1. water was coming out from under the threshold of the house. In the midst of all the technical reports of temple floor plans and sacrifices, to be followed later in this chapter by a listing of the borders of the land, Ezekiel offers the last of his entirely original visionary experiences. At first blush, this looks like it might be merely some underground spring beneath the Temple from which water is seeping, but the miraculous nature of the flow of water quickly becomes apparent.

2. seeping. The verb mefakim occurs only here. The probable root is p-k-h, and it has been suggested that it is related to the noun pakh, a jar from which liquid would pour out in a thin stream.

3. there was a line in his hand. The line for measuring looks back to the elaborate measurements of the Temple carried out by “the man” earlier, but in this case he will measure only the extent of the stream, which deepens after every thousand cubits.

5. a stream which I could not cross. The familiar pattern, manifested in quite a few biblical stories and in folktales outside the Bible, is three (or in some instances, three plus one) with a difference at the end: in this case, an intensification from one to three (the deepening water), concluding in the unfordable depth of the stream. The pattern thus conveys the miraculous character of the vision—water seeping out from under the Temple somehow turns into a deep surging stream.

7. very many trees. While the Hebrew uses a singular form, it is clearly a collective noun. The abundant trees alongside the stream are a foreshadowing of the vision of fruitfulness in the culmination of this prophecy.

8. This water is going out to the eastern area and will go down to the Arabah. The water flows downhill from Mount Zion eastward to the Arabah, the rift of the Jordan Valley. From there it will continue downward to the Dead Sea, which is more than 435 feet below sea level and the lowest place on the face of the earth.

the sea. This lowercased body of water is the Dead Sea, in contrast to the uppercased Sea in verse 17, which is the Mediterranean. The Mediterranean, referred to in verse 10 in the Hebrew as the Great Sea, constitutes the sea par excellence for the Land of Israel—hence the capital S.

the sea of filthy water. The designation is somewhat imprecise, motivated by the awareness that the saline content of the Dead Sea is so high that nothing can live in it.

become clean. The literal sense of the Hebrew verb is “be healed,” but the biblical term for healing is often used for restoring a person or substance to a condition of wholeness. “Clean” water is water in which life can now survive. This meaning is spelled out in the last sentence of the next verse: “And all that enters there in the stream shall live.”

9. every living creature that swarms. The phrasal echo of the Creation story evokes the idea of abundant proliferating life-forms and perhaps of Eden itself.

the double stream. The vocalization of this noun in the Hebrew is a doublative form. This could be a scribal error, but perhaps it might be meant to intensify “stream.”

there shall be very many fish there. This is the focus of Ezekiel’s vision of an eschatological restoration of the devastated homeland: the Dead Sea, where nothing can live, will be transformed by these miraculous waters seeping out from the Temple into fresh water pullulating with life, suggesting a new Eden.

10. from Ein-Gedi to Ein-Eglaim. Ein-Gedi is an oasis overlooking the northern reaches of the Dead Sea (ein means “spring”), and Ein-Eglaim is presumably somewhere to the south in this same region.

a place for spreading nets. The establishment of marine life in this hitherto lifeless body of water also provides sustenance to the people living nearby.

11. for salt shall they be set aside. The Dead Sea was no doubt drawn on as a source of salt, and since salt is a necessary substance, the marshlands along its borders will be excluded from the cleansing and continue to provide salt.

12. every fruit-bearing tree. This is another phrase that recalls the Creation narrative.

They shall yield new fruit month after month. Complementing the miracle of the cleansed waters, the trees along the banks of the stream will be miraculously fruitful, not just in one season but month after month. This, too, is an edenic motif.

their leaf for healing. In fact, leaves, especially from the Dead Sea region, were often used as herbal medication.

13. These. For the Masoretic geh, which is not comprehensible, we read here with the ancient versions zeh, “this” or “these.”

These are the boundaries. Ezekiel’s prophecy of national restoration now returns to its preoccupation with measurements and demarcations—in this case, the sundry boundaries of the land.

For Joseph—two portions. The tribe of Joseph is the exception because it comprises two half-tribes, Ephraim and Manasseh.

15. Lebo-Hamath. The received text says only Lebo, not a place-name, but the Septuagint has Lebo-Hamath, and the second component of this name evidently was displaced to the beginning of the next verse, where it does not belong.

18. the eastern sea. This is the Dead Sea, the Mediterranean being the western sea.

22. and for the sojourners who sojourn in your midst. In Joshua, the sojourners, or resident aliens, are not given territory, so this is an innovation of Ezekiel’s. It may reflect a demographic reality in which there was a substantial population of resident aliens and in which the tribes as distinctive entities had largely disappeared.

who have begotten children in your midst. Ezekiel stipulates that the sojourners would have to be longtime residents in the Israelite community.