4:14 And I said, “Ah, sovereign Lord, I have never been ceremonially defiled before. I have never eaten a carcass or an animal torn by wild beasts; from my youth up, unclean meat 16 has never entered my mouth.”
39:17 “As for you, son of man, this is what the sovereign Lord says: Tell every kind of bird and every wild beast: ‘Assemble and come! Gather from all around to my slaughter 20 which I am going to make for you, a great slaughter on the mountains of Israel! You will eat flesh and drink blood.
1 tn Heb “your neighbors, large of flesh.” The word “flesh” is used here of the genitals. It may simply refer to the size of their genitals in general, or, as the translation suggests, depicts them as sexually aroused.
2 tn Heb “all flesh.”
3 tn Heb “She lusted after their concubines (?) whose flesh was the flesh of donkeys.” The phrase “their concubines” is extremely problematic here. The pronoun is masculine plural, suggesting that the Egyptian men are in view, but how concubines would fit into the picture envisioned here is not clear. Some suggest that Ezekiel uses the term in an idiomatic sense of “paramour,” but this still fails to explain how the pronoun relates to the noun. It is more likely that the term refers here to the Egyptians’ genitals. The relative pronoun that follows introduces a more specific description of their genitals.
4 tc This reading is supported by the Aramaic Targum. The LXX, Vulgate, and Syriac read “shelves” or some type of projection.
5 tn Heb “one handbreadth” (7.5 cm).
5 tc The MT reads “you”; many Hebrew
6 tn Heb “their flesh.”
7 tn Heb “heart of flesh.”
6 tn Heb “all flesh” (also in the following verse).
7 tn Heb “Negev.” The Negev is the south country.
7 sn That is, a heart which symbolizes a will that is stubborn and unresponsive (see 1 Sam 25:37). In Rabbinic literature a “stone” was associated with an evil inclination (b. Sukkah 52a).
8 sn That is, a heart which symbolizes a will that is responsive and obedient to God.
8 tn The exact physiological meaning of the term is uncertain. In addition to v. 8, the term occurs only in Gen 32:33; Job 10:11; 40:17; and Jer 48:4.
9 tn Or “a spirit.”
9 sn See Rev 19:17-18.
10 tn The Hebrew term refers to sacrificial meat not eaten by the appropriate time (Lev 7:18; 19:7).
11 tn Heb “to desecrate.”
12 tc The Greek, Syriac, and Latin versions read “you.” The Masoretic text reads “they.”
12 sn Tobiah, an Ammonite (Neh 13:8), was dismissed from the temple.
13 tn Or “sacrifice” (so also in the rest of this verse).