Ezekiel 8:17. They put the branch to their nose.
According to Strabo and others, when the fire-worshipers prayed before the sacred fire, they held in the left hand a little bunch of twigs called hansom, and applied it to their mouth when uttering prayer. Hengstenberg says: “The nose is derisively mentioned in place of the mouth, according to the leaning to irony and sarcasm, which appears so often in the prophets when they oppose and chastise superstitious folly” (Commentary on Ezekiel).
Some think the reference here is to the custom of divining by rods. See note on Hosea 4:12 (#597).