Ezekiel 22:9

9 In you slanderers show up to shed blood. In you they eat on the mountains. In you they do obscene things.

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 In you they treat father and mother with contempt. In you they oppress immigrants and deny the rights of orphans and widows.
8 You despise my holy things and degrade my sabbaths.
9 In you slanderers show up to shed blood. In you they eat on the mountains. In you they do obscene things.
10 In you a father's nakedness is uncovered. In you menstruating women are violated.
11 Every man engages in detestable practices with his neighbor's wife, every man defiles his daughter-in-law with obscene acts, and every man violates his sister, his own father's daughter.
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