And he said to me: God now addresses Ezekiel. He gives him his task and the message that he must pass on to the people. The pronoun he may be rendered “the voice” or “the one speaking.”
Son of man, I send you to the people of Israel …: For Son of man, see the comments on Ezek 2.1. I send you may be rendered “I am sending you” (Contemporary English Version). God tells Ezekiel to go to the people of Israel, which is literally “the sons of Israel.”
God calls the Israelites a nation of rebels. The Revised Standard Version footnote here indicates that the Hebrew has “nations” instead of nation. The Hebrew plural word for “nations” is difficult in two ways. First, this word usually refers to the foreign nations, the non-Jewish heathen nations. It is not used of Israel and Judah. Here it seems to apply to the Israelites, because Ezekiel’s audience were the people who were taken from Jerusalem into exile in Babylonia. Second, these exiles were only one nation or, in actual fact, only part of a nation, since the ten tribes of the northern kingdom had been taken into exile nearly 150 years earlier. Most translations simply take this word as a singular, as Revised Standard Version does. Others simply omit the word (so Good News Translation, Revised English Bible, Jerusalem Bible/New Jerusalem Bible). A third alternative is that “nations of rebels” applies to the foreign nations that Ezekiel addresses in chapters 25–32, but this does not fit well in the context. Each of these solutions minimizes the force of the strong judgment of God on the people of Israel. This verse is not referring to a particular act of rebellion, but is characterizing the people as a group: they have rebelled against God throughout their history. They are “rebellious people.” By using the word “nations” God actually calls his own people “heathen” people! The force of this judgment should be reflected in translation, if possible. Brownlee says “rebellious heathen,” which is a compact but satisfactory rendering.
Who have rebelled against me: The Hebrew verb rendered rebels and have rebelled means to disobey someone in authority, to fight against a ruler or a government, or to refuse to give allegiance to a sovereign. It is a word taken from political affairs and applied to the way the people of Israel did not obey God. The word is used twice here: the people are described as being rebels, that is, disobedient, and they have rebelled against God, that is, they have repeatedly and constantly disobeyed God, and turned against him.
They and their fathers have transgressed against me to this very day: This disobedience was not a new thing that the people started doing. Rather, their fathers, that is, “their ancestors” (Good News Translation), acted in the same way for many years. Some languages will say “their grandfathers.” Like the Hebrew word for rebels, the word for have transgressed also comes from the realm of political affairs, where it applies to people who break their agreements to obey their rulers. It also has a religious and ethical meaning, namely, to step aside from the path on which someone should be walking, to commit an offense or sin. Translators may render have transgressed against me as “have disobeyed me” or “have acted wrongly toward me.” To this very day indicates that the disobedience has continued without stopping. The people were still disobeying and opposing God at the time God was talking to Ezekiel.
A model for this verse is:
• “Human being, I am telling you to go to the Israelites. They are like the heathen nations. They disobey me. They continually turn against me. They have been disobeying me for many years. Their grandfathers before them used to disobey me. And they are still disobeying me now.
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 .