What Does Ezekiel 28:2 Mean?

(2) **I am a God.**—The arraignment of the prince occupies Ezekiel 28:2-5, his consequent doom Ezekiel 28:6-10. The point of the charge is inordinate pride, begotten of great prosperity; this prosperity, being attributed to his own powers instead of to its true source, led him to imagine himself almost more than mortal. Similar instances of what may be called “the insanity of prosperity” may be seen in the case of Sennacherib (2Kings 18:33-35); of the then living monarch of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, to whom this prophecy might well serve as a warning (Daniel 3:15; Daniel 4:30; comp. also Daniel 7:25, Daniel 11:36-37); of Pharaoh (Ezekiel 29:3); of Herod (Acts 12:21-23); of the one foretold in 2Thessalonians 2:4; to which list might be added the names of some more modern conquerors, and, in their degree, of many who have been eminently successful in other walks of life, and have consequently sacrificed to their own net (Habakkuk 1:16). It is not to be supposed that the king of Tyre, like some Oriental monarchs and later Roman emperors, actually claimed for himself religious homage; but he had that proud sense of elevation and self-sufficiency which is only translated into words in the expressions of the text. **The seat of God**.—This expression is chosen not merely with reference to the great natural beauty and apparently impregnable position of Tyre, but also to the fact that it was called “the holy island,” and looked up to by all its colonies as the central sanctuary of their worship. The Temple of Melkarth was said by the priests to have been founded as far back as 2750 B.C., and Arrian speaks of it as the oldest sanctuary in the annals of mankind. (See also Note on Ezekiel 28:6.)