28:10 You will die the death of the uncircumcised 3 by the hand of foreigners;
for I have spoken, declares the sovereign Lord.’”
30:5 Ethiopia, Put, Lud, all the foreigners, 4 Libya, and the people 5 of the covenant land 6 will die by the sword along with them.
30:17 The young men of On and of Pi-beseth 7 will die by the sword;
and the cities will go 8 into captivity.
1 tn Heb “life.”
2 sn In Ezek 11:19, 36:26 the new heart and new spirit are promised as future blessings.
3 sn The Phoenicians practiced circumcision, so the language here must be figurative, indicating that they would be treated in a disgraceful manner. Uncircumcised peoples were viewed as inferior, unclean, and perhaps even sub-human. See 31:18 and 32:17-32, as well as the discussion in D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 2:99.
4 tn The same expression appears in Exod 12:38; Jer 25:20; 50:37; Neh 13:3. It may refer to foreign mercenaries serving in the armies of the nations listed here.
5 tn Heb “sons.”
6 tn The expression “sons of the covenant land” possibly refers to Jews living in Egypt (Jer 44).
7 sn On and Pi-beseth are generally identified with the Egyptian cities of Heliopolis and Bubastis.
8 tn Heb “they will go.” The pronoun and verb are feminine plural, indicating that the cities just mentioned are the antecedent of the pronoun and the subject of the verb. The translation makes this clear by stating the subject as “the cities.”