Ezekiel 28:2

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 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: BECAUSE ... Repeated resumptively in Ezekiel 28:6; the apodosis begins at Ezekiel 28:7, "Because thine heart is lifted up, and thou hast said, I am a god" - "Because thou hast set thine heart as the heart of God" - "Behold, therefore I will bring strangers upon thee." "The prince of Tyrus" at the time was Ithobal, or Ithbaal II., the name implying his close connection with Baal, the Phoenician supreme god, whose representative he was. I am a god, I sit in the seat of God, in th...

1-19 Ethbaal, or Ithobal, was the prince or king of Tyre; and being lifted up with excessive pride, he claimed Divine honours. Pride is peculiarly the sin of our fallen nature. Nor can any wisdom, except that which the Lord gives, lead to happiness in this world or in that which is to come. The haughty prince of Tyre thought he was able to protect his people by his own power, and considered himself as equal to the inhabitants of heaven. If it were possible to dwell in the garden of Eden, or even to enter heaven, no solid happiness could be enjoyed without a humble, holy, and spiritual mind. Especially all spiritual pride is of the devil. Those who indulge therein must expect to perish....

Verse Ezekiel 28:2. _SAY UNTO THE PRINCE OF TYRUS_] But who was this prince of Tyrus? Some think _Hiram_; some, _Sin_; some, the _devil_; others, _Ithobaal_, with whom the chronology and circumstances best agree. _Origen_ thought the guardian angel of the city was intended. _I_ AM _A GOD_] That is, I am absolute, independent, and accountable to none. He was a man of great pride and arrogance....

The prophecy against the prince of Tyre. Throughout the east the majesty and glory of a people were collected in the person of their monarch, who in some nations was worshipped as a god. The prince is here the embodiment of the community. Their glory is his glory, their pride his pride. The doom of Tyre could not be complete without denunciation of the prince of Tyre. Idolatrous nations and idolatrous kings were, in the eyes of the prophet, antagonists to the true God. In them was embodied the principle of evil opposing itself to the divine government of the world. Hence, some of the fathers saw upon the throne, not simply a hostile monarch, but “the Prince of this world, spiritual wickedness (or wicked spirits) in high places.” Whenever evil in any way domineers over good, there is a “prince of Tyrus,” against whom God utters His voice. The “mystery of iniquity is ever working, and in t...

EXPOSITION EZEKIEL 28:1 From the city the prophet passes to its ruler, who concentrated in himself whatever was most arrogant and boastful in the temper of his people. He is described here as a" prince," in Ezekiel 28:12 as "king," and the combination of the two words points probably to some peculiarity of the Tyrian constitution. "Prince" it will be remembered, is constantly used by Ezekiel of Zedekiah (Ezekiel 7:27; Ezekiel 12:20, _el al_.)._ _The King of Tyro at the time was Ithobal or Ethbaal III. (Josephus, 'Contra Apion,'...

SON OF MAN, SAY UNTO THE PRINCE OF TYRE,.... Whose name was Ethbaal, or Ithobalus, as he is called in Josephus; for that this was Hiram that was in the days of Solomon, and lived a thousand years, is a fable of the Jewish Rabbins, as Jerom relates: this prince of Tyre is thought by some to be an emblem of the devil; but rather of antichrist; and between them there is a great agreement, and it seems to have a prophetic respect to him: THUS SAITH THE LORD GOD, BECAUSE THINE HEART IS LIFTED UP: with pride, on account of his wisdom and knowledge, wealth and riches, as later mentioned: AND THOU HAST SAID, I AM A GOD; this he said in his heart, in the pride of it, and perhaps expressed it with his lips, and required divine homage to be given him by his subjects, as some insolent, proud, and haughty monarchs have done; in which he was a lively type of antichrist, who shows himself, and behave...

Ezekiel 28:1. The prince of Tyrus, or, as he is also called, the king, was, according to the Jewish historian Josephus, Ithobalus, known in the Phoenician annals as Ithobaal II. He was the consummation of the pride and wealth of Tyrus; 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 type of the final Antichrist, the man of sin. Behind the wicked prince and king, there is seen another power, Satan. Satan was the power behind the throne of the Tyrian king, as Satan is still the god of this age, who controls the kingdoms of the world. Inasmuch, then, as Tyrus is a type of the commercial glory of the world, its wealth and pride, foreshadowing the final great world-city or world-system, Babylon, the ruler of Tyrus, spoken of as prin...

EZEKIEL 28. TYRE'S FALL FROM HEAVEN. In a remarkable passage, Ezekiel now conceives the pride of Tyre as incarnate in her king. The detail is often obscure and difficult, reminiscent of a mythological background similar to Genesis 3. The commercial genius and success of Tyre flushed her with impious pride: she fancied herself divine. But her marvellous wisdom was only commercial wisdom; she had no instinct for the worship of anything but herself and her abounding prosperity: so the terrible Babylonians must come and lay them low in an unhonoured death (Ezekiel 28:1). A dirge is then sung over the fallen genius of Tyre, impersonated by her king. Once he had walked in the garden of God, fair, wise, and resplendent, companion of the cherubs who guard the holy abode; but for his pride he was hurled out of Paradise symbol of the ruin to which Tyre's commercial pride will bring her. (In...

SON OF MAN. See note on Ezekiel 2:4. THE PRINCE OF TYRUS. The prince (Hebrew. _nagid)_ is to be distinguished as the type (verses: Ezekiel 28:1) from the king (_melek_) of Tyre, the antitype (verses: Ezekiel 28:11). See the Structure above. He is. mere man, as shown in Ezekiel 28:9, where note the emphasis marked by the Figure of speech _Pleonasm_ (App-6). He was Ithobalus II, Ileb.. _Ethbaal_. See Josephus (cont. _Apion_. 21). TYRUS. Tyre (the city), as in Ezekiel 26:2. THE LORD GOD. Hebre

I AM A GOD— These words are an insolent boast of self-sufficiency; as if he had said, "I neither fear any prince, nor stand in need of any assistance; I am seated in a place of impregnable strength; the seas surround me; I am freed from the assaults of an enemy." See Isaiah 23:9 and Lowth....