The word of the Lord came again unto me, saying: Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyrus, Thus saith the Lord God; Because thine heart is lifted up, and thou hast said, I am a god, I sit in the set of God, in the midst of the seas, yet thou art a man, and not God, though thou set thine heart as the heart of God: Behold thou art wiser than Daniel; there is no secret that they can hide from thee. With thy wisdom and with thine understanding thou hast gotten thee riches, and hast gotten gold and silver into thy treasures. By thy great wisdom and by thy traffic thou hast increased thy riches, and thine heart is lifted up because of thy riches. Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Because thou hast set thine heart as the heart of God; Behold therefore, I will bring strangers upon thee, the terrible of the nations, and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of thy wisdom, and they shall defile thy brightness. They shall bring thee down to the pit, and thou shalt die the deaths of them that are slain in the midst of the seas. Wilt thou yet say before him that slayeth thee, I am God? but thou shalt be a man and no god, in the hand of him that slayeth thee. Thou shalt die the deaths of the uncircumcised by the hand of strangers; for I have spoken it, saith the Lord God (verses 1-10.) The Prince of Tyrus who ruled in the days of Ezekiel was, according to the Jewish historian Josephus, Ithobalus, called in the Phoenecian annals Ithobaal II. The description of this character tells us that he was the consummation of the pride and wealth of Tyrus; the awful pride of that city was headed up in him. His heart was so lifted up that he claimed to be a god and that he occupied the seat of God. He also boasted of wisdom greater than the wisdom of Daniel, the captive in Babylon. By his cunning and wisdom, as well as by traffic, he had heaped up riches, and because of these riches he became still more lifted up. Like the prosperous and wealthy king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, who gloried in his achievements by saying, "Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of the Kingdom by the might of my power, and for the honor of my majesty" (Dan. iv:30), the Prince of Tyrus boasted in arrogant pride. Through the prophet, his doom is announced. The Lord God reckons with him, "because thou hast set thine heart as the heart of God." He would bring nations against him and his city, and "they shall bring thee down to the pit, and thou shall die the deaths of them that are slain in the heart of the seas." Instead of having endless being as a god he would die a sudden and violent death. He should die the death of the uncircumcised, typifying vile and wicked men who are far away from God; dying deaths, which means a physical death and that which follows the wicked after death, an eternal separation from God, with conscious punishment.