Ezekiel’s attitude toward Tyre has changed from satisfaction at the fall of the city to genuine grief. He laments the fall from greatness. All her activities were commercial enterprises. It is as if she had gained the world, but lost her soul. Of course she had her religion, but not one which would compel her to pause and reflect on how to use her power and strength. Chapter 28 opens with wealth, power, pride incarnated in the person of its prince. The prince claims to be God and declines to recognize an authority higher than its own. Each state claims to be judge in its own cause. The state becomes exalted as its false religion. Patriotism reigns. “My country, right or wrong.” All this is blasphemy warns the prophet. The hollowness of their arrogance and self-sufficiency “will bring strangers upon thee, the terrible of the nations; and they shall draw their swards against the beauty of thy wisdom, and they shall defile they brightness.” We are taken back to paradise where humans were created by God in his image destined for life in holiness and righteousness. However, humankind has turned from these things in ambition, unwilling to belong to another, even to God, and claimed to be lord of his own life. The intoxication of power and the arrogance of pride bring destruction.
Ezekiel’s attitude toward Tyre has changed from satisfaction at the fall of the city to genuine grief. He laments the fall from greatness. All her activities were commercial enterprises. It is as if she had gained the world, but lost her soul. Of course she had her religion, but not one which would compel her to pause and reflect on how to use her power and strength. Chapter 28 opens with wealth, power, pride incarnated in the person of its prince. The prince claims to be God and declines to recognize an authority higher than its own. Each state claims to be judge in its own cause. The state becomes exalted as its false religion. Patriotism reigns. “My country, right or wrong.” All this is blasphemy warns the prophet. The hollowness of their arrogance and self-sufficiency “will bring strangers upon thee, the terrible of the nations; and they shall draw their swards against the beauty of thy wisdom, and they shall defile they brightness.” We are taken back to paradise where humans were created by God in his image destined for life in holiness and righteousness. However, humankind has turned from these things in ambition, unwilling to belong to another, even to God, and claimed to be lord of his own life. The intoxication of power and the arrogance of pride bring destruction.
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