Discovery BoxEzekiel 12:3 
Context12:3 “Therefore, son of man, pack up your belongings as if for exile. During the day, while they are watching, pretend to go into exile. Go from where you live to another place. Perhaps they will understand, 1 although they are a rebellious house.
Ezekiel 14:9
Context14:9 “‘As for the prophet, if he is made a fool by being deceived into speaking a prophetic word – I, the Lord, have made a fool of 2 that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand against him and destroy him from among my people Israel.
Ezekiel 16:8
Context16:8 “‘Then I passed by you and watched you, noticing 3 that you had reached the age for love. 4 I spread my cloak 5 over you and covered your nakedness. I swore a solemn oath to you and entered into a marriage covenant with you, declares the sovereign Lord, and you became mine.
Ezekiel 21:22
Context21:22 Into his right hand 6 comes the portent for Jerusalem – to set up battering rams, to give the signal 7 for slaughter, to shout out the battle cry, 8 to set up battering rams against the gates, to erect a siege ramp, to build a siege wall.
Ezekiel 25:3
Context25:3 Say to the Ammonites, ‘Hear the word of the sovereign Lord: This is what the sovereign Lord says: You said “Aha!” about my sanctuary when it was desecrated, about the land of Israel when it was made desolate, and about the house of Judah when they went into exile.
Ezekiel 27:27
Context27:27 Your wealth, products, and merchandise, your sailors and captains,
your ship’s carpenters, 9 your merchants,
and all your fighting men within you,
along with all your crew who are in you,
will fall into the heart of the seas on the day of your downfall.
Ezekiel 29:12
Context29:12 I will turn the land of Egypt into a desolation in the midst of desolate lands; for forty years her cities will lie desolate in the midst of ruined cities. I will scatter Egypt among the nations and disperse them among foreign countries.
Ezekiel 31:14
Context31:14 For this reason no watered trees will grow so tall; their tops will not reach into the clouds, nor will the well-watered ones grow that high. 10 For all of them have been appointed to die in the lower parts of the earth; 11 they will be among mere mortals, 12 with those who descend to the pit.
Ezekiel 37:19
Context37:19 tell them, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: Look, I am about to take the branch of Joseph which is in the hand of Ephraim and the tribes of Israel associated with him, and I will place them on the stick of Judah, 13 and make them into one stick – they will be one in my hand.’ 14
Ezekiel 39:23
Context39:23 The nations will know that the house of Israel went into exile due to their iniquity, 15 for they were unfaithful to me. So I hid my face from them and handed them over to their enemies; all of them died by the sword.
1 tn Heb “see.” This plays on the uses of “see” in v. 2. They will see his actions with their eyes and perhaps they will “see” with their mind, that is, understand or grasp the point.
2 tn The translation is uncertain due to difficulty both in determining the meaning of the verb’s stem and its conjugation in this context. In the Qal stem the basic meaning of the verbal root פָּתַה (patah) is “to be gullible, foolish.” The doubling stems (the Pual and Piel used in this verse) typically give such stative verbs a factitive sense, hence either “make gullible” (i.e., “entice”) or “make into a fool” (i.e., “to show to be a fool”). The latter represents the probable meaning of the term in Jer 20:7, 10 and is followed here (see L. C. Allen, Ezekiel [WBC], 1:193; R. Mosis “Ez 14, 1-11 - ein Ruf zur Umkehr,” BZ 19 [1975]: 166-69 and ThWAT 4:829-31). In this view, if a prophet speaks when not prompted by God, he will be shown to be a fool, but this does not reflect negatively on the Lord because it is God who shows him to be a fool. Secondly, the verb is in the perfect conjugation and may be translated “I have made a fool of him” or “I have enticed him,” or to show determination (see IBHS 439-41 §27.2f and g), or in certain syntactical constructions as future. Any of these may be plausible if the doubling stems used are understood in the sense of “making a fool of.” But if understood as “to make gullible,” more factors come into play. As the Hebrew verbal form is a perfect, it is often translated as present perfect: “I have enticed.” In this case the Lord states that he himself enticed the prophet to cooperate with the idolaters. Such enticement to sin would seem to be a violation of God’s moral character, but sometimes he does use such deception and enticement to sin as a form of punishment against those who have blatantly violated his moral will (see, e.g., 2 Sam 24). If one follows this line of interpretation in Ezek 14:9, one would have to assume that the prophet had already turned from God in his heart. However, the context gives no indication of this. Therefore, it is better to take the perfect as indicating certitude and to translate it with the future tense: “I will entice.” In this case the Lord announces that he will judge the prophet appropriately. If a prophet allows himself to be influenced by idolaters, then the Lord will use deception as a form of punishment against that deceived prophet. A comparison with the preceding oracles also favors this view. In 14:4 the perfect of certitude is used for emphasis (see “I will answer”), though in v. 7 a participle is employed. For a fuller discussion of this text, see R. B. Chisholm, Jr., “Does God Deceive?” BSac 155 (1998): 23-25.
3 tn The word הִנֵּה (hinneh, traditionally “behold”) indicates becoming aware of something and has been translated here as a participle.
4 tn See similar use of this term in Ezek 23:17; Prov 7:16; Song of Songs 4:10; 7:13.
5 tn Heb “wing” or “skirt.” The gesture symbolized acquiring a woman in early Arabia (similarly, see Deut 22:30; Ruth 3:9).
6 tn Or “on the right side,” i.e., the omen mark on the right side of the liver.
7 tn Heb “to open the mouth” for slaughter.
8 tn Heb “to raise up a voice in a battle cry.”
9 tn Heb “your repairers of damage.” See v. 9.
10 tn Heb “and they will not stand to them in their height, all the drinkers of water.”
11 tn Heb “for death, to the lower earth.”
12 tn Heb “the sons of men.”
13 tn Heb “I will place them on it, that is, on the stick of Judah.”
14 sn The reunification of Israel and Judah is envisioned as well in Ezek 33:23, 29; Jer 3:18; 23:5-6; Hos 1:11; Amos 9:11.
15 tn Or “in their punishment.” The phrase “in/for [a person’s] iniquity/punishment” occurs fourteen times in Ezekiel: here; 3:18, 19; 4:17; 7:13, 16; 18: 17, 18, 19, 20; 24:23; 33:6, 8, 9. The Hebrew word for “iniquity” may also mean the “punishment” for iniquity or “guilt” of iniquity.
