Your prophets have been like foxes among ruins, O Israel: God addresses the Israelites here by saying O Israel. Good News Translation and New Century Version move this vocative to the beginning of the sentence, saying “People of Israel, your prophets…” (similarly New Living Translation, Bible en français courant), which other languages may find helpful. Alternatively, the second person references to the Israelites may be changed to third person for naturalness; for example, Contemporary English Version begins with “Israel’s prophets….” Your prophets may be rendered “your people who speak for God” (see Ezek 13.1). These prophets were like foxes among ruins. The Hebrew word for foxes can also refer to jackals, so some versions say “foxes” (Revised Standard Version, Good News Translation, King James Version / New King James Version, New American Standard Bible, New American Bible), while others have “jackals” (so New Revised Standard Version, Contemporary English Version, New International Version, New Living Translation, Revised English Bible, Jerusalem Bible/New Jerusalem Bible, New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh, Bible en français courant). The Hebrew word for ruins refers to the broken-down walls of buildings, or the remains of an old, deserted city. Both the fox and the jackal prefer to live in deserted places, so a ruined city is an ideal environment for them. The broken-down walls have many little nooks and crannies where they can shelter and hide from danger. For those cultures that do not know either foxes or “jackals,” translators may say “wild dogs” (New Century Version) or equivalent animals.

The text does not say in what way the false prophets were like foxes or jackals in the ruins of a town. Good News Translation has “as useless as foxes living among the ruins of a city,” but New Century Version says “like wild dogs hunting to kill and eat among ruins.” Contemporary English Version is similar to New Century Version with “no better than jackals that hunt for food among the ruins of a city.” Good News Translation‘s interpretation is based on the following verse that lists the things the prophets didn’t do for the Israelites in need of real help. New Century Version and Contemporary English Version interpret the simile to mean that the false prophets were trying to eke out a living in the midst of a world destroyed around them. It is better not to provide the point of comparison here since it is ambiguous, but if translators feel they must do so, then we recommend Good News Translation‘s interpretation here.

Quoted with permission from Gross, Carl & Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on Ezekiel. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2016. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .