Then set it empty upon the coals: After all the stew has boiled away and the bones have become black and burnt and the residue of the stew has been burnt on to the inside of the pot, the empty pot is then placed directly on the hot coals. Translators may say “Then set the empty pot on the coals.”

That it may become hot, and its copper may burn: Because the coals are very hot, perhaps still burning fiercely, they heat up the empty copper pot, so that it becomes “red-hot” (Good News Translation, Contemporary English Version). The Hebrew word for copper is better rendered “bronze” (Good News Translation, New King James Version , New American Standard Bible, Jerusalem Bible/New Jerusalem Bible), which is a mixture of copper and tin (see 9.2). If the readers are not familiar with copper or “bronze,” then translators may use a general term for “metal” or a descriptive phrase, such as “metal called copper/bronze.”

The reason why God will heat the pot so much is so that its filthiness may be melted in it, its rust consumed. Its filthiness refers to the “dirty scum” (New Century Version), the residue of the boiled-away stew stuck to the sides of the pot, and when the metal pot becomes red-hot, this scum softens and melts, so that it can be scraped away and the pot cleaned. Then its rust, that is, the remaining scum (see Ezek 24.6), is consumed, that is, “is burned off” (Good News Translation). Consumed renders the same Hebrew verb translated “boil well” in verse 10.

A model for the verse is:

• Then set the empty pot on the coals. When it gets hot and the bronze [or, metal] glows red-hot, the dirty scum in it will become soft enough to clean and what remains will be burned off.

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 .