Book of Ezekiel 30:13–18 in an English manuscript from the early 13th century, MS. Bodl. Or. 62, fol. 59a. A Latin translation appears in the margins with further interlineations above the Hebrew.
It came to pass in the seventh year, in the fifth month, on the tenth day of the month,
that certain of the elders of Israel came to inquire of the Lord, and sat before me. (NKJV)[5]
The opening of chapter 8 has similar wording. The recorded date of the occurrence in chapter 20 would fall in July–August 591 BC,[6] calculated to be August 14, 591 BCE, based on an analysis by German theologian Bernhard Lang.[7]
Verse 4
Will you judge them, son of man, will you judge them?
Then make known to them the abominations of their fathers. (NKJV)[8]
"Will you judge them?" - a recurrent theme, also seen in Ezekiel 22:2 and 23:36.[9]
"Son of man" (Hebrew: בן־אדם ḇen-’ā-ḏām): this phrase is used 93 times to address Ezekiel.[10]
"Abomination" (Hebrew plural: תּוֹעֲבֹ֥ת tō-‘ă-ḇōṯ; singular: תּוֹעֵבָה tôʻêbah, to-ay-baw'): something loathsome or objectionable, especially for "Jehovah" (Proverbs 3:32; 21:27), "specially used for things belonging to the worship of idols" or idolatrous practices and objects.[11][12]
Verse 5
“Say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “On the day when I chose Israel and raised My hand in an oath to the descendants of the house of Jacob, and made Myself known to them in the land of Egypt, I raised My hand in an oath to them, saying, ‘I am the Lord your God.’"[13]
Then I said to them, "What is this high place to which you go?" So its name is called Bamah to this day.[15]
"Bamah" means "high place". Theologian Andrew B. Davidson suggests that Ezekiel uses "a punning and contemptuous derivation of the word", using what (mah) and go (ba):
What (mah) is the high place whereunto ye go (ba)?"
Whilst he disagrees with the interpretation, Davidson notes that "some have supposed that “go” has the sense of “go in” (e.g. Genesis 38:2: Judah saw there a daughter of a certain Canaanite ... and he married her and went in to her) and that the allusion is to the immoralities practised on the high places".[1]
Verse 35
And I will bring you into the wilderness of the peoples, and there I will plead My case with you face to face.[16]
The "wilderness of the peoples" is alternatively translated as "the wilderness of the nations" (NIV),[17] or "a desert surrounded by nations" (Contemporary English Version).[18] Davidson suggests it refers to "the Syro-Babylonian wilderness, adjoining the peoples among whom they were dispersed",[1] perhaps the modern-day Syrian Desert. Davidson suggests that Ezekiel may have followed Hosea's words here:
and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant; (NKJV)[20]
"Bond" (Hebrew: מסרת mā-sō-reṯ): "band" or "terms" in New Living Translation; contraction of מַאֲסֹרֶת, used in relation to the "covenant", the same root as the word "mesorah".[21][22]
^The New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha, Augmented Third Edition, New Revised Standard Version, Indexed. Michael D. Coogan, Marc Brettler, Carol A. Newsom, Editors. Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; 2007. pp. 1205-1208 Hebrew Bible. ISBN978-0195288810
^Lang, Bernhard (1981) Ezechiel. Darmstadt. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesselschaft, cited in Kee et al 2008, p. 209.
Brown, Francis; Briggs, Charles A.; Driver, S. R. (1994). The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon (reprint ed.). Hendrickson Publishers. ISBN978-1565632066.
Gesenius, H. W. F. (1979). Gesenius' Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament Scriptures: Numerically Coded to Strong's Exhaustive Concordance, with an English Index. Translated by Tregelles, Samuel Prideaux (7th ed.). Baker Book House.
Kee, Howard Clark; Meyers, Eric M.; Rogerson, John; Levine, Amy-Jill; Saldarini, Anthony J. (2008). Chilton, Bruce (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to the Bible (2, revised ed.). Cambridge University Press. ISBN9780521691406.
