^6:1The word of the Lord came to me: ^6:2“Son of man, turn toward¹ the mountains of Israel and prophesy against them: ^6:3Say, ‘Mountains of Israel,² Hear the word of the sovereign Lord!³ This is what the sovereign Lord says to the mountains and the hills, to the ravines and the valleys: I am bringing⁴ a sword against you, and I will destroy your high places.⁵^6:4Your altars will be ruined and your incense altars will be broken. I will throw down your slain in front of your idols.⁶^6:5I will place the corpses of the people of Israel in front of their idols,⁷ and I will scatter your bones around your altars. ^6:6In all your dwellings, the cities will be laid waste and the high places ruined so that your altars will be laid waste and ruined, your idols will be shattered and demolished, your incense altars will be broken down, and your works wiped out.⁸^6:7The slain will fall among you and then you will know that I am the Lord.⁹

^6:8“ ‘But I will spare some of you. Some will escape the sword when you are scattered in foreign lands.¹⁰^6:9Then your survivors will remember me among the nations where they are exiled. They will realize¹¹ how I was crushed by their unfaithful¹² heart which turned from me and by their eyes which lusted after their idols. They will loathe themselves¹³ because of the evil they have done and because of all their abominable practices. ^6:10They will know that I am the Lord; my threats to bring this catastrophe on them were not empty.’¹⁴

^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.¹⁵^6:12The one far away will die by pestilence, the one close by will fall by the sword, and whoever is left and has escaped these¹⁶ will die by famine. I will fully vent my rage against them. ^6:13Then you will know that I am the Lord—when their dead lie among their idols around their altars, on every high hill and all the mountaintops, under every green tree and every leafy oak,¹⁷ the places where they have offered fragrant incense to all their idols. ^6:14I will stretch out my hand against them¹⁸ and make the land a desolate waste from the wilderness to Riblah,¹⁹ in all the places where they live. Then they will know that I am the Lord!”

The End Arrives

^7:1The word of the Lord came to me: ^7:2“You, son of man—this is what the sovereign Lord says to the land of Israel: An end! The end is coming on the four corners of the land!¹^7:3The end is now upon you, and I will release my anger against you; I will judge² you according to your behavior,³ I will hold you accountable for⁴ all your abominable practices. ^7:4My eye will not pity you; I will not spare⁵ you.⁶ For I will hold you responsible for your behavior,⁷ and you will suffer the consequences of your abominable practices.⁸ Then you will know that I am the Lord!

^7:5“This is what the sovereign Lord says: A disaster⁹—a one-of-a-kind¹⁰ disaster—is coming! ^7:6An end comes¹¹—the end comes!¹² It has awakened against you¹³—the end is upon you! Look, it is coming!¹⁴^7:7Doom is coming upon you who live in the land! The time is coming, the day¹⁵ is near. There are sounds of tumult, not shouts of joy, on the mountains.¹⁶^7:8Soon now I will pour out my rage¹⁷ on you; I will fully vent my anger against you. I will judge you according to your behavior. I will hold you accountable for all your abominable practices. ^7:9My eye will not pity you; I will not spare¹⁸ you. For your behavior I will hold you accountable,¹⁹ and you will suffer the consequences of your abominable practices. Then you will know that it is I, the Lord, who is striking you.²⁰

^7:10“Look, the day! Look, it is coming! Doom has gone out! The staff has budded, pride has blossomed! ^7:11Violence²¹ has grown into a staff that supports wickedness. Not one of them will be left²²—not from their crowd, not from their wealth, not from their prominence.²³^7:12The time has come; the day has struck! The customer should not rejoice, nor the seller mourn; for divine wrath²⁴ comes against their whole crowd. ^7:13The customer will no longer pay the seller²⁵ while both parties are alive, for the vision against their whole crowd²⁶ will not be revoked. Each person, for his iniquity,²⁷ will fail to preserve his life.

^7:14“They have blown the trumpet and everyone is ready, but no one goes to battle, because my anger is against their whole crowd.²⁸^7:15The sword is outside; pestilence and famine are inside the house. Whoever is in the open field will die by the sword, and famine and pestilence will consume everyone in the city. ^7:16Their survivors will escape to the mountains and become like doves of the valleys; all of them will moan—each one for his iniquity. ^7:17All of their hands will hang limp; their knees will be wet with urine.²⁹^7:18They will wear sackcloth, terror will cover them; shame will be on all their faces, and all of their heads will be shaved bald.³⁰^7:19They will discard their silver in the streets, and their gold will be treated like filth.³¹ Their silver and gold will not be able to deliver them on the day of the Lord’s fury.³² They will not satisfy their hunger or fill their stomachs because their wealth³³ was the obstacle leading to their iniquity.³⁴^7:20They rendered the beauty of his ornaments into pride,³⁵ and with it they made their abominable images—their detestable idols. Therefore I will render it filthy to them. ^7:21I will give it to foreigners as loot, to the world’s wicked ones as plunder, and they will desecrate it. ^7:22I will turn my face away from them and they will desecrate my treasured place.³⁶ Vandals will enter it and desecrate it.³⁷^7:23(Make the chain,³⁸ because the land is full of murder³⁹ and the city is full of violence.) ^7:24I will bring the most wicked of the nations and they will take possession of their houses. I will put an end to the arrogance of the strong, and their sanctuaries⁴⁰ will be desecrated. ^7:25Terror⁴¹ is coming! They will seek peace, but find none. ^7:26Disaster after disaster will come, and one rumor after another. They will seek a vision from a prophet; priestly instruction will disappear, along with counsel from the elders. ^7:27The king will mourn and the prince will be clothed with shuddering; the hands of the people of the land will tremble. Based on their behavior I will deal with them, and by their standard of justice⁴² I will judge them. Then they will know that I am the Lord!”

A Desecrated Temple

^8:1In the sixth year, in the sixth month, on the fifth of the month,¹ as I was sitting in my house with the elders of Judah sitting in front of me, the hand² of the sovereign Lord seized me.³^8:2As I watched, I noticed⁴ a form that appeared to be a man.⁵ From his waist downward was something like fire,⁶ and from his waist upward something like a brightness,⁷ like an amber glow.⁸^8:3He stretched out the form⁹ of a hand and grabbed me by a lock of hair on my head. Then a wind¹⁰ lifted me up between the earth and sky and brought me to Jerusalem¹¹ by means of divine visions, to the door of the inner gate which faces north where the statue¹² which provokes to jealousy was located. ^8:4Then I perceived that the glory of the God of Israel was there, as in the vision I had seen earlier in the valley.

^8:5He said to me, “Son of man, look up toward¹³ the north.” So I looked up toward the north, and I noticed to the north of the altar gate was this statue of jealousy at the entrance.

^8:6He said to me, “Son of man, do you see what they are doing—the great abominations that the people¹⁴ of Israel are practicing here, to drive me far from my sanctuary? But you will see greater abominations than these!”

^8:7He brought me to the entrance of the court, and as I watched, I noticed a hole in the wall. ^8:8He said to me, “Son of man, dig into the wall.” So I dug into the wall and discovered a doorway.

^8:9He said to me, “Go in and see the evil abominations they are practicing here.” ^8:10So I went in and looked. I noticed every figure¹⁵ of creeping thing and beast—detestable images¹⁶—and every idol of the house of Israel, engraved on the wall all around.¹⁷^8:11Seventy men from the elders of the house of Israel¹⁸ (with Jaazaniah son of Shaphan standing among them) were standing in front of them, each with a censer in his hand, and fragrant¹⁹ vapors from a cloud of incense were swirling upward.

^8:12He said to me, “Do you see, son of man, what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the dark, each in the chamber of his idolatrous images?²⁰ For they think, ‘The Lord does not see us! The Lord has abandoned the land!’ ” ^8:13He said to me, “You will see them practicing even greater abominations!”

^8:14Then he brought me to the entrance of the north gate of the Lord’s house. I noticed²¹ women sitting there weeping for Tammuz.²²^8:15He said to me, “Do you see this, son of man? You will see even greater abominations than these!”

^8:16Then he brought me to the inner court of the Lord’s house. Right there²³ at the entrance to the Lord’s temple, between the porch and the altar,²⁴ were about twenty-five²⁵ men with their backs to the Lord’s temple,²⁶ facing east—they were worshiping the sun²⁷ toward the east!

^8:17He said to me, “Do you see, son of man? Is it a trivial thing that the house of Judah commits these abominations they are practicing here? For they have filled the land with violence and provoked me to anger still further. Look, they are putting the branch to their nose!²⁸^8:18Therefore I will act with fury! My eye will not pity them nor will I spare²⁹ them. When they have shouted in my ears, I will not listen to them.”

The Execution of Idolaters

^9:1Then he shouted in my ears, “Approach,¹ you who are to visit destruction on the city, each with his destructive weapon in his hand!” ^9:2Next, I noticed² six men³ coming from the direction of the upper gate⁴ which…

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Ezekiel 10:4: And the glory of the Lord went up from the cherub to the threshold of the house, and the house was filled with the cloud, and the court was filled with the brightness of the glory of the Lord.

This passage has been shortened. Keep reading Ezekiel 6:1–38:23 in Logos

Footnotes

1 Heb “set your face against.” The expression occurs at the beginning of Ezekiel’s prophetic oracles in Ezek 13:17; 20:46; 21:2; 25:2; 28:21; 29:2; 35:2; 38:2. Based on comparison to a similar expression in Ugaritic, the phrase may imply that Ezekiel was to actually go to these locations to deliver his message.
2 The phrase “mountains of Israel” occurs only in the book of Ezekiel (6:2, 3; 19:9; 33:28; 34:13, 14; 35:12; 36:1, 4, 8; 37:22; 38:8; 39:2, 4, 17). The expression refers to the whole land of Israel. The mountainous terrain of Israel would contrast with the exiles’ habitat in the river valley of Babylonia.
3 The introductory formula “Hear the word of the sovereign Lord” parallels a pronouncement delivered by the herald of a king (2 Kgs 18:28).
4 Heb “Look I, I am bringing.” The repetition of the pronoun draws attention to the speaker. The construction also indicates that the action is soon to come; the Lord is “about to bring a sword against” them.
5 The Hebrew term refers to elevated platforms where pagan sacrifices were performed.
6 Thirty-nine of the forty-eight biblical occurrences of this Hebrew word are found in the book of Ezekiel. 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 This first sentence, which explains the meaning of the last sentence of the previous verse, does not appear in the and may be an instance of a marginal explanatory note making its way into the text.
8 The Hebrew verb translated “wiped out” is used to describe the judgment of the Flood (Gen 6:7; 7:4, 23).
9 The phrase you will know that I am the Lord concludes over sixty oracles in the book of Ezekiel and indicates the ultimate goal of God’s action. The phrase is often used in the book of Exodus as well (Exod 7:5; 14:4, 18). By Ezekiel’s day the people had forgotten that the Lord (Yahweh) was their covenant God and had turned to other gods. They had to be reminded that Yahweh alone deserved to be worshiped because only he possessed the power to meet their needs. Through judgment and eventually deliverance, Israel would be reminded that Yahweh alone held their destiny in his hands.
10 Heb “when you have fugitives from the sword among the nations, when you are scattered among the lands.”
11 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.”
12 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 (), 1:.
13 Heb adds “in their faces.”
14 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).
15 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).
16 Heb “the one who is left, the one who is spared.”
17 By referring to every high hill … all the mountaintops … under every green tree and every leafy oak Ezekiel may be expanding on the phraseology of Deut 12:2 (see 1 Kgs 14:23; 2 Kgs 16:4; 17:10; Jer 2:20; 3:6, 13; 2 Chr 28:4).
18 I will stretch out my hand against them is a common expression in the book of Ezekiel (14:9, 13; 16:27; 25:7; 35:3).
19 The reads the name as “Riblah,” a city north of Damascus. The reads Diblah, a city otherwise unknown. The letters resh (ר) and dalet (ד) may have been confused in the Hebrew text. The town of Riblah was in the land of Hamath (2 Kgs 23:33) which represented the northern border of Israel (Ezek 47:14).
1 Or “earth.” Elsewhere the expression “four corners of the earth” figuratively refers to the whole earth (Isa 11:12).
2 Or “punish” (cf. 1047 שָׁפַט 3.c).
3 Heb “ways.”
4 Heb “I will place on you.”
5 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.
6 The pronoun “you” is not in the Hebrew text, but is implied.
7 “I will set your behavior on your head.”
8 Heb “and your abominable practices will be among you.”
9 The Hebrew term often refers to moral evil (see Ezek 6:10; 14:22), but in many contexts it refers to calamity or disaster, sometimes as punishment for evil behavior.
10 So most Hebrew ; many Hebrew read “disaster after disaster” (cf. , , , ).
11 Or “has come.”
12 Or “has come.”
13 With different vowels the verb rendered “it has awakened” would be the noun “the end,” as in “the end is upon you.” The verb would represent a phonetic wordplay. The noun by virtue of repetition would continue to reinforce the idea of the end. Whether verb or noun, this is the only instance to occur with this preposition.
14 For this entire verse, the has only “the end is come.” In each of the three cases of the verb translated with forms of “to come,” the form may either be a participle (“comes/is coming”) or a perfect (“has come”). Either form would indicate that the end is soon to arrive. This last form appears also to be feminine, although “end” is masculine. This shift may be looking ahead to the next verse, whose first noun (“Doom”) is feminine.
15 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.
16 The reads “neither tumult nor birth pains.” The varies at many points from the in this chapter. The context suggests that one or both of these would be present on a day of judgment, thus favoring the . Perhaps more significant is the absence of “the mountains” in the . 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.”
17 The expression “to pour out rage” also occurs in Ezek 9:8; 14:19; 20:8, 13, 21; 22:31; 30:15; 36:18.
18 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.
19 Heb “According to your behavior I will place on you.”
20 The lacks “you.” It has been added for clarification.
21 Heb “the violence.”
22 The reads “he will crush the wicked rod without confusion or haste.” The verb has been supplied for the Hebrew text to clarify the sense.
23 The Hebrew word occurs only here in the OT.
24 Heb “wrath.” Context clarifies that God’s wrath is in view.
25 The translation follows the for the first line of the verse, although the has lost the second line due to homoioteleuton (similar endings of the clauses). The reads “The seller will not return to the sale.” This Hebrew reading has been construed as a reference to land redemption, the temporary sale of the use of property, with property rights returned to the seller in the year of Jubilee. But the context has no other indicator that land redemption is in view. If correct, the evidence suggests that one of the cases of “the customer” has been replaced by “the seller” in the , perhaps due to hoimoioarcton (similar beginnings of the words).
26 The Hebrew word refers to the din or noise made by a crowd, and by extension may refer to the crowd itself.
27 Or “in their punishment.” The phrase “in/for [a person’s] iniquity” occurs fourteen times in Ezekiel: here and in v. 16; 3:18, 19; 4:17; 18:17, 18, 19, 20; 24:23; 33:6, 8, 9; 39:23. The Hebrew word for “iniquity” may also mean the “punishment for iniquity.”
28 The Hebrew word refers to the din or noise made by a crowd, and by extension may refer to the crowd itself.
29 Heb “their knees will run with water.” The expression probably refers to urination caused by fright, which is how the renders the phrase. More colloquial English would simply be “they will wet their pants,” but as D. I. Block (Ezekiel [], 1:, n. 98) notes, the men likely wore skirts which were short enough to expose urine on the knees.
30 Heb “baldness will be on their heads.”
31 The Hebrew term can refer to menstrual impurity. The term also occurs at the end of v. 20.
32 Compare Zeph 1:18.
33 Heb “it.” Apparently the subject is the silver and gold mentioned earlier (see L. C. Allen, Ezekiel [], 1:).
34 The “stumbling block of their iniquity” is a unique phrase of the prophet Ezekiel (Ezek 14:3, 4, 7; 18:30; 44:12).
35 The reads “he set up the beauty of his ornament as pride.” The verb may be repointed as plural without changing the consonantal text. The reads “their ornaments” (plural), implying עֶדְיָם (’edyam) rather than עֶדְיוֹ (’edyo) and meaning “they were proud of their beautiful ornaments.” This understands “ornaments” in the common sense of women’s jewelry, which then were used to make idols. The singular suffix “his ornaments” would refer to using items from the temple treasury to make idols. D. I. Block points out the foreshadowing of Ezek 16:17 which, with Rashi and the , supports the understanding that this is a reference to temple items. See D. I. Block, Ezekiel (), 1:.
36 My treasured place probably refers to the temple (however, cf. “my treasured land”).
37 Since the pronouns “it” are both feminine, they do not refer to the masculine “my treasured place”; instead they probably refer to Jerusalem or the land, both of which are feminine in Hebrew.
38 The Hebrew word “the chain” occurs only here in the OT. The reading of the (“and they will make carnage”) seems to imply a Hebrew text of ַהבַּתּוֹק (habbattoq, “disorder, slaughter”) instead of הָרַתּוֹק (haratoq, “the chain”). The 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 [], 1:) 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.”
39 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.
40 Or “their holy places” (, , , , ).
41 The Hebrew word occurs only here in the OT. It is interpreted based on a cognate meaning “to bristle or stiffen (in terror).”
42 Heb “and by their judgments.”
1 The reads “In the sixth year, in the fifth month, on the fifth of the month.” In the sixth year, in the sixth month, on the fifth of the month would be September 17, 592 b.c., about fourteen months after the initial vision.
2 Or “power.” Hand in the OT can refer metaphorically to power, authority, or influence. In Ezekiel God’s hand being on the prophet is regularly associated with communication or a vision from God (3:14, 22; 8:1; 37:1; 40:1).
3 Heb “fell upon me there,” that is, God’s influence came over him.
4 The word הִנֵּה (hinneh, traditionally “behold”) indicates becoming aware of something and has been translated here as a verb (so also throughout the chapter).
5 The reads “fire” rather than “man,” the reading of the . The nouns are very similar in Hebrew.
6 The reads “what appeared to be his waist and downwards was fire.” The omits “what appeared to be,” reading “from his waist to below was fire.” Suggesting that “like what appeared to be” belongs before “fire,” D. I. Block (Ezekiel [], 1:) points out the resulting poetic symmetry of form with the next line as followed in the translation here.
7 The omits “like a brightness.”
9 The Hebrew term is normally used as an architectural term in describing the pattern of the tabernacle or temple or a representation of it (see Exod 25:8; 1 Chr 28:11).
10 Or “spirit.” See note on “wind” in .
11 For the location of Jerusalem see ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; .
12 Or “image.”
13 Heb “lift your eyes (to) the way of.”
14 Heb “house.”
15 Or “pattern.”
16 Heb “detestable.” The word is often used to describe the figures of foreign gods.
17 These engravings were prohibited in the Mosaic law (Deut 4:16–18).
18 Note the contrast between these seventy men who represented Israel and the seventy elders who ate the covenant meal before God, inaugurating the covenant relationship (Exod 24:1, 9).
19 The Hebrew word occurs only here in the OT.
20 Heb “the room of his images.” The adjective “idolatrous” has been supplied in the translation for clarity. This type of image is explicitly prohibited in the Mosaic law (Lev 26:1).
21 Given the context this could be understood as a shock, e.g., idiomatically “Good grief! I saw.…”
22 The worship of Tammuz included the observation of the annual death and descent into the netherworld of the god Dumuzi. The practice was observed by women in the ancient Near East over a period of centuries.
23 The word הִנֵּה (hinneh, traditionally “behold”) indicates becoming aware of something.
24 The priests prayed to God between the porch and the altar on fast days (Joel 2:17). This is the location where Zechariah was murdered (Matt 23:35).
25 The reads “twenty” instead of twenty-five, perhaps because of the association of the number twenty with the Mesopotamian sun god Shamash. Or “exactly twenty-five.”
26 The temple faced east.
27 Or “the sun god.” The worship of astral entities may have begun during the reign of Manasseh (2 Kgs 21:5).
28 It is not clear what the practice of “holding a branch to the nose” indicates. A possible parallel is the Syrian relief of a king holding a flower to his nose as he worships the stars ( 281). See L. C. Allen, Ezekiel (), 1:. The glosses the expression as “Behold, they are like mockers.”
29 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.
1 Heb “they approached.” Reading the imperative assumes the same consonantal text but different vowels.
2 The word הִנֵּה (hinneh, traditionally “behold”) indicates becoming aware of something and has been translated here as a verb.
3 The six men plus the scribe would equal seven, which was believed by the Babylonians to be the number of planetary deities.
4 The upper gate was built by Jotham (2 Kgs 15:35).

Cross references

8 See Ezek 1:4.