Bible Commentaries
Ezekiel 28

Introduction

Chapters 26-28

These chapters describe the fall of Tyre and Sidon. First the prophecy against Tyre in ch. Ezekiel 26. Then the lamentation over Tyre in ch. Ezekiel 27. In ch. Ezekiel 28:1-10 the fall of the prince of Tyre; in Ezekiel 28:11-19 the lamentation over him. In Ezekiel 28:20-24 the prophecy concerning Sidon. In Ezekiel 28:25-26, before the fall of the chief power in the coalition, Egypt, we have the close of the prophecies concerning the neighbouring nations.

The prophet has good reason to be so full in his announcement against Tyre. Along with Babylon and Egypt, Tyre was then the most glorious concentration of the worldly power. In the queen of the sea the thought of the vanity of all worldly power was strikingly exemplified. Hand in hand with this thought goes, in Ezekiel, that of the indestructibleness of the kingdom of God. The design to raise the light of the kingdom of God through the shade of the world, appears manifestly at the close of the whole in ch. Ezekiel 28:25-26, and even before at the close of ch. 26. The prophet wishes to prevent the despondency which the contemplation of the world shining in its glory may so easily call forth in the people of God groaning under the cross.

The prophecy in ch. Ezekiel 26 has four clauses: the destruction of Tyre in outline, Ezekiel 26:2-6; the detail, Ezekiel 26:7-14; the lamentation of the princes of the sea over Tyre, Ezekiel 26:15-18; and the epilogue, in which Tyre in its total downfall is contrasted with Zion in its glorious resurrection, Ezekiel 26:19-21.

Verses 1-10

Ezekiel 28. The city of Tyre is here followed by the prince of Tyre, the prophecy concerning him ( Ezekiel 28:1-10), and the lamentation over him ( Ezekiel 27:11-19). The new point of most importance here is the emphatic indication of the guilt by which the catastrophe was brought upon Tyre. The king of Tyre forms not the contrast to the city, but its complement. The prophet had the more reason to bring him forward in its fall, as he thus obtains a counterpart to the glorious rise of the kingdom of Israel in Christ.

Ezekiel 28:1-10. And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, 2. Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyre, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Because thy heart is lifted up, and thou sayest, I am God, in the seat of God I sit in the heart of the sea; and thou art man, and not God, and settest thy heart as the heart of God: 3. Behold, thou art wiser than Daniel; no secret have they hid from thee. 4. By thy wisdom and thy understanding thou hast gotten thee riches, and hast gotten gold and silver in thy treasures: 5. By the greatness of thy wisdom, by thy traffic, hast thou increased thy riches, and thy heart is glad through thy riches: 6. Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Because thou settest thy heart as the heart of God; 7. Therefore, behold, I will bring on thee strangers, the violent of the heathen; and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of thy wisdom, and defile thy brightness. 8. They shall bring thee down to the pit, and thou shalt die the death of the slain in the heart of the seas. 9. Wilt thou say, I am God, before thy slayer? and thou art man, and not God, in the hand of him who defileth thee. 10. The death of the uncircumcised shalt thou die by the hand of strangers: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord Jehovah.

The seat of God ( Ezekiel 28:2) is a seat which, in its absolute inaccessibleness, is like the seat of God in heaven. [171] He sets or makes his mind like the mind of God; he has so pushed himself into the height, that in his folly he arrogates to himself what God claims to Himself by right. It belongs to the nature of God, to be and to have all from Himself; to the nature of man, to derive all from the fulness of God. If man imagines himself to subsist as God in himself, this is the greatest of all perversities, which cannot remain unpunished, because God does not give His glory to another. The fundamental passage is Isaiah 14:14, where the king of Babylon compares himself with the Most High. The general divine name, Elohim, the Godhead, stands as usual, where there is a contrast of man and God, of earth and heaven. Hand in hand with the charge that he likens himself with God, goes in Ezekiel 28:3 the reproach that he counts himself wiser than Daniel. Denying the authenticity of Daniel, Bernstein was right in declaring this passage and ch. Ezekiel 14:14 to have been interpolated after the composition of the book of Daniel, in which, however, no one has been able to follow him. We find here, as in ch. Ezekiel 14:14, the most remarkable harmony with the book of Daniel. The prophet would have made himself and Daniel ridiculous, if the latter had not given such proofs of a wisdom surpassing all that was ordinary, as his book presents. To declare himself wiser than Daniel, is at once to transcend the stage of man, and make himself equal with God. The prophet presumes it to be acknowledged that Daniel stands on the highest stage of wisdom attainable by man. This rests on a fact by which the pre-eminence of Daniel above all other wise men was proved—that recorded in Daniel 2, where Daniel performs what all the wise men of Babylon could not perform, what they had designated as exceeding human power. Comp. ch. Daniel 2:10-11, where they say, “There is not a man upon earth who could tell what the king asks; there is none who can tell it except the holy gods, who dwell not with men.” Daniel’s wisdom must have been generally known and acknowledged, especially among the Jews in the Chaldean exile, for whom in the first instance Ezekiel wrote: for Ezekiel presupposes that the king of Tyre knew of Daniel, and certainly as one whom no other but himself excelled in wisdom; so that Daniel can be no mere Jewish celebrity, but must have proved his wisdom on the theatre of the world, as is recorded of him in the book of Daniel. But Ezekiel ascribes to Daniel not merely wisdom, but even a special kind of it, that to which nothing hidden was dark. This very kind of wisdom meets us in the book of Daniel. The king of Babylon says of Daniel in ch. Daniel 4:6, “I know that the spirit of the holy gods is in thee, and no secret troubleth thee.” Daniel had appeared as one from whom no secret was hidden in the very beginning of his career, and thereby laid the foundation of his prominent position. He performed in secret wisdom what all the Chaldean wise men could not do. It is said in ch. Daniel 2:19, “Then was the secret revealed unto Daniel in a night vision.” Finally, from the contrast with the prince of Tyre, who had to prove his wisdom on the theatre of the world (comp. Ezekiel 28:5, where the wisdom is immediately connected with the trade), we expect that Daniel also was no solitary sage, that he exercised his wisdom in great public circumstances. In harmony with this, Daniel appears in the book named after him, as the statesman among the prophets. He holds from his youth, contemporary with the king of Tyre, the highest civic offices in the Chaldean empire. He was, in particular, placed at the head of all the Chaldean wise men, who exercised so important an influence on public affairs; comp. ch. Daniel 2:48-49; Daniel 2:49. Whosoever, in the investigation of the authenticity of the book of Daniel, declines to go thoroughly into the facts presented here and in ch. Ezekiel 14:14, thereby shows that he is devoid of purely scientific interest, a slave to dogmatic preconceptions, and determined not by facts, but by leanings. The violent among the heathen ( Ezekiel 28:7), so violent that the others beside them do not come into view, are the Chaldeans, the then world-conquerors; so active, that what others undertook against them, only aimed at repelling the violence. “Defile thy brightness”—which was hitherto a sanctuary bestowed on him by God, and stood under His protection. He himself has first defiled it, because he ascribed to himself what belonged to God. Now he is also desecrated as a punishment. The cruelly estranged brightness was dragged through the mire. “Thou shalt die the death of the slain” ( Ezekiel 28:8): it is literally the deaths, as is also said in Ezekiel 28:10 of the death of the king. The king, the central personage, the animating breath of the whole people, as the king is called in Lamentations 4:20, dies as it were many deaths—dies in each of his slain subjects. In the same respect it is said in ch. Ezekiel 29:5 of Pharaoh, “Thou shalt not be gathered nor heaped up.” Already in Genesis 14:10 it was said of the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah, that they fell into the slime-pits, which befell them only in their subjects, while as individuals they remained alive. The foolish thoughts of pride, which creep into men only in good fortune, will vanish from the king ( Ezekiel 28:9) when he stands helpless before his slayer, when he is in the hand of him who defiles him; comp. Ezekiel 28:7. Thus will it be manifest that he is man, and not God. “The death of the uncircumcised shalt thou die” ( Ezekiel 28:10): the circumcision of the flesh is, according to the law, a symbol of the circumcision of the heart ( Leviticus 26:41; Deuteronomy 10:16, Deuteronomy 30:6). On this account, in Ezekiel, the uncircumcised stand at once for the men of unclean heart, the ungodly and the wicked ( Ezekiel 31:18, Ezekiel 32:19), the uncircumcised in heart and ears ( Acts 7:51; comp. Ezekiel 44:9). The uncircumcised, in the sense of Ezekiel, are found among the Jews no less than among the heathen, because the sign loses all significance, and is regarded as not existing, when the thing signified does not exist ( Romans 2:25; Jeremiah 9:26).

[171] Grotius: sic ut Deus ab omni injuria tutus est in arce coelesti, sic me defendit mare.

Verses 11-19

In the second section Ezekiel 28:11-19, the lamentation over the king of Tyre. Ezekiel 28:11. And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, 12. Son of man, take up a lamentation over the king of Tyre, and say unto him. Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Thou sealest the archetype, [172] full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. 13. In Eden the garden of God wast thou: every precious stone covered thee, sardias, topaz, and diamond; tarshish, onyx, and jasper; sapphire, carbuncle, and smaragd, and gold: the work of thy drums and thy pipes was in thee; in the day when thou wast created they were prepared. 14. Thou wast the anointed cherub that covereth; and so I made thee: upon the holy mountain of God wast thou; amidst the stones of fire thou didst walk. 15. Thou wast innocent in thy ways from the day when thou wast created, until iniquity was found in thee. 16. In the abundance of thy merchandise they filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou sinnedst: and I will profane thee from the mountain of God, and destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. 17. Thy heart was high because of thy beauty; thou didst corrupt thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground; before kings will I set thee for a spectacle. 18. By the abundance of thy iniquities, in the perversity of thy traffic, thou didst defile thy sanctuaries; and I will bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, this shall devour thee; and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the eyes of all that see thee. 19. All who know thee among the nations shall be amazed at thee; thou shalt be a terror, [173] and thou shalt not be for ever.

[172] Luther, “thou art a fine seal,” as if it were חוֹ?תָ?ם .

[173] Luther, “that thou art so suddenly overthrown.” בלחה in the still even now often assumed but not ascertained meaning, sudden downfall.

A sealer of the archetype [174] is one who has a right to lay aside the idea of his being, because he himself completely represents it; because he is a personified idea, a corporate ideal, completely represented in life, which he, and in general man, may be. Quite in harmony with this stands the following, where the king of Tyre is described as “full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.” “In Eden the garden of God wast thou” ( Ezekiel 28:13): in the first book of Moses, ch. Genesis 2:8, the garden of God is in the region called Eden; comp. here, ch. Ezekiel 36:35. But in our passage the name of the whole is transferred to the most eminent part. We have here an abridged comparison. The thought is. Thou didst enjoy as it were a paradisaic existence—a glory like that of the first man in Paradise. A like abridged comparison is found, for ex., in naming a cloister paradise. The precious stones with which the king is bedecked bring the glory of his rank to outward view. Of the precious stones, there are in all ten, including the gold, which is here the more readily added to the precious stones, because they are usually set in gold. The nine precious stones, which have been supposed, without any reason, to be related to the precious stones in the breastplate of the high priest, with which they have no real connection, fall into three times three; being respectively limited in this way, that and always stands before the third. The gold then completes the decade. “The work of thy drums and pipes was in thee:” [175] with this is to be compared the enumeration of the instruments in Daniel 3:5. Music appears there as a necessary element of the royal grandeur, which it is even to the present day. With the king of Babylon goes ( Isaiah 14:11) also the “noise of his viols” down to the grave. The work of thy drums and pipes denotes the artistic workmanship of them; comp. ch. Ezekiel 27:16. “In the day of thy birth were they prepared:” this intimates that the Tyrian monarchy from its very origin was surrounded with this music, that it came into existence, as it were, amid drums and trumpets, as according to Job 38:7 the earth was ushered into existence amid the songs of the morning, stars, and the shouting of the sons of God. For the king, who is here an ideal person, the Tyrian monarchy, the day of being created is that of his accession to the throne; comp. Psalms 2:7. “Thou wast an anointed cherub that covereth” ( Ezekiel 28:14): the cherub is the ideal combination of all living creatures on the earth. The king of Tyre resembles it, in so far as he represents the earthly creature-life in its highest stage and in its utmost perfection. The anointed [176] cherub is the holy one, with reference to the statement of the books of Moses, that all the vessels of the temple were anointed, to impress on them the character of holiness ( Exodus 30:22-33). The anointing, the consecration from God, is common to the king of Tyre with the cherub: comp. the phrase “thy sanctuaries,” Ezekiel 28:18, and also Ezekiel 28:7, Ezekiel 28:9. He is res sacra, because God has imparted to him of His grandeur, and kept him in the possession of it. All earthly majesty is holy, and remains holy, until it desecrates itself. “That covereth:” this points to Exodus 25:20. The cherubs in the sanctuary cover and protect the ark of the covenant; the covenant, the people of the covenant. So the king of Tyre covers his people so long as the favour of God is with him. Instead of “And so I made thee,” it is literally, “And so I gave thee”—in such a situation I placed thee. This situation is then denoted by two figures, which are as well independent of one another as of the preceding figure of the cherub. Many false expositions have been occasioned by this, that men are confused by the sudden change of the figures in Scripture, and seek to bring unity into the figure by force, instead of resting simply in the unity of the thought. First, the king of Tyre was on the holy mountain of God. It is not said. On a mountain of gods so as to be compared with Isaiah 14:14, but on the mountain of God; nor does it refer to a pretence or imagination, but to one actually certified by God.

[174] תכנית signifies, ch. 43:10, outline, model. The meaning ornament, beauty, is assumed without ground. To seal never stands in the meaning of completing, often in the sense of setting aside; because we are wont to seal up things which we have locked up or put aside for greater security. Comp. Christol. on Daniel 9:24.

[175] נקב , the perforated, signifies in general the wind instrument, in contrast with those which are struck.

[176] משח , in Hebrew only to anoint.

Every earthly dignity is an elevation on the holy mountain of God, a participation in the divine dignity. On the mount of God is God Himself enthroned, as David is enthroned in the mount of David ( Psalms 30:8). It is a figure for His exalted position, which is elsewhere expressed by sitting in heaven. The mountain of God stands, as we have said, in as little connection with the cherub as with “the walking amidst the stones of fire” that follows. We have in the verse three designations of the glory of Tyre quite independent of one another. “Amidst the stones of fire thou didst walk:” to the fiery stones here correspond the fiery wall in Zechariah 2:5, comp. Zechariah 9:8. Both denote the divine protection, which makes him that stands under it inaccessible to all his foes. Whosoever will assail him must first pass through the fiery stones and consume himself, before he approaches him. The innocence which is ascribed in Ezekiel 28:15 to the king of Tyre in his beginnings, is naturally such as may take place on the ground of Genesis 3, especially among a people to which God has not made Himself known, that stands out of connection with His arrangements for salvation, which present the right remedy against sin, and render a sincere walk with God possible. Our passage, which is in harmony with Genesis 15:16, according to which in the time of Abraham the iniquity of the Amorites was not yet full, as well as with that which Jesus says of the (relative) innocence of children, is in favour of caution in the definition of natural corruption, and implies that there are important differences among those who have not yet by God’s grace attained to regeneration, so important as to condition the awarding of the judgments of God, and the communication of His grace. A sound experience is in harmony with this. It shows that on the common ground of hereditary corruption there are yet in the life of individuals and of nations very important diversities, times of comparative innocence and of deep declension provoking the judgments of God. As a rule, youth is the better time: the rule holds in nations as in individuals, who have not given way to grace; the older, the worse. Sin not vigorously resisted in its beginnings, grows from step to step. In harmony with our passage are the experiences which the missionaries to the heathen have now to obtain, compared with the earlier ages. “They (thy inhabitants) filled the midst of thee:” those filling belonged to the king of Tyre, who is, so to speak, an ideal person; comp. on Ezekiel 28:8. The city also belongs to him, the representative of the collective Tyrian state. Hence we may speak of his midst. The expression sets forth the dangers of trade for whole nations and for individuals. [177] In accordance with this, Jesus of Sirach says in ch. Sir_26:18 , “A merchant can hardly keep himself from doing wrong, or a huckster from sin;” and in ch. Sir_27:2 , “As a nail in the wall sticketh between two stones, so also doth sin stick between buyer and seller.” The constant excitement of selfishness and covetousness connected with trade can only be effectually counteracted by the grace of God. Where this does not prevail, trade, no less than influential position, brings deep confusion with it, as history also clearly shows in the daughter city of Tyre, Carthage; the proofs of which Münter gives with abundant fulness in the treatise. The Religion of the Carthaginians. In Ezekiel 28:17 a second cause of corruption. The soul, entangled in the bonds of self-interest and covetousness, and thereby deeply degraded, is now also led captive in other respects by sin; in particular, it is a sport of pride which is the immediate forerunner of the divine judgments, because God will be alone great, and gives His honour to no other. “Thou didst corrupt thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness:” the brightness is the cause on which the effect depends. The foundation of wisdom is humility, which sees things as they are, has an open eye for its own weaknesses and the excellences of others, and is on its guard against dangerous undertakings, as David says in Psalms 131:1: “O Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty; neither do I walk in great matters, and too wonderful for me.” The “brightness” received into the heart blinds the eye, so that one regards himself alone as great, and everything else as small, and rushes wantonly into dangers for which he is not prepared, and enters on paths which lead to perdition; as, for ex., Tyre undertook the combat against the flourishing Chaldee monarchy. God does not need to appear as a deus ex machina in the judgment upon the proud, who wantonly brings himself to ruin. There is here a weighty lesson for all nations, and for individuals: if thy safety is dear to thee, withstand the beginnings of pride. The only effectual resistance, however, is fellowship with God, walking with Him after the example of Enoch and Noah, from whom alone can flow the living power to overcome the living lusts and passions, which appear of themselves with the “brightness,” and defy all mere good resolutions, and all morality severed from God. This is the rock on which all the heathen powers of the old world were shattered. “Will I set thee for a spectacle:” formerly in its brightness a spectacle of wonder and envy for kings. Tyre is now become for them a spectacle of astonishment and spiteful joy [178] in its terrible downfall. In Ezekiel 28:18 the prophet returns to the sin of avarice as the cause of its downfall. “Thou didst defile thy sanctuaries:” any greatness consecrated by God, any glory imparted by Him, may be regarded as a sanctuary, the desecration of which by the feoffee is followed by desecration by the feudal lord. The idea of the sanctuary is that of separation from the world, which exerts all its destructive powers in vain against the gift imparted by God, so long as the possessor remains in the right position towards God. “I will bring forth a fire from the midst of thee:” the destructive catastrophe has its starting-point in that which is thereby destroyed; comp. in Ezekiel 28:17, “Thou didst corrupt thy wisdom.” “From the midst of thee:” this is explained by the fact that the king comprehends in himself the city and the people. The ashes are the mournful remnant of the process of combustion. A terror ( Ezekiel 28:19) is he at whose sight one trembles. [179] The cause of this trembling and becoming a terror is the total destruction, “and thou shalt not be for ever.”—a destruction like that of Sodom in ancient times, in which the sin-root of Canaan first came to full development—the sentence, “Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death” ( James 1:14), first verified itself; while the judgment on Tyre forms the close of the long series of judgments on the Canaanites.

[177] Comp. 8:17, 30:11. The verb is followed by a double accusative of the space and the material filling it.

[178] Comp. 27:36. ראה with ב signifies the impassioned regard, and especially that with joyful interest.

[179] The ordinary meaning terror corresponds with amazement.

Verses 20-26

Ezekiel 28:20-26. Here follows the prophecy concerning Zidon. After Tyre, Zidon was the most important among the Phoenician cities. It appears in the books of Moses, in which Tyre is not yet mentioned, as the oldest and most prominent settlement of the Canaanites ( Genesis 10:15), as the representative of the whole Canaanitish trade ( Genesis 49:13). It had formerly had the leadership, but had long lost it in favour of Tyre. That it was dependent on the latter, appears among other places from ch. Ezekiel 27:8, where the inhabitants of Zidon, along with those of Aradus, appear as rowers in the Tyrian state-ship. Yet it must have retained a certain independence. This appears from Jeremiah 27:3, where messengers (or a messenger) of the king of Zidon appear in Jerusalem along with the messengers of the king of Tyre. This explains why a special prophecy is here devoted to Zidon apart from Tyre. The fulfilment of this prophecy appears in ch. Ezekiel 32:30, where in an announcement which belongs to the end of the twelfth year, the Zidonians appear in the list of the nations who have already experienced the judicial activity of God, and have fallen by the sword of Nebuchadnezzar. Our prophecy was, as the want of a new date shows, contemporary with that relation to Tyre, of which it forms an appendix. The latter belongs, according to ch. Ezekiel 26:1, to the beginning of the tenth month, in the eleventh year, so that the fulfilment followed very close upon the prophecy. The visitation of Zidon followed soon after the beginning of the siege of Tyre, which, favoured by its situation, was able to present a longer and more vigorous resistance to the hostile power. [180]

[180] Niebuhr, p. 213.

Ezekiel 28:20. And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, 21. Son of man, set thy face against Zidon, and prophesy against it, 22. And say, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah; Behold, I am against thee, O Zidon; and I will be glorified in the midst of thee: and they shall know that I am the LORD, when I execute judgments on it, and am sanctified in it. 23, And I will send into it pestilence and blood in its streets; [181] and the slain shall fall in the midst of it by the sword upon it round about; and they shall know that I am the LORD. Ezekiel 28:24. And there shall be no more to the house of Israel a pricking thorn nor a grieving sting from all round about them that despised them; and they shall know that I am the Lord Jehovah. 25. Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, When I gather the house of Israel from the nations among whom they are scattered, then I will be sanctified in them in the eyes of the heathen, and they shall dwell in their land that I have given to my servant Jacob. 26. And they shall dwell therein securely, and build houses and plant vineyards, and dwell securely, when I execute judgments upon all that despised them round about; and they shall know that I am the LORD their God.

[181] Luther, “and I shall send pestilence and bloodshed among them in their streets,” so that the pestilence is imparted even to the streets, contrary to Deuteronomy 32:25.

The God of Israel, so despised by the inhabitants of Zidon, comes upon them ( Ezekiel 28:22) in judgment; and they must recognise or experience Him in His operations, whom they obstinately refused to recognise willingly. How consoling it is, however, for the people of God, when lying in the dust, that their God is above, and in the very time of their deepest humiliation interposes for their exaltation! That the operations here ascribed to Him belong to Him in fact, they can the less doubt, as He has proclaimed them as His work by His servants the prophets (Jeremiah in ch. Jeremiah 47:7, and Ezekiel here). “And am sanctified, or sanctify myself in it:” to be sanctified is the same as to be glorified or to glorify Himself, as surely as the holy God is separate from all creatures, sublime and glorious. To be sanctified is to be active in this absoluteness or infinity. Both pestilence and blood are sent against it ( Ezekiel 28:23), but the blood only belongs to the streets. [182] Ezekiel 28:24 already turns into the path of a general consideration, embracing Zidon in a greater whole, which applies no less to the other bordering states than to the Zidonians. The point of view here opened is a consolatory one. While the Lord chastises His own people with an unsparing rod, He visits the neighbouring heathen nations for the wrong which they have done to His people, as if it were directed against Himself, and verifies in them His word, “He that toucheth you, toucheth the apple of His eye” ( Zechariah 2:8). Ezekiel 28:25-26 give the close of the prophecies against the smaller bordering nations, and mark them off from the prophecies concerning Egypt, the chief power in the coalition, which formed the starting-point for the prophetic activity of Ezekiel. Here Zion in her glorious restoration is contrasted with the annihilating judgments which pass over the heathen world. It was needful here to meet the despondency, which was now, after the opening of the siege of Jerusalem, the most dangerous foe. Thus, with the one-sidedness which so commonly adheres to prophecy when it enters on definite periods and determinations, only the bright side of the future of the covenant people is presented to the eye. That along with this also in the future a shady side, and that a terrible one, will appear, that which Jerusalem had even now to suffer will not permit us to doubt. The deep corruption of the people, which provoked the catastrophe of the present, will also manifest itself in the future, so that along with grace wrath must intervene. With respect to this side, here intentionally concealed, the successors of Ezekiel, Zechariah and Malachi, provide an essential supplement to him. They enter fully into the shady side, the existence of which Ezekiel also clearly and sharply recognises, as in particular ch. Ezekiel 5:1-4 shows. A great national judgment is there expressly announced, which is to follow after the Chaldean.

[182] Instead of the Pilel of נפל stands in 30:4, 32:20, the Kal.