“‘Your heart is proud 2 and you said, “I am a god; 3
I sit in the seat of gods, in the heart of the seas” –
yet you are a man and not a god,
though you think you are godlike. 4
28:16 In the abundance of your trade you were filled with violence, 5 and you sinned;
so I defiled you and banished you 6 from the mountain of God –
the guardian cherub expelled you 7 from the midst of the stones of fire.
14:12 Look how you have fallen from the sky,
O shining one, son of the dawn! 9
You have been cut down to the ground,
O conqueror 10 of the nations! 11
14:13 You said to yourself, 12
“I will climb up to the sky.
Above the stars of El 13
I will set up my throne.
I will rule on the mountain of assembly
on the remote slopes of Zaphon. 14
14:14 I will climb up to the tops 15 of the clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High!” 16
14:15 But you were brought down 17 to Sheol,
to the remote slopes of the pit. 18
2:4 He will judge disputes between nations;
he will settle cases for many peoples.
They will beat their swords into plowshares, 20
and their spears into pruning hooks. 21
Nations will not take up the sword against other nations,
and they will no longer train for war.
1 tn Or “ruler” (NIV, NCV).
2 tn Heb “lifted up.”
3 tn Or “I am divine.”
4 tn Heb “and you made your heart (mind) like the heart (mind) of gods.”
5 tn Heb “they filled your midst with violence.”
6 tn Heb “I defiled you.” The presence of the preposition “from” following the verb indicates that a verb of motion is implied as well. See L. C. Allen, Ezekiel (WBC), 2:91.
7 tn Heb “and I expelled you, O guardian cherub.” The Hebrew text takes the verb as first person and understands “guardian cherub” as a vocative, in apposition to the pronominal suffix on the verb. However, if the emendation in verse 14a is accepted (see the note above), then one may follow the LXX here as well and emend the verb to a third person perfect. In this case the subject of the verb is the guardian cherub. See L. C. Allen, Ezekiel (WBC), 2:91.
8 tn Heb “all of it.”
9 tn The Hebrew text has הֵילֵל בֶּן־שָׁחַר (helel ben-shakhar, “Helel son of Shachar”), which is probably a name for the morning star (Venus) or the crescent moon. See HALOT 245 s.v. הֵילֵל.
10 tn Some understand the verb to from חָלַשׁ (khalash, “to weaken”), but HALOT 324 s.v. II חלשׁ proposes a homonym here, meaning “to defeat.”
11 sn In this line the taunting kings hint at the literal identity of the king, after likening him to the god Helel and a tree. The verb גָדַע (gada’, “cut down”) is used of chopping down trees in 9:10 and 10:33.
12 tn Heb “you, you said in your heart.”
13 sn In Canaanite mythology the stars of El were astral deities under the authority of the high god El.
14 sn Zaphon, the Canaanite version of Olympus, was the “mountain of assembly” where the gods met.
15 tn Heb “the high places.” This word often refers to the high places where pagan worship was conducted, but here it probably refers to the “backs” or tops of the clouds. See HALOT 136 s.v. בָּמָה.
16 sn Normally in the OT the title “Most High” belongs to the God of Israel, but in this context, where the mythological overtones are so strong, it probably refers to the Canaanite high god El.
17 tn The prefixed verb form is taken as a preterite. Note the use of perfects in v. 12 to describe the king’s downfall.
18 tn The Hebrew term בּוּר (bor, “cistern”) is sometimes used metaphorically to refer to the place of the dead or the entrance to the underworld.
19 tn Heb “and the house of Jacob will take possession of them [i.e., the nations], on the land of the Lord, as male servants and female servants.”
20 sn Instead of referring to the large plow as a whole, the plowshare is simply the metal tip which actually breaks the earth and cuts the furrow.
21 sn This implement was used to prune the vines, i.e., to cut off extra leaves and young shoots (H. Wildberger, Isaiah, 1:93; M. Klingbeil, NIDOTTE 1:1117-18). It was a short knife with a curved hook at the end sharpened on the inside like a sickle. Breaking weapons and fashioning agricultural implements indicates a transition from fear and stress to peace and security.