21:10 It is sharpened for slaughter,
it is polished to flash like lightning!
“‘Should we rejoice in the scepter of my son? No! The sword despises every tree! 8
24:25 “And you, son of man, this is what will happen on the day I take 10 from them their stronghold – their beautiful source of joy, the object in which their eyes delight, and the main concern of their lives, 11 as well as their sons and daughters: 12
30:18 In Tahpanhes the day will be dark 14
when I break the yoke of Egypt there.
Her confident pride will cease within her;
a cloud will cover her, and her daughters will go into captivity.
40:48 Then he brought me to the porch of the temple and measured the jambs of the porch as 8¾ feet 18 on either side, and the width of the gate was 24½ feet 19 and the sides 20 were 5¼ feet 21 on each side.
1 tc This reading is supported by the versions and by the Dead Sea Scrolls (11QEzek). Most Masoretic Hebrew
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.
5 tc The translation follows the LXX for the first line of the verse, although the LXX has lost the second line due to homoioteleuton (similar endings of the clauses). The MT reads “The seller will not return to the sale.” This Hebrew reading has been construed as a reference to land redemption, the temporary sale of the use of property, with property rights returned to the seller in the year of Jubilee. But the context has no other indicator that land redemption is in view. If correct, the LXX evidence suggests that one of the cases of “the customer” has been replaced by “the seller” in the MT, perhaps due to hoimoioarcton (similar beginnings of the words).
6 tn The Hebrew word refers to the din or noise made by a crowd, and by extension may refer to the crowd itself.
7 tn Or “in their punishment.” The phrase “in/for [a person’s] iniquity” occurs fourteen times in Ezekiel: here and in v. 16; 3:18, 19; 4:17; 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.”
8 tn Heb “Or shall we rejoice, scepter of my son, it despises every tree.” The translation understands the subject of the verb “despises,” which is a feminine form in the Hebrew text, to be the sword (which is a feminine noun) mentioned just before this. Alternatively, the line may be understood as “let us not rejoice, O tribe of my son; it despises every tree.” The same word in Hebrew may be either “rod,” “scepter,” or “tribe.” The word sometimes translated as “or” or taken as an interrogative particle may be a negative particle. See D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 1:672, n. 79.
sn The people of Judah should not place false hope in their king, symbolized by his royal scepter, for God’s judgment (symbolized by fire and then a sword) would destroy every tree (see 20:47), symbolizing the righteous and wicked (see 21:3-4).
9 tn Heb “her time”; this refers to the time of impending judgment (see the note on “doom” in v. 4).
10 tn Heb “(Will) it not (be) in the day I take?”
11 tn Heb “the uplifting of their soul.” According to BDB 672 s.v. מַשָּׂא 2, the term “uplifting” refers to “that to which they lift up their soul, their heart’s desire.” However, this text is the only one listed for this use. It seems more likely that the term has its well-attested nuance of “burden, load,” here and refers to that which weighs them down emotionally and is a constant source of concern or worry.
12 tn In the Hebrew text there is no conjunction before “their sons and daughters.” For this reason one might assume that the preceding descriptive phrases refer to the sons and daughters, but verse 21 suggests otherwise. The descriptive phrases appear to refer to the “stronghold,” which parallels “my sanctuary” in verse 21. The children constitute a separate category.
13 sn This promise was given in Lev 25:18-19.
14 sn In Zeph 1:15 darkness is associated with the day of the
15 sn This practice was a violation of Levitical law (see Lev 19:26).
16 tn Heb “lift up your eyes.”
17 tn Heb “Will you possess?”
18 tn Heb “five cubits” (i.e., 2.625 meters).
19 tn The LXX reads “fourteen cubits” (i.e., 7.35 meters). See following note.
20 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.”
21 tn Heb “three cubits” (i.e., 1.575 meters).