24:12 It has tried my patience; 7
yet its thick rot is not removed 8 from it.
Subject its rot to the fire! 9
28:9 Will you still say, “I am a god,” before the one who kills you –
though you are a man and not a god –
when you are in the power of those who wound you?
1 tn The meaning of the Hebrew term is primarily emotional: “to pity,” which in context implies an action, as in being moved by pity in order to spare them from the horror of their punishment.
2 tn Heb “their way on their head I have placed.” The same expression occurs in 1 Kgs 8:32; Ezek 11:21; 16:43; 22:31.
1 tc The text as written in the MT is incomprehensible (“not coming [plural] and he will not”). Driver has suggested a copying error of similar-sounding words, specifically לֹא (lo’) for לוֹ (lo). The feminine participle בָאוֹת (va’ot) has also been read as the feminine perfect בָאת (va’t). See L. C. Allen, Ezekiel (WBC), 1:228, n. 15.b, and D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 1:486, n. 137.
1 tn Heb “walked in their ways.”
2 tn The Hebrew expression has a temporal meaning as illustrated by the use of the phrase in 2 Chr 12:7.
1 tn Heb “my eye pitied.”
1 tn Heb “(with) toil she has wearied.” The meaning of the statement is unclear in the Hebrew text; some follow the LXX and delete it. The first word in the statement (rendered “toil” in the literal translation above) occurs only here in the OT, and the verb “she has wearied” lacks a stated object. Elsewhere the Hiphil of the verb refers to wearying someone or trying someone’s patience. The feminine subject is apparently the symbolic pot.
2 tn Heb “does not go out.”
3 tn Heb “in fire its rust.” The meaning of the expression is unclear. The translation understands the statement as a command to burn the rust away. See D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 1:768.
1 tc Instead of an energic nun (ן), the text may have read a third masculine plural suffix ם (mem), “them,” which was confused with ן (nun) in the old script. See D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 2:621.