Ezekiel 26:17

26:17 They will sing this lament over you:¹

“‘How you have perished – you have vanished² from the seas,

O renowned city, once mighty in the sea,

she and her inhabitants, who spread their terror!³

Ezekiel 26:20

26:20 then I will bring you down to bygone people,⁴ to be with those who descend to the pit. I will make you live in the lower parts of the earth, among⁵ the primeval ruins, with those who descend to the pit, so that you will not be inhabited or stand⁶ in the land of the living.

¹tn Heb “and they will lift up over you a lament and they will say to you.”

²tn Heb “O inhabitant.” The translation follows the LXX and understands a different Hebrew verb, meaning “cease,” behind the consonantal text. See L. C. Allen, Ezekiel [WBC], 2:72, and D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 2:43.

³tn Heb “she and her inhabitants who placed their terror to all her inhabitants.” The relationship of the final prepositional phrase to what precedes is unclear. The preposition probably has a specifying function here, drawing attention to Tyre’s inhabitants as the source of the terror mentioned prior to this. In this case, one might paraphrase verse 17b: “she and her inhabitants, who spread their terror; yes, her inhabitants (were the source of this terror).”

⁴tn Heb “to the people of antiquity.”

⁵tn Heb “like.” The translation assumes an emendation of the preposition כְּ (kÿ, “like”), to בְּ (bÿ, “in, among”).

⁶tn Heb “and I will place beauty.” This reading makes little sense; many, following the lead of the LXX, emend the text to read “nor will you stand” with the negative particle before the preceding verb understood by ellipsis; see L. C. Allen, Ezekiel (WBC), 2:73. D. I. Block (Ezekiel [NICOT], 2:47) offers another alternative, taking the apparent first person verb form as an archaic second feminine form and translating “nor radiate splendor.”