So I poured out my wrath upon them means God punished the people of Israel. For this imagery of God pouring out his anger as if it were a hot liquid, see the comments on 7.8.

For the blood which they had shed in the land: One reason God punished the Israelites was “because of the murders they had committed in the land” (Good News Translation). For the blood which they shed, which refers to murder, see the comments on 16.38 and 18.10. Poured out and shed render the same Hebrew verb, showing that the punishment fits the crime. The land is the land of Israel.

For the idols with which they had defiled it was another reason for God’s punishment. The idols were the statues of false gods that the people worshiped (see 6.4). This idol worship defiled the land, that is, made it ritually unclean in God’s eyes. New International Reader’s Version provides a helpful model for this clause, saying “They polluted the land by worshiping other gods” (similarly New Living Translation).

A model for this verse:

• So I poured out my anger on them because of the murders they had committed in the land, and because they made the land unfit for me by worshiping idols.

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 .