Ezekiel 19:11

19:11 Its boughs were strong, fit ¹  for rulers’ scepters; it reached up into the clouds.

It stood out because of its height and its many branches. ² 

Ezekiel 19:2

19:2 and say:

“‘What a lioness was your mother among the lions!

She lay among young lions; ³  she reared her cubs.

Ezekiel 23:29

23:29 They will treat you with hatred, take away all you have labored for, ⁴  and leave you naked and bare. Your nakedness will be exposed, just as when you engaged in prostitution and obscene conduct. ⁵ 

Ezekiel 23:34

23:34 You will drain it dry, ⁶  gnaw its pieces, ⁷  and tear out your breasts, ⁸  for I have spoken, declares the sovereign Lord.

Ezekiel 24:6

24:6 “‘Therefore this is what the sovereign Lord says:

Woe to the city of bloodshed,

the pot whose rot ⁹  is in it,

whose rot has not been removed ¹⁰  from it!

Empty it piece by piece.

No lot has fallen on it. ¹¹ 

Ezekiel 24:14-16

24:14 “‘I the Lord have spoken; judgment ¹²  is coming and I will act! I will not relent, or show pity, or be sorry! ¹³  I will judge you ¹⁴  according to your conduct ¹⁵  and your deeds, declares the sovereign Lord.’”

Ezekiel’s Wife Dies

24:15 The word of Lord came to me: 24:16 “Son of man, realize that I am about to take the delight of your eyes away from you with a jolt, ¹⁶  but you must not mourn or weep or shed tears.

Ezekiel 25:6-7

25:6 For this is what the sovereign Lord says: Because you clapped your hands, stamped your feet, and rejoiced with intense scorn ¹⁷  over the land of Israel, 25:7 take note, I have stretched out my hand against you, and I will hand you over as plunder ¹⁸  to the nations. I will cut you off from the peoples and make you perish from the lands. I will destroy you; then you will know that I am the Lord.’”

Jeremiah 22:10-11

Judgment on Jehoahaz

22:10 “‘Do not weep for the king who was killed.

Do not grieve for him.

But weep mournfully for the king who has gone into exile.

For he will never return to see his native land again. ¹⁹ 

22:11 “‘For the Lord has spoken about Shallum son of Josiah, who succeeded his father as king of Judah but was carried off into exile. He has said, “He will never return to this land. ²⁰ 

Jeremiah 22:18-19

22:18 So ²¹  the Lord has this to say about Josiah’s son, King Jehoiakim of Judah:

People will not mourn for him, saying,

“This makes me sad, my brother!

This makes me sad, my sister!”

They will not mourn for him, saying,

“Poor, poor lord! Poor, poor majesty!” ²² 

22:19 He will be left unburied just like a dead donkey.

His body will be dragged off and thrown outside the gates of Jerusalem.’” ²³ 

Jeremiah 22:25-27

22:25 I will hand you over to those who want to take your life and of whom you are afraid. I will hand you over to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and his Babylonian ²⁴  soldiers. 22:26 I will force you and your mother who gave you birth into exile. You will be exiled to ²⁵  a country where neither of you were born, and you will both die there. 22:27 You will never come back to this land to which you will long to return!” ²⁶ 

Jeremiah 22:30

22:30 The Lord says,

“Enroll this man in the register as though he were childless. ²⁷ 

Enroll him as a man who will not enjoy success during his lifetime.

For none of his sons will succeed in occupying the throne of David

or ever succeed in ruling over Judah.”

[19:11]  ¹ tn The word “fit” does not occur in the Hebrew text.

[19:11]  ² tn Heb “and it was seen by its height and by the abundance of its branches.”

[19:2]  ³ sn Lions probably refer to Judahite royalty and/or nobility. The lioness appears to symbolize the Davidic dynasty, though some see the referent as Hamutal, the wife of Josiah and mother of Jehoahaz and Zedekiah. Gen 49:9 seems to be the background for Judah being compared to lions.

[23:29]  ⁴ tn The Hebrew term means “labor,” but by extension it can also refer to that for which one works.

[23:29]  ⁵ tn Heb “The nakedness of your prostitution will be exposed, and your obscene conduct and your harlotry.”

[23:34]  ⁶ tn Heb “You will drink it and drain (it).”

[23:34]  ⁷ tn D. I. Block compares this to the idiom of “licking the plate” (Ezekiel [NICOT], 1:754, n. 137). The text is difficult as the word translated “gnaw” is rare. The noun is used of the shattered pieces of pottery and so could envision a broken cup. But the Piel verb form is used in only one other place (Num 24:8), where it is a denominative from the noun “bone” and seems to mean to “break (bones).” Why it would be collocated with “sherds” is not clear. For this reason some emend the phrase to read “consume its dregs” (see L. C. Allen, Ezekiel [WBC], 2:44) or emend the verb to read “swallow,” as if the intoxicated Oholibah breaks the cup and then eats the very sherds in an effort to get every last drop of the beverage that dampens them.

[23:34]  ⁸ sn The severe action is more extreme than beating the breasts in anguish (Isa 32:12; Nah 2:7). It is also ironic for these are the very breasts she so blatantly offered to her lovers (vv. 3, 21).

[24:6]  ⁹ tn Or “rust.”

[24:6]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “has not gone out.”

[24:6]  ¹¹ tn Here “lot” may refer to the decision made by casting lots; it is not chosen at all.

[24:14]  ¹² tn Heb “it”; the referent has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[24:14]  ¹³ tn Or perhaps, “change my mind.”

[24:14]  ¹⁴ tc Some medieval Hebrew mss and the major ancient versions read a first person verb here. Most Hebrew mss read have an indefinite subject, “they will judge you,” which could be translated, “you will be judged.”

[24:14]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “ways.”

[24:16]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “a strike.”

[25:6]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “with all your scorn in (the) soul.”

[25:7]  ¹⁸ tc The translation here follows the marginal reading (Qere) of the Hebrew text. The consonantal text (Kethib) is meaningless.

[22:10]  ¹⁹ tn The word “king” is not in the original text of either the first or the third line. It is implicit in the connection and is supplied in the translation for clarity.

[22:11]  ²⁰ tn Heb “For thus said the Lord concerning Shallum son of Josiah, king of Judah, who reigned instead of his father who went away from this place: He will not return there again.”

[22:18]  ²¹ sn This is the regular way of introducing the announcement of judgment after an indictment of crimes. See, e.g., Isa 5:13, 14; Jer 23:2.

[22:18]  ²² tn The translation follows the majority of scholars who think that the address of brother and sister are the address of the mourners to one another, lamenting their loss. Some scholars feel that all four terms are parallel and represent the relation that the king had metaphorically to his subjects; i.e., he was not only Lord and Majesty to them but like a sister or a brother. In that case something like: “How sad it is for the one who was like a brother to us! How sad it is for the one who was like a sister to us.” This makes for poor poetry and is not very likely. The lover can call his bride sister in Song of Solomon (Song 4:9, 10) but there are no documented examples of a subject ever speaking of a king in this way in Israel or the ancient Near East.

[22:19]  ²³ sn A similar judgment against this ungodly king is pronounced by Jeremiah in 36:30. According to 2 Chr 36:6 he was bound over to be taken captive to Babylon but apparently died before he got there. According to the Jewish historian Josephus, Nebuchadnezzar ordered his body thrown outside the wall in fulfillment of this judgment. The Bible itself, however, does not tell us that.

[22:25]  ²⁴ tn Heb “the Chaldeans.” See the study note on 21:4.

[22:26]  ²⁵ tn Heb “I will hurl you and your mother…into another land where…” The verb used here is very forceful. It is the verb used for Saul throwing a spear at David (1 Sam 18:11) and for the Lord unleashing a violent storm on the sea (Jonah 1:4). It is used both here and in v. 28 for the forceful exile of Jeconiah and his mother.

[22:27]  ²⁶ tn Heb “And unto the land to which they lift up their souls to return there, there they will not return.” Once again there is a sudden shift in person from the second plural to the third plural. As before the translation levels the pronouns to avoid confusion. For the idiom “to lift up the soul to” = “to long/yearn to/for” see BDB 670 s.v. נָשָׂא 1.b(9).

[22:30]  ²⁷ tn Heb “Write this man childless.” For the explanation see the study note. The word translated “childless” has spawned some debate because Jeconiah was in fact not childless. There is record from both the Bible and ancient Near Eastern texts that he had children (see, e.g., 1 Chr 3:17). G. R. Driver, “Linguistic and Textual Problems: Jeremiah,” JQR 28 (1937-38): 115, has suggested that the word both here and in Lev 20:20-21 should be translated “stripped of honor.” While that would relieve some of the difficulties here, the word definitely means “childless” in Gen 15:2 and also in Sir 16:3 where it is contrasted with having godless children. The issue is not one of childlessness but of having “one of his sons” succeed to the Davidic throne. The term for “one of his sons” is literally “from his seed a man” and the word “seed” is the same one that is used to refer to his “children” who were forced into exile with him (v. 28).