Thou hast moreover multiplied thy fornication in the land of Canaan,.... Or, "with the land of Canaan" l; with the inhabitants of it, doing the same evils, committing the same idolatries, as the old inhabitants of Canaan did; and so the Targum,
"and thou hast multiplied thine idols, that thou mightest be joined to the people of Canaan:''
or, "to the land of Canaan" m; like to the land of Canaan; according to the abominations of the Canaanites, doing as they did. Jarchi takes the word Canaan to signify a "merchant", as it does in Hosea 12:7; and the land of Canaan to be the same with the land of Chaldea, called a land of traffic, and Babylon the city of merchants, Ezekiel 17:4; since it follows,
unto Chaldea: but the sense is, that the Jews were not content with the idolatries in the land of Canaan, but sent even to Chaldea, a remote country, to fetch new idols from thence; see Ezekiel 23:14. The Targum is,
"to walk in the laws of the Chaldeans;''
their religious ones, their rites and ceremonies respecting idolatrous worship:
and yet thou wast not satisfied herewith; but still wanted other idols and modes of worship; not being content with the gods of the Egyptians, nor of the Assyrians, nor of the Canaanites, nor of the Chaldeans.
l אל ארץ כנען "cum terra Canaan", Munster, so some in Vatablus, Tigurine version, Noldius, p. 39. No. 288. m "ad terram Canaan", so some in Vatablus. Approved by Kimchi and Ben Melech.