The Hyperlinked Bible
Intertextuality Pair
Echo
Later text
Let no one deceive you in any way, for it will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness—the son of destruction—is revealed. He will oppose and exalt himself above every so-called god or object of worship. So he will seat himself in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.
Earlier text
Ezekiel 28:2BSB
"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.
Paul describes the "man of lawlessness" who "opposes and exalts himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God" (2 Thess 2:4), echoing Ezekiel 28:2 where the prince of Tyre declares "I am a god; I sit in the seat of the gods, in the heart of the seas." Both texts describe a human figure who arrogates divine status and claims a sacred throne: the prince of Tyre sits "in the seat of the gods" while the man of lawlessness sits "in the temple of God." Ezekiel's oracle exposes this claim as the height of human hubris — "you are a man, and not a god" (28:2b) — and pronounces destruction by the "most ruthless of nations." Paul draws on this pattern of divine-status-claiming followed by divine judgment to describe the eschatological rebel who will embody the Tyrian king's arrogance in ultimate form. The escalation within the pattern is clear: where the king of Tyre claimed divine status in a pagan context, the man of lawlessness will make the same claim in God's own temple, representing the most extreme form of self-deification. This connection also complements the Daniel 11:36 allusion already present in this passage, with Ezekiel 28 adding the specific motif of claiming a divine throne.