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VIII
TYRE: STUDY ON EZEKIEL, CH. XXVIII.
“Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in the in the day that thou was created.
“Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.”
-EZEKIEL xxviii. 13, 14.
1. THE young reader who, under the calamitous blight of modern education, has never been taught his Old Testament, yet, if he has attained any power of taste in literature, cannot but be struck by the beauty and passion of the words I have just quoted; and if there is any earnestness or imagination in his temper cannot but farther ask, who is this who speaks? of what happy place and Nation is it spoken, and out of the obscurity of its burning words what literal meaning shall we gather? What is the power of the Cherub that covereth, and where is the Mountain of God, and where the midst of the stones of fire?
To which, this is the uttermost that can be answered.
The speaker, if we are to believe Him, is the Lord of Hosts. And the Happy City is the place where, even among the Heathen, as by double miracle, Christ was born. “They of Tyre, with the Morians-there, even there, was He born.”1
And the Mountain of God is that happy crest all may climb, who will-and so few will. “Who shall ascend into the Hill of the Lord, and who shall stand in his Holy place? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart, that hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully.”2 And the Anointed Cherub that covereth* is the sacred Kingship of their helpful spirit over other men; and their walking up and down in
* Or encamps (Septuagint). “The Angel of the Lord encamps round about them that fear Him.”3
1 [Psalms lxxxvii. 4 (Prayer-book version).]
2 [Psalms xxiv. 3.]
3 [Psalms xxxiv. 7.]
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[Version 0.04: March 2008]
