Who say introduces the advice of the twenty-five men to the other people of Jerusalem.

Revised Standard Version interprets their words against a background of insecurity, that is, these leaders knew that the Babylonian army might attack Jerusalem again, even though the fighting had stopped for the moment. Therefore they said The time is not near to build houses, that is, there is no point in rebuilding the houses destroyed in the fighting, and all the resources should be spent on strengthening the city (so also New Revised Standard Version, New King James Version , Revised English Bible, New Jerusalem Bible, Bible en français courant). They also said this city is the caldron, and we are the flesh, which seems to support this interpretation, since they describe themselves as meat being boiled in a cooking pot. The Hebrew word for flesh means “meat” (Good News Translation) in this context. A caldron is a large metal cooking pot in which food is boiled. Like the traditional picture of the missionary in the cannibals’ cooking pot, they know they will die soon. The New Oxford Annotated Bible note suggests that the caldron represents the walls of the city that cannot protect them. They’ll be cooked (or destroyed) anyway.

But there are problems with this interpretation. The Revised Standard Version footnote shows that the Hebrew clause rendered The time is not near to build houses may be a question that reads “Is not the time near to build houses?” This is a rhetorical question that implies it is time to start building again; for example, New International Version has “Will it not soon be time to build houses?” Compare Good News Translation, which turns the question into a statement, saying “We will soon be building houses again.” Contemporary English Version, New Living Translation, New Century Version, Jerusalem Bible, New American Bible, and Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch (1982) also follow this interpretation. According to it, the leaders must have felt out of danger and that life was about to return to normal. But if they were feeling secure, why did they describe themselves as meat being boiled in a cooking pot? Some translations try to explain this by adding that, as long as they were in the pot, it protected them from the fire, as if being boiled to death was better than being grilled on the coals; for example, Contemporary English Version adds “but at least the pot keeps us from being burned in the fire” (similarly Good News Translation). Others suggest that these leaders compared themselves to the best cuts of meat (so New Century Version), which are not thrown out like the gristle and sinew (that is, the people who had already gone into exile) Neither of these approaches is particularly convincing because they add words to the text that are not in the Hebrew.

A better alternative is to understand the caldron, not as a cooking pot, but as a different type of container. The Hebrew word for caldron can refer to other types of pots (compare Exo 27.3), perhaps even storage pots, in which food can be kept safe from animals and insects; for example, New Living Translation renders the last half of this verse as “This city is like an iron pot. We are safe inside it like meat in a pot.” According to this understanding of the caldron, the leaders were feeling safe in Jerusalem, just like food that is kept safe in an iron storage pot with a secure lid. In verse 11 God says the leaders will be taken out of the pot and killed at the borders of Israel, which seems to support this understanding that the caldron is a picture of security.

Other suggestions for understanding this quote from the leaders have also been made. King James Version follows an old Jewish interpretation for the first clause, saying “It [that is, the danger of death] is not near; let us build houses.” However, this rendering strains the Hebrew. New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh assumes the leaders had taken over the houses and land of those who had been taken into exile. They were now rich and, as long as the fighting did not start again, they did not need to worry about where they were going to live. Therefore they said, “There is no need now to build houses,” which shows a cynical disregard of the needs of others, especially the poor. Others have understood the reference to “building houses” figuratively, so that the leaders were discussing the need to establish large families, possibly by means of marriages that were forbidden in the Law.

The opinions of translators and scholars on this quotation are so widely divided that it is difficult to decide which interpretation is best. There is no way of deciding whether the first clause is a statement or a question. However, what is clear is that, despite the initial impression, the picture of the caldron is a positive one. It shows that the leaders in Jerusalem felt secure. To Ezekiel’s audience this imagery may have been ambiguous, but it is unlikely that such ambiguity can be retained in translation. For this reason caldron should probably not be translated specifically as “cooking pot” (Good News Translation, Contemporary English Version), but by a more general expression, such as “iron pot” (New Living Translation) or “iron container.”

A model for this verse is:

• They say, ‘Isn’t it time to start building houses again? [or, We will soon be building houses again.] The city is like an iron storage pot, and we are safe in it, like meat that is stored away safely.’

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 .