Although Isaiah 14:12-23 is addressed to the king of Babylon, it seems to refer to a primeval insurrection against God. The language sometimes seems to go beyond an earthly monarch to an evil being empowering him. This allusion to a primeval angelic being seems somewhat clearer in Ezekiel 28:11-19. Here the person in view is the king of Tyre, but what is said can hardly be said of any earthly monarch:
You were the seal of perfection. . . . You were in Eden, the garden of God; . . . You were anointed as a guardian cherub, . . . I drove you in disgrace from the mount of God . . . .
These texts imply that rebellion, sin, and suffering entered the universe before the “planting” (Genesis 2:8) of the Garden of Eden.
The Genesis story does not tell us when, how, or why evil entered God’s cosmos. It describes the effect of sin on the human race. The tempter was already an evil being when he approached Eve.
