5:1 “As for you, son of man, take a sharp sword and use it as a barber’s razor. 3 Shave off some of the hair from your head and your beard. 4 Then take scales and divide up the hair you cut off.
8:16 Then he brought me to the inner court of the Lord’s house. Right there 17 at the entrance to the Lord’s temple, between the porch and the altar, 18 were about twenty-five 19 men with their backs to the Lord’s temple, 20 facing east – they were worshiping the sun 21 toward the east!
16:8 “‘Then I passed by you and watched you, noticing 25 that you had reached the age for love. 26 I spread my cloak 27 over you and covered your nakedness. I swore a solemn oath to you and entered into a marriage covenant with you, declares the sovereign Lord, and you became mine.
“‘Look, I am against you, 35 Sidon,
and I will magnify myself in your midst.
Then they will know that I am the Lord
when I execute judgments on her
and reveal my sovereign power 36 in her.
33:10 “And you, son of man, say to the house of Israel, ‘This is what you have said: “Our rebellious acts and our sins have caught up with us, 41 and we are wasting away because of them. How then can we live?”’
40:48 Then he brought me to the porch of the temple and measured the jambs of the porch as 8¾ feet 44 on either side, and the width of the gate was 24½ feet 45 and the sides 46 were 5¼ feet 47 on each side.
42:13 Then he said to me, “The north chambers and the south chambers which face the courtyard are holy chambers where the priests 48 who approach the Lord will eat the most holy offerings. There they will place the most holy offerings – the grain offering, the sin offering, and the guilt offering, because the place is holy.
43:18 Then he said to me: “Son of man, this is what the sovereign Lord says: These are the statutes of the altar: On the day it is built to offer up burnt offerings on it and to sprinkle blood on it, 49
47:1 Then he brought me back to the entrance of the temple. I noticed 51 that water was flowing from under the threshold of the temple toward the east (for the temple faced east). The water was flowing down from under the right side of the temple, from south of the altar.
1 tn Or “a griddle,” that is, some sort of plate for cooking.
2 tn That is, a symbolic object lesson.
3 tn The Hebrew word occurs only here in the OT.
4 tn Heb, “pass (it) over your head and your beard.”
5 tn The words “they will realize” are not in the Hebrew text; they are added here for stylistic reasons since this clause assumes the previous verb “to remember” or “to take into account.”
6 tn Heb “how I was broken by their adulterous heart.” The image of God being “broken” is startling, but perfectly natural within the metaphorical framework of God as offended husband. The idiom must refer to the intense grief that Israel’s unfaithfulness caused God. For a discussion of the syntax and semantics of the Hebrew text, see M. Greenberg, Ezekiel (AB), 1:134.
7 tn Heb adds “in their faces.”
8 sn By referring to every high hill…all the mountaintops…under every green tree and every leafy oak Ezekiel may be expanding on the phraseology of Deut 12:2 (see 1 Kgs 14:23; 2 Kgs 16:4; 17:10; Jer 2:20; 3:6, 13; 2 Chr 28:4).
9 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.
10 tn Heb “According to your behavior I will place on you.”
11 tn The MT lacks “you.” It has been added for clarification.
12 tn Heb “and by their judgments.”
13 tn The Hebrew term is normally used as an architectural term in describing the pattern of the tabernacle or temple or a representation of it (see Exod 25:8; 1 Chr 28:11).
14 tn Or “spirit.” See note on “wind” in 2:2.
15 map For the location of Jerusalem see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.
16 tn Or “image.”
17 tn The word הִנֵּה (hinneh, traditionally “behold”) indicates becoming aware of something.
18 sn The priests prayed to God between the porch and the altar on fast days (Joel 2:17). This is the location where Zechariah was murdered (Matt 23:35).
19 tc The LXX reads “twenty” instead of twenty-five, perhaps because of the association of the number twenty with the Mesopotamian sun god Shamash.
tn Or “exactly twenty-five.”
20 sn The temple faced east.
21 tn Or “the sun god.”
sn The worship of astral entities may have begun during the reign of Manasseh (2 Kgs 21:5).
22 tn The Hebrew term may refer to the secret council of the
23 tn The reference here is probably to a civil list (as in Ezra 2:16; Neh 7:64) rather than to a “book of life” (Exod 32:32; Isa 4:3; Ps 69:29; Dan 12:1). This registry may have been established at the making of David’s census (2 Sam 24:2, 9).
24 tn Heb “in accordance with the multitude of his idols.”
25 tn The word הִנֵּה (hinneh, traditionally “behold”) indicates becoming aware of something and has been translated here as a participle.
26 tn See similar use of this term in Ezek 23:17; Prov 7:16; Song of Songs 4:10; 7:13.
27 tn Heb “wing” or “skirt.” The gesture symbolized acquiring a woman in early Arabia (similarly, see Deut 22:30; Ruth 3:9).
28 tn Heb “each one, the detestable things of their eyes did not throw away.”
29 tn Heb “and I said/thought to pour out.”
30 tn See the note at 2:3.
31 tc The translation here follows the marginal reading (Qere) of the Hebrew text. The consonantal text (Kethib) is meaningless.
32 tn Heb “to the people of antiquity.”
33 tn Heb “like.” The translation assumes an emendation of the preposition כְּ (kÿ, “like”), to בְּ (bÿ, “in, among”).
34 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.”
35 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.
36 tn Or “reveal my holiness.” God’s “holiness” is fundamentally his transcendence as sovereign ruler of the world. The revelation of his authority and power through judgment is in view in this context.
37 sn This promise was given in Lev 25:18-19.
38 sn For the expression “going down to the pit,” see Ezek 26:20; 32:18, 24, 29.
39 tn Or “in his punishment.” The phrase “in/for [a person’s] iniquity/punishment” occurs fourteen times in Ezekiel: here and in vv. 8 and 9; 3:18, 19; 4:17; 7:13, 16; 18: 17, 18, 19, 20; 24:23; 39:23. The Hebrew word for “iniquity” may also mean the “punishment” for iniquity or “guilt” of iniquity.
40 tn Heb “his blood from the hand of the watchman I will seek.”
41 tn Heb “(are) upon us.”
42 sn These verbs occur together in Gen 1:22, 28; 9:1.
43 tn Heb “your beginning.”
44 tn Heb “five cubits” (i.e., 2.625 meters).
45 tn The LXX reads “fourteen cubits” (i.e., 7.35 meters). See following note.
46 tc The translation follows the LXX. The MT reads “the width of the gate was three cubits,” the omission due to haplography.
tn Or “sidewalls.”
47 tn Heb “three cubits” (i.e., 1.575 meters).
48 sn The priests are from the Zadokite family (Ezek 40:6; 44:15).
49 sn For the “sprinkling of blood,” see Lev 1:5, 11; 8:19; 9:12.
50 tn Heb “he shall shut the gate after he goes out.”
51 tn The word הִנֵּה (hinneh, traditionally “behold”) indicates becoming aware of something and has been translated here as a verb.