1And you, man, prophesy to the mountains of Israel and say, Mountains of Israel, heed the word of the LORD. 2Thus said the Master, the LORD: “Inasmuch as the enemy said of you, ‘Hurrah! The age-old high places have become an inheritance for us,’ 3therefore, prophesy and say, Thus said the Master, the LORD: Surely inasmuch as to devastate and trample you all round, that you become an inheritance for the remnant of the nations and come up on the tip of the tongue and in the people’s slander, 4therefore, hear the word of the Master, the LORD. Thus said the Master, the LORD, to the mountains and to the hills and to the watercourses and to the valleys and to the desolate ruins and to the deserted towns that had become a scorn and mockery for the remnant of the nations that were all round. 5Therefore, thus said the Master, the LORD: I have surely spoken in the fire of My zeal concerning the remnant of the nations and concerning all Edom that made My land an inheritance for themselves with the joy of every heart and with spite so as to take its fields in plunder. 6Therefore, prophesy concerning the soil of Israel and speak to the mountains and to the hills and to the watercourses. Thus said the Master, the LORD: Look, in My zeal and in My wrath I have spoken inasmuch as you have borne the disgrace of nations. 7Therefore, thus said the Master, the LORD: I Myself have raised My hand—the nations that are all round you shall surely bear their disgrace. 8And you, O mountains of Israel, you shall put forth your branches and bear your fruit for My people Israel, for soon shall they come. 9For here I am for you, and I will turn to you, and you shall be tilled and sown. 10And I will multiply humankind upon you, the whole house of Israel, all of it, and the towns shall be settled and the ruins shall be rebuilt. 11And I will multiply upon you man and beast, and they shall multiply and be fruitful, and I will settle you as you were before and do well by you more than in your beginnings, and you shall know that I am the LORD. 12And I will lead humankind upon you, My people, and they shall take hold of you, and you shall become for them an estate, and you no longer shall make them bereaved. 13Thus said the Master, the LORD: Inasmuch as they say of you, ‘You are a man-eater, and a bereaver of your nations you are,’ 14therefore, you shall no longer eat man, and you shall no longer bereave your nations. You no longer shall stumble, said the LORD. 15And I will no longer let the disgrace of the nations be heard against you, and the taunts of the people you shall no longer hear, and you shall no longer make your nations stumble,” said the Master, the LORD.
16And the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 17“Man, the house of Israel dwell on their land and defile it through their way and through their acts. Like the defilement of the menstruant has their way been before Me. 18And I poured out My wrath upon them for the blood they shed on the land and for their foul things by which they defiled it. 19And I scattered them among the nations, and they were dispersed among the lands. According to their way and their acts have I judged them. 20And they came to the nations where they came and profaned My holy name when it was said to them, ‘These are the people of the LORD, and from His land they have gone out.’ 21But I had pity for My holy name that the house of Israel had profaned among the nations where they had come. 22Therefore, say to the house of Israel, Thus said the LORD: Not for your sake do I act, house of Israel, but for My holy name that you have profaned among the nations where you have come. 23And I will hallow My great name profaned among the nations that you profaned in their midst, and the nations shall know that I am the LORD, said the Master, the LORD, when I am hallowed through you before their eyes. 24And I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the lands and bring you to your soil. 25And I will cast upon you clean water, and you shall be cleansed of all your defilements, and of all your foul things I will cleanse you. 26And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit will I put within you, and I will take away the heart of stone from your body and give you a heart of flesh. 27And My spirit I will put within you, and I will act so that you go by My statutes and keep My laws, and you shall do it. 28And you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall become My people, and I will be your God. 29And I will rescue you from all your defilements, and I will call forth the grain and make it abundant, and I will not set famine upon you. 30And I will make the fruit of the tree abundant and the yield of the field so that you no longer bear the disgrace of famine among the nations. 31And you shall recall your evil ways and your acts that were not good, and you shall be disgusted by your crimes and by your abominations. 32Not for your sake do I act, said the Master, the LORD. Let it be known to you—be ashamed and remorseful for your ways, O house of Israel.” 33Thus said the Master, the LORD: “On the day I cleanse you of all your crimes and settle the towns, and the ruins are rebuilt, 34and the desolate land is tilled after having been desolate before the eyes of every passerby, 35they shall say, ‘That desolate land has become like the garden of Eden, and the ruined and desolate and ravaged towns are settled, fortified.’ 36And the nations that shall remain all round about you shall know that I the LORD have rebuilt the ravaged towns, I have sown the desolate land. I the LORD have spoken and have done it.” 37Thus said the Master, the LORD: “For this, too, will I be sought out for the house of Israel to do for them—I will multiply humans like sheep. 38Like consecrated sheep, like the sheep of Jerusalem on its festivals, so shall the ruined towns be filled with human sheep, and they shall know that I am the LORD.”
CHAPTER 36 NOTES
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1. prophesy to the mountains of Israel. Ezekiel effects an interesting rhetorical switch here: the prophecy of consolation, instead of being directed to the conquered Judahites, is addressed to the mountains that have been occupied by the conquerors. This becomes a means of focusing the idea of the restoration of the land and its soil.
2. The age-old high places. Given the preceding invocation of mountains, the term here must refer to natural heights, not to hilltop altars.
3. trample. The verb shaʾaf can mean “to pant” or “intensely aspire to,” but it has a homonym that means “to trample” or “to crush,” and that is the more likely sense here.
4. to the desolate ruins and to the deserted towns. The series of places addressed by the prophet moves effectively from the natural landscape to the devastated places where the Judahites once lived.
scorn. The Masoretic Text shows baz, which usually means “plunder.” Either this should be revocalized as buz, “scorn,” or baz may also have the sense of “scorn.”
7. I Myself have raised My hand. As elsewhere, the raising of the hand is a gesture for making a solemn vow.
10. I will multiply humankind upon you. The mountains have been shorn of human population by the devastating conquest. Now they will again abound with people. The verb “multiply” and the term for “humankind,” ʾadam, obliquely recall the Creation story: the national restoration is to be a second Genesis.
11. man and beast. The Hebrew again uses ʾadam, “humankind,” but the translation preserves the proverbial collocation “man and beast.”
and they shall multiply and be fruitful. This is the most explicit echo in this chapter of the beginning of Genesis.
12. you no longer shall make them bereaved. The Judahites through their acts have brought disaster upon the nations and triggered widespread bereavement in the conquest by the Babylonians, but this will no longer be the case.
13. You are a man-eater. This continues the idea of the previous verse: Israel’s evil acts have had murderous consequences for its own population.
your nations. This evidently refers to Judah and Israel. This usage of the term is unique to Ezekiel.
14. You no longer shall stumble. If the first two consonants of the verb are reversed, as a few Hebrew manuscripts show, this would read “You no longer shall make bereaved,” both here and in verse 15.
17. Like the defilement of the menstruant. Although in biblical law the menstruant does impart ritual defilement, it is characteristic of Ezekiel’s troubled relation to the female body that he should invoke menstruation as the paradigmatic instance of defilement.
18. for the blood they shed on the land. This item reflects an associative connection with the menstrual blood.
their foul things. The excremental connotation of this pejorative epithet for idols is activated here because idolatry defiles or pollutes the land.
20. profaned My holy name. The people of Israel are supposed to be in the land God gave them as an inheritance. The mere fact of their exile is a profanation of God’s reputation, for it suggests to the nations that His power has failed.
22. Not for your sake do I act, house of Israel, but for My holy name. This is an odd theological twist, but it has an antecedent in the Wilderness narrative when God is tempted to wipe out Israel and is dissuaded by Moses. God decides to redeem Israel not for any merit in the people but because He does not want His standing in the eyes of the nations to be compromised.
24. your soil. The obvious sense of the Hebrew ʾadamah here and above is “land,” but the prophet, in using this term instead of ʾerets, emphasizes the arable soil that will again be cultivated. Moshe Greenberg makes the same translation choice in his rendering of the first twenty chapters of the book.
25. of all your foul things I will cleanse you. Once more, the suggestion of filth in gilulim, the term used for “idols,” is clearly activated.
26. I will take away the heart of stone from your body. The Hebrew term rendered as “body” is the same word as “flesh” in “heart of flesh” at the end of this verse. Although “flesh” is its more common meaning, it is sometimes used for “body,” and that is the less confusing sense here.
27. And My spirit I will put within you. In Ezekiel’s view, the perversity of the people is such that a kind of spiritual surgery is required: first its heart of stone has to be replaced by a heart of flesh, and then it can be infused with God’s spirit.
30. so that you no longer bear the disgrace of famine among the nations. A suffering nation, stricken with famine and other collective disasters, is viewed with contempt by other nations as a pitiful entity that must somehow be unworthy.
35. settled, fortified. Fortification is the emblem of a secure city.
37. will I be sought out. The passive form of this verb suggests that the people seek God and, now favorably disposed, He allows Himself to be found.
38. Like consecrated sheep, like the sheep of Jerusalem on its festivals. The reference is to sheep brought to be sacrificed in the Temple. At least according to the hyperbolic account in Kings, which Ezekiel probably knew, thousands upon thousands of sacrificial animals were brought to Jerusalem on the occasion of the festivals. The simile is not entirely apt because, even though it conveys the idea of a very large number, the sheep were destined to be slaughtered, which is hardly what the prophet means to suggest about the people.