Ezekiel 28:1-10

The Voice

28 The word of the Eternal came to me with a message about the prince of Tyre.

Tyre’s troubles start not long after Judah is destroyed in 586 b.c. Nebuchadnezzar marches there and begins a siege that lasts for almost 13 years. The part of the city on the mainland is captured by Nebuchadnezzar, but the princes of Tyre continue to rule from their island palace for another two centuries. In 332 b.c. Alexander the Great will use the rubble of the mainland city to construct a bridge to the island. Soon the island of Tyre will be in ruins, as it will remain forever.

Eternal One: ²Son of man, go to the prince of Tyre, and give him this message. This is what I, Eternal Lord, have to say:

    Your heart is swollen with pride—
        a pride that says, “I am a god.
        I sit on a divine throne in the heart of the sea.”
    But I assure you, prince, you are nothing more
        than a mortal man—a man of mortal destiny.
    Even though you have the self-confidence of a god,
        you are made entirely of flesh and blood.
³    But obviously you must be wiser than Daniel, that ancient judge in Ugarit.
        Clearly, you understand every mystery.
⁴    You used your wisdom and discernment to amass a great fortune,
        to fill your treasuries with gold and silver.
⁵    Your knack for trade has built your wealth,
        but your success and riches have made your heart swell with pride.

Because of Tyre’s location off the coast, she receives daily supplies and survives a long war; therefore, her ruler, Ethbaal III, has every human reason to be confident. Such confidence and wickedness is bred into him: Ethbaal’s ancestor, Ethbaal I, was a priest of their goddess Astarte and seized the throne for himself. He was a powerful prince, making political connections and spreading the worship of his goddess all over the region. Ethbaal I’s daughter, Jezebel, was famous for entrenching pagan worship in Israel, so Tyre is indirectly the root of Israel’s wickedness.

⁶Here is what the Eternal Lord has to say:

Eternal One: Because you imagine yourself as wise as a god,
⁷        I am going to recruit outsiders—merciless nations—to take you down.
    They will draw their swords and cut you down to size,
        attacking the beautiful things your wisdom procured and destroying your splendor.
⁸    They will force you down to the pit,
        and you will die the death
        of those struck down in the heart of the sea.
⁹    At that moment, will you protest to your executioners, “But I’m a god!”?
        To those who strike you down you are no god.
        To them, you are nothing more than a mortal man.
¹⁰    You will die the death of all who are uncircumcised,
        at the hand of outsiders.