Additional support identifying Ezekiel’s Edenic Cherub

As explained in my article “The Dirge Against the King of Tyre,”^[1] Ezekiel 28:13-18 may not be comparing the King of Tyre to Satan in the Garden of Eden, but may be comparing him to Adam in the Garden of Eden, with the “anointed covering cherub” being with him and escorting him out of the Garden, being a righteous cherub. More support for translating the Hebrew text this way comes from a surprising source, the enigmatic book of 1 Enoch. In it, this understanding was accepted and preserved in an elaborate allusion to Ezekiel 28:13-18 in 1 Enoch 24-25. There, the prophet Enoch is being given a geographic tour by Michael, who is called the leader of the angels in 24:6 (and who is elsewhere in 1 Enoch entitled “archangel”). In this special tour, notice the following elements:

24:1 [Michael] showed me a mountain range of fire which burnt day and night. (2) And I went beyond it and saw seven magnificent mountains all differing each from the other, and the stones (thereof) were magnificent and beautiful, magnificent as a whole, of glorious appearance and fair exterior. … (3) And the seventh mountain was in the midst of these, and it excelled them in height, resembling the seat of a throne: and fragrant trees encircled the throne. [Verses 4-5 are about a beautiful sweet-smelling tree.]

Chapter 25 has Michael being with Enoch on this sacred mountain and its garden and explaining it to him, saying in verse 3:

This high mountain …, whose summit is like the throne of God, is His throne, where the Holy Great One, the Lord of Glory, the Eternal King, will sit, when He shall come down to visit the earth with goodness.

Dr. James VanderKam then compared these themes with his translation of Ezekiel 28:13-14:

You were in Eden, the Garden of God; every precious stone was your covering, … With an anointed cherub as guardian I placed you; you walked among the stones of fire.

He observes: “From Ezekiel the author [of 1 Enoch 24-25] has taken the stone imagery, the mountain, and the reference to stones of fire.”^[2] But he has taken one more salient, defining feature: that of having a person be with the celestial, angelic figure—in the case of Ezekiel: the anonymous cherub, in 1 Enoch: Michael the leader of the angels.

Thus we have another weight on the scales on the side of the “Adam interpretation.”

Footnotes:
^[1] jimspace3000.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-dirge-against-king-of-tyre.html You will want to familiarize yourself with this first before continuing.

^[2] Enoch: A Man for All Generations. 1995. Pages 56-57

Links:

• 1 Enoch chapter 24 and chapter 25.
• Enoch the Prophet. Information on 1 Enoch.