Exodus 35:25-26

35:25 Every woman who was skilled ¹  spun with her hands and brought what she had spun, blue, purple, or scarlet yarn, or fine linen, 35:26 and all the women whose heart stirred them to action and who were skilled ²  spun goats’ hair.

Ezekiel 8:14

8:14 Then he brought me to the entrance of the north gate of the Lord’s house. I noticed ³  women sitting there weeping for Tammuz. ⁴ 

Ezekiel 16:16

16:16 You took some of your clothing and made for yourself decorated high places; you engaged in prostitution on them. You went to him to become his. ⁵ 

Hosea 2:13

2:13 “I will punish her for the festival days

when she burned incense to the Baal idols; ⁶ 

she adorned herself with earrings and jewelry,

and went after her lovers,

but ⁷  she forgot me!” ⁸  says the Lord.

¹ tn Heb “wisdom of heart,” which means that they were skilled and could make all the right choices about the work.

² tn The text simply uses a prepositional phrase, “with/in wisdom.” It seems to be qualifying “the women” as the relative clause is.

³ tn Given the context this could be understood as a shock, e.g., idiomatically “Good grief! I saw….”

⁴ sn The worship of Tammuz included the observation of the annual death and descent into the netherworld of the god Dumuzi. The practice was observed by women in the ancient Near East over a period of centuries.

⁵ tc The text as written in the MT is incomprehensible (“not coming [plural] and he will not”). Driver has suggested a copying error of similar-sounding words, specifically לֹא (lo’) for לוֹ (lo). The feminine participle בָאוֹת (va’ot) has also been read as the feminine perfect בָאת (va’t). See L. C. Allen, Ezekiel (WBC), 1:228, n. 15.b, and D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 1:486, n. 137.

⁶ tn Heb “the days of the Baals, to whom she burned incense.” The word “festival” is supplied to clarify the referent of “days,” and the word “idols” is supplied in light of the plural “Baals” (cf. NLT “her images of Baal”).

⁷ tn The vav prefixed to a nonverb (וְאֹתִי, vé’oti) introduces a disjunctive contrastive clause, which is rhetorically powerful.

⁸ tn The accusative direct object pronoun וְאֹתִי (vé’oti, “me”) is emphatic in the word order of this clause (cf. NIV “but me she forgot”), emphasizing the heinous inappropriateness of Israel’s departure from the Lord.