9:5 While I listened, he said to the others, 2 “Go through the city after him and strike people down; do no let your eye pity nor spare 3 anyone!
9:7 He said to them, “Defile the temple and fill the courtyards with corpses. Go!” So they went out and struck people down throughout the city.
19:7 He broke down 4 their strongholds 5 and devastated their cities.
The land and everything in it was frightened at the sound of his roaring.
21:26 this is what the sovereign Lord says:
Tear off the turban, 6
take off the crown!
Things must change! 7
Exalt the lowly,
bring down the proud! 8
“‘So you were filled and weighed down in the heart of the seas.
30:16 I will ignite a fire in Egypt;
Syene 13 will writhe in agony,
Thebes will be broken down,
and Memphis will face enemies every day.
31:7 It was beautiful in its loftiness, in the length of its branches;
for its roots went down deep to plentiful waters.
1 tn Thirty-nine of the forty-eight biblical occurrences of this Hebrew word are found in the book of Ezekiel.
sn This verse is probably based on Lev 26:30 in which God forecasts that he will destroy their high places, cut off their incense altars, and set their corpses by the corpses of their idols.
2 tn Heb “to these he said in my ears.”
3 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.
4 tc The Hebrew text reads “knew,” but is apparently the result of a ר-ד (dalet-resh) confusion. For a defense of the emendation, see L. C. Allen, Ezekiel (WBC), 1:284. However, Allen retains the reading “widows” as the object of the verb, which he understands in the sense of “do harm to,” and translates the line: “He did harm to women by making them widows” (p. 282). The line also appears to be lacking a beat for the meter of the poem.
5 tc The Hebrew text reads “widows” instead of “strongholds,” apparently due to a confusion of ר (resh) and ל (lamed). L. C. Allen (Ezekiel [WBC], 1:284) favors the traditional text, understanding “widows” in the sense of “women made widows.” D. I. Block, (Ezekiel [NICOT], 1:602) also defends the Hebrew text, arguing that the image is that of a dominant male lion who takes over the pride and by copulating with the females lays claim to his predecessor’s “widows.”
6 tn Elsewhere in the Bible the turban is worn by priests (Exod 28:4, 37, 39; 29:6; 39:28, 31; Lev 8:9; 16:4), but here a royal crown is in view.
7 tn Heb “This not this.”
8 tn Heb “the high one.”
9 tn Heb “lean on, put pressure on.”
10 map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.
11 tn Or “debris.”
12 tn Or perhaps “Large merchant ships.” The expression “ships of Tarshish” may describe a class of vessel, that is, large oceangoing merchant ships.
13 tc The LXX reads “Syene,” which is Aswan in the south. The MT reads Sin, which has already been mentioned in v. 15.
14 tn Heb “its arm.”
15 tc Heb “I.” The reading is due to the confusion of yod (י, indicating a first person pronoun) and vav (ו, indicating a third person pronoun). A few medieval Hebrew