Thus you longed for the lewdness of your youth …: This verse changes from third person to second person singular to refer to Oholibah. Such changes often occur in Hebrew narrative without significance to the meaning. So translators may retain the third person; for example, Contemporary English Version begins this verse with “And she longed for the days when she was a young prostitute….” The connector Thus renders the Hebrew waw conjunction, which Contemporary English Version translates “And.” But other translations take the change in the pronouns to show that this verse is a summary of Oholibah’s immoral actions. For this reason Revised Standard Version uses the connector Thus. Other possible conjunctions that indicate a summary here are “So” (New International Version, Revised English Bible) and “In that way.” The Hebrew verb rendered longed for has the idea of turning back to something that has previously been left behind (compare Good News Translation “wanted to repeat” and New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh “reverted to”). “Wanted to do again” is an acceptable rendering. The Hebrew word for lewdness is a general term for morally unacceptable actions, especially of a sexual nature (see 16.27, where it is rendered “lewd behavior”). Good News Translation says “immorality,” and New Century Version has “sinful things.” The immorality that Oholibah returned to was that of your youth, that is, the time when the Israelites were in Egypt before the Exodus (see Ezek 23.3).

When the Egyptians handled your bosom and pressed your young breasts: These clauses balance the similar words in verse 3 (see the comments there) to close this subsection of the discourse. But the Hebrew text here is a little different from that in Revised Standard Version, and some translations try to reflect it; for example, New American Standard Bible has “when the Egyptians handled your bosom because of the breasts of your youth” (similarly King James Version / New King James Version). The difference lies in one Hebrew word, in which one letter is different. The Hebrew text means “because of” and ends with the letter for “n.” Revised Standard Version and most modern translators believe that a copyist made a mistake and should have written the letter for “d,” which forms the word meaning “to press/squeeze” (see Ezek 23.3). Hebrew Old Testament Text Project supports this reading, which makes much more sense in the context. We recommend following Revised Standard Version and other modern translations in this instance. Translators may say “when the Egyptians caressed your nipples and stroked your young breasts” or “when the Egyptians played with your young body.”

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 .