Ezekiel 23:42 - Exposition

A voice of a multitude , etc. The word for "multitude" is strictly tumult, and Keil and Currey render, The voice of tumult became still," sc . the threats of the alien powers whom Judah courted were for a time hushed by the tributes thus paid to them. With the men of the common sort ; literally, as in the margin, of the multitude of men . Sabeans from the wilderness . The Revised Version, with Keil and almost all recent commentators, follows the margin, drunkards ( LXX ; οἰνώμενοι ). "Sabeans" rests on a Jewish rendering of the text, but, as a people, the Sabeans, who dwelt south of Meroe, though named in Isaiah 45:14 , were too remote to come within the horizon of the parable. What Ezekiel dwells on is the ever-growing degradation of the harlot city. Not only the officers of the Chaldeans, but the mixed multitude, the very drunkards from the wilderness of Babylon, were admitted to her embraces. Possibly the word may point to the false gods to whom libations of wine were offered, but I incline to refer it rather to those who got drunk at their idol-festivals even in Jerusalem. Drunkenness was one of the vices of the Babylonians, and the prophets, who admired the Rechabites and the Nazarites ( Jeremiah 35:1-19 .; Amos 2:11 ), must have looked on Judah's participation in that sin as a measureless degradation. The bracelets and crowns symbolize the wealth and prestige which the Chaldean alliance was supposed to bring with it.