45:1 “‘When you allot the land as an inheritance, you will offer an allotment 3 to the Lord, a holy portion from the land; the length will be eight and a quarter miles 4 and the width three and one-third miles. 5 This entire area will be holy. 6
28:14 I placed you there with an anointed 7 guardian 8 cherub; 9
you were on the holy mountain of God;
you walked about amidst fiery stones.
43:12 “This is the law of the temple: The entire area on top of the mountain all around will be most holy. Indeed, this is the law of the temple.
42:13 Then he said to me, “The north chambers and the south chambers which face the courtyard are holy chambers where the priests 19 who approach the Lord will eat the most holy offerings. There they will place the most holy offerings – the grain offering, the sin offering, and the guilt offering, because the place is holy.
1 sn This task was a fundamental role of the priest (Lev 10:10).
2 tn Or “holy.”
3 tn Heb “a contribution.”
4 tn Heb “twenty-five thousand cubits” (i.e., 13.125 kilometers). The measuring units here are the Hebrew “long” cubit, consisting of a cubit (about 18 inches or 45 cm) and a handbreadth (about 3 inches or 7.5 cm), for a total of 21 inches (52.5 cm). Because modern readers are not familiar with the cubit as a unit of measurement, and due to the additional complication of the “long” cubit as opposed to the regular cubit, all measurements have been converted to American standard miles (one mile = 5,280 feet), with the Hebrew measurements and the metric equivalents given in the notes.
5 tc The LXX reads “twenty thousand cubits.”
6 tn Heb “holy it is in all its territory round about.”
4 tn Or “winged”; see L. C. Allen, Ezekiel (WBC), 2:91.
5 tn The meaning of this phrase in Hebrew is uncertain. The word translated here “guards” occurs in Exod 25:20 in reference to the cherubim “covering” the ark.
6 tn Heb “you (were) an anointed cherub that covers and I placed you.” In the Hebrew text the ruler of Tyre is equated with a cherub, and the verb “I placed you” is taken with what follows (“on the holy mountain of God”). However, this reading is problematic. The pronoun “you” at the beginning of verse 14 is feminine singular in the Hebrew text; elsewhere in this passage the ruler of Tyre is addressed with masculine singular forms. It is possible that the pronoun is a rare (see Deut 5:24; Num 11:15) or defectively written (see 1 Sam 24:19; Neh 9:6; Job 1:10; Ps 6:3; Eccl 7:22) masculine form, but it is more likely that the form should be repointed as the preposition “with” (see the LXX). In this case the ruler of Tyre is compared to the first man, not to a cherub. If this emendation is accepted, then the verb “I placed you” belongs with what precedes and concludes the first sentence in the verse. It is noteworthy that the verbs in the second and third lines of the verse also appear at the end of the sentence in the Hebrew text. The presence of a conjunction at the beginning of “I placed you” is problematic for the proposal, but it may reflect a later misunderstanding of the syntax of the verse. For a defense of the proposed emendation, see L. C. Allen, Ezekiel (WBC), 2:91.
5 tn Heb “twenty cubits” (i.e., 10.5 meters).
6 tn Heb “twenty cubits” (i.e., 10.5 meters).
6 tn Heb “twenty-five thousand cubits” (i.e., 13.125 kilometers).
7 tn Heb “ten thousand cubits” (i.e., 5.25 kilometers).
7 tc The LXX apparently understood “open land” instead of “sanctuary.”
8 tn Or “valley.” The syntax is difficult. Some translate “to the river,” others “from the river”; in either case the preposition is supplied for the sake of English.
9 tn Traditionally “the Brook of Egypt,” although a number of recent translations have “the Wadi of Egypt” (cf. NAB, NIV, NRSV). The word “Egypt” is not in the Hebrew text, but is implied.
10 tn Or “between the consecrated and the common.”
11 tn Heb “hide their eyes from.” The idiom means to disregard or ignore something or someone (see Lev 20:4; 1 Sam 12:3; Prov 28:27; Isa 1:15).
11 sn The priests are from the Zadokite family (Ezek 40:6; 44:15).