The anointed cherub that covereth. The word for "anointed" is not found elsewhere, but is cognate in form with that which is commonly so rendered. The Vulgate, however, tracing it to another root, gives extentus et protegens, and is followed by Luther, Gesenius, Ewald, and others.
Keil and Hengstenberg accept "anointed." The sequence of thought seems to be as follows: The splendor-of the King of Tyre had suggested the idea of Eden the garden of God. This, in its turn, led on to that of the cherub that was the warder of that garden (Genesis 3:24).
The Paradise of God is pictured as still existing, and the cherub—we remember how prominent the word and the thing had been in Ezekiel's thoughts (Ezekiel 1:10; Ezekiel 10:1-16)—is there (according as we take the above words) either as its anointed, i.
e. "consecrated," ruler, or as extending the protection of its overshadowing wings far and wide as the cherubim of the tabernacle extended their wings over the ark (comp. Exodus 25:20; Exodus 33:22; 1 Kings 8:7).
Those cherubim, we may remember, were actually anointed (Exodus 30:2, Exodus 30:6). The King of Tyro boasted that he was, like them, consecrated to his office as king "by the grace of God." In that earthly Paradise the prophet saw the "holy mountain of God," the Olympus, so to speak, of the Hebrews, the throne of the Eternal (compare the Meru of India, the Albard of Iran, the Asgard of German poetry).
Isaiah's words as to the King of Babylon (Isaiah 14:13, Isaiah 14:14) present a suggestive parallel. In the midst of the stones of fire. The words receive their interpretation partly from Genesis 3:24; partly from 2 Samuel 22:9, 2 Samuel 22:15; Psalms 18:8, Psalms 18:12; Psalms 120:4.
The cherub's sword of fire is identified with the lightning-flash, and that in its turn with the thunderbolts of God. Out of the throne of God went thunders and lightnings (Exodus 19:16). The "Flammantia maenia mundi" of Lucretius (1.
73) offers a suggestive parallel. The King of Tyre, like the King of Babylon (Isaiah 14:13, Isaiah 14:14), is painted as exulting in that attribute of the Divine glory.