Old Testament Commentary - Ezekiel 28

by Don R. Hender

Scriptural Text [& Editorial]	Commentary & Explanation	Footnotes ~ References ~ JST
CHAPTER 28 Tyrus and Zidon shall fall and be destroyed—The Lord will gather Israel to her own land—They shall then dwell safely.
1 THE word of the LORD came again unto me, saying, 2 Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyrus, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thine ^aheart 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 ^bman, and not God, though thou set thine heart as the heart of God:
3 Behold, thou art wiser than ^aDaniel; there is no secret that they can hide from thee: 4 With thy wisdom and with thine understanding thou hast gotten thee riches, and hast gotten gold and silver into thy treasures: 5 By thy great ^awisdom and by thy traffick hast thou increased thy riches, and thine heart is lifted up because of thy riches: 6 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thou hast set thine heart as the heart of God;
7 Behold, therefore I will bring strangers upon thee, the terrible of the nations: and they shall draw their ^aswords against the beauty of thy wisdom, and they shall defile thy brightness. 8 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. 9 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. 10 Thou shalt die the deaths of the uncircumcised by the hand of strangers: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD.
11 ¶ Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, 12 Son of man, take up a < b>^alamentation 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 ^bbeauty. 13 Thou hast been in ^aEden 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.
14 Thou art the anointed ^acherub 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. 15 Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee. 16 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.
17 Thine ^aheart 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. 18 Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy ^atraffick; 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. 19 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.
20 ¶ Again the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, 21 Son of man, set thy face against ^aZidon^a, and prophesy against it, 22 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. 23 For I will send into her pestilence, and blood into her streets; and the wounded shall ^abe judged in the midst of her by the sword upon her on every side; and they shall know that I am the LORD.	21^a set thy face against Zidon Of course Zidon is Sidon and Sidon and Tyre are the same as Zidon and Tyrus. Because the name Zidon or Sidon become a part of the Book of Mormon there is much speculation that Mulek's family group were so associated with the people of the Phoenicians and so associtated with Sidon. It would threrefore be likely that Mulek's group was a mixed group of nationalities according to just whom would work and be upon a great ship of the Phoenicians, which is speculated to be that which upon Mulek came to the land of promise. If so, it would seem that the Babylonian threat extended to the kingdom of Phoenicia and thus Mulek's party sought the furtherest known place to flee, unto the land and kingdom of the Jaredites, perhaps even the great 'trade city' which led to the land southward. And according to the Cocain Mummy facts, such various purely American drugs were brought back from thence and into the trade environment of the near east and Egypt.
24 ¶ And there shall be no more a ^apricking 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. 25 Thus saith the Lord GOD; When I shall have ^agathered the house of ^bIsrael from the people among whom they are scattered, and shall be sanctified in them in the sight of the ^cheathen, then shall they dwell in their ^dland that I have given to my servant Jacob. 26 And they shall dwell ^asafely therein, and shall build houses, and plant vineyards; yea, they shall dwell ^bwith 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.