12:3 “Therefore, son of man, pack up your belongings as if for exile. During the day, while they are watching, pretend to go into exile. Go from where you live to another place. Perhaps they will understand, 1 although they are a rebellious house.
12:7 So I did just as I was commanded. I carried out my belongings packed for exile during the day, and at evening I dug myself a hole through the wall with my hands. I went out in the darkness, carrying my baggage 5 on my shoulder while they watched.
12:8 The word of the Lord came to me in the morning: 12:9 “Son of man, has not the house of Israel, that rebellious house, said to you, ‘What are you doing?’ 12:10 Say to them, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: The prince will raise this burden in Jerusalem, 6 and all the house of Israel within it.’ 7 12:11 Say, ‘I am an object lesson for you. Just as I have done, it will be done to them; they will go into exile and captivity.’
12:12 “The prince 8 who is among them will raise his belongings 9 onto his shoulder in darkness, and will go out. He 10 will dig a hole in the wall to leave through. He will cover his face so that he cannot see the land with his eyes. 12:13 But I will throw my net over him, and he will be caught in my snare. I will bring him to Babylon, the land of the Chaldeans 11 (but he will not see it), 12 and there he will die. 13 12:14 All his retinue – his attendants and his troops – I will scatter to every wind; I will unleash a sword behind them.
12:15 “Then they will know that I am the Lord when I disperse them among the nations and scatter them among foreign countries. 12:16 But I will let a small number of them survive the sword, famine, and pestilence, so that they can confess all their abominable practices to the nations where they go. Then they will know that I am the Lord.”
9:1 14 The Lord spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the first month of the second year after they had come out 15 of the land of Egypt:
9:2 “The Israelites are to observe 16 the Passover 17 at its appointed time. 18 9:3 In the fourteenth day of this month, at twilight, 19 you are to observe it at its appointed time; you must keep 20 it in accordance with all its statutes and all its customs.” 21 9:4 So Moses instructed 22 the Israelites to observe 23 the Passover. 9:5 And they observed the Passover 24 on the fourteenth day of the first month at twilight in the wilderness of Sinai; in accordance with all that the Lord had commanded Moses, so the Israelites did.
1 tn Heb “see.” This plays on the uses of “see” in v. 2. They will see his actions with their eyes and perhaps they will “see” with their mind, that is, understand or grasp the point.
2 tn Apart from this context the Hebrew term occurs only in Gen 15:17 in reference to the darkness after sunset. It may mean twilight.
3 tn Or “land” (ASV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV).
4 sn See also Ezek 12:11, 24:24, 27.
5 tn The words “my baggage” are not in the Hebrew text, but are implied from the context.
6 tc The nearly incoherent Hebrew reads “The prince is this burden (prophetic oracle?) in Jerusalem.” The Targum, which may only be trying to make sense of a very difficult text, says “Concerning the prince is this oracle,” assuming the addition of a preposition. This would be the only case where Ezekiel uses this term for a prophetic oracle. The LXX reads the word for “burden” as a synonym for leader, as both words are built on the same root (נָשִׂיא, nasi’), but the verse is still incoherent because it is only a phrase with no verb. The current translation assumes that the verb יִשָּׂא (yisa’) from the root נָשִׂיא has dropped out due to homoioteleuton. If indeed the verb has dropped out (the syntax of the verbless clause being the problem), then context clearly suggests that it be a form of נָשִׂיא (see vv. 7 and 12). Placing the verb between the subject and object would result in three consecutive words based on the root נָשִׂיא and an environment conducive to an omission in copying: הַנָּשִׂיא יִשָּׁא הַמַּשָּׂא הַזֶּה (hannasi’ yisha’ hammasa’ hazzeh, “the Prince will raise this burden”).
7 tc The MT reads “within them.” Possibly a scribe copied this form from the following verse “among them,” but only “within it” makes sense in this context.
8 sn The prince is a reference to Zedekiah.
9 tn The words “his belongings” are not in the Hebrew text but are implied.
10 tc The MT reads “they”; the LXX and Syriac read “he.”
11 tn Or “Babylonians” (NCV, NLT).
12 sn He will not see it. This prediction was fulfilled in 2 Kgs 25:7 and Jer 52:11, which recount how Zedekiah was blinded before being deported to Babylon.
13 sn There he will die. This was fulfilled when King Zedekiah died in exile (Jer 52:11).
14 sn The chapter has just the two sections, the observance of the Passover (vv. 1-14) and the cloud that led the Israelites in the wilderness (vv. 15-23). It must be remembered that the material in vv. 7-9 is chronologically earlier than vv. 1-6, as the notices in the text will make clear. The two main discussions here are the last major issues to be reiterated before dealing with the commencement of the journey.
15 tn The temporal clause is formed with the infinitive construct of יָצָא (yatsa’, “to go out; to leave”). This verse indicates that a full year had passed since the exodus and the original Passover; now a second ruling on the Passover is included at the beginning of the second year. This would have occurred immediately after the consecration of the tabernacle, in the month before the census at Sinai.
16 tn The verb is simply “to do; to make” (עָשָׂה [’asah] in the jussive). It must have the idea here of “to perform; to keep; to observe” the ritual of the Passover.
17 sn For a detailed study note on the Passover, see the discussion with the original institution in Exod 12. The word פֶּסַח (pesakh) – here in pause and with the article – has become the technical name for the spring festival of Israel. In Exod 12 the name is explained by the use of the verb “to pass over” (עָבַר, ’avar), indicating that the angel of death would pass over the house with the blood applied. Many scholarly attempts have been made to supply the etymology of the word, but none has been compelling enough to be accepted by a large number of biblical scholars. For general literature on the Passover, see J. B. Segal, The Hebrew Passover, as well as the Bible dictionaries and encyclopedias.
18 tc The Greek text uses a plural here but the singular in vv. 7 and 13; the Smr uses the plural in all three places.
19 tn The literal Hebrew expression is “between the evenings” (so also in vv. 5, 11). Sunset is certainly one evening; the other may refer to the change in the middle of the afternoon to the late afternoon, or the beginning of dusk. The idea is probably just at twilight, or dusk (see R. B. Allen, TWOT 2:694).
20 tn The two verbs in this verse are identical; they are imperfects of instruction. The English translation has been modified for stylistic variation.
21 tn The two words in this last section are standard “Torah” words. The word חֹק (khoq) is a binding statute, something engraved and monumental. The word מִשְׁפָּט (mishpat) means “judgment, decision,” but with a more general idea of “custom” at its core. The verse is making it very clear that the Passover had to follow the custom and form that was legislated in Egypt.
22 tn Heb “spoke to.”
23 tn The infinitive construct functions as the direct object of the preceding verb (a Hebrew complementary usage), answering the question of what he said.
24 tc The LXX omits this first clause; it also omits “at twilight.”