the king of Tyre, whose end is described in the words `Thou shalt be a terror,

and never shalt thou be any more' (19).  But this time the doom is accompanied

by statements that lift this character out of the ordinary.  Instead of being a

man and dying the death of the uncircumcised at the hand of strangers, we have

this strange statement:

`... will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour

thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all

them that behold thee' (18).

When Ezekiel described the appearance of the One Who occupied the throne

supported by the Cherubim, he said:

`From the appearance of His loins even upward, and from the appearance of

His loins even downward, I saw as it were the appearance of fire' (Ezek.

and if we look at Ezekiel 28:14,16 we shall read:

`Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth ... I will destroy thee, O

covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire'.

Such appearances, titles and experiences are superhuman; words like these apply

strictly to an order that is above the human, the angelic.

The prince of Tyre seems to be a type, a reflection, a shadow of the king

of Tyre, the former being human, the latter superhuman.  The prince of Tyre

lifted up his heart in blasphemous boasting, and in so doing revealed the nature

of the greater supernatural blasphemer.  He had said `I am God' (2) and had a

conceited estimate both of his wisdom and beauty (3,7).

The opening description of this wonderful being, the king of Tyre, is

truly wonderful:

`Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty' (28:12).

The Companion Bible renders this `Thou art the finished pattern', and the

Hebrew word for sum means a `measure' or a `standard'.  In Ezekiel 43:10 the

word is translated `pattern'.

`Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God' (Ezek. 28:13).

When speaking of the fall of another boaster, namely Pharaoh, Ezekiel reverts to

this same `Eden' saying:

`All the trees of Eden, that were in the garden of God, envied him'

Then, because of his pride, he is thus addressed:

`To whom art thou thus like in glory and in greatness among the trees of

Eden? yet shalt thou be brought down with the trees of Eden unto the

nether parts of the earth' (18).

The Garden of Eden of Genesis 2 and 3 belongs to this present creation,

and into this garden the serpent entered.  It may be that before the world was

overthrown there was in that earlier creation a garden of God in Eden, for the