Ezekiel 28:11-19

Scheme
1. Prologue (11-12a)
Elegy, an elaborately formal lyric poem lamenting the death of a friend or public figure, or reflecting
seriously on a solemn subject In a broader sense, an elegy may be a poem of melancholy reflection upon
lifes transience or its sorrows Baldick, The Concise Oxford Dictionary, 77.
Paradise and the underworld serve as metaphors in Ezekiel for designating where Yahwehs favor or
disfavor toward the nation lies. Yahwehs authority over paradise and the underworld demonstrates his power
to bless and curse, to reward and punish those who choose to obey or disobey his will Clark, I will Be King
over you! 193
Ezekiel shows a great fondness for complex and compound metaphors Clark, I will Be King over you! 216.
The oracle as a whole acts as a parody of the lament genre Clark, I will Be King over you! 222.
Qinah: elegy, lamentation, crying, dirge; it is frequently used with verbs qin and ns (sing) Alonso Schkel,
Diccionario Bblico Hebreo-Espaol, 659.
2. The splendor of a glorified figure (12b-15)
The one formal feature of cherubim that is fairly consistent throughout the Hebrew Bible is their wings
for this reason, virtually all attempts to identify the cherubim have been limited to winged creatures, be they
fantastic or natural, Eichler, Cherub: A History of Interpretation, 27
Midrash Hagadol, a medieval compilation of Jewish lore, contains an unprovenanced comment on Exod 25,
12 asserting that the cherub resembles a human in all respect except that it has wings of a bird, Eichler,
Cherub: A History of Interpretation, 28.
The identification of cherubim as winged humans, whether adults or children, found early expressions in
Jewish and Christian visual art. An unprovenanced seal in the British Museum depicts an oblong rectangle
surmounted on either end by inward-facing, winged, humanoid herms of unclear age, and marked with what
is apparently a misspelling of the word tetragrammaton, Eichler, Cherub: A History of Interpretation, 29.
Furthermore, several indications found in the descriptions of the sculpted cherubim over the ark (Exod 25,
18-20 = 37,7-9; 1 Kings 6,23-26) reveal that their authors presupposed upright creatures the uprightness of
the cherub precludes its identification with the winged sphinx, as well with the winged bovine and griffin
Thus, it seems that the candidates for the cherub are those creatures that are winged, common in ancient
Levantine iconography and normally depicted upright, Eichler, Cherub: A History of Interpretation, 38.
In the Bible the cherubim occurs essentially in two functions: as guardians of a sacred tree or as guardians
and carriers of a throne Mettinger, Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible (DDD), 190.
His character is that if a city god (Melqart, King of Tyre); his myths portray him a heros. The identification
of this god with the king of Tyre mentioned in Ezekiels prophecy against Tyre (Ezek 28:11-19) makes good
sense. According to some scholars, the Baal worshipped on the Mount Carmel and mocked by Elijah (1Kgs
18:20-24) should be identify as the Tyrian Melqart Ribichini, Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible
(DDD), 563.

 The cherubim are winged humans Thus the author of the passage in Kings describing the temple ark
cherubim could only have had winged humans in mind. If so, we should regard it as probable that other
biblical authors writing about cherubim did, too1
3. The glorified figure ashamed (16-19)
This leader is appropriately humbled by Yahweh, which suggest that the political and economic fortunes of
the foreign nations are actually controlled by Israels patron deity, not by the patron gods of the nations, and
not by their human kings Clark, I will Be King over you! 205
These oracles argue that Yahweh, who wields the powers of life and death, ultimately controls the destinies
of all the nations, and will justly punish not just the rebels among Israel but also the rebels among the
nations, Clark, I will Be King over you! 215.

References
Alonso Schkel, L. Diccionario Bblico Hebreo-Espaol. Madrid: Trotta, 1999.
Baldick, Chris. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Eichler, Raanan. Cherub: A History of Interpretation. Biblica (2015): 26-38.
Clark, Terry R. I will be King over you! The Rhetoric of Divine Kingship in the Book of Ezekiel. Piscataway:
Georgias Press LLC, 2014.
Van der Toorn, Karel., Becking, Bob., and Van der Horst, Pieter, W. Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the
Bible. Leiden: Brill, 1999.

1 Raanan Eichler, What kind of Creatures are the Cherubim? TheTorah.com, 13 May 2016, http//:
http://thetorah.com/what-kind-of-creatures-are-the-cherubim/