Again he measured a thousand, and it was a river that I could not pass through, for the water had risen: For the fourth time the guide measured a thousand cubits, that is, 500 meters (560 yards). By now Ezekiel and his guide were 2,000 meters (2,240 yards) from the Temple wall. At this distance, it was a river that I could not pass through. It is likely that the guide again told Ezekiel to go across the water (see the comments on the next verse), but it was too deep for him to wade through it. One way to express this clause is “But now the stream had become a river that was too deep for me to walk through.” For the water had risen gives the reason why Ezekiel could not wade through the water. It had become too deep.

The water had become so deep that it was deep enough to swim in. By now it was presumably about 2 meters (6 feet) deep—deep enough for a person to swim in and too deep for a person walk across. Good News Translation implies that a person could swim across the water, but the Hebrew does not actually say so. All Ezekiel says is that the water was deep enough to swim in, not that a person could swim across it.

A river that could not be passed through: Now Ezekiel calls it a river instead of water, which refers to a much smaller stream. To emphasize the size of the river, Ezekiel repeats that it could not be passed through by walking through it. New Century Version says “it was a river that no one could cross.”

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 .