Go to Related Reading
About this book

LXX Ezekiel

Septuagint

About this book
Chapter 16

1 Moreover the word of the Lord came to me, saying, 2 Son of man, testify to Jerusalem of her iniquities; 3 and you shall say, Thus says the Lord to Jerusalem; Your root and your birth are of the land of Canaan: your father was an Amorite, and your mother a Hittite. 4 And as for your birth, in the day in which you were born, they did not bind your breasts, and you were not washed in water, neither were you salted with salt, neither were you swathed in swaddling-bands. 5 Nor did my eye pity you, to do for you one of all these things, to feel at all for you; but you were cast out on the face of the field, because of the deformity of your person, in the day in which you were born. 6 And I passed by to you, and saw you polluted in your blood; and I said to you, Let there be life out of your blood: 7 increase; I have made you as the springing grass of the field. So you did increase and grow, and did enter into great cities: your breasts were set, and your hair grew, whereas you were naked and bare. 8 And I passed by you and saw you, and, look, it was your time and a time of resting; and I spread my wings over you, and covered your shame, and swore to you: and I entered into covenant with you, says the Lord, and you became mine. 9 And I washed you in water, and washed your blood from you, and anointed you with oil. 10 And I clothed you with embroidered garments, and clothed you beneath with purple, and bound you about with fine linen, and clothed you with silk, 11 and decked you also with ornaments, and put bracelets on your hands, and a necklace on your neck. 12 And I put a pendant on your nostril, and rings in your ears, and a crown of glory on your head. 13 So you were adorned with gold and silver; and your clothing was of fine linen, and silk, and variegated work: you did eat fine flour, and oil, and honey, and did become extremely beautiful. 14 And your name went forth among the nations for your beauty: because it was perfected with elegance, and in the grace which I put upon you, says the Lord. 15 You did trust in your beauty, and prostituted yourself because of your renown, and did pour out your fornication on every passer by, which shall not be. 16 And you did take of your garments, and made to yourself idols of needlework, and prostituted yourself by pursuing them; therefore you shall never come in, nor shall the like take place. 17 And you took your fair ornaments of my gold and of my silver, of what I gave you, and you made to yourself male images, and you engaged in prostitution with them. 18 And you did take your variegated clothing and did clothe them, and you did set before them my oil and my incense. 19 And you took my bread which I gave you, (yes, I fed you with fine flour and oil and honey) and did set them before them for a sweet smelling aroma: yes, it was so, says the Lord. 20 And you took your sons and your daughters, whom you bore, and did sacrifice these to them to be destroyed. You prostituted yourself as if that were little, 21 and did kill your children, and gave them up in offering them to them for an expiation. 22 This is beyond all your fornication, and you did not remember the days of your infancy, when you were naked and bare, and did live though defiled in your blood. 23 And it happened after all your wickedness, says the Lord, 24 that you did build yourself a house of fornication, and did make yourself a public place in every street; 25 and on the head of every way you did set up your fornications, and did defile your beauty, and did open your feet to every passer by, and did multiply your fornication. 26 And you prostituted yourself by pursuing the children of Egypt your neighbors, great of flesh; and prostituted yourself, often to provoke me to anger. 27 And if I stretch out my hand against you, then I will abolish your statutes, and deliver you up to the wills of those who hate you, even to the daughters of the Philistines that turned you aside from the way in which you sinned. 28 And you prostituted yourself with the daughters of Assyria, and not even thus were you satisfied; yes, you prostituted yourself, and were not satisfied. 29 And you did multiply your covenants with the land of the Chaldeans; and not even with these were you satisfied. 30 Why should I make a covenant with your daughter,⁠ says the Lord, while you do all these things, the works of a harlot? and you have prostituted yourself in a threefold degree. 31 With your daughters you have built a house of harlotry in every top of a way, and have set up your high place in every street; and you did become as a harlot gathering hires. 32 An adulteress resembles you, taking rewards of her husband. 33 She has even given rewards to all that engaged in prostitution with her, and you have given rewards to all your lovers, yes, you did load them with rewards, that they should come to you from every side for your fornication. 34 And there has happened in you perverseness in your fornication beyond other women, and they have committed fornication with you, in that you give hires over and above, and hires were not given to you; and thus perverseness happened in you. 35 Therefore, harlot, hear the word of the Lord: 36 Thus says the Lord, Because you have poured forth your money, therefore your shame shall be revealed in your harlotry with your lovers, and with regard to all the imaginations of your iniquities, and for the blood of your children which you have given to them. 37 Therefore, look, I will gather all your lovers with whom you have consorted, and all whom you have loved, with all whom you did hate; and I will gather them against you all around, and will expose your wickedness to them, and they shall see all your shame. 38 And I will be avenged on you with the vengeance of an adulteress and of one that sheds blood, and I will bring upon you blood of fury and jealousy. 39 And I will deliver you into their hands, and they shall break down your house of harlotry, and destroy your high place; and they shall strip you of your garments, and shall take your proud ornaments, and leave you naked and bare. 40 And they shall bring multitudes upon you, and they shall stone you with stones, and pierce you with their swords. 41 And they shall burn your houses with fire, and shall execute vengeance on you in the sight of many women: and I will turn you back from harlotry, and I will no more give you rewards. 42 So I will slacken my fury against you, and my jealousy shall be removed from you, and I will rest, and be no more anxious for you. 43 Because you did not remember your infancy, and you did grieve me in all these things; therefore, look, I have repaid your ways upon your head, says the Lord: for thus you have done ungodliness above all your other iniquities. 44 These are all the things they have spoken against you in a proverb, saying, As is the mother, so is the daughter. 45 You are the daughter of your mother, she that has rejected her husband and her children; and the sister of your sisters that rejected their husbands and their children: your mother was a Hittite, and your father an Amorite. 46 Your elder sister who dwells on your left hand is Samaria, she and her daughters: and your younger sister, that dwells on the right hand, is Sodom and her daughters. 47 Yet you have not walked in their ways, neither have you done according to their iniquities within a little, but you have exceeded them in all your ways. 48 As I live, says the Lord, this Sodom your sister and her daughters have not done as you and your daughters have done. 49 Moreover this was the sin of your sister Sodom, pride: she and her daughters lived in pleasure, in fullness of bread and in abundance of wine: this belonged to her and her daughters, and they did not help the hand of the poor and needy. 50 And they boasted, and did iniquities before me: so I cut them off as I saw fit. 51 Also Samaria has not sinned according to half of your sins; but you have multiplied your iniquities beyond them, and you have justified your sisters in all your iniquities which you have committed. 52 You therefore bear your punishment, for that you have corrupted your sisters by your sins which you have committed beyond them; and you have made them appear more righteous than yourself: you therefore be ashamed, and bear your dishonor, in that you have justified your sisters. 53 And I will turn their captivity, even the captivity of Sodom and her daughters; and I will turn the captivity of Samaria and her daughters; and I will turn your captivity in the midst of them: 54 that you may bear your punishment, and be dishonored for all that you have done in provoking me to anger. 55 And your sister Sodom and her daughters shall be restored as they were at the beginning, and Samaria and her daughters shall be restored as they were at the beginning, and you and your daughters shall be restored as you were at the beginning. 56 And surely your sister Sodom was not mentioned by your mouth in the days of your pride: 57 before your wickedness was revealed, even now you are the reproach of the daughters of Syria, and of all that are all around her, even of the daughters of the Philistines that encompass you all around. 58 As for your ungodliness and your iniquities, you have borne them, says the Lord. 59 Thus says the Lord; I will even do to you as you have done, as you have dealt shamefully in these things to transgress my covenant. 60 And I will remember my covenant made with you in the days of your infancy, and I will establish to you an everlasting covenant. 61 Then you shall remember your way, and shall be utterly dishonored when you receive your elder sisters with your younger ones: and I will give them to you for building up, but not by your covenant. 62 And I will establish my covenant with you; and you shall know that I am the Lord: 63 that you may remember, and be ashamed, and may no more be able to open your mouth for your shame, when I am reconciled to you for all that you have done, says the Lord.

Texts in conversation

Compare Ezekiel 16:30 and LXX Ezekiel 16:30

Hebrew Bible · Septuagint

Share:

Summary

The Greek Septuagint translation of Ezekiel 16 misreads Hebrew that means “filled with anger,” an idiom also found in Daniel and Esther. The translators may not have understood it or decided to make the prophet’s rebuke sound less forceful.

Passages

Ezekiel 16:30

Hebrew Bible
29 Then you multiplied your promiscuity to the land of merchants, Babylonia, but you were not satisfied there either. 30 “‘How I am filled with anger against you*, declares the Sovereign Lord, when you perform all these acts, the deeds of a bold prostitute. 31 When you built your chamber at the head of every street and put up your pavilion in every public square, you were not like a prostitute, because you scoffed at payment.
600–501 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Ezekiel

LXX Ezekiel 16:30

Septuagint
29 And you did multiply your covenants with the land of the Chaldeans; and not even with these were you satisfied. 30 Why should I make a covenant with your daughter, says the Lord, while you do all these things, the works of a harlot? and you have prostituted yourself in a threefold degree. 31 With your daughters you have built a house of harlotry in every top of a way, and have set up your high place in every street; and you did become as a harlot gathering hires.
100–1 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in LXX Ezekiel

References

"... the ancient versions seem to have exercised some form of censorship on the Hebrew text of Ezekiel. The LXX had three different translators producing a very uneven Greek text that lacks consistency in the treatment of its key terms and message. Moreover, the book being replete with Akkadianisms and Aramaisms it was relatively easy to mistranslate whenever the statements became too dangerous and was deemed that the invective needed to be toned down. An example is the expression māʾ ʾamulâ libbātēk “How filled with anger I am against you,” in Ezekiel 16:30 that none of the versions translated correctly, though the Akkadian-Aramaic idiom (libbāti malû and מלא לבתך “filled with anger”) was well-known in the Aramaic of Daniel 3:19 and in Hebrew of Esther 3:5 ..."
Daniel Bodi, “When YHWH's Wife, Jerusalem, Became a Strange Woman: Inversion of Values in Ezekiel 16 in Light of Ištar Cult,” in Foreign Women—Women in Foreign Lands: Studies on Foreignness and Gender in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East in the First Millennium BCE, ed. Angelika Berlejung and Marianne Grohmann (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019), 77–108.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

Tags

Your feedback

Ezekiel 16:30 and LXX Ezekiel 16:30

Leave a comment

Your questions and comments are welcome!

Comments

Glossary

Search the Library