Ezekiel 22:9

9 You have spread lies about others so you can spill someone's blood. You eat at the mountain temples. You commit impure acts.

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 They have made fun of fathers and mothers alike. They have crushed outsiders. They have treated badly the children whose fathers have died. They have done the same thing to widows.
8 " ' "You have looked down on the holy things that were set apart to me. You have misused my Sabbath days.
9 You have spread lies about others so you can spill someone's blood. You eat at the mountain temples. You commit impure acts.
10 " ' "You bring shame on your fathers by having sex with their wives. You have sex with women during their monthly period. That is when they are 'unclean.'
11 One of you has sex with another man's wife. I hate that sin. Another brings shame on his daughter-in-law by having sex with her. Still another has sex with his sister, even though she is his own father's daughter.
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