19:9 They put him in a collar with hooks; 1
they brought him to the king of Babylon;
they brought him to prison 2
so that his voice would not be heard
any longer on the mountains of Israel.
38:17 “‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: Are you the one of whom I spoke in former days by my servants 12 the prophets of Israel, who prophesied in those days 13 that I would bring you against them?
1 tn Or “They put him in a neck stock with hooks.” The noun סּוּגַר (sugar), translated “collar,” occurs only here in the Bible. L. C. Allen and D. I. Block point out a Babylonian cognate that refers to a device for transporting prisoners of war that held them by their necks (D. I. Block, Ezekiel [NICOT], 1:597, n. 35; L. C. Allen, Ezekiel [WBC], 1:284). Based on the Hebrew root, the traditional rendering had been “cage” (cf. ASV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV).
2 tc The term in the MT occurs only here and in Eccl 9:12 where it refers to a net for catching fish. The LXX translates this as “prison,” which assumes a confusion of dalet and resh took place in the MT.
3 tn Heb “for the sake of my name.”
4 tn Heb “before the eyes of the nations in whose midst they were.”
5 tn Heb “to whom I made myself known before their eyes to bring them out from the land of Egypt.” The translation understands the infinitive construct (“to bring them out”) as indicating manner. God’s deliverance of his people from Egypt was an act of self-revelation in that it displayed his power and his commitment to his promises.
6 tn Heb “I lifted up my hand.”
7 tn Heb “drew my hand back.” This idiom also occurs in Lam 2:8 and Ps 74:11.
8 tn Or “gifts.”
9 sn This act is prohibited in Deut 12:29-31 and Jer 7:31; 19:5; 32:35. See also 2 Kgs 21:6; 23:10. This custom indicates that the laws the Israelites were following were the disastrous laws of pagan nations (see Ezek 16:20-21).
10 sn God sometimes punishes sin by inciting the sinner to sin even more, as the biblical examples of divine hardening and deceit make clear. See Robert B. Chisholm, Jr., “Divine Hardening in the Old Testament,” BSac 153 (1996): 410-34; idem, “Does God Deceive?” BSac 155 (1998): 11-28. For other instances where the Lord causes individuals to act unwisely or even sinfully as punishment for sin, see 1 Sam 2:25; 2 Sam 17:14; 1 Kgs 12:15; 2 Chr 25:20.
11 tn Heb “his blood will be on him.”
12 tn Heb “by the hand of my servants.”
13 tn The Hebrew text adds “years” here, but this is probably a scribal gloss on the preceding phrase. See L. C. Allen, Ezekiel (WBC), 2:201.
14 tn Heb “one and a half cubits” (i.e., 78.75 cm).
15 tn Heb “one and a half cubits” (i.e., 78.75 cm).
16 tn Heb “one cubit” (i.e., 52.5 cm).