Ezekiel 6

The word of the LORD came to me. He said:

1And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,

Note"The word of the LORD came to me" is a set formula that opens a prophetic message; it marks what follows as speech Ezekiel received rather than his own. LORD in small capitals stands for the personal name of Israel's God, four Hebrew letters (YHWH) that readers spoke aloud as "Lord" instead of pronouncing. Ezekiel is writing in Babylonia, among Judeans deported there around 597 BC, several years before Jerusalem's fall.

2"Son of man, turn and face the mountains of Israel, and speak against them as my messenger.

2Son of man, set thy face toward the mountains of Israel, and prophesy against them,

Note"Son of man" is a Hebrew idiom for a human being, a mortal. It is how God addresses Ezekiel throughout the book, roughly "you, human." It is a form of address, not a title. "Set your face toward" is a gesture-phrase: to turn deliberately and stare at something as an act of hostile intent. It is the posture of a person delivering a verdict, not simply looking. The "mountains of Israel" are the hill country running down the spine of the land, the settled heartland where most towns and most hilltop shrines stood. Addressing the landscape itself, rather than the people, is a standard prophetic device.

3Say: You mountains of Israel, listen to the word of the Lord GOD. This is what the Lord GOD says to the mountains and the hills, to the ravines and the valleys: I myself am bringing a sword against you, and I will destroy your worship sites on the hills.

3And say, Ye mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord GOD; Thus saith the Lord GOD to the mountains, and to the hills, to the rivers, and to the valleys; Behold, I, even I, will bring a sword upon you, and I will destroy your high places.

Note"Lord GOD" with GOD in small capitals renders a doubled Hebrew title, Adonai YHWH: "Sovereign" plus the personal divine name. Where the King James has "rivers," the Hebrew word means ravines or streambeds, gullies that run with water in the rainy season and lie dry the rest of the year. "High places" (Hebrew bamot) were open-air worship sites, usually on hilltops or raised platforms, with an altar and often a standing stone or sacred pole. They were long-standing Canaanite installations that Israelites also used, and prophets condemned them as rivals to the Jerusalem temple.

4Your altars will be left in ruins and your incense altars will be smashed. I will throw down your dead bodies in front of your idols.

4And your altars shall be desolate, and your images shall be broken: and I will cast down your slain men before your idols.

NoteThe King James "images" translates a word for incense altars or incense stands, small pillars for burning aromatic offerings, not statues of gods. The word behind "idols" here (gillulim) is one Ezekiel uses constantly. It is a term of contempt, formed to sound like the word for dung or dung-pellets, so something closer to "filth-things" than a neutral word for images.

5I will lay the dead bodies of the people of Israel in front of their idols, and I will scatter your bones all around your altars.

5And I will lay the dead carcases of the children of Israel before their idols; and I will scatter your bones round about your altars.

NoteScattering human bones around an altar is not just insult but sabotage: contact with a corpse made a place ritually unclean, and bones strewn over a shrine put it permanently out of use. The same tactic is described at 2 Kings 23:14–16, where King Josiah shuts down shrines by burning human bones on them.

6Everywhere you live, the cities will be left in ruins and the hill shrines will be torn down. Then your altars will lie wrecked and bearing their guilt, your idols will be smashed and finished, your incense altars cut down, and everything you made wiped out.

6In all your dwellingplaces the cities shall be laid waste, and the high places shall be desolate; that your altars may be laid waste and made desolate, and your idols may be broken and cease, and your images may be cut down, and your works may be abolished.

Note"Your works" means the things your hands made, the images and shrine furniture themselves, not deeds or actions in general.

7People will be killed and fall in your midst, and then you will know that I am the LORD.

7And the slain shall fall in the midst of you, and ye shall know that I am the LORD.

Note"You will know that I am the LORD" is a recognition formula that recurs more than sixty times in Ezekiel, four times in this short chapter. It marks the stated purpose of an event: that those who see it will be forced to identify who is behind it.

8But I will leave some of you alive. Some will escape being killed by the sword when you are scattered among other nations and lands.

8Yet will I leave a remnant, that ye may have some that shall escape the sword among the nations, when ye shall be scattered through the countries.

NoteA "remnant" is the surviving fragment left after a disaster, the few who come through a war or deportation alive. The word became a standing term in prophetic writing for the portion of Israel that outlives a catastrophe.

9Then, in the nations they have been taken to as prisoners, those of you who escape will remember me. They will remember how their unfaithful hearts, which turned away from me, and their eyes, which chased after idols, wounded me. And they will hate themselves for the evil things they did in all their disgusting practices.

9And they that escape of you shall remember me among the nations whither they shall be carried captives, because I am broken with their whorish heart, which hath departed from me, and with their eyes, which go a whoring after their idols: and they shall lothe themselves for the evils which they have committed in all their abominations.

Note"Whorish heart" and "go a whoring" translate a Hebrew verb (zanah) for sexual infidelity. Prophets use it routinely for worshiping other gods, because the bond between God and Israel was described as a marriage; the language is figurative and its force is betrayal of an exclusive relationship, not sexual behavior as such. "I am broken" is a literal rendering of a Hebrew verb meaning shattered or crushed; here it describes being wounded or grieved by the betrayal. Some translations instead read it as "I have broken their whorish heart." The Hebrew allows both. "Abominations" translates to'evah, a word for practices treated as detestable and out of bounds. In Ezekiel it most often points to the rites carried out at the shrines.

10They will know that I am the LORD, and that I did not warn them for nothing when I said I would bring this disaster on them.

10And they shall know that I am the LORD, and that I have not said in vain that I would do this evil unto them.

11This is what the Lord GOD says: Clap your hands, stamp your foot, and cry out, 'How terrible!' because of all the evil and disgusting things the people of Israel have done. They will die by the sword, by hunger, and by disease.

11Thus saith the Lord GOD; Smite with thine hand, and stamp with thy foot, and say, Alas for all the evil abominations of the house of Israel! for they shall fall by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence.

NoteClapping the hands and stamping the foot were public gestures of violent emotion. The Hebrew does not settle which emotion is meant: the same actions elsewhere express scorn and gloating over an enemy's fall, and elsewhere express shock and grief. "Alas" translates a one-syllable cry of mourning. "Sword, famine, and pestilence" is a fixed set phrase for the three ways a besieged population dies: killed in the fighting, starved when supplies run out, and carried off by the epidemics that spread in a crowded, blockaded city. Ezekiel and Jeremiah use the trio repeatedly as a unit.

12The one who is far away will die of disease, the one who is near will be killed by the sword, and the one who is left alive and trapped inside a surrounded city will die of hunger. That is how I will pour out my anger on them fully.

12He that is far off shall die of the pestilence; and he that is near shall fall by the sword; and he that remaineth and is besieged shall die by the famine: thus will I accomplish my fury upon them.

13Then you will know that I am the LORD, when their dead lie among their idols, all around their altars, on every high hill, on all the mountaintops, and under every green tree and every leafy oak. Those are the places where they burned offerings with a pleasing smell to all their idols.

13Then shall ye know that I am the LORD, when their slain men shall be among their idols round about their altars, upon every high hill, in all the tops of the mountains, and under every green tree, and under every thick oak, the place where they did offer sweet savour to all their idols.

Note"Under every green tree" is a stock phrase for open-air worship sites. Large evergreen or leafy trees marked sacred spots, and shade trees on high ground were standard settings for local shrines. "Sweet savour" is the technical language of sacrifice: the smoke of a burnt or incense offering rising as a scent the deity was said to find pleasing. Israel's own sacrificial laws use the identical phrase, which is part of the sting here.

14I will reach out my hand against them and leave the land empty and ruined, everywhere they live. It will be emptier than the desert that stretches toward Diblath. Then they will know that I am the LORD."

14So will I stretch out my hand upon them, and make the land desolate, yea, more desolate than the wilderness toward Diblath, in all their habitations: and they shall know that I am the LORD.

NoteDiblath is otherwise unknown. Many Hebrew manuscripts and most modern translations read Riblah, a town in Syria far to the north, which would make the phrase mean "from the southern desert to Riblah in the north," that is, the whole length of the land. The King James follows the reading Diblath and takes the sense as a comparison, more desolate than that wilderness. The Hebrew is uncertain, and both readings are defensible. "Stretch out my hand" is an idiom for taking direct action against someone, the gesture of a ruler reaching to strike.