Core Glossary
Core Glossary: Ezekiel
Per-term glossary for the Ezekiel curriculum, extending — and where indicated, reusing verbatim — the baseline Romans Language Package. All destination-language renderings are English. Risk tiers (Critical/High/Medium/Low) follow the same definitions established in the baseline doctrine_risk_registry.json:
- Critical: a dominant competing meaning (secular, legal, denominational, or cross-Testament collision) will produce confident misreading without deliberate correction. Human theologian review required.
- High: significant secular dilution, cultural erosion, or denominational/cross-Testament disagreement. Human theologian review required.
- Medium: some competing usage or reduced resonance, unlikely to be actively misunderstood with context. Native speaker review recommended.
- Low: minor/negligible risk. Automated review sufficient.
A new risk category specific to this curriculum is added: CROSS-TESTAMENT COLLISION, where an English word is already defined Critically or Highly in the baseline Romans package for its New Testament Pauline sense, and Ezekiel’s Old Testament prophetic sense differs enough that silent reuse would mislead readers moving between curricula.
Reused-Verbatim Baseline Terms (English rendering locked; do not alter)
| Term | Baseline Risk | Ezekiel Usage Note | Ezekiel-Specific Risk Adjustment |
|---|---|---|---|
| glory | Medium (baseline) | kavod — God’s visible, weighty, mobile presence; departs (chs. 10-11) and returns (ch. 43) to a specific place | Escalated to Critical for this curriculum: Ezekiel’s usage is concrete and spatial (a presence that literally leaves and returns to a building), a stronger claim than baseline’s general “honor/radiance” framing anticipates. |
| covenant | High (baseline) | berit — marriage-covenant (ch. 16), covenant of peace (34:25), everlasting covenant (16:60; 37:26) | High, reuse as-is; note added marital-covenant dimension (ch. 16) alongside baseline’s legal-contract drift warning. |
| righteousness / righteous | Critical (baseline) | tsedaqah/tsaddiq — conduct-based, temporally-assessed covenant right-living (ch. 18), determining continued covenant life, NOT forensic imputed status | CROSS-TESTAMENT COLLISION — Critical. See dedicated entry below. |
| sin | High (baseline) | chattah/avon/pesha — covenant transgression, moral guilt before a personal God | High, reuse as-is; Ezekiel additionally personifies guilt as inherited/transmitted across generations (ch. 18 explicitly corrects a popular proverb assuming this, see “Individual Responsibility” entry). |
| holy / sanctify | Medium/High (baseline) | qadash — God sanctifying His own name (20:41; 36:23), distinct grammatical subject from baseline’s usual sense of believers being sanctified | High. Same English word, different theological subject (God sanctifies Himself/His name, not primarily the believer) — must be distinguished. |
| sanctification | Medium (baseline) | hagiasmos-equivalent absent in Ezekiel; nearest OT parallel is the “new heart/new spirit” complex (ch. 36) | See “new heart / new spirit” entry below; not a direct lexical match, cross-reference only. |
| Lord / LORD | Critical (baseline) | Adonai YHWH (“Sovereign LORD”) — OT covenant name + sovereignty title, distinct from NT kyrios confession, though theologically continuous | CROSS-TESTAMENT COLLISION — Critical. See dedicated entry below. |
| God | Critical (baseline) | consistent usage; no adjustment needed | Critical, reuse as-is. |
| Holy Spirit / Spirit | Critical/Medium (baseline) | ruach — the same divine agent as baseline’s “Holy Spirit,” but Ezekiel’s Hebrew word also means “wind” and “breath,” creating a wordplay untranslatable into a single English word | Escalated to Critical for this curriculum. See “ruach (wind/breath/Spirit)” entry below. |
| David / seed of David | Low/Medium (baseline) | “David my servant” (34:23-24; 37:24-25) — a future messianic shepherd-king, understood typologically in Christian tradition | Medium-High. Denominational-transparency note required (see entry below). |
| resurrection | Critical (baseline) | Ezekiel 37’s dry-bones vision is a national-restoration metaphor explicitly interpreted by the text itself (37:11) as “the whole house of Israel,” not primarily individual bodily resurrection doctrine | CROSS-TESTAMENT COLLISION — Critical. See dedicated entry below. |
| Gentiles | Medium (baseline) | Ezekiel’s “nations” (goyim) in the oracles against the nations (chs. 25-32) is historical-political judgment vocabulary, not Paul’s Jew/Gentile covenant-inclusion argument | Medium. Do not silently equate “nations” with baseline “Gentiles” without noting the different argumentative context. |
| peace | Medium (baseline) | “covenant of peace” (34:25) — physical/national security under God’s rule, distinct from Romans 5:1’s forensic-judicial peace through justification | Medium. Reuse English word; note the different referent. |
| prophet / prophecy | Low (baseline) | Ezekiel is himself the prophetic speaker throughout; standard usage | Low, reuse as-is. |
New Terms Introduced by Ezekiel (Not in Baseline)
| Term | Original (Hebrew) | Transliteration | Category | Risk | Key Chapters | Definition | Translation/Rendering Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| son of man (Ezekiel’s usage) | בֶּן־אָדָם | ben-adam | Prophetic Address | Critical | 2, 3, and ~93 total occurrences | God’s address to the prophet emphasizing his mortal, creaturely frailty before divine glory | CROSS-TESTAMENT COLLISION. Must be explicitly distinguished from the NT title “the Son of Man” (Daniel 7:13-14; Mark 14:62), which is a different Hebrew/Aramaic phrase (bar enash) used in a wholly different, exalted sense. Silent reuse of “Son of Man” without this distinction is the single highest-risk term-collision in this curriculum. |
| ruach (wind/breath/Spirit) | רוּחַ | ruach | God / Restoration | Critical | 1, 3, 8, 11, 36, 37 (esp. 37:1,5,6,8,9,10,14) | A single Hebrew word covering “wind,” “breath,” and “Spirit” (the personal divine agent), used with deliberate wordplay across ch. 37 | English cannot reproduce the pun with one word. The destination material must explicitly state that “the Spirit” (v.1), “breath” (vv.5-6,8-10), and “wind” (v.9) all translate the identical Hebrew word, so readers see the vision’s argument (bodily restoration = a Spirit-work) rather than three unrelated images. |
| heart of stone / heart of flesh | לֵב הָאֶבֶן / לֵב בָּשָׂר | lev ha-even / lev basar | New Heart and New Spirit | Critical | 11:19; 36:26 | Hard, unresponsive covenant-disposition replaced by a soft, obedient one | Distinguish Hebrew lev (whole inner person: will, mind, moral disposition) from the narrower romantic/emotional sense dominant in contemporary English “heart” idiom. |
| new heart / new spirit | לֵב חָדָשׁ / רוּחַ חֲדָשָׁה | lev chadash / ruach chadashah | New Heart and New Spirit | Critical | 11:19; 36:26-27; cf. 37:14 | God’s unilateral gift of internal moral transformation enabling covenant obedience | Distinguish from contemporary secular self-improvement framing (“new you,” “growth mindset”); this is a divine, not self-generated, transformation. Directly continuous with baseline’s “Holy Spirit” doctrine — cross-reference explicitly. |
| soul / person (nephesh) | נֶפֶשׁ | nephesh | Individual Responsibility | Critical | 18 (esp. vv. 4, 20); throughout | The whole living person/self, not a detachable immortal component distinct from the body | Must not be rendered so as to imply Greek-philosophical body/soul dualism absent from the Hebrew term; “the person,” “the one,” or a glossed “soul (the whole self)” are safer than an unglossed “soul.” |
| righteous conduct (Ezekiel 18 sense) | צַדִּיק / צְדָקָה | tsaddiq / tsedaqah | Individual Responsibility | Critical | 14:14, 20; 18 (throughout); 33:12-19 | Personal, currently-assessed, conduct-based right-living that determines continuance in covenant life, reassessed at each point in a person’s life (18:24, 26-28) | CROSS-TESTAMENT COLLISION with baseline “righteousness”/“justification” (Romans’ forensic, apart-from-works, imputed righteousness). State plainly: Ezekiel 18 is not teaching salvation by works against Paul, nor is Paul overturning Ezekiel 18; they operate in different theological registers (temporal covenant-life-in-the-land vs. eternal forensic standing before God) and must be taught side by side with this distinction explicit, not silently harmonized or silently contradicted. |
| turn / repent | שׁוּב | shuv | Individual Responsibility | High | 3:19-21; 18:21-32; 33:11-19 | A behavioral change of moral direction/life-course, God’s explicitly stated preference over judgment | Distinguish from a merely emotional/internal sense of “feeling sorry”; shuv is fundamentally about a change of action. |
| watchman | צֹפֶה | tsopheh | Individual Responsibility | High | 3:16-21; 33:1-9 | A sentinel accountable for warning of danger, though not for the outcome of the warning once faithfully given | Reinforces the doctrine’s legal-liability structure (“blood on your own head” vs. “blood on the watchman’s head”) — worth stating explicitly as a distinct accountability logic from ch. 18’s direct individual-conduct argument. |
| idols (gillulim) | גִּלּוּלִים | gillulim | Judgment on Jerusalem and the Nations | High | 6, 8, 14, 16, 20, 22, 23, 33, 36, 37 (~39 occurrences) | Ezekiel’s own deliberately contemptuous coinage for idols (lit. “dung-pellets”/“shapeless logs”) | Standard English translations flatten the built-in insult to a neutral “idols”; the destination material should note the term’s deliberate crudeness so readers register Ezekiel’s tone, not just his content. |
| abomination(s) | תוֹעֵבָה | to’ebah | Judgment on Jerusalem and the Nations | High | 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 16, 18, 20, 22, 23, 33, 36, 43, 44 | Ritually and morally detestable practice, especially idol worship defiling sacred space | Contemporary usage of “abomination” is either archaic-sounding or narrowed to specific modern culture-war contexts; restore the specific referent (cultic defilement) each time. |
| bloodguilt | דָּמִים | damim | Judgment on Jerusalem and the Nations | High | 7:23; 9:9; 16:38; 18:13; 22:2-13; 24:6-9; 33:5-6 | Plural form denoting incurred legal/moral guilt for unjust violence, not merely “blood” or generic violence | ”Bloodshed” alone under-translates; gloss explicitly as “bloodguilt” — a specific legal category requiring recompense. |
| whole house of Israel | כׇּל־בֵּית יִשְׂרָאֵל | kol-beit Yisrael | Restoration and the Valley of Dry Bones | High | 37:11 (and throughout the book) | The entire covenant nation, addressed corporately | Controls the interpretation of ch. 37: primarily national/corporate restoration, not primarily a proof-text for individual resurrection doctrine. |
| dry bones / valley of dry bones | עֲצָמוֹת יְבֵשׁוֹת | atsamot yeveshot | Restoration and the Valley of Dry Bones | High | 37:1-14 | The visible remnant of judged, exiled, hope-abandoned Israel, pictured as a battlefield of the unburied dead | See “resurrection” entry below for the collision risk with NT individual-resurrection doctrine. |
| everlasting covenant | בְּרִית עוֹלָם | berit olam | Restoration and the Valley of Dry Bones | Medium-High | 16:60; 37:26 | God’s unilateral, permanent commitment to restored covenant relationship, even after covenant-breaking | Do not silently conflate with the NT’s distinct “new covenant” terminology (not itself present in Ezekiel’s own vocabulary) without comment. |
| glory departs / glory returns | כְּבוֹד־יְהוָה…וַיֵּעַל / מָלֵא | kevod-YHWH…vaya’al / mal’e | God’s Presence Departing and Returning | Critical | 10:4, 18-19; 11:22-23; 43:1-5 | God’s own visible presence deliberately, gradually withdraws from His defiled temple (chs. 10-11) and later returns to fill the restored temple (ch. 43) | The doctrinal anchor of this theme; must be cross-referenced as a deliberate matched pair, not read as two unrelated episodes. |
| for my name’s sake | לְמַעַן שְׁמִי | lema’an shemi | The Glory and Sovereignty of God | High | 20:9, 14, 22, 44; 36:22-23, 32 | God’s stated motivation for both judgment and restoration: protecting His own revealed character/reputation, not human merit | Risk of sounding like divine vanity if not carefully framed as covenant faithfulness to God’s own revealed character. |
| recognition formula (“know that I am the LORD”) | וִידַעְתֶּם/וְיָדְעוּ כִּי־אֲנִי יְהוָה | vi-yda’tem / ve-yad’u ki-ani YHWH | The Glory and Sovereignty of God | High | over 60 occurrences throughout the book | God’s acts (judgment and restoration alike) are designed to produce undeniable, self-evident recognition of His sovereign identity, even among hostile nations | Distinguish from a purely relational/experiential “knowing God” sense; this is a harder-edged claim about compelled, evidential recognition of sovereignty. |
| Sovereign LORD | אֲדֹנָי יְהוָה | Adonai YHWH | God | Critical | over 200 occurrences | Double divine title (mastery-title + covenant name), Ezekiel’s most frequent address for God | CROSS-TESTAMENT COLLISION — see dedicated entry below. |
| David my servant | דָּוִיד עַבְדִּי | David avdi | Restoration and the Valley of Dry Bones | High | 34:23-24; 37:24-25 | A future singular shepherd-king “David,” typologically fulfilled in Christ per Christian tradition | Denominational-transparency note required: present the Christian typological reading plainly while acknowledging it as an interpretive claim, not the passage’s only historically-attested reading (cf. Jewish messianic expectation traditions). |
| prince (nasi, not melek) | נָשִׂיא | nasi | The Vision of the New Temple | High | 40-48 (throughout, e.g. 44:3; 45:7-9; 46:2-18) | A deliberately non-royal title for the restored community’s leader, distinct from the earlier “king” (melek) language | Flag the title-change explicitly as theologically significant — limited human authority under God’s own kingship exercised from the temple — not merely stylistic variation. |
| river of life | הַנַּחַל | ha-nachal | The Vision of the New Temple | High | 47:1-12 | A miraculously deepening river flowing from the temple, healing the Dead Sea and sustaining healing trees | Widely and legitimately connected in Christian tradition to Revelation 22:1-2 and Christ as living water (John 4, 7:37-39); present as a later canonical development, with denominational-transparency framing, not Ezekiel’s own fully explicit meaning. |
| Yahweh Shammah (“The LORD is there”) | יְהוָה שָׁמָּה | YHWH shammah | God’s Presence Departing and Returning | High | 48:35 | The restored city’s final name — the book’s closing word, resolving the departure/return theme | Risk is chiefly omission (rarely reached in typical study curricula); ensure it is retained as the literary and theological capstone of the whole book. |
| Gog and Magog | גּוֹג וּמָגוֹג | Gog u-Magog | Judgment on Jerusalem and the Nations | High | 38-39 | A climactic hostile coalition against restored Israel, defeated entirely by God | Distinguish from Revelation 20:8’s later, distinct apocalyptic reuse of the same names; treat Ezekiel 38-39 on its own historical-prophetic terms without asserting a simple one-to-one identical prophecy, and note the range of scholarly/denominational readings (near-historical vs. purely eschatological). |
| unclean / clean | טָמֵא / טָהוֹר | tame / tahor | The New Heart and New Spirit | Medium | 36:17, 25, 29 | Cultic-covenantal purity categories describing the land’s and people’s condition, restored through God’s cleansing | Distinguish from purely hygienic/modern-medical “clean/unclean” associations. |
| cherubim (Ezekiel’s usage) | כְּרוּבִים | keruvim | The Glory and Sovereignty of God | High | 1 (as chayot), 10 (named), 28:14, 16; 41:18-20 | Composite, winged, multi-faced throne-attendant/guardian beings | Sharply distinguish from the “cute infant cherub” popular image (Valentine’s Day iconography); Ezekiel’s cherubim are awe-inducing and formidable. |
Dedicated Entries: Cross-Testament Collision Terms
These four terms carry the highest risk in this curriculum because the baseline Romans package already fixes their English rendering with a specific NT/Pauline theological content, and Ezekiel’s OT usage — while related — is not identical. Silent reuse without explicit distinction is expected to produce confident cross-Testament misreading.
”Righteousness” / “righteous”
- Baseline (Romans) sense: forensic, imputed, apart-from-works right standing before God, received by faith alone (Romans 3:21-4:25).
- Ezekiel 18 sense: conduct-based, temporally-reassessed covenant right-living, determining ongoing covenant life or death within Israel’s historical-national experience.
- Required handling: state both senses side by side wherever Ezekiel 18 is taught alongside Romans; do not present Ezekiel 18 as contradicting justification by faith, nor present it as a mere restatement of Pauline forensic righteousness. These are complementary revelations at different points in redemptive history and different theological registers (temporal covenant life vs. eternal forensic standing).
”Lord” / “LORD”
- Baseline (Romans) sense: kyrios — the exclusive, supreme, worship-worthy lordship of the risen Christ, confessed as the salvation-confession of Romans 10:9.
- Ezekiel sense: Adonai YHWH — the OT covenant name YHWH paired with a mastery/sovereignty title, printed in English tradition as small-caps “LORD” to mark the divine name.
- Required handling: explicitly identify “LORD” (all-caps) in Ezekiel as God’s own covenant name, theologically continuous with but linguistically distinct from the NT confession “Jesus is Lord”; note the small-caps typographic convention and its potential loss in some digital formats.
”Spirit” (ruach / Holy Spirit)
- Baseline (Romans) sense: the personal, divine third Person of the Trinity (pneuma hagion), distinct from any impersonal force.
- Ezekiel sense: ruach — the identical underlying Hebrew word also means “wind” and “breath,” with all three senses deliberately in play across Ezekiel 37 and elsewhere.
- Required handling: state explicitly, on first substantive use, that Ezekiel’s “Spirit,” “breath,” and “wind” all translate one Hebrew word, and that this same Spirit is continuous with (not merely analogous to) the NT’s Holy Spirit.
”Resurrection”
- Baseline (Romans) sense: Christ’s own bodily, historical, once-for-all resurrection from death (Romans 1:4; 4:25; 6:4-5; 8:11) — never to be conflated with reincarnation, rebirth-cycle, or corporate metaphor.
- Ezekiel 37 sense: a vivid, resurrection-shaped metaphor for the national, corporate restoration of exiled Israel, explicitly self-interpreted by the text (37:11) as “the whole house of Israel,” not a teaching statement about individual life-after-death.
- Required handling: present Ezekiel 37 primarily as national-restoration prophecy on its own terms; note that later biblical revelation (Daniel 12:2; John 5:28-29; 1 Corinthians 15) legitimately develops individual bodily resurrection hope using resurrection-shaped imagery in continuity with this passage, but do not flatten Ezekiel 37 into a direct proof-text for individual resurrection doctrine without this distinction stated.
Risk Summary
| Risk Tier | Count | Review Routing |
|---|---|---|
| Critical | 11 | Human theologian review required |
| High | 17 | Human theologian review required |
| Medium | 8 | Native speaker review recommended |
| Low | 1 (baseline reuse, “prophet/prophecy”) | Automated review sufficient |
End of 08_core_glossary.md.
Critical Risk Terms
Glory
Approved rendering: glory
Transliteration: glory / kavod
Doctrine: The Glory and Sovereignty of God
Rejected alternatives: glory days (nostalgic secular usage), a glory hound (self-seeking pejorative), presence (too vague a substitute that loses the term’s visible, weighty character)
Original: כָּבוֹד יְהוָה
Category: God
INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE, rendering locked exactly as baseline. Baseline fixes this Medium-risk against abstract ‘honor/radiance’ secular drift (glory days, glory hound). ESCALATED to Critical for Ezekiel: kavod is a concrete, spatial, mobile divine phenomenon that visibly departs from (chs. 8-11) and returns to (ch. 43) one specific physical building. Readers must be told this is a literal, historical claim about a located presence, not a figure of speech or an abstract quality.
Righteousness
Approved rendering: righteousness
Transliteration: righteousness / tsedaqah, tsaddiq
Doctrine: Individual Responsibility for Sin
Rejected alternatives: self-righteous / holier-than-thou (dominant negative contemporary connotation), a new covenant-specific coinage e.g. ‘covenant-rightness’ (rejected to preserve cross-curriculum lexical consistency)
Original: צְדָקָה / צַדִּיק
Category: Individual Responsibility
INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE, rendering locked exactly — do NOT coin a separate English word to distinguish registers. CRITICAL CROSS-TESTAMENT COLLISION: baseline fixes this term to Romans’ forensic, imputed, apart-from-works standing before God (3:21-4:25). Ezekiel 18’s righteousness is conduct-based and temporally reassessed at each point in a life (18:24,26-28), governing continued covenant life in the land, NOT eternal forensic status. State both registers side by side every time Ezekiel 18 is taught; never present one as contradicting or superseding the other.
Lord
Approved rendering: Lord / LORD
Transliteration: LORD / YHWH
Doctrine: The Glory and Sovereignty of God
Rejected alternatives: boss / master (loses exclusivity), a British Lord (aristocratic-title sense)
Original: יְהוָה
Category: God
INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE, rendering locked exactly. CRITICAL CROSS-TESTAMENT COLLISION: baseline’s Critical rating concerns the NT kyrios confession of Christ’s exclusive lordship (Romans 10:9). Ezekiel’s small-caps ‘LORD’ is God’s own OT covenant name YHWH, theologically continuous with but linguistically distinct from that NT confession. Actively name the typographic small-caps convention, since case distinction is easily lost in digital/mobile reading formats.
God
Approved rendering: God
Transliteration: God / Elohim, YHWH
Doctrine: The Glory and Sovereignty of God
Rejected alternatives: a higher power (vague recovery-program substitute), the universe (impersonal New-Age substitute)
Original: אֱלֹהִים / יהוה
Category: God
INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE, rendering locked exactly. Ezekiel’s God is emphatically personal, self-naming, and active in history — physically departing from and returning to a temple (10-11; 43) — not a placeholder concept. The same guard against vague spiritual-but-not-religious substitution documented in baseline applies throughout.
Holy Spirit
Approved rendering: Spirit
Transliteration: Spirit / ruach, ruchi
Doctrine: The New Heart and New Spirit
Rejected alternatives: good vibes / positive energy (vague wellness-culture substitute)
Original: רוּחַ (רוּחִי) / רוּחַ הַקֹּדֶשׁ
Category: God
INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE (there rated Medium); ESCALATED to Critical for Ezekiel. Reuse baseline rendering ‘Spirit’/‘Holy Spirit’ exactly where the personal divine agent is unambiguously in view (e.g. ‘my Spirit,’ 37:14; 36:27). Must be explicitly tied to the NT Holy Spirit doctrine as direct continuity, not an unrelated OT anticipation — see also the dedicated ‘ruach_wind_breath_spirit’ entry below for the wordplay this same underlying Hebrew word carries.
Resurrection
Approved rendering: resurrection
Transliteration: resurrection / ha-tichyeynah ha-atsamot
Doctrine: Restoration and the Valley of Dry Bones
Rejected alternatives: reincarnation / rebirth-cycle (explicitly excluded by baseline), a generic secular ‘comeback’/revival metaphor
Original: אֲנָשִׁים… חַיִל גָּדוֹל / הֲתִחְיֶינָה הָעֲצָמוֹת הָאֵלֶּה
Category: Restoration
INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE, rendering locked exactly. CRITICAL CROSS-TESTAMENT COLLISION — the core passage’s highest-risk term. Baseline fixes ‘resurrection’ to Christ’s own bodily, historical, once-for-all rising (Romans 1:4; 4:25; 6:4-5). Ezekiel 37 is explicitly self-interpreted (37:11) as the national/corporate restoration of exiled Israel (‘the whole house of Israel’), not primarily a proof-text for individual bodily resurrection doctrine. State plainly that later revelation (Daniel 12:2; John 5:28-29; 1 Corinthians 15) legitimately develops individual resurrection hope using resurrection-shaped imagery in continuity with, but not identical to, this passage.
Sovereign Lord
Approved rendering: Sovereign LORD
Transliteration: Adonai YHWH
Doctrine: The Glory and Sovereignty of God
Rejected alternatives: Lord God (loses the distinctive double-title force), Master LORD (overly literal, unnatural English)
Original: אֲדֹנָי יְהוָה
Category: God
NEW TERM. A double divine title (mastery-title + covenant name) occurring over 200 times in Ezekiel, more than any other Hebrew Bible book. CROSS-TESTAMENT COLLISION: distinct from the NT kyrios confession — this is a self-designation from within the OT covenant relationship. Contemporary readers may read ‘Sovereign Lord’ as a merely intensified honorific rather than Ezekiel’s distinctive, near-liturgical formula asserting total divine mastery precisely at moments the prophet’s own competence is most in question (e.g. 37:3).
Ruach Wind Breath Spirit
Approved rendering: Spirit / breath / wind
Transliteration: ruach
Doctrine: Restoration and the Valley of Dry Bones
Rejected alternatives: a single transliterated loanword ‘ruach’ left unglossed (rejected — opaque to a general audience)
Original: רוּחַ
Category: God
NEW TERM, the core passage’s central wordplay. A single Hebrew word covers ‘wind,’ ‘breath,’ and ‘[Holy] Spirit,’ deliberately punned across Ezekiel 37:1,5,6,8,9,10,14 (also 1:4,12,20; 3:12,14; 8:3; 11:1,24; 36:26-27). English has no single word spanning all three senses. Must state explicitly, on first substantive use per document, that ‘the Spirit’ (v.1), ‘breath’ (vv.5-6,8-10), and ‘wind’ (v.9) all translate the identical underlying Hebrew term — the vision’s argument (bodily restoration IS a Spirit-work) depends on readers seeing this.
Soul Nephesh
Approved rendering: soul / person
Transliteration: nephesh
Doctrine: Individual Responsibility for Sin
Rejected alternatives: soul (unglossed) — imports Platonic body/soul dualism absent from nephesh
Original: נֶפֶשׁ
Category: Individual Responsibility
NEW TERM. The whole living person/self — not a detachable immortal component distinct from the body — grounding Ezekiel 18’s individual moral accountability (‘the person who sins is the one who will die,’ 18:4,20). Prefer ‘the person’ or ‘the one’ as primary rendering; where ‘soul’ is retained for readability, attach a standing gloss (‘soul’ here means the whole living self, not a separable immortal part).
Heart Of Stone And Flesh
Approved rendering: heart of stone / heart of flesh
Transliteration: lev ha-even / lev basar
Doctrine: The New Heart and New Spirit
Rejected alternatives: heart (unglossed, romantic/emotional default sense)
Original: לֵב הָאֶבֶן / לֵב בָּשָׂר
Category: New Heart and New Spirit
NEW TERM. The hard, unresponsive covenant-disposition God promises to remove, replacing it with a soft, obedient one (11:19; 36:26). Contemporary ‘heart’ idiom is saturated with romantic/emotional connotation (‘follow your heart,’ heart emojis); the Hebrew lev denotes the whole inner person — will, mind, and moral disposition, not merely feelings — and this must be made explicit or the promise reads as merely emotional renewal.
New Heart New Spirit
Approved rendering: new heart and new spirit
Transliteration: lev chadash / ruach chadashah
Doctrine: The New Heart and New Spirit
Rejected alternatives: a new you / a fresh start / growth mindset (contemporary secular self-improvement framing that wrongly locates agency in the self)
Original: לֵב חָדָשׁ / רוּחַ חֲדָשָׁה
Category: New Heart and New Spirit
NEW TERM. God’s unilateral gift of internal moral transformation enabling covenant obedience (36:26-27), the full development of 11:19’s earlier promise, directly anticipated in fulfillment at 37:14. Must be distinguished from contemporary secular self-improvement framing; this is God’s own unilateral, Spirit-given transformation of the whole inner person. Cross-reference explicitly with 11:19, 36:26-27, and 37:14 as one promise stated three times, and tie directly to baseline’s Holy Spirit/sanctification doctrines as OT-to-NT continuity.
Son Of Man
Approved rendering: son of man
Transliteration: ben-adam
Doctrine: “Son of Man”: The Prophet’s Creaturely Humility
Rejected alternatives: Son of Man (capitalized as a title, echoing the NT usage — explicitly rejected; Ezekiel’s phrase is lower-register and self-deflating, the opposite theological direction from the NT title)
Original: בֶּן־אָדָם
Category: Prophetic Office
NEW TERM, the single highest-priority term-collision in the whole curriculum. God’s address to the prophet, used roughly 93 times (first at 2:1), emphasizing Ezekiel’s mortal, creaturely frailty before overwhelming divine glory. CRITICAL CROSS-TESTAMENT COLLISION: contemporary and NT-trained readers strongly associate ‘Son of Man’ with Jesus’s own exalted messianic self-designation (Daniel 7:13-14; Mark 14:62), a different Hebrew/Aramaic phrase (bar enash) used in a wholly different, exalted sense. Ezekiel’s ben-adam does the opposite theological work — deflating the prophet’s status, not exalting him. Must be explicitly distinguished on first occurrence (2:1) in every document.
High Risk Terms
Covenant
Approved rendering: covenant
Transliteration: covenant / berit
Doctrine: Restoration and the Valley of Dry Bones
Rejected alternatives: a restrictive covenant (dominant contemporary legal-document sense)
Original: בְּרִית
Category: Covenant
INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE, rendering locked exactly. Baseline’s legal-document drift warning (property-deed ‘restrictive covenants’) applies unchanged. Ezekiel adds a marital-covenant dimension: Jerusalem’s broken marriage-covenant with God (ch. 16, 23), a ‘covenant of peace’ (34:25), and an ‘everlasting covenant’ (16:60; 37:26) — foreground the relational/marital register alongside the baseline’s legal-contract warning.
Sin
Approved rendering: sin
Transliteration: sin / chattah, avon, pesha
Doctrine: Judgment on Jerusalem and the Nations
Rejected alternatives: sinfully delicious (trivialized marketing usage)
Original: חַטָּאָה / עָוֹן / פֶּשַׁע
Category: Sin
INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE, rendering locked exactly. Baseline’s High-risk note on trivializing marketing usage and guilt-averse therapeutic culture applies unchanged. Ezekiel additionally names and directly refutes a popular ancient proverb assuming sin/guilt is inherited across generations (‘the parents eat sour grapes…’, 18:1-4) — this specific refutation is an added risk point beyond the baseline’s general note.
Holy
Approved rendering: holy / sanctify
Transliteration: holy / qadash, chalal
Doctrine: The Glory and Sovereignty of God
Rejected alternatives: holier-than-thou (negative idiom), holy cow / holy moly (content-free exclamation)
Original: קָדַשׁ / חָלַל
Category: Sanctification
INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE, rendering locked exactly. Baseline rates this Medium; ESCALATED to High for Ezekiel because the grammatical subject shifts: Ezekiel’s most theologically loaded use of this term is GOD sanctifying His OWN name/reputation before the nations (20:41; 36:23), not believers being sanctified by the Spirit (the baseline’s usual sense). Same English word, different subject and object — must be distinguished explicitly or readers will assume an identical doctrine to Romans’ sanctification.
Cherubim
Approved rendering: cherubim
Transliteration: keruvim (chayot in ch. 1)
Doctrine: The Glory and Sovereignty of God
Rejected alternatives: cherubs / cherub (invites the cute-infant popular image)
Original: כְּרוּבִים (חַיּוֹת)
Category: God
NEW TERM. Composite, multi-faced, winged throne-attendant and guardian beings (ch. 1 as ‘living creatures’; named explicitly in ch. 10; also 28:14,16; 41:18-20). Contemporary popular iconography (Valentine’s Day cupids, chubby winged infants) is nearly the opposite of Ezekiel’s terrifying, wheel-accompanied beings; must be actively corrected with explicit description.
For My Names Sake
Approved rendering: for my name’s sake
Transliteration: lema’an shemi
Doctrine: The Glory and Sovereignty of God
Rejected alternatives: for my own reputation (too casual/secular a register)
Original: לְמַעַן שְׁמִי
Category: God
NEW TERM. God’s stated motivation for both judging and restoring Israel: protecting His own revealed character among the nations, not human merit (20:9,14,22,44; 36:22-23,32; 39:25). Contemporary readers, shaped by suspicion of self-interested motive, risk hearing this as divine vanity rather than covenant faithfulness; must be actively reframed.
Recognition Formula
Approved rendering: then you will know that I am the LORD
Transliteration: vi-yda’tem / ve-yad’u ki-ani YHWH
Doctrine: The Glory and Sovereignty of God
Original: וִידַעְתֶּם/וְיָדְעוּ כִּי־אֲנִי יְהוָה
Category: God
NEW TERM. Ezekiel’s single most frequent refrain (60+ occurrences: 6:7; 20:44; 25:7,11,17; 26:6; 35:4,9,15; 36:23; 37:6,13; etc.). Contemporary readers default to a warm relational sense of ‘knowing God’ and risk missing Ezekiel’s harder-edged claim — undeniable, sometimes involuntary recognition of God’s sovereignty compelled by His own acts, even among hostile nations. Distinguish explicitly from devotional ‘knowing God’ language.
David My Servant
Approved rendering: David my servant
Transliteration: David avdi
Doctrine: Restoration and the Valley of Dry Bones
Rejected alternatives: King David returning literally (one possible but not the only historically-attested reading)
Original: דָּוִיד עַבְדִּי
Category: Covenant
NEW TERM. A future, singular shepherd-king called ‘David’ who will rule the reunited people forever (34:23-24; 37:24-25) — understood typologically in Christian tradition, not as the historical David returning literally. Requires denominational-transparency framing: Christian tradition reads this typologically as fulfilled in Christ; Jewish and some Christian traditions read with differing emphases on a future literal Davidic ruler. State the Christian typological reading plainly as an interpretive claim, not the text’s only documented reading.
Idols Gillulim
Approved rendering: idols
Transliteration: gillulim
Doctrine: Judgment on Jerusalem and the Nations
Rejected alternatives: a new coined English slur term (rejected — no standard English translation tradition exists for one; retain ‘idols’ with a tonal gloss instead)
Original: גִּלּוּלִים
Category: Judgment
NEW TERM. Ezekiel’s own deliberately contemptuous coinage for idols (literally ‘dung-pellets’/‘shapeless logs’), used roughly 39 times, almost exclusively by this prophet (chs. 6, 8, 14, 16, 20, 22, 23, 33, 36, 37). Every standard English translation flattens the built-in insult to a neutral ‘idols’; destination material must note the term’s deliberate crudeness so readers register Ezekiel’s contemptuous tone, not just his content.
Abomination
Approved rendering: abomination
Transliteration: to’ebah
Doctrine: God’s Presence Departing
Rejected alternatives: detestable practices (acceptable NLT gloss, may be paired but should not fully replace ‘abomination’)
Original: תוֹעֵבָה
Category: Judgment
NEW TERM. A ritually and morally detestable practice, especially idol worship defiling sacred space — the specific offense triggering the glory’s departure (chs. 8-11). Contemporary usage is either archaic-sounding or narrowed to modern culture-war contexts; the specific referent (cultic defilement of God’s own sacred space) must be restored explicitly each occurrence.
Bloodguilt
Approved rendering: bloodguilt
Transliteration: damim
Doctrine: Judgment on Jerusalem and the Nations
Rejected alternatives: bloodshed (under-translates the specific legal category)
Original: דָּמִים
Category: Judgment
NEW TERM. The plural Hebrew form specifically denotes incurred legal/moral guilt for unjust, violent killing (7:23; 9:9; 16:38; 18:13; 22:2-13; 24:6-9), not merely ‘blood’ or generic violence. Must be glossed explicitly as a specific covenant-violation category requiring recompense, on par with idolatry, not a lesser or separate category of wrongdoing.
Pride And The Fall Of Tyre
Approved rendering: pride and the fall of the king of Tyre
Transliteration: ga’avah / yaf’yekh
Doctrine: The Fall of Pride (Tyre Oracle)
Rejected alternatives: a direct, uncontested description of Satan’s fall (presented as settled fact — rejected; must be framed as one contested reading among several)
Original: גַּאֲוָה / יָפְיֵךְ
Category: Judgment
NEW TERM. The king of Tyre’s downfall oracle (28:12-19), using Eden and ‘anointed guardian cherub’ imagery to depict hubris leading to a fall from an exalted position. Popular tradition sometimes reads this as a direct, literal account of Satan’s primordial fall from heaven — a contested interpretive question across scholarship and denominations, not settled consensus. Present with transparency about the range of views.
Gog And Magog
Approved rendering: Gog and Magog
Transliteration: Gog u-Magog
Doctrine: Gog and Magog: The Final Assault on Restored Israel
Rejected alternatives: a renamed/modernized proper noun (rejected — retain established English Bible transliteration)
Original: גּוֹג וּמָגוֹג
Category: Judgment
NEW TERM. A climactic, hostile northern coalition assaulting restored Israel, decisively defeated by God alone (chs. 38-39). Contemporary readers may import Revelation 20:8’s later, distinct apocalyptic reuse of these names, or popular end-times media speculation, into Ezekiel’s own nearer setting. Treat Ezekiel 38-39 on its own terms while noting Revelation’s later, distinct reuse.
Harlotry Unfaithfulness
Approved rendering: harlotry / unfaithfulness
Transliteration: zenut
Doctrine: Judgment on Jerusalem and the Nations
Rejected alternatives: a fully sanitized paraphrase that removes all sexual imagery (rejected — erases the text’s deliberate shock value), a gratuitously graphic rendering exceeding the text’s own register (also rejected)
NEW TERM. Extended metaphor (ch. 16, 23) for covenant infidelity via idolatry and political alliances — among the most sexually explicit material in the Old Testament, deliberately shocking. Requires sensitive, non-sanitizing but non-gratuitous handling; risk of either softening the passage’s deliberate shock value or presenting it in a way that reads as gratuitous rather than prophetic indictment.
Turn Repent
Approved rendering: turn / repent
Transliteration: shuv
Doctrine: Individual Responsibility for Sin
Rejected alternatives: repent (unglossed) — risks either archaic street-preacher tone or a purely emotional ‘feeling sorry’ reading
Original: שׁוּב
Category: Individual Responsibility
NEW TERM. A behavioral change of moral direction/life-course — the Old Testament’s primary repentance vocabulary and God’s explicitly stated preference over judgment (3:19-21; 18:21-32; 33:11-19). Render primarily as ‘turn,’ with ‘repent’ as secondary gloss, explicitly flagged as behavioral, not emotional.
Watchman
Approved rendering: watchman
Transliteration: tsopheh
Doctrine: The Watchman and Pastoral Accountability
Rejected alternatives: sentinel (acceptable secondary gloss, not a full replacement given the term’s established English Bible-translation familiarity)
Original: צֹפֶה
Category: Individual Responsibility
NEW TERM. A sentinel accountable for warning a city of danger; Ezekiel’s model for the prophet’s own accountability, reused with expanded individual-responsibility teaching in ch. 33 (3:16-21; 33:1-9). The specific legal-liability structure (‘blood on your own head’ vs. ‘blood on the watchman’s head’) must be stated explicitly — a distinct accountability logic from ch. 18’s direct individual-conduct argument, not to be merged with it.
Sprinkle Clean Water
Approved rendering: sprinkle clean water
Transliteration: ve-zaraqti aleychem mayim tehorim
Doctrine: The New Heart and New Spirit
Rejected alternatives: a direct, unqualified identification with Christian baptism (rejected as overstating what Ezekiel’s own text explicitly states)
Original: וְזָרַקְתִּי עֲלֵיכֶם מַיִם טְהוֹרִים
Category: New Heart and New Spirit
NEW TERM. Ritual purification imagery (36:25) preceding and enabling the gift of the new heart/new spirit. Christian tradition widely (though not universally) connects this imagery typologically to Christian baptism; present as a legitimate later theological development with denominational-transparency framing, not asserted as Ezekiel’s own explicit meaning.
Whole House Of Israel
Approved rendering: the whole house of Israel
Transliteration: kol-beit Yisrael
Doctrine: Restoration and the Valley of Dry Bones
Original: כׇּל־בֵּית יִשְׂרָאֵל
Category: Restoration
NEW TERM. The entire covenant nation, addressed corporately — the vision’s own interpretive key (37:11), controlling the whole chapter’s meaning. This is the single most important interpretive control for Ezekiel 37 and must not be skipped; skipping it is the primary mechanism by which readers wrongly convert a national-restoration vision into an unqualified individual-resurrection proof-text.
Dry Bones
Approved rendering: dry bones
Transliteration: atsamot yeveshot
Doctrine: Restoration and the Valley of Dry Bones
Rejected alternatives: skeletons (invites a generic horror-movie/Halloween association)
Original: עֲצָמוֹת יְבֵשׁוֹת
Category: Restoration
NEW TERM. The visible remnant of judged, exiled, hope-abandoned Israel, pictured as a battlefield of the violently slain and unburied dead (37:1-2,9; Hebrew harugim, ‘the slain,’ v.9). The covenant-curse background (dishonorable, unburied death, cf. Deuteronomy 28:26) and the specific note that these are war-dead/judgment-dead, not merely ‘the dead’ generically, must be supplied explicitly.
Prince
Approved rendering: prince
Transliteration: nasi
Doctrine: The Vision of the New Temple
Rejected alternatives: king (the very title deliberately NOT used in chs. 40-48, rejected as a substitution that erases the point)
Original: נָשִׂיא
Category: Temple
NEW TERM. A deliberately non-royal title for the restored community’s leader in the temple-vision chapters (40-48), notably NOT ‘king’ (melek) — a vocabulary shift from earlier ‘David my servant… king’ language (37:24). Must be flagged explicitly as theologically significant: a chastened, non-absolute ruling office limiting human political authority under God’s own kingship exercised from the temple, not a stylistic variation. Also guard against ‘prince’ reading as merely a fairy-tale junior-royal title to modern ears.
River Of Life
Approved rendering: the river of life
Transliteration: ha-nachal
Doctrine: The Vision of the New Temple
Rejected alternatives: a direct, unqualified identification with Revelation 22’s river (rejected as overstating what Ezekiel’s own text explicitly states)
Original: הַנַּחַל
Category: Temple
NEW TERM. A miraculously deepening river flowing from beneath the temple threshold, healing the Dead Sea and sustaining fruit-bearing, leaf-healing trees (47:1-12). Widely and legitimately connected in Christian tradition to Revelation 22:1-2 and Christ as living water (John 4; 7:37-39); present as a later canonical development building on Ezekiel’s imagery, with denominational-transparency framing, not Ezekiel’s own fully explicit meaning.
Yahweh Shammah
Approved rendering: The LORD Is There (Yahweh Shammah)
Transliteration: YHWH shammah
Doctrine: God’s Presence Returning
Rejected alternatives: an English-only rendering with no transliteration (rejected — loses the literary/theological weight of the closing wordplay-name)
Original: יְהוָה שָׁמָּה
Category: Restoration
NEW TERM. ‘The LORD is there’ — the restored city’s final name (48:35), the book’s closing word, resolving the departure/return theme opened in chapters 1 and 10-11. Retain in dual form (transliteration alongside English gloss) every time it is cited, matching the baseline’s treatment of ‘Abba.’ Primary risk is neglect (curricula rarely reach ch. 48), not misunderstanding; must be retained and cross-referenced as the book’s theological capstone.
Medium Risk Terms
Sanctification
Approved rendering: sanctification
Transliteration: sanctification (no exact Hebrew lexical match)
Doctrine: The New Heart and New Spirit
Original: (no exact Hebrew lexical match; nearest OT parallel is the ‘new heart/new spirit’ complex)
Category: Sanctification
INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE, rendering locked exactly. Ezekiel has no single term matching Greek hagiasmos; use this baseline term only as a cross-reference pointer to Ezekiel’s ‘new heart/new spirit’ complex (11:19; 36:26-27; 37:14), not as a direct lexical match. Do not force a one-to-one word substitution.
Seed Of David
Approved rendering: seed of David
Transliteration: seed of David / zera David
Doctrine: Restoration and the Valley of Dry Bones
Rejected alternatives: descendant of David (acceptable modern-register gloss)
Original: זֶרַע דָּוִד
Category: Covenant
INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE, rendering locked exactly. Ezekiel does not use this exact phrase, but the Davidic-covenant background it names is directly presupposed by the ‘David my servant’ shepherd-king oracles (34:23-24; 37:24-25).
Gentiles
Approved rendering: Gentiles
Transliteration: Gentiles / goyim, ammim
Doctrine: Judgment on Jerusalem and the Nations
Rejected alternatives: non-believers (mistaken modern gloss, rejected identically to baseline)
Original: גּוֹיִם / עַמִּים
Category: Church
INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE, rendering locked exactly but usage restricted: reuse ‘Gentiles’ only where a genuine Jew/Gentile covenant-inclusion argument is in view. Ezekiel’s oracles against Ammon, Moab, Edom, Philistia, Tyre, Sidon, and Egypt (chs. 25-32) are historical-political judgment vocabulary, not Paul’s salvation-history argument (Romans 9-11); prefer ‘the nations’ as the primary rendering in those chapters and flag any cross-reference to Romans’ unity-of-Jew-and-Gentile doctrine as a distinct topic.
Peace
Approved rendering: peace
Transliteration: peace / shalom, berit shalom
Doctrine: Restoration and the Valley of Dry Bones
Rejected alternatives: world peace / inner peace (dominant secular senses)
Original: בְּרִית שָׁלוֹם
Category: Covenant
INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE, rendering locked exactly. Ezekiel’s ‘covenant of peace’ (34:25) denotes physical/national security under God’s protective rule — a related but distinct referent from Romans 5:1’s forensic-judicial peace through justification. State the different referent explicitly rather than assuming identity.
Living Creatures
Approved rendering: living creatures
Transliteration: chayot
Doctrine: The Glory and Sovereignty of God
NEW TERM. Ezekiel 1’s initial designation for the throne-attendant beings later named ‘cherubim’ in ch. 10 (same beings, different label at different narrative points). Cross-reference the ‘cherubim’ entry so readers connect the two names to one referent rather than assuming two distinct classes of being.
Wheels
Approved rendering: wheels
Transliteration: ofannim
Doctrine: The Glory and Sovereignty of God
Original: אוֹפַנִּים
Category: God
NEW TERM. The throne-chariot’s wheels, moved by the Spirit in coordination with the living creatures (1:15-21; 10:9-13). Contemporary readers risk trivializing this image via fringe UFO-adjacent popular readings rather than receiving it as a theological claim about God’s total mobility and sovereignty, directly supporting the presence-departing/returning doctrine.
Everlasting Covenant
Approved rendering: everlasting covenant
Transliteration: berit olam
Doctrine: Restoration and the Valley of Dry Bones
Original: בְּרִית עוֹלָם
Category: Covenant
NEW TERM. God’s unilateral, permanent commitment to restored covenant relationship, even after covenant-breaking (16:60; 37:26). Do not silently conflate with the NT’s distinct ‘new covenant’ terminology, which Ezekiel itself never uses; note thematic continuity without assuming lexical identity.
Iniquity
Approved rendering: iniquity
Transliteration: avon
Doctrine: Judgment on Jerusalem and the Nations
Original: עָוֹן
Category: Sin
NEW TERM. OBSOLESCENCE RISK, not false-friend risk: guilt or the liability/consequence borne for sin, symbolically carried by the prophet in the sign-act of lying on his side (4:4-6). Archaic and formal in ordinary contemporary speech but carries no strong competing secular meaning; needs a plain gloss (‘guilt,’ ‘the weight of sin’) rather than active correction of a wrong assumed definition.
Rebellious House
Approved rendering: rebellious house
Transliteration: beit meri
Doctrine: Judgment on Jerusalem and the Nations
Original: בֵּית מְרִי
Category: Judgment
NEW TERM. A recurring designation for Israel throughout Ezekiel’s early chapters (chs. 2-3, 12, etc.), naming the nation’s covenant-breaking character. Risk of hearing ‘rebellious’ in a mild, modern teenage-defiance sense rather than the text’s covenant-treason sense.
Sword
Approved rendering: sword
Transliteration: chereb
Doctrine: Judgment on Jerusalem and the Nations
Original: חֶרֶב
Category: Judgment
NEW TERM. God’s own instrument of judgment, personified and ‘sharpened’ against Jerusalem (21:9-11). Contemporary readers may aestheticize ‘sword’ through fantasy-genre associations rather than reading it as concrete historical military judgment referring to Babylon’s actual 586 BC invasion and siege.
Day Of The Lord
Approved rendering: the day of the LORD
Transliteration: yom YHWH / ha-qets ba
Doctrine: Judgment on Jerusalem and the Nations
Rejected alternatives: the end of the world (modern apocalyptic pop-culture framing)
Original: יוֹם יְהוָה / הַקֵּץ בָּא
Category: Judgment
NEW TERM. A fixed prophetic idiom for decisive divine judgment (chs. 6-7). Risk of being read through modern apocalyptic pop-culture framing rather than Ezekiel’s specific, historically fulfilled judgment on Jerusalem in 586 BC; the historical referent should be stated plainly.
Dragon Sea Monster
Approved rendering: dragon / sea monster
Transliteration: tannim
Doctrine: Judgment on Jerusalem and the Nations
Rejected alternatives: monster (too generic, loses the specific chaos-creature imagery)
Original: תַּנִּים
Category: Judgment
NEW TERM. A chaotic sea-monster/crocodile image applied to Pharaoh (29:3; 32:2) as a figure of God-defying power that God nonetheless subdues. Contemporary fantasy-genre associations with ‘dragon’ risk turning a theological claim (even the mightiest earthly powers are mere creatures God subdues, not rival gods) into decorative mythic imagery.
Wicked
Approved rendering: wicked
Transliteration: rasha / rish’ah
Doctrine: Individual Responsibility for Sin
Original: רָשָׁע / רִשְׁעָה
Category: Individual Responsibility
NEW TERM. The direct moral antonym of ‘righteous’ throughout Ezekiel 18, governing the same life/death covenantal logic. Comparatively stable English word; primary risk is treating it as merely a strong pejorative rather than the specific covenantal category paired with ‘righteous’ in the individual-responsibility argument.
Unclean Clean
Approved rendering: unclean / clean
Transliteration: tame / tahor
Doctrine: The New Heart and New Spirit
Original: טָמֵא / טָהוֹר
Category: New Heart and New Spirit
NEW TERM. Cultic-covenantal purity categories describing the land’s and people’s moral-spiritual condition, restored through God’s cleansing (36:17,25,29). Contemporary hygiene-based associations with ‘clean/unclean’ (physical cleanliness, medical sanitation) can obscure the specifically cultic-covenantal category being invoked.
Shepherd
Approved rendering: shepherd(s)
Transliteration: ro’eh / ro’im
Doctrine: The Davidic Shepherd-King Promise
NEW TERM. Israel’s failed political/religious leaders indicted as self-serving shepherds (34:2-10), contrasted with God Himself acting as shepherd (34:11-16) and with the coming ‘David my servant’ as under-shepherd. Contemporary readers have little direct pastoral/agricultural experience; the specific ancient Near Eastern political metaphor of king-as-shepherd needs supplying, and this term prepares directly for NT shepherd Christology (John 10).
Uncircumcised In Heart
Approved rendering: uncircumcised in heart
Transliteration: arley-lev
Doctrine: The Vision of the New Temple
Original: עַרְלֵי־לֵב
Category: Temple
NEW TERM. Those barred from the restored sanctuary for being ‘uncircumcised in heart and flesh’ (44:9), combining heart vocabulary from chapters 11 and 36 with covenant-sign language. Reinforces that true qualification for access to God’s presence is internal (heart-level), not merely ritual/external; primary risk is failing to cross-reference the established ‘heart’ entries from chapters 11 and 36.
Sanctuary
Approved rendering: sanctuary
Transliteration: miqdash / heikal
Doctrine: The Vision of the New Temple
Rejected alternatives: temple (acceptable parallel term, not a full replacement — retain ‘sanctuary’ where the text’s own vocabulary uses miqdash to emphasize the site’s set-apart holiness)
NEW TERM. God’s dwelling-place, the architectural and theological subject of chs. 40-48; also used of the pre-exilic temple defiled in chs. 8-11. The detailed measurements (chs. 40-42) can appear as mere architectural trivia unless tied explicitly to the doctrinal payoff in ch. 43 (the glory’s return) — the vision’s real significance is theological (God’s dwelling restored among His people), not primarily architectural.
Low Risk Terms
David
Approved rendering: David
Transliteration: David / Dawid
Doctrine: Restoration and the Valley of Dry Bones
Original: דָּוִד
Category: Covenant
INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE, rendering locked exactly. Standard proper name; most readers’ independent knowledge of David comes from the David-and-Goliath narrative alone, so the Davidic covenant background behind 34:23-24 and 37:24-25 must still be supplied.
Prophet
Approved rendering: prophet
Transliteration: prophet / navi
Doctrine: Inspiration and Authority of the Prophetic Word
Rejected alternatives: a tech prophet / prophet of doom (secular forecaster usage)
Original: נָבִיא
Category: Prophetic Office
INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE, rendering locked exactly. No Ezekiel-specific escalation; Ezekiel is himself the prophetic speaker throughout the book.
Prophecy
Approved rendering: prophecy
Transliteration: prophecy / nevu’ah
Doctrine: Inspiration and Authority of the Prophetic Word
Rejected alternatives: a self-fulfilling prophecy (unrelated secular psychological idiom)
Original: נְבוּאָה
Category: Prophetic Office
INHERITED FROM ROMANS PACKAGE, rendering locked exactly. Ezekiel adds a dimension not emphasized in the baseline: in 37:4-10 the prophetic word is causally EFFECTIVE (the speaking itself enacts the vision), not merely predictive — flag this so readers do not flatten prophecy into generic forecasting.
Whitewash
Approved rendering: whitewash
Transliteration: tafel
Doctrine: Inspiration and Authority of the Prophetic Word
Original: טָפֵל
Category: Judgment
NEW TERM. False prophets’ shoddy plastering-over of a crumbling wall (13:10-15), a metaphor for false, comforting messages that hide real danger (‘peace when there is no peace’). A rare case of positive semantic continuity: the modern idiom of ‘whitewashing’ a scandal still functions intuitively and closely matches Ezekiel’s own metaphor.
Referenced passages