HarperCollins Study Bible
Page 309
with Egyptf and the daughters of majestic nations,
to the world below,
with those who go down to the Pit.
19“Whom do you surpass in beauty?
Go down! Be laid to rest with the uncircumcised!”
20They shall fall among those who are killed by the sword. Egyptg has been handed over to the sword; carry away both it and its hordes. 21The mighty chiefs shall speak of them, with their helpers, out of the midst of Sheol: “They have come down, they lie still, the uncircumcised, killed by the sword.”
22Assyria is there, and all its company, their graves all around it, all of them killed, fallen by the sword. 23Their graves are set in the uttermost parts of the Pit. Its company is all around its grave, all of them killed, fallen by the sword, who spread terror in the land of the living.
24Elam is there, and all its hordes around its grave; all of them killed, fallen by the sword, who went down uncircumcised into the world below, who spread terror in the land of the living. They bear their shame with those who go down to the Pit. 25They have made Elamh a bed among the slain with all its hordes, their graves all around it, all of them uncircumcised, killed by the sword; for terror of them was spread in the land of the living, and they bear their shame with those who go down to the Pit; they are placed among the slain.
26Meshech and Tubal are there, and all their multitude, their graves all around them, all of them uncircumcised, killed by the sword; for they spread terror in the land of the living. 27And they do not lie with the fallen warriors of long agoi who went down to Sheol with their weapons of war, whose swords were laid under their heads, and whose shieldsj are upon their bones; for the terror of the warriors was in the land of the living. 28So you shall be broken and lie among the uncircumcised, with those who are killed by the sword.
29Edom is there, its kings and all its princes, who for all their might are laid with those who are killed by the sword; they lie with the uncircumcised, with those who go down to the Pit.
30The princes of the north are there, all of them, and all the Sidonians, who have gone down in shame with the slain, for all the terror that they caused by their might; they lie uncircumcised with those who are killed by the sword, and bear their shame with those who go down to the Pit.
31When Pharaoh sees them, he will be consoled for all his hordes—Pharaoh and all his army, killed by the sword, says the Lord GOD. 32For hek spread terror in the land of the living; therefore he shall be laid to rest among the uncircumcised, with those who are slain by the sword—Pharaoh and all his multitude, says the Lord GOD.
next chapter
* * *
a Heb their
b Gk Vg: Heb they
c Symmachus Syr Vg: Heb your height
d Gk: Heb bring your destruction
e Gk: Heb lacks in the first month
f Heb it
g Heb it
h Heb it
i Gk Old Latin: Heb of the uncircumcised
j Cn: Heb iniquities
k Cn: Heb I
32.1–16 The sixth pronouncement, March 3, 586 BCE (see note on 1.2). Vv. 2, 16 suggest that these verses are one lament; cf. ch. 19. Yet only v. 2 contains the language and form of lament. Other sections (vv. 3–8, 9–10, 11–14, 15) are oracular utterances.
32.2 Ezekiel addresses Pharaoh directly and likens him to a sea dragon (not the crocodile as in 29.3) instead of the self-proffered and typical royal heraldic symbol, the lion. The parallel nouns seas and streams connote mythic waters; cf. 31.4. The lament functions to indict the pharaoh for contaminating all waters.
32.3–8 Judgment on the dragon.
32.3 My net may allude to the archetypal combat, attested in the Babylonian Enuma Elish, when Marduk netted and then killed Tiamat, the sea dragon.
32.4–6 A vivid depiction of the fate of the dragon’s carcass; cf. 29.5. The immense scale—animals of the whole earth, fill the valleys—demonstrate the mythic proportions of the dragon that has been slain; cf. Isa 51.9.
32.7–8 The motif of darkness suggests that this is the “day of the LORD” (cf. 30.3; Joel 2.1–2; 3.15; Zeph 1.15), though v. 8 here recalls the plague of darkness (Ex 10.21–29).
32.9–10 Pharaoh (or Egypt), now as captive, will be paraded among various nations, perhaps a reference to exile; cf. 29.12–13.
32.11 The king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar; cf. 29.19.
32.12 Mighty ones, or “warriors” cf. 32.21, 27.
32.13–14 On the motif of turbid versus clear water, cf. v. 2. Cf. 29.11 for similar imagery of desolation.
32.15 A final and summary saying, which includes language typical of Ezekiel.
32.16 The women of the nations. Apparently women regularly undertook the role of public lamentation; see similarly Jer 9.17–18.
32.17–32 The seventh pronouncement, April 27, 586 BCE (see note on 1.2), depicts the demography of the Pit or Sheol, to which Pharaoh and his army will descend (see note on 26.20).
32.18 Wail, a word different from “lamentation” (v. 16); cf. Jer 9.10, 17–19. Ezekiel not only is to wail; the utterance is performative—it will send them down. With Egypt…below. The Hebrew is difficult; perhaps “majestic nations have brought her down to the world below.”
32.19–20 V. 19 is the beginning of the song of wailing. If one includes the first three Hebrew words of v. 20, lit. “in the midst of those killed by the sword,” with v. 19, one discovers that the Pit is populated with the uncircumcised and those who suffer a violent death (in distinction from those who, as a common biblical formula says, “go down to peace in Sheol”). Egypt is personified in the masculine singular in the Hebrew, translated it here. One infers that in the netherworld there is a separate place (the Pit?) for the unclean, the nations listed here.
32.21 Mighty chiefs, or “mighty gods,” an ironic reference to minor deities in the underworld.
32.22–23 The first in a series of nations who are already in the netherworld, Assyria was defeated at Nineveh by the Babylonians (and Medes) in 612 BCE. All around it, or simply “round its grave.” Uttermost parts. Cf. Isa 14.15.
32.24–25 Elam, an empire just to the east of Babylonia, defeated decisively by the Assyrians in the mid-seventh century BCE.
32.26–28 Meshech and Tubal, lit. “Meshech-Tubal,” the area of Asia Minor, though the specific nation is uncertain (cf. 27.13).
32.27 The honorable burials of ancient military heroes; cf. Gen 10.8–9.
32.29–30 Syro-Palestinian groups in the Pit: Edom (cf. 25.12–14); princes of the north (Phoenician rulers?); Sidonians (28.20–23).
32.31–32 Pharaoh consoled by his colleagues in the Pit (31.16).
EZEKIEL 33
Ezekiel Israel’s Sentry
1The word of the LORD came to me: 2O Mortal, speak to your people and say to them, If I bring the sword upon a land, and the people of the land take one of their number as their sentinel; 3and if the sentinel sees the sword coming upon the land and blows the trumpet and warns the people; 4then if any who hear the sound of the trumpet do not take warning, and the sword comes and takes them away, their blood shall be upon their own heads. 5They heard the sound of the trumpet and did not take warning; their blood shall be upon themselves. But if they had taken warning, they would have saved their lives. 6But if the sentinel sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet, so that the people are not warned, and the sword comes and takes any of them, they are taken away in their iniquity, but their blood I will require at the sentinel’s hand.
7So you, mortal, I have made a sentinel for the house of Israel; whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning from me. 8If I say to the wicked, “O wicked ones, you shall surely die,” and you do not speak to warn the wicked to turn from their ways, the wicked shall die in their iniquity, but their blood I will require at your hand. 9But if you warn the wicked to turn from their ways, and they do not turn from their ways, the wicked shall die in their iniquity, but you will have saved your life.
God’s
Justice and Mercy
10Now you, mortal, say to the house of Israel, Thus you have said: “Our transgressions and our sins weigh upon us, and we waste away because of them; how then can we live?” 11Say to them, As I live, says the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from their ways and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways; for why will you die, O house of Israel? 12And you, mortal, say to your people, The righteousness of the righteous shall not save them when they transgress; and as for the wickedness of the wicked, it shall not make them stumble when they turn from their wickedness; and the righteous shall not be able to live by their righteousnessa when they sin. 13Though I say to the righteous that they shall surely live, yet if they trust in their righteousness and commit iniquity, none of their righteous deeds shall be remembered; but in the iniquity that they have committed they shall die. 14Again, though I say to the wicked, “You shall surely die,” yet if they turn from their sin and do what is lawful and right—15if the wicked restore the pledge, give back what they have taken by robbery, and walk in the statutes of life, committing no iniquity—they shall surely live, they shall not die. 16None of the sins that they have committed shall be remembered against them; they have done what is lawful and right, they shall surely live.
17Yet your people say, “The way of the Lord is not just,” when it is their own way that is not just. 18When the righteous turn from their righteousness, and commit iniquity, they shall die for it.b 19And when the wicked turn from their wickedness, and do what is lawful and right, they shall live by it.c 20Yet you say, “The way of the Lord is not just.” O house of Israel, I will judge all of you according to your ways!
The Fall of Jerusalem
21In the twelfth year of our exile, in the tenth month, on the fifth day of the month, someone who had escaped from Jerusalem came to me and said, “The city has fallen.” 22Now the hand of the LORD had been upon me the evening before the fugitive came; but he had opened my mouth by the time the fugitive came to me in the morning; so my mouth was opened, and I was no longer unable to speak.
The Survivors in Judah
23The word of the LORD came to me: 24Mortal, the inhabitants of these waste places in the land of Israel keep saying, “Abraham was only one man, yet he got possession of the land; but we are many; the land is surely given us to possess.” 25Therefore say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: You eat flesh with the blood, and lift up your eyes to your idols, and shed blood; shall you then possess the land? 26You depend on your swords, you commit abominations, and each of you defiles his neighbor’s wife; shall you then possess the land? 27Say this to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: As I live, surely those who are in the waste places shall fall by the sword; and those who are in the open field I will give to the wild animals to be devoured; and those who are in strongholds and in caves shall die by pestilence. 28I will make the land a desolation and a waste, and its proud might shall come to an end; and the mountains of Israel shall be so desolate that no one will pass through. 29Then they shall know that I am the LORD, when I have made the land a desolation and a waste because of all their abominations that they have committed.
30As for you, mortal, your people who talk together about you by the walls, and at the doors of the houses, say to one another, each to a neighbor, “Come and hear what the word is that comes from the LORD.” 31They come to you as people come, and they sit before you as my people, and they hear your words, but they will not obey them. For flattery is on their lips, but their heart is set on their gain. 32To them you are like a singer of love songs,d one who has a beautiful voice and plays well on an instrument; they hear what you say, but they will not do it. 33When this comes—and come it will!—then they shall know that a prophet has been among them.
next chapter
* * *
a Heb by it
b Heb them
c Heb them
d Cn: Heb like a love song
33.1–39.29 The third major section in Ezekiel, which includes many oracles of restoration along with more oracles against foreign nations.
33.1–33 Ch. 33 comprises diverse material, much of which is paralleled elsewhere in the book.
33.1–9 The prophet as sentinel, a way of understanding the prophetic role addressed earlier in 3.16–21.
33.2–6 Those with Ezekiel in exile are to hear this description of the prophet’s task.
33.2–5 The first case, in which the sentinel sounds the alarm, but the people do not respond. Blood…upon their own heads. Cf. 17.19.
33.6 The case in which the sentinel does not sound the alarm. In both this case and the previous one (vv. 2–5) the people die. Their blood I will require. The Hebrew uses a parallel but different term for “require” in v. 8; cf. 3.18. The implication is that God will avenge the death of the person who had not been warned.
33.7–9 An oracle to Ezekiel in which two more cases are adduced. Inv. 8 the wicked are not warned. In v. 9 the wicked are warned, but do not turn. Again, in both cases the wicked die. You shall surely die, the pronouncement of a legal death sentence; cf. Gen 2.17; 20.7; 1 Sam 14.44;22.16.
33.10–20 God responds to the people’s plight; see similarly ch. 18.
33.10 As in ch. 18, the section begins with a quotation from the people, which, however, focuses on the sins of the present generation, not the past.
33.11 Turn back from your evil ways, the key admonition.
33.12 To act righteously is to save oneself; cf. 18.26–27.
33.13–16 Neither the fate of those deemed righteous nor that of those called wicked is unchangeable.
33.13 Cf. 18.24.
33.15 Two specific cases in which the wicked might act righteously; cf. 18.5–17.
33.17–20 These verses mirror directly 18.25–30. The issue is one of theodicy, or God’s justice.
33.21–22 Twelfth year…month, January 19, 585 BCE (see note on 1.2), the day on which news of Jerusalem’s fall came to Ezekiel in exile. Unable to speak. Cf. 24.15–27. The hand of the LORD, a reference to spirit possession, which may have also involved lack of speech; see also note on 1.3.
33.23–29 Judahites in the land. As with 11.14–16, the issue involves claims to land ownership in Judah. Waste, a leitmotif characterizing the land after it had been devastated by the Babylonians.
33.24 A proverbial saying, quite different from the people’s rationale in 11.15.
33.25–26 Specific ritual and ethical indictments of those who live in Judah.
33.27 The punishments are typical of Ezekiel (5.12; 7.15; 14.15–19).
33.28–29 The land, which had already been destroyed, might suffer further devastation; cf. 6.14. The people in the land have lost their claim to that territory because of all their abominations.
33.30–33 Judahites in exile.
33.30 Now those in Babylon are quoted, providing the rationale for gatherings attested in 8.1; 14.1; 20.1.
33.31 As people come, in groups. As my people, i.e., as a religious assembly; cf. 37.12.
33.33 Cf. 2.5. Vv. 31–33 are related to 33.1–9, since they portray a prophet functioning as sentinel and the people not heeding his words.
EZEKIEL 34
Israel’s False Shepherds
1The word of the LORD came to me: 2Mortal, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel: prophesy, and say to them—to the shepherds: Thus says the Lord GOD: Ah, you shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? 3You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fatlings; but you do not feed the sheep. 4You have not strengthened the weak, you have not healed the sick, you have not bound up the injured, you have not brought back the strayed, you have not sought the lost, but with force and harshness you have ruled them. 5So they were scattered, because there was no shepherd; and scattered, they became food for all the wild animals. 6My sheep were scattered, they wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill; my sheep were scattered over all the face of the earth, with no one to search
or seek for them.
7Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the LORD: 8As I live, says the Lord GOD, because my sheep have become a prey, and my sheep have become food for all the wild animals, since there was no shepherd; and because my shepherds have not searched for my sheep, but the shepherds have fed themselves, and have not fed my sheep; 9therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the LORD: 10Thus says the Lord GOD, I am against the shepherds; and I will demand my sheep at their hand, and put a stop to their feeding the sheep; no longer shall the shepherds feed themselves. I will rescue my sheep from their mouths, so that they may not be food for them.
God, the True Shepherd
11For thus says the Lord GOD: I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out. 12As shepherds seek out their flocks when they are among their scattered sheep, so I will seek out my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places to which they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. 13I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land; and I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the watercourses, and in all the inhabited parts of the land. 14I will feed them with good pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel shall be their pasture; there they shall lie down in good grazing land, and they shall feed on rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. 15I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord GOD. 16I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with justice.
17As for you, my flock, thus says the Lord GOD: I shall judge between sheep and sheep, between rams and goats: 18Is it not enough for you to feed on the good pasture, but you must tread down with your feet the rest of your pasture? When you drink of clear water, must you foul the rest with your feet? 19And must my sheep eat what you have trodden with your feet, and drink what you have fouled with your feet?