Satan the worship leader

The KJV's "tabrets" and "pipes," read as a musical office in heaven. The Hebrew is obscure and concerns settings for stones; the instrument reading is one option among several, and it carries no job description with it. One older critical reading separates "and gold" from the preceding list of stones and renders the line as the workmanship of settings and grooves for gems, with no music at all, so the meaning of the text is uncertain and not settled in the instruments' favor. The list of precious stones (v. 13) parallels the twelve stones of the high priest's breastplate (Exodus 28:17-20; 39:10-13), not an inventory of instruments. DDD and Walton both identify the figure beneath the oracle as Melqart, patron god of Tyre. The prince of Tyre claims equality with him (Ezekiel 28:2), and the precious stones (v. 12), the fire he walks among (v. 14), and the fire that consumes him (v. 18) echo Melqart's cult, including Nonnos of Panopolis's description of the god's star-studded robe and the Phoenician tradition of Melqart burned and buried in Tyre (DDD s.v. "Melqart," 563-564; Walton, IVP Bible Background Commentary: OT, on Ezekiel 28:2,12-14). Reading this as Satan's biography has no textual warrant beyond surface imagery. Satan is never called a cherub or paired with one anywhere in Scripture, and "Satan" doesn't exist as a personal name for a chief of demons until roughly the second century BC, centuries after Ezekiel. Calvin rejected the same Satan reading of Isaiah 14 outright (Walton, IVP Bible Background Commentary: OT, on Ezekiel 28:16-17).