A Lament Uses Edenic and Cherubic Imagery for Tyre's King

A lament dresses the king in Eden's jewels

A lamentation for the king of Tyrus: thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. He has been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone is his covering—sardius, topaz, diamond, beryl, onyx, jasper, sapphire, emerald, carbuncle, gold—the workmanship of tabrets and pipes prepared in him in the day he was created.

He is the anointed cherub that covereth; the LORD set him so. He was upon the holy mountain of God; he walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. He was perfect in his ways from the day he was created till iniquity was found in him. The poem heightens a royal figure with sanctuary and garden language before it drops him.

The violence of traffic, then fire from the midst

By the multitude of his merchandise they filled the midst of him with violence, and he sinned. The LORD casts him as profane out of the mountain of God, and destroys the covering cherub from the midst of the stones of fire. Heart lifted up because of beauty; wisdom corrupted by brightness.

He is cast to the ground, laid before kings, a spectacle. He has defiled his sanctuaries by the multitude of iniquities, by the iniquity of traffic. A fire from the midst of him devours him; he is brought to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all that behold. All that know him among the people are astonished; he is a terror, and never shall he be any more.

Mythic royal imagery is not a simple biography of Satan, and it is not a license to call political opponents demons. The lament's first address is Tyre's king, whose trade-violence and self-exalting splendor are the iniquity found in him.