Ezekiel 23:42

being at ease If the reading be correct "at ease" must refer to careless living, a sense which the word has not elsewhere. LXX. renders: and a sound of music they raised; but though the word "multitude" may mean sound or noise when joined to songs (Ezekiel 26:13; Amos 5:23), it can hardly of itself mean music. LXX. may have read "they sang" for "at ease:" "and with a loud noise (Daniel 10:6) they sang" a sense not suitable seeing the musicians must have been the harlots themselves, Isaiah 23:15-16. For the idea of multitude cf. Jeremiah 5:7 end. If music were referred to the words would be better attached to the previous verse.

was with her Rather: therein or therewith. LXX. om.

and with the men … Sabeans and with men. For Sabeans Heb. text reads "drunkards," as marg., and from the nature of the passage, which speaks of a general practice, reference to any particular nation is less probable. Read as R.V. "and with (in addition to) men … were brought drunkards from the wilderness; and they put bracelets" &c. Even for these vulgar guests the harlots, so indiscriminate was their whoredom, put bracelets on their hands and decked themselves. The idea that it was "men of the common sort" who adorned the harlots with bracelets as their hire (A.V. &c.) has little to recommend it, cf. Ezekiel 16:31 seq. (the verb "they put" is mas. because fem. is not in use, Esther 1:20). Even in Muhammed's days the Arabs were addicted to drunkenness. LXX. om. "drunkards," which might be a duplicate of "brought," and certainly the mention of twoclasses here is rather improbable, the common sort and those brought from the wilderness might rather be the same, viz. the vulgar and petty peoples in contrast to the larger and nobler such as Babylon. The omission makes the clause difficult to construe. Corn, reconstructs the clause after Proverbs 7:16, making it a description of the "bed of love" (Ezekiel 23:17), but with little probability. If the adulterous act be anywhere referred to it is in Ezekiel 23:43.