You shall present them before the LORD: God tells Ezekiel to bring the bull and ram to the Temple as an offering. For the Hebrew verb rendered present, which is literally “bring near,” see verse 22, where it is translated “offer.” Since the LORD is speaking here, it is appropriate to refer to him in the first person; for example, Good News Translation says “and bring them to me,” and Contemporary English Version has “and bring them to my temple.” Another possible model is “and bring them to me, Yahweh.”

And the priests shall sprinkle salt upon them and offer them up as a burnt offering to the LORD: These two clauses make the role of the priests explicit (compare verse 22). In the ancient world people put salt on meat and other food to preserve it and stop it going bad, so salt became a symbol for something that will last for a very long time. The priests put it on the sacrifices to symbolize the unbreakable covenant between God and his people (see Lev 2.13; Num 18.19; 2 Chr 13.5). Here it seems that the priests put the salt on the animals before they kill them. Sprinkle renders a general Hebrew word, meaning “throw” (New Revised Standard Version, New Century Version, New King James Version , New American Standard Bible, Revised English Bible, Complete Jewish Bible, New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh). This word probably indicates that they must throw handfuls of salt over the animals. For burnt offering, see 40.38. A model for these two clauses is “Then the priests must throw salt on the animals and burn them completely as sacrifices to please me.”

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 .