Discovery BoxIsaiah 47:5
Context47:5 “Sit silently! Go to a hiding place, 1
O daughter of the Babylonians!
Indeed, 2 you will no longer be called ‘Queen of kingdoms.’
Ezekiel 28:2
Context28:2 “Son of man, say to the prince 3 of Tyre, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says:
“‘Your heart is proud 4 and you said, “I am a god; 5
I sit in the seat of gods, in the heart of the seas” –
yet you are a man and not a god,
though you think you are godlike. 6
Ezekiel 28:12-14
Context28:12 “Son of man, sing 7 a lament for the king of Tyre, and say to him, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says:
“‘You were the sealer 8 of perfection,
full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.
28:13 You were in Eden, the garden of God. 9
Every precious stone was your covering,
the ruby, topaz, and emerald,
the chrysolite, onyx, and jasper,
the sapphire, turquoise, and beryl; 10
your settings and mounts were made of gold.
On the day you were created they were prepared.
28:14 I placed you there with an anointed 11 guardian 12 cherub; 13
you were on the holy mountain of God;
you walked about amidst fiery stones.
Ezekiel 29:3
Context29:3 Tell them, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says:
“‘Look, I am against 14 you, Pharaoh king of Egypt,
the great monster 15 lying in the midst of its waterways,
who has said, “My Nile is my own, I made it for myself.” 16
Daniel 4:29
Context4:29 After twelve months, he happened to be walking around on the battlements 17 of the royal palace of Babylon.
Daniel 5:18-23
Context5:18 As for you, O king, the most high God bestowed on your father Nebuchadnezzar a kingdom, greatness, honor, and majesty. 18 5:19 Due to the greatness that he bestowed on him, all peoples, nations, and language groups were trembling with fear 19 before him. He killed whom he wished, he spared 20 whom he wished, he exalted whom he wished, and he brought low whom he wished. 5:20 And when his mind 21 became arrogant 22 and his spirit filled with pride, he was deposed from his royal throne and his honor was removed from him. 5:21 He was driven from human society, his mind 23 was changed to that of an animal, he lived 24 with the wild donkeys, he was fed grass like oxen, and his body became damp with the dew of the sky, until he came to understand that the most high God rules over human kingdoms, and he appoints over them whomever he wishes.
5:22 “But you, his son 25 Belshazzar, have not humbled yourself, 26 although you knew all this. 5:23 Instead, you have exalted yourself against the Lord of heaven. You brought before you the vessels from his temple, and you and your nobles, together with your wives and concubines, drank wine from them. You praised the gods of silver, gold, bronze, iron, wood, and stone – gods 27 that cannot see or hear or comprehend! But you have not glorified the God who has in his control 28 your very breath and all your ways!
[47:5] 1 tn Heb “darkness,” which may indicate a place of hiding where a fugitive would seek shelter and protection.
[47:5] 2 tn Or “For” (NASB, NRSV).
[28:2] 3 tn Or “ruler” (NIV, NCV).
[28:2] 6 tn Heb “and you made your heart (mind) like the heart (mind) of gods.”
[28:12] 8 tn For a discussion of possible nuances of this phrase, see M. Greenberg, Ezekiel (AB), 2:580-81.
[28:13] 9 sn The imagery of the lament appears to draw upon an extrabiblical Eden tradition about the expulsion of the first man (see v. 14 and the note there) from the garden due to his pride. The biblical Eden tradition speaks of cherubs placed as guardians at the garden entrance following the sin of Adam and Eve (Gen 3:24), but no guardian cherub like the one described in verse 14 is depicted or mentioned in the biblical account. Ezekiel’s imagery also appears to reflect Mesopotamian and Canaanite mythology at certain points. See D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 2:119-20.
[28:13] 10 tn The exact identification of each gemstone is uncertain. The list should be compared to that of the priest in Exod 28:17-20, which lists twelve stones in rows of three. The LXX apparently imports the Exod 28 list. See reference to the types of stones in L. C. Allen, Ezekiel (WBC), 2:91.
[28:14] 11 tn Or “winged”; see L. C. Allen, Ezekiel (WBC), 2:91.
[28:14] 12 tn The meaning of this phrase in Hebrew is uncertain. The word translated here “guards” occurs in Exod 25:20 in reference to the cherubim “covering” the ark.
[28:14] 13 tn Heb “you (were) an anointed cherub that covers and I placed you.” In the Hebrew text the ruler of Tyre is equated with a cherub, and the verb “I placed you” is taken with what follows (“on the holy mountain of God”). However, this reading is problematic. The pronoun “you” at the beginning of verse 14 is feminine singular in the Hebrew text; elsewhere in this passage the ruler of Tyre is addressed with masculine singular forms. It is possible that the pronoun is a rare (see Deut 5:24; Num 11:15) or defectively written (see 1 Sam 24:19; Neh 9:6; Job 1:10; Ps 6:3; Eccl 7:22) masculine form, but it is more likely that the form should be repointed as the preposition “with” (see the LXX). In this case the ruler of Tyre is compared to the first man, not to a cherub. If this emendation is accepted, then the verb “I placed you” belongs with what precedes and concludes the first sentence in the verse. It is noteworthy that the verbs in the second and third lines of the verse also appear at the end of the sentence in the Hebrew text. The presence of a conjunction at the beginning of “I placed you” is problematic for the proposal, but it may reflect a later misunderstanding of the syntax of the verse. For a defense of the proposed emendation, see L. C. Allen, Ezekiel (WBC), 2:91.
[29:3] 14 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.
[29:3] 15 tn Heb “jackals,” but many medieval Hebrew
[29:3] 16 sn In Egyptian theology Pharaoh owned and controlled the Nile. See J. D. Currid, Ancient Egypt and the Old Testament, 240-44.
[4:29] 17 tn The word “battlements” is not in the Hebrew text, but is supplied from context. Many English versions supply “roof” here (e.g., NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV); cf. NLT “on the flat roof.”
[5:18] 18 tn Or “royal greatness and majestic honor,” if the four terms are understood as a double hendiadys.
[5:19] 19 tn Aram “were trembling and fearing.” This can be treated as a hendiadys, “were trembling with fear.”
[5:19] 20 tn Aram “let live.” This Aramaic form is the aphel participle of חַיָה(khayah, “to live”). Theodotion and the Vulgate mistakenly take the form to be from מְחָא (mÿkha’, “to smite”).
[5:20] 22 sn The point of describing Nebuchadnezzar as arrogant is that he had usurped divine prerogatives, and because of his immense arrogance God had dealt decisively with him.
[5:21] 24 tn Aram “his dwelling.”
[5:22] 25 tn Or “descendant”; or “successor.”
