Ezekiel 7:23

(Make the chain, ¹  because the land is full of murder ²  and the city is full of violence.)

"Prepare chains, because the land is full of bloodshed and the city is full of violence.

‘Make the chain, for the land is full of bloody crimes and the city is full of violence.

"Prepare chains for my people, for the land is bloodied by terrible crimes. Jerusalem is filled with violence.

A bloody massacre, as crime and violence fill the city.

Make the chain: for the land is full of crimes of blood, and the town is full of violent acts.

Make a chain! For the land is full of bloody crimes; the city is full of violence.

‘Make a chain, For the land is filled with crimes of blood, And the city is full of violence.

(Make the chain, ¹  because the land is full of murder ²  and the city is full of violence.)

¹ tc The Hebrew word “the chain” occurs only here in the OT. The reading of the LXX (“and they will make carnage”) seems to imply a Hebrew text of ַהבַּתּוֹק (habbattoq, “disorder, slaughter”) instead of הָרַתּוֹק (haratoq, “the chain”). The LXX is also translating the verb as a third person plural future and taking this as the end of the preceding verse. As M. Greenberg (Ezekiel [AB], 1:154) notes, this may refer to a chain for a train of exiles but “the context does not speak of exile but of the city’s fall. The versions guess desperately and we can do little better.”

² tn Heb “judgment for blood,” i.e., indictment or accountability for bloodshed. The word for “judgment” does not appear in the similar phrase in 9:9.