Of fine embroidered linen from Egypt was your sail, serving as your ensign: The sail was made of fine embroidered linen. Fine … linen is an expensive cloth woven from flax (see the comments on 9.2). This cloth was embroidered, which mean people had sewn colored patterns on it with needles (see 16.10). The best linen in the ancient world was produced in Egypt. For sail see the comments on Ezek 27.5. The Hebrew word for your sail is literally “something you spread out” (similarly King James Version / New King James Version). The sail was serving as the ship’s ensign, that is, its “banner” (New International Version, New International Reader’s Version, New Living Translation, New American Bible), “distinguishing mark” (New American Standard Bible), or “flag” (New Century Version, Jerusalem Bible/New Jerusalem Bible). The function of the ensign was to make the ship “Easily recognized from afar” (Good News Translation; compare Contemporary English Version “so everyone could see you”). The Hebrew word for ensign can refer to a military standard or flag, but this is unlikely to be the meaning here. Some translations have rendered this word as “sail[s]” (King James Version / New King James Version, Revised English Bible, New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh), but it is unlikely that it ever means that. One way to express these three lines is “They used linen cloth [or, expensive cloth] from Egypt to make your sail [or, cloth that catches the wind to move the ship], and they sewed [or, wove] colored patterns on it so everyone could see you from far away.”

Blue and purple from the coasts of Elishah was your awning: The awning was probably some sort of a cloth shade over the open area of the top deck to keep the sun off, so New Century Version says “cloth shades over the deck” (similarly Contemporary English Version, New International Reader’s Version, Jerusalem Bible/New Jerusalem Bible). The awning was made of blue and purple material. It is difficult to be sure what these precise colors were (see the comments on 23.6), but they were both purple, that is, mixtures of blue and red, the former probably bluish purple, the latter reddish purple. Essentially, here translators should look for the term in their language for something dark blue, and for something that is a mixture of red and blue for purple. Whatever the precise colors were, it is clear that this material was the “finest cloth” (Good News Translation) that was very valuable and expensive. It is often described as the cloth that kings wore. This information may be put into a footnote. The cloth for the deck shade came from the coasts of Elishah, which was another town on the island of Cyprus.

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 .