Ezekiel 5-7

New English Translation

Footnotes

1. Ezekiel 5:1 tn The Hebrew word occurs only here in the OT.
2. Ezekiel 5:1 tn Heb, “pass (it) over your head and your beard.”
3. Ezekiel 5:3 tn Heb “from there a few in number.” The word “strands” has been supplied in the translation for clarification.
4. Ezekiel 5:3 sn Objects could be carried in the end of a garment (Hag 2:12).
5. Ezekiel 5:4 tn Heb “into the midst of” (so KJV, ASV). This phrase has been left untranslated for stylistic reasons.
6. Ezekiel 5:6 sn The nations are subject to a natural law according to Gen 9; see also Amos 1:3-2:3 and Jonah 1:2.
7. Ezekiel 5:6 tn Heb “she defied my laws, becoming wicked more than the nations, and [she defied] my statutes [becoming wicked] more than the countries around her.”
8. Ezekiel 5:6 sn One might conclude that the subject of the plural verbs is the nations/countries, but the context (vv. 5-6a) indicates that the people of Jerusalem are in view. The text shifts from using the feminine singular (referring to personified Jerusalem) to the plural (referring to Jerusalem’s residents). See L. C. Allen, Ezekiel (WBC), 1:73.
9. Ezekiel 5:7 tn Traditionally this difficult form has been derived from a hypothetical root הָמוֹן (hamon), supposedly meaning “be in tumult/uproar,” but such a verb occurs nowhere else. It is more likely that it is to be derived from a root מָנוֹן (manon), meaning “disdain” (see L. C. Allen, Ezekiel [WBC], 1:52). A derivative from this root is used in Prov 29:21 of a rebellious servant. See HALOT 600 s.v. מָנוֹן.
10. Ezekiel 5:7 sn You are more arrogant than the nations around you. Israel is accused of being worse than the nations in Ezek 16:27; 2 Kgs 21:11; Jer 2:11.
11. Ezekiel 5:7 tc Some Hebrew mss and the Syriac omit the words “not even.” In this case they are being accused of following the practices of the surrounding nations. See Ezek 11:12.
12. Ezekiel 5:8 tn Or “I challenge you.” The phrase “I am against you” may be a formula for challenging someone to combat or a duel. See D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 1:201-2, and P. Humbert, “Die Herausforderungsformel ‘hinnenî ’êlékâ’” ZAW 45 (1933): 101-8. The Hebrew text switches to a second feminine singular form here, indicating that personified Jerusalem is addressed (see vv. 5-6a). The address to Jerusalem continues through v. 15. In vv. 16-17 the second masculine plural is used, as the people are addressed.
13. Ezekiel 5:8 tn The Hebrew text uses wordplay here to bring out the appropriate nature of God’s judgment. “Execute” translates the same Hebrew verb translated “carried out” (literally meaning “do”) in v. 7, while “judgment” in v. 8 and “regulations” in v. 7 translate the same Hebrew noun (meaning “regulations” or in some cases “judgments” executed on those who break laws). The point seems to be this: God would “carry out judgments” against those who refused to “carry out” his “laws.”
14. Ezekiel 5:8 tn Heb “in the sight of the nations.”sn This is one of the ironies of the passage. The Lord set Israel among the nations for honor and praise as they would be holy and obey God’s law, as told in Ezek 5:5 and Deut 26:16-19. The practice of these laws and statutes would make the peoples consider Israel wise. (See Deut 4:5-8, where the words for laws and statutes are the same as those used here). Since Israel did not obey, they are made a different kind of object lesson to the nations, not by their obedience but in their punishment, as told in Ezek 5:8 and Deut 29:24-29. Yet Deut 30 goes on to say that when they remember the cursings and blessings of the covenant and repent, God will restore them from the nations to which they have been scattered.
15. Ezekiel 5:9 tn Or “abominable idols.”
16. Ezekiel 5:10 tn In context “you” refers to the city of Jerusalem. To make this clear for the modern reader, “Jerusalem” has been supplied in the translation in apposition to “you.”sn This cannibalism would occur as a result of starvation due to the city being besieged. It is one of the judgments threatened for a covenant law violation (Lev 26:29; see also Deut 28:53; Jer 19:9; Lam 2:20; Zech 11:9).
17. Ezekiel 5:10 tn Heb “all of your survivors.”
18. Ezekiel 5:10 tn Heb “to every wind.”
19. Ezekiel 5:11 tn The meaning of the Hebrew term is primarily emotional: “to pity,” which in context implies an action, as in being moved by pity in order to spare them from the horror of their punishment.
20. Ezekiel 5:12 sn The judgment of plague and famine comes from the covenant curse (Lev 26:25-26). As in v. 10, the city of Jerusalem is figuratively addressed here.
21. Ezekiel 5:12 sn Judgment by plague, famine, and sword occurs in Jer 21:9; 27:13; Ezek 6:11, 12; 7:15.
22. Ezekiel 5:13 tn Or “calm myself.”
23. Ezekiel 5:13 tn The Hebrew noun translated “jealousy” is used in the human realm to describe suspicion of adultery (Num 5:14ff.; Prov 6:34). Since Israel’s relationship with God was often compared to a marriage, this term is appropriate here. The term occurs elsewhere in Ezekiel in 8:3, 5; 16:38, 42; 23:25.
24. Ezekiel 5:15 tc This reading is supported by the versions and by the Dead Sea Scrolls (11QEzek). Most Masoretic Hebrew mss read:“it will be,” but if the final he (ה) is read as a mater lectionis, as it can be with the second masculine singular perfect, then they are in agreement. In either case the subject refers to Jerusalem.
25. Ezekiel 5:15 tn The Hebrew word occurs only here in the OT. A related verb means “revile, taunt” (see Ps 44:16).
26. Ezekiel 5:15 tn Heb “discipline and devastation.” These words are omitted in the Old Greek. The first term pictures Jerusalem as a recipient or example of divine discipline; the second depicts her as a desolate ruin (see Ezek 6:14).
27. Ezekiel 5:15 tn Heb “in anger and in fury and in rebukes of fury.” The heaping up of synonyms emphasizes the degree of God’s anger.
28. Ezekiel 5:16 tn The Hebrew word carries the basic idea of “bad, displeasing, injurious” but has the nuance “deadly” when used of weapons (see Ps 144:10).
29. Ezekiel 5:16 tn Heb “which are/were to destroy.”
30. Ezekiel 5:16 tn The language of this verse may have been influenced by Deut 32:23.
31. Ezekiel 5:16 tn Or “which were to destroy those whom I will send to destroy you” (cf. NASB).
32. Ezekiel 5:16 tn Heb, “break the staff of bread.” The bread supply is compared to a staff that one uses for support. See 4:16, as well as the covenant curse in Lev 26:26.
33. Ezekiel 5:17 tn Heb “will bereave you.”
34. Ezekiel 5:17 tn Heb “will pass through you.” This threat recalls the warning of Lev 26:22, 25 and Deut 32:24-25.
35. Ezekiel 6:2 tn Heb “set your face against.” The expression occurs at the beginning of Ezekiel’s prophetic oracles in Ezek 13:17; 20:46; 21:2; 25:2; 28:21; 29:2; 35:2; 38:2.sn Based on comparison to a similar expression in Ugaritic, the phrase may imply that Ezekiel was actually to go to these locations to deliver his message.
36. Ezekiel 6:3 tn The phrase “mountains of Israel” occurs only in the book of Ezekiel (6:2, 3; 19:9; 33:28; 34:13, 14; 35:12; 36:1, 4, 8; 37:22; 38:8; 39:2, 4, 17). The expression refers to the whole land of Israel.sn The mountainous terrain of Israel would contrast with the exiles’ habitat in the river valley of Babylonia.
37. Ezekiel 6:3 tn The introductory formula “Hear the word of the Sovereign Lord” parallels a pronouncement delivered by the herald of a king (2 Kgs 18:28).
38. Ezekiel 6:3 tn Heb “Look I, I am bringing.” The repetition of the pronoun draws attention to the speaker. The construction also indicates that the action is soon to come; the Lord is “about to bring a sword against” them.
39. Ezekiel 6:3 tn The Hebrew term refers to elevated platforms where pagan sacrifices were performed.
40. Ezekiel 6:4 tn The word גִּלּוּלִים (gillulim) refers to idols with contempt. Thirty-nine of its forty-eight biblical occurrences are found in Ezekiel. It may be related to either of two roots (גלל; gll). The more common root (1-גלל) is concerned with rolling and round things, producing words like “wheel,” “bowl,” “skull,” “heap of stones,” and “dung.” The other root (2-גלל) means “to be soiled.” A possible cognate in Babylonian (gullultu) refers to a “misdeed, crime, sin” (CAD G, 131; see also gullulu, “to sin”). The pejorative use of the term may come from one of several possibilities. The basic cylindrical shape of many idols lends itself to a term from 1-גלל. As a pejorative it may be emphasizing that idols are simply blocks of wood (cf. Isa 44:19). It has also been suggested that the term plays off of the word for dung, גֵּל (gel), as little round things. Possibly it is related to 2-גלל with overtones of being soiled. Some relation to the Babylonian word would also suit a pejorative and may have been intended by Ezekiel as he prophesied in a Babylonian context. In any case the word carries a negative connotation.sn This verse is probably based on Lev 26:30, in which God forecasts that he will destroy their high places, cut off their incense altars, and set their corpses by the corpses of their idols.
41. Ezekiel 6:5 tc This first sentence, which explains the meaning of the last sentence of the previous verse, does not appear in the LXX and may be an instance of a marginal explanatory note making its way into the text.
42. Ezekiel 6:6 tn The Hebrew verb translated “wiped out” is used to describe the judgment of the Flood (Gen 6:7; 7:4, 23).
43. Ezekiel 6:7 sn The phrase you will know that I am the Lord concludes over sixty oracles in the book of Ezekiel and indicates the ultimate goal of God’s action. The phrase is often used in the book of Exodus as well (Exod 7:5; 14:4, 18). By Ezekiel’s day the people had forgotten that the Lord (Yahweh) was their covenant God and had turned to other gods. They had to be reminded that Yahweh alone deserved to be worshiped because only he possessed the power to meet their needs. Through judgment and eventually deliverance, Israel would be reminded that Yahweh alone held their destiny in his hands.
44. Ezekiel 6:8 tn Heb “when you have fugitives from the sword among the nations, when you are scattered among the lands.”
45. Ezekiel 6:9 tn The words “they will realize” are not in the Hebrew text; they are added here for stylistic reasons since this clause assumes the previous verb “to remember” or “to take into account.”
46. Ezekiel 6:9 tn Heb “how I was broken by their adulterous heart.” The image of God being “broken” is startling but perfectly natural within the metaphorical framework of God as offended husband. The idiom must refer to the intense grief that Israel’s unfaithfulness caused God. For a discussion of the syntax and semantics of the Hebrew text, see M. Greenberg, Ezekiel (AB), 1:134.
47. Ezekiel 6:9 tn Heb adds “in their faces.”
48. Ezekiel 6:10 tn Heb “not in vain did I speak to do to them this catastrophe.” The wording of the last half of v. 10 parallels God’s declaration after the sin of the golden calf (Exod 32:14).
49. Ezekiel 6:11 sn By the sword and by famine and by pestilence. A similar trilogy of punishments is mentioned in Lev 26:25-26. See also Jer 14:12; 21:9; 27:8, 13; 29:18.
50. Ezekiel 6:12 tn Heb “the one who is left and the one who is spared.”
51. Ezekiel 6:13 sn By referring to every high hill…all the mountaintops…under every green tree and every leafy oak Ezekiel may be expanding on the phraseology of Deut 12:2 (see 1 Kgs 14:23; 2 Kgs 16:4; 17:10; Jer 2:20; 3:6, 13; 2 Chr 28:4).
52. Ezekiel 6:14 sn I will stretch out my hand against them is a common expression in the book of Ezekiel (14:9, 13; 16:27; 25:7; 35:3).
53. Ezekiel 6:14 tc The Vulgate reads the name as “Riblah,” a city north of Damascus. The MT reads Diblah, a city otherwise unknown. The letters resh (ר) and dalet (ד) may have been confused in the Hebrew text. The town of Riblah was in the land of Hamath (2 Kgs 23:33), which represented the northern border of Israel (Ezek 47:14).
54. Ezekiel 7:2 tn Or “earth.” Elsewhere the expression “four corners of the earth” figuratively refers to the whole earth (Isa 11:12).
55. Ezekiel 7:3 tn Or “punish” (cf. BDB 1047 s.v. שָׁפַט 3.c).
56. Ezekiel 7:3 tn Heb “ways.”
57. Ezekiel 7:3 tn Heb “I will place on you.”
58. Ezekiel 7:4 tn The meaning of the Hebrew term is primarily emotional: “to pity,” which in context implies an action, as in being moved by pity in order to spare them from the horror of their punishment.
59. Ezekiel 7:4 tn The pronoun “you” is not in the Hebrew text but is implied.
60. Ezekiel 7:4 tn “I will set your behavior on your head.”
61. Ezekiel 7:4 tn Heb “and your abominable practices will be among you.”
62. Ezekiel 7:5 tn The Hebrew term often refers to moral evil (see Ezek 6:10; 14:22), but in many contexts it refers to calamity or disaster, sometimes as punishment for evil behavior.
63. Ezekiel 7:5 tc So most Hebrew mss; many Hebrew mss read “disaster after disaster” (cf. NAB, NCV, NRSV, NLT).
64. Ezekiel 7:6 tn Or “has come.”
65. Ezekiel 7:6 tn Or “has come.”
66. Ezekiel 7:6 tc With different vowels the verb rendered “it has awakened” would be the noun “the end,” as in “the end is upon you.” The verb would represent a phonetic wordplay. The noun by virtue of repetition would continue to reinforce the idea of the end. Whether verb or noun, this is the only instance to occur with this preposition.
67. Ezekiel 7:6 tc For this entire verse, the LXX has only “the end is come.” tn In each of the three cases of the verb translated with forms of “to come,” the form may either be a participle (“comes/is coming”) or a perfect (“has come”). Either form would indicate that the end is soon to arrive. This last form appears also to be feminine, although “end” is masculine. This shift may be looking ahead to the next verse, whose first noun (“Doom”) is feminine.
68. Ezekiel 7:7 sn The day refers to the day of the Lord, a concept which, beginning in Amos 5:18-20, became a common theme in the OT prophetic books. It refers to a time when the Lord intervenes in human affairs as warrior and judge.
69. Ezekiel 7:7 tc The LXX reads “neither tumult nor birth pains.” The LXX varies at many points from the MT in this chapter. The context suggests that one or both of these would be present on a day of judgment, thus favoring the MT. Perhaps more significant is the absence of “the mountains” in the LXX. If the ר (resh) in הָרִים (harim, “the mountains” not “on the mountains”) were a ד (dalet), which is a common letter confusion, then it could be from the same root as the previous word, הֵד (hed), meaning “the day is near—with destruction, not joyful shouting.”
70. Ezekiel 7:8 tn The expression “to pour out rage” also occurs in Ezek 9:8; 14:19; 20:8, 13, 21; 22:31; 30:15; 36:18.
71. Ezekiel 7:9 tn The meaning of the Hebrew term is primarily emotional: “to pity,” which in context implies an action, as in being moved by pity in order to spare them from the horror of their punishment.
72. Ezekiel 7:9 tn Heb “According to your behavior I will place on you.”
73. Ezekiel 7:9 tn The MT lacks “you.” It has been added for clarification.
74. Ezekiel 7:11 tn Heb “the violence.”
75. Ezekiel 7:11 tc The LXX reads “he will crush the wicked rod without confusion or haste.”tn The verb has been supplied for the Hebrew text to clarify the sense.
76. Ezekiel 7:11 tn The Hebrew word occurs only here in the OT.
77. Ezekiel 7:12 tn Heb “wrath.” Context clarifies that God’s wrath is in view.
78. Ezekiel 7:13 tc The translation follows the LXX for the first line of the verse, although the LXX has lost the second line due to homoioteleuton (similar endings of the clauses). The MT reads “The seller will not return to the sale.” This Hebrew reading has been construed as a reference to land redemption, the temporary sale of the use of property, with property rights returned to the seller in the year of Jubilee. But the context has no other indicator that land redemption is in view. If correct, the LXX evidence suggests that one of the cases of “the customer” has been replaced by “the seller” in the MT, perhaps due to hoimoioarcton (similar beginnings of the words).
79. Ezekiel 7:13 tn The Hebrew word refers to the din or noise made by a crowd, and by extension may refer to the crowd itself.
80. Ezekiel 7:13 tn Or “in their punishment.” The phrase “in/for [a person’s] iniquity” occurs fourteen times in Ezekiel: here and in v. 16; 3:18, 19; 4:17; 18:17, 18, 19, 20; 24:23; 33:6, 8, 9; 39:23. The Hebrew word for “iniquity” may also mean the “punishment for iniquity.”
81. Ezekiel 7:14 tn The Hebrew word refers to the din or noise made by a crowd, and by extension may refer to the crowd itself.
82. Ezekiel 7:16 sn The simile compares doves that flee their valley home for the mountains, where they coo in mournful discomfort. For doves moaning or mourning see Isa 38:14; 59:11; Ezek 7:16 and Nah 2:7.
83. Ezekiel 7:17 tn Heb “their knees will run with water.” The expression probably refers to urination caused by fright, which is how the LXX renders the phrase. More colloquial English would simply be “they will wet their pants,” but as D. I. Block (Ezekiel [NICOT], 1:261, n. 98) notes, the men likely wore skirts which were short enough to expose urine on the knees.
84. Ezekiel 7:18 tn Heb “baldness will be on their heads.”
85. Ezekiel 7:19 tn The Hebrew term can refer to menstrual impurity. The term also occurs at the end of v. 20.
86. Ezekiel 7:19 sn Cf. Zeph 1:18.
87. Ezekiel 7:19 tn Heb “it.” Apparently the subject is the silver and gold mentioned earlier (see L. C. Allen, Ezekiel [WBC], 1:102).
88. Ezekiel 7:19 tn The “stumbling block of their iniquity” is a unique phrase of the prophet Ezekiel (Ezek 14:3, 4, 7; 18:30; 44:12).
89. Ezekiel 7:20 tc The MT reads “he set up the beauty of his ornament as pride.” The verb may be repointed as plural without changing the consonantal text. The Syriac reads “their ornaments” (plural), implying עֶדְיָם (ʿedyam) rather than עֶדְיוֹ (ʿedyo) and meaning “they were proud of their beautiful ornaments.” This understands “ornaments” in the common sense of women’s jewelry, which then was used to make idols. The singular suffix “his ornaments” would refer to using items from the temple treasury to make idols. D. I. Block points out the foreshadowing of Ezek 16:17, which, with Rashi and the Targum, supports the understanding that this is a reference to temple items. See D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 1:265.
90. Ezekiel 7:22 sn My treasured place probably refers to the temple (however, cf. NLT’s “my treasured land”).
91. Ezekiel 7:22 sn Since the pronouns “it” are both feminine, they do not refer to the masculine “my treasured place”; instead they probably refer to Jerusalem or the land, both of which are feminine in Hebrew.
92. Ezekiel 7:23 tc The Hebrew word “the chain” occurs only here in the OT. The reading of the LXX (“and they will make carnage”) seems to imply a Hebrew text of הַבַּתּוֹק (habbattoq, “disorder, slaughter”) instead of הָרַתּוֹק (haratoq, “the chain”). The LXX is also translating the verb as a third person plural future and taking this as the end of the preceding verse. As M. Greenberg (Ezekiel [AB], 1:154) notes, this may refer to a chain for a train of exiles, but “the context does not speak of exile but of the city’s fall. The versions guess desperately, and we can do little better.”
93. Ezekiel 7:23 tn Heb “judgment for blood,” i.e., indictment or accountability for bloodshed. The word for “judgment” does not appear in the similar phrase in 9:9.
94. Ezekiel 7:24 sn Or “their holy places” (KJV, ASV, NASB, NCV, NRSV).
95. Ezekiel 7:25 tn The Hebrew word occurs only here in the OT. It is interpreted based on a Syriac cognate meaning “to bristle or stiffen (in terror).”
96. Ezekiel 7:27 tn Heb “and by their judgments.”