain of God in disgrace. I drove you out from among the stones of fire, guardian cherub.

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.

Note"In disgrace" renders a word meaning common or unholy, the opposite of sacred. The figure is expelled the way something ritually unclean would be carried out of a sanctuary.

17Your heart grew proud because of your beauty. You ruined your own wisdom because of your splendor. So I threw you down to the ground. I put you on display in front of kings, for them to stare at.

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.

18You made your holy places filthy with your many sins and your crooked trading. So I brought out fire from inside you, and it ate you up. I turned you to ashes on the ground while everyone watched.

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.

Note"Holy places" are the temples of Tyre; the city was known for its shrines, particularly to the god Melqart. The charge is that the king's own conduct in business polluted the sanctuaries he maintained.

19All the peoples who knew you are horrified at what happened to you. You have come to a dreadful end, and you will never exist again.'"

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.

20The word of the LORD came to me again. He said:

20Again the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,

21"Son of man, turn toward Sidon and speak against it.

21Son of man, set thy face against Zidon, and prophesy against it,

NoteSidon was the other great Phoenician port, about twenty-five miles up the coast from Tyre, and the two cities are named together throughout the Bible. "Turn toward", literally "set your face against", is a gesture of formal confrontation, the prophet physically facing his target as he delivers the words.

22Say, 'This is what the Lord GOD says: I am against you, Sidon, and I will show my glory in you. People will know that I am the LORD when I carry out my sentence on her and show that I am holy through her.

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.

Note"Then they will know that I am the LORD" is Ezekiel's signature refrain, occurring some seventy times in the book and closing most of its oracles. To "show that I am holy" translates a verb meaning to be treated as set apart and untouchable; the point is public demonstration, in view of onlookers.

23I will send a deadly disease into her, and blood will run in her streets. Her people will fall dead inside her while the sword attacks her from every side. Then they will know that I am the LORD.

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.

24The people of Israel will no longer have a sharp brier or a painful thorn from any of the neighbors who treated them with contempt. Then they will know that I am the Lord GOD.'

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.

NoteBriers and thorns as a figure for hostile neighbors goes back to Numbers 33:55, where Israel is warned that peoples left in the land will become "pricks in your eyes, and thorns in your sides." Ezekiel is picking up a stock phrase his hearers would recognize.

25This is what the Lord GOD says: "I will gather the people of Israel back from the nations where they were scattered. I will show that I am holy through them, while the nations watch. Then they will live in their own land, which I gave to my servant Jacob.

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.

NoteEzekiel is speaking to Judeans deported to Babylon after Jerusalem fell, so "gather back from the nations where they were scattered" describes a reversal of the exile his audience was living through. Jacob, also called Israel, was the ancestor whose twelve sons gave their names to the twelve tribes; naming him signals the land grant made to the family long before.

26There they will live in safety. They will build houses and plant vineyards. They will live without fear, once I have punished all their neighbors who treated them with contempt. Then they will know that I am the LORD their God."

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.

NoteBuilding a house and planting a vineyard were the standard shorthand for security, because both take years to pay off, a vineyard yields no usable harvest for several seasons. Only people who expect to be left alone start either one.