Also my bread which I gave you—I fed you with fine flour and oil and honey—you set before them for a pleasing odor: The people of Jerusalem also used the excellent food that God had given them to worship their idols. The Hebrew noun for bread is actually a general word for “food” (Good News Translation, New International Version, New King James Version , New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh). For fine flour, oil and honey, see verse 13. The girl (who clearly stands for the people of Jerusalem and Judah at this point) offered this food to the male statues for a pleasing odor. Normally the Hebrew expression rendered a pleasing odor refers to the sweet-smelling smoke of burning incense, or to the smoke of a sacrifice that is burning on an altar in honor of a god (see 6.13). Here it refers to sacrificing the food “to win the favor of idols” (Good News Translation). Contemporary English Version says “to please those idols.”
Says the Lord GOD: This solemn declaration reinforces God’s message in the previous verses (see Ezek 16.8). Just before this clause the Hebrew text has a word that is omitted by Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation (so also New Living Translation, Revised English Bible, New American Bible, Moffatt, Bible en français courant). This word is literally “and it was.” Most translations understand this word as a summary statement, meaning “That is what happened” (New International Version; similarly New Revised Standard Version, New Century Version, King James Version / New King James Version, New American Standard Bible, New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch). However, Jerusalem Bible and New Jerusalem Bible take it with the next verse to provide emphasis to the words in verses 20-21. New Jerusalem Bible ends this verse and begins the next one with “What is more—declares the Lord Yahweh—you took the sons and daughters you had borne me and sacrificed them as food to the images.” Grammatically, this rendering is a little strained, and it is better to follow the majority of the translations by rendering this word as “That is what happened” or “That is what you did.”
A model that rearranges this verse for naturalness in English is:
• I gave you food made with the best flour, olive oil, and honey. But you took this food I gave you and you offered it as a sacrifice to these idols to please them. This is what you did.” The Lord Yahweh declares this.
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 .