Ezekiel’s sign-act of the two sticks is an interpretive quagmire. Interpretive issues include the association of ‘Israel’ with both sticks, the use of the name ‘Joseph’ to identify the entity associated with the second stick, the interest in a defunct northern kingdom which this is thought to reflect, the relationship between the entities represented by the two sticks, the meaning of the terms עץ‎ and שבט‎, and the use of מלך‎. The article aims to resolve a number of these issues and to suggest the cause of certain others. It argues that the sign-act concerns the competing claims of the two royal lines created by the deportation of Jehoiachin to Babylon and the appointment of Zedekiah in Jerusalem. It should therefore be understood as part of a wider corpus of texts attesting to the ideological and practical struggle between the Babylonian golah and those left behind in the land.

中文翻译：

---

决斗王朝：关于以西结的两根棍子的手势的提议

以西结的两根棍子的手势是一个解释性的泥潭。解释性问题包括“以色列”与两根棍子的关联，使用名称“约瑟夫”来识别与第二根棍子相关联的实体，这被认为反映了对已不复存在的北方王国的兴趣，实体之间的关系由两根木棍代表，עץ 和 שבט 的含义，以及 מלך 的用法。这篇文章旨在解决其中一些问题，并提出某些其他问题的原因。它争辩说，该标志法案涉及因约雅斤被驱逐到巴比伦和西底家被任命在耶路撒冷而产生的两个王室的竞争要求。