Discovery BoxEzekiel 4:4 
Context4:4 “Also for your part lie on your left side and place the iniquity 1 of the house of Israel on it. For the number of days you lie on your side you will bear their iniquity.
Ezekiel 21:3
Context21:3 and say to them, 2 ‘This is what the Lord says: Look, 3 I am against you. 4 I will draw my sword 5 from its sheath and cut off from you both the righteous and the wicked. 6
Ezekiel 24:3
Context24:3 Recite a proverb to this rebellious house 7 and say to them, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says:
“‘Set on the pot, 8 set it on,
pour water in it too;
Ezekiel 31:3
Context31:3 Consider Assyria, 9 a cedar in Lebanon, 10
with beautiful branches, like a forest giving shade,
and extremely tall;
its top reached into the clouds.
Ezekiel 43:23
Context43:23 When you have finished purifying it, you will offer an unblemished young bull and an unblemished ram from the flock.
1 tn Or “punishment” (also in vv. 5, 6).
2 tn Heb “the land of Israel.”
3 tn The word הִנֵּה (hinneh, traditionally “behold”) draws attention to something and has been translated here as a verb.
4 tn Or “I challenge you.” The phrase “I am against you” may be a formula for challenging someone to combat or a duel. See D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 1:201-2, and P. Humbert, “Die Herausforderungsformel ‘h!nn#n' ?l?K>,’” ZAW 45 (1933): 101-8.
5 sn This is the sword of judgment, see Isa 31:8; 34:6; 66:16.
6 sn Ezekiel elsewhere pictures the Lord’s judgment as discriminating between the righteous and the wicked (9:4-6; 18:1-20; see as well Pss 1 and 11) and speaks of the preservation of a remnant (3:21; 6:8; 12:16). Perhaps here he exaggerates for rhetorical effect in an effort to subdue any false optimism. See L. C. Allen, Ezekiel (WBC), 2:25-26; D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 1:669-70; and W. Zimmerli, Ezekiel (Hermeneia), 1:424-25.
7 sn The book of Ezekiel frequently refers to the Israelites as a rebellious house (Ezek 2:5, 6, 8; 3:9, 26-27; 12:2-3, 9, 25; 17:12; 24:3).
8 sn See Ezek 11:3-12.
9 sn Either Egypt, or the Lord compares Egypt to Assyria, which is described in vv. 3-17 through the metaphor of a majestic tree. See D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 2:185. Like Egypt, Assyria had been a great world power, but in time God brought the Assyrians down. Egypt should learn from history the lesson that no nation, no matter how powerful, can withstand the judgment of God. Rather than following the text here, some prefer to emend the proper name Assyria to a similar sounding common noun meaning “boxwood” (see Ezek 27:6), which would make a fitting parallel to “cedar of Lebanon” in the following line. In this case vv. 3-18 in their entirety refer to Egypt, not Assyria. See L. C. Allen, Ezekiel (WBC), 2:121-27.
10 sn Lebanon was know for its cedar trees (Judg 9:15; 1 Kgs 4:33; 5:6; 2 Kgs 14:9; Ezra 3:7; Pss 29:5; 92:12; 104:16).
