The Devil is Wise
The Devil is Wise
Ezekiel 28:1-10
Thumbnail: is wisdom enough?
Introduction
Let me tell you why you should listen to this episode today: because according to Ezekiel 26:1, this prophecy was given on the first day of the eleventh month of the twelfth year of Nebuchadnezzar, and according to my commentaries, this comes out to January 8 of 585 BC.
And I am releasing this episode on Monday, January 8 of 2024 AD. So it’s to the same calendar day, many thousands of years later. I’m releasing this study today on the 2,608th birthday of this specific prophecy. So today is a really really good day to listen to this podcast.
And if you missed it on its premiere day, then you’re late, but hang around anyway because this begins our study of one of the most important chapters of the Bible. Ezekiel 28 is not only one of the strangest chapters in the Bible, it’s also one of the most important. Ezekiel 28 is one of the two chapters that gives the most backstory on the devil.
Now today is not the day that we talk about the devil; today we talk about the person who is used to introduce the devil. It’s the King of Tyre. A guy you are probably not too familiar with, since he lived 2608 years ago. In Ezekiel 28, God uses the King of Tyre to introduce Satan.
And as we read about the King of Tyre, we start to see the parallels between him and Satan. It says he’s very prideful, that he wants to replace the true God.
But then it also says that he’s very WISE. That this evil king is full of wisdom and understanding. But, he’s still a bad guy. Like, a really really bad guy. So why is it also complimenting his wisdom?
I find all that to be weird, and I’d like to find out why it’s in the Bible. So you’ll learn all about it today on the Cross References Podcast AND the Weird Stuff in the Bible podcast.
[theme music]
(Continued)
Welcome to a crossover episode between two different podcasts: Weird Stuff in the Bible AND Cross References. On my Cross References podcast, we learn how each small part of the Bible is telling one big story, and we’re also going through the book of Ezekiel. This is a very weird chapter of Ezekiel, so as I’m working my way through it, I decided I might do one or two joint episodes of my other podcast, Weird Stuff in the Bible, where we delve into passages that are bizarre, perplexing or just plain weird. So anytime I do a crossover, I’ll release the same episodes on both podcasts the same week.
And I have to balance a couple of conflicting priorities when I do this. Cross References is a verse-by-verse, comprehensive study, while Weird Stuff in the Bible is fast-paced and punchy. Since I’m only covering about 10 verses, I’m gonna try to do both today. And let’s get into it. Turn to Ezekiel 28, and let’s get weird.
Verses 1-10, the Prince of Tyre
And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the context. This is a section of Ezekiel where he is giving prophecies to the Gentile nations around Israel. And nobody is doing a great job; these are all prophecies of judgment. And for the past couple of chapters, it’s been focusing on Tyre, a wealthy, harbor nation with its capital on an island in the Mediterranean Sea. It thought it was so economically powerful and physically formidable that it was indestructible. It thought that since so many other nations depended on it that it would never have to worry about anyone coming against it. God is going to show Tyre that it was wrong and address its leadership in chapter 28.
So verses 1 through 10
The word of the Lord came to me: 2 “Son of man, say to the prince of Tyre,
I’m gonna go ahead and break in right here, and I’m going to do that often, because this is the short, punchy version of this Bible study. The prince of Tyre is not the word “prince” in the way that you normally think when you hear the word prince, meaning the next-in-command or the son of a King. The prince here IS the king; prince just means “the first,” such as the one in charge. So this is addressed to the literal King of Tyre, a human king. There is going to be some stuff about Satan in this chapter, but that comes later, and we’ll get to it on another lesson. Let’s continue
Thus says the Lord God:
“Because your heart is proud,
and you have said, ‘I am a god,
I sit in the seat of the gods,
in the heart of the seas,’
yet you are but a man, and no god,
though you make your heart like the heart of a god—
3 you are indeed wiser than Daniel;
no secret is hidden from you;
4 by your wisdom and your understanding
you have made wealth for yourself,
and have gathered gold and silver
into your treasuries;
5 by your great wisdom in your trade
you have increased your wealth,
and your heart has become proud in your wealth—
As I was saying before, they thought they were so powerful that they were indestructible. This was pride. The king felt like a god among men. He probably had a massive throne that it referred to here as the seat of the gods.
This king’s name, not mentioned in this chapter but we know from historical records, is Ethbaal the Third. A very interesting name, based on what comes up in this chapter. Baal is Satan, and the name Ethbaal means literally “Baal is with him.” So the king is essentially named “Satan is with me.” And I am certain that this part of the chapter is talking about the human ruler of Tyre, but we see a lot of parallels to Satan in this description, and that’s why God is using this guy to actually teach us something about Satan. We’ll learn one of those things today.
One more thing I’d like to mention before I go on is that Daniel was brought up here in verse 3, where it said that Ethbaal was wiser than Daniel. Now, that’s quite a claim. If you read the book of Daniel, you’ll see that Daniel was incredibly wise from a young age. The source of Daniel’s wisdom was his confidence and faith in God, and that guides Daniel through some treacherous waters and difficult, fearful situations. And yet Daniel escapes again and again by the skin of his teeth, and it was his wisdom in decision-making that did it.
And yet here you have this evil, wicked King of Tyre, a man who parallels Satan in the flesh, and God declares HIM to be wiser than even Daniel. What a strange thing to say. And He’ll say it again:
6 therefore thus says the Lord God:
Because you make your heart
like the heart of a god,
7 therefore, behold, I will bring foreigners upon you,
the most ruthless of the nations;
and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of your wisdom (there’s that word again)
and defile your splendor.
8 They shall thrust you down into the pit,
and you shall die the death of the slain
in the heart of the seas.
9 Will you still say, ‘I am a god,’
in the presence of those who kill you,
though you are but a man, and no god,
in the hands of those who slay you?
10 You shall die the death of the uncircumcised
by the hand of foreigners;
for I have spoken, declares the Lord God.”
So this man thought himself to be godlike because of his great power, but God is saying that you’re going to be brought down just like anyone else. You will die, you’ll end up in the underworld, you’ll be brought down to the pit of hell, and you’ll lie among the commoners, the uncircumcised, the average joes, the people you thought you were so far above.
Death is the great equalizer. No matter who you are, how much money you have, your position in this world, a hundred years from now we’re all dead, and none of it matters, only your eternal soul. As Jesus said, what does it profit a man to gain the world and lose his soul? And we see here that for the King of Tyre, he’ll learn that lesson the hard way. It doesn’t matter who you are, if you’re not a follower of God, you’ll lose it all in the end. Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for Christ will save it.
It was often said in America that whoever is the President is not only the leader of the United States, but the leader of the world, since the leader of the most powerful nation in the world is somewhat the most powerful man in the world. I don’t know if they still say that, but they used to. And it may very well have been true.
And the same was probably said back in these days. Tyre was not the largest in size or population, but it was perhaps the economic hub of the world, as we discussed in recent lessons on the Cross References podcast. Whoever controlled Tyre controlled the world, perhaps it was said, and perhaps it was true. But that person would still die like any other man.
But let’s get back to the weird thing, and the main focus of today’s lesson: he’s not only called prideful and evil, someone who calls himself a god, but also “wise.” Now, what is that all about? We don’t often go about calling our enemies complimentary names like wise, but God says it four times in this section: verses 3, 4, 5 and 7. So why this emphasis on the wisdom of this evil ruler? How can someone be considered wise when they don’t even submit to God?
What is wisdom?
So first let’s define wisdom. Wisdom is an understanding of how the world works. God created this universe to operate according to certain principles. God created human beings. God created society. God created the laws of physics. God created logic. And God integrated all these things so if you understand how humans and society and logic work, you can have a deep, holistic understanding of how the world works. That’s what wisdom is: understanding how the world works.
Proverbs 3 says God made wisdom and THEN God made the world. What does that mean? God decided beforehand how things should operate, and then God made the world in accordance with those principles.
Those principles are very hard to figure out. Oftentimes older people have more wisdom than younger people; that’s because they have life experience. If they’ve been on this world a certain amount of time and paying attention, they garner wisdom because they gain a deeper understanding of how the world works. Young people often think older people are out-of-touch because they don’t always get on board with the latest technology and fads, but in reality, fads come and go, but the principles that undergird reality stay the same. And that’s where wisdom is found.
Understanding how to work the latest cell phone is not what makes you wise. Understanding the principles of how the world works; that’s wisdom.
Evil, Wise People
Now let me tell you what wisdom is NOT. Wisdom is not virtue. Pause this podcast and process that for a minute if it’s a hard concept for you to grasp. Someone can be very wise in the ways of the world and not necessarily a virtuous person.
In other words, there are a lot of wicked people out there who have a deeper understanding of how the world works than you do. Being wiser will not necessarily make you good. It just makes you a little more equipped for success in life. But wisdom alone will not make you a better person in a moral sense. Or a more godly person.
And I can demonstrate with a few evil people who are described as “wise” in the Bible.
Solomon was often called the wisest person in the Bible. And perhaps he was. But he was also very loose with his morals.
I Kings 11
Now King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women, 2 from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the people of Israel, “You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods.” Solomon clung to these in love.
Solomon, despite all his wisdom, had major problems when it came to the opposite sex. He knew what was right, but he didn’t have the self-control to DO what was right.
These women were all from nations that didn’t follow after God, so when Solomon married them, they had a huge influence on him and caused him to turn away from God!
And he did it in the name of “love.” I’m sure he did love them. They Bible even says he truly loved them. But that does not mean that it’s OK to marry a bunch of wives or to marry wives from countries you weren’t supposed to. Love is not an excuse to commit sin- a lesson that our American society needs to learn more than ever.
I Kings 11:7-9
7 Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for Molech the abomination of the Ammonites, on the mountain east of Jerusalem. 8 And so he did for all his foreign wives, who made offerings and sacrificed to their gods.
9 And the Lord was angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel…
We know Solomon was wise. But wisdom is not enough. Wisdom is not virtue. You need to have virtue paired with wisdom. That’s the difference in merely knowing the right thing and doing the right thing.
Someone else who’s called wise in the Bible is the devil. You heard me right, the devil. This is why I’m putting this on Weird Stuff in the Bible as well- because it’s weird to me that the devil is referred to as “wise.” It sounds a bit complimentary to call the devil a wise being. Isn’t that God’s enemy? His arch rival? Someone dumb enough to pick a fight with God? How wise can he be?
Very wise, God tells us.
Ezekiel 28:12
(The same chapter we studied the first 10 verses of today. Remember how we studied that evil king of Tyre and yet heard how wise he was? In the next section, it starts talking about the devil and talks about him in the same glowing terms)
“You were the signet of perfection,
full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.
Wow, so even the devil was really wise. Full of wisdom. And yet, he got himself kicked out of heaven.
Verse 17
Your heart was proud because of your beauty;
you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor.
I cast you to the ground;
I exposed you before kings,
to feast their eyes on you.
So wisdom is not enough. You can be full of wisdom and end up getting yourself kicked out of heaven. You need more than just wisdom to make it to heaven: you need godliness. The righteousness of Christ.
So wisdom is about knowing how to be successful. Even evil people can be successful. Evil people can get elected president. They can become millionaires and billionaires. They can influence thousands or millions of people. And they might be very wise, but that doesn’t make them virtuous.
In fact, the guy who will become the most powerful man in the world in the end times, the most evil person in all of human history before or after, the guy who will make Hitler into an afterthought- I’m talking about the Antichrist himself- is described as having a deeper wisdom than even the most wise people.
In a prophecy in Daniel 8:23-24
23 And at the latter end of their kingdom, when the transgressors have reached their limit, a king of bold face, one who understands riddles, shall arise. 24 His power shall be great—but not by his own power; and he shall cause fearful destruction and shall succeed in what he does, and destroy mighty men and the people who are the saints.
He can understand “dark riddles” or is a “master of intrigue,” these are ways of saying that he understands the most complicated aspects of wisdom and human thought. The antichrist will be a very wise person. And the antichrist will be successful in everything he undertakes.
In fact, he’ll be capable of what even the devil is not capable of today: he’ll be successful against “the saints.” In modern times- we might say, in this dispensation, the church age- Jesus said the gates of hell will not prevail against the church. But the church age will end, and those who get saved during the tribulation do not have that promise of protection. They’ll be saved, but the antichrist will prevail against them.
So he’s still incredibly evil. But he’s also incredibly wise. Solomon, the devil, and the antichrist are all wiser than you are. And yet they all still had major moral problems.
So don’t think that wisdom is enough. You can’t just chase wisdom. You should chase wisdom, but that’s not enough. You must also and first chase virtue. Become a good person. Follow God’s commandments. Build your moral character. And add to that wisdom.
Closing Thoughts- Wisdom is not Enough
IDK how you came across to this podcast. If you were already subscribed, or if you just stumbled across it, but I plead with you, make sure you are subscribed because on both of these podcasts- Weird Stuff in the Bible AND the Cross References podcast- I’m going to be equipping you to combat the devil this month. And it starts today, in this lesson.
Have you ever considered the concept before that the devil is smarter than you, more powerful than you, wiser than you? Like I said, perhaps you had the thought, “how smart can he be, if he picked a fight with God, if he thought he could take God’s throne?” But that’s perhaps an overly simplistic view of the whole situation we find ourselves in. The devil is exceedingly wise.
He has thousands of years of observing humanity, thousands of years of data that he brings to the table when it comes to tempting humans and causing them to fall. So maybe he is a little smarter than you are.
Think of the wisest person you know, the first person you’d go to for advice. They probably aren’t a hundred years old. Yet the devil has been observing how this world works for thousands of years. He’s wiser than you.
And when it comes to doing battle against the devil, the Bible never says to rely on your own smarts, your own mind, or your own power, to defeat him. If you do that, you’ll fail every time. He’ll chew you up and spit you out. If you want to defeat the devil, you have to rely on the power of the Holy Spirit.
James 4:2
Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
How do you resist the devil? Submit to God. You won’t be able to resist if you don’t first submit.
You operate in the physical sphere. The devil operates in the spiritual sphere. But we have a God who is sovereign over both of those spheres. And if you rely on Him, you become more powerful than the devil, and neither his power nor his wisdom can overcome you. The gates of hell will not prevail.
You think you’re wise enough to overcome the devil on your own? You’ll lose. And if you think that’s weird, let me just say, it’s not the Bible that’s weird. WE are weird, because we didn’t know that the devil was wise. Even wiser than we are. But now we do. Thanks for listening, God bless you for sticking around until the end, and we’ll see you next time.
