Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Ezekiel · About this commentary
The Lament Over the King of Tyre
Ezekiel 28:11-19
11 Moreover Yahweh’s word came to me, saying, · WEB
The lament describes someone in Eden, on the holy mountain, created perfect and found unrighteous — and the profile is laid out exactly as the text gives it.
The second oracle is addressed to the king of Tyre, and it is set as a lamentation rather than an accusation. Its first difficulty is plain. The previous section has just finished insisting that the ruler of Tyre is a man and no god. This one begins by describing someone who was in the garden of God.
The description should be read slowly and in full, because everything depends on what it actually says. You were the seal of full measure, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God, adorned with nine named stones and with gold work prepared in the day that you were created. You were the anointed cherub who covers, set on the holy mountain of God, walking up and down among the stones of fire. And then the sentence that fixes the shape of the whole passage: You were perfect in your ways from the day that you were created, until unrighteousness was found in you.
Every clause there is outside what can be said of any human king. Tyre's ruler was not in Eden. He was not a cherub. He was not created perfect, and he was not on the mountain of God. The passage supplies an origin, a rank, a place, a state of original perfection, and a moment when that changed. The moment is described with a verb that keeps the cause inside the subject. Unrighteousness was found in him, not brought to him.
What corrupted it is named twice, and it is the same fault the human prince was charged with in the previous verses. Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty. You have corrupted your wisdom by reason of your splendor. The excellence was real, and it became the occasion. That parallel is why the two oracles stand together. What happened in the city is the shape of something older, and the lament traces the pattern back to where it began.
The end is stated as a casting out and a burning that comes from within: I have brought out a fire from the middle of you. The result is laid before kings and before all who knew him. And a final clause permits no continuation: you will exist no more. Scripture describes this figure carefully and does not name him here. The profile is complete enough that a reader can see who is being described, and this passage leaves the identification to the reader, as it was left.
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