Yehezkiel 6:8-11

6:8 “‘But I will spare some of you. Some will escape the sword when you are scattered in foreign lands. ¹  6:9 Then your survivors will remember me among the nations where they are exiled. They will realize ²  how I was crushed by their unfaithful ³  heart which turned from me and by their eyes which lusted after their idols. They will loathe themselves ⁴  because of the evil they have done and because of all their abominable practices. 6:10 They will know that I am the Lord; my threats to bring this catastrophe on them were not empty.’ ⁵ 

6:11 “‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: Clap your hands, stamp your feet, and say, “Ah!” because of all the evil, abominable practices of the house of Israel, for they will fall by the sword, famine, and pestilence. ⁶ 

Yehezkiel 7:16

7:16 Their survivors will escape to the mountains and become like doves of the valleys; all of them will moan – each one for his iniquity.

Yehezkiel 9:4-6

9:4 The Lord said to him, “Go through the city of Jerusalem ⁷  and put a mark ⁸  on the foreheads of the people who moan and groan over all the abominations practiced in it.”

9:5 While I listened, he said to the others, ⁹  “Go through the city after him and strike people down; do no let your eye pity nor spare ¹⁰  anyone! 9:6 Old men, young men, young women, little children, and women – wipe them out! But do not touch anyone who has the mark. Begin at my sanctuary!” So they began with the elders who were at the front of the temple.

[6:8]  ¹ tn Heb “when you have fugitives from the sword among the nations, when you are scattered among the lands.”

[6:9]  ² tn The words “they will realize” are not in the Hebrew text; they are added here for stylistic reasons since this clause assumes the previous verb “to remember” or “to take into account.”

[6:9]  ³ tn Heb “how I was broken by their adulterous heart.” The image of God being “broken” is startling, but perfectly natural within the metaphorical framework of God as offended husband. The idiom must refer to the intense grief that Israel’s unfaithfulness caused God. For a discussion of the syntax and semantics of the Hebrew text, see M. Greenberg, Ezekiel (AB), 1:134.

[6:9]  ⁴ tn Heb adds “in their faces.”

[6:10]  ⁵ tn Heb “not in vain did I speak to do to them this catastrophe.” The wording of the last half of v. 10 parallels God’s declaration after the sin of the golden calf (Exod 32:14).

[6:11]  ⁶ sn By the sword and by famine and by pestilence. A similar trilogy of punishments is mentioned in Lev 26:25-26. See also Jer 14:12; 21:9; 27:8, 13; 29:18).

[9:4]  ⁷ tn Heb “through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem.”

[9:4]  map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[9:4]  ⁸ tn The word translated “mark” is in Hebrew the letter ת (tav). Outside this context the only other occurrence of the word is in Job 31:35. In ancient Hebrew script this letter was written like the letter X.

[9:4]  sn For a similar concept in the Bible, see Rev 7:2-4; 13:16; 14:9, 11; 20:4; 22:4.

[9:5]  ⁹ tn Heb “to these he said in my ears.”

[9:5]  ¹⁰ 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.