And … they will know that there has been a prophet among them: The reason why God tells Ezekiel to say “Thus says the Lord GOD” is so that the Israelites will know that Ezekiel is a prophet. It is important for translators to make this connection with verse 4 clear. One way to do this is by rearranging this verse and connecting it to the end of verse 4 as follows: “You are to say to them, ‘These are the words of the Lord GOD,’ 5 and they will know that they have a prophet among them” (Revised English Bible). Some languages may prefer to show the connection between these two verses by beginning verse 5 with “Say this, so that they will know that there has been a prophet among them” or “Do this, so that they will know that they have a prophet with them.” This is the first instance in the book where God does something to make the audience recognize his power and authority.

Translators must be careful how they render the word prophet. The primary role of the Old Testament prophet was to speak God’s message to the people of his own day.

Eventually the people will recognize that Ezekiel was a prophet of God whether they hear or refuse to hear. The verb hear includes the idea of obeying here, so possible models for this clause are “whether they listen to him and obey him or not” and “whether they obey him or refuse to heed his word.” It is easy to see how they will recognize him as God’s prophet if they listen to him, but it is an important theme in Ezekiel that when God acts, even unbelievers will be forced to recognize that it is God. This applies to the unbelieving foreign nations as much as to the disobedient Israelites. The reason why the Israelites will not listen to Ezekiel is explained thus: for they are a rebellious house. This theme of the Israelites being rebellious is repeated from the previous verses (see the comments on Ezek 2.3) and will be repeated again in later verses. The house here does not refer to a building, but to a group of people.

Translations have handled the phrase rebellious house in different ways as follows: “those rebels” (Good News Translation, Contemporary English Version), “rebellious breed” (New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh), “tribe of rebels” (New Jerusalem Bible), “set of rebels” (Jerusalem Bible), “rebels” (New English Bible), and “people who have turned against me” (New Century Version). These are all adequate renderings.

Models for this verse are:

• They are such a rebellious group that they may or may not heed your message. But whether they do or not, they will know that there has been a prophet among them.

• They may or may not pay attention to your message since they are such rebels, but they will certainly know that a prophet has been among them.

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 .