² tn Heb “I will put stumbling blocks in front of these people.” In this context the stumbling blocks are the invading armies.

² tn Heb “was shutting and shut up.” HALOT 743 s.v. I סגר paraphrases, “blocking [any way of access] and blocked [against any who would leave].”

² tn Heb “I will hedge up her way”; cf. NIV “block her path.”

² tn Or “territory”; see D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 2:715.

¹ tn Heb “the stumbling block of their iniquity.” This phrase is unique to the prophet Ezekiel.

¹ tn D. I. Block prefers to see the Hebrew word as referring here to a western ally of Egypt or as an alternative spelling for Pathros, that is, Upper Egypt. See D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 2:439-40.

¹ tn The verb גָּדַר (gadar) means “to wall up; to fence up; to block.” God has blocked Job’s way so that he cannot get through. See the note on 3:23. Cf. Lam 3:7.

³ tc The Syriac, Vulgate, and Targum read the plural. See D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 2:618.

¹ sn The wristbands mentioned here probably represented magic bands or charms. See D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 1:413.

¹ tn Or “stumbling block.” The Hebrew term refers to an obstacle in the road in Lev 19:14.

¹ tn Heb “You shall not curse a deaf [person] and before a blind [person] you shall not put a stumbling block.”

¹ tn The Hebrew text adds “the one threshold 10½ feet deep.” This is probably an accidental duplication of what precedes. See D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 2:517.

¹ tn Heb “as people come.” Apparently this is an idiom indicating that they come in crowds. See D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 2:264.

³ tn The term apparently refers to Assyrian military officers; it is better construed with the description that follows. See D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 1:738.

¹ tc The MT reads “your brothers, your brothers” either for emphasis (D. I. Block, Ezekiel [NICOT], 1:341, n. 1; 346) or as a result of dittography.

⁴ tn The “stumbling block of their iniquity” is a unique phrase of the prophet Ezekiel (Ezek 14:3, 4, 7; 18:30; 44:12).

² tn Heb “to contain, endure,” from כוּל (khul). Since that sense is difficult here, most take the text to read either “to consume” or “for destruction.” GKC 186 §68.i suggests that the form represents the Hiphil of אָכַל (’akhal, “consume”). The ’alef (א) would have dropped out, as it sometimes does and might do with אָכַל in Ezek 42:5. D. I. Block (Ezekiel [NICOT], 1:693) prefers seeing כוּל as a byform of כָּלָה (kalah, “be complete”), with a meaning like “consume” in the Hiphil. The weakness of Block’s suggestion is that כָּלָה does not elsewhere exhibit a Hiphil.

¹ tn The verb גָּדַר (gadar) has a twofold range of meaning: (1) “to build up a wall” with stones, and (2) “to block a road” with a wall of stones. The imagery either depicts the Lord building a wall to seal off personified Jerusalem with no way to escape the city, or his blocking her road of escape. Siege imagery prevails in 3:4-6, but 3:7-9 pictures an unsuccessful escape that is thwarted due to blocked roads in 3:7 and 3:9.

² sn In Greek there is a wordplay that is difficult to reproduce in English here. The verb translated “causes…to sin” (σκανδαλίζω, skandalizō) comes from the same root as the word translated “stumbling blocks” (σκάνδαλον, skandalon) in the previous verse.

¹ tn Heb “a stumbling block of iniquity.” This is a unique phrase of the prophet Ezekiel (cf. also Ezek 7:19; 14:3, 4, 7; 18:30).