Sermon Tone Analysis

summary

The focus in this episode is Ezek 28:1-19.

This is a controversial passage. he debate is over just who the prince of Tyre in vv.

11-19 is being compared to — i.e., what is the point of analogy?

Many say that the prince of Tyre is being compared to Adam in Eden.

This would mean that it is Adam who is being referred to as a “guardian cherub” (v.

14) who walked in the midst of the stone of fire (a reference to either divine council members or the divine council locale.

Other scholars who say that the prince of Tyre is being compared to a divine rebel — and that this passage is related to another one (Isaiah 14) that compares a human ruler (king of Babylon) to a divine rebel.

Further, he argues that these two passages are related to Genesis 3, the OT’s own story of a primeval divine rebellion.

This means that the anointed cherub is a divine being, a rebellious member of the divine council (stones of fire) – not Adam.

Introduction

Ezekiel 28.

I'm going to read the whole chapter.

We might as well just jump in here.

There's a lot to cover.

I'll just warn people ahead of time that some of this is going to be pretty technical, but it really can't be avoided.

So Ezekiel 28 is, as I mentioned, the prophecy against the prince of Tyre.

In the last episode, we had two chapters about Tyre, and here Ezekiel zeroes in on the prince.

For our purposes, we're really going to focus on the first 19 verses.

This is part of the oracles against the nations, so in verses 1-10 you have the oracle about the demise of the prince of Tyre.

And then in verses 11-19, there's a lament over the king of Tyre.

Those are the first 19 verses.

There's a little bit more in the chapter.

There's a prophecy against Sidon and a little hint about Israel's regathering.

Of course, just a few chapters ago, Jerusalem has been destroyed (or at least that's what Ezekiel tells the captives, but we have to wait until chapter 33 to actually get the fugitive that tells them the news that it really happened and it's destroyed).

But you have a hint here at the end of the chapter about Israel's regathering in contrast to what's going on in Tyre and Sidon.

We're going to focus on the first 19 verses, but let's just jump in and read the chapter and then we'll get to commenting on those 19 verses because, honestly, that's what really draws people to this chapter.

So reading from the ESV:

We should just stop there.

What you have here, "I am a god, I sit in the seat of the gods, the heart of the seas..." These are phrases drawn right out of Canaanite Ugaritic material for the divine council.

So that situates us pretty clearly in supernatural divine territory as far as the analogy.

Everybody knows that this chapter is about the prince of Tyre—a human being.

But the key question is going to be, "What is he being analogized to or with?"

And I'm going to say it's a tale of a divine rebellion.

Other scholars are going to disagree with that, and we'll get to that point.

But here you have at the very opening some very clear indications tapping into Ugaritic material.

"You are indeed wiser than Daniel."

Remember a few chapters ago we had the whole discussion of the Ugartic Dan'el versus the biblical Daniel and Ezekiel and Daniel are contemporaries, so who is this guy?

There's that issue, as well.

Are we also tapping into Ugaritic material there?

At least in the first two verses, it's pretty clear what the orientation is.

Again, in the last episode there was this reference to being put into the pit—into the Abyss.

We get the language here, as well.

This netherworld language… it reminds you of the destiny of the rebel guy in Isaiah 14, which is clearly a divine being.

It's clearly a divine council context.

"I will be above the stars of God, I will be like the Most High"—all that stuff in Isaiah 14.

Part of that language overlaps very clearly here and even in the preceding chapter.

So again, the context here is a divine council context.

I'm going to suggest that we have the tale of a divine rebellion in the council and that is going to be the point of the analogy to or for or with the prince of Tyre.

So verse 10:

So this is what's going to happen, an oracle against the prince of Tyre.

Then in verse 11, it shifts to a lament over the king of Tyre.

As we've seen earlier in parts of Ezekiel, "prince" and "king" can be two terms that really speak to the same person.

We don't need to sort of retread that ground.

But beginning in verse 11:

So early in verses 11-19 we get clear divine council/divine abode... the reference to Eden as "the holy mountain of God."

The context is once again very supernaturalistic in terms of the content of the analogy that's being used to describe the king of Tyre.

And then the rest of verses 11-19 sounds a whole lot like chapters 26 and 27: what's going to happen or what did happen.

We don't need to go over that ground again.

Then we hit verse 20:

That's the end of the chapter.

So it closes, again, with this hint that Israel's situation is going to change for the better, as opposed to the nations.

Their judgment (when it happens) is going to be pretty permanent.

We saw that back in chapters 26 and 27—this contrastive idea a little bit.

But we want to focus on 28:1-19.

It's a controversial passage, to put it lightly.

It's definitely an oracle and a lament against a human prince of Tyre.

Everybody agrees on that.

So you'd say, "Why is it controversial?"

Well, although no one disputes the point about who it's directed against in Ezekiel's own context, the disagreement is about verses 11-19 mostly, but the whole section of 1-19 is affected.

There are two divergent views over who the prince/king in these verses (11-19) is being compared to.

In other words, what specifically is the point of analogy?

Adam in Eden?

I'll just outline these two views for you.

The first one...

Many (and I would say probably a majority of scholars today) say that the prince of Tyre is being compared to Adam in Eden.

That would mean that it is Adam who is being referred to as a guardian cherub in verse 14.

It was Adam who walked in the midst of the stones of fire, which is a reference to either divine council members or the divine council location.

We did a whole episode on the stones of fire when we were going through Enochian material.

For instance, if you read 1 Enoch 17-19, you're going to get this kind of language, where it is either stones of fire or members of the divine council.

Remember divine beings were thought of as stars, which are stones of fire.

They're bright, fiery, shining things in the sky— stones.

This is how they're described.

Or it describes the place.

It's kind of six of one and half dozen of another.

It's the divine council either way—it's either the place or the members.

So if you take the first view, you would have Adam as either a member or right there in the divine council...

I wouldn't object to that—that Adam was in the divine abode and Eden is the divine abode.

And so it's appropriate to talk about Adam in the context of the divine council.

We all get that.

But what I'm saying is that the point of the analogy isn't Adam.

But that is the dominant view.

You'd have to argue, therefore, that Adam was filled with pride, even though Genesis 3 never says that.

Adam was filled with pride (Ezekiel 28:17).

It was he who was destroyed or exiled from the midst of the stones of fire—from the divine council.

That you could argue from Genesis because of what Eden was.

But you can see there are some connections and there are some disconnections.

Really, Adam was a guardian cherub?

But that's what you have to argue.

Or that he was with a guardian cherub—there's actually two figures being talked about here in Ezekiel 28 instead of one.