Ezekiel 5:15-17
Context5:15 You will be 1 an object of scorn and taunting, 2 a prime example of destruction 3 among the nations around you when I execute judgments against you in anger and raging fury. 4 I, the Lord, have spoken! 5:16 I will shoot against them deadly, 5 destructive 6 arrows of famine, 7 which I will shoot to destroy you. 8 I will prolong a famine on you and will remove the bread supply. 9 5:17 I will send famine and wild beasts against you and they will take your children from you. 10 Plague and bloodshed will overwhelm you, 11 and I will bring a sword against you. I, the Lord, have spoken!”
1 tc This reading is supported by the versions and by the Dead Sea Scrolls (11QEzek). Most Masoretic Hebrew
2 tn The Hebrew word occurs only here in the OT. A related verb means “revile, taunt” (see Ps 44:16).
3 tn Heb “discipline and devastation.” These words are omitted in the Old Greek. The first term pictures Jerusalem as a recipient or example of divine discipline; the second depicts her as a desolate ruin (see Ezek 6:14).
4 tn Heb “in anger and in fury and in rebukes of fury.” The heaping up of synonyms emphasizes the degree of God’s anger.
5 tn The Hebrew word carries the basic idea of “bad, displeasing, injurious,” but when used of weapons has the nuance “deadly” (see Ps 144:10).
6 tn Heb “which are/were to destroy.”
7 tn The language of this verse may have been influenced by Deut 32:23.
8 tn Or “which were to destroy those whom I will send to destroy you” (cf. NASB).
9 tn Heb, “break the staff of bread.” The bread supply is compared to a staff that one uses for support. See 4:16, as well as the covenant curse in Lev 26:26.
10 tn Heb “will bereave you.”
11 tn Heb “will pass through you.” This threat recalls the warning of Lev 26:22, 25 and Deut 32:24-25.