Ezekiel 33 Footnotes

33:1-2,7 This passage is a turning point, as Ezekiel transitioned to messages of hope and restoration in (chaps. 33–45). This message parallels 3:16-21 and reaffirmed Ezekiel’s authority as the prophet of restoration.

33:21 The date of this message was early in 585 BC, nearly two years after the fall of Jerusalem. The text offers no explanation for the delay of news of the fall to reach Babylon. Ezra gave the travel time as five months (Ezr 7:6-9). The news may have come from a refugee who hid along the way to avoid Babylonian troops. Another suggestion is a possible copyist’s error; there is only a one-letter difference in the Hebrew spelling for the twelfth year and the tenth year. The Septuagint and the Syriac (Aramaic) versions adopted that solution. Still another possibility is that Jerusalem’s fall occurred in the summer of 586 BC instead of early in 587 BC, in which case the “twelfth” year should read the “eleventh”; that would reduce the time span to six months, which better fits Ezra’s timetable.