Bible Strands
Ezekiel 28:5
By your great skill in trading you have increased your wealth, but your heart has grown proud because of it.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — God speaks through Ezekiel to the ruler of Tyre, continuing a judgment oracle that shifts from the man's historical commercial success to his internal spiritual condition.
The words — The Hebrew רֹב (rov, "greatness") and חָכְמָתְךָ (chakmatkha, "your skill") denote the commercial acumen that multiplied his חֵילֶךָ (chelekha, "wealth"), while גָבַהּ (gavah, "grown haughty") and לְבָבְךָ (levavkha, "your heart") record the direct causal link between accumulation and arrogance.
The thread — This sequence runs through Psalms 62:10, which warns against setting the heart on increasing riches, and Ezekiel 28:2, which first identifies the ruler's proud heart as the root issue.
Why it lands — The passage requires the reader to recognize that the text attributes the pride directly to the heart's reaction to material gain, not to the gain itself, demanding a clear distinction between external prosperity and internal allegiance.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
By thy great wisdom and by thy traffick hast thou increased thy riches, and thine heart is lifted up because of thy riches:
Cross-references
- Psalms 52:7 “Look at the man who did not make God his refuge, but trusted in the abundance of his wealth and strengthened himself by destruction.”
- Psalms 62:10 Place no trust in extortion or false hope in stolen goods. If your riches increase, do not set your heart upon them.
- Ezekiel 28:2 “Son of man, tell the ruler of Tyre that this is what the Lord GOD says: Your heart is proud, and you have said, ‘I am a god; I sit in the seat of gods in the heart of the sea.’ Yet you are a man and not a god, though you have regarded your heart as that of a god.
- Hosea 13:6 When they had pasture, they became satisfied; when they were satisfied, their hearts became proud, and as a result they forgot Me.
- Proverbs 11:28 He who trusts in his riches will fall, but the righteous will thrive like foliage.
- Hosea 12:7 A merchant loves to defraud with dishonest scales in his hands.
- James 4:13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business, and make a profit.”
- Deuteronomy 6:11 with houses full of every good thing with which you did not fill them, with wells that you did not dig, and with vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant—and when you eat and are satisfied,
- Deuteronomy 8:13 and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all that you have is multiplied,
- Job 31:24 If I have put my trust in gold or called pure gold my security,