Ezekiel 37:23 - Exposition

The dwelling-places wherein they have sinned , from which Jehovah premises to save them, are in accordance with the views expressed above, not, as Hengstenberg and Hitzig conjecture, the dwelling-places of the exile in which the people then were, but the dwelling-places in Canaan in which they had formerly transgressed, but would in future be preserved from transgressing. The idea is, as Schroder suggests, the localization of transgression which is viewed as proceeding from the dwelling-places in which it is committed; or, according to Plumptre, the conception is that, as their habitations had formerly been contaminated by their detestable things, "the worship of teraphim and such like, if not worse," so Jehovah would save them from that contamination. The proposal to alter the text by the transposition of a letter, converting moshbhothehem , "dwelling-places," into meshubhothehem ," defections," as in Jeremiah 3:22 (comp. Ezekiel 36:29 ), though adopted by some ancient versions and favored by Ewald and Smend, is not necessary.