3:20 “When a righteous person turns from his righteousness and commits iniquity, and I set an obstacle 4 before him, he will die. If you have not warned him, he will die for his sin. The righteous deeds he performed will not be considered, but I will hold you accountable for his death.
11:1 A wind 11 lifted me up and brought me to the east gate of the Lord’s temple that faces the east. There, at the entrance of the gate, I noticed twenty-five men. Among them I saw Jaazaniah son of Azzur and Pelatiah son of Benaiah, officials of the people. 12
11:16 “Therefore say: ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: Although I have removed them far away among the nations and have dispersed them among the countries, I have been a little 13 sanctuary for them among the lands where they have gone.’
13:20 “‘Therefore, this is what the sovereign Lord says: Take note 14 that I am against your wristbands with which you entrap people’s lives 15 like birds. I will tear them from your arms and will release the people’s lives, which you hunt like birds.
14:9 “‘As for the prophet, if he is made a fool by being deceived into speaking a prophetic word – I, the Lord, have made a fool of 16 that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand against him and destroy him from among my people Israel.
“‘Your heart is proud 24 and you said, “I am a god; 25
I sit in the seat of gods, in the heart of the seas” –
yet you are a man and not a god,
though you think you are godlike. 26
28:18 By the multitude of your iniquities, through the sinfulness of your trade,
you desecrated your sanctuaries.
So I drew fire out from within you;
it consumed you,
and I turned you to ashes on the earth
before the eyes of all who saw you.
“‘Look, I am against 28 you, Pharaoh king of Egypt,
the great monster 29 lying in the midst of its waterways,
who has said, “My Nile is my own, I made it for myself.” 30
29:5 I will leave you in the wilderness,
you and all the fish of your waterways;
you will fall in the open field and will not be gathered up or collected. 31
I have given you as food to the beasts of the earth and the birds of the skies.
30:13 “‘This is what the sovereign Lord says:
I will destroy the idols,
and put an end to the gods of Memphis.
There will no longer be a prince from the land of Egypt;
so I will make the land of Egypt fearful. 32
33:27 “This is what you must say to them, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: As surely as I live, those living in the ruins will die 36 by the sword, those in the open field I will give to the wild beasts for food, and those who are in the strongholds and caves will die of disease.
1 sn Even though the infinitive absolute is used to emphasize the warning, the warning is still implicitly conditional, as the following context makes clear.
2 tn Or “in his punishment.” The phrase “in/for [a person’s] iniquity” occurs fourteen times in Ezekiel: here and v. 19; 4:17; 7:13, 16; 18: 17, 18, 19, 20; 24:23; 33:6, 8, 9; 39:23. The Hebrew word for “iniquity” may also mean the “punishment for iniquity.”
3 tn Heb “his blood I will seek from your hand.” The expression “seek blood from the hand” is equivalent to requiring the death penalty (2 Sam 4:11-12).
4 tn Or “stumbling block.” The Hebrew term refers to an obstacle in the road in Lev 19:14.
5 sn The judgment of plague and famine comes from the covenant curse (Lev 26:25-26). As in v. 10, the city of Jerusalem is figuratively addressed here.
6 sn Judgment by plague, famine, and sword occurs in Jer 21:9; 27:13; Ezek 6:11, 12; 7:15.
7 tn The phrase “mountains of Israel” occurs only in the book of Ezekiel (6:2, 3; 19:9; 33:28; 34:13, 14; 35:12; 36:1, 4, 8; 37:22; 38:8; 39:2, 4, 17). The expression refers to the whole land of Israel.
sn The mountainous terrain of Israel would contrast with the exiles’ habitat in the river valley of Babylonia.
8 tn The introductory formula “Hear the word of the sovereign
9 tn Heb “Look I, I am bringing.” The repetition of the pronoun draws attention to the speaker. The construction also indicates that the action is soon to come; the Lord is “about to bring a sword against” them.
10 tn The Hebrew term refers to elevated platforms where pagan sacrifices were performed.
11 tn Or “spirit.” See note on “wind” in 2:2.
12 sn The phrase officials of the people occurs in Neh 11:1; 1 Chr 21:2; 2 Chr 24:23.
13 tn Or “have been partially a sanctuary”; others take this as temporal (cf. NASB, NIV, NRSV “a little while”).
14 tn The word הִנֵּה (hinneh, traditionally “behold”) indicates becoming aware of something and has been translated here as a verb.
15 tn Heb “human lives” or “souls.”
16 tn The translation is uncertain due to difficulty both in determining the meaning of the verb’s stem and its conjugation in this context. In the Qal stem the basic meaning of the verbal root פָּתַה (patah) is “to be gullible, foolish.” The doubling stems (the Pual and Piel used in this verse) typically give such stative verbs a factitive sense, hence either “make gullible” (i.e., “entice”) or “make into a fool” (i.e., “to show to be a fool”). The latter represents the probable meaning of the term in Jer 20:7, 10 and is followed here (see L. C. Allen, Ezekiel [WBC], 1:193; R. Mosis “Ez 14, 1-11 - ein Ruf zur Umkehr,” BZ 19 [1975]: 166-69 and ThWAT 4:829-31). In this view, if a prophet speaks when not prompted by God, he will be shown to be a fool, but this does not reflect negatively on the Lord because it is God who shows him to be a fool. Secondly, the verb is in the perfect conjugation and may be translated “I have made a fool of him” or “I have enticed him,” or to show determination (see IBHS 439-41 §27.2f and g), or in certain syntactical constructions as future. Any of these may be plausible if the doubling stems used are understood in the sense of “making a fool of.” But if understood as “to make gullible,” more factors come into play. As the Hebrew verbal form is a perfect, it is often translated as present perfect: “I have enticed.” In this case the Lord states that he himself enticed the prophet to cooperate with the idolaters. Such enticement to sin would seem to be a violation of God’s moral character, but sometimes he does use such deception and enticement to sin as a form of punishment against those who have blatantly violated his moral will (see, e.g., 2 Sam 24). If one follows this line of interpretation in Ezek 14:9, one would have to assume that the prophet had already turned from God in his heart. However, the context gives no indication of this. Therefore, it is better to take the perfect as indicating certitude and to translate it with the future tense: “I will entice.” In this case the Lord announces that he will judge the prophet appropriately. If a prophet allows himself to be influenced by idolaters, then the Lord will use deception as a form of punishment against that deceived prophet. A comparison with the preceding oracles also favors this view. In 14:4 the perfect of certitude is used for emphasis (see “I will answer”), though in v. 7 a participle is employed. For a fuller discussion of this text, see R. B. Chisholm, Jr., “Does God Deceive?” BSac 155 (1998): 23-25.
17 tn Or “I will not reveal myself to you.”
18 tn Heb “which I lifted up my hand.”
19 tn Heb “all of it.”
20 tn Heb “to the people of antiquity.”
21 tn Heb “like.” The translation assumes an emendation of the preposition כְּ (kÿ, “like”), to בְּ (bÿ, “in, among”).
22 tn 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.”
23 tn Or “ruler” (NIV, NCV).
24 tn Heb “lifted up.”
sn See Prov 16:5.
25 tn Or “I am divine.”
26 tn Heb “and you made your heart (mind) like the heart (mind) of gods.”
27 sn This promise was given in Lev 25:18-19.
28 tn Or “I challenge you.” The phrase “I am against you” may be a formula for challenging someone to combat or a duel. See D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 1:201-2, and P. Humbert, “Die Herausforderungsformel ‘h!nn#n' ?l?K>,’” ZAW 45 (1933): 101-8.
29 tn Heb “jackals,” but many medieval Hebrew
30 sn In Egyptian theology Pharaoh owned and controlled the Nile. See J. D. Currid, Ancient Egypt and the Old Testament, 240-44.
31 tc Some Hebrew
32 tn Heb “I will put fear in the land of Egypt.”
33 sn For the expression “going down to the pit,” see Ezek 26:20; 32:18, 24, 29.
34 tn Heb “turn from his way.”
35 tn Heb “ways.” This same word is translated “behavior” earlier in the verse.
36 tn Heb “fall.”
37 tn Heb “I will place them on it, that is, on the stick of Judah.”
38 sn The reunification of Israel and Judah is envisioned as well in Ezek 33:23, 29; Jer 3:18; 23:5-6; Hos 1:11; Amos 9:11.
39 tn Heb “come up.”
40 tn Or “reveal my holiness.”
41 tn Heb “look with your eyes, hear with your ears, and set your mind on.”
42 tn Heb “in order to show (it) to you.”