Ezekiel 5:14-15

5:14 “I will make you desolate and an object of scorn among the nations around you, in the sight of everyone who passes by. 5:15 You will be 1  an object of scorn and taunting, 2  a prime example of destruction 3  among the nations around you when I execute judgments against you in anger and raging fury. 4  I, the Lord, have spoken!

1 tc This reading is supported by the versions and by the Dead Sea Scrolls (11QEzek). Most Masoretic Hebrew mss read “it will be,” but if the final he (ה) is read as a mater lectionis, as it can be with the second masculine singular perfect, then they are in agreement. In either case the subject refers to Jerusalem.

2 tn The Hebrew word occurs only here in the OT. A related verb means “revile, taunt” (see Ps 44:16).

3 tn Heb “discipline and devastation.” These words are omitted in the Old Greek. The first term pictures Jerusalem as a recipient or example of divine discipline; the second depicts her as a desolate ruin (see Ezek 6:14).

4 tn Heb “in anger and in fury and in rebukes of fury.” The heaping up of synonyms emphasizes the degree of God’s anger.