Yea, I will let men walk upon you, even my people Israel: Yea (also King James Version; similarly New King James Version and New American Standard Bible with “Yes”) renders the Hebrew waw conjunction (literally “And”). Here it may be omitted (so New Revised Standard Version, Good News Translation). I will let men walk upon you is a different way of saying the same idea as in the previous two verses. God will let people live in Israel again. The Hebrew word for men refers to human beings, not just males (compare Christian Community Bible “Men and women”). In this context the verb walk is a figurative expression for “live,” although the picture of people walking on the mountains of Israel is also possible; for example, Revised English Bible renders walk upon you as “tread your paths again,” and New Jerusalem Bible has “tread your soil again.” However, “live in your land” or “make their homes with you” carry the meaning more clearly. As in the previous verses, the pronoun you refers to the mountains of Israel. This whole clause may be rendered “I will let my people Israel live on your land again.”

And they shall possess you, and you shall be their inheritance: The Israelites, not foreigners, will own the land again. It will be their full and rightful possession. For the land being their inheritance, see 35.15. These two clauses may be combined by saying “You are what I am giving them to own” or “You are what I promise them they shall have.”

And you shall no longer bereave them of children means the land of Israel will never cause the Israelites’ children to die again. The usual meaning of the Hebrew word rendered bereave is “take away by death,” often referring to parents who become childless when their children die or are killed. The picture here is of the land not producing enough food to feed the people who live there, which some translations make explicit; for example, Good News Translation says “and it will never again let your children starve,” and Contemporary English Version has “and your fertile slopes will never again let them starve.” The children are the children of the people who live in the land, not the inhabitants of the land, as in 5.17, where the inhabitants were regarded as the children of the land. This clause may be rendered “You will never again take their children away from them” (New Century Version; similarly New International Reader’s Version), “You will never again let their children starve,” or “I will never again allow you to kill the children of your inhabitants because of famine.”

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 .