Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Ezekiel · About this commentary
The Prince of Tyre Who Said, I Am a God
Ezekiel 28:1-10
1 Yahweh’s word came again to me, saying, · WEB
A ruler's claim to divinity is answered by the one fact that settles it, and the fact is repeated twice: he is a man.
The claim is quoted in the ruler's own voice. I am a god, I sit in the seat of God, in the middle of the seas. Tyre's island position made the boast almost geographical. A throne surrounded by water, unreachable, above the ordinary traffic of nations. The reply comes in the same breath and it is four words: yet you are man, and no god.
What produced the claim is then traced, and the route is worth following because it is not the obvious one. He is not accused of stupidity. He is credited with real ability: wiser than Daniel, no secret hidden from him, riches gained by your wisdom and by your understanding. The sequence runs from genuine competence to wealth, and from wealth to the lifted heart. Nothing false is asserted at any step until the last one. And the last one is a conclusion drawn from a record of success.
The verdict is therefore not that his wisdom was fake. It is that a man who has been right often enough begins to mistake the range of his own competence, and the boast follows. The answer to it is a demonstration rather than an argument. Strangers are brought against him, and the question put at the moment of death is the sharpest in the chapter: Will you yet say before him who kills you, 'I am God'?
And the same correction is repeated so that it frames the whole oracle: But you are man, and not God, in the hand of him who wounds you. Twice in nine verses, in the identical terms. The sentence pronounced is the death of the uncircumcised — the death of an outsider to the covenant, without honor. A ruler who claimed the seat of God is told he will die like any man. The manner of it is the entire refutation.
settled What this mark means