Ezekiel 15:7

15:7 I will set ¹  my face against them – although they have escaped from the fire, ²  the fire will still consume them! Then you will know that I am the Lord, when I set my face against them.

Ezekiel 21:3

21:3 and say to them, ³  ‘This is what the Lord says: Look, ⁴  I am against you. ⁵  I will draw my sword ⁶  from its sheath and cut off from you both the righteous and the wicked. ⁷ 

Ezekiel 26:3

26:3 therefore this is what the sovereign Lord says: Look, ⁸  I am against you, ⁹  O Tyre! I will bring up many nations against you, as the sea brings up its waves.

Ezekiel 28:22

28:22 Say, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says:

“‘Look, I am against you, ¹⁰  Sidon,

and I will magnify myself in your midst.

Then they will know that I am the Lord

when I execute judgments on her

and reveal my sovereign power ¹¹  in her.

Ezekiel 35:3

35:3 Say to it, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says:

“‘Look, I am against you, Mount Seir;

I will stretch out my hand against you

and turn you into a desolate ruin.

Ezekiel 39:1

39:1 “As for you, son of man, prophesy against Gog, and say: ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: Look, I am against you, O Gog, chief prince of Meshech and Tubal!

Leviticus 26:17-46

26:17 I will set my face against you. You will be struck down before your enemies, those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee when there is no one pursuing you.

26:18 “‘If, in spite of all these things, ¹²  you do not obey me, I will discipline you seven times more on account of your sins. ¹³  26:19 I will break your strong pride and make your sky like iron and your land like bronze. 26:20 Your strength will be used up in vain, your land will not give its yield, and the trees of the land ¹⁴  will not produce their fruit.

26:21 “‘If you walk in hostility against me ¹⁵  and are not willing to obey me, I will increase your affliction ¹⁶  seven times according to your sins. 26:22 I will send the wild animals ¹⁷  against you and they will bereave you of your children, ¹⁸  annihilate your cattle, and diminish your population ¹⁹  so that your roads will become deserted.

26:23 “‘If in spite of these things ²⁰  you do not allow yourselves to be disciplined and you walk in hostility against me, ²¹  26:24 I myself will also walk in hostility against you and strike you ²²  seven times on account of your sins. 26:25 I will bring on you an avenging sword, a covenant vengeance. ²³  Although ²⁴  you will gather together into your cities, I will send pestilence among you and you will be given into enemy hands. ²⁵  26:26 When I break off your supply of bread, ²⁶  ten women will bake your bread in one oven; they will ration your bread by weight, ²⁷  and you will eat and not be satisfied.

26:27 “‘If in spite of this ²⁸  you do not obey me but walk in hostility against me, ²⁹  26:28 I will walk in hostile rage against you ³⁰  and I myself will also discipline you seven times on account of your sins. 26:29 You will eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters. ³¹  26:30 I will destroy your high places and cut down your incense altars, ³²  and I will stack your dead bodies on top of the lifeless bodies of your idols. ³³  I will abhor you. ³⁴  26:31 I will lay your cities waste ³⁵  and make your sanctuaries desolate, and I will refuse to smell your soothing aromas. 26:32 I myself will make the land desolate and your enemies who live in it will be appalled. 26:33 I will scatter you among the nations and unsheathe the sword ³⁶  after you, so your land will become desolate and your cities will become a waste.

26:34 “‘Then the land will make up for ³⁷  its Sabbaths all the days it lies desolate while you are in the land of your enemies; then the land will rest and make up its Sabbaths. 26:35 All the days of the desolation it will have the rest it did not have ³⁸  on your Sabbaths when you lived on it.

26:36 “‘As for ³⁹  the ones who remain among you, I will bring despair into their hearts in the lands of their enemies. The sound of a blowing leaf will pursue them, and they will flee as one who flees the sword and fall down even though there is no pursuer. 26:37 They will stumble over each other as those who flee before a sword, though ⁴⁰  there is no pursuer, and there will be no one to take a stand ⁴¹  for you before your enemies. 26:38 You will perish among the nations; the land of your enemies will consume you.

Restoration through Confession and Repentance

26:39 “‘As for the ones who remain among you, they will rot away because of ⁴²  their iniquity in the lands of your enemies, and they will also rot away because of their ancestors’ ⁴³  iniquities which are with them. 26:40 However, when ⁴⁴  they confess their iniquity and their ancestors’ iniquity which they committed by trespassing against me, ⁴⁵  by which they also walked ⁴⁶  in hostility against me ⁴⁷  26:41 (and I myself will walk in hostility against them and bring them into the land of their enemies), and ⁴⁸  then their uncircumcised hearts become humbled and they make up for ⁴⁹  their iniquity, 26:42 I will remember my covenant with Jacob and also my covenant with Isaac and also my covenant with Abraham, ⁵⁰  and I will remember the land. 26:43 The land will be abandoned by them ⁵¹  in order that it may make up for ⁵²  its Sabbaths while it is made desolate ⁵³  without them, ⁵⁴  and they will make up for their iniquity because ⁵⁵  they have rejected my regulations and have abhorred ⁵⁶  my statutes. 26:44 In spite of this, however, when they are in the land of their enemies I will not reject them and abhor them to make a complete end of them, to break my covenant with them, for I am the Lord their God. 26:45 I will remember for them the covenant with their ancestors ⁵⁷  whom I brought out from the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations to be their God. I am the Lord.’”

Summary Colophon

26:46 These are the statutes, regulations, and instructions which the Lord established ⁵⁸  between himself and the Israelites at Mount Sinai through ⁵⁹  Moses.

Deuteronomy 29:20

29:20 The Lord will be unwilling to forgive him, and his intense anger ⁶⁰  will rage ⁶¹  against that man; all the curses ⁶²  written in this scroll will fall upon him ⁶³  and the Lord will obliterate his name from memory. ⁶⁴ 

Jeremiah 21:5

21:5 In anger, in fury, and in wrath I myself will fight against you with my mighty power and great strength! ⁶⁵ 

Jeremiah 21:13

21:13 Listen, you ⁶⁶  who sit enthroned above the valley on a rocky plateau.

I am opposed to you,’ ⁶⁷  says the Lord. ⁶⁸ 

‘You boast, “No one can swoop down on us.

No one can penetrate into our places of refuge.” ⁶⁹ 

Lamentations 2:5

ה (He)

2:5 The Lord, ⁷⁰  like an enemy,

destroyed ⁷¹  Israel.

He destroyed ⁷²  all her palaces;

he ruined her ⁷³  fortified cities.

He made everyone in Daughter Judah

mourn and lament. ⁷⁴ 

Lamentations 3:3

3:3 He repeatedly ⁷⁵  attacks me,

he turns his hand ⁷⁶  against me all day long. ⁷⁷ 

Zechariah 14:2-3

14:2 For I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem ⁷⁸  to wage war; the city will be taken, its houses plundered, and the women raped. Then half of the city will go into exile, but the remainder of the people will not be taken away. ⁷⁹ 

14:3 Then the Lord will go to battle ⁸⁰  and fight against those nations, just as he fought battles in ancient days. ⁸¹ 

Matthew 22:7

22:7 The ⁸²  king was furious! He sent his soldiers, and they put those murderers to death ⁸³  and set their city ⁸⁴  on fire.

[15:7]  ¹ tn The word translated “set” is the same Hebrew word translated as “provide” in the previous verse.

[15:7]  ² sn This escape refers to the exile of Ezekiel and others in 597 b.c. (Ezek 1:2; 2 Kgs 24:10-16).

[21:3]  ³ tn Heb “the land of Israel.”

[21:3]  ⁴ tn The word הִנֵּה (hinneh, traditionally “behold”) draws attention to something and has been translated here as a verb.

[21:3]  ⁵ tn Or “I challenge you.” The phrase “I am against you” may be a formula for challenging someone to combat or a duel. See D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 1:201-2, and P. Humbert, “Die Herausforderungsformel ‘h!nn#n' ?l?K>,’” ZAW 45 (1933): 101-8.

[21:3]  ⁶ sn This is the sword of judgment, see Isa 31:8; 34:6; 66:16.

[21:3]  ⁷ sn Ezekiel elsewhere pictures the Lord’s judgment as discriminating between the righteous and the wicked (9:4-6; 18:1-20; see as well Pss 1 and 11) and speaks of the preservation of a remnant (3:21; 6:8; 12:16). Perhaps here he exaggerates for rhetorical effect in an effort to subdue any false optimism. See L. C. Allen, Ezekiel (WBC), 2:25-26; D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 1:669-70; and W. Zimmerli, Ezekiel (Hermeneia), 1:424-25.

[26:3]  ⁸ tn The word הִנֵּה (hinneh, traditionally “behold”) draws attention to something and has been translated here as a verb.

[26:3]  ⁹ tn Or “I challenge you.” The phrase “I am against you” may be a formula for challenging someone to combat or a duel. See D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 1:201-2, and P. Humbert, “Die Herausforderungsformel ‘h!nn#n' ?l?K>,’” ZAW 45 (1933): 101-8. The Hebrew text switches to a second feminine singular form here, indicating that personified Jerusalem is addressed (see vv. 5-6a). The address to Jerusalem continues through v. 15. In vv. 16-17 the second masculine plural is used, as the people are addressed.

[28:22]  ¹⁰ tn Or “I challenge you.” The phrase “I am against you” may be a formula for challenging someone to combat or a duel. See D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 1:201-2, and P. Humbert, “Die Herausforderungsformel ‘h!nn#n' ?l?K>,’” ZAW 45 (1933): 101-8.

[28:22]  ¹¹ tn Or “reveal my holiness.” God’s “holiness” is fundamentally his transcendence as sovereign ruler of the world. The revelation of his authority and power through judgment is in view in this context.

[26:18]  ¹² tn Heb “And if until these.”

[26:18]  ¹³ tn Heb “I will add to discipline you seven [times] on your sins.”

[26:20]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “the tree of the land will not give its fruit.” The collective singular has been translated as a plural. Tg. Onq., some medieval Hebrew mss, Smr, LXX, and Tg. Ps.-J. have “the field” as in v. 4, rather than “the land.”

[26:21]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “hostile with me,” but see the added preposition בְּ (bet) on the phrase “in hostility” in v. 24 and 27.

[26:21]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “your blow, stroke”; cf. TEV “punishment”; NLT “I will inflict you with seven more disasters.”

[26:22]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “the animal of the field.” This collective singular has been translated as a plural. The expression “animal of the field” refers to a wild (i.e., nondomesticated) animal.

[26:22]  ¹⁸ tn The words “of your children” are not in the Hebrew text, but are implied.

[26:22]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “and diminish you.”

[26:23]  ²⁰ tn Heb “And if in these.”

[26:23]  ²¹ tn Heb “with me,” but see the added preposition בְּ (bet) on the phrase “in hostility” in vv. 24 and 27.

[26:24]  ²² tn Heb “and I myself will also strike you.”

[26:25]  ²³ tn Heb “vengeance of covenant”; cf. NAB “the avenger of my covenant.”

[26:25]  ²⁴ tn Heb “and.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) has a concessive force in this context.

[26:25]  ²⁵ tn Heb “in hand of enemy,” but Tg. Ps.-J. and Tg. Neof. have “in the hands of your enemies” (J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 454).

[26:26]  ²⁶ tn Heb “When I break to you staff of bread” (KJV, ASV, and NASB all similar).

[26:26]  ²⁷ tn Heb “they will return your bread in weight.”

[26:27]  ²⁸ tn Heb “And if in this.”

[26:27]  ²⁹ tn Heb “with me.”

[26:28]  ³⁰ tn Heb “in rage of hostility with you”; NASB “with wrathful hostility”; NRSV “I will continue hostile to you in fury”; CEV “I’ll get really furious.”

[26:29]  ³¹ tn Heb “and the flesh of your daughters you will eat.” The phrase “you will eat” has not been repeated in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[26:30]  ³² sn Regarding these cultic installations, see the remarks in B. A. Levine, Leviticus (JPSTC), 188, and R. E. Averbeck, NIDOTTE 2:903. The term rendered “incense altars” might better be rendered “sanctuaries [of foreign deities]” or “stelae.”

[26:30]  ³³ tn The translation reflects the Hebrew wordplay “your corpses…the corpses of your idols.” Since idols, being lifeless, do not really have “corpses,” the translation uses “dead bodies” for people and “lifeless bodies” for the idols.

[26:30]  ³⁴ tn Heb “and my soul will abhor you.”

[26:31]  ³⁵ tn Heb “And I will give your cities a waste”; NLT “make your cities desolate.”

[26:33]  ³⁶ tn Heb “and I will empty sword” (see HALOT 1228 s.v. ריק 3).

[26:34]  ³⁷ tn There are two Hebrew roots רָצָה (ratsah), one meaning “to be pleased with; to take pleasure” (HALOT 1280-81 s.v. רצה; cf. “enjoy” in NASB, NIV, NRSV, and J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 452), and the other meaning “to restore” (HALOT 1281-82 s.v. II רצה; cf. NAB “retrieve” and B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 189).

[26:35]  ³⁸ tn Heb “it shall rest which it did not rest.”

[26:36]  ³⁹ tn Heb “And.”

[26:37]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “and.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) is used in a concessive sense here.

[26:37]  ⁴¹ tn The term rendered “to stand up” is a noun, not an infinitive. It occurs only here and appears to designate someone who would take a powerful stand for them against their enemies.

[26:39]  ⁴² tn Heb “in” (so KJV, ASV; also later in this verse).

[26:39]  ⁴³ tn Heb “fathers’” (also in the following verse).

[26:40]  ⁴⁴ tn Heb “And.” Many English versions take this to be a conditional clause (“if…”) though there is no conditional particle (see, e.g., NASB, NIV, NRSV; but see the very different rendering in B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 190). The temporal translation offered here (“when”) takes into account the particle אָז (’az, “then”), which occurs twice in v. 41. The obvious contextual contrast between vv. 39 and 40 is expressed by “however” in the translation.

[26:40]  ⁴⁵ tn Heb “in their trespassing which they trespassed in me.” See the note on Lev 5:15, although the term is used in a more technical sense there in relation to the “guilt offering.”

[26:40]  ⁴⁶ tn Heb “and also which they walked.”

[26:40]  ⁴⁷ tn Heb “with me.”

[26:41]  ⁴⁸ tn Heb “or then,” although the LXX has “then” and the Syriac “and then.”

[26:41]  ⁴⁹ tn Heb “and then they make up for.” On the verb “make up for” see the note on v. 34 above.

[26:42]  ⁵⁰ tn Heb “my covenant with Abraham I will remember.” The phrase “I will remember” has not been repeated in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[26:43]  ⁵¹ tn Heb “from them.” The preposition “from” refers here to the agent of the action (J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 455).

[26:43]  ⁵² tn The jussive form of the verb with the simple vav (ו) here calls for a translation that expresses purpose.

[26:43]  ⁵³ tn The verb is the Hophal infinitive construct with the third feminine singular suffix (GKC 182 §67.y; cf. v. 34).

[26:43]  ⁵⁴ tn Heb “from them.”

[26:43]  ⁵⁵ tn Heb “because and in because,” a double expression, which is used only here and in Ezek 13:10 (without the vav) for emphasis (GKC 492 §158.b).

[26:43]  ⁵⁶ tn Heb “and their soul has abhorred.”

[26:45]  ⁵⁷ tn Heb “covenant of former ones.”

[26:46]  ⁵⁸ tn Heb “gave” (so NLT); KJV, ASV, NCV “made.”

[26:46]  ⁵⁹ tn Heb “by the hand of” (so KJV).

[29:20]  ⁶⁰ tn Heb “the wrath of the Lord and his zeal.” The expression is a hendiadys, a figure in which the second noun becomes adjectival to the first.

[29:20]  ⁶¹ tn Heb “smoke,” or “smolder.”

[29:20]  ⁶² tn Heb “the entire oath.”

[29:20]  ⁶³ tn Or “will lie in wait against him.”

[29:20]  ⁶⁴ tn Heb “blot out his name from under the sky.”

[21:5]  ⁶⁵ tn Heb “with outstretched hand and with strong arm.” These are, of course, figurative of God’s power and might. He does not literally have hands and arms.

[21:13]  ⁶⁶ tn Or “Listen, Jerusalem, you…”; Heb text of v. 21a-b reads, “Behold I am against you [fem. sg.], O inhabitant [fem. sg.] of the valley [and of] the rock of the plain, oracle of the Lord, who are saying [masc. pl.].” Verses 13-14 are generally treated as a separate oracle addressed to Jerusalem. The basis for this is (1) the appropriateness of the description here to the city of Jerusalem; (2) the rather similar reference to Jerusalem smugly living in her buildings made from cedars of Lebanon in 22:23; (3) the use of the second feminine singular pronoun “you” in other places in reference to Jerusalem (cf. clearly in 4:14; 6:8; 13:20; 15:5-6); (4) the use of the feminine singular participle to refer to personified Jerusalem in 10:17 as well as 20:23. However, the description in 21:13 is equally appropriate to the royal household that the Lord has been addressing; the palace stood on the Ophel or fill between the northern and southern hill just south of the temple and overlooked the Kidron valley. Moreover, the word “enthroned” is even more fitting to the royal household than to Jerusalem. The phrase “enthroned above the valley” is literally “inhabitant of the valley.” But since the literal is inappropriate for either Jerusalem or the royal palace, the phrase is regularly interpreted after the parallel phrase referring to the Lord “enthroned above the cherubim.” The royal house was “enthroned” more literally than Jerusalem was. Taking this to refer to the royal court rather than Jerusalem also introduces one less unintroduced entity by the shift in pronoun in vv. 11-14 as well as eliminating the introduction of an otherwise unintroduced oracle. The “you” of “you boast” is actually the masculine plural participle (Heb “who say”) that modifies the feminine singular participle “you who sit enthroned” and goes back to the masculine plural imperatives in v. 12 rather than introducing a new entity, the people of the city. The participle “you who sit enthroned” is to be interpreted as a collective referring to the royal court not a personification of the city of Jerusalem (cf. GKC 394 §122.s and see, e.g., Isa 12:6; Mic 1:11). Moreover, taking the referent to be the royal court makes the reference to the word translated “palace” much more natural. The word is literally “forest” and is often seen to be an allusion to the armory which was called the “Forest of Lebanon” (1 Kgs 7:2; 10:17; 10:21; Isa 22:8 and see also Ezek 17:3 in an allegory (17:2-18) which may have been contemporary with this oracle). Taking the oracle to refer to the royal court also makes this oracle more parallel with the one that follows where destruction of the palace leads also to the destruction of the city.

[21:13]  ⁶⁷ tn Heb “I am against you.”

[21:13]  ⁶⁸ tn Heb “oracle of the Lord.”

[21:13]  ⁶⁹ tn Heb “Who can swoop…Who can penetrate…?” The questions are rhetorical and expect a negative answer. They are rendered as negative affirmations for clarity.

[2:5]  ⁷⁰ tc The MT reads אֲדֹנָי (’adonay, “the Lord”) here rather than יהוה (YHWH, “the Lord”). See the tc note at 1:14.

[2:5]  ⁷¹ tn Heb “swallowed up.”

[2:5]  ⁷² tn Heb “swallowed up.”

[2:5]  ⁷³ tn Heb “his.” For consistency this has been translated as “her.”

[2:5]  ⁷⁴ tn Heb “He increased in Daughter Judah mourning and lamentation.”

[3:3]  ⁷⁵ tn The two verbs יָשֻׁב יַהֲפֹךְ (yashuv yahafokh, “he returns, he turns”) form a verbal hendiadys: the second verb retains its full verbal sense, while the first functions adverbially: “he repeatedly turns…” The verb שׁוּב (shuv, lit., “to return”) functions adverbially to denote repetition: “to do repeatedly, do again and again” (GKC 386-87 §120.d, g) (Gen 26:18; 30:31; Num 11:4; Judg 19:7; 1 Sam 3:5, 6; 1 Kgs 13:33; 19:6; 21:3; 2 Chr 33:3; Job 10:16; 17:10; Ps 7:13; Jer 18:4; 36:28; Lam 3:3; Dan 9:25; Zech 5:1; 6:1; Mal 1:4).

[3:3]  ⁷⁶ tn The idiom “to turn the hand against” someone is a figurative expression denoting hostility. The term “hand” (יָד, yad) is often used in idioms denoting hostility (Exod 9:3, 15; Deut 2:15; Judg 2:15; 1 Sam 5:3, 6, 9; 6:9; 2 Sam 24:16; 2 Chr 30:12; Ezra 7:9; Job 19:21; Ps 109:27; Jer 15:17; 16:21; Ezek 3:14). The reference to God’s “hand” is anthropomorphic.

[3:3]  ⁷⁷ tn Heb “all of the day.” The idiom כָּל־הַיּוֹם (kol-hayom, “all day”) means “continually” or “all day long” (Gen 6:5; Deut 28:32; 33:12; Pss 25:5; 32:3; 35:28; 37:26; 38:7, 13; 42:4, 11; 44:9, 16, 23; 52:3; 56:2, 3, 6; 71:8, 15, 24; 72:15; 73:14; 74:22; 86:3; 88:18; 89:17; 102:9; 119:97; Prov 21:26; 23:17; Isa 28:24; 51:13; 52:5; 65:2, 5; Jer 20:7, 8; Lam 1:13, 14, 62; Hos 12:2).

[14:2]  ⁷⁸ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[14:2]  ⁷⁹ tn Heb “not be cut off from the city” (so NRSV); NAB “not be removed.”

[14:3]  ⁸⁰ sn The statement the Lord will go to battle introduces the conflict known elsewhere as the “battle of Armageddon,” a battle in which the Lord delivers his people and establishes his millennial reign (cf. Joel 3:12, 15-16; Ezek 38–39; Rev 16:12-21; 19:19-21).

[14:3]  ⁸¹ tn Heb “as he fights on a day of battle” (similar NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[22:7]  ⁸² tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.

[22:7]  ⁸³ tn Grk “he sent his soldiers, destroyed those murderers.” The verb ἀπώλεσεν (apwlesen) is causative, indicating that the king was the one behind the execution of the murderers. In English the causative idea is not expressed naturally here; either a purpose clause (“he sent his soldiers to put those murderers to death”) or a relative clause (“he sent his soldier who put those murderers to death”) is preferred.

[22:7]  ⁸⁴ tn The Greek text reads here πόλις (polis), which could be translated “town” or “city.” The prophetic reference is to the city of Jerusalem, so “city” is more appropriate here.