Ezekiel 22:9

9 There are men within you who slander in order to shed blood.[a] People who [live] in you eat at the mountain [shrines]; they commit immoral acts within you.

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 Father and mother are treated with contempt, and the foreign resident is exploited within you. The fatherless and widow are oppressed in you.
8 You despise My holy things and profane My Sabbaths.
9 There are men within you who slander in order to shed blood. People who [live] in you eat at the mountain [shrines]; they commit immoral acts within you.
10 Men within you have sexual intercourse with [their] father's wife, and violate women during their menstrual impurity.
11 One man within you commits an abomination with his neighbor's wife; another wickedly defiles his daughter-in-law; and [yet] another violates his sister, his father's daughter.

Footnotes 1

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