45:9 “‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: Enough, you princes of Israel! Put away violence and destruction, and do what is just and right. Put an end to your evictions of my people, 1 declares the sovereign Lord.
45:1 “‘When you allot the land as an inheritance, you will offer an allotment 2 to the Lord, a holy portion from the land; the length will be eight and a quarter miles 3 and the width three and one-third miles. 4 This entire area will be holy. 5
1 sn Evictions of the less fortunate by the powerful are described in 1 Kgs 21:1-16; Jer 22:1-5, 13-17; Ezek 22:25.
2 tn Heb “a contribution.”
3 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.
4 tc The LXX reads “twenty thousand cubits.”
5 tn Heb “holy it is in all its territory round about.”
6 tn Or “a griddle,” that is, some sort of plate for cooking.
7 tn That is, a symbolic object lesson.