Ezekiel 24:16-17

24:16 “Son of man, realize that I am about to take the delight of your eyes away from you with a jolt, ¹  but you must not mourn or weep or shed tears. 24:17 Groan in silence for the dead, ²  but do not perform mourning rites. ³  Bind on your turban ⁴  and put your sandals on your feet. Do not cover your lip ⁵  and do not eat food brought by others.” ⁶ 

Job 27:15

27:15 Those who survive him are buried by the plague, ⁷ 

and their ⁸  widows do not mourn for them.

Psalms 78:64

78:64 Their ⁹  priests fell by the sword,

but their ¹⁰  widows did not weep. ¹¹ 

Jeremiah 16:4-7

16:4 They will die of deadly diseases. No one will mourn for them. They will not be buried. Their dead bodies will lie like manure spread on the ground. They will be killed in war or die of starvation. Their corpses will be food for the birds and wild animals.

16:5 “Moreover I, the Lord, tell you: ¹²  ‘Do not go into a house where they are having a funeral meal. Do not go there to mourn and express your sorrow for them. For I have stopped showing them my good favor, ¹³  my love, and my compassion. I, the Lord, so affirm it! ¹⁴  16:6 Rich and poor alike will die in this land. They will not be buried or mourned. People will not cut their bodies or shave off their hair to show their grief for them. ¹⁵  16:7 No one will take any food to those who mourn for the dead to comfort them. No one will give them any wine to drink to console them for the loss of their father or mother.

Jeremiah 47:3

47:3 Fathers will hear the hoofbeats of the enemies’ horses,

the clatter of their chariots and the rumbling of their wheels.

They will not turn back to save their children

because they will be paralyzed with fear. ¹⁶ 

Amos 6:9-10

6:9 If ten men are left in one house, they too will die. 6:10 When their close relatives, the ones who will burn the corpses, ¹⁷  pick up their bodies to remove the bones from the house, they will say to anyone who is in the inner rooms of the house, “Is anyone else with you?” He will respond, “Be quiet! Don’t invoke the Lord’s name!” ¹⁸ 

[24:16]  ¹ tn Heb “a strike.”

[24:17]  ² tn Or “Groan silently. As to the dead….” Cf. M. Greenberg’s suggestion that דֹּם מֵתִים (dom metim) be taken together and דֹּם be derived from ָדּמַם (damam, “to moan, murmur”). See M. Greenberg, Ezekiel (AB), 2:508.

[24:17]  ³ tn Heb “(For) the dead mourning you shall not conduct.” In the Hebrew text the word translated “dead” is plural, indicating that mourning rites are in view. Such rites would involve outward demonstrations of one’s sorrow, including wailing and weeping.

[24:17]  ⁴ sn The turban would normally be removed for mourning (Josh 7:6; 1 Sam 4:12).

[24:17]  ⁵ sn Mourning rites included covering the lower part of the face. See Lev 13:45.

[24:17]  ⁶ tn Heb “the bread of men.” The translation follows the suggestion accepted by M. Greenberg (Ezekiel [AB], 2:509) that this refers to a meal brought by comforters to the one mourning. Some repoint the consonantal text to read “the bread of despair” (see L. C. Allen, Ezekiel [WBC], 2:56), while others, with support from the Targum and Vulgate, emend the consonantal text to read “the bread of mourners” (see D. I. Block, Ezekiel [NICOT], 1:784).

[27:15]  ⁷ tn The text says “will be buried in/by death.” A number of passages in the Bible use “death” to mean the plague that kills (see Jer 15:2; Isa 28:3; and BDB 89 s.v. בְּ 2.a). In this sense it is like the English expression for the plague, “the Black Death.”

[27:15]  ⁸ tc The LXX has “their widows” to match the plural, and most commentators harmonize in the same way.

[78:64]  ⁹ tn Heb “his.” The singular pronominal suffix is collective, referring back to God’s “people” (v. 62).

[78:64]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “his.” The singular pronominal suffix is collective, referring back to God’s “people” (v. 62).

[78:64]  ¹¹ sn Because of the invading army and the ensuing panic, the priests’ widows had no time to carry out the normal mourning rites.

[16:5]  ¹² tn Heb “For thus says the Lord…”

[16:5]  ¹³ tn Heb “my peace.” The Hebrew word שְׁלוֹמִי (shÿlomi) can be translated “peace, prosperity” or “well-being” (referring to wholeness or health of body and soul).

[16:5]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[16:6]  ¹⁵ sn These were apparently pagan customs associated with mourning (Isa 15:2; Jer 47:5) which were forbidden in Israel (Lev 19:8; 21:5) but apparently practiced anyway (Jer 41:5).

[47:3]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “From the noise of the stamping of the hoofs of his stallions, from the rattling of his chariots at the rumbling of their wheels, fathers will not turn to their children from sinking of hands.” According to BDB 952 s.v. רִפָּיוֹן the “sinking of the hands” is figurative of helplessness caused by terror. A very similar figure is seen with a related expression in Isa 35:3-4. The sentence has been restructured to put the subject up front and to suggest through shorter sentences more in keeping with contemporary English style the same causal connections. The figures have been interpreted for the sake of clarity for the average reader.

[6:10]  ¹⁷ tn The translation assumes that “their relatives” and “the ones who will burn the corpses” are in apposition. Another option is to take them as distinct individuals, in which case one could translate, “When their close relatives and the ones who will burn the corpses pick up…” The meaning of the form translated “the ones who burn the corpses” is uncertain. Another option is to translate, “the ones who prepare the corpses for burial” (NASB “undertaker”; cf. also CEV). See S. M. Paul, Amos (Hermeneia), 215-16.

[6:10]  ¹⁸ tn This verse is notoriously difficult to interpret. The Hebrew text literally reads, “And he will lift him up, his uncle, and the one burning him, to bring out bones from the house. And he will say to the one who is in the inner parts of the house, ‘Is there [anyone] still with you?’ And he will say, ‘Be quiet for not to invoke the name of the Lord.’” The translation assumes that the singular pronominal and verbal forms throughout the verse are collective or distributive. This last sentence has been interpreted in several ways: a command not to call on the name of the Lord out of fear that he might return again in judgment; the realization that it is not appropriate to seek a blessing in the Lord’s name upon the dead in the house since the judgment was deserved; an angry refusal to call on the Lord out of a sense that he has betrayed his people in allowing them to suffer.