Yehezkiel 5:8-17

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  5:9 I will do to you what I have never done before and will never do again because of all your abominable practices. ⁴  5:10 Therefore fathers will eat their sons within you, Jerusalem, ⁵  and sons will eat their fathers. I will execute judgments on you, and I will scatter any survivors ⁶  to the winds. ⁷ 

5:11 “Therefore, as surely as I live, says the sovereign Lord, because you defiled my sanctuary with all your detestable idols and with all your abominable practices, I will withdraw; my eye will not pity you, nor will I spare ⁸  you. 5:12 A third of your people will die of plague or be overcome by the famine within you. ⁹  A third of your people will fall by the sword surrounding you, ¹⁰  and a third I will scatter to the winds. I will unleash a sword behind them. 5:13 Then my anger will be fully vented; I will exhaust my rage on them, and I will be appeased. ¹¹  Then they will know that I, the Lord, have spoken in my jealousy ¹²  when I have fully vented my rage against them.

5:14 “I will make you desolate and an object of scorn among the nations around you, in the sight of everyone who passes by. 5:15 You will be ¹³  an object of scorn and taunting, ¹⁴  a prime example of destruction ¹⁵  among the nations around you when I execute judgments against you in anger and raging fury. ¹⁶  I, the Lord, have spoken! 5:16 I will shoot against them deadly, ¹⁷  destructive ¹⁸  arrows of famine, ¹⁹  which I will shoot to destroy you. ²⁰  I will prolong a famine on you and will remove the bread supply. ²¹  5:17 I will send famine and wild beasts against you and they will take your children from you. ²²  Plague and bloodshed will overwhelm you, ²³  and I will bring a sword against you. 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.”

[5:8]  sn This is one of the ironies of the passage. The Lord set Israel among the nations for honor and praise as they would be holy and obey God’s law as told in Ezek 5:5 and Deut 26:16-19. The practice of these laws and statutes would make the peoples consider Israel wise. (See Deut 4:5-8, where the words for laws and statutes are the same as those used here). Since Israel did not obey, they are made a different kind of object lesson to the nations, not by their obedience but in their punishment as told in Ezek 5:8 and Deut 29:24-29. Yet Deut 30 goes on to say that when they remember the cursings and blessings of the covenant and repent, God will restore them from the nations to which they have been scattered.

[5:9]  ⁴ tn Or “abominable idols.”

[5:10]  ⁵ 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]  sn This cannibalism would occur as a result of starvation due to the city being besieged. It is one of the judgments threatened for a covenant law violation (Lev 26:29; see also Deut 28:53; Jer 19:9; Lam 2:20; Zech 11:9).

[5:10]  ⁶ tn Heb “all of your survivors.”

[5:10]  ⁷ tn Heb “to every wind.”

[5:11]  ⁸ tn The meaning of the Hebrew term is primarily emotional: “to pity,” which in context implies an action, as in being moved by pity in order to spare them from the horror of their punishment.

[5:12]  ⁹ sn The judgment of plague and famine comes from the covenant curse (Lev 26:25-26). As in v. 10, the city of Jerusalem is figuratively addressed here.

[5:12]  ¹⁰ sn Judgment by plague, famine, and sword occurs in Jer 21:9; 27:13; Ezek 6:11, 12; 7:15.

[5:13]  ¹¹ tn Or “calm myself.”

[5:13]  ¹² tn The Hebrew noun translated “jealousy” is used in the human realm to describe suspicion of adultery (Num 5:14ff.; Prov 6:34). Since Israel’s relationship with God was often compared to a marriage this term is appropriate here. The term occurs elsewhere in Ezekiel in 8:3, 5; 16:38, 42; 23:25.

[5:15]  ¹³ 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]  ¹⁴ tn The Hebrew word occurs only here in the OT. A related verb means “revile, taunt” (see Ps 44:16).

[5:15]  ¹⁵ 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]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “in anger and in fury and in rebukes of fury.” The heaping up of synonyms emphasizes the degree of God’s anger.

[5:16]  ¹⁷ tn The Hebrew word carries the basic idea of “bad, displeasing, injurious,” but when used of weapons has the nuance “deadly” (see Ps 144:10).

[5:16]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “which are/were to destroy.”

[5:16]  ¹⁹ tn The language of this verse may have been influenced by Deut 32:23.

[5:16]  ²⁰ tn Or “which were to destroy those whom I will send to destroy you” (cf. NASB).

[5:16]  ²¹ tn Heb, “break the staff of bread.” The bread supply is compared to a staff that one uses for support. See 4:16, as well as the covenant curse in Lev 26:26.

[5:17]  ²² tn Heb “will bereave you.”

[5:17]  ²³ tn Heb “will pass through you.” This threat recalls the warning of Lev 26:22, 25 and Deut 32:24-25.