07 Semantic Analysis — Ezekiel (English → Mandarin)

Methodological Notes

• Original language: Biblical Hebrew (Masoretic Text). Aramaic-influenced late Biblical Hebrew forms are noted where relevant.
• Destination register: Follows the Chinese Union Version (和合本, Héhéběn), Shen edition (神版), per the baseline Romans Language Package. All terms already recorded in translation_memory.json (Romans baseline) are reused exactly: 神, 耶和华 (established CUV form of the divine covenant name, used constantly in Ezekiel — see Core Glossary), 荣耀, 圣灵/灵 (see extended note below), 义, 约, 先知, 预言, 以色列, 大卫, 罪, 圣洁, 恩典 (where applicable).
• A note on רוּחַ (ruach) and the baseline’s “Holy Spirit” rule: The baseline mandates 圣灵 (never 灵 alone) for πνεῦμα ἅγιον in the NT. Ezekiel’s Hebrew רוּחַ has no equivalent “holy spirit” compound — it ranges across wind, breath, and the Spirit of God/the LORD within the same oracle, sometimes within the same verse (see Ezekiel 37:9, the passage’s single most important term-risk). CUV OT convention renders these as 风 (wind), 气息 (breath), or 灵/耶和华的灵/神的灵 (Spirit), NOT the NT compound 圣灵. This package’s ruling (see Core Glossary entry ruach): retain CUV’s OT convention (灵/耶和华的灵/神的灵, contextually 气息 or 风) for lexical accuracy, but require a mandatory translator/teacher note wherever the Spirit-sense is active, identifying this as the same divine, personal Spirit the NT calls 圣灵 — never conflate with 气 (qì, Daoist/qigong vital energy) at any point.
• Ezekiel’s book-long refrain “then you/they shall know that I am the LORD” (~65 occurrences) is treated as a single running doctrinal formula and only re-analyzed with new nuance where context adds meaning.

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CORE PASSAGE: Ezekiel 37:1-14 (Verse-by-Verse)

Ezekiel 37:1

• יַד־יְהוָה (yad-YHWH) — “hand of the LORD.” Literal: hand of Yahweh. Semantic range: physical hand; metonym for divine power/control seizing a person. English variants: “the hand of the LORD,” “the power of the LORD.” Contextual meaning: Ezekiel is seized and controlled by God’s sovereign initiative — he does not choose this vision. Mandarin: 耶和华的手 (Yēhéhuá de shǒu). Risk: Low — transparent metonym, no folk-religious collision, but pair with 大能 vocabulary to keep sovereignty emphasis (see baseline power_of_god = 神的大能).
• רוּחַ (ruach) [occurrence 1 of 7 in the passage] — “Spirit.” Literal: breath/wind/spirit. Semantic range: wind, breath, life-force, the Spirit of God. English variants: “Spirit,” “the LORD’s Spirit.” Contextual meaning: it is by the Spirit of the LORD, not human effort, that Ezekiel is transported. Mandarin: 耶和华的灵 (Yēhéhuá de líng), following CUV OT convention. Risk: Critical — this is the first of seven occurrences of ruach in one passage; establishes that the whole vision is a demonstration of the divine Spirit’s life-giving power. Must never render with 气 (qì); must be taught explicitly as the personal Spirit of God, continuous with 圣灵 in NT revelation, not an impersonal life-force.
• גֵּיא (gay) — “valley.” Literal: valley/ravine. Semantic range: geographic valley, often a place of death or judgment (cf. Valley of Hinnom). English variants: “valley,” “plain.” Contextual meaning: a wide, exposed killing field befitting a scene of mass national death. Mandarin: 谷 (gǔ) / CUV “谷中.” Risk: Low.
• עֲצָמוֹת (atzamot, pl. of עֶצֶם etzem) — “bones.” Literal: bones. Semantic range: skeletal bones; figuratively, the substance/frame of a person or nation. English variants: “bones,” “skeletons.” Contextual meaning: the visible remains of a nation that is, corporately, dead — the exile has left Israel’s identity as lifeless as bare bones. Mandarin: 骸骨 (háigǔ) / CUV “骸骨.” Risk: Medium — Chinese culture places strong weight on the proper burial and ritual care of ancestral bones (祖先的骸骨), and geomantic/feng shui concern for grave-bones’ influence on descendants’ fortune. Teaching must clarify these bones represent the corporate death of a nation in exile, not an ancestor-veneration or grave-geomancy scene; God’s action is sovereign life-giving power, not ritual care for the dead.

Ezekiel 37:2

• יָבֵשׁ (yavesh) — “dry.” Literal: dry, withered. Semantic range: physically desiccated; figuratively, hopeless, beyond natural recovery. English variants: “very dry,” “withered.” Contextual meaning: emphasizes the totality and duration of Israel’s deadness — no natural possibility of restoration. Mandarin: 枯干 (kūgān). Risk: Low.

Ezekiel 37:3

• חָיָה (chayah) — “to live.” Literal: to live, be alive, revive. Semantic range: physical life; national/corporate revival; (elsewhere) resurrection life. English variants: “live,” “come to life,” “live again.” Contextual meaning: the central verb of the entire vision — can what is dead be made alive again by God alone? Mandarin: 活 (huó) / CUV “活了.” Risk: High — must be kept distinct from 复活 (fùhuó), the baseline’s established, Critical-risk term reserved for Christ’s/believers’ bodily resurrection (see note at v.12 below on the relationship between the two).
• אֲדֹנָי יְהוִה (Adonai YHWH) — “Sovereign LORD / Lord GOD.” Literal: my-Lord Yahweh. Semantic range: a compound divine title stressing Yahweh’s absolute lordship; used over 200 times in Ezekiel, more densely than any other OT book. English variants: “Lord GOD,” “Sovereign LORD,” “the Lord Yahweh.” Contextual meaning: Ezekiel’s confession of ignorance (“You know”) before absolute sovereignty — he will not presume to answer for God. Mandarin: 主耶和华 (Zhǔ Yēhéhuá), the established CUV rendering. Risk: Critical — this title is the linguistic backbone of the book’s Glory-and-Sovereignty doctrine; reuses baseline’s 主 (Lord, Critical risk — never soften toward 主人/老爷) combined with the covenant name 耶和华. Must never be shortened to 神 alone in this construction, which would flatten the deliberate double emphasis on lordship.

Ezekiel 37:4

• נָבָא (naba) — “prophesy.” Reuses baseline prophecy/prophet doctrine (预言, 先知; risk Low/Medium per baseline). Contextual meaning here: the prophetic word itself is the God-ordained instrument of resurrection — Ezekiel does not act on the bones directly; he speaks God’s word over them. Mandarin: 说预言 / 向…说预言. Risk: Medium — must not be rendered as incantation or a divination formula (占卜, 算卦), which the baseline already flags for prophecy; the word is effective because it is God’s own word, not because of ritual technique.
• דְּבַר־יְהוָה (devar-YHWH) — “word of the LORD.” Literal: word/matter of Yahweh. Semantic range: a specific prophetic utterance; the totality of divine revelation. English variants: “word of the LORD,” “the LORD’s message.” Contextual meaning: the bones are addressed directly with God’s own creative word — echoing Genesis 1’s creation-by-speech. Mandarin: 耶和华的话 (Yēhéhuá de huà). Risk: Low.

Ezekiel 37:5

• רוּחַ (ruach) [occurrence 2] — here explicitly “breath” (רוּחַ … וִחְיִיתֶם, “breath … and you shall live”). Mandarin: 气息 (qìxī) — CUV renders this occurrence as 气息, distinct from the “Spirit” sense in v.1 and v.14. Risk: Critical — this is the passage’s central wordplay: the same Hebrew word means wind, breath, and Spirit, and the vision deliberately moves through all three senses to reveal that the Spirit who gives physical breath is the same Spirit who gives national/spiritual life. A translator who picks one Mandarin word for all seven occurrences (either always 气息, always 风, or always 灵) will destroy the wordplay; picking inconsistently without a teaching note will confuse readers into thinking these are unrelated events. Mandatory teaching note required at first occurrence and at v.9, v.14.

Ezekiel 37:6

• גִּיד (gid) — “sinews/tendons.” Mandarin: 筋 (jīn). Risk: Low.
• בָּשָׂר (basar) — “flesh.” Reuses the concept established in the baseline’s incarnation discussion (道成肉身) but here in a plain anatomical sense, and also anticipates Ezekiel 36:26’s “heart of flesh” (肉心). Mandarin: 肉 (ròu). Risk: Low in this verse; cross-reference to 肉心 in ch.36 carries High risk (see chapter 36 section).
• עוֹר (or) — “skin.” Mandarin: 皮 (pí). Risk: Low.
• רוּחַ (ruach) [occurrence 3] — “breath,” parallel to v.5. Mandarin: 气息. Risk: Critical (cumulative, see v.5/v.9 notes).
• Recognition formula: וִידַעְתֶּם כִּי־אֲנִי יְהוָה — “and you shall know that I am the LORD.” Mandarin: 你们就知道我是耶和华 (CUV standard). Risk: High — see Core Glossary entry recognition_formula; must convey covenantal, relational knowing (יָדַע, yada), not mere factual identification.

Ezekiel 37:7-8

• רוּחַ (ruach) [occurrence 4] — “but there was no breath in them” (v.8b). Mandarin: 气息. Risk: Critical — the theological hinge of the whole vision: physical/structural restoration (sinews, flesh, skin) is explicitly insufficient without the Spirit’s separate, additional act. This directly illustrates the doctrine of the New Heart and New Spirit (ch. 36): outward restoration without the Spirit is a body without life. Teachers must not let this verse be read as “resurrection accomplished” — the vision itself withholds life until v.9-10.
• הֲרוּגִים (harugim) — “the slain.” Mandarin: 被杀的人 (bèishā de rén). Risk: Low, but reinforces that these bones represent violent, judgment-caused death (the fall of Jerusalem/exile), not natural death from old age.

Ezekiel 37:9

• רוּחַ (ruach) [occurrences 5-6, in the phrase “come from the four winds” — אַרְבַּע רוּחוֹת] — “winds,” here explicitly the four cardinal winds. Mandarin: 四方之风 / CUV “四方”(the four quarters) combined with 气息 for the command “breathe on these slain.” This single verse in Hebrew uses ruach three times in three different senses in rapid succession (breath commanded to come; four winds; breathe upon). Risk: Critical, single highest-risk term-cluster in the passage. The Mandarin translation MUST use a translator’s note at this verse (per the AI Translation Requirements footnote protocol inherited from the baseline) explaining the wordplay explicitly, because no single Mandarin term can carry breath/wind/Spirit simultaneously the way Hebrew ruach does.

Ezekiel 37:10

• חַיִל (chayil) — “army/host.” Literal: strength, army, host of soldiers. Semantic range: military force; abundance; capability. English variants: “army,” “host,” “great company.” Contextual meaning: the resurrected nation is pictured not as a crowd of individuals but as an organized, restored covenant community with corporate strength and purpose. Mandarin: 军队 (jūnduì). Risk: Low-Medium — avoid rendering with any term suggesting militaristic conquest ambition; the image is of restored covenant vitality and capability, not aggression.
• חָיָה (chayah) [repeated] — “they lived, and stood on their feet.” Mandarin: 活了, 站起来. Risk: High (see v.3 note).

Ezekiel 37:11

• בֵּית־יִשְׂרָאֵל (beit Yisra’el) — “house of Israel.” Reuses baseline israel term (以色列, Medium risk). Mandarin: 以色列全家 (CUV). Risk: Medium — must retain the corporate, whole-nation scope; this is not a private individual vision.
• תִּקְוָה (tikvah) — “hope.” Literal: hope, expectation (from a root meaning “cord/line,” suggesting something to hold onto). Semantic range: expectation of future good; the object one waits for. English variants: “hope,” “expectation.” Contextual meaning: the exiles’ own self-assessment of total despair — “our hope is lost” — sets up God’s answer as a direct reversal of their own words. Mandarin: 指望/希望 (CUV renders “我们的指望失去了”). Risk: Medium — must be distinguished from a generic optimism or a fortune-telling expectation of good luck (福气式的期盼); biblical hope here is specifically covenantal, resting on God’s promise, not chance or fate.
• נִגְזַרְנוּ (nigzarnu) — “we are cut off.” Literal: cut off, severed. Mandarin: 我们被剪除了 (CUV). Risk: Low.

Ezekiel 37:12

• קֶבֶר (qever) — “grave.” Mandarin: 坟墓 (fénmù). Risk: Medium — Chinese funerary/ancestral-grave culture (祭祖, 扫墓, feng shui grave-siting) is a significant cultural backdrop; teaching must clarify this is figurative language for the “graves” of exile/national death, not a scene about literal grave-opening ritual or ancestor-appeasement.
• חָיָה / קום מִן־הַקְּבָרִים (“I will open your graves and cause you to come up”) — this verse extends the metaphor toward what will become, in later biblical revelation, the doctrine of individual bodily resurrection. Doctrinal clarification required: the primary, contextual referent in Ezekiel 37 is the national, corporate restoration of exiled Israel to the land — not yet the individual bodily resurrection doctrine that the NT later teaches (and which the baseline’s resurrection = 复活, Critical risk, anchors). Reusing 复活-family vocabulary here is doctrinally appropriate typologically (this vision does anticipate and undergird later resurrection hope, cf. its use in Jewish and Christian tradition alike) but MUST be taught with the corporate-then-individual distinction explicit, and must never be read through a reincarnation lens (轮回/投胎, both already forbidden by baseline). Risk: Critical.

Ezekiel 37:13-14

• רוּחַ (ruach) [occurrence 7] — “I will put My Spirit in you, and you shall live” (v.14, echoing 36:26-27). Mandarin: 我必将我的灵放在你们里面 (CUV). Risk: Critical — this final occurrence resolves the wordplay: the Spirit who is wind/breath in creation is revealed as the personal divine Spirit who indwells God’s people for life, directly continuing the New Heart/New Spirit doctrine of ch. 36. This is the strongest OT anticipation of the NT gift of the Holy Spirit and must be flagged for human theologian review, cross-referencing the baseline’s 圣灵 rules even though the OT text itself does not use the compound.
• אֶרֶץ (eretz) — “land” (of Israel). Reuses baseline pattern for israel; Mandarin: 地/本地/以色列地. Risk: Low.
• Closing recognition-and-performance formula: וִידַעְתֶּם כִּי־אֲנִי יְהוָה דִּבַּרְתִּי וְעָשִׂיתִי — “then you shall know that I, the LORD, have spoken and performed it.” Mandarin: 你们就知道我—耶和华说了这话,也行这事 (CUV pattern). Risk: High — ties the whole vision’s authority to God’s own sovereign speech-act, reinforcing the Glory-and-Sovereignty doctrine that frames the entire book; must not be softened to a mere prediction that “came true” by circumstance.

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CHAPTER-BY-CHAPTER STUDY (Ezekiel 1–48)

Chapter 1 — The Vision of God’s Glory

• כָּבוֹד (kavod, “glory”) — literal: weight, heaviness, hence honor/splendor. Semantic range: visible splendor, weightiness of reputation, the manifest presence of God. English variants: “glory,” “splendor.” Contextual meaning: the book opens with the overwhelming, throne-borne visible presence of God — the theological anchor for the whole book’s Glory-and-Sovereignty doctrine. Reuses baseline glory = 荣耀 (Medium risk in Romans). Elevated to Critical risk in Ezekiel, since the departure and return of this very glory (chs. 8-11, 43) structures the entire book; must never be reduced to 面子 (social face) or 光宗耀祖 (ancestral family honor), per baseline caution, and must be taught as this specific book’s structuring motif.
• חַיּוֹת (chayot, “living creatures”) — literal: living things/beings. Mandarin: 活物 (huówù), CUV standard. Risk: Medium — caution against conflating with Chinese mythological composite-beast imagery (四灵/麒麟/龙), which carries auspicious cosmological associations foreign to this text’s function as attendants of divine glory.
• אוֹפַן (ophan, “wheel”) — Mandarin: 轮 (lún). Risk: Low.
• רוּחַ (ruach) — first book occurrence (the stormy wind, and the living creatures’ spirit); establishes the term’s multivalence used throughout the book, especially ch. 37. Risk: Critical (see Core Passage and Core Glossary).
• מַרְאֶה (mar’eh, “appearance/likeness”) — used repeatedly of the vision (“the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD,” v.28). Mandarin: 形像/样子. Risk: Medium — 形像 (xíngxiàng) risks collision with 偶像的形象 (idol-image); teach that this careful, hedged visionary language (“likeness of an appearance of…”) is itself an anti-idolatry safeguard, describing an indescribable reality without producing an image to be worshiped.

Chapter 2 — The Call of Ezekiel

• בֶּן־אָדָם (ben adam, “son of man”) — literal: son of man/mankind. Semantic range: a human being, emphasizing mortality and creatureliness; used ~93 times as God’s address to Ezekiel. English variants: “son of man,” “mortal,” “human one.” Mandarin: 人子 (rénzǐ), CUV standard. Risk: High — this is the same Mandarin compound used for Christ’s messianic self-designation “the Son of Man” in the Gospels. In Ezekiel it functions oppositely: not a divine title but a repeated reminder of the prophet’s frailty before God’s glory. Every occurrence requires context to prevent readers from importing NT Christological weight into the OT usage.

Chapter 3 — The Prophet as Watchman (Introduced)

• צֹפֶה (tsofeh, “watchman”) — literal: one who watches/looks out. Semantic range: a sentry responsible to warn of danger; figuratively, the prophet’s accountability to warn Israel. Mandarin: 守望者/守望的人 (shǒuwàngzhě). Risk: Medium — links directly to the Individual Responsibility doctrine (ch. 18, 33): the watchman’s warning does not remove the hearer’s own responsibility to respond. No significant folk-religion collision, but must be taught alongside ch.18/33 to avoid implying the watchman bears others’ guilt (a subtle but important corrective, since ancestor/clan-based guilt-transfer thinking could otherwise misapply this image).
• מְגִלָּה (megillah, “scroll”) — low risk, standard vocabulary; the eating of the scroll (3:1-3) signifies internalizing God’s word before proclaiming it. Mandarin: 书卷.

Chapter 4-5 — Siege Sign-Acts

• עָוֹן (avon, “iniquity/guilt”) — Mandarin: 罪孽 (zuìniè). Risk: Medium — reuses/extends baseline sin (罪, High risk); avon specifically carries the sense of guilt/liability borne for wrongdoing (Ezekiel lies on his side bearing Israel’s avon symbolically, 4:4-6), which must be distinguished from 报应 (bàoyìng, karmic retribution) — this is guilt owed to a personal covenant God, not impersonal karmic consequence.
• No further new theological vocabulary beyond baseline sin (罪) reused.

Chapter 6 — Idolatry and the High Places

• גִּלּוּלִים (gillulim, “idols”) — literal: a term of deliberate contempt (possibly related to “dung pellets” or “logs”), Ezekiel’s favored, most frequent word for idols (~39 occurrences in the book). Mandarin: 偶像 (ǒuxiàng), CUV standard. Risk: High — the Hebrew term’s built-in crudeness/contempt is largely lost in the neutral Mandarin 偶像; teachers should note that Ezekiel’s own vocabulary choice communicates visceral disgust, not neutral description, when explaining the strength of the book’s anti-idolatry polemic.
• בָּמָה (bamah, “high place”) — Mandarin: 邱坛/丘坛 (qiūtán), CUV standard cultic-site term. Risk: Medium — must be distinguished from a generic temple/shrine (庙, 道观), which the baseline already flags for church; here it specifically denotes illegitimate worship sites, not a category Chinese readers should map onto their own temple architecture without explanation.

Chapter 7 — The End Has Come

• קֵץ (qets, “the end”) — Mandarin: 结局/终结. Risk: Low-Medium — eschatological finality language; ensure it is not softened into a vague “difficult time” but retains the sense of decisive divine judgment arriving.
• No other new terms; reuses ch.6 idolatry vocabulary.

Chapters 8-11 — The Glory Departs the Temple

• תּוֹעֵבָה (to’evah, “abomination”) — literal: a detestable/abhorrent thing. Semantic range: cultic and moral abominations, especially idolatry practiced within the temple itself. Mandarin: 可憎的事 (kězēng de shì), CUV standard. Risk: High — must be taught as covenant-breaking practice that provokes God’s holy revulsion, not merely a strong cultural taboo (禁忌, jìnjì), which in Chinese folk usage often carries superstitious rather than moral-covenantal weight.
• כְּרוּב (kerub, pl. keruvim, “cherub/cherubim”) — Mandarin: 基路伯 (jīlùbó), established CUV transliteration. Risk: Medium — these are the same living creatures of ch.1, now explicitly named and shown bearing God’s glory as it departs the temple (ch.10); no significant folk collision but must be kept visually and theologically continuous with ch.1’s chayot.
• כְּבוֹד יְהוָה מֵעַל הַבַּיִת (“the glory of the LORD departed from the temple,” culminating 11:22-23) — this is the doctrinal hinge-event of “God’s Presence Departing and Returning.” Risk: Critical — reuses/elevates the ch.1 כָּבוֹד entry; the departure must be taught as a real, historically situated act of covenant judgment (God abandoning a defiled temple to Babylonian destruction), not a metaphor for a vague loss of “good fortune” (福气流失) — guard the same 福/fortune-collision risk the baseline already flags for gospel.
• לֵב חָדָש / רוּחַ חֲדָשָׁה (new heart / new spirit) — first appears in seed form at 11:19 (“I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within them…”). Full treatment deferred to ch. 36, where the doctrine is developed at length; flagged here as first occurrence. Risk: Critical (see ch. 36).
• שְׁאָר / פְּלֵטָה (she’ar / peletah, “remnant”) — Mandarin: 余民 (yúmín). Risk: Medium — must be taught as a remnant preserved by God’s grace for covenant purposes, not a “lucky survivor” framing (幸存者/福气).

Chapter 12 — Sign-Act of the Exile

• No new theological vocabulary; reuses siege/sign-act terms from chs. 4-5 and the “recognition formula” pattern (see ch. 25 entry below for full treatment).

Chapter 13 — False Prophets and False Peace

• שָׁלוֹם (shalom, “peace”) in the ironic accusation “they say, Peace! when there is no peace” (13:10, 16). Reuses baseline peace = 平安 (Medium risk). Risk here: High — this is a direct, in-text warning against exactly the collision the baseline already flags: 平安 as a generic well-being blessing (as on protective amulets) detached from covenant reality. Ezekiel 13 shows false prophets pronouncing exactly that kind of hollow, ritualistic 平安 — the chapter itself becomes a teaching opportunity to reinforce the baseline’s warning.
• No other new terms.

Chapter 14 — Individual Righteousness Previewed (Noah, Daniel, Job)

• צַדִּיק (tzaddik, “righteous [person]”) — literal: just, righteous, in right standing. Mandarin: 义人 (yìrén), built on baseline righteousness = 义 (Critical risk). Risk: Critical — same Confucian-virtue collision flagged in the baseline applies fully here: 义人 could be read as “a person of Confucian moral rightness achieved by cultivation” rather than one whose righteous conduct here specifically demonstrates covenant loyalty to God alone (not a transferable merit that can save others, v.14, 20 — each is saved only by his own righteousness, not another’s). This chapter previews the ch.18 doctrine of Individual Responsibility.

Chapter 15 — The Useless Vine

• מָשָׁל (mashal, “parable/allegory”) — Mandarin: 比喻 (bǐyù). Risk: Low. No other new terms.

Chapter 16 — The Unfaithful Wife (Covenant Allegory)

• בְּרִית (berit, “covenant”) — reuses baseline covenant = 约 (High risk). Risk here: High — the marriage-covenant frame intensifies the baseline’s warning against reducing 约 to a commercial contract; this chapter portrays covenant-breaking specifically as marital betrayal, requiring careful, dignified register given the passage’s explicit content.
• זָנָה (zanah, “to commit harlotry / prostitute oneself”) — Mandarin: 行淫 (xíngyín), CUV standard. Risk: High — must be taught consistently as a covenant-unfaithfulness metaphor (idolatry pictured as marital infidelity), not literalized or sensationalized; register must remain formal and pastoral, per the baseline’s tone requirements, while not softening the passage’s severity.

Chapter 17 — The Eagles and the Vine

• חִידָה (chidah, “riddle”) — Mandarin: 谜语 (míyǔ). Risk: Low. Reuses מָשָׁל from ch.15.

Chapter 18 — CORE DOCTRINE: Individual Responsibility for Sin

• נֶפֶשׁ (nephesh, “soul/person/life”) — literal: breath, living being, self. Semantic range: the whole living person (not a detachable, transmigrating “soul”); life itself; a person counted individually. English variants: “soul,” “person,” “life,” “the one who.” Contextual meaning: “the person who sins shall die” (18:4, 20) — establishing that guilt and its consequence attach to the individual, not the family line or ancestry. Mandarin: 人 (rén), following CUV’s own established choice at this text (not 灵魂 línghún). Risk: Critical — 灵魂 would import a detachable, potentially reincarnating soul-concept (from Buddhist/folk tradition) foreign to the text; CUV’s own choice of 人 avoids this and must be followed exactly.
• צַדִּיק / רָשָׁע (tzaddik / rasha, “righteous / wicked [person]”) — Mandarin: 义人 / 恶人 (yìrén / èrén). Risk: Critical for 义人 (see ch.14 note); 恶人 is Medium risk (must be taught as one whose actions actively oppose God’s covenant, not merely a socially disapproved person).
• שׁוּב (shuv, “to turn/repent/return”) — literal: to turn, turn back, return. Semantic range: physical turning; repentance from sin; covenantal return to God. English variants: “repent,” “turn (from),” “turn back.” Contextual meaning: the doctrinal center of ch.18 — a wicked person’s fate is not fixed by family or past record if he “turns” (18:21-23, 27-28). Mandarin: 回转/悔改 (huízhuǎn/huǐgǎi), CUV pattern. Risk: Critical — must be sharply distinguished from Buddhist 忏悔 (chànhuǐ), a ritual confession aimed at purifying accumulated karma, and from any notion that turning “earns” a clean ledger (functional cousin to 功德, already forbidden in the baseline for grace); biblical shuv is a relational return to a personal God who responds with mercy, grounded in his character, not a technique that discharges karmic debt.
• The fathers-and-sons proverb (“The son shall not bear the guilt of the father,” 18:20) directly confronts intergenerational guilt-transfer thinking. Risk: Critical, doctrine-defining for this curriculum — this is arguably the single sharpest worldview collision in the whole book for a Chinese destination audience: ancestor-based guilt/merit transfer (ancestral curses passed to descendants; the flip-side inherited-merit logic of 阴德, already forbidden by the baseline for grace) is widely assumed in folk religious practice. Ezekiel 18 must be translated and taught to directly and explicitly refute this framework, not merely avoid the vocabulary.

Chapter 19 — A Lament for Israel’s Princes

• קִינָה (qinah, “lament/dirge”) — Mandarin: 哀歌 (āigē). Risk: Low. Genre marker; no doctrinal collision.

Chapter 20 — Israel’s History of Rebellion

• לְמַעַן שְׁמִי (lema’an shemi, “for my name’s sake”) — literal: for the sake of my name. Semantic range: God’s motivation to act rooted in his own reputation/character, not human merit. English variants: “for my name’s sake,” “for the sake of my [holy] name.” Contextual meaning: repeated refrain explaining why God preserves and eventually restores a persistently rebellious people — not because they deserve it. Mandarin: 为我的名 / 为我圣名的缘故 (CUV pattern; fully developed in ch. 36). Risk: High — this motif is the OT’s clearest structural parallel to the baseline’s Critical-risk Grace doctrine (恩典): action taken apart from the recipient’s merit. Must be taught in direct connection with 恩典 to reinforce, not undercut, that doctrine’s anti-merit-ledger emphasis.

Chapter 21 — The Sword of Judgment

• חֶרֶב (cherev, “sword”) — Mandarin: 刀/刀剑. Risk: Low. No new doctrinal vocabulary.

Chapter 22 — The Bloody City

• דָּם (dam, “blood/bloodshed”) — Mandarin: 血 (xuè); “city of blood(shed)” 流血的城. Risk: Low-Medium — retain the covenantal bloodguilt sense (unjust killing that defiles the land and demands reckoning), distinct from ritual blood-taboo concerns that could be read into it from folk practice.

Chapter 23 — Oholah and Oholibah

• Reuses זָנָה (ch.16) for the two-sisters allegory; no new terms.

Chapter 24 — The Boiling Pot; Sign of Ezekiel’s Wife

• No new theological vocabulary; a sign-act chapter reusing established covenant-judgment and mourning vocabulary.

Chapters 25-32 — Oracles Against the Nations

• The Recognition Formula: וְיָדְעוּ כִּי־אֲנִי יְהוָה (“then they shall know that I am the LORD”) — reaches its highest concentration across these eight chapters, applied to Ammon, Moab, Edom, Philistia, Tyre, Sidon, and Egypt. Literal: “and they will know that I [am] YHWH.” Semantic range: יָדַע (yada) covers factual recognition AND intimate, relational, covenantal knowing (cf. Genesis 4:1). English variants: “know that I am the LORD,” “acknowledge that I am the LORD.” Contextual meaning: God’s sovereignty is vindicated before the nations through judgment, not only before Israel through restoration — the doctrine of the Glory and Sovereignty of God extends universally. Mandarin: 他们就知道我是耶和华 (CUV standard, unvarying). Risk: High — the single most frequent theological formula in the book (~65 occurrences total); must consistently carry relational/covenantal “knowing,” not mere cognitive identification, or the book’s central sovereignty doctrine is flattened into a trivial refrain.
• Chapter 28 (King of Tyre in Eden, 28:11-19): כְּרוּב (cherub, reused from ch.10) and עֵדֶן / גַּן־אֱלֹהִים (Eden / “the garden of God”) — Mandarin: 伊甸 / 神的园子. Risk: High — popular Christian tradition often reads this oracle as a description of Satan’s primordial fall, though its primary grammatical and historical referent is the human king of Tyre. Translators and teachers must flag this as an interpretive question, not translate or annotate in a way that forecloses the text’s primary sense in favor of an assumed angelology.
• Chapters 29-32 (Egypt as sea monster): תַּנִּים (tannim, “sea monster/dragon”) — Ezekiel 29:3 and 32:2 apply this term to Pharaoh. CUV wisely renders it 大鱼 (dà yú, “great fish/sea monster”), NOT 龙 (lóng, “dragon”). Risk: Critical — 龙 is the supreme auspicious symbol of Chinese imperial majesty and cultural identity (Chinese people commonly self-identify as “descendants of the dragon,” 龙的传人); using 龙 for a figure of divine judgment and humiliating defeat would be a severe, avoidable collision on the same order as the historic “Term Question” for God (神/上帝). This package mandates 大鱼 or an unambiguous qualifying phrase (e.g., 海中的大怪物), following CUV, and forbids 龙 in this context under any circumstance.

Chapter 33 — The Watchman Renewed; Individual Responsibility Restated

• Reuses צֹפֶה (watchman, ch.3) and the full נֶפֶשׁ/שׁוּב doctrinal cluster from ch.18. No new terms; this chapter functions as recapitulation ahead of the restoration section (chs. 34-48).

Chapter 34 — Shepherds and the One Shepherd

• רֹעֶה (ro’eh, “shepherd”) — literal: one who shepherds/tends flocks. Semantic range: a literal herdsman; a king or leader responsible for a people, in both positive (God, David) and negative (corrupt leaders) senses. English variants: “shepherd,” “pastor,” “ruler.” Mandarin: 牧人 (mùrén), CUV standard. Risk: Medium — mostly straightforward, but note that God himself is named as the true Shepherd (34:11-16) who will also raise up “My servant David” (34:23-24) as shepherd-prince — establishing messianic hope that must be kept connected to baseline david (大卫) and seed_of_david (大卫的后裔) without collapsing the two distinct roles (God as ultimate Shepherd; David’s heir as under-shepherd/prince).
• נָשִׂיא (nasi, “prince”) previewed here (34:24) ahead of full development in chs. 37, 44-48.

Chapter 35 — Judgment on Edom

• No new theological vocabulary; reuses judgment-oracle vocabulary from chs. 25-32.

Chapter 36 — CORE DOCTRINE: The New Heart and New Spirit

• לֵב חָדָש (lev chadash, “new heart”) — literal: a new heart/inner organ of will and thought. Mandarin: 新心 (xīn xīn), CUV standard (36:26). Risk: Critical.
• רוּחַ חֲדָשָׁה (ruach chadashah, “new spirit”) — Mandarin: 新灵 (xīn líng), CUV standard. Risk: Critical.
• לֵב אֶבֶן / לֵב בָּשָׂר (lev even / lev basar, “heart of stone / heart of flesh”) — Mandarin: 石心 / 肉心 (CUV standard, 36:26). Risk: Critical — the single most important cultural-collision point in this doctrine: the transformation from stone-heart to flesh-heart is a sovereign, gracious, once-given act of God, and MUST NOT be rendered or explained using the classical Daoist alchemical/immortality four-character idiom 脱胎换骨 (tuōtāi huàntāi, “shedding the womb, changing the bones” — a technique-driven, self-cultivated transformation toward physical immortality/transcendence). This idiom is exactly the kind of Buddhist/Daoist-coded set phrase the baseline’s idiom-handling rules already warn against; here the risk is concrete and specific rather than generic.
• מַיִם טְהוֹרִים (mayim tehorim, “clean/pure water,” 36:25, sprinkled for cleansing) — Mandarin: 洁净的水. Risk: High — must be distinguished from ritual lustration/exorcistic water-sprinkling found in folk Daoist and Buddhist purification practice; this is a once-for-all divine cleansing accompanying the New Heart/New Spirit gift, not a repeatable ritual technique available to any practitioner.
• רוּחַ (ruach, “I will put My Spirit within you,” 36:27) — full doctrinal development of the term first flagged in ch.1 and 11:19, resolved in ch.37. Risk: Critical (see Core Passage note on ruach and the 圣灵 question).
• לְמַעַן שְׁמִי / שֵׁם קָדְשִׁי (name’s sake / my holy name, 36:20-23) — full development of the ch.20 motif: “I do this not for your sake… but for my holy name’s sake.” Risk: High — reinforces the Grace doctrine’s anti-merit framing at the book’s most emphatic point.

Chapter 37 — CORE PASSAGE (see Core Passage section above for full verse-by-verse treatment). Also introduces, in vv. 15-28, the reunification of Israel and Judah (two sticks becoming one) and the “covenant of peace” / “everlasting covenant” with “David my servant” as prince (נָשִׂיא) forever, and God’s sanctuary set in their midst forever.

• בְּרִית שָׁלוֹם / בְּרִית עוֹלָם (“covenant of peace” / “everlasting covenant,” 37:26) — Mandarin: 平安的约 / 永约. Risk: High — combines baseline covenant (约) and peace (平安) terms; must retain both the relational-covenant sense of 约 and the genuine, God-secured (not merely wished-for) sense of 平安, avoiding the amulet-blessing collision already flagged in the baseline.
• נָשִׂיא (nasi, “prince”) applied to David’s heir (37:24-25) — Mandarin: CUV commonly renders this 君王 (jūnwáng) in the restoration/temple-vision chapters, distinct from מֶלֶך (melek, “king,” 王 wáng). Risk: High — the deliberate avoidance of the plain title “king” in Ezekiel’s restoration vision reflects a theocratic subordination (David’s heir rules under God’s kingship, not as an autonomous sovereign); collapsing נָשִׂיא into ordinary 王 risks importing a Mandate-of-Heaven-style dynastic-legitimacy framing that the baseline’s kingdom_of_god note already warns against.

Chapters 38-39 — Gog and Magog

• גּוֹג / מָגוֹג (Gog / Magog) — proper names. Mandarin: 歌革 / 玛各, established transliterations. Risk: Medium — apocalyptic figures whose precise historical/future referent is debated; translators/teachers should avoid over-identifying Gog with any specific modern nation or people group, preserving the text’s function as an assurance of God’s ultimate victory over all hostile powers rather than a coded geopolitical prediction.
• No new core-doctrine vocabulary beyond judgment-oracle terms already introduced (chs. 25-32) and the recognition formula.

Chapters 40-42 — The Vision of the New Temple (Measurements)

• מִקְדָּש (miqdash, “sanctuary”) and בַּיִת (bayit, “house/temple”) — Mandarin: 圣所 (shèngsuǒ) / 殿 (diàn), both CUV standard, used according to context (מִקְדָּש for the sanctuary complex generally, בַּיִת for the temple building itself). Risk: Critical — anchors the “Vision of the New Temple” doctrine; must be clearly distinguished from Buddhist 寺 or Daoist 道观 (per baseline’s church note) and taught as a vision of God’s ordered, holy, restored presence among his people — whether understood as a literal future temple, an idealized template, or (in the fullest canonical trajectory) fulfilled in Christ and the church — rather than mapped onto any existing Chinese temple architecture or its associated ancestor/idol veneration practices.
• תַּבְנִית (tavnit, “pattern/form”) — Mandarin: 样式 (yàngshì), CUV standard (43:11). Risk: Medium — the vision functions as a divinely-given blueprint; avoid vocabulary suggesting a humanly designed architectural ideal detached from revelation.
• כֹּהֵן (kohen, “priest”) — Mandarin: 祭司 (jìsī), standard. Risk: Low.

Chapter 43 — The Glory Returns to the Temple

• כָּבוֹד יְהוָה (kevod YHWH, “glory of the LORD”) returns and fills the temple (43:1-5), resolving the departure of chs. 8-11. Risk: Critical — the doctrinal climax of “God’s Presence Departing and Returning”; must be rendered with full continuity of vocabulary (荣耀) back to ch.1 and ch.10-11, so that readers recognize this as the deliberate resolution of the book’s central narrative arc, not an unrelated new theophany.

Chapter 44 — Regulations for Priests and the Prince

• נָשִׂיא (nasi, “prince”) — full ceremonial-law development, reused from chs. 34, 37. Risk: High (see ch.37 note); the prince’s restricted access (44:1-3) reinforces theocratic subordination to God’s own kingship.
• No further new doctrinal vocabulary; reuses priestly/temple terms from chs. 40-43.

Chapter 45 — Offerings and the Prince’s Portion

• No new theological vocabulary; measurement/offering units (bath, ephah, homer) are administrative rather than doctrinally load-bearing and are noted here as reviewed without requiring individual glossary entries.

Chapter 46 — Sabbaths and Offerings

• No new theological vocabulary; reuses temple-worship vocabulary from chs. 40-45.

Chapter 47 — The River of Life

• מַיִם חַיִּים (mayim chayim, “living water”) — literal: living/flowing water. Semantic range: fresh, flowing (as opposed to stagnant) water; figuratively, life-giving divine provision flowing from God’s presence. Mandarin: 活水 (huóshuǐ), CUV standard. Risk: High — this is a major typological bridge to Jesus’ “living water” sayings (John 4, 7) and Revelation 22’s river of life, so consistency with any parallel NT curriculum vocabulary is important; must also be explicitly distinguished from Daoist immortality-water/elixir motifs (仙水, 长生不老泉, associated with Daoist immortal-seeking mythology), which could otherwise be an intuitive but doctrinally wrong cultural analogy for Chinese readers encountering a river that “heals” and gives abundant life (47:9, 12).

Chapter 48 — The Division of the Land; “The LORD Is There”

• יְהוָה שָׁמָּה (YHWH shammah, “the LORD is there”) — literal: “Yahweh [is] there.” Mandarin: 耶和华的所在 (Yēhéhuá de suǒzài), CUV standard closing phrase (48:35). Risk: High — the book’s final word deliberately answers its opening (ch.1) and central crisis (chs. 8-11): the glory that departed has not merely returned temporarily but now permanently, definitively dwells with God’s people. Teachers should draw the explicit closing-bracket connection across the whole book: departure (chs. 8-11) → resurrection/restoration hope (ch. 36-37) → return (ch. 43) → permanent dwelling (ch. 48).

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This document should be read alongside 08_core_glossary.md for the consolidated per-term risk table, and cross-referenced against the baseline Romans translation_memory.json for all reused terms.