‘You Were the (Divine) Cherub’: A Potential Challenge to Yhwh's Sole Divinity in Ezekiel 28.14 *

Abstract

According to the Masoretic vocalizations, Ezek. 28.14 directly identifies the king of Tyre as ‘the anointed covering cherub’. Hector Patmore has recently suggested that the Masoretic vocalizations and accentuation produce an awkward reading of the verse, and that the Hebrew consonantal text does not perceive the Tyrian king as a cherub but a god. This article undertakes a two-fold examination of this controversial verse. First, it contends on syntactical grounds that the Masoretic identification of the Tyrian king with the cherub renders an intelligible reading of the consonantal text. Second, it suggests that the Masoretic presentation of the Tyrian king as a cherub is conceptually compatible with Patmore's argument for the divinity of the Tyrian king in Ezek. 28.14. By comparing the Tyrian king to a cherub, the verse extols the Tyrian king to a nearly, if not fully, divine status, which potentially challenges the sole divinity of Yhwh.