Ezechiel 5:1
And thou, son of man, take thee a sharp knife that shaveth the hair: and cause it to pass over thy head, and over thy beard: and take thee a balance to weigh in, and divide the hair.
Open Ezechiel 5:1 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Et tu, fili hominis, sume tibi gladium acutum, radentem pilos, et assumes eum et duces per caput tuum et per barbam tuam, et assumes tibi stateram ponderis et divides eos.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- Καὶ σύ, υἱὲ ἀνθρώπου, λάβε σεαυτῷ ῥομφαίαν ὀξεῖαν ὑπὲρ ξυρὸν κουρέως, κτήσῃ αὐτὴν σεαυτῷ, καὶ ἐπάξεις αὐτὴν ἐπὶ τὴν κεφαλήν σου καὶ ἐπὶ τὸν πώγωνά σου. καὶ λήμψῃ ζυγὸν σταθμίων καὶ διαστήσεις αὐτούς·
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וְאַתָּ֨ה בֶן אָדָ֜ם קַח לְךָ֣ חֶ֣רֶב חַדָּ֗ה תַּ֤עַר הַגַּלָּבִים֙ תִּקָּחֶ֣נָּה לָּ֔ךְ וְהַעֲבַרְתָּ֥ עַל רֹאשְׁךָ֖ וְעַל זְקָנֶ֑ךָ וְלָקַחְתָּ֥ לְךָ֛ מֹאזְנֵ֥י מִשְׁקָ֖ל וְחִלַּקְתָּֽם
Haydock's commentary
That. Hebrew, "the scissors of clippers." The same term is used for clipping sheep as for cutting hair. Shaving was not probably then in use.
Beard, as in mourning or for ignominy, 2 Kings x. 4., and Jeremias xlvii. 5.
Balance, to shew that God does nothing unjustly. (Calmet)
The hair. Literally, "them." (Haydock)
This was to be done before he lay down. Hew was to burn, cut, and divide the hair as the siege represented on the tile advanced, to denote that some should perish in the city by famine, others by the sword, while a few should be scattered among the nations: yet of these a small number should be gathered round Godolias, and perish with him, or in Egypt, &c., and the rest be thence led captive to Babylon.
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Jerome The Letters of St. Jerome, To Magnus an Orator of Rome
2. You ask me at the close of your letter why it is that sometimes in my writings I quote examples from secular literature and thus defile the whiteness of the church with the foulness of heathenism. I will now briefly answer your question. You would never have asked it, had not your mind been wholly taken up with Tully; you would never have asked it had you made it a practice instead of studying Volcatius to read the holy scriptures and the commentators upon them. For who is there who does not know that both in Moses and in the prophets there are passages cited from Gentile books and that Solomon proposed questions to the philosophers of Tyre and answered others put to him by them. …