21:17 I too will clap my hands together,
I will exhaust my rage;
I the Lord have spoken.”
21:32 You will become fuel for the fire –
your blood will stain the middle of the land; 11
you will no longer be remembered,
for I, the Lord, have spoken.’”
24:14 “‘I the Lord have spoken; judgment 17 is coming and I will act! I will not relent, or show pity, or be sorry! 18 I will judge you 19 according to your conduct 20 and your deeds, declares the sovereign Lord.’”
30:12 I will dry up the waterways
and hand the land over to 22 evil men.
I will make the land and everything in it desolate by the hand of foreigners.
I, the Lord, have spoken!
1 tn Or “calm myself.”
2 tn The Hebrew noun translated “jealousy” is used in the human realm to describe suspicion of adultery (Num 5:14ff.; Prov 6:34). Since Israel’s relationship with God was often compared to a marriage this term is appropriate here. The term occurs elsewhere in Ezekiel in 8:3, 5; 16:38, 42; 23:25.
3 tc This reading is supported by the versions and by the Dead Sea Scrolls (11QEzek). Most Masoretic Hebrew
4 tn The Hebrew word occurs only here in the OT. A related verb means “revile, taunt” (see Ps 44:16).
5 tn Heb “discipline and devastation.” These words are omitted in the Old Greek. The first term pictures Jerusalem as a recipient or example of divine discipline; the second depicts her as a desolate ruin (see Ezek 6:14).
6 tn Heb “in anger and in fury and in rebukes of fury.” The heaping up of synonyms emphasizes the degree of God’s anger.
5 tn Heb “will bereave you.”
6 tn Heb “will pass through you.” This threat recalls the warning of Lev 26:22, 25 and Deut 32:24-25.
7 tc Some manuscripts and versions read “choice men,” while most manuscripts read “fugitives”; the difference arises from the reversal, or metathesis, of two letters, מִבְרָחָיו (mivrakhyv) for מִבְחָריו (mivkharyv).
8 tn Heb “fall.”
9 tn Heb “your blood will be in the middle of the land.”
11 tn Heb “stand.” The heart here stands for the emotions; Jerusalem would panic in the face of God’s judgment.
12 tn Heb “in the days when I act against you.”
13 tn Heb “You will drink it and drain (it).”
14 tn D. I. Block compares this to the idiom of “licking the plate” (Ezekiel [NICOT], 1:754, n. 137). The text is difficult as the word translated “gnaw” is rare. The noun is used of the shattered pieces of pottery and so could envision a broken cup. But the Piel verb form is used in only one other place (Num 24:8), where it is a denominative from the noun “bone” and seems to mean to “break (bones).” Why it would be collocated with “sherds” is not clear. For this reason some emend the phrase to read “consume its dregs” (see L. C. Allen, Ezekiel [WBC], 2:44) or emend the verb to read “swallow,” as if the intoxicated Oholibah breaks the cup and then eats the very sherds in an effort to get every last drop of the beverage that dampens them.
15 sn The severe action is more extreme than beating the breasts in anguish (Isa 32:12; Nah 2:7). It is also ironic for these are the very breasts she so blatantly offered to her lovers (vv. 3, 21).
15 tn Heb “it”; the referent has been specified in the translation for clarity.
16 tn Or perhaps, “change my mind.”
17 tc Some medieval Hebrew
18 tn Heb “ways.”
17 sn This prophecy was fulfilled by Alexander the Great in 332
19 tn Heb “and I will sell the land into the hand of.”
21 tn Or “spirit.” This is likely an allusion to Gen 2 and God’s breath which creates life.
23 sn The phrase “in the fire of my fury” occurs in Ezek 21:31; 22:21, 31.
24 tn Or “shaking.”