ד (Dalet)
4:4 The infant’s tongue sticks
to the roof of its mouth due to thirst;
little children beg for bread, 6
but no one gives them even a morsel. 7
ה (He)
4:5 Those who once feasted on delicacies 8
are now starving to death 9 in the streets.
Those who grew up 10 wearing expensive clothes 11
are now dying 12 amid garbage. 13
ו (Vav)
4:6 The punishment 14 of my people 15
exceeded that of 16 of Sodom,
which was overthrown in a moment
with no one to help her. 17
ז (Zayin)
4:7 Her consecrated ones 18 were brighter than snow,
whiter than milk;
their bodies more ruddy than corals,
their hair 19 like lapis lazuli. 20
ח (Khet)
4:8 Now their appearance 21 is darker than soot;
they are not recognized in the streets.
Their skin has shriveled on their bones;
it is dried up, like tree bark.
ט (Tet)
4:9 Those who died by the sword 22 are better off
than those who die of hunger, 23
those who 24 waste away, 25
struck down 26 from lack of 27 food. 28
י (Yod)
4:10 The hands of tenderhearted women 29
cooked their own children,
who became their food, 30
when my people 31 were destroyed. 32
4:9 “As for you, take wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and spelt, 33 put them in a single container, and make food 34 from them for yourself. For the same number of days that you lie on your side – 390 days 35 – you will eat it. 4:10 The food you eat will be eight ounces 36 a day by weight; you must eat it at fixed 37 times. 4:11 And you must drink water by measure, a pint and a half; 38 you must drink it at fixed times. 4:12 And you must eat the food like you would a barley cake. You must bake it in front of them over a fire made with dried human excrement.” 39 4:13 And the Lord said, “This is how the people of Israel will eat their unclean food among the nations 40 where I will banish them.”
4:14 And I said, “Ah, sovereign Lord, I have never been ceremonially defiled before. I have never eaten a carcass or an animal torn by wild beasts; from my youth up, unclean meat 41 has never entered my mouth.”
4:15 So he said to me, “All right then, I will substitute cow’s manure instead of human excrement. You will cook your food over it.”
4:16 Then he said to me, “Son of man, I am about to remove the bread supply 42 in Jerusalem. 43 They will eat their bread ration anxiously, and they will drink their water ration in terror 4:17 because they will lack bread and water. Each one will be terrified, and they will rot for their iniquity. 44
14:21 “For this is what the sovereign Lord says: How much worse will it be when I send my four terrible judgments – sword, famine, wild animals, and plague – to Jerusalem 50 to kill both people and animals!
1 tn Heb “When I break to you staff of bread” (KJV, ASV, and NASB all similar).
2 tn Heb “they will return your bread in weight.”
3 tn Heb “gates,” also in vv. 55, 57.
4 tn Heb “the fruit of your womb” (so NAB, NRSV); NASB “the offspring of your own body.”
5 tn Heb “siege and stress.”
6 tn Heb “bread.” The term “bread” might function as a synecdoche of specific (= bread) for general (= food); however, the following parallel line does indeed focus on the act of breaking bread in two.
7 tn Heb “there is not a divider to them.” The term פָּרַשׂ (paras), Qal active participle ms from פָּרַס (paras, “to divide”) refers to the action of breaking bread in two before giving it to a person to eat (Isa 58:7; Jer 16:7; Lam 4:4). The form פָּרַשׂ (paras) is the alternate spelling of the more common פָּרַס (paras).
8 tn Heb “eaters of delicacies.” An alternate English gloss would be “connoisseurs of fine foods.”
9 tn Heb “are desolate.”
10 tn Heb “were reared.”
11 tn Heb “in purple.” The term תוֹלָע (tola’, “purple”) is a figurative description of expensive clothing: it is a metonymy of association: the color of the dyed clothes (= purple) stands for the clothes themselves.
12 tn Heb “embrace garbage.” One may also translate “rummage through” (cf. NCV “pick through trash piles”; TEV “pawing through refuse”; NLT “search the garbage pits.”
13 tn The Hebrew word אַשְׁפַּתּוֹת (’ashpatot) can also mean “ash heaps.” Though not used as a combination elsewhere, to “embrace ash heaps” might also envision a state of mourning or even dead bodies lying on the ash heaps.
14 tn The noun עֲוֹן (’avon) has a basic two-fold range of meanings: (1) basic meaning: “iniquity, sin” and (2) metonymical cause for effect meaning: “punishment for iniquity.”
15 tn Heb “the daughter of my people.”
16 tn Heb “the sin of.” The noun חַטָּאת (khatta’t) often means “sin, rebellion,” but here it probably functions in a metonymical (cause for effect) sense: “punishment for sin” (e.g., Zech 14:19). The context focuses on the severity of the punishment of Jerusalem rather than the depths of its degradation and depravity that led to the judgment.
17 tn Heb “without a hand turned.” The preposition ב (bet) after the verb חוּל (khul) in Hos 11:6 is adversative “the sword will turn against [Assyria’s] cities.” Other contexts with חוּל (khul) plus ב (bet) are not comparable (ב [bet] often being locative). However, it is not certain that hands must be adversarial as the sword clearly is in Hos 11:6. The present translation pictures the suddenness of Sodom’s overthrow as an easier fate than the protracted military campaign and subsequent exile and poverty of Judah’s survivor’s.
18 tn Heb “Nazirites” (so KJV). The Nazirites were consecrated under a vow to refrain from wine, contact with the dead, and from cutting their hair. In Gen 49:26 and Deut 33:16 Joseph, who was not a Nazirite, is called the “Nazir” of his brothers. From context, many translate this as “prince” (e.g., NAB, NIV, NRSV, NLT), though the nuance is uncertain. If it is valid, then princes might be understood in this context as well.
19 tn The noun גִּזְרָה (gizrah) is used primarily in Ezekiel 41-42 (seven of its nine uses), where it refers to a separated area of the temple complex described in Ezekiel’s vision. It is not used of people other than here. Probably based on the reference to a precious stone BDB 160 s.v. 1 postulated that it refers to the cutting or polishing of precious stones, but this is conjecture. The English versions handle this variously. D. R. Hillers suggests beards, hair, or eyebrows based on other ancient Near Eastern comparisons between lapis lazuli and the body (Lamentations [AB], 81).
20 tn Heb “lapis lazuli.” Lapis lazuli is a dark blue semi-precious stone.
21 tn Heb “their outline” or “their form.” The Hebrew noun תֹּאַר (to’ar, “outline, form”) is related to the Phoenician noun תֹּאַר (to’ar, “something gazed at”), and Aramaic verb תָּאַר (ta’ar, “to gaze at”). It is used in reference to the form of a woman (Gen 29:17; Deut 21:11; 1 Sam 25:3; Esth 2:7) and of a man (Gen 39:11; Judg 8:18; 1 Sam 16:18; 28:14; 1 Kgs 1:6; 1 Chr 17:17; Isa 52:14; 53:2). Here it is used in a metonymical sense: “appearance.”
22 tn Heb “those pierced of the sword.” The genitive-construct denotes instrumentality: “those pierced by the sword” (חַלְלֵי־חֶרֶב, khalle-kherev). The noun חָלָל (khalal) refers to a “fatal wound” and is used substantivally to refer to “the slain” (Num 19:18; 31:8, 19; 1 Sam 17:52; 2 Sam 23:8, 18; 1 Chr 11:11, 20; Isa 22:2; 66:16; Jer 14:18; 25:33; 51:49; Lam 4:9; Ezek 6:7; 30:11; 31:17, 18; 32:20; Zeph 2:12).
23 tn Heb “those slain of hunger.” The genitive-construct denotes instrumentality: “those slain by hunger,” that is, those who are dying of hunger.
24 tn Heb “who…” The antecedent of the relative pronoun שֶׁהֵם (shehem, “who”) are those dying of hunger in the previous line: מֵחַלְלֵי רָעָב (mekhalle ra’av, “those slain of hunger”).
25 tn Heb “they flow away.” The verb זוּב (zuv, “to flow, gush”) is used figuratively here, meaning “to pine away” or “to waste away” from hunger. See also the next note.
26 tn Heb “pierced through and through.” The term מְדֻקָּרִים (mÿduqqarim), Pual participle masculine plural from דָּקַר (daqar, “to pierce”), is used figuratively. The verb דָּקַר (daqar, “to pierce”) usually refers to a fatal wound inflicted by a sword or spear (Num 25:8; Judg 9:54; 1 Sam 31:4; 1 Chr 10:4; Isa 13:15; Jer 37:10; 51:4; Zech 12:10; 13:3). Here, it describes people dying from hunger. This is an example of hypocatastasis: an implied comparison between warriors being fatally pierced by sword and spear and the piercing pangs of hunger and starvation. Alternatively “those who hemorrhage (זוּב [zuv, “flow, gush”]) [are better off] than those pierced by lack of food” in parallel to the structure of the first line.
27 tn The preposition מִן (min, “from”) denotes deprivation: “from lack of” something (BDB 580 s.v. 2.f; HALOT 598 s.v. 6).
28 tn Heb “produce of the field.”
29 tn Heb “the hands of compassionate women.”
30 tn Heb “eating.” The infinitive construct (from I בָּרָה, barah) is translated as a noun. Three passages employ the verb (2 Sam 3:35; 12:17; 13:5,6,10) for eating when ill or in mourning.
31 tn Heb “the daughter of my people.”
32 tn Heb “in the destruction of the daughter of my people.”
33 sn Wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and spelt. All these foods were common in Mesopotamia where Ezekiel was exiled.
34 tn Heb “bread.”
35 tc The LXX reads “190 days.”
36 sn Eight ounces (Heb “twenty shekels”). The standards for weighing money varied considerably in the ancient Near East, but the generally accepted weight for the shekel is 11.5 grams (0.4 ounce). This makes the weight of grain about 230 grams here (8 ounces).
37 tn Heb “from time to time.”
38 sn A pint and a half [Heb “one-sixth of a hin”]. One-sixth of a hin was a quantity of liquid equal to about 1.3 pints or 0.6 liters.
39 sn Human waste was to remain outside the camp of the Israelites according to Deut 23:15.
40 sn Unclean food among the nations. Lands outside of Israel were considered unclean (Josh 22:19; Amos 7:17).
41 tn The Hebrew term refers to sacrificial meat not eaten by the appropriate time (Lev 7:18; 19:7).
42 tn Heb, “break the staff of bread.” The bread supply is compared to a staff that one uses for support.
43 map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.
44 tn Or “in their punishment.” Ezek 4:16-17 alludes to Lev 26:26, 39. The phrase “in/for [a person’s] iniquity” occurs fourteen times in Ezekiel: here, 3:18, 19; 7:13, 16; 18: 17, 18, 19, 20; 24:23; 33:6, 8, 9; 39:23. The Hebrew word for “iniquity” may also mean the “punishment for iniquity.”
45 tn In context “you” refers to the city of Jerusalem. To make this clear for the modern reader, “Jerusalem” has been supplied in the translation in apposition to “you.”
46 tn Heb “all of your survivors.”
47 tn Heb “to every wind.”
48 sn The judgment of plague and famine comes from the covenant curse (Lev 26:25-26). As in v. 10, the city of Jerusalem is figuratively addressed here.
49 sn Judgment by plague, famine, and sword occurs in Jer 21:9; 27:13; Ezek 6:11, 12; 7:15.
50 map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.