Yehezkiel 6:4

6:4 Your altars will be ruined and your incense altars will be broken. I will throw down your slain in front of your idols. ¹ 

Yehezkiel 7:7

7:7 Doom is coming upon you who live in the land! The time is coming, the day ²  is near. There are sounds of tumult, not shouts of joy, on the mountains. ³ 

Yehezkiel 14:14-15

14:14 Even if these three men, Noah, Daniel, ⁴  and Job, were in it, they would save only their own lives by their righteousness, declares the sovereign Lord.

14:15 “Suppose I were to send wild animals through the land and kill its children, leaving it desolate, without travelers due to the wild animals.

Yehezkiel 15:7

15:7 I will set ⁵  my face against them – although they have escaped from the fire, ⁶  the fire will still consume them! Then you will know that I am the Lord, when I set my face against them.

Yehezkiel 18:21

18:21 “But if the wicked person turns from all the sin he has committed and observes all my statutes and does what is just and right, he will surely live; he will not die.

Yehezkiel 18:23

18:23 Do I actually delight in the death of the wicked, declares the sovereign Lord? Do I not prefer that he turn from his wicked conduct and live?

Yehezkiel 20:26

20:26 I declared them to be defiled because of their sacrifices ⁷  – they caused all their first born to pass through the fire ⁸  – so that I would devastate them, so that they will know that I am the Lord.’ ⁹ 

Yehezkiel 21:3

21:3 and say to them, ¹⁰  ‘This is what the Lord says: Look, ¹¹  I am against you. ¹²  I will draw my sword ¹³  from its sheath and cut off from you both the righteous and the wicked. ¹⁴ 

Yehezkiel 21:12

21:12 Cry out and moan, son of man,

for it is wielded against my people;

against all the princes of Israel.

They are delivered up to the sword, along with my people.

Therefore, strike your thigh. ¹⁵ 

Yehezkiel 22:4

22:4 you are guilty because of the blood you shed and defiled by the idols you made. You have hastened the day of your doom; ¹⁶  the end of your years has come. ¹⁷  Therefore I will make ¹⁸  you an object of scorn to the nations, an object to be mocked by all lands.

Yehezkiel 26:4

26:4 They will destroy the walls of Tyre and break down her towers. I will scrape her soil ¹⁹  from her and make her a bare rock.

Yehezkiel 26:12

26:12 They will steal your wealth and loot your merchandise. They will tear down your walls and destroy your luxurious ²⁰  homes. Your stones, your trees, and your soil he will throw ²¹  into the water. ²² 

Yehezkiel 29:9

29:9 The land of Egypt will become a desolate ruin. Then they will know that I am the Lord.

Because he said, “The Nile is mine and I made it,”

Yehezkiel 33:21

The Fall of Jerusalem

33:21 In the twelfth year of our exile, in the tenth month, on the fifth of the month, ²³  a refugee came to me from Jerusalem ²⁴  saying, “The city has been defeated!” ²⁵ 

Yehezkiel 35:3

35:3 Say to it, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says:

“‘Look, I am against you, Mount Seir;

I will stretch out my hand against you

and turn you into a desolate ruin.

Yehezkiel 35:12

35:12 Then you will know that I, the Lord, have heard all the insults you spoke against the mountains of Israel, saying, “They are desolate, they have been given to us for food.”

Yehezkiel 36:3

36:3 So prophesy and say: ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: Surely because they have made you desolate and crushed you from all directions, so that you have become the property of the rest of the nations, and have become the subject of gossip ²⁶  and slander among the people,

Yehezkiel 36:35

36:35 They will say, “This desolate land has become like the garden of Eden; the ruined, desolate, and destroyed cities are now fortified and inhabited.”

Yehezkiel 38:9

38:9 You will advance; ²⁷  you will come like a storm. You will be like a cloud covering the earth, you, all your troops, and the many other peoples with you.

Yehezkiel 39:2

39:2 I will turn you around and drag you along; ²⁸  I will lead you up from the remotest parts of the north and bring you against the mountains of Israel.

[6:4]  ¹ tn Thirty-nine of the forty-eight biblical occurrences of this Hebrew word are found in the book of Ezekiel.

[6:4]  sn This verse is probably based on Lev 26:30 in which God forecasts that he will destroy their high places, cut off their incense altars, and set their corpses by the corpses of their idols.

[7:7]  ² sn The day refers to the day of the Lord, a concept which, beginning in Amos 5:18-20, became a common theme in the OT prophetic books. It refers to a time when the Lord intervenes in human affairs as warrior and judge.

[7:7]  ³ tc The LXX reads “neither tumult nor birth pains.” The LXX varies at many points from the MT in this chapter. The context suggests that one or both of these would be present on a day of judgment, thus favoring the MT. Perhaps more significant is the absence of “the mountains” in the LXX. If the ר (resh) in הָרִים (harim, “the mountains” not “on the mountains”) were a ד (dalet), which is a common letter confusion, then it could be from the same root as the previous word, הֵד (hed), meaning “the day is near – with destruction, not joyful shouting.”

[14:14]  ⁴ sn Traditionally this has been understood as a reference to the biblical Daniel, though he was still quite young when Ezekiel prophesied. One wonders if he had developed a reputation as an intercessor by this point. For this reason some prefer to see a reference to a ruler named Danel, known in Canaanite legend for his justice and wisdom. In this case all three of the individuals named would be non-Israelites, however the Ugaritic Danel is not known to have qualities of faith in the Lord that would place him in the company of the other men. See D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 1:447-50.

[15:7]  ⁵ tn The word translated “set” is the same Hebrew word translated as “provide” in the previous verse.

[15:7]  ⁶ sn This escape refers to the exile of Ezekiel and others in 597 b.c. (Ezek 1:2; 2 Kgs 24:10-16).

[20:26]  ⁷ tn Or “gifts.”

[20:26]  ⁸ sn This act is prohibited in Deut 12:29-31 and Jer 7:31; 19:5; 32:35. See also 2 Kgs 21:6; 23:10. This custom indicates that the laws the Israelites were following were the disastrous laws of pagan nations (see Ezek 16:20-21).

[20:26]  ⁹ sn God sometimes punishes sin by inciting the sinner to sin even more, as the biblical examples of divine hardening and deceit make clear. See Robert B. Chisholm, Jr., “Divine Hardening in the Old Testament,” BSac 153 (1996): 410-34; idem, “Does God Deceive?” BSac 155 (1998): 11-28. For other instances where the Lord causes individuals to act unwisely or even sinfully as punishment for sin, see 1 Sam 2:25; 2 Sam 17:14; 1 Kgs 12:15; 2 Chr 25:20.

[21:3]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the land of Israel.”

[21:3]  ¹¹ tn The word הִנֵּה (hinneh, traditionally “behold”) draws attention to something and has been translated here as a verb.

[21:3]  ¹² 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.

[21:3]  ¹³ sn This is the sword of judgment, see Isa 31:8; 34:6; 66:16.

[21:3]  ¹⁴ sn Ezekiel elsewhere pictures the Lord’s judgment as discriminating between the righteous and the wicked (9:4-6; 18:1-20; see as well Pss 1 and 11) and speaks of the preservation of a remnant (3:21; 6:8; 12:16). Perhaps here he exaggerates for rhetorical effect in an effort to subdue any false optimism. See L. C. Allen, Ezekiel (WBC), 2:25-26; D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 1:669-70; and W. Zimmerli, Ezekiel (Hermeneia), 1:424-25.

[21:12]  ¹⁵ sn This physical action was part of an expression of grief. Cp. Jer. 31:19.

[22:4]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “you have brought near your days.” The expression “bring near your days” appears to be an adaptation of the idiom “days draw near,” which is used to indicate that an event, such as death, is imminent (see Gen 27:41; 47:29; Deut 31:14; 1 Kgs 2:1; Ezek 12:23). Here “your days” probably refers to the days of the personified city’s life, which was about to come to an end through God’s judgment.

[22:4]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “and you have come to your years.” This appears to mean that she has arrived at the time when her years (i.e., life) would end, though it may mean that her years of punishment will begin. Because “day” and “time” are so closely associated in the immediate context (see 21:25, 29) some prefer to emend the text and read “you have brought near your time.” See L. C. Allen, Ezekiel (WBC), 2:31, as well as the translator’s note on verse 3.

[22:4]  ¹⁸ tn The Hebrew verb is a prophetic perfect, emphasizing that the action is as good as done from the speaker’s perspective.

[26:4]  ¹⁹ tn Or “debris.”

[26:12]  ²⁰ tn Heb “desirable.”

[26:12]  ²¹ tn Heb “set.”

[26:12]  ²² tn Heb “into the midst of the water.”

[33:21]  ²³ tn January 19, 585 b.c.

[33:21]  ²⁴ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[33:21]  ²⁵ tn Heb “smitten.”

[36:3]  ²⁶ tn Heb “lip of the tongue.”

[38:9]  ²⁷ tn Heb “go up.”

[39:2]  ²⁸ tn The Hebrew root occurs only here in the OT. An apparent cognate in the Ethiopic language means “walk along.” For a discussion of the research on this verb, see D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 2:460.