Ezekiel 22:9

9 The men in you tell lies to cause the death of others. The people in you eat food offered to idols at the mountain places of worship, and they take part in sexual sins.

Ezekiel 22:9 Meaning and Commentary

Ezekiel 22:9

In thee are men that carry tales to shed blood
Innocent blood, as the Targum; such who go from house to house, as pedlars do, with their wares or spices, as the word F1 signifies; hence the Syriac version renders it "merchants"; and carry tales and lies of innocent persons, and stir up others against them to wrath and revenge, and shed their blood; or that go to the courts of judicature, and there accuse innocent persons, and bear false witness against them, to the taking away of their lives. The Septuagint and Arabic versions render it "thieves": who commonly are murderers: and in thee they eat upon the mountains; that is, there were such in Jerusalem who used to go to the mountains where idols were worshipped, and eat the things that were sacrificed to them; or partook of the feast made to the honour of them. So the Targum,

``in thee they served idols on the mountains:''
in the midst of thee they commit lewdness;
a general word for all manner of uncleanness, as adultery, fornication, incest of which some particulars follow.
FOOTNOTES:

F1 (lykr yvna) "homines mercaturae, [vel] aromatis"; so Ben Melech observes.

Ezekiel 22:9 In-Context

7 The people in you hate their fathers and mothers. They mistreat the foreigners in you and wrong the orphans and widows in you.
8 You hate my holy things and dishonor my Sabbaths.
9 The men in you tell lies to cause the death of others. The people in you eat food offered to idols at the mountain places of worship, and they take part in sexual sins.
10 The men in you have sexual relations with their fathers' wives and with women who are unclean, during their time of monthly bleeding.
11 One man in you does a hateful act with his neighbor's wife, while another has shamefully made his daughter-in-law unclean sexually. And another forces his half sister to have sexual relations with him.
Scripture taken from the New Century Version. Copyright © 1987, 1988, 1991 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.