Ezekiel 21:28

New English Translation

²⁸“As for you, son of man, prophesy and say, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says concerning the Ammonites and their coming humiliation:^[a]

“‘A sword, a sword drawn for slaughter,
polished to consume,^[b] to flash like lightning—

Ezekiel 21:28 tn Heb “their reproach.”
Ezekiel 21:28 tn Heb “to contain, endure,” from כוּל (khul). Since that sense is difficult here, most take the text to read either “to consume” or “for destruction.” GKC 186 §68.i suggests that the form represents the Hiphil of אָכַל (’akhal, “consume”). The ’alef (א) would have dropped out, as it sometimes does and might do with אָכַל in Ezek 42:5. D. I. Block (Ezekiel [NICOT], 1:693) prefers seeing כוּל as a byform of כָּלָה (kalah, “be complete”), with a meaning like “consume” in the Hiphil. The weakness of Block’s suggestion is that כָּלָה does not elsewhere exhibit a Hiphil.

New English Translation (NET)