Ezekiel 4:1

Ominous Object Lessons

4:1 “And you, son of man, take a brick ¹  and set it in front of you. Inscribe ²  a city on it – Jerusalem.

Ezekiel 6:7

6:7 The slain will fall among you and then you will know that I am the Lord. ³ 

Ezekiel 13:12

13:12 When the wall has collapsed, people will ask you, “Where is the whitewash you coated it with?”

Ezekiel 16:40

16:40 They will summon a mob who will stone you and hack you in pieces with their swords.

Ezekiel 25:11

25:11 I will execute judgments against Moab. Then they will know that I am the Lord.’”

Ezekiel 27:25

27:25 The ships of Tarshish ⁴  were the transports for your merchandise.

“‘So you were filled and weighed down in the heart of the seas.

Ezekiel 32:14

32:14 Then I will make their waters calm, ⁵ 

and will make their streams flow like olive oil, declares the sovereign Lord.

Ezekiel 32:22

32:22 “Assyria is there with all her assembly around her grave, ⁶  all of them struck down by the sword. ⁷ 

Ezekiel 39:3

39:3 I will knock your bow out of your left hand and make your arrows fall from your right hand.

Ezekiel 39:5

39:5 You will fall dead in the open field; for I have spoken, declares the sovereign Lord.

Ezekiel 40:11

40:11 He measured the width of the entrance of the gateway as 17½ feet, ⁸  and the length of the gateway as 22¾ feet. ⁹ 

[4:1]  ¹ sn Ancient Near Eastern bricks were 10 to 24 inches long and 6 to 13 1/2 inches wide.

[4:1]  ² tn Or perhaps “draw.”

[6:7]  ³ sn The phrase you will know that I am the Lord concludes over sixty oracles in the book of Ezekiel and indicates the ultimate goal of God’s action. The phrase is often used in the book of Exodus as well (Exod 7:5; 14:4, 18). By Ezekiel’s day the people had forgotten that the Lord (Yahweh) was their covenant God and had turned to other gods. They had to be reminded that Yahweh alone deserved to be worshiped because only he possessed the power to meet their needs. Through judgment and eventually deliverance, Israel would be reminded that Yahweh alone held their destiny in his hands.

[27:25]  ⁵ tn Or perhaps “Large merchant ships.” The expression “ships of Tarshish” may describe a class of vessel, that is, large oceangoing merchant ships.

[32:14]  ⁷ tn Heb “sink,” that is, to settle and become clear, not muddied.

[32:22]  ⁹ tn Heb “around him his graves.” The masculine pronominal suffixes are problematic; the expression is best emended to correspond to the phrase “around her grave” in v. 23. See D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 2:219.

[32:22]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “all of them slain, the ones felled by the sword.” See as well vv. 23-24.

[40:11]  ¹¹ tn Heb “ten cubits” (i.e., 5.25 meters).

[40:11]  ¹² tn Heb “thirteen cubits” (i.e., 6.825 meters).