Ezekiel 20:18

20:18 “‘But I said to their children ¹  in the wilderness, “Do not follow the practices of your fathers; do not observe their regulations, ²  nor defile yourselves with their idols.

Ezekiel 20:2

20:2 The word of the Lord came to me:

Ezekiel 29:3-11

29:3 Tell them, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says:

“‘Look, I am against ³  you, Pharaoh king of Egypt,

the great monster ⁴  lying in the midst of its waterways,

who has said, “My Nile is my own, I made it for myself.” ⁵ 

29:4 I will put hooks in your jaws

and stick the fish of your waterways to your scales.

I will haul you up from the midst of your waterways,

and all the fish of your waterways will stick to your scales.

29:5 I will leave you in the wilderness,

you and all the fish of your waterways;

you will fall in the open field and will not be gathered up or collected. ⁶ 

I have given you as food to the beasts of the earth and the birds of the skies.

29:6 Then all those living in Egypt will know that I am the Lord

because they were a reed staff ⁷  for the house of Israel;

29:7 when they grasped you with their hand, ⁸  you broke and tore ⁹  their shoulders,

and when they leaned on you, you splintered and caused their legs to be unsteady. ¹⁰ 

29:8 “‘Therefore, this is what the sovereign Lord says: Look, I am about to bring a sword against you, and I will kill ¹¹  every person and every animal. 29:9 The land of Egypt will become a desolate ruin. Then they will know that I am the Lord.

Because he said, “The Nile is mine and I made it,” 29:10 I am against ¹²  you and your waterways. I will turn the land of Egypt into an utter desolate ruin from Migdol ¹³  to Syene, ¹⁴  as far as the border with Ethiopia. 29:11 No human foot will pass through it, and no animal’s foot will pass through it; it will be uninhabited for forty years.

Ezekiel 34:21

34:21 Because you push with your side and your shoulder, and thrust your horns at all the weak sheep until you scatter them abroad, ¹⁵ 

Jeremiah 9:14

9:14 Instead they have followed the stubborn inclinations of their own hearts. They have paid allegiance to ¹⁶  the gods called Baal, ¹⁷  as their fathers ¹⁸  taught them to do.

Jeremiah 44:17

44:17 Instead we will do everything we vowed we would do. ¹⁹  We will sacrifice and pour out drink offerings to the goddess called the Queen of Heaven ²⁰  just as we and our ancestors, our kings, and our leaders previously did in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. For then we had plenty of food, were well-off, and had no troubles. ²¹ 

Matthew 23:32

23:32 Fill up then the measure of your ancestors!

Matthew 23:1

Seven Woes

23:1 Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples,

Matthew 1:18

The Birth of Jesus Christ

1:18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ happened this way. While his mother Mary was engaged to Joseph, but before they came together, ²²  she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit.

¹ tn Heb “sons,” reflecting the patriarchal idiom of the culture.

² tn Or “standard of justice.” See Ezek 7:27.

³ tn Or “I challenge you.” The phrase “I am against you” may be a formula for challenging someone to combat or a duel. See D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 1:201-2, and P. Humbert, “Die Herausforderungsformel ‘h!nn#n' ?l?K>,’” ZAW 45 (1933): 101-8.

⁴ tn Heb “jackals,” but many medieval Hebrew mss read correctly “the serpent.” The Hebrew term appears to refer to a serpent in Exod 7:9-10, 12; Deut 32:33; and Ps 91:13. It also refers to large creatures that inhabit the sea (Gen 1:21; Ps 148:7). In several passages it is associated with the sea or with the multiheaded sea monster Leviathan (Job 7:12; Ps 74:13; Isa 27:1; 51:9). Because of the Egyptian setting of this prophecy and the reference to the creature’s scales (v. 4), many understand a crocodile to be the referent here (e.g., NCV “a great crocodile”; TEV “you monster crocodile”; CEV “a giant crocodile”).

⁵ sn In Egyptian theology Pharaoh owned and controlled the Nile. See J. D. Currid, Ancient Egypt and the Old Testament, 240-44.

⁶ tc Some Hebrew mss, the Targum, and the LXX read “buried.”

⁷ sn Compare Isa 36:6.

⁸ tn The Hebrew consonantal text (Kethib) has “by your hand,” but the marginal reading (Qere) has simply “by the hand.” The LXX reads “with their hand.”

⁹ tn Or perhaps “dislocated.”

¹⁰ tn Heb “you caused to stand for them all their hips.” An emendation which switches two letters but is supported by the LXX yields the reading “you caused all their hips to shake.” See L. C. Allen, Ezekiel (WBC), 2:103. In 2 Kgs 18:21 and Isa 36:6 trusting in the Pharaoh is compared to leaning on a staff. The oracle may reflect Hophra’s attempt to aid Jerusalem (Jer 37:5-8).

¹¹ tn Heb “I will cut off from you.”

¹² tn Or “I challenge you.” The phrase “I am against you” may be a formula for challenging someone to combat or a duel. See D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 1:201-2, and P. Humbert, “Die Herausforderungsformel ‘h!nn#n' ?l?K>,’” ZAW 45 (1933): 101-8.

¹³ sn This may refer to a site in the Egyptian Delta which served as a refuge for Jews (Jer 44:1; 46:14).

¹⁴ sn Syene is known today as Aswan.

¹⁵ tn Heb “outside.”

¹⁶ tn Heb “they have gone/followed after.” See the translator’s note at 2:5 for the idiom.

¹⁷ tn Heb “the Baals,” referring either to the pagan gods called “Baals” or the images of Baal (so NLT).

¹⁸ tn Or “forefathers,” or “ancestors.” Here the referent could be the immediate parents or, by their example, more distant ancestors.

¹⁹ tn Heb “that went out of our mouth.” I.e., everything we said, promised, or vowed.

²⁰ tn Heb “sacrifice to the Queen of Heaven and pour out drink offerings to her.” The expressions have been combined to simplify and shorten the sentence. The same combination also occurs in vv. 18, 19.

²¹ tn Heb “saw [or experienced] no disaster/trouble/harm.”

²² tn The connotation of the Greek is “before they came together in marital and domestic union” (so BDAG 970 s.v. συνέρχομαι 3).