19:4 The nations heard about him; he was trapped in their pit.
They brought him with hooks to the land of Egypt. 1
19:9 They put him in a collar with hooks; 2
they brought him to the king of Babylon;
they brought him to prison 3
so that his voice would not be heard
any longer on the mountains of Israel.
1 sn The description applies to king Jehoahaz (2 Kgs 23:31-34; Jer 22:10-12).
2 tn 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).
3 tc 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.