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  • From: "Heard, Christopher" <Christopher.Heard AT pepperdine.edu>
  • To: b-hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Is.45:7 God created evil?
  • Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2005 16:27:29 -0700

Oh boy. I shouldn't do this, but ...

On Aug 5, 2005, at 2:12 PM, Read, James C wrote:
Ezekiel 28:11-19 describes Satan with glorious beginnings and then his
fall into sin and his ultimate demise of eternal destruction.
[/James]

No, it does not. I have recently been working through Ezekiel, verse by verse (in fact, chapter 39 is heartily calling my name right this second, telling me I should be working on that instead of typing messages to b-Hebrew), and it is quite fresh in my memory. There is no mention of any "Satan" in Ezekiel 28; indeed, the word _satan_ appears nowhere in Ezekiel. Ezekiel 28:11-19 is an oracle explicitly directed against the (very human) king of Tyre. He is described in overly glorified, "cherubic" terms to _mock_ him for arrogance and pride. That is quite explicit in the first oracle in the chapter, as well as the preceding chapter which treats the same topic.

I am very well aware of the stream of interpretive tradition that tries to read Ezekiel 28:11-19 as some sort of reference to or description of Satan and "his" "rebellion and fall," but that interpretation simply doesn't work, exegetically. It is also deeply ironic, in that Tyre is accused throughout Ezekiel 26:1-28:19 of overweening pride. How strange, then, that interpreters should in a sense endorse and replicate that pride by making the "king of Tyre" out to be something superhuman and angelic.

The reference to the king of Tyre being in "Eden" does not in the slightest hint at the phrase "king of Tyre" being a cipher for "Satan," because there is no "Satan" in the Garden of Eden either ... at least not as the Garden of Eden is described in Genesis 2-3. The "serpent" of Genesis 2-3 is explicitly stated to be one of the "wild beasts that YHWH God had made." "Wild beasts" is the JPS translation of XYT H&DH, "living things of the field." Just like the elephants and zebras and monkeys and puppy dogs. The text of Genesis 2-3 does not support any interpretive supernaturalization of the serpent.

I repeat my plea for _exegetical justification_ of claims.

Now in a way it is really unfair for me to send this right now, because in a few minutes my IT department will be taking our e-mail system offline to install a new voice mail system (yes, they're intimately linked). So I won't be able to follow this thread or respond to any messages until at least Monday. Sorry.

Chris
--
R. Christopher Heard
Assistant Professor of Religion
Seaver Fellow in Religion
Pepperdine University
Malibu, California 90263-4352
http://faculty.pepperdine.edu/cheard
http://www.iTanakh.org
http://www.semioticsandexegesis.info





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