Ezekiel 3:17-21

3:17 “Son of man, I have appointed you a watchman ¹  for the house of Israel. Whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you must give them a warning from me. 3:18 When I say to the wicked, “You will certainly die,” ²  and you do not warn him – you do not speak out to warn the wicked to turn from his wicked deed and wicked lifestyle so that he may live – that wicked person will die for his iniquity, ³  but I will hold you accountable for his death. ⁴  3:19 But as for you, if you warn the wicked and he does not turn from his wicked deed and from his wicked lifestyle, he will die for his iniquity but you will have saved your own life. ⁵ 

3:20 “When a righteous person turns from his righteousness and commits iniquity, and I set an obstacle ⁶  before him, he will die. If you have not warned him, he will die for his sin. The righteous deeds he performed will not be considered, but I will hold you accountable for his death. 3:21 However, if you warn the righteous person not to sin, and he ⁷  does not sin, he will certainly live because he was warned, and you will have saved your own life.”

The Song of Songs 3:3

3:3 The night watchmen found me – the ones who guard the city walls. ⁸ 

“Have you seen my beloved?” ⁹ 

The Song of Songs 5:7

5:7 The watchmen found me as they made their rounds in the city.

They beat me, they bruised me;

they took away my cloak, those watchmen on the walls!

Isaiah 62:6

62:6 I ¹⁰  post watchmen on your walls, O Jerusalem;

they should keep praying all day and all night. ¹¹ 

You who pray to ¹²  the Lord, don’t be silent!

Jeremiah 6:27

6:27 The Lord said to me, ¹³ 

“I have made you like a metal assayer

to test my people like ore. ¹⁴ 

You are to observe them

and evaluate how they behave.” ¹⁵ 

Jeremiah 31:6

31:6 Yes, a time is coming

when watchmen ¹⁶  will call out on the mountains of Ephraim,

“Come! Let us go to Zion

to worship the Lord our God!”’” ¹⁷ 

Micah 7:4

7:4 The best of them is like a thorn;

the most godly among them are more dangerous than a row of thorn bushes. ¹⁸ 

The day you try to avoid by posting watchmen –

your appointed time of punishment – is on the way, ¹⁹ 

and then you will experience confusion. ²⁰ 

Ephesians 4:11

4:11 It was he ²¹  who gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, ²² 

Hebrews 13:17

13:17 Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls and will give an account for their work. ²³  Let them do this ²⁴  with joy and not with complaints, for this would be no advantage for you.

[3:17]  ¹ tn The literal role of a watchman is described in 2 Sam 18:24; 2 Kgs 9:17.

[3:18]  ² sn Even though the infinitive absolute is used to emphasize the warning, the warning is still implicitly conditional, as the following context makes clear.

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

[3:18]  ⁴ tn Heb “his blood I will seek from your hand.” The expression “seek blood from the hand” is equivalent to requiring the death penalty (2 Sam 4:11-12).

[3:19]  ⁵ tn Verses 17-19 are repeated in Ezek 33:7-9.

[3:20]  ⁶ tn Or “stumbling block.” The Hebrew term refers to an obstacle in the road in Lev 19:14.

[3:21]  ⁷ tn Heb “the righteous man.”

[3:3]  ⁸ tn Heb “those who go around the city” or “those who go around in the city.” The expression הַסֹּבְבִים בָּעִיר (hassovÿvim ba’ir, “those who go around the city”) probably refers to the watchmen of the city walls rather than night city street patrol (e.g., Ps 127:1; Song 5:7; Isa 21:11; 62:6). The Israelite night watchmen of the walls is paralleled by the Akkadian sahir duri (“one who goes around the wall”) which appears in a lexical text as the equivalent of ma-sar musi (“night watchman”) (CAD 4:192). See M. H. Pope, Song of Songs (AB), 419. There is a wordplay in 3:2-3 between the verb וַאֲסוֹבְבָה (va’asovÿvah, “I will go about”) and הַסֹּבְבִים (hassovÿvim, “those who go around”). This wordplay draws attention to the ironic similarity between the woman’s action and the action of the city’s watchmen. Ironically, she failed to find her beloved as she went around in the city, but the city watchmen found her. Rather than finding the one she was looking for, she was found.

[3:3]  ⁹ tn Heb “the one whom my soul loves – have you seen [him]?” The normal Hebrew word-order (verb-subject-direct object) is reversed in 3:3 (direct object-verb-subject) to emphasize the object of her search: אֵת שֶׁאָהֲבָה נַפְשִׁי רְאִיתֶם (’et she’ahavah nafshi rÿ’item, “The one whom my soul loves – have you seen [him]?”).

[62:6]  ¹⁰ sn The speaker here is probably the prophet.

[62:6]  ¹¹ tn Heb “all day and all night continually they do not keep silent.” The following lines suggest that they pray for the Lord’s intervention and restoration of the city.

[62:6]  ¹² tn Or “invoke”; NIV “call on”; NASB, NRSV “remind.”

[6:27]  ¹³ tn These words are not in the text but are supplied in the translation for clarity. Note “I have appointed you.” Compare Jer 1:18.

[6:27]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “I have made you an assayer of my people, a tester [?].” The meaning of the words translated “assayer” (בָּחוֹן, bakhon) and “tester” (מִבְצָר, mivtsar) is uncertain. The word בָּחוֹן (bakhon) can mean “tower” (cf. BDB 103 s.v. בָּחוֹן; cf. Isa 23:13 for the only other use) or “assayer” (cf. BDB 103 s.v. בָּחוֹן). The latter would be the more expected nuance because of the other uses of nouns and verbs from this root. The word מִבְצָר (mivtsar) normally means “fortress” (cf. BDB 131 s.v. מִבְצָר), but most modern commentaries and lexicons deem that nuance inappropriate here. HALOT follows a proposal that the word is to be repointed to מְבַצֵּר (mÿvatser) and derived from a root בָּצַר (batsar) meaning “to test” (cf. HALOT 143 s.v. IV בָּצַר). That proposal makes the most sense in the context, but the root appears nowhere else in the OT.

[6:27]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “test their way.”

[31:6]  ¹⁶ sn Watchmen were stationed at vantage points to pass on warning of coming attack (Jer 6:17; Ezek 33:2, 6) or to spread the news of victory (Isa 52:8). Here reference is made to the watchmen who signaled the special times of the year such as the new moon and festival times when Israel was to go to Jerusalem to worship. Reference is not made to these in the Hebrew Bible but there is a good deal of instruction regarding them in the later Babylonian Talmud.

[31:6]  ¹⁷ sn Not only will Israel and Judah be reunited under one ruler (cf. 23:5-6), but they will share a unified place and practice of worship once again in contrast to Israel using the illicit places of worship, illicit priesthood, and illicit feasts instituted by Jeroboam (1 Kgs 12:26-31) and continued until the downfall of Samaria in 722 b.c.

[7:4]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “[the] godly from a row of thorn bushes.” The preposition מִן (min) is comparative and the comparative element (perhaps “sharper” is the idea) is omitted. See BDB 582 s.v. 6 and GKC 431 §133.e.

[7:4]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “the day of your watchmen, your appointed [time], is coming.” The present translation takes “watchmen” to refer to actual sentries. However, the “watchmen” could refer figuratively to the prophets who had warned Judah of approaching judgment. In this case one could translate, “The day your prophets warned about – your appointed time of punishment – is on the way.”

[7:4]  ²⁰ tn Heb “and now will be their confusion.”

[4:11]  ²¹ tn The emphasis on Christ is continued through the use of the intensive pronoun, αὐτός (autos), and is rendered in English as “it was he” as this seems to lay emphasis on the “he.”

[4:11]  ²² sn Some interpreters have understood the phrase pastors and teachers to refer to one and the same group. This would mean that all pastors are teachers and that all teachers are pastors. This position is often taken because it is recognized that both nouns (i.e., pastors and teachers) are governed by one article in Greek. But because the nouns are plural, it is extremely unlikely that they refer to the same group, but only that the author is linking them closely together. It is better to regard the pastors as a subset of teachers. In other words, all pastors are teachers, but not all teachers are pastors. See ExSyn 284.

[13:17]  ²³ tn Or “as ones who will give an account”; Grk “as giving an account.”

[13:17]  ²⁴ tn Grk “that they may do this.”