Hiram, the king of Tyre, was a contemporary of Nebuchadnezzar, and in
many respects resembled him. He, too, esteemed himself a god, and
sought to make men believe in his divinity by the artificial heavens he
fashioned for himself. In the sea he erected four iron pillars, on
which he build up seven heavens, each five hundred ells larger than the
one below. The first was a plate of glass of five hundred square ells,
and the second a plate of iron of a thousand square ells. The third, of
lead, and separated from the second by canals, contained huge round
boulders, which produced the sound of thunder on the iron. The fourth
heaven was of brass, the fifth of copper, the sixth of silver, and the
seventh of gold, all separated from each other by canals. In the
seventh, thirty-five hundred ells in extent, he had diamonds and
pearls, which he manipulated so as to produce the effect of flashes and
sheets of lightening, while the stones below imitated the growling of
the thunder.
As Hiram was thus floating above the earth, in his vain imagination
deeming himself superior to the rest of men, he suddenly perceived the
prophet Ezekiel next to himself. He had been waved thither by a wind.
Frightened and amazed, Hiram asked the prophet how he had risen to his
heights. The answer was: "God brought me here, and He bade me ask thee
why thou art so proud, thou born of woman?" The king of Tyre replied
defiantly: "I am not one born of woman; I live forever, and as God
resides on the sea, so my abode is on the sea, and as He inhabits seven
heavens, so do I. See how many kings I have survived! Twenty-one of the
House of David, and as many of the Kingdom of the Ten Tribes, and no
less than fifty prophets and ten high priests have I buried." Thereupon
God said: "I will destroy My house, that henceforth Hiram may have no
reason for self-glorification, because all his pride comes only from
the circumstance that he furnished the cedar-trees for the building of
the Temple." The end of this proud king was that he was conquered by
Nebuchadnezzar, deprived of this throne, and made to suffer a cruel
death. Though the Babylonian king was the step-son of Hiram, he had no
mercy with him. Daily he cut off a bit of the flesh of his body, and
forced the Tyrian king to eat it, until the finally perished. Hiram's
palace was swallowed by the earth, and in the bowels of the earth it
will remain until it shall emerge in the future world as the habitation
of the pious. (105)