Ezekiel 28:1-10
The first clue is found in verse 2
with the Hebrew term נגיד, nagid (LXX renders the Hebrew αρχοντι, archonti, “ruler”). Nagid is
used most often in the HB to identify the human political leader of a
nation—for example, the king. The term is also used to refer to an official
connected to the temple—possibly the reason for the “precious stones” language
in verse 13. Some scholars have suggested that the nagid is the angel of
the nation, appointed to watch over Tyre. However, there is no evidence that
this word refers to an angel anywhere in the HB. Verse 28:2 reveals the hubris
of the kin in that he declares himself a god (ותאמר אל אני, “and you said, ‘I
am [a] God’”; LXX, και ειπας θεος
ειμι εγω) and that he
sits in the seat of the gods (probably a throne in the temple of Ba’al or
Heracles); however, the author clearly identifies the nagid as a man:
“Yet you are a man and not a god.” It should be noted that this individual is
addressed as a melech (מלך) in verse 12, a term that the author or
editor of Ezekiel only uses to refer to an earthly king and not a divine being.
(See Ezek 17:12; 129:2; 27:33; 34:24; 37;25. These terms are also used together
in Ps 76:13.) In verses 1-10, we have read the oracle to the nagid,
which describes the sin of hubris (“an elevated heart”), and the consequences
of the sin are clearly spelled out in verses 6-8, in which God declares the
coming of his wrath against this leader and his nation. The king is accused of
comparing his heart (possibly his mind) with the heart of a god (אלהים). Thus,
he will be cast down by strangers into the Pit and meet the death of a human.
From this brief discussion, it is plausible to suggest the nagid of
Ezekiel 28:1-10 is a human and not divine in the mind of the author, although
it is clear from 28:2 that the nagid thought he was a divine being with
the use of the Hebrew אל in his self-portrait and the translators use of the Greek
θεος. (Archie T. Wright, Satan and the Problem of
Evil: From the Bible to the Early Church Fathers [Minneapolis: Fortress
Press, 2022], 43-44)
