Ezekiel 8:17

8:17 He said to me, “Do you see, son of man? Is it a trivial thing that the house of Judah commits these abominations they are practicing here? For they have filled the land with violence and provoked me to anger still further. Look, they are putting the branch to their nose! ¹ 

Ezekiel 40:4

40:4 The man said to me, “Son of man, watch closely, listen carefully, and pay attention ²  to everything I show you, for you have been brought here so that I can show it to you. ³  Tell the house of Israel everything you see.”

Ezekiel 44:5

44:5 The Lord said to me: “Son of man, pay attention, ⁴  watch closely and listen carefully to ⁵  everything I tell you concerning all the statutes of the Lord’s house and all its laws. Pay attention to the entrances ⁶  to the temple with all the exits of the sanctuary.

Jeremiah 1:11-13

Visions Confirming Jeremiah’s Call and Commission

1:11 Later the Lord asked me, “What do you see, Jeremiah?” I answered, “I see a branch of an almond tree.” 1:12 Then the Lord said, “You have observed correctly. This means ⁷  I am watching to make sure my threats are carried out.” ⁸ 

1:13 The Lord again asked me, “What do you see?” I answered, “I see a pot of boiling water; it is tipped toward us from the north.” ⁹ 

Zechariah 4:2

4:2 He asked me, “What do you see?” I replied, ¹⁰  “I see a menorah of pure gold with a receptacle at the top and seven lamps, with fourteen pipes going to the lamps.

Zechariah 5:2

5:2 Someone asked me, “What do you see?” I replied, “I see a flying scroll thirty feet long and fifteen feet wide.” ¹¹ 

Matthew 13:51

13:51 “Have you understood all these things?” They replied, “Yes.”

¹ tn It is not clear what the practice of “holding a branch to the nose” indicates. A possible parallel is the Syrian relief of a king holding a flower to his nose as he worships the stars (ANEP 281). See L. C. Allen, Ezekiel (WBC), 1:145-46. The LXX glosses the expression as “Behold, they are like mockers.”

² tn Heb “look with your eyes, hear with your ears, and set your mind on.”

³ tn Heb “in order to show (it) to you.”

⁴ tn Heb “set your heart” (so also in the latter part of the verse).

⁵ tn Heb “Set your mind, look with your eyes, and with your ears hear.”

⁶ tc The Syriac, Vulgate, and Targum read the plural. See D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 2:618.

⁷ tn This represents the Hebrew particle (כִּי, ki) that is normally rendered “for” or “because.” The particle here is meant to give the significance of the vision, not the rationale for the statement “you have observed correctly.”

⁸ tn Heb “watching over my word to do it.”

⁹ tn Heb “a blown upon [= heated; boiling] pot and its face from the face of the north [= it is facing away from the north].”

¹⁰ tc The present translation (along with most other English versions) follows the reading of the Qere and many ancient versions, “I said,” as opposed to the MT Kethib “he said.”

¹¹ tn Heb “twenty cubits…ten cubits” (so NAB, NRSV). These dimensions (“thirty feet long and fifteen feet wide”) can hardly be referring to the scroll when unrolled since that would be all out of proportion to the normal ratio, in which the scroll would be 10 to 15 times as long as it was wide. More likely, the scroll is 15 feet thick when rolled, a hyperbole expressing the enormous amount and the profound significance of the information it contains.