A God?

Does Ezekiel 28 speak about Satan?

There are many who think and teach so.  Yet, I insist that the passage itself denies that idea. Listen to v. 2:

Your heart is proud, and you have said: I am a god. I sit in the seat of gods in the heart of the sea. Yet you are a man, and not a god, though you have regarded your heart as that of a god.

Certainly, the King of Tyre may have thought himself to be a god—that isn’t the point. But some, because of the imagery that follows in the rest of the chapter, think that this was actually a reference to Satan, that the things said about the King could have been said of none but that evil one. Yet, they fail to recognize the extravagant nature of oriental imagery.

When the text is explicit, however, it is dangerous to say it is speaking of something else. Doesn’t it say, addressing the King of Tyre sitting upon his seemingly impregnable throne, in his unconquerable island in the sea, YOU are a man?” He may have said, “I am a god?” He may have thought so, but a man isn’t a god, he isn’t an angel—even a fallen one!

There is no affirmation of any other fact in the text.  Indeed, the passage plainly sets things straight from the outset: “Yet you are a man.”  He isn’t addressed as an angel, as Satan, or anything other than what he was—“a man.”

My plea is—no matter how others have construed the passage—stick with the clear words of the Scriptures.  That is the only way to do accurate exegesis.

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Institute for Nouthetic Studies Blog on 9 August 2012