For Son of man (International Children’s Bible “Human being”),

Speak to your people and say to them: New Living Translation says “give your people this message,” and Contemporary English Version has “warn your people by saying,” which includes an indication of the tone of the message. Your people refers to Ezekiel’s fellow Israelites, who are in exile with him.

If I bring the sword upon a land may be rendered “If I send an enemy to invade a country” (Contemporary English Version). Instead of “invade,” translators may use “attack” or “make war with.” Sword is an image for war (see the comments on 11.8). A land refers to any country, but not specifically Israel.

And the people of the land take a man from among them, and make him their watchman: The people of the land refers to the inhabitants of the unspecified country. They take a man from among them, and make him their watchman, that is, they “choose one of their men to stand guard” (New International Reader’s Version). For watchman see 3.17. Good News Translation has “lookout.”

The second half of this verse begins a long conditional sentence that continues to the end of verse 4. The sentence lists a number of actions, each of which is dependent on the previous one, thus: “If A happens, and then if B happens, and then if C happens, finally D will happen.” In those languages where such an extended conditional sentence is unnatural, translators may need to break up the sentence into shorter sentences, as Good News Translation has done. Contemporary English Version does this by rendering the last half of this verse as “Someday, I, the LORD, may send an enemy to invade a country. And suppose its people choose someone to stand watch.”

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 .