Ezekielchapter 28
26 verses · Ezekiel · 593 to 571 BC · The Prophets
“Son of man, take up a lament for the king of Tyre and tell him that this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘You were the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.
Introduction
Ezekiel, The Prophets, Ezekiel Overview.
This chapter speaks to the ruler of Tyre, a king who served as chief priest of his city's god and was addressed in the language of the divine. Ezekiel wrote it for exiles who lived under the confidence of great men. It moves from a charge against a proud man, to a lament full of the imagery of Eden, to a short word against Sidon, and then to a promise for Israel. Listen for the claim the ruler makes about himself and for God's answer to it. Listen also for the garden, the precious stones and the guardian cherub, which readers have long weighed with care.
Context
- Who
- Exiles who knew that Phoenician kings claimed to be more than men
- What
- An oracle against the ruler of Tyre for claiming to be a god, a lament over the king of Tyre, an oracle against Sidon, and a promise to gather Israel.
- Where
- Spoken at Tel Abib in Babylonia against Tyre and her older sister city Sidon on the Phoenician coast.
- When
- About 586 BC, after the fall of Jerusalem, in the reign of Ittobaal III of Tyre.
- Why
- To bring down the pride of a ruler who made himself divine and to assure the exiles that God would gather His people to live safely in their land.
Historical context
The first oracle is aimed at a living man, the ruler of Tyre, Ittobaal III in these years, and it quotes his own claim: I am a god, I sit in the seat of gods, in the heart of the seas. That was not simply arrogance in a Phoenician context. The king of Tyre served as chief priest of the city god Melqart and presided over his annual festival, and across the ancient Near East royal and divine language ran together. God's answer is blunt: you are a man and not a god, and you will die the death of the slain.
Show the rest of the historical context, 4 more paragraphs
The second oracle changes voice and scale. This figure is called the king of Tyre and is described as having been in Eden, the garden of God, covered with precious stones, an anointed guardian cherub on the holy mountain of God, walking among the stones of fire, blameless from the day he was created until unrighteousness was found in him.
MannaFest reads this the way much of church history has read it: the human king is being addressed with the power behind him in view, and behind the throne of Tyre stands the fall of the anointed cherub, the being Scripture elsewhere names Satan. Others read the whole passage as royal poetry in Eden language, describing no one but the man; the text is given here with the house reading first and the alternative named rather than hidden.
The stones listed are the detail that keeps drawing readers back. Nine are named in the Hebrew text and twelve in the ancient Greek translation, and the set overlaps the stones of the high priest's breastpiece. Whichever count is original, the figure is dressed in something priestly.
The chapter closes with a short oracle against Sidon, Tyre's older sister city up the coast, and then with a promise: Israel gathered from the peoples, dwelling securely, planting vineyards, with no more brier to prick them from any of their neighbours.
Significance
The exiles lived under the confidence of great men. This chapter takes the greatest and most self-assured ruler on their horizon and traces the sin in him back to its source: pride born of beauty, and wisdom corrupted for the sake of splendour.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
For first hearers the practical point was the ending. After every neighbour and every empire has been dealt with, the last word of the section is that God's own people will live in their land in safety, and the nations around them will know who did it.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
What is done
The site's own table in src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts, probed for this lane, gives this chapter a public reading. Ezekiel 28:25 to 29:21 is the Haftarah read with the weekly portion Va'era, which is Exodus 6:2 to 9:35, and the table marks it as the same in the Ashkenazi and the Sephardi rites. The table carries no festival reading from the book.
The corpus joins the chapter to the weeks of the Torah portions through the works arranged by portion. Under the first verse it carries Midrash Tanchuma, Vaera 9:2. Under the twelfth verse it carries Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Chukat 17:1. Under the fourteenth verse it carries Midrash Tanchuma, Bereshit 7:14. Under the fifteenth verse it carries Midrash Tanchuma, Bereshit 7:3.
How it is read
Rashi is the one commentator on this chapter whose English the corpus carries, quoted here from The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, which Sefaria reports as CC-BY. Every quotation of it is held to fifty words or fewer because the translation is modern.
Rashi reads the prince of Tyre's claim to divinity as a boast he built into the air. The seat of God is a throne "in the air, over the sea, with a mechanism that was a replica of seven heavens, and he sat down on the highest one" (Rashi on Ezekiel 28:2:1). Daniel is the measure set against him. Nebuchadnezzar came to make Daniel a god, "but he did not accept it upon himself, yet you make yourself a God?" (Rashi on Ezekiel 28:3:1).
At the drawing of swords Rashi keeps the apparent meaning and then reports a Midrash Aggadah, citing the Mechilta and Tanchuma on Va'era 9. In that reading three men who pretended to be gods were abused as women were: "Joash the son of Ahaziah", Hiram, and Nebuchadnezzar (Rashi on Ezekiel 28:7:1).
The lament over the king of Tyre is read as a figure for his wealth and rule. Eden stands for his pleasure: "You enjoy yourself as if you were dwelling in Eden, the garden of God" (Rashi on Ezekiel 28:13:1). The cherub is "the huge bird that covers a large area with his wings; i.e., you rule over a large dominion" (Rashi on Ezekiel 28:14:1). The wrongdoing found in him lay "in your saying, “I am a god.”" (Rashi on Ezekiel 28:15:1), and he spoiled his wisdom "for you were proud of your brightness" (Rashi on Ezekiel 28:17:1).
The chapter's close gathers the oracles of the last four chapters. Rashi counts Ammon, Moab, the Philistines, Edom, Tyre and Zidon as the neighbours of the land. Since all of them will be destroyed, "there will not be a briar or a thorn" to pain Israel on any side (Rashi on Ezekiel 28:24:1).
The corpus carries nine further notes on this chapter without an English text, each of them marked linked because Sefaria holds no English version of the ref. They stand cited and unquoted at Radak on Ezekiel 28:1:1, 28:5:1, 28:8:1, 28:10:1, 28:11:1, 28:20:1, 28:21:1 and 28:22:1 and at Metzudat David on Ezekiel 28:6:1.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries forty rabbinic locators on this chapter and the text of none, so each is cited and linked here rather than quoted. On the first verse it holds Midrash Tanchuma, Vaera 9:2 and Otzar Midrashim, The Incident of Chiram, King of Tsur, Introduction 1. On the second verse it holds Bereshit Rabbah 85:4, Chullin 89a:7 and Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Chullin 6:4. It also holds Ein Yaakov, Khullin 6:8, Mekhilta DeRabbi Shimon Ben Yochai 15:1 and Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Tractate Shirah 2:17 there. On the third verse it holds Eikhah Rabbah 4:1. On the seventh verse it holds Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Tractate Shirah 7:5, Midrash Sekhel Tov, Shemot 15:21:26 and Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 249:2.
On the tenth verse it holds Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 243:1. On the twelfth verse it holds Avot DeRabbi Natan, Recension B 43:25, Bereshit Rabbah 9:5 and Kohelet Rabbah 7:19:1. It also holds Kohelet Rabbah 8:1:2 and Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Chukat 17:1 there. On the thirteenth verse it holds Aggadat Bereshit 62:2, Bava Batra 75a:17 and Bava Batra 75a:18. It also holds Bereshit Rabbah 15:2 and Bereshit Rabbah 18:1 there. On the fourteenth verse it holds Midrash Tanchuma, Bereshit 7:14 and Otzar Midrashim, The Ten Martyrs, Midrash on the Ten Martyrs (Version 2) 6.
On the fifteenth verse it holds Midrash Tanchuma, Bereshit 7:3. On the seventeenth verse it holds Bereshit Rabbah 96:5, Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Vaera 16:1 and Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Vaera 8:1. It also holds Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Vayechi 5:4 and Shemot Rabbah 8:2 there. On the eighteenth verse it holds Midrash Tanchuma, Shemot 8:2, Midrash Tehillim 11:6 and Shemot Rabbah 1:26. It also holds Shemot Rabbah 1:31 and Vayikra Rabbah 18:2 there. On the nineteenth verse it holds Midrash Sekhel Tov, Bereshit 36:27:1.
On the twenty-fourth verse it holds Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 642:6. On the twenty-sixth verse it holds Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Terumah 6:2 and Midrash Tanchuma, Terumah 7:5. What each of them teaches is a saying of the rabbis, and is reported as theirs wherever this site quotes one. The quotations wait on a fetch that carries the text.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on Ezekiel 28:2:1 to 28:24:1, The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, reported CC-BY; Radak, Radak on Ezekiel 28:1:1, 28:5:1, 28:8:1, 28:10:1, 28:11:1, 28:20:1, 28:21:1 and 28:22:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Metzudat David, Metzudat David on Ezekiel 28:6:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/ezekiel/28.json, the 40 Talmud and Midrash locators of this chapter; The site's own files, src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts, probed for this chapter and printing the Haftarah Ezekiel 28:25 to 29:21 with the weekly portion Va'era.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
The prince of Tyre who said, I am a god
Ezekiel 28:1-2
the word of the LORD came to me: The oracle turns from Tyre's fall to the man who ruled her, and the charge is put in his own words: I am a God. Henry reads the accusation as pride swelling on wealth and a defensible rock into outright self-deification, the sin Isaiah 14 lays on Babylon's king.
Ezekiel 28:1
“The prophecy against the prince of Tyre. Throughout the east the majesty and glory of a people were collected in the person of their monarch, who in some nations was worshipped as a god. The prince is here the embodiment of the community. Their glory is his glory, their pride his pride. The doom of Tyre could not be complete without denunciation of the prince of Tyre. Idolatrous nations and idolatrous kings were, in the eyes of the prophet, antagonists to the true God.”
I sit in the seat of gods: The king of Tyre in these years was Ithobaal, whom Josephus names as reigning during Nebuchadnezzar's siege. Ezekiel calls him the ruler, Hebrew nagid, and saves the title king for the lament of verse 12. His boast uses El, the plain Hebrew word for god.
Ezekiel 28:2
“And you will no longer say, 'I am God,' but, having learned through your downfall, you will recognize that you are a human, not God. But if we wish to call the prince of Tyre the same power to whom the city itself, or the province, was given by God, let us accept that testimony. I said, 'You are gods, and all of you are sons of the Most High. But you will die like men, and fall like one of the princes' (Psalm 82:7).”
Jerome · written before 420 · Commentary on Ezekielpatristic
2 more voices on this verse
Ezekiel 28:2
“Say unto the prince of Tyrus - But who was this prince of Tyrus? Some think Hiram; some, Sin; some, the devil; others, Ithobaal, with whom the chronology and circumstances best agree. Origen thought the guardian angel of the city was intended. I am a god - That is, I am absolute, independent, and accountable to none. He was a man of great pride and arrogance.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ezekiel 28:2
“The Hebrew for "God" is El, that is, "the Mighty One." yet, &c.--keen irony. set thine heart as . . . heart of God--Thou thinkest of thyself as if thou wert God.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Ezekiel 28:3-5
wiser than Daniel: The taunt names Daniel, a contemporary famous in Babylon for wisdom, and sets the prince's shrewdness beside him only to mock it. Verses 4 and 5 trace the same wisdom into commerce. Clarke and Gill note the play, wisdom that could price every cargo and still miscount its own soul.
Ezekiel 28:3
“Ezekiel ironically alludes to Ithbaal's overweening opinion of the wisdom of himself and the Tyrians, as though superior to that of Daniel, whose fame had reached even Tyre as eclipsing the Chaldean sages. "Thou art wiser," namely, in thine own opinion (Zec 9:2). no secret--namely, forgetting riches (Eze 28:4). that they can hide--that is, that can be hidden.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
2 more voices on this verse
Ezekiel 28:3
“Behold; thou art wiser than Daniel,.... That is, in his own opinion; or it is ironically said. The Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic versions, render it by way of interrogation, "art thou not wiser than Daniel?" who was now at the court of Babylon, and was famous throughout all Chaldea for his knowledge in politics, his wisdom and prudence in government, as well as his skill in interpreting dreams.”
Ezekiel 28:3
“Thou art wiser than Daniel - Daniel was at this time living, and was reputable for his great wisdom. This is said ironically. See Eze 14:14; Eze 26:1.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
amassed gold and silver for your treasuries: Chapter 27 lists the ports that fed this wealth, from Tarshish in the far west to Sheba and Dedan in Arabia. Wisdom and understanding here mean practical skill in trade. The gold and silver in the treasuries of Tyre were the profit of the whole Mediterranean trade.
Ezekiel 28:4
“With thy wisdom and with thy understanding thou hast gotten thee riches,.... Through skill in navigation and trade, for which the Tyrians and their princes were famous, they acquired great wealth: so antichrist, by carnal policy, and hellish subtlety, has amassed vast treasures together; the sale of pardons and indulgences has brought immense riches into the pope's coffers: and hast gotten gold and silver into thy treasures; in great quantities; see Rev 18:3.”
your heart has grown proud because of it: Moses warned Israel of this same pattern in Deuteronomy 8, where multiplied silver and gold lift the heart until it forgets the LORD. The king of Tyre walks the path Israel was told to avoid. Success fed the pride.
Ezekiel 28:5
“By thy great wisdom - He attributed every thing to himself; he did not acknowledge a Divine providence. As he got all by himself, so he believed he could keep all by himself, and had no need of any foreign help.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ezekiel 28:6-10
you regard your heart as the heart of a god: The sentence matches the crime clause for clause: strangers will draw their swords against the beauty of thy wisdom. The pit and the deaths of the uncircumcised name the shame, burial without the covenant sign. The strangers are Nebuchadnezzar's Babylon (26:7) and, in the older commentators' reading, Alexander after him.
Ezekiel 28:6
“Therefore thus saith the Lord God,.... Now follows the punishment threatened, because of all this pride, haughtiness, and blasphemy: because thou hast set thine heart as the heart of God; seeking thine own glory; setting up thyself above all others; assuming that to thyself which belongs to God; and making thyself equal to him, or showing thyself as if thou wast God; See Gill on Eze 28:2.”
the most ruthless of nations: The same title names Nebuchadnezzar's army sent against Egypt in 30:11. The swords are drawn against the beauty of the king's wisdom, the very thing he trusted. His splendor, Hebrew yiphah, means radiance or brightness.
Ezekiel 28:7
“I will bring strangers upon thee - The Chaldeans.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 28:7
“They are people of a strange language, which the king of Tyre himself, wise as he is, perhaps understands not. They are the terrible of the nations; it was an army made up of many nations, and it was at this time the most formidable both for strength and fury.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
bring you down to the Pit: The Pit, Hebrew shachat, is the grave pictured as a place below, where Ezekiel sends the proud nations again in chapters 31 and 32. The heart of the seas answers the boast of verse 2. His throne and his grave share one address.
Ezekiel 28:8
“They shall bring thee down to the pit,.... Or, "to corruption" (k); to the grave, the pit of corruption and destruction; so antichrist shall go into perdition, into the bottomless pit from whence he came, Rev 17:8, and thou shalt die the deaths of them that are slain in the midst of the seas; that die in a sea fight, whose carcasses are thrown overboard, and devoured by fishes. (k) לשחת "ad corruptionem".”
in the presence of those who slay you?: The question sets the boast of verse 2 beside the moment of death. The word for man is adam, the creature made from the ground, and a wound proves the king belongs to that kind. Blood settles the question.
Ezekiel 28:9
“Wilt thou yet say before him that slayeth thee - Wilt thou continue thy pride and arrogance when the sword is sheathed in thee, and still imagine that thou art self-sufficient and independent?”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 28:9
“Wilt thou yet say before him that slayeth thee, I am God?....”
die the death of the uncircumcised: Chapter 32 fills out this picture, where Egypt, Assyria, Elam and the Sidonians lie among the uncircumcised slain in the Pit. The king of Tyre joins that company. The closing formula marks the sentence as fixed.
Ezekiel 28:10
“The deaths of the uncircumcised - Two deaths, temporal and eternal. Ithobaal was taken and killed by Nebuchadnezzar.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
The anointed cherub cast from the mountain of God
Ezekiel 28:11-14
Again the word of the LORD came to me: The lament shifts to the king of Tyrus: thou art the anointed cherub that covereth. Keil and much of the critical bench take the vocabulary as maximal court imagery. Fairbairn and the older writers, joined by modern voices, such as Michael Heiser, read a being addressed behind the throne.
Ezekiel 28:11
“The dirge of the prince of Tyre, answering to the dirge of the state. The passage is ironical; its main purpose is to depict all the glory, real or assumed, of “the prince of Tyrus,” in order to show how deplorable should be his ruin. Eze 28:12 To “seal the sum” is to make up the whole measure of perfection.”
take up a lament for the king: A lament, qinah in Hebrew, is the funeral song sung over the dead, and Ezekiel sings it while the king still reigns. The seal pictures a signet, the finished stamp that presses a design into clay or wax. The height sets up the fall.
Ezekiel 28:12
“It follows that the serpent in paradise was certainly not brought into being without the will of God. In the figure of the serpent we see the devil. That the devil existed even in paradise we are informed by the prophet Ezekiel, who in discussing the prince of Tyre says, "You are in Eden, the garden of God." The prince of Tyre stands for the devil. Shall we, therefore, accuse God because we cannot comprehend the treasures—with the exception of those that he has deigned to reveal—of his majesty and wisdom that lie hidden and concealed in Christ?”
Ambrose of Milan · written before 397 · On Paradise 2:9patristic
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 28:12
“Thou sealest up - This has been translated, “Thou drawest thy own likeness.” “Thou formest a portrait of thyself; and hast represented thyself the perfection of wisdom and beauty.” I believe this to be the meaning of the place.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
You were in Eden, the garden: All nine stones appear among the twelve set in the high priest's breastpiece in Exodus 28, and the Greek Septuagint lists the full twelve here. The verb for your creation is bara, the word Genesis 1 uses for God's own creating. Eden places the figure at the beginning.
Ezekiel 28:13
“Thou hast been in Eden - This also is a strong irony. Thou art like Adam, when in his innocence and excellence he was in the garden of Eden! Every precious stone was thy covering - For a description of these stones see the note on Exo 28:17.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 28:13
“He had in himself the power of admitting either good or evil. Falling away from good, he turned with his whole mind to evil. There are other created beings who, while possessing the power to choose either, by the exercise of free will flee from evil and cleave to the good.”
Origen of Alexandria · written before 253 · On First Principles 1:8.3patristic
anointed as a guardian cherub: Cherubim guarded the garden of Eden in Genesis 3, and two gold cherubim spread their wings over the mercy seat of the ark. The Hebrew for guardian means covering, the posture of those outstretched wings. Ezekiel had seen cherubim beside the throne of God in chapter 10.
Ezekiel 28:14
“For the king who was anointed with the holy oil was called a cherub. And he was overshadowing all his people.… They were sitting in the shadow of the king, while he was standing at their head. And when the crown of their head fell, they were without shade. And if anyone should say that this word is spoken concerning Christ, let him accept what I write for him without dispute, and he will be persuaded that it was said with reference to the king.”
Aphrahat the Persian Sage · written before 345 · DEMONSTRATIONS 5:9patristic
2 more voices on this verse
Ezekiel 28:14
“Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth - The irony is continued; and here he is likened to the Cherub that guarded the gates of Paradise, and kept the way of the tree of life; or to one of the cherubs whose wings, spread out, covered the mercy-seat.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Ezekiel 28:14
“The cherub--an ideal compound of the highest kinds of animal existence and the type of redeemed man in his ultimate state of perfection--is made the image of the king of Tyre, as if the beau ideal of humanity. The pretensions of Antichrist are the ulterior reference, of whom the king of Tyre is a type. Compare "As God . . . in the temple of God" (2Th 2:4).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Ezekiel 28:15-17
Thou wast perfect in thy ways, till iniquity was found in thee marks the turn, a fall from an original perfection. The cause is trade turned to violence, and pride in beauty. The sentence answers in kind, cast as profane out of the mountain of God, cast to the ground.
Ezekiel 28:15
“Thou wast perfect in thy ways - The irony seems still to be kept up. Thou hast been like the angels, like Moses, like the cherubs, like Adam, like God, till thy iniquity was found out.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
By the vastness of your trade: Violence here is chamas, the word for the wrong that filled the earth before the flood in Genesis 6. Tyre's trade included slaves, listed among her goods at 27:13. Commerce had become oppression.
Ezekiel 28:16
“I will cast thee as profane - Thou shalt be cast down from thine eminence. From the midst of the stones of fire - Some, supposing that stones of fire means the stars, have thought that the whole refers to the fall of Satan.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
I made you a spectacle before kings: Readers who see Satan behind the king link this verse with 1 Timothy 3:6, where conceit brings the condemnation of the devil. Keil keeps the verse on the king of Tyre and the splendor of his court. Other rulers watch and learn.
Ezekiel 28:18-19
you have profaned your sanctuaries: The fire that ends the king of Tyrus comes from within him. The ashes upon the earth and the astonishment of all that know thee close the lament with total reversal. Keil reads the totality of the ending as proof the lament was never about a trade rival's city alone.
Ezekiel 28:18
“Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities,.... Or, "thy palaces", as Kimchi; the palace of the king, and the palaces of the nobles, where much iniquity was committed, and which was the cause of their being defiled or destroyed by the Chaldeans; or it may design their sacred places, their temples, where their gods were worshipped, and idolatry committed.”
1 more voice on this verse
Ezekiel 28:18
“Therefore, he defiled his sanctification which he had when he dwelt on the mountain and conversed among the burning stones. It follows: I will bring fire in the midst of you which shall devour you. This fire was kindled in the heart of the king of Tyre by him whose arrows are kindled, as it is written: All those who commit adultery are like an oven, their hearts (Hosea).”
Jerome · written before 420 · Commentary on Ezekielpatristic
You have come to a horrible end: The same closing line ends the Tyre oracles at 26:21 and 27:36, so three chapters about Tyre close on one refrain. The nations who know Tyre were her trading partners, named one by one in chapter 27. They are appalled as merchants.
Ezekiel 28:19
“Thou shalt be a terror - Instead of being an object of adoration thou shalt be a subject of horror, and at last be destroyed with thy city, so that nothing but thy name shall remain. It was entirely burnt by Alexander the Great, as it had been before by Nebuchadnezzar.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Sidon judged and Israel's pricking briers removed
Ezekiel 28:20-24
Then the word of the LORD came to me: The oracle turns last to Zidon, Tyre's older sister city. Verse 24 gives Israel's stake, there shall be no more a pricking brier unto the house of Israel, nor any grieving thorn. Henry and Gill read the brier and thorn as the same figure Moses had used at Numbers 33:55.
set your face against Sidon: Sidon lay about twenty-five miles north of Tyre on the same coast. Jezebel, who brought Baal worship into Israel under Ahab, was the daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Sidonians, in 1 Kings 16:31. Set your face is Ezekiel's formula for a hostile oracle.
Ezekiel 28:21
“Zidon--famous for its fishery (from a root, Zud, "to fish"); and afterwards for its wide extended commerce; its artistic elegance was proverbial. Founded by Canaan's first-born (Ge 10:15). Tyre was an offshoot from it, so that it was involved in the same overthrow by the Chaldeans as Tyre.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
I will be glorified within you: The verb glorified is used at the Red Sea, where God said He would gain glory through Pharaoh and his army in Exodus 14. Sidon becomes a second stage for the same display. Holiness here means God shown to be set apart in His justice.
Ezekiel 28:22
“Note, When God is sanctified he is glorified, for his holiness is his glory; and those whom he is not sanctified and glorified by he will be sanctified and glorified upon, by executing judgments upon them, which declare him a just avenger of his own and his people's injured honour.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
I will send a plague against her: Plague inside the walls and the sword outside them picture a city under siege. Ezekiel pronounced the same pair on Jerusalem in 5:12 and 7:15, and both appear among the four judgments of 14:21. Sidon suffers what Jerusalem suffered.
a pricking brier or a painful thorn: This verse closes the oracles against Israel's neighbors that began in chapter 25, Ammon, Moab, Edom, Philistia, Tyre and Sidon. Each had scorned Judah in her fall. Egypt, the seventh nation, receives chapters 29 to 32.
Ezekiel 28:24
“There shall be no more a pricking brier - Nothing to excite Israel to idolatry when restored from their captivity. Perhaps there is an allusion to Jezebel, daughter of Ethbaal, king of Sidon, and wife to Ahab, king of Israel, who was the greatest curse to Israel, and the universal restorer of idolatry in the land, see 1Ki 16:31. Sidon being destroyed, there would come no encourager of idolatry from that quarter.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Gathered home to dwell safely and plant vineyards
Ezekiel 28:25-26
The chapter closes on the promise kept to named Israel, they shall dwell in their land that I have given to my servant Jacob. Fairbairn ties the promise directly to the Tyre and Zidon oracles just given, the same God who humbles the proud cities restores the humbled people.
Ezekiel 28:25
“When I shall have gathered the house of Israel - In their long captivity, God had been preparing the land for them so as to make it a safe dwelling; and hence he executed judgments on all the heathen nations round about by means of the Chaldeans. Thus Tyre and Sidon were destroyed, as were the Ammonites and others who had been the inveterate enemies of the Jews. Judgment first began at his own house, then proceeded to the heathen nations; and when they were brought down, then he visited and redeemed his people.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
build houses, and plant vineyards: Jeremiah 29 told the exiles to build houses and plant gardens in Babylon, a foreign land. Here the same work is done at home. The word securely appears twice, and chapter 34 uses it for the flock kept safe under God's own shepherd.
Ezekiel 28:26
“And they shall dwell safely therein,.... There being none to make them afraid, all their enemies being destroyed, and they also under the protection of Christian princes: and they shall build houses and plant vineyards; signifying their continuance in their land, and their enjoyment of the blessings of it.”
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Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Carl Friedrich Keil; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible; Michael Heiser, The Unseen Realm; Patrick Fairbairn and Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset and David Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible.