Then I said, Do not men now commit adultery when they practice harlotry with her?: According to most scholars, it is almost impossible to make sense of this verse (see the footnotes in Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation). Moffatt omits it entirely. In Hebrew it reads literally “And I said about the woman who was worn out with her acts of adultery, ‘Now they will do her acts of prostitution and she.’ ” Revised Standard Version has ignored the Hebrew and followed the Septuagint. Good News Translation is much closer to the Hebrew. The following discussion gives a possible interpretation of the Hebrew.

The pronoun I refers to God. Some translations render I said as “I said to myself” (Good News Translation) or “I thought” (Revised English Bible, New Jerusalem Bible), which is acceptable. “The woman who was worn out with her acts of adultery” means that Oholibah (and by extension Oholah as well) have committed so much adultery and had so much sex that they are worn out and exhausted. Despite this, the men who have come at their invitation “will do her acts of prostitution.” The meaning of this clause seems to be that, despite being exhausted from their sexual activity, the two sisters will continue to prostitute themselves to those men. The strange expression “and she” at the end of the verse may mean “after all, she is a prostitute”; for example, New International Version says “for that is all she is,” and New Century Version has “She is nothing but a prostitute.” Or it may have the sense that the two sisters are as keen to continue their sexual activity as the men are to have sex with them; for example, New King James Version renders the last half of this verse as “Will they commit harlotry with her now, and she with them?” (similarly King James Version, New American Standard Bible, New Jerusalem Bible). This rhetorical question means that God cannot believe that the men still want to have sex with the worn-out sisters or that the sisters still want to have sex with anyone. There is no way of deciding which interpretation is right, but both of these seem to be possible.

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 .