Then he said to me, Behold, I have given you cow's dung for man's dung, and you shall prepare your bread thereon.
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The same verse in 3 English versions, stacked beneath the original-language interlinear above. Click any original word for its lexicon entry.
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Then he said to me, Behold, I have given you cow's dung for man's dung, and you shall prepare your bread thereon.
Then he said unto me, Lo, I have given thee cow's dung for man's dung, and thou shalt prepare thy bread therewith.
So he said to me, “Look! I have given you cow manure instead of human dung so you can prepare your bread over that.”
unfoldingWord Literal Text — © unfoldingWord, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Word-aligned USFM3 via Door43 (git.door43.org/unfoldingWord/en_ult).
Every available English version of this verse, each an independent rendering of the whole verse.
Then he said to me, Behold, I have given you cow's dung for man's dung, and you shall prepare your bread thereon.
“Look,” He replied, “I will let you use cow dung instead of human excrement, and you may bake your bread over that.”
“Look,” He replied, “I will let you use cow dung instead of human excrement, and you may bake your bread over that.”
Then he said unto me, Lo, I have given thee cow's dung for man's dung, and thou shalt prepare thy bread therewith.
Then he said unto me, See, I have given thee cow's dung for man's dung, and thou shalt prepare thy bread thereon.
Then he said unto me, See, I have given thee cow’s dung for man’s dung, and thou shalt prepare thy bread thereon.
Then he said vnto me, Loe, I haue giuen thee bullockes dongue for mans dongue, and thou shalt prepare thy bread therewith.
And he said to me: Behold I have given thee neat's dung for man's dung, and thou shalt make thy bread therewith.
And He saith unto me, `See, I have given to thee bullock's dung instead of man's dung, and thou hast made thy bread by it.'
And He says to me, “See, I have given to you bullock’s dung instead of man’s dung, and you have made your bread by it.”
So he said to me, “Look! I have given you cow manure instead of human dung so you can prepare your bread over that.”
So he said to me, “Look! I have given you cow manure instead of human dung so you can prepare your bread over that.”
And he said unto me, See, I have given thee cow's dung for man's dung, and thou shalt prepare thy bread therewith.
Then he said to me, “Behold, I have given you cow’s dung for man’s dung, and you shall prepare your bread on it.”
Then he said to me, Lo, I have given thee cow's dung for man's dung, and thou shalt prepare thy bread with them.
“All right,” he said. “I'll let you use cow manure instead of human excrement You can bake your bread over a fire using that.”
Then he said to me, See, I have given you cow's waste in place of man's waste, and you will make your bread ready on it.
Then He said unto me: 'See, I have given thee cow's dung for man's dung, and thou shalt prepare thy bread thereon.'
Literal Standard Version (2020), Covenant Press — licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API (eBible.org). Unlocked Literal Bible (unfoldingWord) — licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API (eBible.org). unfoldingWord Literal Text — © unfoldingWord, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Word-aligned USFM3 via Door43 (git.door43.org/unfoldingWord/en_ult). Free Bible Version, Dr. Jonathan Gallagher — licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API (eBible.org).
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These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →
Notable vocabulary
The rarest word here is צפועי dung H6832 — appearing just 2 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.
First appearance in Scripture
This word makes its first canonical appearance in the Hebrew Bible here:
Grammatical profile
Verb forms
Repetition
A word recurs within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:
Hebrew & Septuagint length
In English translation the verse runs 22 words from the Hebrew and 25 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — closely comparable.
A rough comparison of the two English renderings, which tokenize alike — not a word-level alignment.
Word counts can differ between the Hebrew and the Greek without any difference in meaning — e.g. the Hebrew direct-object marker אֵת has no separate Greek word, and Greek often adds the article ὁ.
In the original languages it is 16 Hebrew tokens and 21 Greek tokens — but the two are counted differently (Hebrew bundles its prefixes and suffixes into one token; the Greek is in lemma form), so that isn’t a like-for-like length.
The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.
These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.
וַיֹּ֣אמֶר אֵלַ֔י רְאֵ֗ה נָתַ֤תִּֽי לְךָ֙ אֶת צפועי צְפִיעֵ֣י הַבָּקָ֔ר תַּ֖חַת גֶּלְלֵ֣י הָֽאָדָ֑ם וְעָשִׂ֥יתָ אֶֽת לַחְמְךָ֖ עֲלֵיהֶֽם
Then he said to me, Behold, I have given you cow's dung for man's dung, and you shall prepare your bread thereon.
World English Bible · Public Domain
καί εἶπον πρός ἐγώ ἰδού δίδωμι σύ βόλβιτον βοῦς ἀντί ὁ βόλβιτον ὁ ἀνθρώπινος καί ποιέω ὁ ἄρτος σύ ἐπί αὐτός
And he said to me, Behold, I have given you dung of oxen instead of man's dung, and you shall prepare your loaves upon it.
LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain
Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) (Public Domain). How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →
The Targum is the ancient Jewish Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Scriptures — an interpretive translation, not the Hebrew text itself. Onkelos (literal) and Pseudo-Jonathan (expansive) render the Torah, and Jonathan the Prophets. Coverage is partial: where no permissively-licensed English translation exists for a verse, only the Aramaic is shown. This is verse-level text, not a word-by-word alignment to the Hebrew.
וַאֲמַר לִי חֲזֵי דִיהָבֵית לָךְ יַת גְלֵי תוֹרַיָא חֲלַף גְלֵי אֱנָשָׁא וְתַעֲבֵיד יַת מֵיכְלָךְ עֲלֵיהוֹן:
(no public-domain English translation for this verse)
Targum Jonathan — Aramaic: “Mikraot Gedolot” (public domain). English: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “London "Chaldee Paraphrase," 1871” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.
Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.
Ezekiel, in the Prophets, opens this verse with 16 words (13 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is tsᵉphûwaʻ (“dung”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.
Commentary
Notes on Ezekiel 4:15 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.
Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →
Trapp's Complete Commentary
John Trapp
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Geneva Bible (1599)
Geneva Bible translators
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
John Gill's Exposition
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Matthew Poole's English Annotations
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
The Pulpit Commentary
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Rashi
Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (Rashi)
Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.