Ezekiel 5:15-17

5:15 You will be¹ an object of scorn and taunting,² a prime example of destruction³ among the nations around you when I execute judgments against you in anger and raging fury.⁴ I, the Lord, have spoken! 5:16 I will shoot against them deadly,⁵ destructive⁶ arrows of famine,⁷ which I will shoot to destroy you.⁸ I will prolong a famine on you and will remove the bread supply.⁹ 5:17 I will send famine and wild beasts against you and they will take your children from you.¹⁰ Plague and bloodshed will overwhelm you,¹¹ and I will bring a sword against you. I, the Lord, have spoken!”

¹tc 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.

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

³tn 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).

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

⁵tn The Hebrew word carries the basic idea of “bad, displeasing, injurious,” but when used of weapons has the nuance “deadly” (see Ps 144:10).

⁶tn Heb “which are/were to destroy.”

⁷tn The language of this verse may have been influenced by Deut 32:23.

⁸tn Or “which were to destroy those whom I will send to destroy you” (cf. NASB).

⁹tn Heb, “break the staff of bread.” The bread supply is compared to a staff that one uses for support. See 4:16, as well as the covenant curse in Lev 26:26.

¹⁰tn Heb “will bereave you.”

¹¹tn Heb “will pass through you.” This threat recalls the warning of Lev 26:22, 25 and Deut 32:24-25.