Visions of the Kingdom: Week 31

Ezekiel 28:1-26: A man, not a God

• 28:3 Daniel was a contemporary of Ezekiel, both exiled together. His reputation was already being established, as we saw in "Susanna and the Elders" - where Daniel is still a student at Babylon U.
• 28:5 Wealth is the greatest peril to the human soul.
• 28:6 "as the heart of a god" - there was another who said "I will be as God", and this parallel is drawn explicitly below.
• 28:7 Nebuchadnezzar was to be the executioner. And yet, Nebuchadnezzar would soon make the same mistake.
• 28:9 "in the presence of those who slay you" - getting killed is a good way to get reaquainted with your mortality.
• 28:10 "death of the uncircumcised" - the Phonecians were circumcised. To be slain as an uncircumcised male was to die a barbarian's death.
• 28:11 Now, we shift to the angelic being who said "I will be as God."
• 28:12 "King of Tyre" - the spiritual power behind the prince of Tyre, as the spiritual ruler of Babylon is described in Isaiah 14, and the spiritual power behind prince of Persian in Daniel 10:20.
• 28:16 The natural translation of the unpointed text is

  From the day you were created, I placed you with the cherub in a holy, divine mountain…, and the cherub drove you from the midst of the fiery stones.

  So in addition to the king of tyre, or Satan, this passage can lso refer to the fall of Adam, who ate the fruit to "be as God".
• 28:17 "cast you to the earth" - Revelation 12:8. "spectacle before kings" - as all the nations beheld the fall of Tyre, so they will behold the fall of Satan.
• 28:18 "dishonesty of your trading" - middlemen are often unjustly hated because of lack of understanding of economics. But Tyre was really dishonest.
• 28:24 "pricking brier" - Phoenicia had been a continual source of temptation. Jezebel was from Phoenicia. They led the world in the sacrifice of children for prosperity.
• 28:26 There will be a return, and their current enemies will no longer bother them.