Satan

[Dawid]

I agree with you about what is written being important, and that we should try and find out why, but we shouldn't go overboard, reading spiritual meaning into simple orthographic variances like this.

While there is danger in taking things at face value, in this case there is no reason to take the text at its word, that this refers to the king of Tyre, and that the hyperbolic description of his position is simply meant to convey the idea that he was in good stead with God before, and is no longer. This is more understandable if we read this not as referring to a specific king of Tyre, but to the position in general. Then it makes more sense to say that he was a seraph, and in the Garden, since the king of Tyre helped Solomon build the Temple and was in a very close relationship with David and Solomon, and much later at the time of Ezekiel was in opposition to Israel.

Shlama akhi,

my note of the orthographic variance is a minor part of the whole reason why i see this as referecening haSatan. there are too many parallels to Genesis 3 here for me to ignore the connection. were there other instances in Scripture where the language was this grandiose regarding a human man, then i could see your point entirely. however, these explicit connections back to the Garden leave me comfortably in the position i came here with. we'll just have to agree to see it differently, akhi. thanks for sharing your understanding. Blessings to you! <!-- s --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/happy.gif" alt="" title="Happy" /><!-- s -->

Chayim b'Moshiach,
Jeremy

First of all, it is not impossible for Ezekiel to be referring back to Genesis 3 by way of comparison without ever intending to suggest that the same person is being talked about in both cases.
But there are. Remember, Isaiah 14. Both of these use extremely grandiose language and explicitly state that they are referring to a human king.
Finally, you presuppose that the serpent is the same as Satan. I could not disagree more. The text is rather clear about this being a serpent. Just a serpent. There is no indication whatsoever that this serpent ought to be compared to the adversary.