Ezekiel 22:12-31

22:12 They take bribes within you to shed blood. You engage in usury and charge interest; ¹  you extort money from your neighbors. You have forgotten me, ²  declares the sovereign Lord. ³ 

22:13 “‘See, I strike my hands together ⁴  at the dishonest profit you have made, and at the bloodshed ⁵  they have done among you. 22:14 Can your heart endure, ⁶  or can your hands be strong when I deal with you? ⁷  I, the Lord, have spoken, and I will do it! 22:15 I will scatter you among the nations and disperse you among various countries; I will remove your impurity from you. ⁸  22:16 You will be profaned within yourself ⁹  in the sight of the nations; then you will know that I am the Lord.’”

22:17 The word of the Lord came to me: 22:18 “Son of man, the house of Israel has become slag to me. All of them are like bronze, tin, iron, and lead in the furnace; ¹⁰  they are the worthless slag of silver. 22:19 Therefore this is what the sovereign Lord says: ‘Because all of you ¹¹  have become slag, look out! – I am about to gather you in the middle of Jerusalem. ¹²  22:20 As silver, bronze, iron, lead, and tin are gathered in a furnace so that the fire can melt them, so I will gather you in my anger and in my rage. I will deposit you there ¹³  and melt you. 22:21 I will gather you and blow on you with the fire of my fury, and you will be melted in it. 22:22 As silver is melted in a furnace, so you will be melted in it, and you will know that I, the Lord, have poured out my anger on you.’”

22:23 The word of the Lord came to me: 22:24 “Son of man, say to her: ‘You are a land that receives no rain ¹⁴  or showers in the day of my anger.’ ¹⁵  22:25 Her princes ¹⁶  within her are like a roaring lion tearing its prey; they have devoured lives. They take away riches and valuable things; they have made many women widows ¹⁷  within it. 22:26 Her priests abuse my law and have desecrated my holy things. They do not distinguish between the holy and the profane, ¹⁸  or recognize any distinction between the unclean and the clean. They ignore ¹⁹  my Sabbaths and I am profaned in their midst. 22:27 Her officials are like wolves in her midst rending their prey – shedding blood and destroying lives – so they can get dishonest profit. 22:28 Her prophets coat their messages with whitewash. ²⁰  They see false visions and announce lying omens for them, saying, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says,’ when the Lord has not spoken. 22:29 The people of the land have practiced extortion and committed robbery. They have wronged the poor and needy; they have oppressed the foreigner who lives among them and denied them justice. ²¹ 

22:30 “I looked for a man from among them who would repair the wall and stand in the gap before me on behalf of the land, so that I would not destroy it, but I found no one. ²²  22:31 So I have poured my anger on them, and destroyed them with the fire of my fury. I hereby repay them for what they have done, ²³  declares the sovereign Lord.”

[22:12]  ¹ tn Heb “usury and interest you take.” See 18:13, 17. This kind of economic exploitation violated the law given in Lev 25:36.

[22:12]  ² sn Forgetting the Lord is also addressed in Deut 6:12; 8:11, 14; Jer 3:21; 13:25; Ezek 23:35; Hos 2:15; 8:14; 13:6.

[22:12]  ³ tn The second person verb forms are feminine singular in Hebrew, indicating that the personified city is addressed here as representing its citizens.

[22:13]  ⁴ sn This gesture apparently expresses mourning and/or anger (see 6:11; 21:14, 17).

[22:13]  ⁵ tn Heb “the blood which was in you.”

[22:14]  ⁶ tn Heb “stand.” The heart here stands for the emotions; Jerusalem would panic in the face of God’s judgment.

[22:14]  ⁷ tn Heb “in the days when I act against you.”

[22:15]  ⁸ sn The ultimate purpose of divine judgment is to purify the covenant community of its sins.

[22:16]  ⁹ tc Several ancient versions read the verb as first person, in which case the Lord refers to how his people’s sin brings disgrace upon him. For a defense of the Hebrew text, see D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 1:712, n. 68, and M. Greenberg, Ezekiel (AB), 2:457-58.

[22:18]  ¹⁰ tn For similar imagery, see Isa 1:21-26; Jer 6:27-30.

[22:19]  ¹¹ tn The Hebrew second person pronoun is masculine plural here and in vv. 19b-21, indicating that the people are being addressed.

[22:19]  ¹² map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[22:20]  ¹³ tn Heb “I will put.” No object is supplied in the Hebrew, prompting many to emend the text to “I will blow.” See BHS and verse 21.

[22:24]  ¹⁴ tc The MT reads “that is not cleansed”; the LXX reads “that is not drenched,” which assumes a different vowel pointing as well as the loss of a מ (mem) due to haplography. In light of the following reference to showers, the reading of the LXX certainly fits the context well. For a defense of the emendation, see L. C. Allen, Ezekiel (WBC), 2:32. Yet the MT is not an unreasonable reading since uncleanness in the land also fits the context, and a poetic connection between rain and the land being uncleansed may be feasible since washing with water is elsewhere associated with cleansing (Num 8:7; 31:23; Ps 51:7).

[22:24]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “in a day of anger.”

[22:25]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “a conspiracy of her prophets is in her midst.” The LXX reads “whose princes” rather than “a conspiracy of prophets.” The prophets are mentioned later in the paragraph (v. 28). If one follows the LXX in verse 25, then five distinct groups are mentioned in vv. 25-29: princes, priests, officials, prophets, and the people of the land. For a defense of the Septuagintal reading, see L. C. Allen, Ezekiel (WBC), 2:32, and D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 1:720, n. 4.

[22:25]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “her widows they have multiplied.” The statement alludes to their murderous acts.

[22:26]  ¹⁸ tn Or “between the consecrated and the common.”

[22:26]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “hide their eyes from.” The idiom means to disregard or ignore something or someone (see Lev 20:4; 1 Sam 12:3; Prov 28:27; Isa 1:15).

[22:28]  ²⁰ tn Heb “her prophets coat for themselves with whitewash.” The expression may be based on Ezek 13:10-15.

[22:29]  ²¹ tn Heb “and the foreigner they have oppressed without justice.”

[22:30]  ²² tn Heb “I did not find.”

[22:31]  ²³ tn Heb “their way on their head I have placed.”