Ezekiel 28:8

Thou shalt die, &c.— "Thou shalt die the deaths of those who perished in the flood:" deaths, in the plural, as intimating a still farther punishment even after death; such as that impious race experienced, and such as this haughty prince had well deserved by his mad pride and blasphemous impiety. And therefore with the same emphasis the prophet says, Ezekiel 28:10. Thou shalt die the deaths, the double death, of the uncircumcised;—that is, of unbelievers and enemies to God. This is not the only place in this prophesy where the destruction by the deluge is alluded to: for this, and the fall of angels, being two of the greatest events that ever happened, and the most remarkable of God's judgments; it is very natural for the prophets to recur to them, when they would raise their style in the description of the fall of empires and of tyrants. Thus we find a very beautiful allusion to both those great events in this same prediction of our prophet, of the downfal of Tyre and its haughty prince in the 26th and following chapter. As the style of this prophet is wonderfully adapted to the subject of which he treats, he compares the destruction of this famous maritime city to a vessel shipwrecked in the sea, and so sends them to the people of old time, as he calls them, chap. Ezekiel 26:20. (where it should certainly be so rendered) who were swallowed up in the universal deluge. Their prince he compares to the prince of the rebel angels, whose pride had given him such a dreadful fall. See chap. Ezekiel 26:18 Ezekiel 27:26. See Peters on Job, p. 373 and the note on Ezekiel 28:14. Instead of, Them that are slain, Houbigant reads, Them who are wounded.