- In Christian tradition
and interpretation over the last 2,000 years, there have been Christians
right from the church fathers of the early period, right on up, who believe that Isaiah 14
is giving us a description of the fall of Satan, and that Ezekiel 28 is talking
about the fall of Satan. I would argue that Isaiah 14
is not giving us a history or story of the fall of Satan. I think I can argue that
pretty persuasively. As we look at Ezekiel 28, it's possible that it's
talking about an angelic being, I think it's actually talking
about an Adamic figure. It's comparing the King of
Tyre to an Adamic figure. In any case, either way,
it's not giving us a history or a narrative or the
story of the fall of Satan and when we discuss passages
like Isaiah 13 and 14, on the one hand, and
Ezekiel 28 on the other, we have to acknowledge
they're difficult text to interpret and we have to show, I think, kindness and respect to others who have different views from us. I don't think the answers
that we give to this question alter the Christian faith
in one way or the other. First of all, we look at Isaiah 13, Isaiah predicts the fall of Babylon. This is a country that the civilization is based on worshiping false gods and therefore that civilization will fall. In Isaiah 14, he has a kind of parody concerning the king of Babylon. This is clear where he says,
most translations translate it this way, "You shall lift up" or "You shall raise this taunt song "against the king of Babylon." The Hebrew word that's used there is the word "mashal" which literally means a comparison or a parable. We could even call it a parody
because what Isaiah is doing in this text is he's making
a comparison to two things. First of all, it's a parody on 2 Samuel 1. In 2 Samuel 1, we have David's lament over the death of Saul. If you look at the literary
structure of 2 Samuel 1 and Isaiah 14, Isaiah has
turned everything on its head. He's turned everything upside down. This is what happens
when you have a parody. Let's say everyone knows what
a parody is, for example, "Robin Hood: Men in Tights" is a parody on the Robin Hood story. You take a story and you
turn everything upside down and you make fun of it. It's a lament for the king of
Babylon as he falls from power and he dies and he comes
down into the underworld and his body is eaten by
worms and he has no... All of his progeny are put to death. That's very clearly the context. Secondly, there's a comparison being made between the king of Babylon
and a Canaanite myth. Archeologists have discovered from Ugarit, many passages and texts that deal with the Canaanite religion. In these stories, Baal is
said to die and to rise again. The dying and rising
of Baal are associated with the change of the seasons. In the summer... In the springtime, when things
are growing, he's rising and in the winter, when the
crops are finished, he's dying. There's a story about how
Baal has died and his throne is empty and the chief god, the creator god, El, and his wife are discussing
what should be done. The wife of the creator god suggests that she put one of her sons on the throne in the place of Baal. This son of hers is called Athtar and so Athtar tries to go up to heaven and go up to the mountain where the gods have their great assembly,
their great council, and he tries to sit on the throne of Baal and he's too small so he's
cast down to the earth, he's cast down to the underworld. The king of Babylon is being compared to this young, upstart god
who tried to take the place of the chief god on his
throne and was way too small and cast down to the earth. In the text of Isaiah
14, the king of Babylon is called "Oh shining one." He's also called "the son of the dawn." These are titles that are
used for this Canaanite god in this story that I'm talking about. He's called "shining one" and he's called "the son of the dawn." The Hebrew word "heylel"
literally means "Oh shining one" and it's a reference to
the morning star, to Venus. When this word was translated into Greek, in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, they translated it by the word "heosphoros"
which means "dawn-bearer" and is a way of referring
to the morning star in Hellenistic literature. Then later on when Jerome
translated the Bible from Hebrew into Latin, he
used the word "Lucifer." So Lucifer is simply a Latin
word that means "light bearer" and is a reference to the morning star. So Lucifer is not a personal
name, it's a descriptive title, it comes from the Septuagint which in turn comes from the Hebrew text. Isaiah is mocking the king of Babylon by calling him the name that is used for this young, upstart
god and he's saying, "You think you were the
greatest in the world "and you were at the height of everything, "You're absolutely not a god "and you're going to be cast
down to the underworld." We can see that Isaiah is giving a lament over the death and the downfall of the king of Babylon, that's what it clearly says in the text. He's turning this inside out
and upside down as a parody based on the lament for the death of Saul and then he's comparing
the king of Babylon to this Canaanite myth. In conclusion, this doesn't
really give us any information about the fall of Satan. Undoubtedly we could
say that the arrogance of the king of Babylon
is inspired by the devil. The pride of the king of
Babylon is inspired by Satan, but we don't have a history
here of the fall of Satan. Now in the history of
Christian interpretation, right from the earliest church fathers, there have been people who have believed that this was a history
of the fall of Satan and I think that this
interpretation is incorrect. The church fathers were basically cut off from the ancient Near Eastern background and they were also cut off... They also were not sensitive to how Hebrew literature communicates. Their background and their
heritage was from Greece and Rome and so I don't think they came up with the correct interpretation. Another difficult text is Ezekiel 28. As we try to interpret
this, we have to stop and ask ourselves the
question, what is the genre? What kind of literature are we reading? So let's just stop for a moment
and think about a newspaper. Many young people don't even
remember what a newspaper is, but if you think about a newspaper, it has many different kinds of literature. So you have the front page
news then you have sections on business, on leisure, you have comics, you have obituaries, you
have stocks and bonds, so there's many different
kinds of literature in a newspaper. If we were to compare, for
example, the front page news with the comics, could
we say that there's truth on the front page and
no truth in the comics? Well that would probably be a mistake. They're actually completely
different kinds of literature. There might be more truth
in the comics than there is on the front page. They're talking about all the same things that are being discussed
on the front page, it's just a completely
different way of communicating. So when we think of... When we look at the book of Ezekiel, I would say that Ezekiel
is apocalyptic literature which means that he uses
very colorful metaphors and symbols to communicate. Let's put chapter 28 into the
context of the whole book. First of all, we have three major visions. Chapters 1 to 3, he sees a God on a throne and there's all these
wheels, wheels within wheels, and the whole thing is in motion. He sees something similar
in chapters 8 through 11. Both of these are called visions of God, "I saw in visions of God." Chapters 40 to 48 is also introduced in exactly the same way, "I
saw in the visions of God." In these passages, he's communicating by means of symbolic visions. Now I'm aware of the fact
that many people think that chapters 40 to 48 should
be interpreted literally, but it seems that if
we take Ezekiel 1 to 3 as a symbolic vision, why
does he see God's throne on wheels? God can no longer live in
the midst of His people. The five star hotel has
become a zero star hotel. They have broken the covenant, they have violated the
covenant relationship. The land is full of idolatry
and full of social injustice and so God is getting ready to move out and that's what's pictured by
the throne being on wheels. He sees exactly the same thing
in chapters 8 through 11. The throne actually
begins to move and depart from the temple so God
is leaving the temple and this would be an awful
shock to the Jewish mind. Chapters 40 to 48 are exactly the same, we should interpret this
as a symbolic vision. He describes a future temple,
but what's interesting, I've looked at every occurrence of the words "length,"
"height," and "width" in the Old Testament and
when they're describing building the tabernacle
in Exodus 25 to 40, there's length, height, and width. When they're describing
building the temple in 1 Kings 6 through 8, there's
length, height, and width. In Ezekiel 40 to 48,
there's length and width, but no height. It's not a blueprint for
a real building, it's a... Ezekiel is trying to give a
vision of idealized worship. He's trying to give them a
vision of what the pure worship of God looks like in the future. There are many other things
that are unrealistic. For example, out of the
center of the temple, there's a river and this
river grows and expands unlike any river in the known world. It's not a real river, it's a picture, it's a symbolic vision
saying that God's Spirit is going to transform the
new covenant community. When we look at the rest
of the book of Ezekiel, Ezekiel communicates by dramatic actions. In chapter 4, he has the drama of the brick and the frying pan. The brick... He draws the siege of Jerusalem on a brick and he has a frying pan
symbolizing that their prayers for help are not going to get through, God is not going to listen
to their prayers anymore and He's going to hand
them over to judgment. Chapter 4, he lies on
one side for 390 days and he lies on the other side for 40 days. This is a symbolic action. If we add 390 and 40, we get 430 which is the number of years that they were in bondage in Egypt and he's saying before
God comes to rescue you, there's going to be another
long, difficult period. In chapter 4, he has the drama of the diet during the siege of Jerusalem. In chapter 5, he cuts off his hair and throws it out the window. These are symbolic acts. In chapter 12, he gets his suitcase and shows that he's
ready to go into exile. In chapter 12, he has the
drama of anxious eating, showing that he's ready to go into exile. Chapter 15, the allegory
of the useless vine. Chapter 16, the allegory
of the young woman and her two sisters. Chapter 17, the allegory
of two eagles and a vine. Chapter 23, the allegory
of two adulterous sisters. Chapter 24, the parable
of the cooking pot. Chapter 24, even the
death of Ezekiel's wife is a symbolic act. Then chapter 31, the allegory of Assyria as the cedar of Lebanon. The book is full of
allegories, of parables, of symbolic visions. It's very unlikely that
as we look at chapter 28 that this is going to
be anything different. He says some very strange
things about the king of Tyre. He says, and these are difficult texts to translate and interpret, he calls him the one's
whose "sealing perfection" as if he's some kind of signet ring. In the ancient Near East,
a king would have a ring and there would be a special stone there and his name would be
carved there in mirror image and, he could put that,
he could press that into a blob of clay and that
would be signing something. He's called a "cherub that
covers" or overshadows or guards. Some translations have "anointed cherub," some translations say,
"You're the model cherub." The word that's translated
"anointed" or "model" only occurs once in the
entire Old Testament and nobody really knows what it means so we have to be humble here, but he's called a cherub. It says that he's covered
with stones of fire. Now in the Old Testament,
stones of fire is way of talking about gemstones, jewels. What is Ezekiel doing when
he's communicating in this way? Well, there are two interpretations. One is that he's referring
to Satan or the enemy of God as a kind of guardian
cherub that was there in the Garden of Eden and
he was created by God. He had a responsibility
for protecting the garden until injustice was found
in him and he became filled with violence and he was
arrogant about his beauty and his splendor. That's one interpretation. Another interpretation,
and I think that's probably more likely, although I'm
not dogmatic about this, is that he's picturing Adam. This colorful metaphor and imagery is describing the king of Tyre as a kind of primal king-priest, just like Adam was the first
king-priest in the world. To call him the one "sealing perfection" would be saying he was
given authority by God to protect the Garden, to protect
the covenant relationship. To say that he was covered
with these gemstones, the only other place in the Old Testament where we have these gemstones is on the breast of the high priest. Ezekiel mentions nine gemstones
and there are 12 mentioned in Exodus, so nine of the
12 gemstones are mentioned. The first two are the
same as the first two on the high priest breastplate. The second set of three are identical to the fourth set of three on
the high priest breastplate. And the third set of three correspond to numbers five, four, and three in the high priest's breastplate. It doesn't match up perfectly, but it could be a kind of a parody on portraying the king of Tyre
as an original king-priest. The word "cherub" and
"covering" only occur together elsewhere in the Old
Testament of the cherubim covering the Ark so it
could be a way of saying that this person had the job
of protecting the covenant because that's what was in this box, that's what was in the
Ark of the Covenant, the covenant between God and Israel. This could be very colorful language for depicting the king
of Tyre as the primal man who was given authority by
God to protect the Garden, who was like a king-priest, who had the job of protecting the covenant until injustice was found
in him and he rebelled. Now, as I've said, the other view is that this is actually a
reference to the enemy of God which we call the devil or Satan. A recent proponent of this
view is Michael Heiser. I've read his book "The Unseen Realm." I've read the detailed notes
that you can get online. I've checked out all of his sources. It seems to me that, in this case, he's overemphasizing the background from the ancient Near East and under-emphasizing the background from the Old Testament itself. What I've done is I've
tried to explain the imagery in Ezekiel 28 using the background of the Old Testament itself. He does different things with the text. Instead of reading, "You are
the one sealing perfection," he says, "This is a word that
doesn't occur anywhere else "in the Old Testament,
but it occurs in Aramaic "and it means a snake." This is a difficult proposal
because he's proposing a word that doesn't occur anywhere else in Hebrew with the meaning of snake. He thinks... He has four reasons for thinking that this is not an Adamic figure. He thinks that Ezekiel 28 has
to be parallel to Isaiah 14. He thinks that Adam wouldn't
have been called a cherub. He thinks that it's not
appropriate for Adam to be filled with violence
and he doesn't think that Adam would've been
arrogant about his beauty. I don't find those four
reasons persuasive. I don't see any a priori
reason why we have to interpret Ezekiel 28 the
same way we read Isaiah 14. In Ezekiel 28, he describes this person as a covering cherub. Well, we know from the New
Testament that the devil, or Satan, is an angel. Paul calls him an angel of light. In Matthew 24, the final
judgment is reserved for the devil and his angels
so it seems to be clear that he is a supernatural
being, an angelic being, but there's no evidence
anywhere else in the Bible that he's a cherub. A cherub is one kind of angelic being, but there are many kinds of angelic beings and we shouldn't jump to the assumption that just because the
devil is an angelic being that he's actually a cherub. Cherubim are some kind of angelic being that have a guardian function. In Ezekiel 1 to 3, the
cherubim are guarding the throne of God. Cherubim were put... After Adam and Eve sinned
and rebelled against God, their cherubim were posted at the doorway to the Garden of Eden to
guard and protect the way of the tree of life. So it could simply just be
a metaphor for Adam's role as protecting God's world, protecting the covenant relationship. There's no strong evidence
one way or the other that we should or shouldn't
interpret this as a reference to the devil or Satan. Then we look at the
argument that he was filled with violence. Well, violence is a term used,
for example, in Genesis 6 for the fact that when
people had turned away from worshiping God, they
were treating each other with social injustice. Once you rebel against
God, the natural result is to treat others with social injustice. The two parts of the
covenant are worshiping God and not idols and treating
each other in truly human ways, treating each other with
justice and righteousness. So that is a good expression
of Adam's sin, I think, and in Ezekiel 28 it says,
"He was proud of his beauty." Well, in the prophetic books like Isaiah, beauty is a picture of social justice. It says he was proud
of his skill or wisdom which means he was
relying on his technology. The king of Tyre had set up
this amazing shipping industry all over the Mediterranean
and was in charge of the commerce and trade
for the whole world. He was like the head of the
New York Stock Exchange. He had his optic fibers
down to 11 milliseconds and his technology was impeccable. The same thing could be said of Adam, Adam relied on his own
skill, his own wisdom, his own technology. He didn't rely on God and he decided that he was the one who would
determine what was right and what was wrong for himself. That's what the phrase "the
knowledge of good and evil" means, it means "I am
going to decide for myself "what is right and what is wrong. "I am going to be morally autonomous." And that's what it
means to think like God. That's exactly what
it's saying Ezekiel 28. Where does this leave us? One interpretation which
I lean to rather strongly is that the king of Tyre
is being compared to Adam in his rebellion against God, and his arrogance, his pride. He thought of himself as being a god and as a result of that
arrogance and pride, he will be cast down to the earth and he will die like a man. If the other interpretation is correct, that it's actually talking
about the enemy of God that we call the devil, and
Satan elsewhere in the Bible, then it simply tells us that
this was a being created by God and continued until evil or
injustice was found in him. So it doesn't really give
us a narrative or a story about how Satan fell, he just
suddenly appears in Genesis 3. We know God created everything so he must be an angelic
being created by God. How he turned against God, how
he became the enemy of God, how he became devoted
to evil is not something that is clearly described
anywhere in the Bible, although there are many people that would like to fill in the gaps. (music) - [Narrator] Thanks for
watching "Honest Answers." Don't forget to subscribe. (music)
