Rightly Understanding God’s Word: Learning Context, Part 1, by Craig S. Keener
There are two fallacies in this argument. First of all, Ezekiel 28 and other passages could refer to the fall of the devil without Isaiah 14 having to do with that subject; nowhere in my exposition have I denied that the devil fell. I only denied that this was the point of Isaiah 14. The second fallacy of the argument is that Ezekiel 28 does not clearly refer to the fall of the devil, either.
11. Tyre’s Ruler in Ezekiel 28
Ezekiel also has oracles against the nations: Ammon (25:1-7), Moab (25:8-11), Edom (25:12-14), Philistia (25:15-17), Tyre (26:1-28:19), Sidon (28:20-26), and Egypt (29:1-32:32). The passage sometimes applied to the devil, 28:12b-19, is in the heart of an oracle against the ruler of Tyre; in fact, verse 12 begins, “Son of man, take up this lament against the ruler of Tyre.” No one disputes that the context refers to the ruler of Tyre, but those who apply the text to the devil declare that it also applies to him, because (they claim) some features of the text cannot apply to anyone but the devil.
This argument, as we shall see, is not actually accurate. The lament calls this ruler arrogant about his wisdom and perfection of beauty (28:12, 17)—just as Tyre claimed to be perfect in beauty (27:3-4, 11) and full of wisdom that brought wealth (28:3-4), self-proclaimed wisdom that made the ruler think he was a god (28:6) though he was but a human being (28:8-10). This ruler was in Eden, the garden of God (28:13), which advocates of the devil-interpretation think must be taken literally: only the devil was in Eden, they say. But this claim is not true; Adam and Eve, who did seek equality with God (Gen. 3:5), also lived in Eden, and Ezekiel could compare the Tyrian ruler’s hubris with that of the first people. Yet another explanation is better than either the devil-interpretation or the Adam-interpretation: Ezekiel explicitly compares the ruler of Babylon to a cherub (28:14-15). Genesis calls neither Adam nor the serpent a cherub, but does refer explicitly to cherubim in the garden: God’s angels stationed there to keep Adam and Eve out after their fall (Gen. 3:24; cf. Ezek. 28:14-15 NIV: “guardian cherub”). In other words, this is an image representing great prestige in God’s garden. (The “holy mountain of God”—28:14—might allude to Mount Zion, as often in Scripture, in which case the image of cherubim probably also recalls the cherubim on which God was enthroned on the ark in the Temple. The blamelessness until found wicked—28:15—may also be part of the cherub image.)
Some have objected that the king cannot simply be compared to a glorious cherub in Eden; the text calls him a cherub, and must be interpreted literally. Those who insist that all details of such prophecies should be taken literally, however, simply demonstrate that they are unfamiliar with the prophets’ writings in general. Ezekiel himself is full of graphic, poetic images and metaphors (comparisons in which one thing is simply called another without “like” or “as”), one of which is a statement that Pharaoh was a tree in Eden, God’s garden (Ezek. 31:1-18; he is also a sea monster, 29:3-5). Drawing on various images from the account of Adam and Eve’s fall, Ezekiel’s prophecies speak both of the stately cherubim and the greatest trees in Eden (perhaps the tree of life or the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?) Perhaps advocates of the devil-interpretation press their case that being in Eden refers to the devil in Ezekiel 28 but not in Ezekiel 31 because they can only fit Ezekiel 28 into their view in some other respects. (Some cite the “pipes” on his body, but this is based on only one translation, which the Hebrew does not appear to support here.)
Category: Biblical Studies, Summer 2003
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