Yehezkiel 1:1

A Vision of God’s Glory

1:1 In the thirtieth year, ¹  on the fifth day of the fourth month, while I was among the exiles ²  at the Kebar River, ³  the heavens opened ⁴  and I saw a divine vision. ⁵ 

Yehezkiel 1:27

1:27 I saw an amber glow ⁶  like a fire enclosed all around ⁷  from his waist up. From his waist down I saw something that looked like fire. There was a brilliant light around it,

Yehezkiel 7:26

7:26 Disaster after disaster will come, and one rumor after another. They will seek a vision from a prophet; priestly instruction will disappear, along with counsel from the elders.

Yehezkiel 8:17

8:17 He said to me, “Do you see, son of man? Is it a trivial thing that the house of Judah commits these abominations they are practicing here? For they have filled the land with violence and provoked me to anger still further. Look, they are putting the branch to their nose! ⁸ 

Yehezkiel 9:2

9:2 Next, I noticed ⁹  six men ¹⁰  coming from the direction of the upper gate ¹¹  which faces north, each with his war club in his hand. Among them was a man dressed in linen with a writing kit ¹²  at his side. They came and stood beside the bronze altar.

Yehezkiel 9:6

9:6 Old men, young men, young women, little children, and women – wipe them out! But do not touch anyone who has the mark. Begin at my sanctuary!” So they began with the elders who were at the front of the temple.

Yehezkiel 10:2

10:2 The Lord ¹³  said to the man dressed in linen, “Go between the wheelwork ¹⁴  underneath the cherubim. ¹⁵  Fill your hands with burning coals from among the cherubim and scatter them over the city.” He went as I watched.

Yehezkiel 16:7

16:7 I made you plentiful like sprouts in a field; you grew tall and came of age so that you could wear jewelry. Your breasts had formed and your hair had grown, but you were still naked and bare.

Yehezkiel 22:18

22:18 “Son of man, the house of Israel has become slag to me. All of them are like bronze, tin, iron, and lead in the furnace; ¹⁶  they are the worthless slag of silver.

Yehezkiel 28:18

28:18 By the multitude of your iniquities, through the sinfulness of your trade,

you desecrated your sanctuaries.

So I drew fire out from within you;

it consumed you,

and I turned you to ashes on the earth

before the eyes of all who saw you.

Yehezkiel 33:31

33:31 They come to you in crowds, ¹⁷  and they sit in front of you as ¹⁸  my people. They hear your words, but do not obey ¹⁹  them. For they talk lustfully, ²⁰  and their heart is set on ²¹  their own advantage. ²² 

Yehezkiel 37:23

37:23 They will not defile themselves with their idols, their detestable things, and all their rebellious deeds. I will save them from all their unfaithfulness ²³  by which they sinned. I will purify them; they will become my people and I will become their God.

Yehezkiel 40:5

40:5 I saw ²⁴  a wall all around the outside of the temple. ²⁵  In the man’s hand was a measuring stick 10½ feet ²⁶  long. He measured the thickness of the wall ²⁷  as 10½ feet, ²⁸  and its height as 10½ feet.

Yehezkiel 40:48

40:48 Then he brought me to the porch of the temple and measured the jambs of the porch as 8¾ feet ²⁹  on either side, and the width of the gate was 24½ feet ³⁰  and the sides ³¹  were 5¼ feet ³²  on each side.

Yehezkiel 41:6

41:6 The side chambers were in three stories, one above the other, thirty in each story. There were offsets in the wall all around to serve as supports for the side chambers, so that the supports were not in the wall of the temple.

Yehezkiel 41:15

41:15 Then he measured the length of the building facing the courtyard at the rear of the temple, with its galleries on either side as 175 feet. ³³ 

The interior of the outer sanctuary and the porch of the court, ³⁴ 

Yehezkiel 43:13

The Altar

43:13 “And these are the measurements of the altar: ³⁵  Its base ³⁶  is 1¾ feet ³⁷  high, ³⁸  and 1¾ feet ³⁹  wide, and its border nine inches ⁴⁰  on its edge. This is to be the height ⁴¹  of the altar.

Yehezkiel 44:19

44:19 When they go out to the outer court to the people, they must remove the garments they were ministering in, and place them in the holy chambers; they must put on other garments so that they will not transmit holiness to the people with their garments. ⁴² 

Yehezkiel 47:12

47:12 On both sides of the river’s banks, every kind of tree will grow for food. Their leaves will not wither nor will their fruit fail, but they will bear fruit every month, because their water source flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food and their leaves for healing.” ⁴³ 

Yehezkiel 48:8

48:8 “Next to the border of Judah from the east side to the west will be the allotment you must set apart. It is to be eight and a quarter miles ⁴⁴  wide, and the same length as one of the tribal portions, from the east side to the west; the sanctuary will be in the middle of it.

Yehezkiel 48:11

48:11 This will be for the priests who are set apart from the descendants of Zadok who kept my charge and did not go astray when the people of Israel strayed off, like the Levites did. ⁴⁵ 

[1:1]  ¹ sn The meaning of the thirtieth year is problematic. Some take it to mean the age of Ezekiel when he prophesied (e.g., Origen). The Aramaic Targum explains the thirtieth year as the thirtieth year dated from the recovery of the book of the Torah in the temple in Jerusalem (2 Kgs 22:3-9). The number seems somehow to be equated with the fifth year of Jehoiachin’s exile in 1:2, i.e., 593 b.c.

[1:1]  ² sn The Assyrians started the tactic of deportation, the large-scale forced displacement of conquered populations, in order to stifle rebellions. The task of uniting groups of deportees, gaining freedom from one’s overlords and returning to retake one’s own country would be considerably more complicated than living in one’s homeland and waiting for an opportune moment to drive out the enemy’s soldiers. The Babylonians adopted this practice also, after defeating the Assyrians. The Babylonians deported Judeans on three occasions. The practice of deportation was reversed by the Persian conquerors of Babylon, who gained favor from their subjects for allowing them to return to their homeland and, as polytheists, sought the favor of the gods of the various countries which had come under their control.

[1:1]  ³ sn The Kebar River is mentioned in Babylonian texts from the city of Nippur in the fifth century b.c. It provided artificial irrigation from the Euphrates.

[1:1]  ⁴ sn For the concept of the heavens opened in later literature, see 3 Macc 6:18; 2 Bar. 22:1; T. Levi 5:1; Matt 3:16; Acts 7:56; Rev 19:11.

[1:1]  ⁵ tn Or “saw visions from God.” References to divine visions occur also in Ezek 8:3; 40:2

[1:27]  ⁶ tn See Ezek 1:4.

[1:27]  ⁷ tc The LXX lacks this phrase. Its absence from the LXX may be explained as a case of haplography resulting from homoioteleuton, skipping from כְּמַרְאֵה (kÿmar’eh) to מִמַּרְאֵה (mimmar’eh). On the other hand, the LXX presents a much more balanced verse structure when it is recognized that the final words of this verse belong in the next sentence.

[8:17]  ⁸ tn It is not clear what the practice of “holding a branch to the nose” indicates. A possible parallel is the Syrian relief of a king holding a flower to his nose as he worships the stars (ANEP 281). See L. C. Allen, Ezekiel (WBC), 1:145-46. The LXX glosses the expression as “Behold, they are like mockers.”

[9:2]  ⁹ tn The word הִנֵּה (hinneh, traditionally “behold”) indicates becoming aware of something and has been translated here as a verb.

[9:2]  ¹⁰ sn The six men plus the scribe would equal seven, which was believed by the Babylonians to be the number of planetary deities.

[9:2]  ¹¹ sn The upper gate was built by Jotham (2 Kgs 15:35).

[9:2]  ¹² tn Or “a scribe’s inkhorn.” The Hebrew term occurs in the OT only in Ezek 9 and is believed to be an Egyptian loanword.

[10:2]  ¹³ tn Heb “and he”; the referent (the Lord) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[10:2]  ¹⁴ tn The Hebrew term often refers to chariot wheels (Isa 28:28; Ezek 23:24; 26:10).

[10:2]  ¹⁵ tc The LXX, Syriac, Vulgate, and Targum mss read plural “cherubim” while the MT is singular here, “cherub.” The plural ending was probably omitted in copying the MT due to the similar beginning of the next word.

[22:18]  ¹⁶ tn For similar imagery, see Isa 1:21-26; Jer 6:27-30.

[33:31]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “as people come.” Apparently this is an idiom indicating that they come in crowds. See D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 2:264.

[33:31]  ¹⁸ tn The word “as” is supplied in the translation.

[33:31]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “do.”

[33:31]  ²⁰ tn Heb “They do lust with their mouths.”

[33:31]  ²¹ tn Heb “goes after.”

[33:31]  ²² tn The present translation understands the term often used for “unjust gain” in a wider sense, following M. Greenberg, who also notes that the LXX uses a term which can describe either sexual or ritual pollution. See M. Greenberg, Ezekiel (AB), 2:687.

[37:23]  ²³ tc Heb “their dwellings.” The text as it stands does not make sense. Based on the LXX, a slight emendation of two vowels, including a mater, yields the reading “from their turning,” a reference here to their turning from God and deviating from his commandments. See BDB 1000 s.v. מְשׁוּבָה, and D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 2:407.

[40:5]  ²⁴ tn The word הִנֵּה (hinneh, traditionally “behold”) indicates becoming aware of something and has been translated here as a verb.

[40:5]  ²⁵ tn Heb “house.”

[40:5]  ²⁶ tn Heb “a measuring stick of six cubits, [each] a cubit and a handbreadth.” The measuring units here and in the remainder of this section are the Hebrew “long” cubit, consisting of a cubit (about 18 inches or 45 cm) and a handbreadth (about 3 inches or 7.5 cm), for a total of 21 inches (52.5 cm). Therefore the measuring stick in the man’s hand was 10.5 feet (3.15 meters) long. Because modern readers are not familiar with the cubit as a unit of measurement, and due to the additional complication of the “long” cubit as opposed to the regular cubit, all measurements have been converted to American standard feet and inches, with the Hebrew measurements and the metric equivalents given in the notes.

[40:5]  ²⁷ tn Heb “building.”

[40:5]  ²⁸ tn Heb “one rod [or “reed”]” (also a second time in this verse, twice in v. 6, three times in v. 7, and once in v. 8).

[40:48]  ²⁹ tn Heb “five cubits” (i.e., 2.625 meters).

[40:48]  ³⁰ tn The LXX reads “fourteen cubits” (i.e., 7.35 meters). See following note.

[40:48]  ³¹ tc The translation follows the LXX. The MT reads “the width of the gate was three cubits,” the omission due to haplography.

[40:48]  tn Or “sidewalls.”

[40:48]  ³² tn Heb “three cubits” (i.e., 1.575 meters).

[41:15]  ³³ tn Heb “one hundred cubits” (i.e., 52.5 meters).

[41:15]  ³⁴ tc Some Hebrew mss read “and its outer court.”

[43:13]  ³⁵ tn Heb “the measurements of the altar by cubits, the cubit being a cubit and a handbreadth.” The measuring units here and in the remainder of this section are the Hebrew “long” cubit, consisting of a cubit (about 18 inches or 45 cm) and a handbreadth (about 3 inches or 7.5 cm), for a total of 21 inches (52.5 cm). Because modern readers are not familiar with the cubit as a unit of measurement, and due to the additional complication of the “long” cubit as opposed to the regular cubit, all measurements have been converted to American standard feet and inches, with the Hebrew measurements and the metric equivalents given in the notes. On the altar see Ezek 40:47.

[43:13]  ³⁶ tn The Hebrew term normally means “bosom.” Here it refers to a hollow in the ground.

[43:13]  ³⁷ tn Heb “one cubit” (i.e., 52.5 cm).

[43:13]  ³⁸ tn The word “high” is not in the Hebrew text but is supplied in the translation for clarity.

[43:13]  ³⁹ tn Heb “one cubit” (i.e., 52.5 cm).

[43:13]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “one span.” A span was three handbreadths, or about nine inches (i.e., 22.5 cm).

[43:13]  ⁴¹ tc Heb “bulge, protuberance, mound.” The translation follows the LXX.

[44:19]  ⁴² sn For a similar concept of the transmitting of holiness, see Exod 19:12-14; Lev 10:1-2; 2 Sam 6:7. Similar laws concerning the priest are found in Lev 10 and 21.

[47:12]  ⁴³ sn See Rev 22:1-2.

[48:8]  ⁴⁴ tn Heb “twenty-five thousand cubits” (i.e., 13.125 kilometers).

[48:11]  ⁴⁵ tn Heb “strayed off.”