Ezekiel 28:18

28:1-19 Ethbaal, or Ithobal, was the prince or king of Tyre; and being lifted up with excessive pride, he claimed Divine honours. Pride is peculiarly the sin of our fallen nature. Nor can any wisdom, except that which the Lord gives, lead to happiness in this world or in that which is to come. The haughty prince of Tyre thought he was able to protect his people by his own power, and considered himself as equal to the inhabitants of heaven. If it were possible to dwell in the garden of Eden, or even to enter heaven, no solid happiness could be enjoyed without a humble, holy, and spiritual mind. Especially all spiritual pride is of the devil. Those who indulge therein must expect to perish.

Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities,.... Or, "thy palaces", as Kimchi; the palace of the king, and the palaces of the nobles, where much iniquity was committed, and which was the cause of their being defiled or destroyed by the Chaldeans; or it may design their sacred places, their temples, where their gods were worshipped, and idolatry committed. This may be applied to the places of religious worship among the Papists, their churches; which, instead of being adorned, are defiled with their images and image worship, and other acts of superstition and will worship: by the iniquity of thy traffic; as by bringing in ill gotten goods into the sacred places of Tyre, as they were accounted, so by selling pardons; praying souls out of purgatory for money; by simony, or buying and selling ecclesiastical benefices; and such like spiritual merchandise in Roman churches: therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee; sin, and the punishment of it, as Kimchi; which, for sin committed in the midst of them, should consume as fire; or some from among themselves, that should stir up and cause internal divisions, which should issue in their ruin; as the unclean spirit that shall go out of the mouth of the beast, dragon, and false prophet, to gather the antichristian kings to battle, will end in their ruin, Revelation 16:14.

Ezekiel 28:18-19 . Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries — Thy throne, palace, judgment-seats. The word מקדשׁ , generally rendered sanctuary, sometimes signifies a palace, in which sense it probably ought to be taken Amos 7:13 , where our translation renders it the king’s chapel. Thus Bishop Patrick understands it, Exodus 25:8 , where our version reads, Let them make me a sanctuary; God commanding that he should be served and attended upon in the tabernacle, as a king in his court or palace. The cherubim were his throne, the ark his footstool, the altar his table, (and therefore called by that name, Ezekiel 41:22 ; Malachi 1:7 ,) the priests his attendants, and the show-bread and sacrifices his provisions. The king of Tyre had filled his palace and courts of judicature, and the Tyrians their stately buildings, with iniquity and injustice, and therefore God was determined utterly to destroy them by the Chaldeans. I will bring fire from the midst of thee — Punishment shall follow thy crimes, and thy own ways shall bring it upon thee: thy destruction shall proceed from thyself. I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth — I will bring thee to dust. Thou shalt be made no more account of than ashes spread on the ground. All that know thee shall be astonished — So low a fall from such a height of glory will astonish all who ever saw thy former magnificence.

(18) Defiled thy sanctuaries.— These are not to be understood so much of the actual temples of Tyre as of the ideal “holy mountain of God,” in which the prophet has represented the prince of Tyre as “a covering cherub.” Yet still, doubtless, even in the former sense, it was true that the Tyrians, like the Gentiles of whom St. Paul speaks in Romans 1:21 , did not act up to the religious light they had, and violating their own consciences and sense of right, defiled even such representation of the true religion as still remained in their idolatrous worship. The main thought, however, is the former one, and it is in accordance with this that the fire is represented as going forth to consume the king. Many of the Hebrew manuscripts have sanctuary in the singular. By the iniquity of thy traffick.—Here, as so often in other cases, the sin is represented as consisting in the abuse of the very blessings which God had given, and this sin as leading directly to its own punishment. No fact is more striking in history, whether of Israel or of the heathen, than that the gifts of God, which should have been to their blessing and His glory, are perverted by the sinfulness of man: first to their own guilt, and then, in consequence, to their ruin. Ezekiel 28:20-26 constitute another distinct prophecy, of which Ezekiel 28:20-24 are occupied with the denunciation of judgment upon Zidon, and Ezekiel 28:25-26 with promises to Israel.

There are several obvious reasons, besides that of making up the number of the nations to seven, why at least a word of prophecy should have been directed especially against Zidon, notwithstanding her forming a part of Phœnicia and contributing to the mariners of Tyre (Ezekiel 27:8). In the first place, Zidon (situated about twenty-five miles north of Tyre) was the more ancient city from which Tyre had sprung, and always maintained her independence. Hence she might seem not to be exposed to the judgment of God upon Tyre, unless especially mentioned. Then also Zidon (rather than Tyre) had been peculiarly the source of corrupting idolatrous influences upon Israel. This had begun as early as the times of the Judges (Judges 10:6); it had been continued and increased in the days of Solomon (1Kings 11:33); it reached its consummation under the reign of Ahab, who married Jezebel, the daughter of the king of Zidon and high priest of Baal (1Kings 16:31), and who set up the worship of Baal as the state religion of Israel. That this influence was still powerful in Judah also in the days of Ezekiel is plain from the reference to the Thammuz worship in Ezekiel 8:14. There is only one mention (Judges 10:12) of the Zidonians as coming into armed conflict with Israel; but they had rejoiced in her fall.

18 . defiled thy sanctuaries ] profaned. The phrase occurs ch. Ezekiel 7:24 ; here, however, where the prince is spoken of, “sanctity” or personal sacredness rather than “sanctuary” seems the sense required. It is doubtful if the word can bear this meaning. LXX. reads: because of the multitude of thine iniquities in the wrong of thy traffic I have profaned thy sanctuaries, and I have brought forth a fire. The tenses are all in the perfect of threatening, and the threats here pass away from the prince and apply more to the city. On “fire” cf. ch. Ezekiel 19:14 . bring thee to ashes ] have brought , perf. of threatening. Any reference to the Phenix, consumed in a self-kindled fire, has little probability. The idea of the city, of the spirit and activity of which the king is the embodiment, tends more and more to take the place of the idea of the king. This is evident from the closing words Ezekiel 28:19 , which are identical with those referring to the city, ch. Ezekiel 27:36 . For people read peoples as usual. Ezekiel 28:18

Thou hast defiled thy {k} sanctuaries by the multitude of thy iniquities, by the iniquity of thy merchandise; therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee. (k) That is, the honour to which I called them.

Thou who shouldst have kept all pure in religion, as thou art king, pretending to Divinity, has polluted it. Thy sanctuaries: still there is, as all along from the 14th verse I think there hath been, much of an irony deriding this proud prince, an allusion to his pretended godship. A god hath his sanctuaries, and thou thine, but they nasty, polluted ones. By the multitude, by the greatness as well as number, of thine iniquities. The iniquity of thy traffic; impieties, irreligion, and atheism of thy merchants, as well as by their injustice, falsehood, and oppressions, by their perjuries, breaking covenants confirmed in the temples at the altars, or in the name of their gods; when thy trade thrived by these, thou and they have thought there was nothing sacred, nor any god above thee. I will bring forth a fire; some civil dissension or occasion of thy injustice shall, like a fire, rise from the midst of thee, among thy injured malcontents. It shall devour thee; which, like fire in the house, shall burn all up, and waste all, thou shalt never quench it: thy discontented subjects applying themselves to Nebuchadnezzar with addresses for his favour, power, and royal justice to relieve them, and to right his own subjects oppressed by Tyre in their trade, shall enkindle Nebuchadnezzar’s rage, and he shall never be appeased but in thy ruin.

I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth; thou shalt be burnt to ashes, and these cast on the earth to be scattered abroad, and trampled under feet. In the sight of all them that behold thee; all this done, that all about thee may see, fear, and reverence the justice, power, and holiness of the God of heaven, who ruleth among men, and knows how to abase proud atheists.

18. thy sanctuaries—that is, the holy places, attributed to the king of Tyre in Eze 28:14, as his ideal position. As he "profaned" it, so God will "profane" him (Eze 28:16). fire … devour—As he abused his supposed elevation amidst "the stones of fire" (Eze 28:16), so God will make His "fire" to "devour" him.