Ezekiel 28:13 - Musical Satan?

Ok yes, that subject is a bit clicky so I apologize but I was curious if anyone knew of a good commentary or article that speaks on Eze 28:13. I got into a discussion with a friend about the translation of that verse. It seems newer translations point to settings and sockets but older ones refer to musical instruments like tambourines and flutes. I don't have a huge library but I do have a bunch of commentaries and I was surprised most didn't comment on this at all.

Anyone ever come across a good explanation as to why it was instruments but now settings?

Mentor on Ezekiel

The Massoretic punctuation lists ‘gold’ along with the precious stones, but this seems improbable. Taking the word with the following phrase, which is itself abstruse, yields a sense such as the workmanship of your mountings and settings ⸤was⸥ gold. However, as ‘mountings’ renders a term elsewhere understood as ‘hand drums’ or ‘tambourines’, it is possible to understand ‘settings’ (which occurred only here and was related to a root meaning ‘to pierce’) as another musical instrument such as ‘pipes’, which are hollow. The variety of translations again evidences the obscurity, and no rendering can claim any great certainty.

Barnes

Tabrets (or, drums) and pipes were a common expression for festivity and triumph.

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xnman

With a quick search, I found the following which, to me, makes sense. Everything that God created was good, Genesis 1:31 tells us this and that would include Satan himself. So, God didn't create bad, what God created turned bad.

Now IF I understand your question.... seems to me that all the precious stones and such, even gold, are things we humans can relate to and God was using that to describe what He created and how He thought about it. The Bible Knowledge Commentary, which I quote below, seems to bring this out.

"Satan was given an exalted place; he was in Eden, the garden of God. Eden was the epitome of God’s beautiful Creation on earth (cf. Gen. 2:8–14). Satan’s beauty matched that of Eden: every precious stone adorned him. Ezekiel listed nine gemstones in describing Satan’s beauty. These were 9 of the 12 kinds of stones worn in the breastplate of Israel’s high priest (cf. Ex. 28:15–20; 39:10–13). The precious stones probably symbolized Satan’s beauty and high position." --- Charles H. Dyer, “Ezekiel,” in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, ed. J. F. Walvoord and R. B. Zuck, vol. 1 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985), 1283.

DMB

Anyone ever come across a good explanation as to why it was instruments but now settings?

I think Tanakh is most instructive, labeling the phrase after 'gold' as 'uncertain'. They go for 'mining'.

Anchor Yale has the best lengthy discussion, but Gesenius, the best cut to the problem.

LXX seemed to go off-key, while Jerome tried to bring it back in the latin, though later shifted.

The musical came from trying out the root, but even in the 1500s, pipes it was. Don't know who was musical first.

More amusing, a quick checking of the Akkadian goes wildly off the track (definitely not for pleasant ears).

Mattillo

Thank you both

Thomas Pape

In such cases, I am happy to fall back on Arnold Fruchtenbaum

Mattillo

In such cases, I am happy to fall back on Arnold Fruchtenbaum

Does he comment on this verse in his writings? Do you know which one?

Phil Anderson

K & D comments

The words מְלֶאכֶת תֻּפֶּיךָ וגו׳—which even the early translators have entirely misunderstood, and which the commentators down to Hitzig and Ewald have made marvellous attempts to explain—present no peculiar difficulty, apart from the plural נקביךָ, which is only met with here. As the meaning timbrels, tambourins (aduffa), is well established for תֻּפִּים, and in 1 Sam. 10:5 and Isa. 5:12 flutes are mentioned along with the timbrels, it has been supposed by some that נְקָבִים must signify flutes here. But there is nothing to support such a rendering either in the Hebrew or in the other Semitic dialects. On the other hand, the meaning pala gemmarum (Vulgate), or ring-casket, has been quite arbitrarily forced upon the word by Jerome, Rosenmüller, Gesenius, and many others. We agree with Hävernick in regarding נְקָבִים as a plural of נְקֵבָה (foeminae), formed, like a masculine, after the analogy of נָשִׁים, פִּלַּגְשִׁים, etc., and account for the choice of this expression from the allusion to the history of the creation (Gen. 1:27). The service (מְלֶאכֶת, performance, as in Gen. 39:11, etc.) of the women is the leading of the circular dances by the odalisks who beat the timbrels: “the harem-pomp of Oriental kings.” This was made ready for the king on the day of his creation, i.e., not his birthday, but the day on which he became king, or commenced his reign, when the harem of his predecessor came into his possession with all its accompaniments.

Keil, C. F., & Delitzsch, F. (1996). Commentary on the Old Testament (Vol. 9, pp. 234–235). Peabody, MA: Hendrickson.

Mattillo

Good stuff! I appreciate it. I found some interesting stuff from Fruchtenbaum as well. Messianic Collection: Volume 156, Page 5

Then verse 13c states: the workmanship of your tabrets and of your pipes was in you. The words tabrets and pipes could have two different meanings. First, they may have referred to musical instruments. If this is their meaning, they imply that the king of Tyre led in divine worship. If this is true, it would give further credence to his having served as the heavenly high priest leading in worship, as well as being a priestly representative. The second possibility is that these words could be translated as “settings” and “sockets.” If this is their meaning, they refer to the settings of the ten gems mentioned in verse 13b. Normally, if a verse can be translated in two different ways, the context determines which way to go. But in this case, the context allows for a combination of both. It refers to the gems and to their significance and that he led in priestly worship in Heaven.

Kiyah

When I used the Lemma in Passage guide section, all that came up was K&D which someone posted above, and this mere footnote in Hermeneia:

M תפיך, with which the new stichos begins, remains completely obscure. A derivation from the well-known word תף “tambourine, hand-drum” (see Σ ἔργον τοῦ τυμπάνου σου; cf. Fohrer “your hand-drum”) is scarcely to be considered. It must be a technical term from the industrial arts, as must also be the case with the immediately following נקביך. G. R. Driver, “Uncertain Hebrew Words,” JTS 45 (1944): 13f, suggests “earrings, pendant jewel.” See also the conjecture פתוחיך (W. Frankenberg, “Review of H. Gunkel, Genesis übersetzt und erklärt,” Göttingische gelehrte Anzeigen 163 [1901]: 682; Jahnow, Leichenlied) “your engravings.” Weill, “mots” as a modification of the assumption of Ewald, who found here the אורים and תמים of the high priest, prefers to think of the tablets of fate (Akkadian ṭuppu).

Zimmerli, Walther, Frank Moore Cross, and Klaus Baltzer. Ezekiel: A Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel. Hermeneia—a Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1979–. (p.88 note d)