Ezra 6:11

6:11 “I hereby give orders that if anyone changes this directive a beam is to be pulled out from his house and he is to be raised up and impaled ¹  on it, and his house is to be reduced ²  to a rubbish heap ³  for this indiscretion. ⁴ 

Daniel 2:5

2:5 The king replied ⁵  to the wise men, “My decision is firm. ⁶  If you do not inform me of both the dream and its interpretation, you will be dismembered ⁷  and your homes reduced to rubble!

Daniel 3:29

3:29 I hereby decree ⁸  that any people, nation, or language group that blasphemes ⁹  the god of Shadrach, Meshach, or Abednego will be dismembered and his home reduced to rubble! For there exists no other god who can deliver in this way.”

[6:11]  ¹ sn The practice referred to in v. 11 has been understood in various ways: hanging (cf. 1 Esd 6:32 and KJV); flogging (cf. NEB, NLT); impalement (BDB 1091 s.v. זְקַף; HALOT 1914 s.v. מחא hitpe; cf. NAB, NIV, NRSV). The latter seems the most likely.

[6:11]  ² tn Aram “made.”

[6:11]  ³ tn Aram “a dunghill.”

[6:11]  ⁴ tn Aram “for this.”

[2:5]  ⁵ tn Aram “answered and said,” a common idiom to indicate a reply, but redundant in contemporary English.

[2:5]  ⁶ tn It seems clear from what follows that Nebuchadnezzar clearly recalls the content of the dream, although obviously he does not know what to make of it. By not divulging the dream itself to the would-be interpreters, he intends to find out whether they are simply leading him on. If they can tell him the dream’s content, which he is able to verify, he then can have confidence in their interpretation, which is what eludes him. The translation “the matter is gone from me” (cf. KJV, ASV), suggesting that the king had simply forgotten the dream, is incorrect. The Aramaic word used here (אַזְדָּא, ’azda’) is probably of Persian origin; it occurs in the OT only here and in v. 8. There are two main possibilities for the meaning of the word: “the matter is promulgated by me” (see KBL 1048 s.v.) and therefore “publicly known” (cf. NRSV; F. Rosenthal, Grammar, 62-63, §189), or “the matter is irrevocable” (cf. NAB, NIV, TEV, CEV, NLT; HALOT 1808 s.v. אזד; cf. also BDB 1079 s.v.). The present translation reflects this latter option. See further E. Vogt, Lexicon linguae aramaicae, 3.

[2:5]  ⁷ tn Aram “made limbs.” Cf. 3:29.

[3:29]  ⁸ tn Aram “from me is placed an edict.”

[3:29]  ⁹ tn Aram “speaks negligence.”