BOOK 26 OF 66 · MAJOR PROPHETS · KING JAMES BIBLE

Ezekiel 28

Ezekiel book home•Chapter 28 of 48•26 verses

Chapter overviewAt a glance + deeper study

REVIEWED OVERVIEW

Ezekiel 28 Overview

The LORD condemns the prince of Tyre for claiming godlike status because of wisdom and wealth, then raises a poetic lament over the king of Tyre using Eden and cherub imagery to portray exaltation corrupted by pride and trade. Sidon is also judged, and the chapter closes with hope for Israel’s secure restoration.

EzekielBook

28Chapter

26Verses

Major ProphetsDivision

Before you read Ezekiel 28

Coming from

Ezekiel sings a lament over Tyre as a magnificent merchant ship assembled from the best materials and filled with goods from many nations. The long trading network displays Tyre’s wealth and beauty, but the ship is wrecked in the heart of the seas and merchants, sailors, and kings mourn the loss.

In this chapter

Leads into

Ezekiel prophesies against Pharaoh and Egypt, picturing the king as a great river monster claiming the Nile as his own creation. Egypt will be humbled and scattered, later restored as a lowly kingdom, and Nebuchadrezzar will receive Egypt as wages after his difficult campaign against Tyre.

Key understandingExplore deeper

The chapter begins unmistakably with a human ruler whose heart is lifted up because commercial wisdom has produced riches. The later lament shifts into elevated Edenic and cherubic imagery, creating one of Ezekiel’s most debated passages.

Some interpreters see the “king of Tyre” language as reaching behind the earthly ruler to Satan; others read it as poetic hyperbole portraying the Tyrian king as an exalted Eden-like figure who fell through pride. The text clearly condemns pride and corruption, but readers should not present the Satan interpretation as undisputed fact.

Major truths in this chapterExplore deeper

Human wisdom and wealth can feed delusions of self-deification

The prince mistakes economic skill and power for divine status.

Exaltation does not excuse pride

The lament’s central movement is from extraordinary privilege or beauty to corruption and expulsion.

Israel’s restoration remains part of God’s purpose amid judgments on the nations

The chapter ends by promising gathered Israel secure dwelling after hostile neighbors are judged.

Connections to the rest of ScriptureExplore deeper

Genesis 3

Eden, precious stones, and expulsion create deliberate echoes of humanity’s first garden and fall.

Isaiah 14:4-15

Isaiah’s taunt against Babylon’s king likewise uses exalted fall language that has generated discussion about earthly rulers and satanic pride.

1 Timothy 3:6

Paul warns against pride associated with the condemnation of the devil, reinforcing the wider biblical link between pride and downfall without settling every detail of Ezekiel 28.

What is clear, and where care is neededExplore deeper

Do not state as certain that Ezekiel 28 is directly describing Satan before his fall.

That reading has a long history, but the oracle explicitly addresses Tyre’s ruler and the precise relationship of the imagery to Satan is debated.

Do not miss the economic context while focusing only on supernatural speculation.

Abundant trade, riches, violence, and pride are central to the chapter’s own accusations.

Read Ezekiel 28 watching for…

the prince saying “I am a God”

wisdom and riches feeding pride

the shift to Eden and cherub imagery

corruption through trade

the closing promise of Israel gathered securely

Chapter outline3 sections

1-10The prince of Tyre is condemned for pride, wealth, and claiming wisdom like a god 11-19A lament over the king of Tyre describes beauty, pride, corruption, and destruction 20-26Sidon is judged, while Israel is promised secure dwelling after surrounding judgments

The word of the LORD came again unto me, saying,

Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyrus, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thine heart is lifted up, and thou hast said, I am a God, I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas; yet thou art a man, and not God, though thou set thine heart as the heart of God:

Behold, thou art wiser than Daniel; there is no secret that they can hide from thee:

With thy wisdom and with thine understanding thou hast gotten thee riches, and hast gotten gold and silver into thy treasures:

By thy great wisdom and by thy traffick hast thou increased thy riches, and thine heart is lifted up because of thy riches:

Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thou hast set thine heart as the heart of God;

Behold, therefore I will bring strangers upon thee, the terrible of the nations: and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of thy wisdom, and they shall defile thy brightness.

They shall bring thee down to the pit, and thou shalt die the deaths of them that are slain in the midst of the seas.

Wilt thou yet say before him that slayeth thee, I am God? but thou shalt be a man, and no God, in the hand of him that slayeth thee.

Thou shalt die the deaths of the uncircumcised by the hand of strangers: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD.

Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,

Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.

Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.

Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.

Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.

By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.

Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee.

Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffick; 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.

All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee: thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more.

Again the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,

Son of man, set thy face against Zidon, and prophesy against it,

And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Zidon; and I will be glorified in the midst of thee: and they shall know that I am the LORD, when I shall have executed judgments in her, and shall be sanctified in her.

For I will send into her pestilence, and blood into her streets; and the wounded shall be judged in the midst of her by the sword upon her on every side; and they shall know that I am the LORD.

And there shall be no more a pricking brier unto the house of Israel, nor any grieving thorn of all that are round about them, that despised them; and they shall know that I am the Lord GOD.

Thus saith the Lord GOD; When I shall have gathered the house of Israel from the people among whom they are scattered, and shall be sanctified in them in the sight of the heathen, then shall they dwell in their land that I have given to my servant Jacob.

And they shall dwell safely therein, and shall build houses, and plant vineyards; yea, they shall dwell with confidence, when I have executed judgments upon all those that despise them round about them; and they shall know that I am the LORD their God.