Ezekiel 7:7

7:7 Doom is coming upon you who live in the land! The time is coming, the day¹ is near. There are sounds of tumult, not shouts of joy, on the mountains.²

Ezekiel 18:6

18:6 does not eat pagan sacrifices on the mountains³ or pray to the idols⁴ of the house of Israel, does not defile his neighbor’s wife, does not have sexual relations with a⁵ woman during her period,

Ezekiel 19:9

19:9 They put him in a collar with hooks;⁶

they brought him to the king of Babylon;

they brought him to prison⁷

so that his voice would not be heard

any longer on the mountains of Israel.

Ezekiel 33:28

33:28 I will turn the land into a desolate ruin; her confident pride will come to an end. The mountains of Israel will be so desolate no one will pass through them.

Ezekiel 34:6

34:6 My sheep wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill. My sheep were scattered over the entire face of the earth with no one looking or searching for them.

Ezekiel 34:14

34:14 In a good pasture I will feed them; the mountain heights of Israel will be their pasture. There they will lie down in a lush⁸ pasture, and they will feed on rich grass on the mountains of Israel.

Ezekiel 35:12

35:12 Then you will know that I, the Lord, have heard all the insults you spoke against the mountains of Israel, saying, “They are desolate, they have been given to us for food.”

Ezekiel 37:22

37:22 I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel, and one king will rule over them all. They will never again be two nations and never again be divided into two kingdoms.⁹

Ezekiel 39:2

39:2 I will turn you around and drag you along;¹⁰ I will lead you up from the remotest parts of the north and bring you against the mountains of Israel.

Ezekiel 39:4

39:4 You will fall dead on the mountains of Israel, you and all your troops and the people who are with you. I give you as food to every kind of bird and every wild beast.

¹sn The day refers to the day of the Lord, a concept which, beginning in Amos 5:18-20, became a common theme in the OT prophetic books. It refers to a time when the Lord intervenes in human affairs as warrior and judge.

²tc The LXX reads “neither tumult nor birth pains.” The LXX varies at many points from the MT in this chapter. The context suggests that one or both of these would be present on a day of judgment, thus favoring the MT. Perhaps more significant is the absence of “the mountains” in the LXX. If the ר (resh) in הָרִים (harim, “the mountains” not “on the mountains”) were a ד (dalet), which is a common letter confusion, then it could be from the same root as the previous word, הֵד (hed), meaning “the day is near – with destruction, not joyful shouting.”

³tn Heb, “on the mountains he does not eat.” The mountains are often mentioned as the place where idolatrous sacrifices were eaten (Ezek 20:28; 22:9; 34:6).

⁴tn Heb, “does not lift up his eyes.” This refers to looking to idols for help.

⁵tn Heb, “does not draw near to.” “Draw near” is a euphemism for sexual intercourse (Lev 18:14; Deut 22:14; Isa 8:3).

⁶tn Or “They put him in a neck stock with hooks.” The noun סּוּגַר (sugar), translated “collar,” occurs only here in the Bible. L. C. Allen and D. I. Block point out a Babylonian cognate that refers to a device for transporting prisoners of war that held them by their necks (D. I. Block, Ezekiel [NICOT], 1:597, n. 35; L. C. Allen, Ezekiel [WBC], 1:284). Based on the Hebrew root, the traditional rendering had been “cage” (cf. ASV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV).

⁷tc The term in the MT occurs only here and in Eccl 9:12 where it refers to a net for catching fish. The LXX translates this as “prison,” which assumes a confusion of dalet and resh took place in the MT.

⁸tn Heb “good.”

⁹sn Jeremiah also attested to the reuniting of the northern and southern kingdoms (Jer 3:12, 14; 31:2-6).

¹⁰tn The Hebrew root occurs only here in the OT. An apparent cognate in the Ethiopic language means “walk along.” For a discussion of the research on this verb, see D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 2:460.