She doted upon the Assyrians, governors and commanders, warriors clothed in full armor, horsemen riding on horses, all of them desirable young men: This verse repeats the ideas of verses 5-6 (see the comments there). The order of the words is different, but the only other difference in wording is clothed in full armor (literally “dressed to perfection”) instead of “clothed in purple.” The Hebrew expression for “dressed to perfection” has two possible meanings. It could mean that the soldiers were dressed “in beautiful uniforms” (New Century Version; similarly New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh with “gorgeously clad”). The second possible meaning is that they had all their armor and fighting equipment on and were ready to fight; for example, New International Version and Revised English Bible say “in full dress.” In this context where the focus is on impressive pageantry and not on battle, this meaning is unlikely (compare 38.4, where the focus is on readiness for battle). Rather, the focus is on the magnificent uniforms and clothes that impressed Oholibah greatly. So the meaning of “dressed to perfection” is very similar to “clothed in purple” in verse 6; even the words for “perfection” and “purple” sound similar in Hebrew.

Quoted with permission from Gross, Carl & Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on Ezekiel. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2016. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .