Ezekiel 5:2

5:2 Burn a third of it in the fire inside the city when the days of your siege are completed. Take a third and slash it with a sword all around the city. Scatter a third to the wind, and I will unleash a sword behind them.

Ezekiel 5:12

5:12 A third of your people will die of plague or be overcome by the famine within you. 1  A third of your people will fall by the sword surrounding you, 2  and a third I will scatter to the winds. I will unleash a sword behind them.

Ezekiel 24:21

24:21 Say to the house of Israel, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: Realize I am about to desecrate my sanctuary – the source of your confident pride, 3  the object in which your eyes delight, 4  and your life’s passion. 5  Your very own sons and daughters whom you have left behind will die 6  by the sword.

1 sn The judgment of plague and famine comes from the covenant curse (Lev 26:25-26). As in v. 10, the city of Jerusalem is figuratively addressed here.

2 sn Judgment by plague, famine, and sword occurs in Jer 21:9; 27:13; Ezek 6:11, 12; 7:15.

3 tn Heb “the pride of your strength” means “your strong pride.”

4 sn Heb “the delight of your eyes.” Just as Ezekiel was deprived of his beloved wife (v. 16, the “desire” of his “eyes”) so the Lord would be forced to remove the object of his devotion, the temple, which symbolized his close relationship to his covenant people.

5 tn Heb “the object of compassion of your soul.” The accentuation in the traditional Hebrew text indicates that the descriptive phrases (“the source of your confident pride, the object in which your eyes delight, and your life’s passion”) modify the preceding “my sanctuary.”

6 tn Heb “fall.”