8:16 Then he brought me to the inner court of the Lord’s house. Right there 1 at the entrance to the Lord’s temple, between the porch and the altar, 2 were about twenty-five 3 men with their backs to the Lord’s temple, 4 facing east – they were worshiping the sun 5 toward the east!
40:1 In the twenty-fifth year of our exile, at the beginning of the year, on the tenth day of the month, in the fourteenth year after the city 7 was struck down, on this very day, 8 the hand 9 of the Lord was on me, and he brought me there. 10
6:8 “‘But I will spare some of you. Some will escape the sword when you are scattered in foreign lands. 11
1 tn The word הִנֵּה (hinneh, traditionally “behold”) indicates becoming aware of something.
2 sn The priests prayed to God between the porch and the altar on fast days (Joel 2:17). This is the location where Zechariah was murdered (Matt 23:35).
3 tc The LXX reads “twenty” instead of twenty-five, perhaps because of the association of the number twenty with the Mesopotamian sun god Shamash.
4 sn The temple faced east.
5 tn Or “the sun god.”
6 tn The Hebrew text adds “the one threshold 10½ feet deep.” This is probably an accidental duplication of what precedes. See D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 2:517.
7 sn That is, Jerusalem.
8 tn April 19, 573
9 tn Or “power.”
10 sn That is, to the land of Israel (see v. 2).
11 tn Heb “when you have fugitives from the sword among the nations, when you are scattered among the lands.”
12 tc Heb “Bani.” The translation reads “Binnui” (so also NAB) rather than the MT reading “Bani.” Otherwise there are two individuals with the same name in this verse. The name “Binnui” appears, for example, in Neh 10:10.
13 tn Heb “in a great voice.”