Ezekiel 6:4-7

6:4 Your altars will be ruined and your incense altars will be broken. I will throw down your slain in front of your idols. ¹  6:5 I will place the corpses of the people of Israel in front of their idols, ²  and I will scatter your bones around your altars. 6:6 In all your dwellings, the cities will be laid waste and the high places ruined so that your altars will be laid waste and ruined, your idols will be shattered and demolished, your incense altars will be broken down, and your works wiped out. ³  6:7 The slain will fall among you and then you will know that I am the Lord. ⁴ 

¹ tn Thirty-nine of the forty-eight biblical occurrences of this Hebrew word are found in the book of Ezekiel.

² tc This first sentence, which explains the meaning of the last sentence of the previous verse, does not appear in the LXX and may be an instance of a marginal explanatory note making its way into the text.

³ tn The Hebrew verb translated “wiped out” is used to describe the judgment of the Flood (Gen 6:7; 7:4, 23).

⁴ sn The phrase you will know that I am the Lord concludes over sixty oracles in the book of Ezekiel and indicates the ultimate goal of God’s action. The phrase is often used in the book of Exodus as well (Exod 7:5; 14:4, 18). By Ezekiel’s day the people had forgotten that the Lord (Yahweh) was their covenant God and had turned to other gods. They had to be reminded that Yahweh alone deserved to be worshiped because only he possessed the power to meet their needs. Through judgment and eventually deliverance, Israel would be reminded that Yahweh alone held their destiny in his hands.