You shall also take the bull of the sin offering: Next God tells Ezekiel to take the young bull that has been killed for the people’s sins (see verse 19). Translators may say “You must also take the young bull that the priests have killed so I forgive the people’s sins.”

And it shall be burnt in the appointed place belonging to the temple, outside the sacred area: It shall be burnt is literally “he [someone] will burn it,” which means Ezekiel will not burn the carcass of the bull himself, but he will tell someone else, perhaps some of the priests (so Revised English Bible), or other Temple personnel, to do it. A model that reflects this sense is “Tell someone to burn it” or “Have someone burn it.” However, many translations render this phrase as if it were an imperative, telling Ezekiel to burn it (so Good News Translation, Contemporary English Version, New International Version, New International Reader’s Version, New Living Translation, New Century Version, Jerusalem Bible/New Jerusalem Bible, Christian Community Bible, New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh). Since the person who burns the dead bull would become ritually unclean, it is not likely that Ezekiel would have been given that task. Therefore we recommend the first interpretation. The bull’s carcass is to be burned in the appointed place belonging to the temple, outside the sacred area. It is not known where this place was. The Hebrew word for appointed place can refer to a mustering area, where people or soldiers gather together, but Ezekiel does not mention a place like this in the Temple compound or its surrounding area. The place was outside the sacred area, which could mean outside the Temple building itself. If so, the appointed place might be the appointed place for sacrifices, namely, the altar itself, which was outside the Temple. The altar certainly could be described as belonging to the temple. However, it would be the only instance where Ezekiel describes the altar in this way, and it is a very unusual way of describing it. Alternatively, the appointed place may have been a place somewhere outside the whole compound of the Temple that had been set aside specifically for burning what was left over from the sacrifices. If it had been set aside, or appointed, for this purpose, it is easy to see how Ezekiel could describe it as belonging to the temple. On the whole, this seems the better interpretation. A model for the whole clause with this interpretation is “and [you will tell] others to burn it in the place outside the Temple walls that has been set aside for the Temple [for this purpose].” Block has made the interesting suggestion that in this context the Hebrew word for appointed place actually refers to an appointed person, somebody like a Temple guard, whose role it was to burn such leftovers. This is also a possible interpretation, which could be expressed as “and tell the person who has the responsibility for burning it to burn it outside the Temple walls.”

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 .