translation_id: net-engnet

book_id: EZK

label: NET study note

text: The date would be August 14th, 591 b.c . The seventh year is the seventh year of Jehoiachin’s exile.


text: The phrase “a land flowing with milk and honey,” a figure of speech describing the land’s abundant fertility, occurs in v. 15 as well as Exod 3:8, 17; 13:5; 33:3 ; Lev 20:24 ; Num 13:27 ; Deut 6:3; 11:9; 26:9; 27:3 ; Josh 5:6 ; Jer 11:5; 32:23 (see also Deut 1:25; 8:7-9 ).


text: The laws were given at Mount Sinai.


text: Ezekiel’s contemporary, Jeremiah, also stressed the importance of obedience to the Sabbath law ().


text: Though the Pentateuch does not seem to know of this episode, Ps 106:26-27 may speak of God’s oath to exile the people before they had entered Canaan.


text: This act is prohibited in Deut 12:29-31 and Jer 7:31; 19:5; 32:35 . See also 2 Kgs 21:6; 23:10 . This custom indicates that the laws the Israelites were following were the disastrous laws of pagan nations (see Ezek 16:20-21 ).


text: God sometimes punishes sin by inciting the sinner to sin even more, as the biblical examples of divine hardening and deceit make clear. See Robert B. Chisholm, Jr., “Divine Hardening in the Old Testament,” BSac 153 (1996): 410-34; idem, “Does God Deceive?” BSac 155 (1998): 11-28. For other instances where the Lord causes individuals to act unwisely or even sinfully as punishment for sin, see 1 Sam 2:25 ; 2 Sam 17:14 ; 1 Kgs 12:15 ; 2 Chr 25:20 .


text: This phrase occurs frequently in Deuteronomy ( Deut 4:34; 5:15; 7:19; 11:2; 26:8 ).


text: The metaphor may be based in Lev 27:32 (see also Jer 33:13 ; Matt 25:32-33 ). A shepherd would count his sheep as they passed beneath his staff.


text: Compare the irony here to Amos 4:4 and Jer 44:25 .


text: A similar concept may be found in Lev 18:21; 20:3 .


text: Beginning with 20:45 , the verse numbers through 21:32 in the English Bible differ by five from the verse numbers in the Hebrew text ( BHS ), with 20:45 ET = 21:1 HT, 20:46 ET = 21:2 HT, 21:1 ET = 21:6 HT etc., through 21:32 ET = 21:37 HT. Beginning with 22:1 the verse numbers in the English Bible and the Hebrew Bible are again the same.