Yehezkiel 23:32-34

23:32 “This is what the sovereign Lord says: “You will drink your sister’s deep and wide cup; ¹  you will be scorned and derided, for it holds a great deal. 23:33 You will be overcome by ²  drunkenness and sorrow. The cup of your sister Samaria is a cup of horror and desolation. 23:34 You will drain it dry, ³  gnaw its pieces, ⁴  and tear out your breasts, ⁵  for I have spoken, declares the sovereign Lord.

Hosea 4:7

4:7 The more the priests increased in numbers,

the more they rebelled against me.

They have turned ⁶  their glorious calling

into a shameful disgrace!

[23:32]  ¹ sn The image of a deep and wide cup suggests the degree of punishment; it will be extensive and leave the victim helpless.

[23:33]  ² tn Heb “filled with.”

[23:34]  ³ tn Heb “You will drink it and drain (it).”

[23:34]  ⁴ tn D. I. Block compares this to the idiom of “licking the plate” (Ezekiel [NICOT], 1:754, n. 137). The text is difficult as the word translated “gnaw” is rare. The noun is used of the shattered pieces of pottery and so could envision a broken cup. But the Piel verb form is used in only one other place (Num 24:8), where it is a denominative from the noun “bone” and seems to mean to “break (bones).” Why it would be collocated with “sherds” is not clear. For this reason some emend the phrase to read “consume its dregs” (see L. C. Allen, Ezekiel [WBC], 2:44) or emend the verb to read “swallow,” as if the intoxicated Oholibah breaks the cup and then eats the very sherds in an effort to get every last drop of the beverage that dampens them.

[23:34]  ⁵ sn The severe action is more extreme than beating the breasts in anguish (Isa 32:12; Nah 2:7). It is also ironic for these are the very breasts she so blatantly offered to her lovers (vv. 3, 21).

[4:7]  ⁶ tc The MT reads אָמִיר (’amir, “I will change, exchange”; Hiphil imperfect 1st person common singular from מוּר, mur, “to change, exchange”). However, an alternate scribal tradition (tiqquneh sopherim, that is, an intentional scribal change when the Masoretes believed that the received consonantal reading was corrupt) preserves the reading הֵמִירוּ (hemiru, “they have exchanged”; Hiphil perfect 3rd person common plural from מוּר). This alternate scribal tradition is also found in the Targum and reflected in the Syriac Peshitta. Several translations follow the MT: KJV, RSV, NASB “I will change their glory into shame” and TEV “I will turn your honor into disgrace”; however, others adopt the alternate tradition: NRSV “they changed their glory into shame” and NIV “they exchanged their Glory for something disgraceful.” For discussion in favor of the MT reading, see D. Barthélemy, ed., Preliminary and Interim Report on the Hebrew Old Testament Text Project, 5:232.