Ezekiel 28:3 Komentář

In this chapter we have, I. A prediction of the fall and ruin of the king of Tyre, who, in the destruction of that city, is particularly set up as a mark for God's arrows (Eze 28:1-10). II. A lamentation for the king of Tyre, when he has thus fallen, though he falls by his own iniquity (Eze 28:11-19). III. A prophecy of the destruction of Zidon, which as in the neighbourhood of Tyre and had a dependence upon it (Eze 28:20-23). IV. A promise of the restoration of the Israel of God, though in the day of their calamity they were insulted over by their neighbours (Eze 28:24-26).

INTRODUCTION TO EZEKIEL 28 This chapter contains a prophecy of the destruction of the prince of Tyre; a lamentation for the king of Tyre; a denunciation of judgments on Zidon, and a promise of peace and safety to Israel. The order given the prophet to prophesy of the ruin of the prince of Tyre, Eze 28:1, the cause of his ruin, his pride on account of his wisdom and riches, which rose to such a pitch, as to make himself God, Eze 28:2, the manner in which his destruction shall be accomplished, Eze 28:7, the lamentation for the king of Tyre begins Eze 28:11, setting forth his former grandeur and dignity, Eze 28:13, his fall, and the cause of it, injustice and violence in merchandise, pride because of beauty and wisdom, and profanation of sanctuaries, Eze 28:16, next follow the judgments on Zidon, Eze 28:20, and the chapter is concluded with a promise of the restoration of the Jews to their own land, and of great tranquillity and safety in it, Eze 28:24.

Behold; thou art wiser than Daniel,.... That is, in his own opinion; or it is ironically said. The Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic versions, render it by way of interrogation, "art thou not wiser than Daniel?" who was now at the court of Babylon, and was famous throughout all Chaldea for his knowledge in politics, his wisdom and prudence in government, as well as his skill in interpreting dreams. The Jews have a saying, that "if all the wise men of the nations were in one scale, and Daniel in the other, he would weigh them all down.'' And perhaps the fame of him had reached the king of Tyre, and yet he thought himself wiser than he; see Zac 9:2, antichrist thinks himself wiser than Daniel, or any of the prophets and apostles; he is wise above that which is written, and takes upon him the sole interpretation of the Scriptures, and to fix the sense of them: there is no secret that they can hide from thee; as he fancied; he had sagacity to penetrate into the councils of neighbouring princes, and discover all plots and intrigues against him; he understood all the "arcana" and secrets of government, and could counterwork the designs of his enemies. Antichrist pretends to know all mysteries, and solve all difficulties, and pass an infallible judgment on things; as if he was of the privy council of heaven, and nothing was transacted there but he was acquainted with it, and had full knowledge of the mind of God in all things.

Who would refuse the counsel of Daniel, of whom God said, “Who is wiser than Daniel?” How can people doubt about the minds of those to whom God has given such grace? By the counsel of Moses wars were brought to an end, and for his merit’s sake food came from heaven and drink from the rock. How pure must have been the soul of Daniel to soften the character of barbarians and to tame the lions! What temperance was his, what self-restraint in soul and body! Not unworthily did he become an object of admiration to all, when—and all people do admire this—though enjoying royal friendships, he looked not for gold or counted the honor given him as more precious than his faith. For he was willing to endure danger for the law of God rather than to be turned from his purpose in order to gain human favor.

(Chapter 28, Verse 1 onwards) 'The word of the Lord came to me, saying: Son of man, say to the prince of Tyre: Thus says the Lord God: Because your heart is lifted up, and you have said, 'I am a god, I sit in the seat of gods, in the heart of the seas,' yet you are a man, and not a god, though you set your heart as the heart of a god. Behold, you are wiser than Daniel! There is no secret that is hidden from you. By your wisdom and your understanding you have gained wealth for yourself and have acquired gold and silver in your treasuries.' In the abundance of your wisdom, and in your trading, you have multiplied strength for yourself, and your heart has been lifted up in your power. Therefore, thus says the Lord (God adds): because your heart has been lifted up as the heart of God, therefore, behold, I will bring upon you the most strong of the nations, and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of your wisdom, and they shall defile your splendor. They shall kill you, and deliver you up, and you shall die the death of the slain in the heart of the sea. Are you saying, 'I am God,' in the presence of those who are about to kill you, even though you are a man and not God, and they will kill you with the hands of foreigners? You will die the death of the uncircumcised at the hands of strangers, for I have spoken, declares the Lord God. LXX: And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: And you, son of man, say to the prince of Tyre: Thus says the Lord God: Because your heart is proud, and you have said, 'I am a god, I sit in the seat of the gods, in the heart of the seas,' yet you are but a man, and no god, though you make your heart like the heart of a god— are you wiser than Daniel? The wise have not taught you their discipline: have you made for yourself strength and made gold and silver in your treasuries, or in your abundant knowledge have you multiplied your strength and your power? Your heart is lifted up in your strength, therefore thus says the Lord God: Because you have given your heart as the heart of God, behold, I will bring upon you foreign pestilential people from the nations, and they will unsheath their swords against you because of the splendor of your knowledge, and they will humble your splendor in destruction. They will lead you away, and they will dispose of you, and you will die the death of the wounded in the heart of the sea. Will you say, 'I am God,' when you face those who kill you? You are a man, not God, in the midst of your attackers. You will die at the hands of foreigners, uncircumcised in heart, because I have spoken, declares the Lord God.' Wherever YHWH is placed in the Septuagint, the first name, YHWH, is the proper name of God and is unspeakable. The second name, Adonai, is the common name found frequently in humans. However, just as the city of Tyre is depicted as a ship, first in its wealth and then in its destruction and mourning, so too is a prophetic discourse addressed to the ruler of Tyre. It is stated that he became proud and did not make good use of the wealth he possessed, and as a result suffered sadness and lamentation, experiencing great misfortune. Therefore, the first things to be said must be explained. It is written in Isaiah (Isa. 14) concerning the king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, that he equated himself with God's power and became so arrogant that he dared to say, 'I will ascend above the stars of heaven and I will be like the Most High.' And hurled from his throne, he deserved to hear: How did Lucifer fall, he who rose in the morning? And of Pharaoh in the same prophet: The rivers are mine, and I made them (Isaiah 29:9). And of the prince of Tyre, who in his pride arrogantly said: I am a god, and I sit on the throne of God, or I dwell in the habitation of God, even though he is a man and not God. Although these words may seem to exceed the powers of human frailty, and not to be the words of men but of raving demons, we must take them as hyperbole, in that they have swelled to such an extent and have not known their measure, that in the midst of the swelling of worldly happiness and the power of the kingdom, men have not known themselves and have claimed eternal dominion for themselves. Although under the guise of princes, kings, and individual cities, or provinces, opposing powers may be demonstrated, about which the Apostle Paul writes: For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms (Ephesians 6:12). And in another place: We speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing (1 Corinthians 2:6). And again, discussing wisdom, he says, which none of the rulers of this world knew. For if they had known, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory (I Cor. II, 8). Also, in the prophecy of Daniel, it is clearly written that the Prince of the Israelite people is Michael, and the prince of Greece, and the prince of Persia (Dan. X). And Moses explicitly writes in the Song of Deuteronomy: When the Most High divided the nations, and scattered the sons of Adam, he established the boundaries of the nations, according to the number of the angels of God (Deut. XXXII, 8); or as it is better in Hebrew: according to the number of the sons of Israel. And so it happened that the people of the Lord, his portion, Jacob, became the inheritance of Israel. And we should not be surprised that on the opposite side the worst kings precede the best kings, David, Solomon, Josiah, and the patriarchs, and prophets, as a foreshadowing of the Lord and Savior. Therefore, according to both understandings, let us discuss the arrogant kings and apostate princes equally, which are written. He says, therefore (or, as said by Alexander, since you are a man, and being surrounded by the frailty of human flesh and swollen with pride, you think that you can dwell on the throne of God in the heavens, even though you are held in the narrowness of the middle of the sea and on the islands. And also, because you boast of your wisdom to such an extent that the men of your kingdom challenge Solomon with riddles: Are you wiser than Daniel, who by the grace of God conquered all the magicians and soothsayers, and is now the wisest in Babylon? Or, to put it another way: Even if you are wiser than Daniel, who is acknowledged to be the wisest of all, and even if you desire to compare yourself to God in the magnitude of wealth and power: you will still be captured by your enemies, and with the destruction of your city, you will be struck by many wounds. And you will no longer say, 'I am God,' but, having learned through your downfall, you will recognize that you are a human, not God. But if we wish to call the prince of Tyre the same power to whom the city itself, or the province, was given by God, let us accept that testimony. I said, 'You are gods, and all of you are sons of the Most High. But you will die like men, and fall like one of the princes' (Psalm 82:7). For power was given to them to govern the provinces, like judges appointed by the Emperor. However, they, forgetting their honor and being driven by a tyrannical mindset, rose up against their king and Lord. Dispersed throughout the whole world, they took on the names of idols and, filled with pride, fell into the judgment and snare of the devil. About this, Jesus spoke in the Gospel: I saw Satan falling like lightning from heaven (Luke 10:18).

The same apostle writes that God alone is wise, although both Solomon and many other holy people are called wise, and it is said, according to the Hebrew, to the prince of Tyre, “You are wiser than Daniel.” Therefore, just as he alone is called the light, immortal and wise, although they are many who are immortal, and who are lights and who are wise, so also the human perfection that proceeds not from nature but from grace shows that those who seem to be perfect are imperfect.

This is the reason, if I am not mistaken, why in the prophet Ezekiel a certain most haughty person is asked, “Are you then wiser than Daniel?” Nor on this point can that be possibly said that some contend for in opposition to the Lord’s Prayer: “For although,” they say, “that prayer was offered by the apostles, after they became holy and perfect and had no sin whatever, it was not on behalf of their own selves but for imperfect and still sinful people that they said, ‘Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.’ They used the word our, they say, “in order to show that in one body are contained both those who still have sins and themselves, who were already altogether free from sin.” Now this certainly cannot be said in the case of Daniel, who (as I suppose) foresaw as a prophet this presumptuous opinion when he said so often in his prayer, “We have sinned” … he expresses himself in language so distinct and precise … and wanted above all things to commend it to our notice: “My sins,” says he, “and the sins of my people.” Who can contradict such evidence as this, but one who is more pleased to defend what he thinks than to find out what he ought to think?

Can anyone claim to be without sin, when Daniel confesses his own sins? I mean, some proud person or other was asked through the prophet Ezekiel, “Are you wiser than Daniel?” Again, the prophet also placed this Daniel among the three holy men in whom God signifies the three sorts of human beings he is going to deliver when the great tribulation comes on the human race.

Could we be better than Daniel himself, concerning whom the Lord said to the prince of Tyre by the prophet Ezekiel: “Are you wiser than Daniel?” He is unique in being included among the three just men whom God says he will deliver, doubtless showing three special types of just people, when he says he will so deliver them as not to deliver their sons with them, but they only shall be delivered: namely, Noah, Daniel and Job.

The first part of this chapter relates to a King of Tyre, probably the same who is called in the Phoenician annals Ithobalus. He seems to have been a vain man, who affected Divine honors. The prophet treats his foolish pretensions with severe irony, and predicts his doom, Eze 28:1-10. He then takes up a funeral dirge and lamentation over him, in which his former pomp and splendor are finely contrasted with his fall, in terms that seem frequently to allude to the fall of Lucifer from heaven, (Isaiah 14), Eze 28:11-19. The overthrow of Sidon, the mother city of Tyre, is next announced, Eze 28:20-23; and the chapter concludes with a promise to the Jews of deliverance from all their enemies, and particularly of their restoration from the Babylonish captivity, Eze 28:24-26.

Thou art wiser than Daniel - Daniel was at this time living, and was reputable for his great wisdom. This is said ironically. See Eze 14:14; Eze 26:1.

PROPHETICAL DIRGE ON THE KING OF TYRE, AS THE CULMINATION AND EMBODIMENT OF THE SPIRIT OF CARNAL PRIDE AND SELF-SUFFICIENCY OF THE WHOLE STATE. THE FALL OF ZIDON, THE MOTHER CITY. THE RESTORATION OF ISRAEL IN CONTRAST WITH TYRE AND ZIDON. (Eze. 28:1-26) Because, &c.--repeated resumptively in Eze 28:6. The apodosis begins at Eze 28:7. "The prince of Tyrus" at the time was Ithobal, or Ithbaal II; the name implying his close connection with Baal, the Phœnician supreme god, whose representative he was. I am a god, I sit in . . . seat of God . . . the seas--As God sits enthroned in His heavenly citadel exempt from all injury, so I sit secure in my impregnable stronghold amidst the stormiest elements, able to control them at will, and make them subserve my interests. The language, though primarily here applied to the king of Tyre, as similar language is to the king of Babylon (Isa 14:13-14), yet has an ulterior and fuller accomplishment in Satan and his embodiment in Antichrist (Dan 7:25; Dan 11:36-37; Th2 2:4; Rev 13:6). This feeling of superhuman elevation in the king of Tyre was fostered by the fact that the island on which Tyre stood was called "the holy island" [SANCONIATHON], being sacred to Hercules, so much so that the colonies looked up to Tyre as the mother city of their religion, as well as of their political existence. The Hebrew for "God" is El, that is, "the Mighty One." yet, &c.--keen irony. set thine heart as . . . heart of God--Thou thinkest of thyself as if thou wert God.

Ezekiel ironically alludes to Ithbaal's overweening opinion of the wisdom of himself and the Tyrians, as though superior to that of Daniel, whose fame had reached even Tyre as eclipsing the Chaldean sages. "Thou art wiser," namely, in thine own opinion (Zac 9:2). no secret--namely, forgetting riches (Eze 28:4). that they can hide--that is, that can be hidden.