Ezekiel 24:16-24

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 

24:18 So I spoke to the people in the morning, and my wife died in the evening. In the morning ⁷  I acted just as I was commanded. 24:19 Then the people said to me, “Will you not tell us what these things you are doing mean for us?”

24:20 So I said to them: “The word of the Lord came to me: 24:21 Say to the house of Israel, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: Realize I am about to desecrate my sanctuary – the source of your confident pride, ⁸  the object in which your eyes delight, ⁹  and your life’s passion. ¹⁰  Your very own sons and daughters whom you have left behind will die ¹¹  by the sword. 24:22 Then you will do as I have done: You will not cover your lip or eat food brought by others. ¹²  24:23 Your turbans will be on your heads and your sandals on your feet; you will not mourn or weep, but you will rot ¹³  for your iniquities ¹⁴  and groan among yourselves. 24:24 Ezekiel will be an object lesson for you; you will do all that he has done. When it happens, then you will know that I am the sovereign Lord.’

Psalms 78:64

78:64 Their ¹⁵  priests fell by the sword,

but their ¹⁶  widows did not weep. ¹⁷ 

Jeremiah 16:5-6

16:5 “Moreover I, the Lord, tell you: ¹⁸  ‘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, ¹⁹  my love, and my compassion. I, the Lord, so affirm it! ²⁰  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. ²¹ 

Jeremiah 22:18

22:18 So ²²  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!” ²³ 

Jeremiah 25:33

25:33 Those who have been killed by the Lord at that time

will be scattered from one end of the earth to the other.

They will not be mourned over, gathered up, or buried. ²⁴ 

Their dead bodies will lie scattered over the ground like manure.

[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).

[24:18]  ⁷ tn This may refer to the following morning. For a discussion of various interpretive options in understanding the chronology reflected in verse 18, see D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 1:790.

[24:21]  ⁸ tn Heb “the pride of your strength” means “your strong pride.”

[24:21]  ⁹ sn Heb “the delight of your eyes.” Just as Ezekiel was deprived of his beloved wife (v. 16, the “desire” of his “eyes”) so the Lord would be forced to remove the object of his devotion, the temple, which symbolized his close relationship to his covenant people.

[24:21]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the object of compassion of your soul.” The accentuation in the traditional Hebrew text indicates that the descriptive phrases (“the source of your confident pride, the object in which your eyes delight, and your life’s passion”) modify the preceding “my sanctuary.”

[24:21]  ¹¹ tn Heb “fall.”

[24:22]  ¹² tn See v. 17.

[24:23]  ¹³ tn The same verb appears in 4:17 and 33:10.

[24:23]  ¹⁴ tn Or “in your punishment.” The phrase “in/for [a person’s] iniquity/punishment” occurs fourteen times in Ezekiel: here; 3:18, 19; 4:17; 7:13, 16; 18:17, 18, 19, 20; 33:6, 8, 9; 39:23. The Hebrew word for “iniquity” may also mean the “punishment” for iniquity or “guilt” of iniquity.

[78:64]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “his.” The singular pronominal suffix is collective, referring back to God’s “people” (v. 62).

[78:64]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “his.” The singular pronominal suffix is collective, referring back to God’s “people” (v. 62).

[78:64]  ¹⁷ 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]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “For thus says the Lord…”

[16:5]  ¹⁹ 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]  ²⁰ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[16:6]  ²¹ 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).

[22:18]  ²² 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]  ²³ 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.

[25:33]  ²⁴ sn The intent here is to emphasize the large quantity of those who are killed – there will be too many to insure proper mourning rites and proper burial.