15:12 When the sun went down, Abram fell sound asleep, 7 and great terror overwhelmed him. 8
4:13 In the troubling thoughts 9 of the dreams 10 in the night
when a deep sleep 11 falls on men,
4:1 The angelic messenger 14 who had been speaking with me then returned and woke me, as a person is wakened from sleep.
1 tn Heb “Behold.”
2 tc Theodotion lacks “and the palms of my hands.”
3 tn Heb “Behold.”
4 tc So most Hebrew
5 tn Heb “my lord,” here a title of polite address. Cf. v. 19.
6 tn Heb “He added and touched me.” The construction is a verbal hendiadys.
7 tn Heb “a deep sleep fell on Abram.”
8 tn Heb “and look, terror, a great darkness was falling on him.”
9 tn Here too the word is rare. The form שְׂעִפִּים (sÿ’ippim, “disquietings”) occurs only here and in 20:2. The form שַׂרְעַפִּים (sar’appim, “disquieting thoughts”), possibly related by dissimilation, occurs in Pss 94:19 and 139:23. There seems to be a connection with סְעִפִּים (sÿ’ippim) in 1 Kgs 18:21 with the meaning “divided opinion”; this is related to the idea of סְעִפָּה (sÿ’ippah, “bough”). H. H. Rowley (Job [NCBC], 47) concludes that the point is that like branches the thoughts lead off into different and bewildering places. E. Dhorme (Job, 50) links the word to an Arabic root (“to be passionately smitten”) for the idea of “intimate thoughts.” The idea here and in Ps 139 has more to do with anxious, troubling, disquieting thoughts, as in a nightmare.
10 tn Heb “visions” of the night.
11 tn The word תַּרְדֵּמָה (tardemah) is a “deep sleep.” It is used in the creation account when the
12 tc The phrase “as he spoke to me” is absent from the LXX.
13 tn Or “spirit.” NIV has “the Spirit,” but the absence of the article in the Hebrew text makes this unlikely. Elsewhere in Ezekiel the Lord’s Spirit is referred to as “the Spirit of the Lord” (11:5; 37:1), “the Spirit of God” (11:24), or “my (that is, the Lord’s) Spirit” (36:27; 37:14; 39:29). Some identify the “spirit” of 2:2 as the spirit that energized the living beings, however, that “spirit” is called “the spirit” (1:12, 20) or “the spirit of the living beings” (1:20-21; 10:17). Still others see the term as referring to an impersonal “spirit” of strength or courage, that is, the term may also be understood as a disposition or attitude. The Hebrew word often refers to a wind in Ezekiel (1:4; 5:10, 12; 12:4; 13:11, 13; 17:10, 21; 19:12; 27:26; 37:9). In 37:5-10 a “breath” originates in the “four winds” and is associated with the Lord’s life-giving breath (see v. 14). This breath enters into the dry bones and gives them life. In a similar fashion the breath of 2:2 (see also 3:24) energizes paralyzed Ezekiel. Breath and wind are related. On the one hand it is a more normal picture to think of breath rather than wind entering someone, but since wind represents an external force it seems more likely for wind rather than breath to stand someone up (unless we should understand it as a disposition). It may be that one should envision the breath of the speaker moving like a wind to revive Ezekiel, helping him to regain his breath and invigorating him to stand. A wind also transports the prophet from one place to another (3:12, 14; 8:3; 11:1, 24; 43:5).
14 tn See the note on the expression “angelic messenger” in 1:9.
15 tn BDAG 568 s.v. κρίνω 5.a.α has “κρίνεσθαι ἐπί τινι be on trial because of a thing Ac 26:6.”
16 tn Or “forefathers”; Grk “fathers.”