The LORD God said:

Ezekiel, son of man, tell the king of Tyre that I am saying:

You are so arrogant that you think you’re a god and that the city of Tyre is your throne. You may claim to be a god, though you’re nothing but a mere human. You think you’re wiser than Daniel and know everything.

Your wisdom has certainly made you rich, because you have storehouses filled with gold and silver. You’re a clever businessman and are extremely wealthy, but your wealth has led to arrogance!

You compared yourself to a god, so now I, the LORD God, will make you the victim of cruel enemies. They will destroy all the possessions you’ve worked so hard to get. Your enemies will brutally kill you, and the sea will be your only grave.

When you face your enemies, will you still claim to be a god? They will attack, and you will suffer like any other human. Foreigners will kill you, and you will die the death of those who don’t worship me. I, the LORD, have spoken. (Ezekiel 28:1-10)

God sometimes gets sarcastic. The king of Tyre, like so many monarchs of the ancient world, believed that he was a god. Reality would have an unpleasant way of clarifying things for him. Mortality has a habit of reminding people that they really aren’t divine beings, no matter how prideful, rich, and powerful they might be. And certainly the city of Tyre was wealthy, powerful and prosperous thanks to its widespread Mediterranean trade.

The king of Tyre betrayed the trust of his people, amassing wealth and power while doing nothing for the poor and disadvantaged. The sacrifice of children as burnt offerings was common in Tyre. Worse, the upper classes did not sacrifice their own children. Instead, they purchased the children of the poor.

During the time of Alexander the Great, the city of Tyre was flattened. But many of the inhabitants fled and established a new city on the northern coast of Africa: Carthage. Some years later the Romans attacked. As they lay under the Roman siege, the upper classes decided that their sacrifices of poor children were not enough and so they started sacrificing their own. But the Romans destroyed them anyway.

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