3:24 Then a wind 3 came into me and stood me on my feet. The Lord 4 spoke to me and said, “Go shut yourself in your house.
14:19 “Or suppose I were to send a plague into that land, and pour out my rage on it with bloodshed, killing both people and animals.
19:11 Its boughs were strong, fit 10 for rulers’ scepters; it reached up into the clouds.
It stood out because of its height and its many branches. 11
21:11 “‘He gave it to be polished,
to be grasped in the hand –
the sword is sharpened, it is polished –
giving it into the hand of the executioner.
30:17 The young men of On and of Pi-beseth 16 will die by the sword;
and the cities will go 17 into captivity.
31:3 Consider Assyria, 18 a cedar in Lebanon, 19
with beautiful branches, like a forest giving shade,
and extremely tall;
its top reached into the clouds.
31:10 “‘Therefore this is what the sovereign Lord says: Because it was tall in stature, and its top reached into the clouds, and it was proud of its height,
38:10 “‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: On that day thoughts will come into your mind, 24 and you will devise an evil plan.
1 tc The phrase “as he spoke to me” is absent from the LXX.
2 tn Or “spirit.” NIV has “the Spirit,” but the absence of the article in the Hebrew text makes this unlikely. Elsewhere in Ezekiel the Lord’s Spirit is referred to as “the Spirit of the Lord” (11:5; 37:1), “the Spirit of God” (11:24), or “my (that is, the Lord’s) Spirit” (36:27; 37:14; 39:29). Some identify the “spirit” of 2:2 as the spirit that energized the living beings, however, that “spirit” is called “the spirit” (1:12, 20) or “the spirit of the living beings” (1:20-21; 10:17). Still others see the term as referring to an impersonal “spirit” of strength or courage, that is, the term may also be understood as a disposition or attitude. The Hebrew word often refers to a wind in Ezekiel (1:4; 5:10, 12; 12:4; 13:11, 13; 17:10, 21; 19:12; 27:26; 37:9). In 37:5-10 a “breath” originates in the “four winds” and is associated with the Lord’s life-giving breath (see v. 14). This breath enters into the dry bones and gives them life. In a similar fashion the breath of 2:2 (see also 3:24) energizes paralyzed Ezekiel. Breath and wind are related. On the one hand it is a more normal picture to think of breath rather than wind entering someone, but since wind represents an external force it seems more likely for wind rather than breath to stand someone up (unless we should understand it as a disposition). It may be that one should envision the breath of the speaker moving like a wind to revive Ezekiel, helping him to regain his breath and invigorating him to stand. A wind also transports the prophet from one place to another (3:12, 14; 8:3; 11:1, 24; 43:5).
3 tn See the note on “wind” in 2:2.
4 tn Heb “he.”
5 tn Heb “into the midst of” (so KJV, ASV). This phrase has been left untranslated for stylistic reasons.
6 tn Heb “the violence.”
7 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.
8 tn The Hebrew word occurs only here in the OT.
9 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 (’edyam) rather than עֶדְיוֹ (’edyo) and meaning “they were proud of their beautiful ornaments.” This understands “ornaments” in the common sense of women’s jewelry, which then were 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.
10 tn The word “fit” does not occur in the Hebrew text.
11 tn Heb “and it was seen by its height and by the abundance of its branches.”
12 tn This is the same Hebrew verb used to describe the passing of the children through the fire.
13 sn The metaphor may be based in Lev 27:32 (see also Jer 33:13; Matt 25:32-33). A shepherd would count his sheep as they passed beneath his staff.
14 tn Heb “The sons of Babel came to her on a bed of love.”
15 tn Heb “her soul.”
16 sn On and Pi-beseth are generally identified with the Egyptian cities of Heliopolis and Bubastis.
17 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.”
18 sn Either Egypt, or the Lord compares Egypt to Assyria, which is described in vv. 3-17 through the metaphor of a majestic tree. See D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 2:185. Like Egypt, Assyria had been a great world power, but in time God brought the Assyrians down. Egypt should learn from history the lesson that no nation, no matter how powerful, can withstand the judgment of God. Rather than following the text here, some prefer to emend the proper name Assyria to a similar sounding common noun meaning “boxwood” (see Ezek 27:6), which would make a fitting parallel to “cedar of Lebanon” in the following line. In this case vv. 3-18 in their entirety refer to Egypt, not Assyria. See L. C. Allen, Ezekiel (WBC), 2:121-27.
19 sn Lebanon was know for its cedar trees (Judg 9:15; 1 Kgs 4:33; 5:6; 2 Kgs 14:9; Ezra 3:7; Pss 29:5; 92:12; 104:16).
20 sn The judgments of vv. 27-29 echo the judgments of Lev 26:22, 25.
21 tc The translation reads with some manuscripts לְשִׁמְמָה וּמְשַׁמָּה (lÿshimmah umÿshammah, “desolate ruin”) as in verse 3 and often in Ezekiel. The majority reading reverses the first mem (מ) with the shin (שׁ) resulting in the repetition of the word desolate: לְשִׁמְמָה וּשְׁמָמָה (lÿshimmah ushÿmamah).
22 tn Or “kill.”
23 tn Heb “I am about to bring a spirit.”
24 tn Heb “words will go up upon your heart.”