Ezekiel 1:3

1:3 the word of the Lord came to the priest Ezekiel ¹  the son of Buzi, ²  at the Kebar River in the land of the Babylonians. ³  The hand ⁴  of the Lord came on him there).

Ezekiel 8:1

A Desecrated Temple

8:1 In the sixth year, in the sixth month, on the fifth of the month, ⁵  as I was sitting in my house with the elders of Judah sitting in front of me, the hand ⁶  of the sovereign Lord seized me. ⁷ 

Ezekiel 37:1

The Valley of Dry Bones

37:1 The hand ⁸  of the Lord was on me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and placed ⁹  me in the midst of the valley, and it was full of bones.

Ezekiel 37:1

The Valley of Dry Bones

37:1 The hand ¹⁰  of the Lord was on me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and placed ¹¹  me in the midst of the valley, and it was full of bones.

Ezekiel 18:1-2

Individual Retribution

18:1 The word of the Lord came to me: 18:2 “What do you mean by quoting this proverb concerning the land of Israel,

“‘The fathers eat sour grapes

And the children’s teeth become numb?’ ¹² 

Ezekiel 2:1

Ezekiel’s Commission

2:1 He said to me, “Son of man, ¹³  stand on your feet and I will speak with you.”

Ezekiel 3:15

3:15 I came to the exiles at Tel Abib, ¹⁴  who lived by the Kebar River. ¹⁵  I sat dumbfounded among them there, where they were living, for seven days. ¹⁶ 

Jeremiah 20:7-9

Jeremiah Complains about the Reaction to His Ministry

20:7 Lord, you coerced me into being a prophet,

and I allowed you to do it.

You overcame my resistance and prevailed over me. ¹⁷ 

Now I have become a constant laughingstock.

Everyone ridicules me.

20:8 For whenever I prophesy, ¹⁸  I must cry out, ¹⁹ 

“Violence and destruction are coming!” ²⁰ 

This message from the Lord ²¹  has made me

an object of continual insults and derision.

20:9 Sometimes I think, “I will make no mention of his message.

I will not speak as his messenger ²²  any more.”

But then ²³  his message becomes like a fire

locked up inside of me, burning in my heart and soul. ²⁴ 

I grow weary of trying to hold it in;

I cannot contain it.

[1:3]  ¹ sn The prophet’s name, Ezekiel, means in Hebrew “May God strengthen.”

[1:3]  ² tn Or “to Ezekiel son of Buzi the priest.”

[1:3]  ³ tn Heb “Chaldeans.” The name of the tribal group ruling Babylon, “Chaldeans” is used as metonymy for the whole empire of Babylon. The Babylonians worked with the Medes to destroy the Assyrian Empire near the end of the 7th century b.c. Then, over the next century, the Babylonians dominated the West Semitic states (such as Phoenicia, Aram, Moab, Edom, and Judah in the modern countries of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Israel) and made incursions into Egypt.

[1:3]  ⁴ tn Or “power.”

[8:1]  ⁵ tc The LXX reads “In the sixth year, in the fifth month, on the fifth of the month.”

[8:1]  ⁶ tn Or “power.”

[8:1]  ⁷ tn Heb “fell upon me there,” that is, God’s influence came over him.

[37:1]  ⁸ tn Or “power.”

[37:1]  ⁹ tn Heb “caused me to rest.”

[37:1]  ¹⁰ tn Or “power.”

[37:1]  ¹¹ tn Heb “caused me to rest.”

[18:2]  ¹² tn This word only occurs here and in the parallel passage in Jer 31:29-30 in the Qal stem and in Eccl 10:10 in the Piel stem. In the latter passage it refers to the bluntness of an ax that has not been sharpened. Here the idea is of the “bluntness” of the teeth, not from having ground them down due to the bitter taste of sour grapes but to the fact that they have lost their “edge,” “bite,” or “sharpness” because they are numb from the sour taste. For this meaning for the word, see W. L. Holladay, Jeremiah (Hermeneia), 2:197.

[2:1]  ¹³ sn The phrase son of man occurs ninety-three times in the book of Ezekiel. It simply means “human one,” and distinguishes the prophet from the nonhuman beings that are present in the world of his vision.

[3:15]  ¹⁴ sn The name “Tel Abib” is a transliteration of an Akkadian term meaning “mound of the flood,” i.e., an ancient mound. It is not to be confused with the modern city of Tel Aviv in Israel.

[3:15]  ¹⁵ tn Or “canal.”

[3:15]  ¹⁶ sn A similar response to a divine encounter is found in Acts 9:8-9.

[20:7]  ¹⁷ tn The translation is admittedly interpretive but so is every other translation that tries to capture the nuance of the verb rendered here “coerced.” Here the Hebrew text reads: “You [ – ]ed me and I let myself be [ – ]ed. You overpowered me and prevailed.” The value one assigns to [ – ] is in every case interpretive based on what one thinks the context is referring to. The word is rendered “deceived” or “tricked” by several English versions (see, e.g., KJV, NASB, TEV, ICV) as though God had misled him. It is rendered “enticed” by some (see, e.g., NRSV, NJPS) as though God had tempted him with false hopes. Some go so far as to accuse Jeremiah of accusing God of metaphorically “raping” him. It is true that the word is used of “seducing” a virgin in Exod 22:15 and that it is used in several places to refer to “deceiving” someone with false words (Prov 24:28; Ps 78:36). It is also true that it is used of “coaxing” someone to reveal something he does not want to (Judg 14:15; 16:5) and of “enticing” someone to do something on the basis of false hopes (1 Kgs 22:20-22; Prov 1:10). However, it does not always have negative connotations or associations. In Hos 2:14 (2:16 HT) God “charms” or “woos” Israel, his estranged ‘wife,’ into the wilderness where he hopes to win her back to himself. What Jeremiah is alluding to here is crucial for translating and interpreting the word. There is no indication in this passage that Jeremiah is accusing God of misleading him or raising false hopes; God informed him at the outset that he would encounter opposition (1:17-19). Rather, he is alluding to his call to be a prophet, a call which he initially resisted but was persuaded to undertake because of God’s persistence (Jer 1:7-10). The best single word to translate ‘…’ with is thus “persuaded” or “coerced.” The translation spells out the allusion explicitly so the reader is not left wondering about what is being alluded to when Jeremiah speaks of being “coerced.” The translation “I let you do it” is a way of rendering the Niphal of the same verb which must be tolerative rather than passive since the normal passive for the Piel would be the Pual (See IBHS 389-90 §23.4g for discussion and examples.). The translation “you overcame my resistance” is based on allusion to the same context (1:7-10) and the parallel use of חָזַק (khazaq) as a transitive verb with a direct object in 1 Kgs 16:22.

[20:8]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “speak,” but the speaking is in the context of speaking as a prophet.

[20:8]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “I cry out, I proclaim.”

[20:8]  ²⁰ tn Heb “Violence and destruction.”

[20:8]  ²¹ tn Heb “the word of the Lord.” For the use of כִּי…כִּי (ki…ki) here in the sense of “for…and” see KBL 432 s.v. כּי 10.

[20:9]  ²² tn Heb “speak in his name.” This idiom occurs in passages where someone functions as the messenger under the authority of another. See Exod 5:23; Deut 18:19, 29:20; Jer 14:14. The antecedent in the first line is quite commonly misidentified as being “him,” i.e., the Lord. Comparison, however, with the rest of the context, especially the consequential clause “then it becomes” (וְהָיָה, vÿhayah), and Jer 23:36 shows that it is “the word of the Lord.”

[20:9]  ²³ tn The English sentence has again been restructured for the sake of English style. The Hebrew construction involves two vav consecutive perfects in a condition and consequence relation, “If I say to myself…then it [his word] becomes.” See GKC 337 §112.kk for the construction.

[20:9]  ²⁴ sn Heb “It is in my heart like a burning fire, shut up in my bones.” In addition to standing as part for the whole, the “bones” for the person (e.g., Ps 35:10), the bones were associated with fear (e.g., Job 4:14) and with pain (e.g., Job 33:19, Ps 102:3 [102:4 HT]) and joy or sorrow (e.g., Ps 51:8 [51:10 HT]). As has been mentioned several times, the heart was connected with intellectual and volitional concerns.