I go far afield… Back to Ezekiel 28.

Notice that the first section is written in the future tense, and addressed to a prince. I am going to do this and that and the other, says God. You are finished. But the second phase of Ezekiel 28 is past tense, written to a king. This is who you were, and this is what I did.

As with many prophecies, and many heavenly conversations, there seems to be a dual object in mind here. In Eden, God spoke simultaneously to a serpent and a fallen angel. Here he divides up His words between Itto-Baal, and that same angel!

We highlight and paraphrase the chapter:

“You are proud. You say you are a god. No, you are a man. You think you are so wise. You have gotten rich, especially through trading. Your wealth has made you more proud.

“But someone will come against you and bring you to the Pit. Will you call yourself a god then?”

So far, we could think God was talking only to a king. But when Satan is cursed, recall, the creature he houses is likewise cursed. God’s true view of the inner part of this king is in the latter portion of the chapter.

“You were perfect. Perfectly wise. Perfectly beautiful. You were in Eden, covered by precious stones. Everything you needed was created on the day I created you.

“You were the anointed of the cherubs. You were on the holy mountain of God. You were perfect in every way… until sin was found in you.”

The king of Tyre? I think not. Here is Satan. We go behind Eden and see his very creation day. What a spectacle! What a delight! Honored by all of the heavenly hosts!

Next comes the simple answer to the question that started this study: Where does evil and the devil originate? Here it is. It originates inside the one called Satan, the enemy.

He was given all honor until he looked to himself as the Creator and the one worthy of that honor. He saw all praising him, and he liked it. Then he wanted more. That is all we know for sure.

God became angry with him as his pride led to more and more foolish decisions. He had to be cast out of the holy mountain. Is this when he showed up in Eden? Or was Eden the home of that mountain, and was he cast out when Adam and Eve left? We are not told details here.

We are told that God laid him before kings. He, the man being inhabited by him, anyway, was destroyed. Turned to ashes. He became a horror, never to exist among men again.

The King of Tyre? Or is this Satan’s final battle, inside Antichrist? Yes, it is all in past tense, but so is Isaiah 53, about Messiah. Written as an accomplished fact. I think of Joel talking of locusts, which actually had destroyed Israel hundreds of years before Jesus. But I then see him talking, without catching his breath, about end-time locusts, the ones that John saw. Not the kind that a John the Baptist could eat. Not the kind that looks like a grasshopper on steroids, but a strange and awful creature which shall come by the myriads in the last days.

That is prophecy. It flows and it seems to get confused but there is a godly order to it, a mystery to it that his people need to penetrate in order to understand it. The answers are all there for the one who will seek him.

This is the origin of evil. Satan, and Satan in the human heart. No mystery there. The “why” is not so easy.