But the vine was plucked up in fury, cast down to the ground: Disaster struck the vine. The Hebrew verb rendered plucked up means to pull a plant up by the roots (so Good News Translation, Contemporary English Version, New Century Version). Fury is another word for “anger” (Contemporary English Version, New Century Version, Revised English Bible; see the comments on 5.13). Although many translations fail to do so, it is best to make it explicit that the vine, not just the strong branch, was pulled out by the roots. Then it was cast down to the ground, that is, thrown violently on the ground. For those languages that do not have passive verbs, it will be necessary to use an impersonal construction for these two lines or to make it explicit that God was the one who was angry at the vine, pulled it out of the ground, and threw it down, as in “But God became angry at the vine and pulled it up by its roots and threw it down.” Good News Translation provides an impersonal model, saying “But angry hands pulled it up by the roots and threw it to the ground.”

The east wind dried it up; its fruit was stripped off, its strong stem was withered; the fire consumed it: For the east wind, see 17.10. According to Revised Standard Version, the hot desert wind from the east dried … up the vine and, as a result, its fruit was stripped off (that is, its fruit fell off) and its strong stem was withered (that is, its strong branch also dried up). Finally, fire consumed it, that is, fire burned up the strong branch. Other translations understand the Hebrew of these lines in a different way. For some the east wind dried up the vine’s fruit and its branches were broken off. Then the branches dried out and were burned (so Good News Translation, Contemporary English Version, King James Version / New King James Version, New American Standard Bible). This understanding is better than the one in Revised Standard Version, but the best way to understand the Hebrew is as follows: “The hot east wind dried up its fruit. Its fruit broke off and dried up. But as for its strong branch, fire destroyed it.”

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 .