Of oaks of Bashan they made your oars: Another way of getting a ship to move is with oars, which are long poles with a flat blade on one end. Rowers put the flat end of the oars into the water and pull them through the water to make the ship move. Oak is a hardwood that is able to withstand the strain that is put on oars. Translators may render oaks as “wood called oak.” Bashan was a region east of the Sea of Galilee, which was famous for its oak trees. For readers who are not familiar with rowing, translators may render these two lines as “They took oak trees from Bashan to make the flat poles [people pull] to move the boat.”
They made your deck of pines from the coasts of Cyprus: The deck is a platform on a ship where cabins can be built to provide shelter for cargo, passengers, and the crew. Big ships may have more than one deck, stacked one on top of another. In the translations the wood used to make the decks is called “pine” (Revised Standard Version/New Revised Standard Version, Good News Translation, Contemporary English Version, New Living Translation), “cypress” (New International Version, New International Reader’s Version, New Century Version, Revised English Bible, New American Bible), “boxwood” (New American Standard Bible, New English Bible, New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch), “larch” (Moffatt), or “cedar” (Jerusalem Bible/New Jerusalem Bible). It is probably best to render pine as “wood called cypress [or, pine].” The pine wood for the decks came from the coasts of Cyprus, an island in the Mediterranean Sea about 200 kilometers (125 miles) off the coast of Syria. Apparently the pine trees that grew near the coast of Cyprus were especially good for shipbuilding. Some translations retain the Hebrew word for Cyprus, which is “Kittim” (Revised English Bible, Jerusalem Bible/New Jerusalem Bible, New American Bible, New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh), which refers to a Phoenician colony in the south of Cyprus, called Kition. These two lines may be rendered “They took wood from the pine trees on the coasts of the island of Cyprus to make the platforms for you [or, your boat].”
The decks were inlaid with ivory. This line refers to carvings made from elephants’ tusks and attached to the wood of the decks for decoration. Many languages refer to ivory as “elephant’s teeth.” Rather than describing how wood can be inlaid with ivory, translators may use a more general expression, such as “They decorated the decks [or, platforms] with ivory.” Some translations omit the reference to ivory because the Hebrew text is difficult at this point (so Revised English Bible, New American Bible, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch, Allen). They assume that the two letters that make up the Hebrew word for ivory were mistakenly repeated from the previous word. Although the change makes very good sense and fits the poetry better, it is best to retain the reference to ivory.
New King James Version renders the last three lines of this verse as “The company of Ashurites have inlaid your planks With ivory from the coasts of Cyprus” (similarly King James Version). According to King James Version / New King James Version, the text does not mention what type of wood was used for the decks. The Hebrew for “The company of Ashurites” is literally “the daughter of Assyrians,” but by taking the Hebrew consonants here as one word instead of two, we get the reading of pines. This reading makes perfect sense, and because the King James Version / New King James Version rendering completely breaks the pattern of verses 5-7, it is best to follow Revised Standard Version and the other translations that divide the consonants of the Hebrew text differently.
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 .