In both Ezekiel 28 and Genesis 2-3 we
read of a man who was in the Garden of Eden, but who was subsequently cast out by
God because of disobedience. In Gen. 3.24, the cherubim guard the way to the
tree of life after man’s expulsion, while in Ezek. 28.16 it is a cherub who
casts the man out. There is also an association of the man with wisdom in both
versions: in Ezekiel the man is already wise in the garden from the beginning
until he is cast out because of pride, whereas in Genesis 3 the man acquires
wisdom as a result of eating the forbidden fruit, immediately prior to his expulsion
from the garden.
Among the points listed above is that
of a cherub casting out the man from Eden in Ezek. 28.16. This is the view that
we find in the Septuagint and Peshitta, whereas the Masoretic text rather equates
the man with the cherub. Similarly, the Septuagint and Peshitta of Ezek. 28.14
imply that the man is ‘with (Hebrew ‘et) the cherub’, whereas the
Masoretic text addresses the man, ‘you (Hebrew ‘att) are a . . . cherub’.
The following reasons may be given for supporting the Septuagint and Peshitta
understanding. First, the parallels between Genesis 2-3 and Ezekiel 28 are in general
such that it is most likely that they are alternative versions of the same
myth, in which case the cherub would not be identical with the man but set over
against him. Secondly, it is unparalleled in the whole of the Old Testament and
Jewish literature for there to be a wicked cherub or a cherub who is cast out
of Eden. On the other hand, J. Barr has argued that it is easier to understand
how the Masoretic text’s ‘att, ‘you’, was corrupted to ‘et, ‘with’,
rather than the other way round. However, this view is open to question. In
both the previous and succeeding verses of Ezekiel 28 the king is addressed in
the second person, and it is, moreover, rare to start a sentence with ‘et,
‘with’, so it is quite easy to imagine how a scribe might have misunderstood ‘et
as ‘att, ‘you’.
The idea of the man in Eden’s pre-eminent
wisdom, which the above passage associates with the king of Tyre to whom the
oracle is addressed, is further paralleled in Ezek. 28.3, which declares of the
king of Tyre, ‘You are wiser than Daniel, no secret is hidden from you’. This
same Daniel is further mentioned in Ezek. 14.14, 20, where he is cited as a person
of exemplary righteousness alongside Noah and Job, two figures of hoary antiquity,
suggesting that Daniel was a comparable person. This, together with the fact
that Ezekiel expects the king of Tyre (a Phoenician and therefore a kind of
Canaanite) to have heard of him, lends credence to the idea that he is to be
identified with the Daniel (or Danel) known from the Ugaritic Aqhat epic, where
he is referred to as a righteous judge, dispensing justice to widows and orphans
at the city gate (KTU3 1.17.V.4-8; 1.19.I.19-25). Wisdom was,
of course, essential for the administration of justice (cf. 1 Kgs 3.9, 12, 28;
Prov. 8.15-16). Is it a coincidence that a figure called Daniel exercises judicial
wisdom in the apocryphal book of Susannah, where he exposes the lies and
attempted adultery of the two elders towards her? From this comes the phrase, ‘a
Daniel comes to judgment’ found in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice,
4.1.222.
It would appear that a reflection of
the same variant tradition about the first man as being superlatively wise that
we find in Ezekiel 28 is also present in Job 15.7-9. In the second cycle of
speeches, Eliphaz there says to Job:
Are you the firstborn of the human
race?
Were you brought forth before the hills?
Have you listened in the council of God?
And do you limit wisdom to yourself?
What do you know that we do not know?
What do you understand that is not clear to us?
It seems that both Ezek. 28.12-19 and
Job 15.7-9 reflect an earlier and more mythological version of the story of the
first man in Eden, . . . (John Day, “Wisdom
and the Garden of Eden,” in From Creation to Abraham: Further Studies in
Genesis 1-11 [Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies 726; London:
T&T Clark, 2022], 68-71)
