21:26 this is what the sovereign Lord says:
Tear off the turban, 1
take off the crown!
Things must change! 2
Exalt the lowly,
bring down the proud! 3
27:31 they will tear out their hair because of you and put on sackcloth,
and they will weep bitterly over you with intense mourning. 7
1 tn Elsewhere in the Bible the turban is worn by priests (Exod 28:4, 37, 39; 29:6; 39:28, 31; Lev 8:9; 16:4), but here a royal crown is in view.
2 tn Heb “This not this.”
3 tn Heb “the high one.”
4 tn Heb “You will drink it and drain (it).”
5 tn D. I. Block compares this to the idiom of “licking the plate” (Ezekiel [NICOT], 1:754, n. 137). The text is difficult as the word translated “gnaw” is rare. The noun is used of the shattered pieces of pottery and so could envision a broken cup. But the Piel verb form is used in only one other place (Num 24:8), where it is a denominative from the noun “bone” and seems to mean to “break (bones).” Why it would be collocated with “sherds” is not clear. For this reason some emend the phrase to read “consume its dregs” (see L. C. Allen, Ezekiel [WBC], 2:44) or emend the verb to read “swallow,” as if the intoxicated Oholibah breaks the cup and then eats the very sherds in an effort to get every last drop of the beverage that dampens them.
6 sn The severe action is more extreme than beating the breasts in anguish (Isa 32:12; Nah 2:7). It is also ironic for these are the very breasts she so blatantly offered to her lovers (vv. 3, 21).
7 tn Heb “and they will weep concerning you with bitterness of soul, (with) bitter mourning.”