The word of the Lord came again unto me, saying: 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 in the set
of God, in the midst of the seas, yet thou art a man, and not God,
though thou set thine heart as the heart of God: Behold thou art
wiser than Daniel; there is no secret that they can hide from thee.
With thy wisdom and with thine understanding thou hast gotten thee
riches, and hast gotten gold and silver into thy treasures. By thy
great wisdom and by thy traffic thou hast increased thy riches, and
thine heart is lifted up because of thy riches. Therefore thus saith
the Lord God; Because thou hast set thine heart as the heart of God;
Behold therefore, I will bring strangers upon thee, the terrible of
the nations, and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of
thy wisdom, and they shall defile thy brightness. They shall bring
thee down to the pit, and thou shalt die the deaths of them that are
slain in the midst of the seas. Wilt thou yet say before him that
slayeth thee, I am God? but thou shalt be a man and no god, in the
hand of him that slayeth thee. Thou shalt die the deaths of the
uncircumcised by the hand of strangers; for I have spoken it, saith
the Lord God (verses 1-10.)
The Prince of Tyrus who ruled in the days of Ezekiel was, according to
the Jewish historian Josephus, Ithobalus, called in the Phoenecian
annals Ithobaal II. The description of this character tells us that he
was the consummation of the pride and wealth of Tyrus; the awful pride
of that city was headed up in him. His heart was so lifted up that he
claimed to be a god and that he occupied the seat of God. He also
boasted of wisdom greater than the wisdom of Daniel, the captive in
Babylon. By his cunning and wisdom, as well as by traffic, he had heaped
up riches, and because of these riches he became still more lifted up.
Like the prosperous and wealthy king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, who
gloried in his achievements by saying, "Is not this great Babylon, that
I have built for the house of the Kingdom by the might of my power, and
for the honor of my majesty" (Dan. iv:30), the Prince of Tyrus boasted
in arrogant pride. Through the prophet, his doom is announced. The Lord
God reckons with him, "because thou hast set thine heart as the heart of
God." He would bring nations against him and his city, and "they shall
bring thee down to the pit, and thou shall die the deaths of them that
are slain in the heart of the seas." Instead of having endless being as
a god he would die a sudden and violent death. He should die the death
of the uncircumcised, typifying vile and wicked men who are far away
from God; dying deaths, which means a physical death and that which
follows the wicked after death, an eternal separation from God, with
conscious punishment.
The language used in describing the Prince of Tyrus is used elsewhere
in the Word of God to describe another one, who is yet to come. We mean
the personal Antichrist, the man of sin. The marks of this coming one,
Satan's great counterfeit and masterpiece, are always pride,
self-exaltation. Daniel describes him in the following words: "And the
King shall do according to his will; and he shall exalt himself, and
magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvelous things
against the God of gods"[18] (Dan. xi:36). In the New Testament the
coming Antichrist is pictured as follows: "Who opposeth and exalteth
himself above all that is called God or that is worshipped; so that he
as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God" (2
Thess. ii:4). Comparing these statements with what is said of the Prince
of Tyrus we see at once the similarity. The political head of the final
form of the times of the Gentiles, the ten Kingdom Empires, the Roman
Empire revived, is described in very much the same way. The man that
made the earth to tremble, that did shake the Kingdoms (Isaiah xiv:16)
said in his heart, "I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne
above the stars of God ... I will be like the Most High" (Is.
xiv:13-14). Here is the same characteristic, a God-defying pride. This
has led many expositors to call both of these persons, the wicked actors
during the end of the age, the Antichrist. But the one is the head of
the Roman Empire, the Prince that shall come; the other is the
Antichrist, the beast out of the earth (Rev. xiii:11). Both work
together under Satan's control and are energized by Satan, therefore
they manifest the same characteristics. It is evident that the ruler of
Tyrus as Prince foreshadows the coming Antichrist, and we have to see
next the significance that the ruler of Tyrus is addressed as King and
the one who stands behind him.
[18] It is well to state here that Daniel mentions Antichrist but once
in his prophecies, in chapter xi:36, etc. The little horn in Dan. vii is
the head of the revived Roman Empire; the little horn in Dan. viii was
Antiochus Epiphanus, the type of the King of the North who will invade
the pleasant land, Palestine, during the time of the great tribulation.