Ezekiel 4:1

Ominous Object Lessons

4:1 “And you, son of man, take a brick ¹  and set it in front of you. Inscribe ²  a city on it – Jerusalem.

Ezekiel 9:1

The Execution of Idolaters

9:1 Then he shouted in my ears, “Approach, ³  you who are to visit destruction on the city, each with his destructive weapon in his hand!”

Ezekiel 9:5

9:5 While I listened, he said to the others, ⁴  “Go through the city after him and strike people down; do no let your eye pity nor spare ⁵  anyone!

Ezekiel 9:7

9:7 He said to them, “Defile the temple and fill the courtyards with corpses. Go!” So they went out and struck people down throughout the city.

Ezekiel 11:2-3

11:2 The Lord ⁶  said to me, “Son of man, these are the men who plot evil and give wicked advice in this city. 11:3 They say, ⁷  ‘The time is not near to build houses; ⁸  the city ⁹  is a cooking pot ¹⁰  and we are the meat in it.’

Ezekiel 11:9

11:9 ‘But I will take you out of the city. ¹¹  And I will hand you over to foreigners. I will execute judgments on you.

Ezekiel 11:11

11:11 This city will not be a cooking pot for you, and you will not ¹²  be meat within it; I will judge you at the border of Israel.

Ezekiel 17:4

17:4 He plucked off its topmost shoot;

he brought it to a land of merchants

and planted it in a city of traders.

Ezekiel 24:9

24:9 “‘Therefore this is what the sovereign Lord says:

Woe to the city of bloodshed!

I will also make the pile high.

Ezekiel 43:3

43:3 It was like the vision I saw when he ¹³  came to destroy the city, and the vision I saw by the Kebar River. I threw myself face down.

Ezekiel 48:20

48:20 The whole allotment will be eight and a quarter miles ¹⁴  square, you must set apart the holy allotment with the possession of the city.

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¹ sn Ancient Near Eastern bricks were 10 to 24 inches long and 6 to 13 1/2 inches wide.

² tn Or perhaps “draw.”

³ tc Heb “they approached.” Reading the imperative assumes the same consonantal text but different vowels.

⁴ tn Heb “to these he said in my ears.”

⁵ tn The meaning of the Hebrew term is primarily emotional: “to pity,” which in context implies an action, as in being moved by pity in order to spare them from the horror of their punishment.

⁶ tn Heb “and he”; the referent (the Lord) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁷ tn The Hebrew verb may mean “think” in this context. This content of what they say (or think) represents their point of view.

⁸ sn The expression build houses may mean “establish families” (Deut 25:9; Ruth 4:11; Prov 24:27).

⁹ tn Heb “she” or “it”; the feminine pronoun refers here to Jerusalem.

¹⁰ sn Jerusalem is also compared to a pot in Ezek 24:3-8. The siege of the city is pictured as heating up the pot.

¹¹ tn Heb “its midst.”

¹² tn The Hebrew text does not have the negative particle, but it is implied. The negative particle in the previous line does double duty here.

¹³ tc Heb “I.” The reading is due to the confusion of yod (י, indicating a first person pronoun) and vav (ו, indicating a third person pronoun). A few medieval Hebrew mss, Theodotion’s Greek version, and the Latin Vulgate support a third person pronoun here.

¹⁴ tn Heb “twenty-five thousand cubits” (i.e., 13.125 kilometers).