¹ tc The Hebrew text reads “in your blood,” but most emend to “in your vineyard,” assuming a ב-כ (beth-kaph) confusion. See L. C. Allen, Ezekiel (WBC), 1:284. Another attractive emendation assumes a faulty word division and yields the reading “like a vine full of tendrils, which/because…”; see D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 1:607, n. 68.

² tc The Hebrew text reads “widows” instead of “strongholds,” apparently due to a confusion of ר (resh) and ל (lamed). L. C. Allen (Ezekiel [WBC], 1:284) favors the traditional text, understanding “widows” in the sense of “women made widows.” D. I. Block, (Ezekiel [NICOT], 1:602) also defends the Hebrew text, arguing that the image is that of a dominant male lion who takes over the pride and by copulating with the females lays claim to his predecessor’s “widows.”

¹ tc The Hebrew text reads “knew,” but is apparently the result of a ר-ד (dalet-resh) confusion. For a defense of the emendation, see L. C. Allen, Ezekiel (WBC), 1:284. However, Allen retains the reading “widows” as the object of the verb, which he understands in the sense of “do harm to,” and translates the line: “He did harm to women by making them widows” (p. 282). The line also appears to be lacking a beat for the meter of the poem.

¹ tn Or “They put him in a neck stock with hooks.” The noun סּוּגַר (sugar), translated “collar,” occurs only here in the Bible. L. C. Allen and D. I. Block point out a Babylonian cognate that refers to a device for transporting prisoners of war that held them by their necks (D. I. Block, Ezekiel [NICOT], 1:597, n. 35; L. C. Allen, Ezekiel [WBC], 1:284). Based on the Hebrew root, the traditional rendering had been “cage” (cf. ASV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV).