Reading Ezekiel 8 in the ESV I came across verse 17 today and was puzzled by phrase there:
Is it too light a thing for the house of Judah to commit the abominations that they commit here, that they should fill the land with violence and provoke me still further to anger? Behold, they put the branch to their nose.
The NLT reads:
Is it nothing to the people of Judah that they commit these detestable sins, leading the whole nation into violence, thumbing their noses at me, and provoking my anger?
What convolutes the situation is that the ESV gives the marginal reading branch to my nose.
Is this a Hebrew idiom? What does it mean? Does it, or a similar expression, occur elsewhere in Scripture? or elsewhere in Ancient Middle Eastern literature? Has the NLT captured the sense of the idiom?