1The word of the Lord came to me: 2“Son of man, say to the prince of Tyre, Thus says the Lord God:
“Because your heart is proud,
and you have said, ‘I am a god,
I sit in the seat of the gods,
in the heart of the seas,’
yet you are but a man, and no god,
though you make your heart like the heart of a god—
3 you are indeed wiser than Daniel;
no secret is hidden from you;
4by your wisdom and your understanding
you have made wealth for yourself,
and have gathered gold and silver
into your treasuries;
5by your great wisdom in your trade
you have increased your wealth,
and your heart has become proud in your wealth—
6therefore thus says the Lord God:
Because you make your heart
like the heart of a god,
7therefore, behold, I will bring foreigners upon you,
the most ruthless of the nations;
and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of your wisdom
and defile your splendor.
8 They shall thrust you down into the pit,
and you shall die the death of the slain
in the heart of the seas.
9 Will you still say, ‘I am a god,’
in the presence of those who kill you,
though you are but a man, and no god,
in the hands of those who slay you?
10 You shall die the death of the uncircumcised
by the hand of foreigners;
for I have spoken, declares the Lord God.”
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This passage contains first a prophecy against the king of Tyre (1-10), then a lament for him (11-19). What Ezekiel is saying is that the might and prosperity, the wealth and godlessness, of Tyre is focused and summed up in the arrogance of her king. He is the figurehead, and the spirit behind all the wealth. It was made very clear in the previous chapter that in all the prosperity and enterprise God was not in all their thoughts. It was a godless empire, and the trouble with godless power is that it tends to corrupt, and the more powerful it is the more likely it is to corrupt. If there is any message for our own time in this terrible section of doom and judgment, it is that the perils of materialism are very great and very grave, for nations and for men. The kind of society that this begets is one in which phrases such as 'you've never had it so good' are bandied about, and this means that a people are already a great way into danger and into the peril that comes upon godlessness and materialism. And this is far truer of our own time than it could ever have been of Ezekiel's, because ours is the generation that has made such gigantic strides in technological achievement, and by this fact is tempted to feelings of god-like power. It is not wrong, of course, to explore the universe, or to land space-capsules on the moon and the planets, but the pride of life which can so easily attend such achievements is not only terribly wrong but disastrously and fatally so, and it is easy to hear in these verses the voice of God warning our generation, 'Remember, you are but men, not God'.