No eye pitied you …: Some translations try to reflect the Hebrew idiom here; for example, New International Version has “No one looked on you with pity.” However, many simply ignore the figurative language; for example, Contemporary English Version says “Not one person loved you.” It is best to find a simple natural expression that conveys the meaning here accurately. The Hebrew verb rendered pitied usually means “to spare” (see 7.4), but it is often used together with the word for compassion to refer to feelings of love (so Contemporary English Version) and being sorry for someone (so New Century Version), so that the person is spared from a bad fate.

To do any of these things to you out of compassion for you: If anyone had felt sorry for the newborn baby, or loved her as we might expect a mother would, they would have given her the basic care she needed. But this baby was totally unloved and no one cared for her. These things refer to the four things mentioned in the previous verse. The first sentence of this verse may be rendered “No one took pity on you or loved you enough to do any of these things for you.”

But you were cast out on the open field: Although many translations use the verb “cast” (Revised Standard Version, King James Version) or “thrown” (New Revised Standard Version, Good News Translation, Contemporary English Version, New International Version, New Century Version, New King James Version , New American Standard Bible, Revised English Bible, New American Bible), it is best not to give the impression that the baby was violently thrown to the ground. Rather, the Hebrew expression here is a technical one for the practice of putting unwanted babies out in the open and letting them die. So this clause means the baby was left out in the bush, unprotected and uncared for, to die. New Living Translation (1996) says “you were dumped in a field and left to die.” Another good model is “but you were left without protection in an open field.”

For you were abhorred is literally “in the abhorrence of your person.” Revised Standard Version and most other translations take this phrase to refer to the feelings of hatred, loathing and revulsion that those who should have cared for this child had, but it may also be a technical expression for the parents renouncing their child. So this phrase may be rendered “when [or, because] they hated you so much” or “when [or, because] they rejected you.” New English Bible and Revised English Bible render this phrase as “in your own filth” (similarly New Jerusalem Bible), which follows a very early tradition that takes the Hebrew literally as “in the filthiness of your person.” This rendering pictures the baby lying dirty and in its own blood, as described in verse 6. This meaning is possible but less likely.

On the day that you were born balances the similar terminology at the beginning of verse 4 and is a stylistic device to close this subsection. So it is best to translate this clause as a summary statement; for example, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch has “So that’s what happened to you, when you were born.” But it would not be wrong to translate it more closely with the previous clause, which Good News Translation does by saying “When you were born, no one loved you.”

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 .