The Shrewd Deceiver
EZEKIEL 28:11-17
Ezekiel 28:11-17 is commonly thought to tell us quite a bit about Satan’s beginnings. This section is a piece out of the heart of chapters 26-28 that are expressly said to be about the king (kingdom) of Tyre. Everyone accepts that the section is about the king of Tyre but then we hear that it is only “primarily” or “immediately” about the king of Tyre. The reason we know it is about the king of Tyre is because we are expressly told this and because we cannot read chapters 26-28 without drawing that conclusion.
The reason some say it is “primarily” about the king of Tyre but “also” about Satan is because there are elements in the oracles that were not literally true of Tyre. The satanic elements in particular are supposed to be in 28:11-17. “The word of the Lord came to me: Son of man, take up a lament concerning the king of Tyre and say to him: This is what the Sovereign Lord says: You were the model of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone adorned you: ruby, topaz and emerald...Your settings and mountings were made of gold; on the day you were created they were prepared. You were anointed as a guardian cherub, for so I ordained you. You were on the holy mount of God; you walked among the fiery stones. You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created till wickedness was found in you. Through your widespread trade you were filed with violence, and you sinned. So I drove you in disgrace from the mount of God, and I expelled you, O guardian cherub, from among the fiery stones. Your heart became proud on account of your beauty, and you corrupted your wisdom because of your splendor. So I threw you to earth; I made a spectacle of you before kings.”
The one addressed is said to have been “the model of perfection” and to have been “in the Garden of Eden” and “anointed as a guardian cherub” and to have been “blameless in your ways from the day you were created till wickedness was found in you”. The king of Tyre was not in the Garden of Eden nor was he an anointed cherub so, we are told, it must be Satan that is spoken of in these phrases.
But if the king of Tyre was not in the Garden of Eden, neither was Satan walking on Mount Sinai and cast forth from there (28:14, 16). The “anointed guardian cherub” cannot refer to the Garden of Eden; it probably refers to the Tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant at Mount Sinai. And even if the anointed cherub is to be located in Eden, there is nothing in the Genesis account that makes Satan a guardian cherub. There are cherubim (plural) mentioned in 3:24 but it is not clear that they were in the garden and they certainly cannot be identified as Satan. We need to note that the “anointed cherub” was driven from the “mount of God” in disgrace (Ezek. 28:16) and not from the Garden of Eden.
It is much simpler to allow the whole section (26-28) to stand together as a description of the grandeur of the Tyrian kingdom, its fall and the reasons for its fall. It is described as the foremost trading nation of the world, a renowned city and an about-to-be destroyed city (chapter 26). She sees herself as a rare beauty in chapter 27 and is described as a beautiful sailing ship with timbers, masts, decks and sails from around the world and sailed by mariners from all nations. Her pride is bursting out and though it is a human kingdom it deifies itself (28:1-2). “Will you then say, ‘I am a god,’ in the presence of those who kill you? You will be but a man, not a god” (28:9).
Tyre is then described as privileged among the nations. She’s been to Eden and to the holy mount where she walked among the stones of fire on that blazing mountain (as Moses did). She is said to be adorned with precious stones (as the High Priest was) and is likened to the cherubim that stood guard in and at the entrance to the Holy of Holies (on the curtain and over the Ark of the Covenant). It does not matter that this was not literally true of the Tyrian king (who represents the city-kingdom) because it was not literally true of Satan either. We believe this description is no more to be taken literally than the description of Tyre as a beautiful sailing ship in chapter 26.
God exalted Tyre, gave her glory, profound privilege and breath-taking success. Instead of thanking Him for all of it, she fell in love with herself and thought it was all of her own making. Like Adam, the Tyrian king did fine until he thought he would make a great god and acted as though he could be and was truly independent of God. This kind of “over the top” description of glory is not unusual in the prophets. Note how the authority of Nebuchadnezzar is described in Daniel 2:37-38. It echoes the language of Genesis 1:26-27 and Adam’s authority.
If despite the obvious difficulties, people still insist in finding Satan in this section we do not suppose it matters a whole lot. The trouble is that a whole theology of Satan is built around such flimsy textual work and before you know it, all kinds of (often outrageous) assertions make their appearance “supported” by such misused texts.
A similar treatment is given Isaiah 13-14. Some tell us that 14:12 speaks of the nature and fall of Satan but we are expressly told the oracle is against the king (kingdom) of Babylon (13:1 and 14:3). 14:12 is singled out as Satan even though the text expressly tells us it is dealing with human arrogance (“Is this the man who shook the earth…the man who made the world a desert?” – 14:16-17). The text (14:12-14) says this: “How you have fallen from heaven, O morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations! You said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain. I will ascend to the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’”
The pride of Nebuchadnezzar is well known from Daniel and the defeat of the Lord’s people is seen as a victory over God (compare the Assyrian boast in Is. 36:18-20 and 37:24) so there is nothing strange in these chapters. A mere reading of them shows us that this is no literal description of anyone, much less Satan.
This section also reminds us that biblical poets paint pictures that have no biographical or historical information in them. Read for yourself how everyone and everything derides Babylon, “the jewel of the kingdoms” (13:19). The forests of Lebanon, stripped bare to make engines of war, mock Babylon and kings, who were assigned to oblivion by the pride-filled Babylonians rise to meet and mock the king as he enters the gloomy halls of the underworld. Now, no longer dressed in gold and purple, the mattresses of his bed will be maggots and his blankets will be worms. “Is this the man who shook the earth?” the residents ask in mock astonishment and with obvious relish at the shabby appearance of the once proud king (see all this in 14:3-17). Central to this whole section (and in Ezekiel) is pride and arrogance (Compare 13:11, 19 and 14:13-14 and the spirit of mockery throughout the piece).
Despite all this and the obvious purpose of the oracle, Isaiah 14:12 is isolated and used as biographical material about Satan’s fall and it is linked with Luke 10:18 in which Jesus says, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.” It is sometimes linked also with Revelation 12:9 which tells us that the serpent or dragon was defeated by Michael and cast down to the earth. It is this simple linking together of passages without really dealing with them that is so objectionable about this whole procedure.
This Isaiah text is said to refer to Satan’s original fall (sometime in pre-history) but that will not work because the passage itself tells us that “the fall” happens to one who “once laid low the nations”. This will not work for a pre-history use of the text because it has to occur after the one who is cast down “laid low the nations”; it cannot refer to a time when there were no nations to be cast down. No, we believe the one cast down is the pride-filled Babylonian who cast down many nations. The text expressly says so and the rest of the language bears that out.
To say, as we have heard people say, “Yes, but that phrase does not apply to Satan; that is the king of Babylon,” illustrates the overall point we are making. To get Satan out of these texts one phrase is taken and the very next explanatory phrase is rejected. If we are allowed this approach we could (almost literally) prove anything from scripture.
The fall of Satan in Luke 10:18 is specifically linked by Christ with the success of the mission of His disciples on which He had only recently sent them, so it has nothing to do with a pre-history fall and punishment of Satan. We should not go to that text and say, “See, before human history Satan fell like lightning from heaven?” Luke 10:18 is nowhere connected with actual pre-history.
And in Revelation 12:9 the apocalyptic picture is set after the birth of Jesus Christ and His ascension so, even assuming Isaiah 14:12 speaks of a satanic fall in pre-human history, the Isaiah text and the Revelation text are speaking of two different occasions.
And note that the sin specified in Isaiah 14:13 is seen as earth seeking the heavens. It is a human claiming divinity (14:16-17), “Is this the man who shook the earth...the man who made the world a desert...?” In light of this we are told, “Ah, yes, but that bit doesn’t refer to Satan.” Indeed!
Isaiah 13-14 is an oracle against pride-filled Babylon, whose spirit is well characterized in Nebuchadnezzar’s arrogant boast, “Is not this the great Babylon I have built…by my mighty power and for the glory of my majesty?” See Daniel 4:30 and see Isaiah 47 with its tripled arrogance, “I will continue forever – the eternal queen” (47:7), “I am, and there is none besides me. I will never be a widow” (47:8), “I am, and there is none besides me” (47:10). We are dealing with a human kingdom and with all too-human rulers. We would do well to pay special attention to Daniel 2:37-38 which echoes the dominion speech of Genesis 1:28. As Adam was given dominion and sought sinful independence, so Nebuchadnezzar was given dominion and recapitulated the Adamic sin of dismissing God and acting as a god to rival God. The whole of Daniel 4 is God’s threat against pride and arrogance and Isaiah 13-14 adds to the picture.
It is perfectly acceptable to say that a passage like Isaiah 13-14 has a message for arrogance and pride wherever and in whomever it shows itself. But it is foolishness to take a text and say it directly speaks to a specific someone when it clearly does not. This undermines our credibility as biblical students who let the scriptures speak to us rather than telling the Bible what to say.
