Ezekiel 5:8

5:8 “Therefore this is what the sovereign Lord says: I – even I – am against you, ¹  and I will execute judgment ²  among you while the nations watch. ³ 

Ezekiel 5:10

5:10 Therefore fathers will eat their sons within you, Jerusalem, ⁴  and sons will eat their fathers. I will execute judgments on you, and I will scatter any survivors ⁵  to the winds. ⁶ 

Ezekiel 5:15

5:15 You will be ⁷  an object of scorn and taunting, ⁸  a prime example of destruction ⁹  among the nations around you when I execute judgments against you in anger and raging fury. ¹⁰  I, the Lord, have spoken!

[5:8]  ¹ tn Or “I challenge you.” The phrase “I am against you” may be a formula for challenging someone to combat or a duel. See D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 1:201-2, and P. Humbert, “Die Herausforderungsformel ‘h!nn#n' ?l?K>,’” ZAW 45 (1933): 101-8. The Hebrew text switches to a second feminine singular form here, indicating that personified Jerusalem is addressed (see vv. 5-6a). The address to Jerusalem continues through v. 15. In vv. 16-17 the second masculine plural is used, as the people are addressed.

[5:8]  ² tn The Hebrew text uses wordplay here to bring out the appropriate nature of God’s judgment. “Execute” translates the same Hebrew verb translated “carried out” (literally meaning “do”) in v. 7, while “judgment” in v. 8 and “regulations” in v. 7 translate the same Hebrew noun (meaning “regulations” or in some cases “judgments” executed on those who break laws). The point seems to be this: God would “carry out judgments” against those who refused to “carry out” his “laws.”

[5:8]  ³ tn Heb “in the sight of the nations.”

[5:10]  ⁴ tn In context “you” refers to the city of Jerusalem. To make this clear for the modern reader, “Jerusalem” has been supplied in the translation in apposition to “you.”

[5:10]  ⁵ tn Heb “all of your survivors.”

[5:10]  ⁶ tn Heb “to every wind.”

[5:15]  ⁷ tc This reading is supported by the versions and by the Dead Sea Scrolls (11QEzek). Most Masoretic Hebrew mss read “it will be,” but if the final he (ה) is read as a mater lectionis, as it can be with the second masculine singular perfect, then they are in agreement. In either case the subject refers to Jerusalem.

[5:15]  ⁸ tn The Hebrew word occurs only here in the OT. A related verb means “revile, taunt” (see Ps 44:16).

[5:15]  ⁹ tn Heb “discipline and devastation.” These words are omitted in the Old Greek. The first term pictures Jerusalem as a recipient or example of divine discipline; the second depicts her as a desolate ruin (see Ezek 6:14).

[5:15]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “in anger and in fury and in rebukes of fury.” The heaping up of synonyms emphasizes the degree of God’s anger.