10:18 The one who conceals hatred utters lies, 1
and the one who spreads 2 slander 3 is certainly 4 a fool.
10:2 Treasures gained by wickedness 5 do not profit,
but righteousness 6 delivers from mortal danger. 7
20:9 Who can say, 8 “I have kept my heart clean; 9
I am pure 10 from my sin”?
20:10 Diverse weights and diverse measures 11 –
the Lord abhors 12 both of them.
22:47 While he was still speaking, suddenly a crowd appeared, 19 and the man named Judas, one of the twelve, was leading them. He walked up 20 to Jesus to kiss him. 21 22:48 But Jesus said to him, “Judas, would you betray the Son of Man with a kiss?” 22
1 tn Heb “lips of falsehood.” The genitive noun שָׁקֶר (shaqer, “falsehood”) functions as an attributive genitive. The noun “lips” is a metonymy of cause for speech produced by lips. The one who shows friendliness while concealing hatred is a liar (e.g., Ps 28:3).
2 tn Heb “causes to go out.” The Hiphil of יָצָא (yatsa) literally means “to cause to go out” (BDB 424 s.v. Hiph.1). This may refer to speech (“to utter”) in the sense of causing words to go out of one’s mouth, or it may refer to slander (“to spread”) in the sense of causing slander to go out to others.
3 tn The word דִבָּה (dibbah) means “whispering; defamation; evil report” (BDB 179 s.v.). Cf. NAB “accusations”; TEV “gossip.”
4 tn Heb “he is a fool.” The independent personal pronoun הוּא (hu’, “he”) is used for emphasis. This is reflected in the translation as “certainly.”
5 tn Heb “treasures of wickedness” (so KJV, ASV); NASB “Ill-gotten gains”; TEV “Wealth that you get by dishonesty.”
6 sn The term “righteousness” here means honesty (cf. TEV). Wealth has limited value even if gained honestly; but honesty delivers from mortal danger.
7 tn Heb “death.” This could refer to literal death, but it is probably figurative here for mortal danger or ruin.
8 sn The verse is a rhetorical question; it is affirming that no one can say this because no one is pure and free of sin.
9 tn The verb form זִכִּיתִי (zikkiti) is the Piel perfect of זָכָה (zakhah, “to be clear; to be clean; to be pure”). The verb has the idea of “be clear, justified, acquitted.” In this stem it is causative: “I have made my heart clean” (so NRSV) or “kept my heart pure” (so NIV). This would be claiming that all decisions and motives were faultless.
10 sn The Hebrew verb translated “I am pure” (טָהֵר, taher) is a Levitical term. To claim this purity would be to claim that moral and cultic perfection had been attained and therefore one was acceptable to God in the present condition. Of course, no one can claim this; even if one thought it true, it is impossible to know all that is in the heart as God knows it.
11 tn The construction simply uses repetition to express different kinds of weights and measures: “a stone and a stone, an ephah and an ephah.”
12 tn Heb “an abomination of the
13 tn Heb “as people come.” Apparently this is an idiom indicating that they come in crowds. See D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 2:264.
14 tn The word “as” is supplied in the translation.
15 tn Heb “do.”
16 tn Heb “They do lust with their mouths.”
17 tn Heb “goes after.”
18 tn The present translation understands the term often used for “unjust gain” in a wider sense, following M. Greenberg, who also notes that the LXX uses a term which can describe either sexual or ritual pollution. See M. Greenberg, Ezekiel (AB), 2:687.
19 tn Grk “While he was still speaking, behold, a crowd, and the one called Judas…was leading them.” The abrupt appearance of the crowd on the scene is indicated in the translation by “suddenly” and “appeared.”
20 tn Grk “drew near.”
21 tc Many
22 sn Jesus’ comment about betraying the Son of Man with a kiss shows the hypocrisy and blindness of an attempt to cover up sin. On “misused kisses” in the Bible, see Gen 27:26-27; 2 Sam 15:5; Prov 7:13; 27:6; and 2 Sam 20:9.