Ezekiel 28:18 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Ezekiel 28:18
Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffick; 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.
properly · verb, piel perfect, 2nd person masculine singular
sanctuaries
מִקְדָּשֶׁ֑יךָmik.da.Shei.cha
H4720
a consecrated thing or place · noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine singular
multitude
מֵרֹ֣בme.Ro
H7230
abundance (in any respect) · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct
iniquities
עֲוֹנֶ֗יךָ'a.vo.Nei.kha
H5771
perversity · noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine singular
iniquity
בְּעֶ֙וֶל֙be.'E.vel
H5766
(moral) evil · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct
traffick
רְכֻלָּ֣תְךָ֔re.khu.La.te.kha
H7404
trade (as peddled) · noun, common feminine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine singular
forth
וָֽאוֹצִאva.'o.tzi'-
H3318
to go (causatively · conjunction + verb, hiphil sequential imperfect, 1st person common singular
fire
אֵ֤שׁ'esh
H784
fire (literally or figuratively) · noun, common both genders singular absolute
midst
מִתּֽוֹכְךָ֙mi.tokh.Kha
H8432
a bisection · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine singular
devour
אֲכָלַ֔תְךָ'a.kha.Lat.kha
H398
to eat (literally or figuratively) · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person feminine singular + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine singular
bring
וָאֶתֶּנְךָ֤va.'e.ten.Kha
H5414
to give · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 1st person common singular + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine singular
ashes
לְאֵ֙פֶר֙le.'E.fer
H665
ashes · preposition + noun, common masculine singular absolute
earth
הָאָ֔רֶץha.'A.retz
H776
the earth (at large · definite article + noun, common feminine singular absolute
sight
לְעֵינֵ֖יle.'ei.Nei
H5869
an eye (literally or figuratively) · preposition + noun, common feminine dual construct
behold
רֹאֶֽיךָro.'Ei.kha
H7200
to see · verb, qal active participle, masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine singular
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Malachi 4:3 And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the LORD of…
Revelation 18:8 Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the L…
Ezekiel 28:16 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 pr…
Amos 1:9-10 Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Tyrus, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they delivered up…
Ezekiel 28:2 Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyrus, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thine heart is lifted up, and thou hast said, I am a God, I sit i…
Judges 9:20 But if not, let fire come out from Abimelech, and devour the men of Shechem, and the house of Millo; and let fire come out from the men of S…
Ezekiel 5:4 Then take of them again, and cast them into the midst of the fire, and burn them in the fire; for thereof shall a fire come forth into all t…
Ezekiel 28:13-14 Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, a…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Ezekiel 28:11-19
As after the prediction of the ruin of Tyre (ch. 26) followed a pathetic lamentation for it (ch. 27), so after the ruin of the king of Tyre is foretold it is bewailed.
I. This is commonly understood of the prince who then reigned over Tyre, spoken to, Eze 28:2. His name was Ethbaal, or Ithobalus, as Diodorus Siculus calls him that was king of Tyre when Nebuchadnezzar destroyed it. He was, it seems, upon all external accounts an accomplished man, very great and famous; but his iniquity was his ruin. Many expositors have suggested that besides the literal sense of this lamentation there is an allegory in it, and that it is an allusion to the fall of the angels that sinned, who undid themselves…
thy sanctuaries--that is, the holy places, attributed to the king of Tyre in Eze 28:14, as his ideal position. As he "profaned" it, so God will "profane" him (Eze 28:16).
fire . . . devour--As he abused his supposed elevation amidst "the stones of fire" (Eze 28:16), so God will make His "fire" to "devour" him.
Adam Clarke on Ezekiel 28:18
Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries - Irony continued. As God, as the angels, as the cherubim, thou must have had thy sanctuaries; but thou hast defiled them: and as Adam, thou hast polluted thy Eden, and hast been expelled from Paradise.
John Gill on 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. This may be applied to the places of religious worship among the Papists, their churches; which, instead of being adorned, are defiled with their images and image worship, and other acts of superstition and will worship:
by the iniquity of thy traffic; as by bringing in ill gotten goods into the sacred places of…
The Church Fathers
What is more true than this? The fire of sin went forth from the midst of their sin, a fire that devoured the good fortune of former times.
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). About this fire, Isaiah also speaks: Walk in the light of your fire, and in the flame you have kindled (Isaiah 50), so that when you go out, it may devour the possessor, according to what is written in the same Isaiah: It consumed like the grass the fuel (Isaiah 5). On that day the mountains and hills and forests will be extinguished, and it will devour from soul to flesh. This fire, which is called alien, Nadab and Abihu offered to the altar of the Lord, and for this reason they were consumed by divine fire (Leviticus 10). Hence Moses says: This is the word that the Lord spoke: In those who approach me, I will sanctify myself. But the sanctification of God is the punishment of sinners. After this it is said: And I will turn you into ashes, so that all that you have built will be consumed by the fire of your guilty conscience. When you should have rested on the Sabbath, and should not have done any servile work, you gathered wood on the Sabbath so that you would have something to fuel the fire in your heart. He will also destroy all evil works, reducing them to ashes, so that the harmful fire may be completely extinguished, so that all may see and marvel at the destruction of the king of Tyre, and that it has become nothing, not for many centuries, but in one instant, or certainly forever, so that what is written may be fulfilled: I will not spare you, and I will not have pity.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Tyre — A rock, now es-Sur; an ancient Phoenician city, about 23 miles, in a direct line, north of Acre, and 20 south of Sidon. Sidon was the oldest Phoenician city, but Tyre had a longer and more…
Commerce · Success in, led to pride, &c — Success in, led to pride, &c
Tyre · Inhabitants of: Wicked — Inhabitants of: Wicked
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
Lamentation over the King of Tyre
Eze 28:11. And the word of Jehovah came to me, saying, Eze 28:12. Son of man, raise a lamentation over the king of Tyre, and say to him, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Thou seal of a well-measured building, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. Eze 28:13. In Eden, the garden of God, was thou; all kinds of precious stones were thy covering, cornelian, topaz, and diamond, chrysolite, beryl, and jasper, sapphire, carbuncle, and emerald, and gold: the service of thy timbrels and of thy women was with thee; on the day that thou wast created, they were prepared. Eze 28:14. Thou wast a cherub of anointing, which covered, and I made thee for it; thou wast on a holy mo…
Far from being a deity who could sanctify a piece of ground by his presence, the prince of Tyre had the opposite effect. He defiled the holy ground of his sanctuaries. Judgment was pronounced on his city in the previous two panels, and it was the prince of Tyre’s fate to come to a terrible end, and . . . exist no more (cp. 26:21; 27:36). The exalted captain would go down with his glorious ship and be brought to nothing by the Lord’s act.
Rashi on Ezekiel 28:18
you profaned your sanctity [Heb. מִקְדָשֶׁךָ,] your sanctity.
fire out of your midst Haughty words that came out of your mouth, saying, “I am a god.” Another explanation: [It is to be interpreted] according to the Targum: And I brought forth peoples as strong as fire because of your arrogant sins.
