Ezekiel 7:22-24

7:22 I will turn my face away from them and they will desecrate my treasured place. ¹  Vandals will enter it and desecrate it. ²  7:23 (Make the chain, ³  because the land is full of murder ⁴  and the city is full of violence.) 7:24 I will bring the most wicked of the nations and they will take possession of their houses. I will put an end to the arrogance of the strong, and their sanctuaries ⁵  will be desecrated.

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¹ sn My treasured place probably refers to the temple (however, cf. NLT “my treasured land”).

² sn Since the pronouns “it” are both feminine, they do not refer to the masculine “my treasured place”; instead they probably refer to Jerusalem or the land, both of which are feminine in Hebrew.

³ tc The Hebrew word “the chain” occurs only here in the OT. The reading of the LXX (“and they will make carnage”) seems to imply a Hebrew text of ַהבַּתּוֹק (habbattoq, “disorder, slaughter”) instead of הָרַתּוֹק (haratoq, “the chain”). The LXX is also translating the verb as a third person plural future and taking this as the end of the preceding verse. As M. Greenberg (Ezekiel [AB], 1:154) notes, this may refer to a chain for a train of exiles but “the context does not speak of exile but of the city’s fall. The versions guess desperately and we can do little better.”

⁴ tn Heb “judgment for blood,” i.e., indictment or accountability for bloodshed. The word for “judgment” does not appear in the similar phrase in 9:9.

⁵ sn Or “their holy places” (KJV, ASV, NASB, NCV, NRSV).