Major Prophets · Chapter 28 of 48
Ezekiel 28
God addresses the prince of Tyre, whose heart is lifted up to claim, I am a God, though he is only a man. God will bring strangers to slay him, and he will die as a man in the hand of his killers. Then a lament over the king of Tyre pictures a glorious being in Eden, the anointed cherub, cast down for pride. Finally God announces judgment on Sidon and restoration for Israel.
What happens in Ezekiel 28
God tells Ezekiel to confront the prince of Tyre, whose wealth and wisdom have swelled his heart until he claims to be a god enthroned in the seas. God answers that he is only a man; strangers, the terror of the nations, will draw swords against him, and he will die the death of the slain, no god in the hand of his slayer. Then God raises a lament over the king of Tyre, describing a figure of dazzling perfection who was in Eden, the garden of God, adorned with every precious stone, the anointed guardian cherub on the holy mountain, blameless until iniquity was found in him.
Pride in his beauty and corrupted wisdom bring his downfall; God casts him to the ground and burns him to ashes. The chapter closes with judgment on Sidon and a promise that God will gather Israel to dwell safely.
Ezekiel 28 in context
The climax of the Tyre oracles distinguishes the prince (the human ruler) from the king (described in exalted, Edenic terms). The lament's imagery of a perfect being in Eden, the anointed cherub cast down for pride, has long led many Christian interpreters to see, behind the earthly king, a portrait of the fall of Satan, much as Isaiah 14 addresses the king of Babylon.
At the least, it exposes the demonic root of self-deifying pride. The chapter ends turning toward Israel's restoration.
Main themes of Ezekiel 28
Ezekiel 28 (KJV)
1The word of the LORD came again unto me, saying, 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: 3Behold, thou art wiser than Daniel; there is no secret that they can hide from thee: 4With thy wisdom and with thine understanding thou hast gotten thee riches, and hast gotten gold and silver into thy treasures: 5By thy great wisdom and by thy traffick hast thou increased thy riches, and thine heart is lifted up because of thy riches: 6Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thou hast set thine heart as the heart of God; 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. 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. 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. 10Thou shalt die the deaths of the uncircumcised by the hand of strangers: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD. 11Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, 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. 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. 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. 15Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee. 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. 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. 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. 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. 20Again the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, 21Son of man, set thy face against Zidon, and prophesy against it, 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.
Verses to carry from Ezekiel 28
“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:”Ezekiel 28:2
“Thou 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.”Ezekiel 28:14
“Thine 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.”Ezekiel 28:17
Thematic connection
How Ezekiel 28 points to Jesus
The king of Tyre says he is a god and grasps at divine status, and for this pride he is cast down (Ezekiel 28:2, 17). Behind him many see the pattern of Satan's fall, the anointed cherub ruined by self-exaltation. Against this stands the great reversal of the gospel: Jesus, who was truly in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, humbling himself to death on a cross, and was therefore exalted (Philippians 2:6 to 9).
Where the proud creature claimed to be God and fell, the true God became a servant and was lifted up. Christ's humility undoes the very sin this chapter exposes, defeating the prideful power at its root. This is a thematic connection.
Questions about Ezekiel 28
Is the king of Tyre passage about Satan or a human king?
The oracle directly addresses Tyre's ruler, and its primary meaning is his prideful fall. Yet the soaring Eden imagery, the anointed cherub on God's holy mountain, has led many Christians to see behind the king the fall of Satan, the archetype of self-deifying pride. Both readings hold together: the human king embodies a rebellion whose ultimate source is the great fallen power that first grasped at God's place.
What does self-deification look like in ordinary life?
Few say aloud that they are a god, yet the impulse is common: treating our wisdom as final, our wealth as our own achievement, our will as the center of everything. The prince of Tyre simply made explicit what pride whispers in every heart. The remedy is the humility of Christ, who held real divinity yet emptied himself, teaching us to receive life as gift rather than grasp it as right.
Reflection
The prince of Tyre turned God's gifts into grounds for claiming godhood, and pride became his ruin. The same temptation, subtler in us, is to sit at the center of our own world. Look at where success has quietly lifted up your heart. Then look to Christ, who was truly God yet chose the lowest place, and follow him down.
A prayer from Ezekiel 28
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