And you, O son of man …: God continues to speak to Ezekiel here. Some languages may need to follow Good News Translation and identify the speaker at this point, even though the Hebrew does not do so. For son of man (International Children’s Bible “human being”), see the comments on 2.1.

Take a sharp sword: Swords were large knives used as weapons for fighting. A short sword was about half a meter (1.5 feet) long, but swords could be as long as a meter (3 feet) or more. For those situations where swords are unknown, a term for a large knife, perhaps a bush knife or machete, may be used, or even a descriptive expression such as “large knife for war.” Such a knife should be at least half a meter long, not just a short dagger.

Use it as a barber’s razor and pass it over your head and your beard: God tells Ezekiel to use the sword as a razor to cut off all his hair and shave his beard. It is not necessary to explicitly mention the barber’s razor, as long as the meaning is clear (so Good News Translation, Contemporary English Version, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch). Some scholars have suggested that the sword here simply means a sharp blade, or any kind of knife or razor, because it would be very difficult to shave one’s own head with a sword. However, the next verse develops a strong theme based on the sword, and the picture of a person’s hair being cut with a sword would have reminded Ezekiel’s audience of the humiliation of prisoners of war (see 2 Sam 10.4-5 and Isa 7.20 for examples of victorious armies cutting off the hair and shaving the beards of people they had defeated in war to humiliate them). Therefore it is best not to disturb the impact of the picture of Ezekiel using an unwieldy sword to cut his own hair.

Then take balances for weighing, and divide the hair: Balances for weighing are “scales” (Good News Translation). It is not necessary to explicitly mention scales here, provided the meaning is clear; for example, Contemporary English Version renders this sentence as “Weigh the hair and divide it into three equal piles.” It will be desirable in some languages to complete the sense of divide the hair by adding “into three parts” (Good News Translation), “into three lots” (Revised English Bible) or “into three equal piles” (Contemporary English Version), even though the Hebrew lacks these words. However, since the next verse indicates clearly that the hair should be divided into three parts, here translators may say “Then take scales and divide the hair into equal parts.” What is important is that verses 1 and 2 read smoothly and naturally.

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 .