Ezekiel 22:9

9 In you are slanderers who are bent on shedding blood; in you are those who eat at the mountain shrines and commit lewd acts.

Ezekiel 22:9 in Other Translations

9 In thee are men that carry tales to shed blood: and in thee they eat upon the mountains: in the midst of thee they commit lewdness.

9 There are men in you who slander to shed blood, and people in you who eat on the mountains; they commit lewdness in your midst.

9 People accuse others falsely and send them to their death. You are filled with idol worshipers and people who do obscene things.

9 You have people spreading lies and spilling blood, flocking to the hills to the sex shrines and fornicating unrestrained.

9 Slanderous men have been in thee to shed blood; and in thee they have eaten upon the mountains: in the midst of thee they have committed lewdness.

9 Some of your people slander. They want to kill people. People who live in you eat food sacrificed to idols at the worship sites on the hills, and they sin sexually.

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.

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.

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FOOTNOTES:

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

Ezekiel 22:9 In-Context

7 In you they have treated father and mother with contempt; in you they have oppressed the foreigner and mistreated the fatherless and the widow.

8 You have despised my holy things and desecrated my Sabbaths.

9 In you are slanderers who are bent on shedding blood; in you are those who eat at the mountain shrines and commit lewd acts.

10 In you are those who dishonor their father’s bed; in you are those who violate women during their period, when they are ceremonially unclean.

11 In you one man commits a detestable offense with his neighbor’s wife, another shamefully defiles his daughter-in-law, and another violates his sister, his own father’s daughter.

Cross References

• 1. S Leviticus 19:16
• 2. Isaiah 59:3; S Ezekiel 11:6; Hosea 4:2; Hosea 6:9
• 3. Ezekiel 18:11
• 4. Ezekiel 23:29; Hosea 4:10,14