3:22 The hand 7 of the Lord rested on me there, and he said to me, “Get up, go out to the valley, 8 and I will speak with you there.”
Then the vision I had seen went up from me.
37:1 The hand 11 of the Lord was on me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and placed 12 me in the midst of the valley, and it was full of bones.
1 sn The prophet’s name, Ezekiel, means in Hebrew “May God strengthen.”
2 tn Or “to Ezekiel son of Buzi the priest.”
3 tn Heb “Chaldeans.” The name of the tribal group ruling Babylon, “Chaldeans” is used as metonymy for the whole empire of Babylon. The Babylonians worked with the Medes to destroy the Assyrian Empire near the end of the 7th century
4 tn Or “power.”
5 tn The traditional interpretation is that Ezekiel embarked on his mission with bitterness and anger, either reflecting God’s attitude toward the sinful people or his own feelings about having to carry out such an unpleasant task. L. C. Allen (Ezekiel [WBC], 1:13) takes “bitterly” as a misplaced marginal note and understands the following word, normally translated “anger,” in the sense of fervor or passion. He translates, “I was passionately moved” (p. 4). Another option is to take the word translated “bitterly” as a verb meaning “strengthened” (attested in Ugaritic). See G. R. Driver, Canaanite Myths and Legends, 152.
6 tn Heb “the hand of the Lord was on me heavily.” The “hand of the Lord” is a metaphor for his power or influence; the modifier conveys intensity.
7 tn Or “power.”
8 sn Ezekiel had another vision at this location, recounted in Ezek 37.
9 tn Or “spirit.” See note on “wind” in 2:2.
10 tn Heb “to Chaldea.”
11 tn Or “power.”
12 tn Heb “caused me to rest.”
13 tn Or “in the spirit.” “Spirit” could refer either to the Holy Spirit or the human spirit, but in either case John was in “a state of spiritual exaltation best described as a trance” (R. H. Mounce, Revelation [NICNT], 75).
14 tn Concerning the phrase κυριακῇ ἡμέρᾳ (kuriakh Jhmera) BDAG 576 s.v. κυριακός states: “pert. to belonging to the Lord, the Lord’s…κ. ἡμέρᾳ the Lord’s day (Kephal. I 192, 1; 193, 31…) i.e. certainly Sunday (so in Mod. Gk….) Rv 1:10 (WStott, NTS 12, ’65, 70-75).”
15 tn The conjunction καί (kai) is not introducing a coordinate thought, but one that is logically subordinate to the main verb ἐγενόμην (egenomhn).