Ezekiel 28:14

God had given the king a position as an anointed cherub who covers or guards. This description has suggested to many readers that the king in view may be more than a man. Perhaps the Lord was looking beyond the human king of Tyre to the spiritual ruler behind him, namely, Satan (cf. Daniel 10:13; Matthew 16:21-23). [Note: Cooper, p. 268; Feinberg, p. 161; Freeman, p. 306; Wiersbe, p. 216.] It is more probable that the human king was cherub-like in that God had allowed him to reign, and he exercised a guarding function over his city-state.

"It seems as if Tyre’s king was identifying himself with the patron deity of Tyre, Melkart, directly or symbolically, as the god’s guardian sphinx. The Phoenician male-sphinx (or cherub) was normally bejeweled and sometimes had the head of the priest-king (cf. Barnett, p. 13). The sphinx was considered to be all-wise. Such a description fits well the verses under discussion, for the king is called a guardian cherub (sphinx) and the many jewels listed in Ezekiel 28:13 as his covering befit the many jewels that adorned the Phoenician sphinx (cherub). The passage would then be declaring that the king of Tyre had become as the guardian cherub for the god Melkart and was bejeweled with his riches as cherub-sphinx normally was." [Note: Alexander, "Ezekiel," p. 883. Here his reference is to R. D. Barnett, "Ezekiel and Tyre," in Eretz-Israel, vol. 9.]

This ruler had also been on the holy mountain of God, a title that appears exactly this way nowhere else in the Old Testament. This description suggests Jerusalem (cf. Psalms 99:9; Isaiah 11:9; Isaiah 56:7; Isaiah 65:25), but a mountain in Scripture is also a figure for a kingdom (e.g. Psalms 30:7; et al.). What other literal mountain might be in view is hard to imagine since there are no literal mountains that God had uniquely appointed close to Tyre. Perhaps Ezekiel meant that the king of Tyre had been walking in Jerusalem among fiery stones gathering spoils (cf. 26:1-6) shortly after Jerusalem’s destruction. Or perhaps he meant that the king of Tyre was in the domain of the pagan deities ("the mount of god" meaning "the seat of the gods") since he claimed to be a god and was perhaps a guardian cherub of Melkart.

"The lament God inspires Ezekiel to sing over the king of Tyre contains a series of metaphorical references to the story of the Garden of Eden and to the Mountain of God. The king is compared to a guardian angel at the mountain and, in a way, to Adam himself in the garden. The comparisons are not exact, but imagistic-overtones and general allusions rather than straight one-for-one correspondences to the garden story. The allusions to the mountain of God (e.g., Ezekiel 28:14; Ezekiel 28:16) reflect a poetic theme in the Old Testament in which the mountain represents God’s abode." [Note: Stuart, p. 273.]

Allen believed the mountain in view was Mt. Zaphon, in northern Syria, which, in Ugaritic mythology, was the abode of the gods. [Note: Allen, Ezekiel 20-48, p. 95.]

". . . it seems . . . likely that Ezekiel’s imagination wandered freely and drew on a wide variety of symbolical background all interwoven with his message of the fall of Tyre." [Note: Taylor, p. 197.]

Probably the kingdom of God is in view here. Evidently the meaning is that this ruler participated in God’s universal kingdom by ruling as king over Tyre, since all rulers occupy their thrones with the sovereign Lord’s permission (Romans 13:1). This ruler also walked among the stones of fire, or the brightly shining stones, just mentioned (Ezekiel 28:13). That is, he lived in an environment that was glorious and blessed by God.

"The ritual of burning a god has been discovered on a bowl from Sidon and is recorded in the cult of Melkart at Tyre (cf. Barnett, pp. 9-10). Melkart’s resurrection was celebrated by a ’burning in effigy,’ from which he would then be revitalized through the fire and the smelling of the burnt offering. Again, in keeping with the Phoenician religious-cultural background with which the passage is so closely tied by the king’s claim of deity, perhaps the explanation of walking among the fiery stones is a reference to the king’s self-exaltation of himself even as the god Melkart-even to the extent of his claiming resurrection after burning by fire." [Note: Alexander, "Ezekiel," p. 884.]