They shall not sell or exchange any of it: Depending on the decision made in verse 13, the pronoun it refers either to the land allocated to the Levites, or to both sections of the holy land. This land is always to remain the property of the Levites in the one instance, or the Levites and the priests in the other. So the pronoun they can refer either to the Levites, or to the priests and Levites. Sell means to give something to someone else for money, and exchange implies giving something to another and getting something else in return that is not money.

They shall not alienate this choice portion of the land: Alienate is to cause something to be owned by someone else with no reference to whether one gets anything in return. Good News Translation renders they shall not alienate as “none of it may be … transferred to someone else,” and New Century Version says “They are not to let anyone else own.” This choice portion of the land means it is “special land” (New Living Translation), “the best part of all the land” (Good News Translation; similarly Contemporary English Version, New International Version, New International Reader’s Version, New Century Version, New King James Version , Revised English Bible, New American Bible). Many languages will refer to it as “number one land.”

For it is holy to the LORD: It is not the “best” land because it is especially fertile or is good land for gardens and produces good crops, but “because it belongs to the LORD” (New Century Version; compare verses 9-12).

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 .