The document provides a detailed commentary on Ezekiel 4, focusing on the symbolic act of the prophet representing the siege of Jerusalem using a brick or tile on which he is instructed to draw the city and surrounding siege works. It discusses the historical context of bricks used in ancient Mesopotamia, the significance of the symbolic actions performed by Ezekiel, such as the use of an iron pan to represent a wall between him and the city, and relates their meanings to God's impending judgment on Jerusalem. The commentary emphasizes the importance of divine authority in interpreting these actions as signs for the house of Israel.

1. EZEKIEL 4 COMMENTARY
EDITED BY GLENN PEASE
Siege of Jerusalem Symbolized
1 “Now, son of man, take a block of clay, put it in
front of you and draw the city of Jerusalem on it.
BARNES, "A tile - Rather, a brick. Sun-dried or kiln-burned bricks were from very
early times used for building walls throughout the plain of Mesopotamia. The bricks of
Nineveh and Babylon are sometimes stamped with what appears to be the device of the
king in whose reign they were made, and often covered with a kind of enamel on which
various scenes are portrayed. Among the subjects depicted on such bricks discovered at
Nimroud are castles and forts.
CLARKE, "Take thee a tile - A tile, such as we use in covering houses, will give us
but a very inadequate notion of those used anciently; and also appear very insufficient
for the figures which the prophet was commanded to pourtray on it. A brick is most
undoubtedly meant; yet, even the larger dimensions here, as to thickness, will not help
us through the difficulty, unless we have recourse to the ancients, who have spoken of
the dimensions of the bricks commonly used in building. Palladius, De Re Rustica, lib. 6
c. 12, is very particular on this subject: - Sint vero lateres longitudine pedum duorum,
latitudine unius, altitudine quatuor unciarum. “Let the bricks be two feet long, one foot
broad, and four inches thick.” Edit. Gesner, vol. 3 p. 144. On such a surface as this the
whole siege might be easily pourtrayed. There are some brick-bats before me which were
brought from the ruins of ancient Babylon, which have been made of clay and straw
kneaded together and baked in the sun; one has been more than four inches thick, and
on one side it is deeply impressed with characters; others are smaller, well made, and
finely impressed on one side with Persepolitan characters. These have been for inside or
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2. ornamental work; to such bricks the prophet most probably alludes.
But the tempered clay out of which the bricks were made might be meant here; of this
substance he might spread out a sufficient quantity to receive all his figures. The figures
were
1. Jerusalem.
2. A fort.
3. A mount.
4. The camp of the enemy.
5. Battering rams, and such like engines, round about.
6. A wall round about the city, between it and the besieging army.
GILL, "Thou also, son of man, take thee a tile,.... Or "brick" (z). The Targum
renders it, a "stone"; but a tile or brick, especially one that is not dried and burned, but
green, is more fit to cut in it the figure of a city. Some think that this was ordered
because cities are built of brick; or to show the weakness of the city of Jerusalem, how
easily it might be demolished; and Jerom thinks there was some design to lead the Jews
to reflect upon their making bricks in Egypt, and their hard service there; though
perhaps the truer reason may be, because the Babylonians had been used to write upon
tiles. Epigenes (a) says they had celestial observations of a long course of years, written
on tiles; hence the prophet is bid to describe Jerusalem on one, which was to be
destroyed by the king of Babylon;
and lay it before thee: as persons do, who are about to draw a picture, make a
portrait, or engrave the form of anything they intend:
and portray upon it the city; even Jerusalem; or engrave upon it, by making
incisions on it, and so describing the form and figure of the city of Jerusalem.
HENRY, "The prophet is here ordered to represent to himself and others by signs
which would be proper and powerful to strike the fancy and to affect the mind, the siege
of Jerusalem; and this amounted to a prediction.
I. He was ordered to engrave a draught of Jerusalem upon a tile, Eze_4:1. It was
Jerusalem's honour that while she kept her integrity God had graven her upon the
palms of his hands (Isa_49:16), and the names of the tribes were engraven in precious
stones on the breast-plate of the high priest; but, now that the faithful city has become a
harlot, a worthless brittle tile or brick is thought good enough to portray it upon. This
the prophet must lay before him, that the eye may affect the heart.
K&D 1-3, "The Sign of the Siege of Jerusalem. - This sign, which Ezekiel is to
perform in his own house before the eyes of the exiles who visit him, consists in three
interconnected and mutually-supplementary symbolical acts, the first of which is
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3. described in Eze_4:1-3, the second in Eze_4:4-8, and the third in Eze_4:9-17. In the first
place, he is symbolically to represent the impending siege of Jerusalem (Eze_4:1-3); in
the second place, by lying upon one side, he is to announce the punishment of Israel's
sin (Eze_4:4-8); in the third place, by the nature of his food, he is, while lying upon one
side, to hold forth to view the terrible consequences of the siege to Israel. The close
connection as to their subject-matter of these three actions appears clearly from this,
that the prophet, according to Eze_4:7, while lying upon one side, is to direct his look
and his arm upon the picture of the besieged city before him; and, according to Eze_4:8,
is to lie upon his side as long as the siege lasts, and during that time is to nourish himself
in the manner prescribed in Eze_4:9. In harmony with this is the formal division of the
chapter, inasmuch as the three acts, which the prophet is to perform for the purpose of
portraying the impending siege of Jerusalem, are co-ordinated to each other by the
repetition of the address ‫ה‬ ָ‫תּ‬ ַ‫א‬ ְ‫ו‬ in Eze_4:3, Eze_4:4, and Eze_4:8, and subordinated to
the general injunction-to portray Jerusalem as a besieged city - introduced in Eze_4:1
with the words ‫ה‬ ָ‫תּ‬ ַ‫א‬ ְ‫ו‬ ‫ן‬ ֶ‫ב‬ .
The first symbolical action. - Eze_4:1. And thou, son of man, take to thyself a brick,
and lay it before thee, and draw thereon a city, Jerusalem: Eze_4:2. And direct a siege
against it; build against it siege-towers, raise up a mound against it, erect camps
against it, and place battering-rams against it round about. Eze_4:3. And thou, take to
thyself an iron pan, and place it as an iron wall between thee and the city, and direct
thy face towards it; thus let it be in a state of siege, and besiege it. Let it be a sign to the
house of Israel.
The directions in Eze_4:1 and Eze_4:2 contain the general basis for the symbolical
siege of Jerusalem, which the prophet is to lay before Israel as a sign. Upon a brick he is
to sketch a city (‫ק‬ ַ‫ק‬ ָ‫,ח‬ to engrave with a writing instrument) which is to represent
Jerusalem: around the city he is to erect siege-works - towers, walls, camps, and
battering-rams; i.e., he is to inscribe the representation of them, and place before
himself the picture of the besieged city. The selection of a brick, i.e., of a tile-stone, not
burnt in a kiln, but merely dried in the sun, is not, as Hävernick supposes, a
reminiscence of Babylon and monumental inscriptions; in Palestine, also, such bricks
were a common building material (Isa_9:9), in consequence of which the selection of
such a soft mass of clay, on which a picture might be easily inscribed, was readily
suggested. ‫ן‬ ַ‫ָת‬‫נ‬ ‫ר‬ ‫צ‬ ָ‫מ‬ = ‫שׂוּם‬ , Mic_4:1-13 :14, “to make a siege,” i.e., “to bring forward
siege-works.” ‫ר‬ ‫צ‬ ָ‫מ‬ is therefore the general expression which is specialized in the
following clauses by ‫ֵק‬‫י‬ ָ‫,דּ‬ “siege-towers” (see on 2Ki_24:1); by ‫ה‬ָ‫ל‬ ְ‫ֹל‬‫ס‬, “mound” (see on
2Sa_20:15); ‫ת‬ ‫נ‬ֲ‫ח‬ ַ‫,מ‬ “camps” in the plural, because the hostile army raises several camps
around the city; ‫ים‬ ִ‫ר‬ָ‫,כּ‬ “battering-rams,” “wall-breakers,” arietes; according to Joseph
Kimchi, “iron rams,” to break in the walls (and gates, 21:27). They consisted of strong
beams of hard wood, furnished at the end with a ram's head made of iron, which were
suspended by a chain, and driven forcibly against the wall by the soldiers. Compare the
description of them by Josephus, de bello Judaico iii. 7. 19. The suffix in ָ‫יה‬ֶ‫ל‬ָ‫,ע‬ in Eze_
4:2, refers to ‫יר‬ ִ‫.ע‬ The siege-works which are named were not probably to be placed by
Ezekiel as little figures around the brick, so that the latter would represent the city, but
to be engraved upon the brick around the city thereon portrayed. The expressions, “to
make a siege,” “to build towers,” “to erect a mound,” etc., are selected because the
drawing was to represent what is done when a city is besieged. In Eze_4:3, in reference
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4. to this, the inscribed picture of the city is at once termed “city,” and in Eze_4:7 the
picture of the besieged Jerusalem, “the siege of Jerusalem.” The meaning of the picture
is clear. Every one who saw it was to recognise that Jerusalem will be besieged. But the
prophet is to do still more; he is to take in hand the siege itself, and to carry it out. To
that end, he is to placed an iron pan as an iron wall between himself and the city
sketched on the brick, and direct his countenance stedfastly towards the city (‫ין‬ ִ‫כ‬ ֵ‫,)ה‬ and
so besiege it. The iron pan, erected as a wall, is to represent neither the wall of the city
(Ewald) nor the enemies' rampart, for this was already depicted on the brick; while to
represent it, i.e., the city wall, as “iron,” i.e., immoveably fast, would be contrary to the
meaning of the prophecy. The iron wall represents, as Rosenmüller, after the hints of
Theodoret, Cornelius a Lapide, and others, has already observed, a firm, impregnable
wall of partition, which the prophet as messenger and representative of God is to raise
between himself and the beleaguered city, ut significaret, quasi ferreum murum
interjectum esse cives inter et se, i.e., Deum Deique decretum et sententiam contra illos
latam esse irrevocabilem, nec Deum civium preces et querimonias auditurum aut iis ad
misericordiam flectendum. Cf. Isa_59:2; Lam_3:44. ‫ת‬ ַ‫ב‬ֲ‫ח‬ ַ‫,מ‬ “pan,” i.e., an iron plate for
baking their loaves and slices of cakes; see on Lev_2:5. The selection of such an iron
plate for the purpose mentioned is not to be explained, as Kliefoth thinks, from the
circumstance that the pan is primarily to serve the prophet for preparing his food while
he is occupied in completing his sketch. The text says nothing of that. If he were to have
employed the pan for such a purpose, he could not, at the same time, have placed it as a
wall between himself and the city. The choice is to be explained simply from this, that
such a plate was to be found in every household, and was quite fitted for the object
intended. If any other symbolical element is contained on it, the hard ignoble metal
might, perhaps, with Grotius, be taken to typify the hard, wicked heart of the inhabitants
of Jerusalem; cf. Eze_22:18; Jer_15:12. The symbolical siege of Jerusalem is to be a sign
for the house of Israel, i.e., a pre-announcement of its impending destiny. The house of
Israel is the whole covenant people, not merely the ten tribes as in Eze_4:5, in
contradistinction to the house of Judah (Eze_4:6).
CALVIN, "Here God begins to speak more openly by means of his servant, and not
to speak only, but to signify by an outward symbol what he wishes to be uttered by
his mouth. Hence he orders the Prophet to paint Jerusalem on a brick Take
therefore, he says, a brick, and place it in thy sight: then paint on it a city, even
Jerusalem This is one command: then erect a tower against it. He describes the form
of ancient warfare; for then when they wished to besiege cities, they erected mounds
from which they filled up trenches: then they moved about wooden towers, so that
they might collect the soldiers into close bands, and they had other machines which
are not now in use. For fire-arms took away that ancient art of warfare. But God
here Simply wishes the picture of a city to be besieged by Ezekiel. Then he orders
him to set up a pan or iron plate, like a wall of iron This had been a childish
spectacle, unless God had commanded the Prophet to act so. And hence we infer,
that sacraments cannot be distinguished from empty shows, unless by the word of
4

5. God. The authority of God therefore is the mark of distinction, by which sacraments
excel, and have their weight and dignity, and whatever men mingle with them is
frivolous. For this reason we say that all the pomps of which the Papal religion is
full are mere trifles. Why so? because men have thought out whatever dazzles the
eyes of the simple, without any command of God.
But if any one now objects, that the water in baptism cannot penetrate as far as the
soul, so as to purge it of inward and hidden filth, we have this ready answer:
baptism ought not to be considered in its external aspect only, but its author must be
considered. Thus the whole worship under the law had nothing very different from
the ceremonies of the Gentiles. Thus the profane Gentiles also slew their victims,
and had whatever outward splendor could be desired: but that was entirely futile,
because God had not commanded it. On the other hand, nothing was useless among
the Jews. When they brought their victims, when the blood was sprinkled, when
they performed ablutions, God’s command was added, and afterwards a promise:
and so these ceremonies were not without their use. We must therefore hold, that
sacraments at first sight appear trifling and of no moment, but their efficacy
consists in the command and promise of God. For if any one reads what Ezekiel
here relates, he would say that it, was child’s play. He took a brick, he painted a city
on it: it was only a figment: then he had imaginary machines by which he besieged
the city: why boys do better than this: next he set up a plate of iron like a wall: this
action is not a whit more serious than the former. Thus profane men would not only
despise, but even carp at this symbol. But when God sends his Prophet, his authority
should be sufficient for us, which is a certain test for our decision, and cannot fail,
as I have said. First, he says, paint a city, namely Jerusalem: then lay siege to it, and
move towards it all warlike instruments: place even ‫,כרים‬ kerim, which some
interpret “leaders,” but they are “lambs,” or “rams,” for the Hebrews
metaphorically name those iron machines by which walls are thrown down “rams,”
as the Latins do. Some indeed prefer the rendering “ leaders,” but I do not approve
of their opinion. At length he says, this shall be a sign and on this clause we must
dwell: for, as I already said, the whole description may be thought useless, unless
this testimony be added: indeed the whole vision would be insipid by itself, unless
the savor arose from this seasoning, since God says, this should be a sign to the
Israelites.
When God pronounces that the Prophet should do nothing in vain, this ought to be
sufficient to lead us to acquiesce in his word. If we then dispute according to our
5

6. sense, he will show that what seems foolish overcomes all the wisdom of the world,
as Paul says. (1 Corinthians 1:25.) For God sometimes works as if by means of folly:
that is, he has methods of action which are extraordinary, and by no means in
accordance with human judgment. But that this folly of God may excel all the
wisdom of the world, let this sentence occur to our minds, when it is here said, Let
this be for a sign to the house of Israel. For although the Israelites could shake their
heads, and put out their tongues, and treat the Prophet with unbridled insolence, yet
this alone prevailed sufficiently for confounding them, that God said, this shall be
for a sign And we know of what event it was a sign, because the Israelites who had
been drawn into captivity thought they had been too easy, and grieved at their
obedience: then also envy crept in when they saw the rest of the people remaining in
the city. Therefore God meets them and shows them that exile is more tolerable than
to endure a siege in the city if they were enclosed in it. Besides, there is little doubt
that this prophecy was directed against the Jews who pleased themselves, because
they were yet at ease in their rest. For this reason, therefore, God orders the Prophet
to erect towers, then to pitch a camp, and to prepare whatever belongs to the siege
of a city, because very soon afterwards the Chaldeans would arrive, who had not yet
oppressed the city, but are just about to besiege it, as we shall afterwards see at
length.
COFFMAN, "Verse 1
PROPHECY OF JERUSALEM'S DESTRUCTION (Ezekiel 4-7)
VISIBLE PORTRAYAL OF FALL OF JERUSALEM
The absurd view that the events of this chapter existed only subjectively in the mind
of Ezekiel, that it was all a vision of his, is here rejected. "The adoption of such an
interpretation is not the act of an honest interpreter."[1]
What Ezekiel did here was only another example of what many of God's prophets
throughout the ages also did. Zedekiah's "horns of iron" (1 Kings 22:11); Isaiah's
walking "naked and barefoot" (Isaiah 22:2-3); Jeremiah's "yokes of wood"
6

7. (Jeremiah 27:2); Hosea's marriage to Gomer (Hosea 1:1-3:10); Zechariah's
breaking of Beauty and Bands (Zechariah 11); Agabus' binding himself with Paul's
belt (Acts 21:10),, etc. are other examples of such enacted prophecies.
This chapter portrays (1) the visible model of Jerusalem's siege and capture (Ezekiel
4:1-3), the certainty of punishment awaiting both the northern and southern Israels
(Ezekiel 4:4-8), the scarcity of food for the inhabitants of Jerusalem (Ezekiel 4:9-11),
and the ceremonial uncleanness that would come to the besieged and to the captives
(Ezekiel 4:12-17).
Regarding the time of the events recorded here, Canon Cook placed it in the fifth
year of the captivity of Jehoiachin (592 B.C.). He also noted that the destruction of
Jerusalem was contrary to all human expectations.
"It could scarcely have been expected that Zedekiah, the creature of the king of
Babylon and ruling by his authority in the place of Jehoiachin would have been so
infatuated as to provoke the anger of the powerful Nebuchadnezzar. It was indeed
to infatuation that the historian ascribed that foolish act of Zedekiah (2 Kings
24:20).[2]
Ezekiel 4:1-3
"Thou also, son of man, take thee a tile, and lay it before thee, and portray upon it a
city, even Jerusalem: and lay siege against it, and build forts against it, and cast up a
mound against it, and plant battering rams against it round about. And take thou
unto thee an iron pan, and set it for a wall of iron between thee and the city: and set
thy face toward it, and it shall be besieged, and thou shalt lay siege against it. This
shall be a sign to the house of Israel."
"Take thee a tile ..." (Ezekiel 4:1). The fact that he could draw a map on this tile
identifies it as coming from Babylon, not Jerusalem, clearly indicating that Ezekiel
was written from the land of Israel's captivity, despite the concentrated focus upon
7

8. Jerusalem. This special concern for Jerusalem should not surprise us. "This
requires no explanation. Jerusalem was the heart and the brain of the nation, the
center of its life and its religion, and in the eyes of the prophets (all of them) the
fountain-head of its sin."[3]
The necessity of the prophetic warning to Israel regarding the ultimate fall and total
destruction of Jerusalem lay in the foolish and blind optimism of the people. "Even
after they were carried into captivity, numbers of them were still engaging in false
optimism,"[4] supposing that the captivity would soon end dramatically, and failing
to understand that their dreadful servitude was nothing more than God's
punishment of their consummate wickedness, a punishment they richly deserved.
This unexpected, totally improbable fall of Jerusalem is throughout this section of
Ezekiel the almost constant subject. "The great theme of the first part of Ezekiel is
the certainty of the complete downfall of the Jewish state."[5]
This model of the city of Jerusalem, with the deployment of all kinds of military
installations and equipment all around it, "was a proper and powerful device for
capturing attention, and it amounted to a prediction of the fall of Jerusalem."[6]
Ezekiel probably had many examples of this type of illustration to aid him in the
fulfillment of God's command, because, "Assyrian bas-reliefs show in vigorous
detail how a siege was carried out."[7]
In the analogy here, Ezekiel himself enacts the part of God as the true besieger of
the city. It came to pass as Jeremiah prophesied, when God said, "I myself shall
fight against you with outstretched hand and strong arm, in anger, and in fury, and
in great wrath" (Jeremiah 21:5).
The iron barrier (represented by the cooking utensil) stood for the wall of
separation which the sins of Israel had erected between themselves and the Lord.
"Your iniquities have been a barrier between you and your God,' (Isaiah 59:2). "It
8

9. meant the total severance of relation between Jerusalem and God, `You have
screened yourself off with a cloud, that prayer may not pass through.'"[8]
It would appear from the overwhelmingly bad news of such an illustrated prophecy
that Israel should have been filled with sorrow and consternation over it, "But there
seems to have been little response to it. Ezekiel was being taught in the crucible of
human experience the incredible resistance of men to the Word of God."[9]
COKE, "Ezekiel 4:1. Take thee a tile— A slate. See Jeremiah 1:11; Jeremiah 13:4.
Maimonides, not attending to the primitive mode of information made use of by
Ezekiel here, by Jeremiah in the passages referred to, and by several other of the
prophets, is much scandalised at several of these actions, unbecoming, as he
supposed, the dignity of the prophetical office: and is therefore for resolving them in
general into supernatural visions, impressed on the imagination of the prophet; and
this because some few of them, perhaps, may admit of such an interpretation. His
reasoning on this head is to the following effect: As the prophet thought that in a
vision, ch. Ezekiel 8:8-9 he was commanded to dig in the wall, that he might enter
and see what was doing within; and that he did dig, and entered through a hole, and
saw what was to be seen; so likewise when he was commanded in the present
passage to take a tile, and in ch. 5 to take him a sharp razor, we should conclude
that both these actions were merely supernatural visions; it arguing an
impeachment of the divine wisdom to employ his ministers in actions of so low a
kind. But here, says Bishop Warburton, the author's reasoning is defective, because
what Ezekiel saw, in the chambers of imagery, ch. 8 was in a vision; therefore, says
Maimonides, his delineation of the plan of the siege, and his shaving his beard, chap.
4 and 5 were likewise in vision. But to make this inference logical, it is necessary
that the circumstances in the viiith, and those in the ivth and vth chapters, be shewn
to be specifically the same. Examine them, and they are found to be very different.
That in the viiith was to shew the prophet the excessive idolatry of Jerusalem, by a
sight of the very idolatry itself. Those in the ivth and vth were to convey the will of
God by the prophet to the people in a symbolic action. Now in the first place the
information was properly in vision, and fully answered the purpose, namely, the
prophet's information; but in the latter a vision had been improper, for a vision to
the prophet was of itself no information to the people. See the Divine Legation, vol.
3: and, for more on the subject of these prophetic actions, the note on chap. Ezekiel
12:3.
9

10. ELLICOTT, "(1) Take thee a tile.—The use of tiles for such purposes as that here
indicated was common both in Babylonia and in Nineveh. When intended for
preservation the writing or drawing was made upon the soft and plastic clay, which
was afterwards baked. It is from the remains of great libraries prepared in this way
that most of our modern knowledge of Nineveh and Babylon has been derived. It is,
of course, quite possible that Ezekiel may have drawn in this way upon a soft clay
tile; but from the whole account in this and the following chapters it is more likely
that he simply described, rather than actually performed, these symbolical acts.
TRAPP, " Thou also, son of man, take thee a tile, and lay it before thee, and
pourtray upon it the city, [even] Jerusalem:
Ver. 1. Thou also, son of man.] Hitherto we have had the preface: followeth now the
prophecy itself, which is both concerning the fall of earthly kingdoms, and also the
setting up of Christ’s kingdom among men. The siege, famine, and downfall of
Jerusalem is here set forth to the life, four years at least before it occurred, not in
simple words, but in deeds and pictures, as more apt to affect men’s minds: like as
he is more moved who seeth himself painted as a thief or scoundrel hanged, than he
who is only called so. This way of teaching is ordinary with the prophets, and was
used also by our Saviour Christ; as when he set a child in the midst, washed his
disciples’ feet, instituted the sacraments, &c. (a)
Take thee a tile.] An unburnt tile, saith Lyra, and so fit to portray anything upon.
Some take it for a four square table, like a tile or brick, that will admit
engravement. Jerusalem, the glory of the East, was here pictured upon a tile sheard.
How mean a thing is the most stately city on earth to that city of pearl, the heavenly
Jerusalem!
And portray upon it the city.] Not with the pencil, but with the graving tool. Where
yet, as in Timanthes’ works, more was ever to be understood than was delineated.
POOLE, "The prophet is directed to represent a mock siege of Jerusalem for a sign
10

11. to the Jews, Ezekiel 4:1-3; and to lie before it in one posture for a set number of
days, in order to denote the time of their sins for which God did visit, Ezekiel 4:4-8.
His allotted provisions, with design to prefigure the people’s defilement among the
Gentiles, Ezekiel 4:9-15, and the scarcity they should be reduced to by the siege,
Ezekiel 4:16,17.
Hitherto the preface, containing the call and commission of the prophet; now he
begins. This is the first prophecy, and it is against Jerusalem.
A tile, or brick, or any square tablet on which he might engrave or carve.
Lay it before thee, as carvers use to do, as engravers and painters do.
Portray upon it the city; draw a map of Jerusalem, delineate or describe the city
Jerusalem, whence they were come, who now are in Babylon, and probably
repented that they had left Judea and Jerusalem, and murmured against them that
advised to it: but let them know by this sign that Jerusalem should suffer much
more than ever they suffered, that those who remained there sinning against God
should bear a long siege, a very grievous famine, and cruel slaughters.
EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE COMMENTARY, "THE END FORETOLD
Ezekiel 4:1-17 - Ezekiel 7:1-27
WITH the fourth chapter we enter on the exposition of the first great division of
Ezekiel’s prophecies. The chaps, 4-24, cover a period of about four and a half years,
extending from the time of the prophet’s call to the commencement of the siege of
Jerusalem. During this time Ezekiel’s thoughts revolved round one great theme-the
approaching judgment on the city and the nation. Through contemplation of this
fact there was disclosed to him the outline of a comprehensive theory of divine
providence, in which the destruction of Israel was seen to be the necessary
11

12. consequence of her past history and a necessary preliminary to her future
restoration. The prophecies may be classified roughly under three heads. In the first
class are those which exhibit the judgment itself in ways fitted to impress the
prophet and his hearers with a conviction of its certainty; a second class is intended
to demolish the illusions and false ideals which possessed the minds of the Israelites
and made the announcement of disaster incredible; and a third and very important
class expounds the moral principles which were illustrated by the judgment, and
which show it to be a divine necessity. In the passage which forms the subject of the
present lecture the bare fact and certainty of the judgment are set forth in word and
symbol and with a minimum of commentary, although even here the conception
which Ezekiel had formed of the moral situation is clearly discernible.
I.
The certainty of the national judgment seems to have been first impressed on
Ezekiel’s mind in the form of a singular series of symbolic acts which he conceived
himself to be commanded to perform. The peculiarity of these signs is that they
represent simultaneously two distinct aspects of the nation’s fate-on the one hand
the horrors of the siege of Jerusalem, and on the other hand the state of exile which
was to follow.
That the destruction of Jerusalem should occupy the first place in the prophet’s
picture of national calamity requires no explanation. Jerusalem was the heart and
brain of the nation, the centre of its life and its religion, and in the eyes of the
prophets the fountain-head of its sin. The strength of her natural situation, the
patriotic and religious associations which had gathered round her, and the
smallness of her subject province gave to Jerusalem a unique position among the
mother-cities of antiquity. And Ezekiel’s hearers knew what he meant when he
employed the picture of a beleaguered city to set forth the judgment that was to
overtake them. That crowning horror of ancient warfare, the siege of a fortified
town, meant in this case something more appalling to the imagination than the
ravages of pestilence and famine and sword. The fate of Jerusalem represented the
disappearance of everything that had constituted the glory and excellence of Israel’s
national existence. That the light of Israel should be extinguished amidst the
anguish and bloodshed which must accompany an unsuccessful defence of the
capital was the most terrible element in Ezekiel’s message, and here he sets it in the
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13. forefront of his prophecy.
The manner in which the prophet seeks to impress this fact on his countrymen
illustrates a peculiar vein of realism which runs through all his thinking. [Ezekiel
4:1-3] Being at a distance from Jerusalem, he seems to feel the need of some visible
emblem of the doomed city before he can adequately represent the import of his
prediction. He is commanded to take a brick and portray upon it a walled city,
surrounded by the towers, mounds, and battering-rams which marked the usual
operations of a besieging army. Then he is to erect a plate of iron between him and
the city. and from behind this, with menacing gestures, he is as it were to press on
the siege. The meaning of the symbols is obvious. As the engines of destruction
appear on Ezekiel’s diagram, at the bidding of Jehovah, so in due time the
Chaldaean army will be seen from the walls of Jerusalem, led by the same unseen
rower which now controls the acts of the prophet. In the last act Ezekiel exhibits the
attitude of Jehovah Himself, cut off from His people by the iron wall of an
inexorable purpose which no prayer could penetrate.
Thus far the prophet’s actions, however strange they may appear to us, have been
simple and intelligible. But at this point a second sign is as it were superimposed on
the first, in order to symbolise an entirely different set of facts-the hardship and
duration of the Exile (Ezekiel 4:4-8). While still engaged in prosecuting the siege of
the city, the prophet is supposed to become at the same time the representative of
the guilty people and the victim of the divine judgment. He is to "bear their
iniquity"-that is, the punishment due to their sin. This is represented by his lying
bound on his left side for a number of days equal to the years of Ephraim’s
banishment, and then on his right side for a time proportionate to the captivity of
Judah. Now the time of Judahs exile is fixed at forty years, dating of course from the
fall of the city. The captivity of North Israel exceeds that of Judah by the interval
between the destruction of Samaria (722) and the fall of Jerusalem, a period which
actually measured about a hundred and thirty-five years. In the Hebrew text,
however, the length of Israel’s captivity is given as three hundred and ninety years-
that is, it must have lasted for three hundred and fifty years before that of Judah
begins. This is obviously quite irreconcilable with the facts of history, and also with
the prophet’s intention. He cannot mean that the banishment of the northern tribes
was to be protracted for two centuries after that of Judah had come to an end, for
he uniformly speaks of the restoration of the two branches of the nation as
simultaneous. The text of the Greek translation helps us past this difficulty. The
13

14. Hebrew manuscript from which that version was made had the reading a "hundred
and ninety" instead of "three hundred and ninety" in Ezekiel 4:5. This alone yields
a satisfactory sense, and the reading of the Septuagint is now generally accepted as
representing what Ezekiel actually wrote. There is still a slight discrepancy between
the hundred and thirty-five years of the actual history and the hundred and fifty
years expressed by the symbol; but we must remember that Ezekiel is using round
numbers throughout, and moreover he has not as yet fixed the precise date of the
capture of Jerusalem when the last forty years are to commence.
In the third symbol (Ezekiel 4:9-17) the two aspects of the judgment are again
presented in the closest possible combination. The prophet’s food and drink during
the days when he is imagined to be lying on his side represents on the one hand, by
its being small in quantity and carefully weighed and measured, the rigours of
famine in Jerusalem during the siege-"Behold, I will break the staff of bread in
Jerusalem: and they shall eat bread by weight, and with anxiety; and drink water
by measure, and with horror" (Ezekiel 4:16); on the other hand, by its mixed
ingredients and by the fuel used in its preparation, it typifies the unclean religious
condition of the people when in exile-"Even so shall the children of Israel eat their
food unclean among the heathen" (Ezekiel 4:13). The meaning of this threat is best
explained by a passage in the book of Hosea. Speaking of the Exile, Hosea says:
"They shall not remain in the land of Jehovah; but the children of Ephraim shall
return to Egypt, and shall eat unclean food in Assyria. They shall pour out no wine
to Jehovah, nor shall they lay out their sacrifices for Him: like the food of mourners
shall their food be; all that eat thereof shall be defiled: for their bread shall only
satisfy their hunger; it shall not come into the house of Jehovah". [Hosea 9:3-4] The
idea is that all food which has not been consecrated by being presented to Jehovah
in the sanctuary is necessarily unclean, and those who eat of it contract ceremonial
defilement. In the very act of satisfying his natural appetite a man forfeits his
religious standing. This was the peculiar hardship of the state of exile, that a man
must become unclean, he must eat unconsecrated food unless he renounced his
religion and served the gods of the land in which he dwelt. Between the time of
Hosea and Ezekiel these ideas may have been somewhat modified by the
introduction of the Deuteronomic law, which expressly permits secular slaughter at
a distance from the sanctuary. But this did not lessen the importance of a legal
sanctuary for the common life of an Israelite. The whole of a man’s flocks and
herds, the whole produce of his fields, had to be sanctified by the presentation of
firstlings and firstfruits at the Temple before he could enjoy the reward of his
industry with the sense of standing in Jehovah’s favour. Hence the destruction of
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15. the sanctuary or the permanent exclusion of the worshippers from it reduced the
whole life of the people to a condition of uncleanness which was felt to be as great a
calamity as was a papal interdict in the Middle Ages. This is the fact which is
expressed in the part of Ezekiel’s symbolism now before us. What it meant for his
fellow exiles was that the religious disability under which they laboured was to be
continued for a generation. The whole life of Israel was to become unclean until its
inward state was made worthy of the religious privileges now to be withdrawn. At
the same time no one could have felt the penalty more severely than Ezekiel himself,
in whom habits of ceremonial purity had become a second nature. The repugnance
which he feels at the loathsome manner in which he was at first directed to prepare
his food, and the profession of his own practice in exile, as well as the concession
made to his scrupulous sense of propriety (Ezekiel 4:14-16), are all characteristic of
one whose priestly training had made a defect of ceremonial cleanness almost
equivalent to a moral delinquency.
The last of the symbols [Ezekiel 5:1-4] represents the fate of the population of
Jerusalem when the city is taken. The shaving of the prophet’s head and beard is a
figure for the depopulation of the city and country. By a further series of acts, whose
meaning is obvious, he shows how a third of the inhabitants shall die of famine and
pestilence during the siege, a third shall be slain by the enemy when the city is
captured, while the remaining third shall be dispersed among the nations. Even
these shall be pursued by the sword of vengeance until but a few numbered
individuals survive, and of them again a part passes through the fire. The passage
reminds us of the last verse of the sixth chapter of Isaiah, which was perhaps in
Ezekiel’s mind when he wrote: "And if a tenth still remain in it [the land], it shall
again pass through the fire: as a terebinth or an oak whose stump is left at their
felling: a holy seed shall be the stock thereof." [Isaiah 6:13] At least the conception
of a succession of sifting judgments, leaving only a remnant to inherit the promise of
the future, is common to both prophets, and the symbol in Ezekiel is noteworthy as
the first expression of his steadfast conviction that further punishments were in
store for the exiles after the destruction of Jerusalem.
It is clear that these signs could never have been enacted, either in view of the people
or in solitude, as they are here described. It may be doubted whether the whole
description is not purely ideal, representing a process which passed through the
prophet’s mind, or was suggested to him in the visionary state but never actually
performed. That will always remain a tenable view. An imaginary symbolic act is as
15

16. legitimate a literary device as an imaginary conversation. It is absurd to mix up the
question of the prophet’s truthfulness with the question whether he did or did not
actually do what he conceives himself as doing. The attempt to explain his action by
catalepsy would take us but a little way, even if the arguments adduced in favour of
it were stronger than they are. Since even a cataleptic patient could not have tied
himself down on his side or prepared and eaten his food in that posture, it is
necessary in any case to admit that there must be a considerable, though
indeterminate, element of literary imagination in the account given of the symbols.
It is not impossible that some symbolic representation of the siege of Jerusalem may
have actually been the first act in Ezekiel’s ministry. In the interpretation of the
vision which immediately follows we shall find that no notice is taken of the features
which refer to exile, but only of those which announce the siege of Jerusalem. It may
therefore be the case that Ezekiel did some such action as is here described, pointing
to the fall of Jerusalem, but that the whole was taken up afterwards in his
imagination and made into an ideal representation of the two great facts which
formed the burden of his earlier prophecy.
II.
It is a relief to turn from this somewhat fantastic, though for its own purpose
effective, exhibition of prophetic ideas to the impassioned oracles in which the doom
of the city and the nation is pronounced. The first of these (Ezekiel 5:5-17) is
introduced here as the explanation of the signs that have been described, in so far as
they bear on the fate of Jerusalem; but it has a unity of its own, and is a
characteristic specimen of Ezekiel’s oratorical style. It consists of two parts: the first
(Ezekiel 5:5-10) deals chiefly with the reasons for the judgment on Jerusalem, and
the second (Ezekiel 5:11-17) with the nature of the judgment itself. The chief
thought of the passage is the unexampled severity of the punishment which is in
store for Israel, as represented by the fate of the capital. A calamity so
unprecedented demands an explanation as unique as itself. Ezekiel finds the ground
of it in the signal honour conferred on Jerusalem in her being set in the midst of the
nations, in the possession of a religion which expressed the will of the one God, and
in the fact that she had proved herself unworthy of her distinction and privileges
and tried to live as the nations around. "This is Jerusalem which I have set in the
midst of the nations, with the lands round about her. But she rebelled against My
judgments wickedly more than the nations, and My statutes more than [other] lands
round about her: for they rejected My judgments, and in My statutes they did not
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17. walk. Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, even I am against you; and I
will execute in thy midst judgments before the nations, and will do in thy case what I
have not done [heretofore], and what I shall not do the like of any more, according
to all thy abominations" (Ezekiel 5:5-9). The central position of Jerusalem is
evidently no figure of speech in the mouth of Ezekiel. It means that she is so situated
as to fulfil her destiny in the view of all the nations of the world, who can read in her
wonderful history the character of the God who is above all gods. Nor can the
prophet be fairly accused of provincialism in thus speaking of Jerusalem’s
unrivalled physical and moral advantages. The mountain ridge on which she stood
lay almost across the great highways of communication between the East and the
West, between the hoary seats of civilisation and the lands whither the course of
empire took its way. Ezekiel knew that Tyre was the centre of the old world’s
commerce, (See chapter 27) but he also knew that Jerusalem occupied a central
situation in the civilised world, and in that fact he rightly saw a providential mark
of the grandeur and universality of her religious mission. Her calamities, too, were
probably such as no other city experienced. The terrible prediction of Ezekiel 5:10,
"Fathers shall eat sons in the midst of thee, and sons shall eat fathers," seems to
have been literally fulfilled. "The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own
children: they were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of My people."
[Lamentations 4:10] It is likely enough that the annals of Assyrian conquest cover
many a tale of woe which in point of mere physical suffering paralleled the atrocities
of the siege of Jerusalem. But no other nation had a conscience so sensitive as Israel,
or lost so much by its political annihilation. The humanising influences of a pure
religion had made Israel susceptible of a kind of anguish which ruder communities
were spared. The sin of Jerusalem is represented after Ezekiel’s manner as on the
one hand transgression of the divine commandments, and on the other defilement of
the Temple through false worship. These are ideas which we shall frequently meet
in the course of the book, and they need not detain us here. The prophet proceeds
(Ezekiel 5:11-17) to describe in detail the relentless punishment which the divine
vengeance is to inflict on the inhabitants and the city. The jealousy, the wrath, the
indignation of Jehovah, which are represented as "satisfied" by the complete
destruction of the people, belong to the limitations of the conception of God which
Ezekiel had. It was impossible at that time to interpret such an event as the fall of
Jerusalem in a religious sense otherwise than as a vehement outburst of Jehovah’s
anger, expressing the reaction of His holy nature against the sin of idolatry. There is
indeed a great distance between the attitude of Ezekiel towards the hapless city and
the yearning pity of Christ’s lament over the sinful Jerusalem of His time. Yet the
first was a step towards the second. Ezekiel realised intensely that part of God’s
character which it was needful to enforce in order to beget in his countrymen the
deep horror at the sin of idolatry which characterised the later Judaism. The best
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18. commentary on the latter part of this chapter is found in those parts of the book of
Lamentations which speak of the state of the city and the survivors after its
overthrow. There we see how quickly the stern judgment produced a more
chastened and beautiful type of piety than had ever been prevalent before. Those
pathetic utterances, in which patriotism and religion are so finely blended, are like
the timid and tentative advances of a child’s heart towards a parent who has ceased
to punish but has not begun to caress. This, and much else that is true and
ennobling in the later religion of Israel, is rooted in the terrifying sense of the divine
anger against sin so powerfully represented in the preaching of Ezekiel.
III.
The next two chapters may be regarded as pendants to the theme which is dealt with
in this opening section of the book of Ezekiel. In the fourth and fifth chapters the
prophet had mainly the city in his eye as the focus of the nation’s life; in the sixth he
turns his eye to the land which had shared the sin, and must suffer the punishment,
of the capital. It is, in its first part (Ezekiel 6:2-10), an apostrophe to the mountain
land of Israel, which seems to stand out before the exile’s mind with its mountains
and hills, its ravines and valleys, in contrast to the monotonous plain of Babylonia
which stretched around him. But these mountains were familiar to the prophet as
the seats of the rural idolatry in Israel. The word bamah, which means properly
"the height," had come to be used as the name of an idolatrous sanctuary. These
sanctuaries were probably Canaanitish in origin; and although by Israel they had
been consecrated to the worship of Jehovah, yet He was worshipped there in ways
which the prophets pronounced hateful to Him. They had been destroyed by Josiah,
but must have been restored to their former use during the revival of heathenism
which followed his death. It is a lurid picture which rises before the prophet’s
imagination as he contemplates the judgment of this provincial idolatry: the altars
laid waste, the "sun-pillars" broken, and the idols surrounded by the corpses of
men who had fled to their shrines for protection and perished at their feet. This
demonstration of the helplessness of the rustic divinities to save their sanctuaries
and their worshippers will be the means of breaking the rebellious heart and the
whorish eyes that had led Israel so far astray from her true Lord, and will produce
in exile the self-loathing which Ezekiel always regards as the beginning of penitence.
But the prophet’s passion rises to a higher pitch. and he hears the command "Clap
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19. thy hands, and stamp with thy foot, and say, Aha for the abominations of the house
of Israeli." These are gestures and exclamations, not of indignation, but of contempt
and triumphant scorn. The same feeling and even the same gestures are ascribed to
Jehovah Himself in another passage of highly charged emotion. [Ezekiel 21:17] And
it is only fair to remember that it is the anticipation of the victory of Jehovah’s cause
that fills the mind of the prophet at such moments and seems to deaden the sense of
human sympathy within him. At the same time the victory of Jehovah was the
victory of prophecy, and in so far Smend may be right in regarding the words as
throwing light on the intensity of the antagonism in which prophecy and the
popular religion then stood. The devastation of the land is to be effected by the same
instruments as were at work in the destruction of the city: first the sword of the
Chaldaeans, then famine and pestilence among those who escape, until the whole of
Israel’s ancient territory lies desolate from the southern steppes to Riblah in the
north.
Chapter 7 is one of those singled out by Ewald as preserving most faithfully the
spirit and language of Ezekiel’s earlier utterances. Both in thought and expression it
exhibits a freedom and animation seldom attained in Ezekiel’s writings, and it is
evident that it must have been composed under keen emotion. It is comparatively
free from those stereotyped phrases which are elsewhere so common, and the style
falls at times into the rhythm which is characteristic of Hebrew poetry. Ezekiel
hardly perhaps attains to perfect mastery of poetic form, and even here we may be
sensible of a lack of power to blend a series of impressions and images into an
artistic unity. The vehemence of his feeling hurries him from one conception to
another, without giving full expression to any, or indicating clearly the connection
that leads from one to the other. This circumstance, and the corrupt condition of the
text together, make the chapter in some parts unintelligible, and as a whole one of
the most difficult in the book. In its present position it forms a fitting conclusion to
the opening section of the book. All the elements of the judgment which have just
been foretold are gathered up in one outburst of emotion, producing a song of
triumph in which the prophet seems to stand in the uproar of the final catastrophe
and exult amid the crash and wreck of the old order which is passing away.
The passage is divided into five stanzas, which may originally have been
approximately equal in length, although the first is now nearly twice as long as any
of the others.
19

20. 1. Ezekiel 7:2-9 -The first verse strikes the keynote of the whole poem; it is the
inevitableness and the finality of the approaching dissolution. A striking phrase of
Amos 8:2 is first taken up and expanded in accordance with the anticipations with
which the previous chapters have now familiarised us: "An end is come, the end is
come on the four skirts of the land." The poet already hears the tumult and
confusion of the battle; the vintage songs of the Judaean peasant are silenced, and
with the din and fury of war the day of the Lord draws near.
2. Ezekiel 7:10-13 -The prophet’s thoughts here revert to the present, and he notes
the eager interest with which men both in Judah and Babylon are pursuing the
ordinary business of life and the vain dreams of political greatness. "The diadem
flourishes, the sceptre blossoms, arrogance shoots up." These expressions must refer
to the efforts of the new rulers of Jerusalem to restore the fortunes of the nation and
the glories of the old kingdom which had been so greatly tarnished by the recent
captivity. Things are going bravely, they think; they are surprised at their own
success; they hope that the day of small things will grow into the day of things
greater than those which are past. The following verse is untranslatable; probably
the original words, if we could recover them, would contain some pointed and
scornful antithesis to these futile and vainglorious anticipations. The allusion to
"buyers and sellers" (Ezekiel 7:12) may possibly be quite general, referring only to
the absorbing interest which men continue to take in their possessions, heedless of
the impending judgment. {cf. Luke 17:20-30} But the facts that the advantage is
assumed to be on the side of the buyer and that the seller expects to return to his
heritage make it probable that the prophet is thinking of the forced sales by the
expatriated nobles of their estates in Palestine, and to their deeply cherished resolve
to right themselves when the time of their exile is over. All such ambitions, says the
prophet, are vain-"the seller shall not return to what he sold, and a man shall not by
wrong preserve his living." In any case Ezekiel evinces here, as elsewhere, a certain
sympathy with the exiled aristocracy, in opposition to the pretensions of the new
men who had succeeded to their honours.
3. Ezekiel 7:14-18 -The next scene that rises before the prophet’s vision is the
collapse of Judah’s military preparations in the hour of danger. Their army exists
but on paper. There is much blowing of trumpets and much organising, but no men
to go forth to battle. A blight rests on all their efforts; their hands are paralysed and
20

21. their hearts unnerved by the sense that "wrath rests on all their pomp." Sword,
famine, and pestilence, the ministers of Jehovah’s vengeance, shall devour the
inhabitants of the city and the country, until but a few survivors on the tops of the
mountains remain to mourn over the universal desolation.
4. Ezekiel 7:19-22 -At present the inhabitants of Jerusalem are proud of the ill-
gotten and ill-used wealth stored up within her, and doubtless the exiles cast
covetous eyes on the luxury which may still have prevailed amongst the upper
classes in the capital. But of what avail will all this treasure be in the evil day now so
near at hand? It will but add mockery to their sufferings to be surrounded by gold
and silver which can do nothing to allay the pangs of hunger. It will be cast in the
streets as refuse, for it cannot save them in the day of Jehovah’s anger. Nay, more, it
will become the prize of the most ruthless of the heathen (the Chaldaeans); and
when in the eagerness of their lust for gold they ransack the Temple treasury and so
desecrate the Holy Place, Jehovah will avert His face and suffer them to work their
will. The curse of Jehovah rests on the silver and gold of Jerusalem, which has been
used for the making of idolatrous images, and now is made to them an unclean
thing.
5. Ezekiel 7:23-27 -The closing strophe contains a powerful description of the
dismay and despair that will seize all classes in the state as the day of wrath draws
near. Calamity after calamity comes, rumour follows hard on rumour, and the
heads of the nation are distracted and cease to exercise the functions of leadership.
The recognised guides of the people-the prophets, the priests, and the wise men-have
no word of counsel or direction to offer; the prophet’s vision, the priest’s traditional
lore, and the wise man’s sagacity are alike at fault. So the king and the grandees are
filled with stupefaction; and the common people, deprived of their natural leaders,
sit down in helpless dejection. Thus shall Jerusalem be recompensed according to
her doings. "The land is full of bloodshed, and the city of violence"; and in the
correspondence between desert and retribution men shall be made to acknowledge
the operation of the divine righteousness. "They shall know that I am Jehovah."
IV.
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22. It may be useful at this point to note certain theological principles which already
begin to appear in this earliest of Ezekiel’s prophecies. Reflection on the nature and
purpose of the divine dealings we have seen to be a characteristic of his work; and
even those passages which we have considered, although chiefly devoted to an
enforcement of the fact of judgment, present some features of the conception of
Israel’s history which had been formed in his mind.
1. We observe in the first place that the prophet lays great stress on the world-wide
significance of the events which are to befall Israel. This thought is not as yet
developed, but it is clearly present. The relation between Jehovah and Israel is so
peculiar that He is known to the nations in the first instance only. as Israel’s God,
and thus His being and character have to be learned from His dealings with His own
people. And since Jehovah is the only true God and must be worshipped as such
everywhere, the history of Israel has an interest for the world such as that of no
other nation has. She was placed in the centre of the nations in order that the
knowledge of God might radiate from her through all the world; and now that she
has proved unfaithful to her mission, Jehovah must manifest His power and His
character by an unexampled work of judgment. Even the destruction of Israel is a
demonstration to the universal conscience of mankind of what true divinity is.
2. But the judgment has of course a purpose and a meaning for Israel herself, and
both purposes are summed up in the recurring formula "Ye [they] shall know that I
am Jehovah," or "that I, Jehovah, have spoken." These two phrases express
precisely the same idea, although from slightly different starting-points. It is
assumed that Jehovah’s personality is to be identified by His word spoken through
the prophets. He is known to men through the revelation of Himself in the prophet’s
utterances. "Ye shall know that I, Jehovah, have spoken" means therefore, Ye shall
know that it is I, the God of Israel and the Ruler of the universe, who speak these
things. In other words, the harmony between prophecy and providence guarantees
the source of the prophet’s message. The shorter phrase "Ye shall know that I am
Jehovah" may mean Ye shall know that I who now speak am truly Jehovah, the
God of Israel. The prejudices of the people would have led them to deny that the
power which dictated Ezekiel’s prophecy could be their God; but this denial,
together with the false idea of Jehovah on which it rests, shall be destroyed forever
when the prophet’s words come true.
22

23. There is of course no doubt that Ezekiel conceived Jehovah as endowed with the
plenitude of deity, or that in his view the name expressed all that we mean by the
word God. Nevertheless, historically the name Jehovah is a proper name, denoting
the God who is the God of Israel. Renan has ventured on the assertion that a deity
with a proper name is necessarily a false god. The statement perhaps measures the
difference between the God of revealed religion and the god who is an abstraction,
an expression of the order of the universe, who exists only in the mind of the man
who names him. The God of revelation is a living person, with a character and will
of His own, capable of being known by man. It is the distinction of revelation that it
dares to regard God as an individual with an inner life and nature of His own,
independent of the conception men may form of Him. Applied to such a Being, a
personal name may be as true and significant as the name which expresses the
character and individuality of a man. Only thus can we understand the historical
process by which the God who was first manifested as the deity of a particular
nation preserves His personal identity with the God who in Christ is at last revealed
as the God of the spirits of all flesh. The knowledge of Jehovah of which Ezekiel
speaks is therefore at once a knowledge of the character of the God whom Israel
professed to serve, and a knowledge of that which constitutes true and essential
divinity.
3. The prophet; in Ezekiel 6:8-10, proceeds one step further in delineating the effect
of the judgment on the minds of the survivors. The fascination of idolatry for the
Israelites is conceived as produced by that radical perversion of the religious sense
which the prophets call "whoredom"-a sensuous delight in the blessings of nature,
and an indifference to the moral element which can alone preserve either religion or
"human love from corruption. The spell shall at last be broken in the new
knowledge of Jehovah which is produced by calamity; and the heart of the people,
purified from its delusions, shall turn to Him who has smitten them, as the only true
God. When your fugitives from the sword are among the nations, when they are
scattered through the lands, then shall your fugitives remember Me amongst the
nations whither they have been carried captive, when I break their heart that goes
awhoring from Me, and their whorish eyes which went after their idols." When the
idolatrous propensity is thus eradicated, the conscience of Israel will turn inwards
on itself, and in the light of its new knowledge of God will for the first time read its
own history aright. The beginnings of a new spiritual life will be made in the bitter
self-condemnation which is one side of the national repentance. "They shall loathe
themselves for all the evil that they have committed in all their abominations."
23

24. PETT, "Introduction
Chapter 4. Ezekiel’s First Message - Judgment Is Coming On Jerusalem.
In this chapter we have an acted out prophecy against Jerusalem. The people had
been brought into captivity but Jerusalem still stood. They still had hopes of
returning. But they must be made to recognise that God’s anger against Israel was
such that nothing could avert the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple. Rather
than the holy city and the temple being a guarantee of Israel’s preservation by God
they had become a hindrance, and must go. Their superstitious reliance on the holy
city and the temple as the proof of their favour (Jeremiah 7:4), even in the midst of
their sinfulness, must be destroyed. This would now be Ezekiel’s continual stress,
along with judgment on the nations (25-32), until the actual destruction of
Jerusalem and the temple (Ezekiel 33:21), a destruction which would outwardly be
the end of all their hopes.
In the days of Hezekiah Yahweh had promised through Isaiah the prophet, “I will
defend this city to save it for My own sake and for My servant David” (Isaiah
37:35). Israel had interpreted that to mean that whatever they did God would never
allow the city to be destroyed. But they were wrong. That promise had been made
because Hezekiah was genuinely seeking to please and obey Yahweh. But now
things were very different. Sin and disobedience was rife, God was being
marginalised, and the promise would no longer apply. Jerusalem was not inviolable.
And that message would be repeated by Ezekiel again and again, although derided
and rejected by his hearers, until the event itself took place.
In this chapter we have first the depiction of the siege of Jerusalem in miniature
(Ezekiel 4:1-3), then the duration of the iniquity of Israel and Judah which has
brought this on them (Ezekiel 4:4-8), then the depiction of the coming famine
conditions in Jerusalem and of their exile in ‘uncleanness’ (Ezekiel 4:9-17), and
finally an acted out description of the fate of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, whom the
exiles probably looked back on with envy (Ezekiel 5:1-4).
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25. The Fate of Jerusalem.
Verses 1-3
“You also, son of man, you take a tile, and lay it before you, and portray on it a city,
even Jerusalem, and lay siege against it, and build forts against it. Set camps also
against it, and plant battering rams against it round about. And you take to yourself
an iron pan, and set it as a wall between you and the city. And set your face towards
it and it shall be besieged, and you shall lay siege against it. This shall be a sign to
the house of Israel.’
The attention of the people having been drawn to Ezekiel by his previous strange
behaviour, he would no doubt by this time have become a talking point. This
strange activity continued. Word would soon get around of the next strange thing
that he was doing, and it would arouse curiosity and perhaps a kind of fear. For, at
Gods’ command, he was to depict a siege of Jerusalem in miniature as a sign to the
house of Israel of what was to be. We must assume either that he did this outside the
door of his house, or that the house was now left open for people to enter and see it.
‘Take -- a tile.’ This would probably be a rectangular sun-baked brick. On this he
was to depict a picture of Jerusalem which he would depict in recognisable outline.
It would be placed where all could come and see it. He would then depict the details
of a siege as outlined, how we are not told. Possibly they were depicted in the sand,
or, if inside the house, with clay models or depicted on small clay tablets. Ezekiel
and the people would be familiar with such siege activities. They had themselves
seen them in action when they themselves had been made captive.
Depictions of such war machines, manned by archers and often moveable, are
known from bas-reliefs in Assyria, while mounds would be built bringing the
assailants more on a level with the enemy in the city. The depiction of such activities
on clay tablets is also witnessed archaeologically.
25

26. Then he was to take a large iron pot or cooking plate, possibly as used for baking
bread, and set it between himself and the scene he had depicted, illustrating that he
himself as God’s representative, was also laying siege against it. This would leave
them in no doubt that the siege was, in the last analysis, due to the activity of God.
The iron plate, in contrast with the clay, would illustrate the solidity and
permanence of what it represented. It represented the certainty of God in action
with the result that the consequences were also certain.
Others have seen the iron plate as signifying that there was a great barrier between
God and His people in Jerusalem so that He would not intervene. He would act
through Ezekiel on behalf of His people in exile, but not on behalf of Jerusalem. We
can compare Isaiah 59:2, ‘your iniquities have separated between you and your
God, and your sins have hid His face from you, that He will not hear’. Compare also
Lamentations 3:44.
It was an acted out prophecy, of a kind with which their past was familiar (Exodus
9:8-12; Joshua 8:18; 1 Kings 11:30-32; 1 Kings 22:11; 2 Kings 13:15-19; Isaiah
8:1-4; Isaiah 20:2-4; Jeremiah 13:1-11; Jeremiah 16:1-9; Jeremiah 19:1-11;
Jeremiah 27:1-12). The physical reproduction would be looked on as making more
certain its fulfilment. It would be seen as having already taken place in miniature.
And as the people flocked to see this latest sensation they would be aware of the
silent, brooding figure, sitting there without saying a word, and they would draw
their own conclusions, fearful and awestricken.
The Long Periods of Iniquity That Have Brought Inevitable Judgment on Jerusalem
and the Temple.
PULPIT, "Prior to any detailed examination of the strange series of acts recorded in
this and the following chapter, we are met with the question whether they were
indeed visible and outward acts, or only imagined by the prophet in a state of
ecstasy and afterwards reported by him to the people. Each view has been
maintained by commentators of repute. I adopt, with scarcely any hesitation, the
26

27. former, and for the following reasons.
Ezekiel 4:1
The first sign in this method of unspoken prophecy was to indicate to the exiles of
Tel-Abib that which they were unwilling to believe The day of uncertain hopes and
fears, of delusive dreams and promises (Jeremiah 27:16; Jeremiah 28:1-3; Jeremiah
29:21), was nearly over. The siege of Jerusalem in spite of Zedekiab's Egyptian
alliance, was a thing decreed. Four years before it came—we are now between the
fourth month of the fifth year (Ezekiel 1:2) and the sixth month of the sixth year
(Ezekiel 8:1) of Zedekiah. and the siege began in the ninth year (2 Kings 25:1)—
Ezekiel, on the segnius irritant principle, brought it, as here narrated, before the
eyes of the exiles. That he did so implies a certain artistic culture, in possessing
which he stands alone, so far as we know, among the prophets of Israel, and to
which his residence in the land of the Chaldees may have contributed. He takes a
tile, or tablet of baked clay, such as were used in Babylon and Assyria for private
contracts, historical inscriptions, astronomical observations (Pliny, 'Hist. Nat.,'
7.57), and the like, which were, in fact, the books of that place and time, and of
which whole libraries have been brought to light in recent excavations (Layard,
'Nineveh and Babylon,' ch. 22) and engraves upon it the outlines of "a city"
(Revised Version), in which the exiles would at once recognize the city of their
fathers, the towers which they had once counted (Isaiah 33:18; Psalms 48:12), the
temple which had been their glory and their joy. Bricks with such scenes on them
were found among the ruins of Nimroud, now in the British Museum. It is not
difficult to picture to ourselves the wondering curiosity with which Ezekiel's
neighbours would watch the strange proceeding. In this case the sign would be more
impressive than any spoken utterance.
BI 1-8, "Take thee a tile.
The ministry of symbolism
In this chapter there begins a series of symbols utterly impossible of modern
interpretation. This ministry of symbolism has still a place in all progressive civilisation.
Every age, of course, necessitates its own emblems and types, its own apocalypse of
wonders and signs, but the meaning of the whole is that God has yet something to be
revealed which cannot at the moment be expressed in plain language. If we could see
into the inner meaning of many of the controversies in which we are engaged, we should
see there many a divinely drawn symbol, curious outlines of thought, parables not yet
27

28. ripe enough for words. How manifold is human life! How innumerable are the workers
who are toiling at the evolution of the Divine purpose in things! One man can
understand nothing but what he calls bare facts and hard realities; he has only a hand to
handle, he has not the interior touch that can feel things ere yet they have taken shape.
Another is always on the outlook for what pleases the eye; he delights in form and colour
and symmetry, and glows almost with thankfulness as he beholds the shapeliness of
things, and traces in them a subtle geometry. Another man gets behind all this, and
hears voices, and sees sights excluded from the natural senses; he looks upon
symbolism, upon the ministry of suggestion and dream and vision; he sees best in the
darkness; the night is his day; in the great cloud he sees the ever-working God, and in
the infinite stillness of religious solitude he hears, rather in echoes than in words, what
he is called upon to tell the age in which he lives. Here again his difficulty increases, for
although he can see with perfect plainness men, and can understand quite intelligibly all
the mysteries which pass before his imagination and before his spiritual eyes, yet he has
to find words that will fit the new and exciting occasion; and there are no fit words, so
sometimes he is driven to make a language of his own, and hence we come upon
strangeness of expression, eccentricity of thought, weirdness in quest and sympathy,—a
most marvellous and tumultuous life; a great struggle after rhythm and rest, and fullest
disclosure of inner realities, often ending in bitter disappointment, so that the prophet’s
eloquence dissolves in tears, and the man who thought he had a glorious message to
deliver is broken down in humiliation when he hears the poor thunder of his own
inadequate articulation. He has his “tile” and his iron pan; he lays upon his left side, and
upon his right side; he takes unto him wheat and barley, beans, and lentils; he weighs
out his bread, and measures out his water, and bakes “barley cakes” by a curious
manufacture; and yet when it is all over he cannot tell to others in delicate enough
language, or with sufficiency of illustration, what he knows to be a Divine and eternal
word. (J. Parker, D. D.)
Symbolisms not necessarily acted
Even if one hundred and ninety days be the true reading, it is most improbable that the
prophet should have been on his side immovable for half a year, and it appears
impossible when other actions had to be done simultaneously. The hypothesis of
Klostermann hardly deserves mention. This writer supposes that the prophet lay on his
side because he was a cataleptic and temporarily paralysed, that he prophesied against
Jerusalem with outstretched arm, because his arm could not be withdrawn, being
convulsively rigid, and that he was dumb because struck with morbid “alalia.” It is
surprising that some reputable scholars should seem half inclined to accept this
explanation. They perhaps have the feeling that such an interpretation is more reverent
to Scripture. But we need to remind ourselves, as Job reminded his friends, that
superstition is not religion (Job_13:7-12; Job_21:22). The book itself appears to teach us
how to interpret the most of the symbolical actions. In Eze_24:3 the symbol of setting
the caldron on the fire is called uttering a parable. The act of graving a hand at the
parting of the ways (Eze_21:19) must certainly be interpreted in the same way, and,
though there may be room for hesitation in regard to some of them, probably the actions
as a whole. They were imagined merely. They passed through the prophet’s mind. He
lived in this ideal sphere; he went through the actions in his phantasy, and they
appeared to him to carry the same effects as if they had been performed. (A. B.
Davidson, D. D.)
28

29. Pertray upon it the city, even Jerusalem.—
The end foretold
With the fourth chapter we enter on the exposition of the first great division of Ezekiel’s
prophecies. The prophecies may be classified roughly under three heads. In the first
class are those which exhibit the judgment itself in ways fitted to impress the prophet
and his hearers with a conviction of its certainty; a second class is intended to demolish
the illusions and false ideals which possessed the minds of the Israelites and made the
announcement of disaster incredible; and a third and very important class expounds the
moral principles which were illustrated by the judgment, and which show it to be a
Divine necessity. In the passage before us the bare fact and certainty of the judgment are
set forth in word and symbol and with a minimum of commentary, although even here
the conception which Ezekiel had formed of the moral situation is clearly discernible.
That the destruction of Jerusalem should occupy the first place in the prophet’s picture
of national calamity requires no explanation. Jerusalem was the heart and brain of the
nation, the centre of its life and its religion, and in the eyes of the prophets the
fountainhead of its sin. The strength of her natural situation, the patriotic and religious
associations which had gathered round her, and the smallness of her subject province
gave to Jerusalem a unique position among the mother cities of antiquity. And Ezekiel’s
hearers knew what he meant when he employed the picture of a beleaguered city to set
forth the judgment that was to overtake them. That crowning horror of ancient warfare,
the siege of a fortified town, meant in this case something more appalling to the
imagination than the ravages of pestilence and famine and sword. The fate of Jerusalem
represented the disappearance of everything that had constituted the glory and
excellence of Israel’s national existence. The manner in which the prophet seeks to
impress this fact on his countrymen illustrates a peculiar vein of realism which runs
through all his thinking (verses 1-3). He is commanded to take a brick and portray upon
it a walled city, surrounded by the towers, mounds, and battering rams which marked
the usual operations of a besieging army. Then he is to erect a plate of iron between him
and the city, and from behind this, with menacing gestures, he is as it were to press on
the siege. The meaning of the symbols is obvious. As the engines of destruction appear
on Ezekiel’s diagram, at the bidding of Jehovah, so in due time the Chaldaean army will
be seen from the walls of Jerusalem, led by the same unseen Power which now controls
the acts of the prophet. In the last act Ezekiel exhibits the attitude of Jehovah Himself,
cut off from His people by the iron wall of an inexorable purpose which no prayer could
penetrate. Thus far the prophet’s actions, however strange they may appear to us, have
been simple and intelligible. But at this point a second sign is as it were superimposed
on the first, in order to symbolise an entirely different set of facts—the hardship and
duration of the Exile (verses 4-8). While still engaged in prosecuting the siege of the city,
the prophet is supposed to become at the same time the representative of the guilty
people and the victim of the Divine judgment. He is to “bear their iniquity”—that is, the
punishment due to their sin. This is represented by his lying bound on his left side for a
number of days equal to the years of Ephraim’s banishment, and then on his right side
for a time proportionate to the captivity of Judah. (John Skinner, M. A.)
29

30. 2 Then lay siege to it: Erect siege works against it,
build a ramp up to it, set up camps against it and
put battering rams around it.
BARNES, "Lay siege against it - The prophet is represented as doing that which
he portrays. The leading features of a siege are depicted. See the Jer_6:6 note.
The camp - Encampments. The word denotes various hosts in various positions
around the city.
Fort - It was customary in sieges to construct towers of vast height, sometimes of 20
stories, which were wheeled up to the walls to enable the besiegers to reach the
battlements with their arrows; in the lower part of such a tower there was commonly a
battering-ram. These towers are frequently represented in the Assyrian monuments.
Battering rams - Better than the translation in the margin. Assyrian monuments
prove that these engines of war are of great antiquity. These engines seem to have been
beams suspended by chains generally in moveable towers, and to have been applied
against the walls in the way familiar to us from Greek and Roman history. The name
“ram” was probably given to describe their mode of operation; no Assyrian monument
yet discovered exhibits the ram’s head of later times.
CLARKE, "Battering rams - ‫כרים‬ carim. This is the earliest account we have of
this military engine. It was a long beam with a head of brass, like the head and horns of a
ram, whence its name. It was hung by chains or ropes, between two beams, or three legs,
so that it could admit of being drawn backward and forward some yards. Several stout
men, by means of ropes, pulled it as far back as it could go, and then, suddenly letting it
loose, it struck with great force against the wall which it was intended to batter and bring
down. This machine was not known in the time of Homer, as in the siege of Troy there is
not the slightest mention of such. And the first notice we have of it is here, where we see
that it was employed by Nebuchadnezzar in the siege of Jerusalem, A.M. 3416. It was
afterwards used by the Carthaginians at the siege of Gades, as Vitruvius notes, lib. 10 c.
19, in which he gives a circumstantial account of the invention, fabrication, use, and
improvement of this machine. It was for the want of a machine of this kind, that the
ancient sieges lasted so long; they had nothing with which to beat down or undermine
the walls.
30

31. GILL, "And lay siege against it,.... In his own person, as in Eze_4:3; or draw the
form of a siege, or figure of an army besieging a city; or rather of the instruments and
means used in a siege, as follows:
and build a fort against it: Kimchi interprets it a wooden tower, built over against
the city, to subdue it; Jarchi takes it to be an instrument by which stones were cast into
the city; and so the Arabic version renders it, "machines to cast stones"; the Targum, a
fortress; so Nebuchadnezzar in reality did what was here only done in type, 2Ki_25:1;
where the same word is used as here:
and cast a mount about it; a heap of earth cast up, in order to look into the city, cast
in darts, and mount the walls; what the French call "bastion", as Jarchi observes:
set the camp also against it; place the army in their tents about it:
and set battering rams against it round about; a warlike instrument, that had an
iron head, and horns like a ram, with which in a siege the walls of a city were battered
and beaten down. Jarchi, Kimchi, and Ben Melech, interpret the word of princes and
generals of the army, who watched at the several corners of the city, that none might go
in and out; so the Targum seems to understand it (b). The Arabic version is, "mounts to
cast darts"; See Gill on Eze_21:22.
HENRY 2-3, "He was ordered to build little forts against this portraiture of the city,
resembling the batteries raised by the besiegers, Eze_4:2. Between the city that was
besieged and himself that was the besieger he was to set up an iron pan, as an iron wall,
Eze_4:3. This represented the inflexible resolution of both sides; the Chaldeans
resolved, whatever it cost them, that they would make themselves masters of the city and
would never quit it till they had conquered it; on the other side, the Jews resolved never
to capitulate, but to hold out to the last extremity.
ELLICOTT, " (2) Lay siege against it.—It must have seemed at this time unlikely
that Jerusalem would soon become the subject of another siege. The only power by
whom such a siege could be undertaken was Babylon, Egypt having been so
thoroughly defeated as to be for a long time out of the question; and
Nebuchadnezzar had now, within a few years, thrice completely conquered Judaea,
had carried two of its kings, one after the other, captive in chains, and had also
taken into captivity 10,000 of the chief of the people, setting up as king over the
remnant a creature of his own, who was yet of the royal house of Judah. A fresh
siege could only be the result of a fresh rebellion, an act, under the circumstances, of
simple infatuation. Yet of this infatuation Zedekiah, through the “anger of the
LORD” (2 Kings 24:20), was guilty, and thus the prophecy was fulfilled. The
prophecy itself is undated, but must have been between the call of Ezekiel in the
31

32. fifth month of the fifth year (Ezekiel 1:2) and the next date given (Ezekiel 8:1), the
sixth month of the sixth year. The siege began, according to Jeremiah 52:4, in the
tenth month of the ninth year, so that the prophecy preceded its fulfilment by only
about four years.
Build a fort against it.—Rather, a tower. The several acts of a siege are graphically
described. First the city is invested; then a tower is built, as was customary, of
sufficient height to overlook the walls and thus obtain information of the doings of
the besieged. Instruments for throwing stones or darts were also sometimes placed
in such towers; next is “cast a mound against it,” a common operation of the ancient
siege (comp. Isaiah 37:33; Jeremiah 32:24), in which a sort of artificial hill was built
to give the besiegers an advantage; then the camps (not merely camp) are set round
the city to prevent ingress and egress; and finally “the battering rams” are brought
against the walls. These last were heavy beams, headed with iron, and slung in
towers, so that they could be swung against the walls with great force. They are
frequently to be noticed in the representations of sieges found in the ruins of
Nineveh. The practice of forming the end of the beam like a ram’s head belongs to
the Greeks and Romans; but the instrument itself was much older.
TRAPP, "Ezekiel 4:2 And lay siege against it, and build a fort against it, and cast a
mount against it; set the camp also against it, and set [battering] rams against it
round about.
Ver. 2. And lay siege against it.] This to carnal reason seemeth childish and
ridiculous; not unlike the practice of boys that make forts of snow; or of the Papists’
St Francis, who made him a wife and children of snow; fair, but soon fading
comforts; or of his disciple Massaeus, who is much magnified, because at his
master’s command he did - not Diogenes-like, tumble his tub, but - himself tumble
up and down as a little one, in reference to that of our Saviour, (a) "Except ye be
converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of
heaven." [Matthew 18:3] But it must be considered, that what the prophet did here,
he did by the word and command of the most wise God. This made the sacrifices of
old, and doth make the sacraments still, to be reverend and tremendous; because
holy and reverend is his name who instituted them. It cannot be said so of Popish
ceremonies, men’s inventions; they have not God’s image or inscription, and are
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33. therefore frivolous and fruitless, worthily cast out of our churches.
POOLE, " Draw the figure of a siege about the city; raise a tower and bulwarks
which may annoy the besieged, and defend the besiegers, from which may be shot
either darts against men, or mighty stones against the walls and towers of the city.
Cast a mount; which made large, high, and strong, and near as they can, might
thence by help of galleries get over the walls and enter the city. Lay out the ground
also for the army of the Chaldeans to pitch their tents in, and to form their camp.
Rams; the Chaldee paraphrast understands the captains and chief leaders among
the soldiers, but it is better understood of those engines wherewith besiegers did
batter the walls and towers of a besieged city; an engine of great use in days of old
among all warlike nations, invented, say some, in the siege of Troy.
PULPIT. "Ezekiel 4:2
Lay siege against it, etc. The wonder would increase as the spectators looked on
what followed. Either tracing the scene on the tablet, or, more probably, as Ezekiel
4:3 seems to indicate, constructing a model of the scene, the prophet brings before
their eyes all the familiar details of a siege, such as we see on numerous Assyrian
bas-reliefs: such also as the narratives of the Old Testament bring before us. There
are
. Other interpretations, which see in it the symbol of the circumvallation of the city,
or of the impenetrable barrier which the sins of the people had set up between
themselves and Jehovah, or of the prophet himself as strong and unyielding
(Jeremiah 1:18), do not commend themselves. The flat plate did not go round the
city, and the spiritual meaning is out of harmony with the context. This shall be a
sign, etc. (comp. like forms in Ezekiel 12:6, Ezekiel 12:11; Ezekiel 24:25, Ezekiel
24:27). The exiles of Tel-Abib, who wore the only spectators of the prophet's acts,
are taken as representatives of "the house of Israel," that phrase being commonly
33

34. used by Ezekiel, unless, as in verses 5, 6, and Ezekiel 37:16, there is a special reason
for noting a distinction for Jonah as representing the whole nation.
3 Then take an iron pan, place it as an iron wall
between you and the city and turn your face
toward it. It will be under siege, and you shall
besiege it. This will be a sign to the people of
Israel.
BARNES, "An iron pan - Another figure in the coming siege. On Assyrian
sculptures from Nimroud and Kouyunjik there are sieges of cities with “forts, mounts,
and rams;” and together with these we see a kind of shield set up on the ground, behind
which archers are shooting. Such a shield would be represented by the “flat plate”
(margin). Ezekiel was directed to take such a plate (part of his household furniture) and
place it between him and the representation of the city.
A sign to the house of Israel - This “sign” was not necessarily acted before the
people, but may simply have been described to them as a vivid representation of the
event which it foretold. “Israel” stands here for the kingdom of Judah (compare Eze_3:7,
Eze_3:17; Eze_5:4; Eze_8:6). After the captivity of the ten tribes the kingdom of Judah
represented the whole nation. Hence, prophets writing after this event constantly
address their countrymen as the house of Israel without distinction of tribes.
CLARKE, "Take thou unto thee an iron pan - ‫מחבת‬ machabath, a flat plate or
slice, as the margin properly renders it: such as are used in some countries to bake bread
on, called a griddle or girdle, being suspended above the fire, and kept in a proper degree
of heat for the purpose. A plate like this, stuck perpendicularly in the earth, would show
the nature of a wall much better than any pan could do. The Chaldeans threw such a wall
round Jerusalem, to prevent the besieged from receiving any succours, and from
escaping from the city.
34

35. This shall be a sign to the house of Israel - This shall be an emblematical
representation of what shall actually take place.
GILL, "Moreover take thou unto thee an iron pan,.... Which Kimchi thinks, for
its metal, represented the hardness of the hearts of the people of Israel; and, for its
colour, the blackness of their sins: though others are of opinion, this being a pan in
which things are fried, it may signify the miseries of the Jews in captivity; the roasting of
Ahab and Zedekiah in the fire, and particularly the burning of the city: others, the wrath
of God against them, and his resolution to destroy them: but rather, since the use of it
was as follows,
and set it for a wall of iron between thee and the city, it seems to represent all
such things as are made use of by besiegers to screen them from the besieged; such as
are now used are trenches, parapets, bastions, &c. for the prophet in this type is the
besieger, representing the Chaldean army secure from the annoyance of those within the
walls of the city:
and set thy face against it; with a firm resolution to besiege and take the city; which
denotes both the settled wrath of God against this people, and the determined purpose
of the king of Babylon not to move from it until he had taken it:
and it shall be besieged, and thou shalt lay siege against it; as an emblem of the
army of the Chaldeans besieging it, which is confirmed by the next clause:
this shall be a sign to the house of Israel; of the city of Jerusalem being besieged
by the Babylonians; this was a sign representing it, and giving them assurance of it.
JAMISON, "Moreover take thou unto thee an iron pan, and set it for a wall of iron
between thee and the city: and set thy face against it, and it shall be besieged, and
thou shalt lay siege against it. This shall be a sign to the house of Israel.
An iron pan - symbolically representing the divine decree as to the Chaldean army
investing the city.
Set it for a wall of iron between thee and the city - Ezekiel, in the person of God,
represents the wall of separation decreed to be between him and the people as one of
iron, and the Chaldean investing army, His instrument of separating them from
him, as one impossible to burst through.
35

36. Set thy face against it - inexorably (Psalms 34:16). The exiles envied their brethren
remaining in Jerusalem; but exile is better than the straitness of a siege.
COKE, "Ezekiel 4:3. Take thou unto thee an iron pan— The prophet takes to him
an iron pot or vessel, such as fire was wont to be carried in before the Chaldean and
Persian generals, when they went to battle. And he puts it for a wall of iron between
him and the city, to signify the force and strength of that army whose symbol was
fire. Then he sets, or hardens his face against the city, as men look fiercely, who are
inflexibly bent on the ruin of another; and he lays siege to it, or declares the city
should be besieged by surrounding it. In all this scenery, the text, says Ezekiel, was a
sign to the house of Israel, or, in other words, a type of what the Chaldean king and
his army should act against Jerusalem. See Bishop Chandler's Defence, p. 170.
ELLICOTT, " (3) An iron pan.—The margin gives the sense more accurately, a flat
plate. It was used for baking cakes (see Leviticus 2:5, marg.). This was to be set for a
wall of iron between the prophet (representing the besiegers) and the city, doubtless
as symbolical of the strength of the besiegers’ lines, and of the impossibility there
would be of an escape from the city by a sally. Their foes should be made too strong
for them defensively as well as offensively.
A sign to the house of Israel.—As already said, the tribe of Judah, with the
associated remnants of the other tribes, is considered as representing the whole
nation after the Assyrian captivity, and is spoken of as “the house of Israel” except
when there is occasion to distinguish especially between the two parts of the nation.
(See Ezekiel 3:7; Ezekiel 3:17; Ezekiel 5:4; Ezekiel 8:6; 2 Chronicles 21:2; 2
Chronicles 28:27, &c.) The prophecy would have been equally effective whether
seen as a symbolic act or only related.
TRAPP, "Ezekiel 4:3 Moreover take thou unto thee an iron pan, and set it [for] a
wall of iron between thee and the city: and set thy face against it, and it shall be
besieged, and thou shalt lay siege against it. This [shall be] a sign to the house of
Israel.
36

37. Ver. 3. Moreover take thou unto thee an iron pan.] Sartaginem ferream, in token of
God’s hard and inflexible hatred bent against so hard-hearted a people; whom he
will therefore fry as in a pan, and seethe as in a pot, [Jeremiah 1:13] so that they
shall "pine away in their iniquities."
Set thy face against it, and thou shalt lay siege.] This the prophet was to do in the
name and person of God and his soldiers, the Chaldeans. Hard hearts make hard
times, yea, they make Deum, natura sua mollem, misericordem, et melleum, durum
esse et ferreum, as one saith - God to harden his hand, and hasten men’s
destruction.
POOLE, " An iron pan, to signify the hardness and obstinacy of the besiegers;
probably a frying-pan, on the plain part of which the the bearing the portrait of
Jerusalem lying, the iron edges or brims compassed it round about, as a line drawn
round a besieged city, out of which the distressed could not flee, into which no relief
could be brought. It plainly noted the cruelty of the Chaldeans and future tortures
of the Jews, who were like to be fried or broiled in this iron pan, as Jeremiah 29:22;
/APC 2 Maccabees 7:5.
Set it for a wall of iron; that it may resemble a wall of iron; for as impregnable as
such a wall should the courage, resolution, and patience of the Chaldeans be
attacking it.
Set thy face against it; fix thy displeased countenance against it, in token of my
displeasure.
Thou shalt lay siege: if the prophet do represent him that sent him, then it speaks
God’s appearing against these wicked ones.
This shall be a sign; all these things are signs and emblems usual with all, most
usual with this prophet, who in this hieroglyphic foreshows the state of those that
37

38. lived at Jerusalem.
4 “Then lie on your left side and put the sin of the
people of Israel upon yourself.[a] You are to bear
their sin for the number of days you lie on your
side.
BARNES, "The siege being thus represented, the condition and suffering of the
inhabitants is exhibited by the condition of one, who, bound as a prisoner or oppressed
by sickness, cannot turn from his right side to his left. The prophet was in such a state.
Bear their iniquity - The prophet was, in a figure, to bear their iniquities for a fixed
period, in order to show that, after the period thus foretold, the burden of their sins
should be taken off, and the people be forgiven. Compare Lev_16:21-22.
CLARKE, "Lie thou also upon thy left side - It appears that all that is
mentioned here and in the following verses was done, not in idea, but in fact. The
prophet lay down on his left side upon a couch to which he was chained, Eze_4:6, for
three hundred and ninety days; and afterwards he lay in the same manner, upon his
right side, for forty days. And thus was signified the state of the Jews, and the
punishment that was coming upon them.
1. The prophet himself represents the Jews.
2. His lying, their state of depression.
3. His being bound, their helplessness and captivity.
4. The days signify years, a day for a year; during which they were to bear their
iniquity, or the temporal punishment due to their sins.
5. The three hundred and ninety days, during which he was to lie on his left side, and
bear the iniquity of the house of Israel, point out two things: the first, The duration
of the siege of Jerusalem. Secondly, The duration of the captivity off the ten tribes,
and that of Judah.
6. The prophet lay three hundred and ninety days upon his left side, and forty days
upon his right side, in all four hundred and thirty days. Now Jerusalem was
besieged the ninth year of the reign of Zedekiah, 2Ki_25:1, 2Ki_25:2, and was not
38

39. taken till the eleventh year of the same prince, 2Ki_25:2.
But properly speaking, the siege did not continue the whole of that time; it was
interrupted; for Nebuchadnezzar was obliged to raise it, and go and meet the Egyptians,
who were coming to its succor. This consumed a considerable portion of time. After he
had defeated the Egyptians, he returned and recommenced the siege, and did not leave it
till the city was taken. We may, therefore, conclude that the four hundred and thirty days
only comprise the time in which the city was actually besieged, when the city was
encompassed with walls of circumvallation, so that the besieged were reduced to a state
of the utmost distress. The siege commenced the tenth day of the tenth month of the
ninth year of Zedekiah; and it was taken on the ninth day of the fourth month of the
eleventh year of the same king. Thus the siege had lasted, in the whole, eighteen months,
or five hundred and ten days. Subtract for the time that Nebuchadnezzar was obliged to
interrupt the siege, in order to go against the Egyptians, four months and twenty days, or
one hundred and forty days, and there will remain four hundred and thirty days,
composed of 390+40=430. See Calmet on this place. See also at the end of this chapter,
Eze_4:16 (note).
GILL, “Lie thou also upon thy left side,.... Some think this was not in reality, but in
vision, as Kimchi observes; and so Maimonides (c); and in like manner they understand
his eating and drinking by measures and preparing food, as he is directed in a following
part of this chapter: but others are of opinion that all this was really done. The reasons
given on both sides are not despicable. It is urged against the reality of the fact, that the
prophet, without a miracle, could never have lain so long on one side; and besides, this
seems to be contradicted by a later account, of his sitting in his house before the
expiration of those days; since from the fifth day of the fourth month of the fifth year, in
which he began to prophesy, Eze_1:1, (and this order was seven days after that at least,
Eze_3:15), to the fifth day of the sixth month of the sixth year, when we find him sitting,
Eze_8:1; were but four hundred and thirteen days; and if seven are taken out from
thence, there are but four hundred and six; whereas the whole time of his lying for Israel
and Judah were four hundred and thirty; and it is further observed, that it does not seem
decent that the prophet should be obliged really to eat such bread as he was ordered to
make. On the other hand it is observed, that the order of portraying the siege of
Jerusalem on a the, and setting an iron pan for a wall, seem to direct to the doing of real
facts, and to that this order is subjoined, without any mark of distinction; besides, the
prophet was to have this portrait in view, while he was lying on his side, and uncover his
arms, which seem to denote real facts: and was to prophesy, not by words, for he was to
be dumb, Eze_3:26; but by facts; and he was to do all this in the sight of his people; and
if the order to make a cake of bread was not to be really performed in the manner
directed, there would have been no occasion of deprecating it. The learned Witsius (d),
who has collected the arguments on both sides, is inclined to the latter; and observes
from others, that some persons have lain longer on one side than the prophet, without a
miracle: particularly a certain paralytic nobleman, who lay sixteen years in such a
manner: and as for the computation of time, Cocceius is of opinion that the forty days
for Judah are included in the three hundred and ninety for Israel; and which indeed
seem to be the whole number, Eze_4:9; and which at once solves the difficulty; and
besides, the force of the objection may be taken off by observing, that the fifth year
39

40. might be intercalated, and consist of thirteen months, which was common with the Jews
to have a "Veadar", or intercalated month: nor is it dishonourable nor unusual for the
Lord to call his dear servants sometimes to hard and disagreeable service, as both these
cases seem to be, when he has ends of his own glory, and the good of others, to be
answered thereby. And the lying on the left side for the sins of the house of Israel was, as
Jarchi thinks, because that Samaria, which was the head of the ten tribes, lay to the left
of Jerusalem: see Eze_16:46; or rather, because the left hand is not so honourable as the
right; it may show that the Lord had not such an esteem for Israel us for Judah;
and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel upon it; not to atone for it, but to show
what was the cause of their captivity; far herein the prophet was no type of Christ, but
represented the people of Israel; who had been grievously sinning against God, during
the term of time hereafter mentioned, and now would be punished for it; for by
"iniquity" is meant the punishment of it, which is often the sense of the word used; see
Gen_4:13;
according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon it thou shalt
bear their iniquity: which are particularly declared in Eze_4:5.
JAMISON, "Lie thou also upon thy left side, and lay the iniquity of the house of
Israel upon it: according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon it thou
shalt bear their iniquity.
Lie thou also upon thy left side - another symbolical act, performed at the same time
as the former, in vision, not in external action, wherein it would have been only
puerile: narrated as a thing ideally done, it would make a vivid impression. The
second action is supplementary to the first, to bring out more fully the same
prophetic idea.
Left side - referring to the position of the ten tribes, the Northern Kingdom; as
Judah, the Southern, answers to "the right side" (Ezekiel 4:6). The Orientals, facing
the East in their mode, had the North on their left and the South on their right
(Ezekiel 16:46). Also, the right was more honourable than the left; so Judah, as
being the seat of the temple, was more so than Israel.
According to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon it, thou shalt bear their
iniquity - iniquity being regarded as a burden; so it means, "bear the punishment of
40

41. their iniquity" (Numbers 14:34). A type of Him who was the great sin-bearer, not in
mimic show, as Ezekiel, but in reality (Isaiah 53:4; Isaiah 53:6; Isaiah 53:12).
K&D 4-8, “The second symbolical act. - Eze_4:4. And do thou lay thyself upon thy
left side, and lay upon it the evil deeds of the house of Israel; for the number of the days
during which thou liest thereon shalt thou bear their evil deeds. Eze_4:5. And I reckon
to thee the years of their evil deeds as a number of days; three hundred and ninety days
shalt thou bear the evil deeds of the house of Israel. Eze_4:6. And (when) thou hast
completed these, thou shalt then lay thyself a second time upon thy right side, and bear
the evil deeds of the house of Judah forty days; each day I reckon to thee as a year.
Eze_4:7. And upon the siege of Jerusalem shalt thou stedfastly direct thy countenance,
and thy naked arm, and shalt prophesy against it. Eze_4:8. And, lo, I lay cords upon
thee, that thou stir not from one side to the other until thou hast ended the days of thy
siege. - Whilst Ezekiel, as God's representative, carries out in a symbolical manner the
siege of Jerusalem, he is in this situation to portray at the same time the destiny of the
people of Israel beleaguered in their metropolis. Lying upon his left side for 390 days
without turning, he is to bear the guilt of Israel's sin; then, lying 40 days more upon his
right side, he is to bear the guilt of Judah's sin. In so doing, the number of the days
during which he reclines upon his sides shall be accounted as exactly equal to the same
number of years of their sinning. ‫א‬ָ‫ָשׂ‬‫נ‬ ‫ון‬ָֹ‫,ע‬ “to bear the evil deeds,” i.e., to take upon
himself the consequence of sin, and to stone for them, to suffer the punishment of sin;
cf. Num_14:34, etc. Sin, which produces guilt and punishment, is regarded as a burden
or weight, which Ezekiel is to lay upon the side upon which he reclines, and in this way
bear it. This bearing, however, of the guilt of sin is not to be viewed as vicarious and
mediatorial, as in the sacrifice of atonement, but is intended as purely epideictic and
symbolical; that is to say, Ezekiel, by his lying so long bound under the burden of Israel
and Judah which was laid upon his side, is to show to the people how they are to be cast
down by the siege of Jerusalem, and how, while lying on the ground, without the
possibility of turning or rising, they are to bear the punishment of their sins. The full
understanding of this symbolical act, however, depends upon the explanation of the
specified periods of time, with regard to which the various views exhibit great
discrepancy.
In the first place, the separation of the guilt into that of the house of Israel and that of
the house of Judah is closely connected with the division of the covenant people into the
two kingdoms of Israel and Judah. That Ezekiel now is to bear the sin of Israel upon the
left, that of Judah on the right side, is not fully explained by the circumstance that the
kingdom of the ten tribes lay to the left, i.e., to the north, the kingdom of Judah to the
right, i.e., to the south of Jerusalem, but must undoubtedly point at the same time to the
pre-eminence of Judah over Israel; cf. Ecc_10:2. This pre-eminence of Judah is
manifestly exhibited in its period of punishment extending only to 40 days = 40 years;
that of Israel, on the contrary, 390 days = 390 years. These numbers, however, cannot
be satisfactorily explained from a chronological point of view, whether they be referred
to the time during which Israel and Judah sinned, and heaped upon themselves guilt
which was to be punished, or to the time during which they were to atone, or suffer
punishment for their sins. Of themselves, both references are possible; the first, viz., in
so far as the days in which Ezekiel is to bear the guilt of Israel, might be proportioned to
the number of the years of their guilt, as many Rabbins, Vatablus, Calvin, Lightfoot,
Vitringa, J. D. Michaelis, and others suppose, while in so doing the years are calculated
very differently; cf. des Vignoles, Chronol. I. p. 479ff., and Rosenmüller, Scholia, Excurs.
41

42. to ch. iv. All these hypotheses, however, are shattered by the impossibility of pointing
out the specified periods of time, so as to harmonize with the chronology. If the days,
reckoned as years, correspond to the duration of their sinning, then, in the case of the
house of Israel, only the duration of this kingdom could come into consideration, as the
period of punishment began with the captivity of the ten tribes. But this kingdom lasted
only 253 years. The remaining 137 years the Rabbins have attempted to supply from the
period of the Judges; others, from the time of the destruction of the ten tribes down to
that of Ezekiel, or even to that of the destruction of Jerusalem. Both are altogether
arbitrary. Still less can the 40 years of Judah be calculated, as all the determinations of
the beginning and the end are mere phantoms of the air. The fortieth year before our
prophecy would nearly coincide with the eighteenth year of Josiah's reign, and therefore
with the year in which this pious king effected the reformation of religion. Ezekiel,
however, could not represent this year as marking the commencement of Judah's sin.
We must therefore, as the literal meaning of the words primarily indicates, regard the
specified periods of time as periods of punishment for Israel and Judah. Since Ezekiel,
then, had to maintain during the symbolical siege of Jerusalem this attitude of reclining
for Israel and Judah, and after the completion of the 390 days for Israel must lie a
second time (‫ית‬ִ‫נ‬ֵ‫,שׁ‬ Eze_4:6) 40 days for Judah, he had to recline in all 430 (390 + 40)
days. To include the forty days in the three hundred and ninety is contrary to the
statements in the text. But to reckon the two periods together has not only no argument
against it, but is even suggested by the circumstance that the prophet, while reclining on
his left and right sides, is to represent the siege of Jerusalem. Regarded, however, as
periods of punishment, both the numbers cannot be explained consistently with the
chronology, but must be understood as having a symbolical signification. The space of
430 years, which is announced to both kingdoms together as the duration of this
chastisement, recalls the 430 years which in the far past Israel had spent in Egypt in
bondage (Exo_12:40). It had been already intimated to Abraham (Gen_15:13) that the
sojourn in Egypt would be a period of servitude and humiliation for his seed; and at a
later time, in consequence of the oppression which the Israelites then experienced on
account of the rapid increase of their number, it was - upon the basis of the threat in
Deu_28:68, that God would punish Israel for their persistent declension, by bringing
them back into ignominious bondage in Egypt - taken by the prophet as a type of the
banishment of rebellious Israel among the heathen. In this sense Hosea already
threatens (Hos_8:13; Hos_9:3, Hos_9:6) the ten tribes with being carried back to
Egypt; see on Hos_9:3. Still more frequently, upon the basis of this conception, is the
redemption from Assyrian and Babylonian exile announced as a new and miraculous
exodus of Israel from the bondage of Egypt, e.g., Hos_2:2; Isa_11:15-16. - This typical
meaning lies also at the foundation of the passage before us, as, in accordance with the
statement of Jerome,
(Note: Alii vero et maxime Judaei a secundo anno Vespasiani, quando
Hierusalem a Romanis capta templumque subversum est, supputari volunt in
tribulatione et angustia et captivitatis jugo populi constitui annos quadringentos
triginta, et sic redire populum ad pristinum statum ut quomodo filii Israel 430
annis fuerunt in Aegypto, sic in eodem numero finiatur: scriptumque esse in Exo_
12:40. - Hieronymus.)
it was already accepted by the Jews of his time, and has been again recognised in
modern times by Hävernick and Hitzig. That Ezekiel looked upon the period during
which Israel had been subject to the heathen in the past as “typical of the future, is to be
assumed, because only then does the number of 430 cease to be arbitrary and
42

43. meaningless, and at the same time its division into 390 + 40 become explicable.” -
Hitzig.
This latter view is not, of course, to be understood as Hitzig and Hävernick take it, i.e.,
as if the 40 years of Judah's chastisement were to be viewed apart from the 40 years'
sojourn of the Israelites in the wilderness, upon which the look of the prophet would
have been turned by the sojourn in Egypt. For the 40 years in the wilderness are not
included in the 430 years of the Egyptian sojourn, so that Ezekiel could have reduced
these 430 years to 390, and yet have added to them the 40 years of the desert
wanderings. For the coming period of punishment, which is to commence for Israel with
the siege of Jerusalem, is fixed at 430 years with reference to the Egyptian bondage of
the Israelites, and this period is divided into 390 and 40; and this division therefore
must also have, if not its point of commencement, at least a point of connection, in the
430 years of the Egyptian sojourn. The division of the period of chastisement into two
parts is to be explained probably from the sending of the covenant people into the
kingdom of Israel and Judah, and the appointment of a longer period of chastisement
for Israel than for Judah, from the greater guilt of the ten tribes in comparison with
Judah, but not the incommensurable relation of the divisions into 390 and 40 years. The
foundation of this division can, first of all, only lie in this, that the number forty already
possessed the symbolical significance of a measured period of divine visitation. This
significance it had already received, not through the 40 years of the desert wandering,
but through the 40 days of rain at the time of the deluge (Gen_7:17), so that, in
conformity with this, the punishment of dying in the wilderness, suspended over the
rebellious race of Israel at Kadesh, is already stated at 40 years, although it included in
reality only 38 years; see on Num_14:32. If now, however, it should be supposed that
this penal sentence had contributed to the fixing of the number 40 as a symbolical
number to denote a longer period of punishment, the 40 years of punishment for Judah
could not yet have been viewed apart from this event. The fixing of the chastisement for
Israel and Judah at 390 + 40 years could only in that case be measured by the sojourn of
the Israelites in Egypt, if the relations of this sojourn presented a point of connection for
a division of the 430 years into 390 and 40, i.e., if the 40 last years of the Egyptian
servitude could somehow be distinguished from the preceding 390. A point of contact
for this is offered by an event in the life of Moses which falls within that period, and was
fertile in results for him as well as for the whole of Israel, viz., his flight from Egypt in
consequence of the slaughter of an Egyptian who had ill-treated an Israelite. As the
Israelites, his brethren, did not recognise the meaning of this act, and did not perceive
that God would save them by his hand, Moses was necessitated to flee into the land of
Midian, and to tarry there 40 years as a stranger, until the Lord called him to be the
saviour of his nation, and sent him as His messenger to Pharaoh (Ex 2:11-3:10; Act_
7:23-30). These 40 years were for Moses not only a time of trial and purification for his
future vocation, but undoubtedly also the period of severest Egyptian oppression for the
Israelites, and in this respect quite fitted to be a type of the coming time of punishment
for Judah, in which was to be repeated what Israel had experienced in Egypt, that, as
Israel had lost their helper and protector with the flight of Moses, so now Judah was to
lose her king, and be given over to the tyranny of the heathen world-power.
(Note: Another ingenious explanation of the numbers in question has been
attempted by Kliefoth, Comment. p. 123. Proceeding from the symbolical
signification of the number 40 as a measure of time for divine visitation and trial, he
supposes that the prescription in Deu_25:3 - that if an Israelite were to be subject to
corporal punishment, he was not to receive more than 40 stripes - is founded upon
43

44. this symbolical signification - a prescription which, according to 2Co_11:24, was in
practice so carried out that only 39 were actually inflicted. From the application and
bearing thus given to the number 40, the symbolical numbers in the passage before
us are to be explained. Every year of punishment is equivalent to a stripe of
chastisement. To the house of Israel 10 x 39 years = stripes, were adjudged, i.e., to
each of the ten tribes 39 years = stripes; the individual tribes are treated as so many
single individuals, and each receives the amount of chastisement usual in the case of
one individual. Judah, on the contrary, is regarded as the one complete historical
national tribe, cause in the two faithful tribes of Judah and Benjamin the people
collectively were represented. Judah, then, may receive, not the number of stripes
falling to individuals, but that only which fell upon one, although, as a fair
compensation, not the usual number of 40, but the higher number - compatible with
the Torah - of 40 stripes = years. To this explanation we would give our assent, if
only the transformation into stripes or blows of the days of the prophet's reclining,
or of the years of Israel's punishment, could be shown to be probable through any
analogous Biblical example, and were not merely a deduction from the modern law
of punishment, in which corporal punishment and imprisonment hold the same
importance. The assumption, then, is altogether arbitrary irrespective of this, that in
the case of the house of Israel the measure of punishment is fixed differently from
that of Judah; in the former case, according to the number of the tribes; in the latter,
according to the unity of the kingdom: in the former at 39, in the latter at 40 stripes.
Finally, the presupposition that the later Jewish practice of inflicting only 30 instead
of 40 stripes - in order not to transgress the letter of the law in the enumeration
which probably was made at the infliction of the punishment - goes back to the time
of the exile, is extremely improbable, as it altogether breathes the spirit of Pharisaic
micrology.)
While Ezekiel thus reclines upon one side, he is to direct his look unchangingly upon
the siege of Jerusalem, i.e., upon the picture of the besieged city, and keep his arm bare,
i.e., ready for action (Isa_52:10), and outstretched, and prophesy against the city,
especially through the menacing attitude which he had taken up against it. To be able to
carry this out, God will bind him with cords, i.e., fetter him to his couch (see on Eze_
3:25), so that he cannot stir from one side to another until he has completed the time
enjoined upon him for the siege. In this is contained the thought that the siege of
Jerusalem is to be mentally carried on until its capture; but no new symbol of the state of
prostration of the besieged Jerusalem is implied. For such a purpose the food of the
prophet (Eze_4:9.) during this time is employed.
CALVIN, "We must first consider the scope of this prophecy, and we shall then
discuss more conveniently its separate parts. It is not doubtful that God wished to
oppose the pride of the people, for they thought themselves punished more severely
than they deserved. And this is customary with hypocrites, because while they dare
not acquit themselves altogether, they yet murmur as if God afflicted them too
severely, then they willingly offer something in compensation that they may free
themselves from punishment. For although they confess themselves guilty, yet they
do not cease to turn aside, and think if God descends to equity with them, that either
44

45. they will escape, or at least be less miserable. Such was the disposition of the ancient
people, as is well known. We now only need to repeat what we have said before: that
the Jews were more obstinate because God had spared them. Nor did they think this
only temporary, but they exulted with great freedom, as if they had settled all their
business with God. Meanwhile the exiles were constantly complaining, first, that
God had treated them so severely, and yet had in clemency pardoned the Jews: then
they thought that they had been deceived, and that if they had prudently attended to
their own affairs they could have escaped the miseries by which they were
oppressed. Now, therefore, Ezekiel is ordered to come forward into the midst of
them, and shortly to show that no other result is possible but that the whole people
should receive the reward of their wickedness. But because simple teaching was not
sufficient to stir them up, a vision is added, and to this end the Prophet is ordered to
lie on one side for three hundred and ninety days, and on the other side forty days.
Now the interpretation is added, that days are taken for so many years But the
meaning is, that the people through three hundred and ninety years carried on war
with God, because they had never ceased from sin. Hence the Prophet is ordered to
take upon him the iniquity of so many years: but God appointed him days for years,
then forty years are added which belong to the people of Judah.
This place is variously twisted by interpreters. I will not refer to all their comments,
for they have fatigued themselves in vain by inventing arguments which vanish of
their own accord: I will not spend the time in refuting them, but will only endeavor
to elicit the genuine sense. Some extend the name of Israel to the whole body of the
people, but this must be rejected; for they begin the three hundred and ninety years
from the first revolt, of which mention is made in the Book of Judges, (Jude 2:2,)
and they gather together those years during which the Israelites often fell into
impiety: hence they reckon the three hundred and ninety years, and subtract those
periods in which religion and the pure worship of God flourished, as under Gideon,
under Samson for some time, and under David and Solomon. They subtract then
those years in which piety flourished among the people, and the remainder reaches
about three hundred and ninety years. But it would be absurd to include the tribe of
Judah under the name of Israel, when a comparison between each kingdom is made.
We know, indeed, that all the posterity of Abraham were so named by their father
Jacob, when, therefore, the name of Israel is put, the twelve or thirteen tribes are
comprehended without exception; but when there is comparison, Israel signifies
only the ten tribes, or that adulterous kingdom which set up Jeroboam as king after
the death of Solomon. (1 Kings 12:20.) Since, then, both Israel and Judah are
treated of here, it is by no means suitable that the prophecy should speak of the
45

46. whole people, and mix the tribe of Judah with the rest. Then the event itself dispels
many clouds and takes away all room for controversy: for if we number the years
from the revolt in Rehoboam’s time, we shall find three hundred and ninety years
till the siege of Jerusalem. What then can be easier, and what room is there for
conjectures? I wonder that Jerome, since he relates nothing but mere trifles, yet
boasts of some wonderful wisdom; for he says, he did not do it for the sake of
boasting, and truly he has little cause for it; for if any one will read his
Commentary, he will find nothing but what is puerile. (1 Kings 12:28.) But, as I
have already said, since the name of Israel everywhere signifies the ten tribes, this
interpretation is best here: namely, that the obstinacy of the ten tribes was
continued through three hundred and ninety years. For, as is sufficiently, known,
Jeroboam erected two altars, that he might turn away the people from the worship
of God: for he thought himself not sufficiently established in his kingdom, so as to
retain the obedience of the people, unless he turned them away from the house of
David. Therefore he used that artifice — thus the worship of God was corrupted
among the Israelites. Now by idolatry the Prophet here points out the other sins of
the people; for from this fountain flowed all other iniquities. After they had once cut
themselves off from God, they became forgetful of the whole law. The Prophet
therefore includes all their corruptions under this one expression, since by the edict
of their king this people had shaken off the yoke of God, for which Hosea
reproaches them. (Hosea 5:11.) We now understand the three hundred and ninety
years of Israel’s iniquity, because the people then rejected the law, and followed
foreign superstitions, which Jeroboam fabricated with no other intention than That;
of strengthening the power of his kingdom, just as earthly kings are influenced by
no other desire, although they pretend, and even magnificently boast, that they seek
God’s glory with the utmost devotion, yet their religion is only a delusion; provided
only that they retain the people in obedience and duty, any kind of worship, and any
mode of worshipping God, is the same to them. Such, therefore, was the cunning of
Jeroboam: but his posterity greatly deteriorated, so that the worship of God could
never be restored among the Israelites. Circumcision, indeed, remained, in which
they imitated what Moses had commanded in the law, but at the same time they had
two altars, and those profane ones, instead of one only. At length they did not
hesitate openly to adopt the idolatries of the Gentiles: hence they so mixed up God
with their inventions, that what even they valued under the pretense of piety, was an
abomination to him. This is the reason why God says that the iniquity of the people
of Israel has endured for three hundred and ninety years
The difficulty in the second clause is greater, because the computation does not
46

47. agree exactly. After the death of Josiah we shall only find twenty-two years to the
destruction of the city. But we know that this king, of his eminent piety, took care
that God should be sincerely worshipped; for he purged the whole land of all its
defilements. Where, then, will be those forty years? Hence it is necessary to take a
part of the reign of Manasseh, because then Jerusalem not only revolted from the
teaching of the law, but that tyrant cruelly raged against all the Prophets, and the
city was defiled by innocent blood. Hence it will be necessary to omit the reign of
Josiah, then a part of the reign of Manasseh must be cut off, because he did not
immediately relapse into idolatry; but after he grew up, then the worship of God
and the examples of his fathers being despised, he turned aside to strange and
fictitious worship, though he did not persist in his impiety to the end of his life.
Eighteen years, then, must be taken and joined to the two-and-twenty, that the
number which the Prophet uses may be made up, unless, perhaps, any one would
rather take a part of the reign of Josiah. (2 Kings 22:0) For although that pious king
did his utmost to uphold the worship of God, yet we know that the people of very
wickedness strove with the goodness of God. For when the law was found no
amendment followed, for the memory of all its doctrine had grown obsolete; but
when it was placed before the people they ought to have become new. But so far
from those who had been previously alienated from God becoming wise again, they
betrayed their obstinacy more and more. Since then, the impiety of the people had
been detected, it is not surprising that the people of Judah is said to have sinned for
forty years. Certainly this latter explanation pleases me most, because the Prophet
refers to continuous years, which followed the captivity of the ten tribes; although I
do not reject the other interpretation, because it reckons those years during which
Manasseh exercised his tyranny against God’s servants, and endeavored as much as
he could to abolish his pure worship, and to pollute it with the filth of all the
nations. Now, therefore, we understand the forty years of the iniquity of the tribe of
Judah.
As to those interpreters who refer the four hundred and thirty years to the siege of
the city, as if God’s vengeance was thus satisfied, I fear it will not hold good; it
seems to me not a suitable explanation; it only signifies that it is not surprising if
their enemies besiege the city so long, since they did not cease to provoke God for as
many years as the siege continued days. The city was besieged a whole year and two
or three months. The beginning of the siege continues to the end of the half year, but
it was finished in three or four months, when Pharaoh endeavored to free the Jews,
who were then his allies and confederates, by bringing up his army. Then
Nebuchadnezzar went forth to meet him, and the city was relieved for a short time.
47

48. Now if we take three hundred and ninety days, we shall find a whole year at first,
that is three hundred and sixty-five years, although then there was an intercalary
month, and they had not their year defined as we now have; but yet there will be
three hundred and sixty-five days, which make a complete year. The two months
will make sixty days, so we shall have four hundred and twenty days. Now a month
and a half elapsed before the return of Nebuchadnezzar. Then the computation will
amount to four hundred and thirty years. But interpreters are satisfied, because the
siege of the city endured to a time which answers to that prescribed to Abraham.
For God entered into covenant with Abraham four hundred and thirty years before
the promulgation of the law. But I do not see why they are so satisfied with this
resemblance. Nor is this the meaning of our Prophet. When he speaks of a siege he
certainly regards especially the destruction of the city. Therefore I do not think that
the days of the siege are here enumerated as a just punishment, but only that years
are compared with days, that they may determine how long the siege should be, and
that the end was not to be, expected until the whole people perished.
Besides, we see as we go on that the Prophet lay on his side three hundred and
ninety days; where there is no mention of forty days, and that part seems to be
omitted. Yet this remains fixed, because Israel and Judah had been obstinate in
their wickedness; hence the city was besieged until it was utterly taken. Now surely
the punishment of Israel cannot be considered as consisting in the overthrow of the
holy city; for already the ten tribes had migrated from their country, and did not
know what was doing at Jerusalem, except by report. Whatever happened their
condition was altogether separate from all the miseries of the people, for they were
then quiet in exile. As then the Prophet is ordered to bear the iniquity of Israel for
three hundred and ninety days, this ought not to be restricted to the siege. God
simply means, since so many years had elapsed during which both Israelites and
Jews had not ceased to sin, their final destruction was already at hand. But we know
that then the kingdom of Judah was extinguished, and exile was to the ten tribes like
death. On this account they had perished; nor did the Prophet bear their iniquity as
if they were then paying the penalty of their sins. But we know that this is the
customary manner of Scripture, because God reckons sins to the third and fourth
generation. (Exodus 20:5; Deuteronomy 5:9.) When, therefore, God wished the ten
tribes to be dragged into exile, then he punished them for their wickedness three
hundred and ninety years. Afterwards he bore with the city of Jerusalem for a
certain time, and endured a similar impiety in that tribe, that he should not utterly
blot out the memory of the people. But the Jews did not repent, since we also see by
Isaiah comparing them with the Israelites, that they became worse. (Isaiah 18:1, 8
48

49. [sic ].) Micah reproves them for following the statutes of Omri; (Micah 6:16,)
whence it is not surprising if the punishment which they endure should answer to
the wickedness in which they had involved themselves. We shall see also that the
same subject is repeated by our Prophet in Ezekiel 16:0.
On the whole then, God wished to show the people that they had abused his
forbearance too much and too long, since they did not desist from sinning even to
the four hundred and thirtieth year. The Israelites indeed began to turn aside from
the true worship of God while the Temple still remained pure, but at length the tribe
of Judah, by degenerating, became guilty of the same impiety. Now we understand
the intention of the Holy Spirit.
I pass on to the words. Thou, says he, shalt lie upon thy left side We must remark
that this was not in reality completed, because Ezekiel did not lie for three hundred
and ninety days upon his side, but only by a vision, that he might afterwards relate
to the people what God had made manifest. As to the opinion of those commentators
who think the ten tribes are meant by the left side, because Samaria was situated to
the left hand, I do not think it applicable. I do not doubt that God wished to prefer
the tribe of Judah to the kingdom of Israel; for although the ten tribes excelled in
the number, opulence, and strength of men, yet God always made more, of the
kingdom of Judah. For here was the seat of David; and the ten tribes were the
posterity of Abraham only after the flesh, the promise remained to Jerusalem, and
there also the lamp of God shone, as we have said in many places. Hence the right
side signifies that dignity with which God wished always to adorn the kingdom of
Judah: but the ten tribes are marked by the left side; because, as I have said, they
did not enjoy equal glory with the kingdom of Judah, although they are more
numerous, more courageous, and more abundant in all good things. It must now be
observed that the burden of bearing their iniquity was imposed on the Prophet: not
because God transferred to him the iniquity of the people, as some here invent an
allegory, and say that the Prophet was a type of Christ, who bore on himself the
iniquity of the people. But an expiation is not here described: but we know that God
uses his servants for different purposes. So therefore the Prophet on one side is
ordered to oppose Jerusalem, as if he were the king of Babylon; hence he sustains
the character of king Nebuchadnezzar when he opposes the city of brick, of which
we spoke yesterday. Now he sustains other characters, as of the ten tribes and the
kingdom of Judah, when he lies upon his left side three hundred and ninety days ,
and on his right side forty days For this reason also it is said, I have appointed to
49

50. thee the years of this iniquity, according to then number, of the days, etc; that is,
when I order thee to lie on thy right side so many days, I represent to thee years. For
it would have been absurd to demand of the Prophet to lie upon one side four
centuries, so God accommodates himself in these figures to our standard; and it is
contrary to nature that a man should lie for four centuries, and because that is
absurd, God changes years into days; and this is the reason why days are said to be
substituted for years. Afterwards it is added, when thou shalt have fulfilled those
years, then thou shalt afterwards lie upon thy right side, and shalt bear the iniquity
of the house of Judah forty days Here God shows the tribe of Judah, that when it
ought to be frightened by the punishment of the kingdom of Israel, it still persisted
in its wickedness hence the Jews could not possibly escape the punishment of the
Israelites.
COFFMAN, ""Moreover lie thou upon thy left side, and lay the iniquity of the
house of Israel upon it; according to the number of days thou shalt lie upon it, thou
shalt bear their iniquity. For I have appointed the years of their iniquity to be unto
thee a number of days, even three hundred and ninety days: so shalt thou bear the
iniquity of the house of Israel. And again, when thou hast accomplished these, thou
shalt lie on thy right side, and shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah, each day
for a year, have I appointed it unto thee. And thou shalt set thy face toward the siege
of Jerusalem, with thine arm uncovered; and thou shalt prophesy against it. And,
behold, I lay hands upon thee; and thou shalt not turn thee from one side to the
other till thou hast accomplished the days of thy siege."
"Left side ... right side ..." (Ezekiel 4:4). The ancient usage of such terminology was
based upon the proposition that one faced the East (the rising sun); and thus the left
stood for the North, the right stood for the South; and the East was always
considered "the front."[10] Since Northern Israel (Samaria) lay north of Jerusalem,
the "right" and "left" designation applied to the Ten Northern tribes and to Judah,
respectively.
"The restrained position of the prophet was a symbol of the loss of freedom
awaiting the people."[11]
50

51. "And thou shalt set thy face toward the siege ..." (Ezekiel 4:7). This represented the
intent purpose of God looking to the total destruction of the city.
"With thine arm uncovered ..." (Ezekiel 4:7). There is another echo of Jeremiah
21:5 in this. God's arm was uncovered and outstretched to accomplish the
destruction of the Jewish kingdom.
"Lay the iniquity of the house of Israel upon it (Ezekiel's left side) ... thou shalt bear
their iniquity ... so shalt thou bear the iniquity of the house of Israel... and again,
thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah ..." (Ezekiel 4:4-6).
Right here lies the "lost message of Ezekiel." None of dozens of commentators we
have consulted pays the slightest attention whatever to the colossal teachings of the
vital messages in these dramatic clauses. Ezekiel represents God in the analogy here;
and as God's representative, he bears the iniquity of both Israel and Judah. The 390
years for one and the forty years for the other, therefore have no application
whatever to the duration of the captivity, either of Northern Israel or of Southern
Israel, nor of any one else. The absolute inability of all the commentators to come up
with any rational or reasonable explanation of what these respective time periods
really prophesied is the only proof needed that they have simply not understood
what is meant by them.
Here Ezekiel is a type of the Son Man (the Christ) indeed; and he becomes the sin-
bearer for all Israel. That is the bold, unequivocal message of this passage.
What about the 390 years and the forty years? "Forty" throughout the Old
Testament is the symbolical word for punishment; and the Ten Northern Tribes
deserved ten times forty (four hundred stripes, days, years, whatever; but as the
Jews always administered that "forty" as "forty stripes save one" it would mean
that the Ten Tribes deserved 390 years of the wrath of God. Judah, the principal
tribe of the Southern Israel also would receive "forty," it not being considered
necessary to add the limitation of "save one" here, as it may be understood. As we
see it, God's "beating the iniquity of all the tribes of earth in the person of his "Only
51

52. Begotten Son," is the sum total of what is indicated in this passage which all
scholars have labeled, "impossible of understanding," "unintelligible," "subject to
no satisfactory explanation," etc. Some may think that our explanation is also
unsatisfactory; but to us it makes more sense than anything else we have ever
encountered.
In the quadruple statement in this paragraph that Ezekiel is to "bear the sins" of
both houses of Israel, how can a scholar like Taylor assert that, "This is a symbol of
the weight of the punishment to be borne by Israel!"[12] Ezekiel, as a type of Christ.
is the one doing the bearing, according to the holy text.
At first, we considered adopting the position on this paragraph mentioned by
Pearson, who said, "With the data at our disposal, it appears unwise to be dogmatic
as to how the forty and the 390 years are to be reckoned."[13] However, the
thundering remarks about Ezekiel's being the sin-bearer here point so clearly in the
direction which we have chosen, that we are offering what seems (to us) a
reasonable and logical understanding of it.
Thus all of the inconvenience, humiliation, painful physical constraint, the unclean
diet, etc. are an eloquent portrayal of the sufferings, humiliation, even death, of the
great Sin-Bearer, Christ, of whom Ezekiel was merely a type.
There is no device for discovering an easy solution to these numbers. The years of
Israel's sins were actually far more than 390, and the same is true of the sins of
Judah. There is no evidence that the sins of Israel were ten times as much as those of
Judah (except upon the premise of their being far greater in number). The device of
choosing the Septuagint (LXX) over the the Hebrew text of the Old Testament here
gives only 150 years, but that doesn't work either.
COKE, "Ezekiel 4:4. Lay the iniquity of the house of Israel upon it— By the
iniquity is meant the punishment of the iniquity of the house of Israel; and though
several commentators interpret this passage of what was past, there seems no doubt
that it was intended to foretel and pre-signify what was future; namely, how many
52

53. years the children of Israel and Judah were to suffer the punishment of their
iniquity; but we should observe, that in the three hundred and ninety days are not
only denoted the three hundred and ninety years during which the children of Israel
were to suffer the punishment of their iniquity, but also the three hundred and
ninety days themselves, during which Jerusalem was to be besieged and reduced to
the utmost distress by famine. Compare the 11th with the 16th verse. Ezekiel takes
meat and drink by measure for three hundred and ninety days, the meaning
whereof is explained in the 16th and 17th verses; namely, that the famine should
rage for so many days in Jerusalem: but the same Ezekiel lying upon his side pre-
signifies how long Israel and Judah should lie under the punishment of their
iniquity; namely, Israel three hundred and ninety, and Judah forty years. But this
matter, says Calmet, is so pregnant with difficulties, that it requires a whole
dissertation to consider it.
ELLICOTT, " (4) Lie thou also upon thy left side.—Here a fresh feature of this
symbolical prophecy begins, while the former siege is still continued (Ezekiel 4:7).
Lay the iniquity of the house of Israel upon it.—The expression, to bear the iniquity
of any one, is common in Scripture to denote the suffering of the punishment due to
sin. (See, among many other passages, Ezekiel 18:19-20; Ezekiel 23:35; Leviticus
19:8; Numbers 14:34; Isaiah 53:12.) It is clear, therefore, that Ezekiel is here to
represent the people as enduring the Divine judgment upon their sins. This may
seem inconsistent with his representing at the same time the besiegers of Jerusalem,
the instruments in the Divine hand for inflicting that punishment; but such
inconsistencies are common enough in all symbolic representations, and neither
offend nor in any way mar the effect of the representation. “The house of Israel” is
here expressly distinguished from “the house of Judah,” and means the ten tribes.
They are symbolised by the prophet’s lying on his left side, because it was the
Oriental habit to look to the east when describing the points of the compass, and the
northern kingdom was therefore on the left.
TRAPP, "Ezekiel 4:4 Lie thou also upon thy left side, and lay the iniquity of the
house of Israel upon it: [according] to the number of the days that thou shalt lie
upon it thou shalt bear their iniquity.
53

54. Ver. 4. Lie thou also upon thy left side.] Which for so long a time to do, could not
but put the prophet to great pain, and try his patience to the utmost, especially if he
lay bound all the while, as Theodoret thinketh he did, to set forth Jerusalem’s great
miseries during the siege, or rather God’s infinite patience in bearing with their evil
manners with so perverse a people.
Thou shalt bear their iniquity,] i.e., Represent my bearing it, and forbearing to
punish them for it.
POOLE, " Lie thou also; a posture which was to signify the settled resolution of the
besiegers, who had taken up their abode till the siege were finished in taking
Jerusalem.
Upon thy left side, to note the less worthy part, the ten tribes, or Samaria, which was
from Jerusalem toward the left hand, and was head of the ten tribes.
Lay the iniquity; take upon thee in the representation thereof both guilt and
punishment; bear both, not to expiate, but to exemplify what they should suffer.
The house of Israel, distinguished from Judah; it is the ten tribes.
According to the number of the days; by that proportion of time thou shalt know
and intimate to them how long I have borne patiently with their sins, and how long
they shall bear their own punishment.
Thou shalt bear their iniquity; signifying that as the prophet in the sign, so God in
very deed, had patiently borne with them.
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55. PETT, "Verses 4-6
“Moreover lie on your left side, and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel on it.
According to the number of days you will lie on it. You will bear their iniquity. For I
have appointed the years of their iniquity to be to you a number of days, even three
hundred and ninety days. So shall you bear the iniquity of the house of Israel. And
again when you have accomplished these you will lie on your right side, and you will
bear the iniquity of the house of Judah. Forty days, each day for a year, have I
appointed it to you.”
Having depicted the siege of Jerusalem with its inevitable end, Ezekiel was now
himself to depict himself as bearing the sin of Israel and Judah. The time elements
were further indication that when God spoke to ‘the house of Israel’ it depicted all
the tribes, both those incorporated into Judah and those scattered elsewhere among
the nations. His message would reach to them as well.
By lying on his left side Ezekiel was to show himself as bearing the iniquity of the
northern kingdom of Israel. The pain and the sores resulting would at times become
unbearable. But it was acted out prophecy. He suffered the pain that they should
have suffered. But it was not vicarious. It depicted what would be and why their
suffering and exile were necessary. The reason for selecting 390 days is not
explained other than that it represents a period of 390 years, although the 390 days
may represent a thirteen month year (30 x 13). If we date it from approximately 930
BC, the date of the setting up of the golden calves and the break by Israel from the
central sanctuary (1 Kings 12:26-33), which to a priest of Judah could well be seen
as the beginning of ‘the years of their iniquity’, it would bring us down to around
this time, remembering that their suffering and rebellion still continued. It need not
be seen as necessarily exact. It was symbolic, and the ‘years of their iniquity’ were
still continuing. But its point was not only to accentuate the length of their iniquity,
but to indicate that it was coming to an end. God would yet bring them to
repentance and show mercy on them.
Three hundred and ninety represents three hundreds and three thirties (thirty being
three intensified). Thus it stresses a complete period based on the significance of
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56. three, the number of completeness, a perfect period. However, 390 days also
represents a thirteen month year taking the approximation regularly used of thirty
days to a month (Genesis 7:24; Genesis 8:3 with Ezekiel 7:11 and Ezekiel 8:4;
Revelation 11:2 with Ezekiel 11:3). Possibly then this was such a year.
After he had finished depicting the period of the iniquity of Israel he must then turn
over and depict the period of the iniquity of Judah. This was to be for forty days,
depicting forty years. ‘Forty’ regularly depicts a period of trial and testing. We can
compare how under Moses Israel suffered forty years in the wilderness. Thus the
forty years, a round number depicting trial and testing, refers to the final period of
Judah’s rebellion against God. Possibly it was to be seen as ‘dating’ from the death
of Josiah around 609 BC which resulted in all his activity on behalf of Yahweh’s
name ceasing and its being replaced by final idolatry which was still continuing (2
Chronicles 36:5; 2 Chronicles 36:9; 2 Chronicles 36:11). Again it is symbolic rather
than exact. Their period of iniquity was far shorter than that of Israel, but it was
still going on (this difference confirms that the figures look back to the past and not
forward to the future).
Laying on the left or right side may have come from the fact that if he was lying on
his back with his head towards Jerusalem the northern kingdom would be on his
left and the southern kingdom on his right.
The point behind both representations was to demonstrate that both nations had
gone through long periods of iniquity, and still did so, and that that situation would
go on. They did, however, also stress that their period of iniquity would eventually
come to an end in God’s time. When the restoration did take place people from both
Israel and Judah would participate.
A question that is disputed is whether the 40 days follows the 390 days, or whether
Ezekiel turned over after 350 days, the last forty days counting for both, thus
completing a theoretical thirteen month year. Ezekiel 4:9 may suggest that 390 days
was the total period for which he lay there, and the passage nowhere actually says
that he was to lie on his left side for 390 days. But Ezekiel 4:4; Ezekiel 4:6 strongly
suggest it.
56

57. PULPIT, "Lie thou also upon thy left side, etc. We find the explanation of the
attitude in Ezekiel 16:46. Samaria was on the "left hand," i.e. to the north, as a man
looked to the east. So the same word yamin is both "the south" (1 Samuel 23:19, 1
Samuel 23:24; Psalms 84:12) and "the right hand." Here, accordingly, the "house of
Israel" is taken in its specific sense, as the northern kingdom as distinguished from
the "house of Judah" in Ezekiel 16:6. Thou shalt bear their iniquity; ie; as in all
similar passages (Exodus 28:43; Le Exodus 5:17; Exodus 7:18; Numbers 18:1, et
al.), the punishment of their iniquity. The words so taken will help us to understand
the numerical symbolism of the words that followed. The prophet was by this act to
identify himself with both divisions of the nation, by representing in this strange
form at once the severity and the limits of their punishment. I adopt, without any
hesitation, the view that we have here the record of a fact, and not of a vision
narrated. The object of the act was to startle men and make them wonder. As week
after week went on this, exceptis excipiendis, was to be Ezekiel's permanent attitude,
as of one crushed to the very ground, prostrate under the burden thus laid upon
him, as impersonating his people.
5 I have assigned you the same number of days as
the years of their sin. So for 390 days you will
bear the sin of the people of Israel.
BARNES, "According to the number of the days - Or, “to be to thee as a
number of days (even as)” etc. Compare the margin reference. Some conceive that these
“days” were the years during which Israel and Judah sinned, and date in the case of
Israel from Jeroboam’s rebellion to the time at which Ezekiel wrote (circa 390 years);
and in the case of Judah from Josiah’s reformation. But it seems more in accordance
with the other “signs,” to suppose that they represent not that which had been, but that
which shall be. The whole number of years is 430 Eze_4:5-6, the number assigned of old
for the affliction of the descendants of Abraham Gen_15:13; Exo_12:40. The “forty
57

58. years” apportioned to Judah Eze_4:6, bring to mind the 40 years passed in the
wilderness; and these were years not only of punishment, but also of discipline and
preparatory to restoration, so Ezekiel would intimate the difference between the
punishments of Israel and of Judah to be this, that the one would be of much longer
duration with no definite hope of recovery, but the other would be imposed with the
express purpose of the renewal of mercy.
GILL, "For I have laid upon thee the years of their iniquity,.... Or the iniquity
which for so many years they have been guilty of; that is, the punishment of it:
according to the number of the days; a day for a year;
three hundred and ninety days; which signify three hundred and ninety years; and
so many years there were from the revolt of the ten tribes from Rehoboam, and the
setting up the calves at Dan and Bethel, to the destruction of Jerusalem; which may be
reckoned thus: the apostasy was in the fourth year of Rehoboam, so that there remained
thirteen years of his reign, for he reigned seventeen years; Abijah his successor reigned
three years; Asa, forty one; Jehoshaphat, twenty five; Joram, eight; Ahaziah, one;
Athaliah, seven; Joash, forty; Amaziah, twenty nine: Uzziah, fifty two; Jotham, sixteen;
Ahaz, sixteen; Hezekiah, twenty nine; Manasseh, fifty five; Amos, two; Josiah, thirty
one; Jehoahaz, three months; Jehoiakim, eleven years; Jeconiah, three months and ten
days; and Zedekiah, eleven years; in all three hundred and ninety years. Though Grotius
reckons them from the fall of Solomon to the carrying captive of the ten tribes by
Shalmaneser. According to Jerom, both the three hundred and ninety days, and the forty
days, were figurative of the captivities of Israel and Judah. The captivity of Israel, or the
ten tribes, began under Pekah king of Israel, 1Ki_15:29; when many places in the
kingdom were wasted; from whence, to the fortieth year of Ahasuerus, when the Jews
were entirely set at liberty, were three hundred and ninety years (e); and the captivity of
Judah began in the first year of Jeconiah, which, to the first of Cyrus, were forty years.
The Jewish writers make these years to be the time of the idolatry of these people in
their chronicle (f) they say, from hence we learn that Israel provoked the Lord to anger,
from the time they entered into the land until they went out of it, three hundred and
ninety years. Which, according to Jarchi and Kimchi, are, to be reckoned partly in the
times of the judges, and partly in the times of the kings of Israel; in the times of the
former, a hundred and eleven years: from Micah, till the ark was carried captive in the
days of Eli, forty years; and from the time of Jeroboam to Hoshea, two hundred and
forty; which make three hundred and ninety one: but the last of Hoshea is not of the
number, since it was in the ninth year of his reign the city of Samaria was taken. So
Jarchi. Kimchi's reckoning is different. Abarbinel is of opinion that these years describe
the four hundred and thirty years of Israel's bondage in Egypt; though, he says, they may
be understood of the time of the division of the kingdom under Rehoboam, from
whence, to the destruction of Jerusalem, were three hundred and ninety years; which
sense is best, and is what is first given;
so shalt thou bear the iniquity of the house of Israel; as many days as answer to
these years; by the house of Israel is meant not merely the ten tribes, who had been
carried captive long before this time, but such of them also as were mixed with the tribes
of Judah and Benjamin.
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59. HENRY, " He was ordered to lie upon his side before it, as it were to surround it,
representing the Chaldean army lying before it to block it up, to keep the meat from
going in and the mouths from going out. He was to lie on his left side 390 days (Eze_
4:5), about thirteen months; the siege of Jerusalem is computed to last eighteen months
(Jer_52:4-6), but if we deduct from that five months' interval, when the besiegers
withdrew upon the approach of Pharaoh's army (Jer_37:5-8), the number of the days of
the close siege will be 390. Yet that also had another signification. The 390 days,
according to the prophetic dialect, signified 390 years; and, when the prophet lies so
many days on his side, he bears the guilt of that iniquity which the house of Israel, the
ten tribes, had borne 390 years, reckoning from their first apostasy under Jeroboam to
the destruction of Jerusalem, which completed the ruin of those small remains of them
that had incorporated with Judah. He is then to lie forty days upon his right side, and so
long to bear the iniquity of the house of Judah, the kingdom of the two tribes, because
the measure-filling sins of that people were those which they were guilty of during the
last forty years before their captivity, since the thirteenth year of Josiah, when Jeremiah
began to prophesy (Jer_1:1, Jer_1:2), or, as some reckon it, since the eighteenth, when
the book of the law was found and the people renewed their covenant with God. When
they persisted in their impieties and idolatries, notwithstanding they had such a prophet
and such a prince, and were brought into the bond of such a covenant, what could be
expected but ruin without remedy? Judah, that had such helps and advantages for
reformation, fills the measure of its iniquity in less time than Israel does. Now we are not
to think that the prophet lay constantly night and day upon his side, but every day, for so
many days together, at a certain time of the day, when he received visits, and company
came in, he was found lying 390 days on his left side and forty days on his right side
before his portraiture of Jerusalem, which all that saw might easily understand to mean
the close besieging of that city, and people would be flocking in daily, some for curiosity
and some for conscience, at the hour appointed, to see it and to take their different
remarks upon it. His being found constantly on the same side, as if bands were laid
upon him (as indeed they were by the divine command), so that he could not turn
himself from one side to another till he had ended the days of the siege, did plainly
represent the close and constant continuance of the besiegers about the city during that
number of days, till they had gained their point.
JAMISON, "For I have laid upon thee the years of their iniquity, according to the
number of the days, three hundred and ninety days: so shalt thou bear the iniquity
of the house of Israel.
Three hundred and ninety days. The 390 years of punishment appointed for Israel,
and forty for Judah, cannot refer to the siege of Jerusalem. That siege is referred to
(Ezekiel 4:1-3), not in a sense restricted to the literal siege, but comprehending the
whole train of punishment to be inflicted for their sin; therefore we read here
merely of its sore pressure, not of its result. The sum of 390 and 40 years is 430-a
59

60. period famous in the history of the covenant people, being that of their sojourn in
Egypt (Exodus 12:40-41; Galatians 3:17). The 40 alludes to the 40 years in the
wilderness. Elsewhere (Deuteronomy 28:68; Hosea 9:3) God threatened to bring
them back to Egypt, which must mean, not Egypt literally, but a bondage as bad as
that one in Egypt. So now God will reduce them to a kind of new Egyptian bondage
to the world: Israel, the greater transgressor, for a longer period than Judah (cf.
Ezekiel 20:35-38).
Not the whole of the 430 years of the Egypt-state is appointed to Israel; but this
shortened by the forty years of the wilderness sojourn, to imply that a way is open to
their return to life by their having the Egypt-state merged into that of the
wilderness - i:e., by ceasing from idolatry, and seeking, in their sifting and sore
troubles, through God's covenant, a restoration to righteousness and peace
(Fairbairn). The 390, in reference to the sin of Israel, was also literally true, being
the years from the setting up of the calves by Jeroboam (1 Kings 12:20-33) - i:e.,
from 975 to 585 B.C. about the year of the Babylonian captivity; and perhaps the 40
of Judah refers to that part of Manasseh's 55 years' reign in which he had not
repented, and which, we are expressly told, was the cause of, God's removal of
Judah, notwithstanding Josiah's reformation (1 Kin. 21:10-16; 23:26-27 ).
ELLICOTT, "Verse 5-6
(5) The years of their iniquity, according to the number of the days.—Comp.
Numbers 14:34. In regard to the number of the years, see Excursus II. at the end of
this book.
(6) The iniquity of the house of Judah forty days.—This forty days is clearly
subsequent and additional to the 390 days, making in all a period of 430 days. (On
these numbers see Excursus II. at the end of this book.) The great disproportion
between the two is in accordance with the difference in the two parts of the nation,
and the consequent Divine dealings with them. Judah had remained faithful to its
appointed rulers of the house of David, several of whose kings had been eminently
devout men; through whatever mixture with idolatry it had yet always retained the
worship of Jehovah, and had kept up the Aaronic priesthood, and preserved with
more or less respect the law of Moses. It was now entering upon the period of the
Babylonish captivity, from which, after seventy years, a remnant was to be again
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61. restored to keep up the people of the Messiah. Israel, on the other hand, had set up a
succession of dynasties, and not one of all their kings had been a God-fearing man;
they had made Baal their national god, and had made priests at their pleasure of the
lowest of the people, and in consequence of their sins had been carried into a
captivity from which they never returned.
EXCURSUS B: ON CHAPTER , 6.
The explanation of the periods of time here mentioned has occasioned great
difficulty and difference of opinion among the commentators. The subject may be
best approached by first observing what points are clearly determined in the text
itself, and then excluding all interpretations which are inconsistent with these.
In the first place, it is expressly stated in each of these verses that these days
represent years. No interpretation, therefore, can be admitted which requires them
to be literal days. Secondly, it is plain that the period is one of “bearing their
iniquity”; not a period in which they are becoming sinful, but one in which they are
suffering the punishment of their sin. Thirdly, it is plain from the whole structure of
the symbolism that this period is in some way intimately connected with the siege of
Jerusalem. Finally, the two periods of 390 and of forty days are distinct. If the
symbolism was carried out in act, they must have been consecutive, and it is still the
natural inference that they were so, even if it was only in vision. The two periods
together, then, constitute 430 days; yet this is not to be emphasised, since no express
mention is made of the whole period.
These points of themselves exclude several of the explanations that have from time
to time been put forward. Among these must be mentioned, first, one which has
perhaps been more generally adopted than any other of its class, the supposition
that the 390 years of Israel’s punishment are to be reckoned from some point in the
reign of Jeroboam to the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar. This,
however, was far more a period of accumulation of Israel’s transgression than of
suffering its punishment; neither in this case could the period be fairly considered as
extending beyond the end of the kingdom of Israel (which lasted in all but 253
years) unless it was also extended indefinitely. Moreover, expositors who adopt this
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62. view are quite unable to give any satisfactory account of Judah’s forty years; for the
proposal to reckon them from the reformation of Josiah is quite at variance with the
character of the period described.
Every attempt to make these periods refer to a future time, stretching on far beyond
the date of the prophecy, fails for want of any definite event at the end of either 390,
40, or 430 years.
The periods cannot be understood of events occurring in the course of the siege
because, as already said, the numbers are expressly said to stand for years.
Moreover, even if they could be taken of literal days, there would be nothing to
correspond to them, since from the investment of the city to the flight of Zedekiah
was 539 days, and to the destruction of the Temple twenty-eight days more (2 Kings
25:1; 2 Kings 25:3; 2 Kings 25:8).
Of two other explanations, it is only necessary to say a word: that of Theodoret is
based upon the Greek version, which, by a curious mistake, has 190 instead of 390
days, and of course falls to the ground when the true number is considered; the
ancient Jews and some early Christians interpreted the passage of a period of 430
years, which they conceived was to be fulfilled from the destruction of Jerusalem
and the Temple, in the second year of the Emperor Vespasian, to its expected
restoration, which the event has shown to be groundless.
Another ancient interpretation makes of the period of 430 years, the time from the
building to the destruction of Solomon’s Temple. This is open to the same objections
already urged to others, and besides, it makes the total number the prominent thing,
while there is no point of division for the 390 and the 40. St. Jerome reckoned the
390 years from the captivity of the northern kingdom to the deliverance of the Jews
from danger in the time of Esther, and the 40 years from the destruction of the
Temple by Nebuchadnezzar to the decree of Cyrus for the restoration of the Jews;
but his chronology is at fault, and the former part of the explanation takes no notice
of the main point of the siege of Jerusalem, while the events in the time of Esther
cannot be looked upon as the termination of the punishment of the Israelites.
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63. The later Jews make up the two periods by selecting throughout the period of the
Judges and the monarchy the various times in which the sins of Israel and of Judah
were especially marked, and adding these together; but this is utterly arbitrary and
unsatisfactory.
So much space has been given to these different interpretations in order to show
that there is no definite term of years, either before or after the date of the
prophecy, which the ingenuity of the commentators has been able to discover,
satisfying the conditions of the prophecy itself. We are, therefore, left free to accept
the interpretation now generally given by the best modern expositors.
This takes for its starting-point the evident allusion of Ezekiel to Numbers 14:14,
“After the number of the days in which ye searched the land, even forty days, each
day for a year shall ye bear your iniquities;” and the earlier prophecies declaring
that the people in punishment for their sins should be brought again into Egypt,
which yet should not be Egypt (Deuteronomy 28:68; Hosea 8:13; Hosea 9:3; Hosea
11:5), but Assyria or Babylonia, as is expressly defined in some of these prophecies.
The meaning is plainly that they should endure sufferings corresponding to the
Egyptian bondage, but in another locality. Ezekiel himself elsewhere (Ezekiel 20:35)
speaks of God’s dealings with the captives as a pleading with them “in the
wilderness.” Now if this be once recognised as the basis of Ezekiel’s language—the
representation of the future in terms of the historic past, which is so common in all
prophecy—there need be no difficulty in the mention of the precise numbers. They
become mere catch-words to carry the mind to the period he would indicate. The
wanderings in the wilderness were always reckoned at 40 years, and the sojourn in
Egypt (see Exodus 12:40) at 430 years. Ezekiel merely follows here his habit of
putting everything into vivid and concrete form. Are his people to suffer for their
sins as they suffered of old? Judah is to endure the 40 years of wilderness sufferings,
and Israel those of the Egyptian bondage; only, if he spoke of the latter as 430 years,
it might seem that Israel was to endure the punishment belonging to both Israel and
Judah, and therefore he takes from it the period already assigned to Judah, leaving
for Israel 390 years. This accounts for his not mentioning the 430 years at all, and
could be done the more easily because the actual bondage in Egypt was far less than
either number. No precise period whatever is intended by the mention of these
numbers, but only a vivid comparison of the future woes to the past. Again,
63

64. whatever might be their present sufferings, they still had hope, and even indulged in
defiance, while Jerusalem and the Temple stood. This hope was vain. The holy city
and the Temple itself should be destroyed, and then they would know that the hand
of the Lord was heavy upon them indeed for the punishment of their sins. The siege
of Jerusalem is, therefore, the prominent feature of the prophecy; and there is
foretold, as the consequence of this, the eating of “defiled bread among the Gentiles”
(Ezekiel 4:13) as in Egypt of old, together with the various forms of want and
suffering set forth in the striking symbolism of this chapter.
TRAPP, "Ezekiel 4:5 For I have laid upon thee the years of their iniquity, according
to the number of the days, three hundred and ninety days: so shalt thou bear the
iniquity of the house of Israel.
Ver. 5. Three hundred and ninety days.] That is, say some, the siege of Jerusalem
shall continue so many days - via, thirteen months, or thereabouts. But they do
better, who, taking a day for a year in both the accounts, {as Ezekiel 4:6} and
making the forty of Judah to run along with the last year of Israel’s 390, end both at
Nabuzaradan’s carrying away to Babylon the last relics of Israel and Judah: and
begin Israel’s years at Jeroboam’s apostasy, and Judah’s at Huldah’s prophecy in
the eighteenth of Josiah’s reign, when the law was found but not observed by that
idolatrous people, as appeareth by the complaints made of them by Zephaniah and
Jeremiah; neither were they warned by their brethren’s miseries, the ten tribes
being now carried into captivity. Compare Ezekiel 1:1-2; Ezekiel 3:15; Ezekiel
3:24-27; Ezekiel 8:1.
POOLE, "This verse explains the former. I have pointed out the number of years
wherein apostate Israel sinned against me, and I did bear with them according to
the number of days, wherein thou must lie on thy left side. Three hundred and
ninety days. See Ezekiel 4:4. There is some difference, though of no great moment,
in fixing the periods of beginning and ending these prophetic days. These years
some begin at Solomon’s falling to idolatry, in the twenty-seventh year of his reign,
and end them in the fifth of Zedekiah’s captivity. Others begin at the fourth year of
Rehoboam, and end them in the twenty-first year of the captivity. Others begin
them in the first of Rehoboam and Jeroboam, when the kingdom was divided, and
then they must end about the seventeenth year of the captivity. The first supputation
to me is much the likeliest, and agrees nearest with the year wherein this prophet
64

65. begins his prophecy. It is not altogether unlikely that the prophet may intimate,
though obscurely, the continuance of the siege of Jerusalem, which the Chaldeans
began on the tenth day of the tenth month of the ninth year of Zedekiah, and lasted
the remaining two months of the ninth year, and the whole tenth year except some
five months, wherein the Babylonians retired to fight the Egyptians, beat them,
spoiled them, and returned to the siege of Jerusalem, which lasted to the ninth day
of the fourth month of Zedekiah’s eleventh year. So that one whole year, and three
weeks, and four days, or thirteen months, at thirty days in each month, taking up
three hundred and ninety days, and discounting the five months and odd days in the
Egyptian expedition, you come to the continuance of three hundred and ninety days
in the threatened siege, and possibly this may be the intent of the prophecy.
PULPIT, "Three hundred and ninety days, etc. The days, as stated in Ezekiel 4:6,
stand for years according to the symbolism (with which Ezekiel was probably
acquainted) of Numbers 14:34. How we are to explain the precise number chosen is
a problem winch has much exercised the minds of interpreters. I will begin by
stating what seems to me the most tenable solution. In doing this I follow Smend and
Cornill in taking the LXX. as giving the original reading, and the Hebrew as a later
correction, made with a purpose.
(a) It taught the certainty of the punishment. No plots, or rebellions, or alliances
with Egypt, could avert the doom of exile from these who should survive the siege of
Jerusalem.
(b) It taught the exiles to accept their punishment with patience, but with hope.
There was a limit, and that not very far off, which some of them might live to see,
and beyond which there lay the hope of a restoration for both Israel and Judah. If
that hope was not realized to the extent which Ezekiel's language impiles, the same
may be, said of the language of Isaiah 40-66; whether we refer those chapters to
Isaiah himself or to the "great unknown" who followed Ezekiel, and may have
listened to his teaching.
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66. 6 “After you have finished this, lie down again,
this time on your right side, and bear the sin of
the people of Judah. I have assigned you 40 days,
a day for each year.
CLARKE, "Forty days - Reckon, says Archbishop Newcome, near fifteen years and
six months in the reign of Manasseh, two years in that of Amon, three months in that of
Jehoahaz, eleven years in that of Jehoiakim, three months and ten days in that of
Jehoiachin, and eleven years in that of Zedekiah; and there arises a period of forty years,
during which gross idolatry was practiced in the kingdom of Judah. Forty days may have
been employed in spoiling and desolating the city and the temple.
GILL, "And when thou hast accomplished them,.... The three hundred and
ninety days, by lying so long on the left side, bearing the sins of the house of Israel in this
way; or, as Cocceius renders the words, "and thou shall accomplish them, and thou shalt
lie", &c. (g), that is, thou shalt so accomplish these days, that thou mayest lie through
forty days on the right hand, and then make bare thine arm, and prophesy against
Jerusalem; for he thinks the forty days are part of the three hundred and ninety, as
before observed: and so Piscator's note is, "when thou shalt accomplish", &c. namely,
when there shall remain yet forty days, as appears by comparing Eze_4:9 with this verse
and Eze_4:5; so Polanus interprets the passage: then
lie again on thy right side; that is, for Judah; which tribe, as Jarchi observes, lay to
the south, and so to the right of Jerusalem; see Eze_16:46; or rather the prophet lay on
the right side for Judah, because more honourable, and in greater esteem with the Lord;
nor were their sins so many, or continued in so long as those of the ten tribes; and
therefore they, and the punishment of them, are borne a less time by the prophet, as
follows:
and thou shall bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days: which some
think answers to the forty years of Manasseh's evil reign; others reckon from the
thirteenth of Josiah to the end of Zedekiah, and others from the eighteenth of Josiah to
the destruction of Jerusalem, which was five years after the carrying of Zedekiah captive:
I have appointed thee each day for a year; which is not only the key for the
understanding of the forty days, but also the three hundred and ninety.
66

67. JAMISON, "And when thou hast accomplished them, lie again on thy right side,
and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days: I have appointed
thee each day for a year.
Each day for a year - literally, a day for a year, a day for a year. Twice repeated, to
mark more distinctly the reference to Numbers 14:34. The picturing of the future
under the image of the past, wherein the meaning was far from lying on the surface,
was intended to arouse to a less superficial mode of thinking, just as the partial
vailing of truth in Jesus' parables was designed to, stimulate inquiry; also, to remind
men that God's dealings in the past are a key to the future, because He moves on the
same everlasting principles, the forms alone being transitory.
COKE, "Ezekiel 4:6. Forty days— Reckon near fifteen years and six months in the
reign of Manasseh, two years in that of Amon, three months in that of Jehoahaz,
eleven years in that of Jehoiakim, three months and ten days in that of Jehoiachin,
and eleven years in that of Zedekiah; and there arises a period of forty years, during
which gross idolatry was practised in the kingdom of Judah. Manasseh's
reformation, 2 Chronicles 33:13 is supposed to have lasted during the remainder of
his reign; and Josiah was uniformly a good king. Ib. Ezekiel 34:2. Forty days may
have been employed in spoiling and desolating the city and temple.
TRAPP, "Ezekiel 4:6 And when thou hast accomplished them, lie again on thy right
side, and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days: I have
appointed thee each day for a year.
Ver. 6. And when thou hast accomplished them.] That is, art within forty years of
accomplishing them.
Thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days,] i.e., Years, beginning
at the eighteenth year of Josiah; or, as others compute it, at his thirteenth year, and
ending them in the eleventh of Zedekiah, which are the bounds of Jeremiah’s
prophecy. A very learned man yet living observeth, that God doth here set and
mark out Judah’s singular iniquity by a singular mark; for that they had forty
years so pregnant instructions and admonitions by so eminent a prophet as
Jeremiah, yet were they impenitent to their own destruction. And the like may well
be said of Dr Ussher, that prophet of Ireland, who, upon the toleration of Popery
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68. there, preaching before the State at Dublin upon a special solemnity, made a full
and bold application of this text unto them in these very words: From this year, said
he - viz., A.D. 1601 - will I reckon the sin of Ireland; and dare say that those whom
you embrace shall be your ruin, and you shall bear this iniquity. (a) And it
happened accordingly; for, forty years after - viz., A.D. 1641 - began the rebellion
and destruction of Ireland, done by those Papists and Popish priests then connived
at.
POOLE, " When thou hast almost accomplished, or when about to accomplish
them, i.e. forty days, before the three hundred and ninety do expire, at the end of
three hundred and fifty days turn thou to thy right side, and bear the iniquity of the
house of Judah; and that this is the true account appears from this verse, compared
with Ezekiel 1:1,2 8:1, say some, and those very learned men. Others will have the
forty days distinct from the three hundred and ninety, and reckon them by
themselves, and so the better and grammatical construction in the Hebrew seems to
carry it, for it speaks in the perfect tense, and lying. a second time. But be these
numbers distinct or but one, is no great concern; either way they do plainly speak
God’s wonderful patience with Israel and Judah, and point out the time of the
miseries of both for their sinfulness.
Again, Heb. a second time. Thou shalt bear the iniquity: see Ezekiel 4:4.
Of the house of Judah; of the two tribes, say some; of the royal family, say others,
and countenance it with Isaiah 22:21; and then Israel distinguished is the whole
body of the two tribes, and the remnant of the ten tribes that escaped, and embodied
with the two tribes; as some did at the first division, others afterward in Asa’s,
Jehoshaphat’s, Hezekiah’s, and Josiah’s time, leave their places and came to
Jerusalem.
Forty days; it is plain they are so many years, but not so plain where to begin them,
whether from Manasseh, or more probably from Josiah’s renewing covenant, until
the destruction of the temple, which is forty years; during which time God deferred
to punish, expecting whether they would keep covenant and walk with God, or
retain their idolatries and wicked ways, which latter they did for thirteen years of
68

69. Josiah’s reign, for eleven of Jehoiakim, and eleven of Zedekiah’s reign, and five of
his captivity, which amount to just forty years; and they are mentioned, say some,
apart from the three hundred and ninety, because they were more wickedly abused
to promote sin.
7 Turn your face toward the siege of Jerusalem
and with bared arm prophesy against her.
BARNES, "Therefore thou shalt set thy face - Or, “And etc.” i. e., direct thy
mind to that subject.
Thine arm shall be uncovered - A sign of the execution of vengeance Isa_52:10.
GILL, "Therefore thou shalt set thy face toward the siege at Jerusalem,.... All
the while he was lying either on the left side or the right, his face was to be directed to
the siege of Jerusalem, portrayed upon the tile, and to all the preparations made for that
purpose, to show that all had reference to that and that it wound certainly be; for, as the
prophet represented the Chaldean army the directing and setting his face to the siege
shows their resolution and inflexibleness, that they were determined upon taking the
city, and nothing should divert them from it:
and thine arm shall be uncovered; which was usual in fighting in those times and
countries; for, wearing long garments, they were obliged to turn them up on the arm, or
lay them aside, that they might more expeditiously handle their weapons, and engage
with the enemy: in this form the soldiers in Trajan's column are figured fighting; and it
is related that the Africans used to fight with their arms uncovered (h); thus Scanderbeg
in later times used to fight the Turks. The design of the phrase is to show how ready,
diligent, and expeditious, the Chaldeans would be in carrying on the siege. The Targum
renders it,
"thou shalt strengthen thine arm;''
and so do the Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic versions:
and thou shall prophesy against it: meaning not so much by words, if at all, but by
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70. these actions, gestures, and habit; for they all foretold what would certainly come to
pass.
HENRY 7-8, "He was ordered to prosecute the siege with vigour (Eze_4:7): Thou
shalt set thy face towards the siege of Jerusalem, as wholly intent upon it and resolved
to carry it; so the Chaldeans would be, and neither bribed nor forced to withdraw from
it. Nebuchadnezzar's indignation at Zedekiah's treachery in breaking his league with him
made him very furious in pushing on this siege, that he might chastise the insolence of
that faithless prince and people; and his army promised themselves a rich booty of that
pompous city; so that both set their faces against it, for they were very resolute. Nor
were they less active and industrious, exerting themselves to the utmost in all the
operations of the siege, which the prophet was to represent by the uncovering of his
arm, or, as some read it, the stretching out of his arm, as it were to deal blows about
without mercy. When God is about to do some great work he is said to make bare his
arm, Isa_52:10. In short, The Chaldeans will go about their business, and go on in it, as
men in earnest, who resolve to go through with it. Now, 1. This is intended to be a sign to
the house of Israel (Eze_4:3), both to those in Babylon, who were eye-witnesses of what
the prophet did, and to those also who remained in their own land, who would hear the
report of it. The prophet was dumb and could not speak (Eze_3:26); but as his silence
had a voice, and upbraided the people with their deafness, so even then God left not
himself without witness, but ordered him to make signs, as dumb men are accustomed
to do, and as Zacharias did when he was dumb, and by them to make known his mind
(that is, the mind of God) to the people. And thus likewise the people were upbraided
with their stupidity and dulness, that they were not capable of being taught as men of
sense are, by words, but must be taught as children are, by pictures, or as deaf men are,
by signs. Or, perhaps, they are hereby upbraided with their malice against the prophet.
Had he spoken in words at length what was signified by these figures, they would have
entangled him in his talk, would have indicted him for treasonable expressions, for they
knew how to make a man an offender for a word (Isa_29:21), to avoid which he is
ordered to make use of signs. Or the prophet made use of signs for the same reason that
Christ made use of parables, that hearing they might hear and not understand, and
seeing they might see and not perceive, Mat_13:14, Mat_13:15. They would not
understand what was plain, and therefore shall be taught by that which is difficult; and
herein the Lord was righteous. 2. Thus the prophet prophesies against Jerusalem (Eze_
4:7); and there were those who not only understood it so, but were the more affected
with it by its being so represented, for images to the eye commonly make deeper
impressions upon the mind than words can, and for this reason sacraments are
instituted to represent divine things, that we might see and believe, might see and be
affected with those things; and we may expect this benefit by them, and a blessing to go
along with them, while (as the prophet here) we make use only of such signs as God
himself has expressly appointed, which, we must conclude, are the fittest. Note, The
power of imagination, if it be rightly used, and kept under the direction and correction of
reason and faith, may be of good use to kindle and excite pious and devout affections, as
it was here to Ezekiel and his attendants. “Methinks I see so and so, myself dying, time
expiring, the world on fire, the dead rising, the great tribunal set, and the like, may have
an exceedingly good influence upon us: for fancy is like fire, a good servant, but a bad
master.” 3. This whole transaction has that in it which the prophet might, with a good
colour of reason, have hesitated at and excepted against, and yet, in obedience to God's
70

71. command, and in execution of his office, he did it according to order. (1.) It seemed
childish and ludicrous, and beneath his gravity, and there were those that would ridicule
him for it; but he knew the divine appointment put honour enough upon that which
otherwise seemed mean to save his reputation in the doing of it. (2.) It was toilsome and
tiresome to do as he did; but our ease as well as our credit must be sacrificed to our duty,
and we must never call God's service in any instance of it a hard service. (3.) It could not
but be very much against the grain with him to appear thus against Jerusalem, the city of
God, the holy city, to act as an enemy against a place to which he was so good a friend;
but he is a prophet, and must follow his instructions, not his affections, and must plainly
preach the ruin of a sinful place, though its welfare is what he passionately desires and
earnestly prays for. 4. All this that the prophet sets before the children of his people
concerning the destruction of Jerusalem is designed to bring them to repentance, by
showing them sin, the provoking cause of this destruction, sin the ruin of that once
flourishing city, than which surely nothing could be more effectual to make them hate
sin and turn from it; while he thus in lively colours describes the calamity with a great
deal of pain and uneasiness to himself, he is bearing the iniquity of Israel and Judah.
“Look here” (says he) “and see what work sin makes, what an evil and bitter thing it is to
depart form God; this comes of sin, your sins and the sin of your fathers; let that
therefore be the daily matter of your sorrow and shame now in your captivity, that you
may make your peace with God and he may return in mercy to you.” But observe, It is a
day of punishment for a year of sin: I have appointed thee each day for a year. The siege
is a calamity of 390 days, in which God reckons for the iniquity of 390 years; justly
therefore d they acknowledge that God had punished them less than their iniquity
deserved, Ezr_9:13. But let impenitent sinners know that, though now God is long-
suffering towards them, in the other world there is an everlasting punishment. When
God laid bands upon the prophet, it was to show them how they were bound with the
cords of their own transgression (Lam_1:14), and therefore they were now holden in the
cords of affliction. But we may well think of the prophet's case with compassion, when
God laid upon him the bands of duty, as he does on all his ministers (1Co_9:16,
Necessity is laid upon me, and woe unto me if I preach not the gospel); and yet men laid
upon him bonds of restraint (Eze_3:25); but under both it is satisfaction enough that
they are serving the interests of God's kingdom among men.
JAMISON, "Therefore thou shalt set thy face toward the siege of Jerusalem, and
thine arm shall be uncovered, and thou shalt prophesy against it.
Thine arm shall be uncovered - to be ready for action, which the long Oriental
garment usually covering it would prevent (Isaiah 52:10).
Thou shalt prophesy against it - this gesture of thine will be a tacit prophecy against
Jerusalem.
71

72. CALVIN, "It is added, and towards the siege of Jerusalem thou shalt set or
establish thy face Either meaning may be received; either directing and ordering, or
establishing and strengthening; although the word directing or ordering pleases me
better in this place. He had said, indeed, before, thou shalt direct thy face until
Jerusalem shall be besieged; but in my opinion God simply here orders his Prophet
to be intent on the overthrow of the city. And thine arm shall be made bare; that is,
for expedition: for we know that orientals use flowing tunics and long robes, so that
they cannot execute any business without putting off their garments. Hence the
Prophet is here ordered to make bare his arm, just as if any one should take his coat
half off, and throw it over the other side, that he might have one arm free. Such was
the dress of the Prophet, but by a vision, as I have said. Afterwards it is added,that
thou, shalt prophesy against it Again God repeats what we saw yesterday: for
nothing had been colder than that the Prophet should make bare his arm, and direct
his face against towards the siege of a painted city. Had the picture been only an
empty one, the spectacle might be justly condemned; but God adds the meaning to
the figures, that the prophecy may have more force: as if he had said, I see that these
signs are not of themselves of much moment, and you may object to me, why do you
concern yourself with these trifles? But whatever you do shall be a certain seal of
prophecy. Now we see why God joins the word “prophecy.” Then he adds, Behold I
will place upon thee ropes, so that thou canst not turn from, side to side, until thou
hast completed the days of thy siege God here signifies that his decree concerning
the siege of Jerusalem was inviolable: for as he held his servant so bound down, by
this the firmness of his decree was designated, because the Jews thought that they
could extricate themselves by their deceits. For we know that they always flattered
themselves when the Prophets threatened them. Therefore God signifies that the
siege of the city was certain until it was taken; because the Prophet should be bound
with cords, and should not move himself, nor turn from one side to the other. And
hence we understand, from the figure here used, that the Jews should suffer the
same punishments as the ten tribes. Just as if God should say that the time
determined for the destruction of the kingdom of Israel had come, and that the same
end would happen to the Jews; for ill whatever direction they might escape, yet the
same execution of God’s judgment would arrive, as if the matter had been already
determined. Now it follows:
COKE, "Ezekiel 4:7. And thine arm shall be uncovered— Shall be extended.
Houbigant. The habits of the ancients were so contrived, that the right hand was
disengaged from the upper garment, that they might be more ready for action. See
Isaiah 52:10.
72

73. ELLICOTT, "(7) Set thy face is a common Scriptural expression for any steadfast
purpose. (See Leviticus 17:10; Leviticus 20:3; Leviticus 20:5-6; Leviticus 26:17; 2
Chronicles 20:3, marg., &c.) It is a particularly favourite phrase with Ezekiel
(Ezekiel 15:7; Ezekiel 20:46, &c.). Here this steadfastness of purpose was to be
exercised “toward the siege of Jerusalem;” there would be no relenting in this
matter—God’s purpose of judgment should surely be fulfilled. Further symbolism
to the same effect is added, “Thine arm shall be uncovered,” withdrawn from the
loose sleeve of the Oriental robe, and made ready for battle. (Comp. Isaiah 52:10.)
Withal he is to “prophesy against it,” doubtless by words suited to his actions.
TRAPP, "Ezekiel 4:7 Therefore thou shalt set thy face toward the siege of
Jerusalem, and thine arm [shall be] uncovered, and thou shalt prophesy against it.
Ver. 7. Set thy face toward the siege of Jerusalem.] Steel thy countenance, be stern
and resolute, to show that the Chaldees should be so. Thus this prophet proceedeth
to write, as it were, in hieroglyphics, and to preach in emblems.
And thine arm shall be uncovered,] i.e., Thou shalt do thy work bodily; which, when
soldiers and servants set themselves to do, they make bare their arms, ut fine
expeditiores, for quicker despatch. Even orators also pleaded with their right arm,
as Oecolampadius here noteth, stripped up and stretched out.
And thou shalt prophesy against it.] By these signs and dumb shows at least. See
Ezekiel 3:26.
POOLE, " Therefore, Heb. And, while thou liest on thy side, thou shalt fix thy
countenance on the portrait of besieged Jerusalem, with angry and menacing looks.
Jerusalem; not which was in the land of Judah, but that described in the tile, the
emblem of the other.
73

74. Thine arm, thy right arm, the stronger and more ready to act, shall be uncovered,
naked and stretched out, as being ready to strike and slay.
Thou shalt prophesy against it: this very emblem doth threaten, which is a visional
prediction, and no doubt Ezekiel unfolded these riddles on just occasions, and this
was a prophesying to them, sometimes by signs, and sometimes by words.
PETT, "Verse 7-8
“And you shall set your face towards the siege of Jerusalem, with your arm
uncovered, and you will prophesy against it, and behold I lay bands on you, and you
shall not turn yourself from one side to another until you have accomplished the
days of your siege.”
The suggestion that he set his face towards the siege of Jerusalem may indicate that
he turned to lay facing Jerusalem, or that he set his face towards it in his mind, or
more probably that he set his face towards his own representation of that siege in
the model he had made, having the real city in mind. The baring of the arm
indicated an arm ready for action (compare Isaiah 52:10). He was representing what
God was going to do, act against Jerusalem through Nebuchadnezzar.
‘And you will prophesy against it.’ His words of prophecy would indicate to his
hearers that God was about to carry out His purpose with regard to Jerusalem.
‘And behold I lay bands on you, and you shall not turn yourself from one side to
another until you have accomplished the days of your siege.’ Once Ezekiel was lying
in the way that God had told him, God would ‘lay bands on him’. This may mean
psychologically as a result of His command, or possibly even by some kind of limited
paralysis. Or it may refer back to Ezekiel 3:25. But, whichever it was, he was to
remain there, not turning until the full time had been accomplished. ‘The days of
74

75. your siege.’ While lying there and looking towards his model of the siege of
Jerusalem, with arm laid bare ready for action, he was indicating that it would be
besieged and ensuring it came about. He was, as it were, besieging it beforehand.
There may be the thought here that the actual siege would last for about a year.
Thus the pain that Ezekiel was suffering presaged the pain that Jerusalem would
suffer,
PULPIT, "Thine arm shall be uncovered. This, as in Isaiah 52:10, was the symbol of
energetic action. The prophet was to be, as it were, no apathetic spectator of the
siege which he was thus dramatizing, but is as the representative of the Divine
commission to control and guide it. The picture of the prophet's attitude, not merely
resting on his side and folding his hands, as a man at ease might do, but looking
intently, with bare outstretched arm, at the scene portrayed by him, must, we may
well imagine, have added to the startling effect of the whole procedure. We note the
phrase, "set thy face," as specially characteristic of Ezekiel (here, and, though the
Hebrew verb is not the same, Ezekiel 14:8; Ezekiel 15:7). The words "prophesy
against it" may imply some spoken utterance of the nature of a "woe," like that of
the son of Ananus (see above), but hardly, I think, a prolonged address.
8 I will tie you up with ropes so that you cannot
turn from one side to the other until you have
finished the days of your siege.
BARNES, "I will lay bands upon thee - Contrast margin reference. The Lord will
put constraint upon him, to cause him to exercise his office. In the retirement of his
house, figuratively bound and under constraint, he shall not cease to proclaim the doom
of the city.
The days of thy siege - Those during which he should thus foretell the approaching
calamity.
75

76. GILL, "And, behold, I will lay hands upon thee,.... Representing either the
besieged, signifying that they should be taken and bound as he was; or rather the
besiegers, the Chaldean army, which should be so held by the power and providence of
God, that they should not break up the siege until they had taken the city, and fulfilled
the whole will and pleasure of God; for these bands were an emblem of the firm and
unalterable decree of God, respecting the siege and taking of Jerusalem; and so the
Targum paraphrases it,
"and, lo, the decree of my word is upon thee, as a band of ropes;''
and to this sense Jarchi interprets it; and which is confirmed by what follows:
and thou shall not turn thee from one side to another till thou hast ended
the days of thy siege; showing that the Chaldean army should not depart from
Jerusalem until it was taken; for though, upon the report of the Egyptian army coming
against them, they went forth to meet it; yet they returned to Jerusalem, and never left
the siege till the city fell into their hands, according to the purpose and appointment of
God. Kimchi that the word for siege is in the plural number, and signifies both the
"siege" of Samaria and the siege of Jerusalem; but the former was over many years
before this time: by this it appears that the siege of Jerusalem should last three hundred
and ninety days; indeed, from the beginning to the end of it, were seventeen months,
2Ki_25:1; but the siege being raised by the army of the king of Egypt for some time, Jer_
37:5, may reduce it to thirteen months, or thereabout; for three hundred and ninety days
are not only intended to signify the years of Israel's sin and wickedness, but also to show
how long the city would be besieged; and so long the prophet in this symbolical way was
besieging it.
JAMISON, "And, behold, I will lay bands upon thee, and thou shalt not turn thee
from one side to another, till thou hast ended the days of thy siege.
I will lay bands upon thee - (Ezekiel 3:25) i:e., a constraint or restriction.
Thou shalt not turn thee from one side to another - to imply the impossibility of
their being able to shake off their punishment.
JAMISON, “bands — (Eze_3:25).
not turn from ... side — to imply the impossibility of their being able to shake off
the punishment.
76

77. COKE, "Ezekiel 4:8. The days of thy siege— That is, the three hundred and ninety
days' siege of Jerusalem, mentioned in the preceding verse. That siege, from the
beginning to the ending of it, lasted seventy-seven months, as appears from 2 Kings
25:1-4. But the king of Egypt coming to relieve the city occasioned the raising of the
siege for some time. So that it may reasonably be gathered from the authority of the
text, joined to the circumstances of the history, that the siege lasted about thirteen
months, or three hundred and ninety days. See Archbishop Usher's Annals, and
Calmet.
ELLICOTT, " (8) I will lay bands upon thee.—See on Ezekiel 3:25. This is a fresh
feature of the unrelenting character of the judgment foretold: God’s power should
interpose to keep the prophet to his work. Not only pity, but even human weakness
and weariness, should be excluded from interfering. The prophet is spoken of as
besieging the city, because he is doing so in figure.
TRAPP, "Ezekiel 4:8 And, behold, I will lay bands upon thee, and thou shalt not
turn thee from one side to another, till thou hast ended the days of thy siege.
Ver. 8. And, behold, I will lay bands upon thee.] To show that he was unchangeably
resolved to ruin Judah, (a) whom the prophet here personateth. Some make the
sense to be this, I will give thee strength to hold out in that thy long lying on one side
till the city be taken. Of a nobleman of Louvain it is told, that he lay sixteen years in
one posture - viz., with his face upwards. And Pradus saith he saw a madman who
had lain upon one side fifteen years.
POOLE, " Whoever were the persons that laid bonds on Ezekiel, in Ezekiel 3:25,
here it is plain that the Lord doth it. If the prophet represent the besieged citizens
who must be captives in bonds, then it is likely these bonds were visible and
material, that they might be a teaching sign and admonition, that as they saw the
prophet in them, so certainly he should see that come to pass which was signified by
them. If he represent the Chaldeans, as those who were by Divine power as fast
bound to this siege, till the city be taken, as he was tied to the place whence he could
not stir a foot, then invisible bonds, which none feel or see but the prophet, may
77

78. suffice these, assuring him that those could move no more from the siege than he
from that side he lay on. And though the Egyptian army make some diversion, yet it
is very like the siege was not quite raised, but they kept the city blocked up, whilst
the gross of the army drew off to fight Pharaoh’s army, according to that Jeremiah
37:9, the Chaldeans shall not depart.
Thy siege, Heb. plural, sieges, either because it was like two sieges by that little
interruption of three or four months, or else because of the length and soreness
thereof.
PULPIT, "I will lay bands upon thee, etc. The words point to the supernatural
constraint which would support the prophet in a position as trying as that of an
Indian yogi or a Stylite monk. He would himself be powerless to move (exceptis
excipiendis, as before) from the prescribed position. There is, perhaps, a reference
to Ezekiel 3:25. The people would have "put bands" upon the prophet to hinder his
work; Jehovah will "put bands" upon him to help, nay, to constrain, him to finish it.
9 “Take wheat and barley, beans and lentils,
millet and spelt; put them in a storage jar and use
them to make bread for yourself. You are to eat it
during the 390 days you lie on your side.
BARNES, "Two things are prefigured in the remainder of this chapter,
(1) the hardships of exile,
(2) the straitness of a siege.
To the people of Israel, separated from the rest of the nations as holy, it was a leading
feature in the calamities of their exile that they must be mixed up with other nations,
78

79. and eat of their food, which to the Jews was a defilement (compare Eze_4:13; Amo_7:17;
Dan_1:8.)
Fitches - A species of wheat with shorn ears.
In one vessel - To mix all these varied seeds was an indication that the people were
no longer in their own land, where precautions against such mixing of seeds were
prescribed.
Three hundred and ninety days - The days of Israel’s punishment; because here
is a figure of the exile which concerns all the tribes, not of the siege which concerns
Judah alone.
CLARKE, "Take thou also unto thee wheat - In times of scarcity, it is customary
in all countries to mix several kinds of coarser grain with the finer, to make it last the
longer. This mashlin, which the prophet is commanded to take, of wheat, barley, beans,
lentiles, millet, and fitches, was intended to show how scarce the necessaries of life
should be during the siege.
GILL, "Take thou also unto thee wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentiles,
and millet, and fitches,.... The first of these was commonly used to make bread of; in
case of want and poverty, barley was used; but, for the rest, they were for cattle, and
never used for the food of men but in a time of great scarcity; wherefore this was
designed to denote the famine that should attend the siege of Jerusalem; see 2Ki_25:3;
and put them in one vessel; that is, the flour of them, when ground, in order to be
mixed and kneaded together, and make one dough thereof; which mixed bread was a
sign of a sore famine: the Septuagint call it an earthen vessel; a kneading trough seems
to be designed:
and make thee bread thereof, according to the number of the days that thou
shalt lie upon thy side; the left side, on which he was to lie three hundred and ninety
days: and so as much bread was to be made as would suffice for that time; or so many
loaves were to be made as there were days, a loaf for a day:
three hundred and ninety days shalt thou eat thereof; no mention is made of the
forty days, perhaps they are understood, a part being put for the whole; or they were
included in the three hundred and ninety days. The Septuagint and Arabic versions read
only a hundred and ninety days.
HENRY 9-10, "The best exposition of this part of Ezekiel's prediction of Jerusalem's
desolation is Jeremiah's lamentation of it, Lam_4:3, Lam_4:4, etc., and Lam_4:10,
where he pathetically describes the terrible famine that was in Jerusalem during the
siege and the sad effects of it.
I. The prophet here, to affect the people with the foresight of it, must confine himself
79

80. for 390 days to coarse fare and short commons, and that ill-dressed, for they should
want both food and fuel.
1. His meat, for the quality of it, was to be of the worst bread, made of but little wheat
and barley, and the rest of beans, and lentiles, and millet, and fitches, such as we feed
horses or fatted hogs with, and this mixed, as mill corn, or as that in the beggar's bag,
that has a dish full of one sort of corn at one house and of another at another house; of
such corn as this must the prophet's bread be made while he underwent the fatigue of
lying on his side, and needed something better to support him, Eze_4:9. Note, It is our
wisdom not to be too fond of dainties and pleasant bread, because we know not what
hard meat we may be tied to, nay, and may be glad of, before we die. The meanest sort of
food is better than we deserve, and therefore must not be despised nor wasted, nor must
those that use it be looked upon with disdain, because we know not what may be our
own lot.
JAMISON, "Take thou also unto thee wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentiles,
and millet, and fitches, and put them in one vessel, and make thee bread thereof,
according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon thy side, three hundred
and ninety days shalt thou eat thereof.
Take thou also unto thee wheat, and barley ... - instead of fine meal or simple flour
used for delicate cakes (Genesis 18:6), the Jews should have a coarse mixture of six
different kinds of grain, such as the poorest alone would eat.
Fitches - spelt or dhourra.
Three hundred and ninety days shalt thou eat thereof - the 40 days which complete
the 430 (note, Ezekiel 4:5) are omitted, since these latter typify the wilderness
period, when Israel stood separate from the Gentiles and their pollutions, though
partially chastened by stint of bread and water (Ezekiel 4:16); whereas the eating of
the polluted bread in the 390 days implies a forced residence "among the Gentiles,"
who were "defiled" with idolatry (Ezekiel 4:13). This last is said of "Israel"
primarily, as being the most debased (Ezekiel 4:9-15): they had spiritually sunk to a
level with the pagan, therefore God will make their condition outwardly to
correspond. Judah and Jerusalem fare less hardly, being less guilty: they are to "eat
bread by weight and with care" - i:e., have a stinted supply, and be chastened with
the milder discipline of the wilderness-period of 40 years. But Judah also is
secondarily referred to in the 390 days, as having fallen, like Israel, into Gentile
80

81. defilements; if, then, the Jews are to escape from the exile among Gentiles, which is
their just punishment, they must submit again to the wilderness-probation (Ezekiel
4:16).
K&D 9-17, "The third symbolical act. - Eze_4:9. And do thou take to thyself wheat,
and barley, and beans, and lentiles, and millet, and spelt, and put them in a vessel, and
prepare them as bread for thyself, according to the number of the days on which thou
liest on thy side; three hundred and ninety days shalt thou eat it. Eze_4:10. And thy
food, which thou eatest, shall be according to weight, twenty shekels for a day; from
time to time shalt thou eat it. Eze_4:11. And water shalt thou drink according to
measure, a sixth part of the hin, from time to time shalt thou drink it. Eze_4:12. And as
barley cakes shalt thou eat it, and shalt bake it before their eyes with human
excrement. Eze_4:13. And Jehovah spake; then shall the children of Israel eat their
bread polluted amongst the heathen, whither I shall drive them. Eze_4:14. Then said I:
Ah! Lord, Jehovah, my soul has never been polluted; and of a carcase, and of that
which is torn, have I never eaten from my youth up until now, and abominable flesh
has not come into my mouth. Eze_4:15. Then said He unto me: Lo, I allow thee the
dung of animals instead of that of man; therewith mayest thou prepare thy bread.
Eze_4:16. And He said to me, Son of man, lo, I will break the staff of bread in
Jerusalem, so that they will eat bread according to weight, and in affliction, and drink
water by measure, and in amazement. Eze_4:17. Because bread and water shall fail,
and they shall pine away one with another, and disappear in their guilt. - For the whole
duration of the symbolical siege of Jerusalem, Ezekiel is to furnish himself with a store
of grain corn and leguminous fruits, to place this store in a vessel beside him, and daily
to prepare in the form of bread a measured portion of the same, 20 shekels in weight
(about 9 ounces), and to bake this as barley cakes upon a fire, prepared with dried dung,
and then to partake of it at the different hours for meals throughout the day. In addition
to this, he is, at the hours appointed for eating, to drink water, in like manner according
to measure, a sixth part of the hin daily, i.e., a quantity less than a pint (cf. Biblisch.
Archäol. II. p. 141). The Israelites, probably, generally prepared the ‫ת‬ ‫גּ‬ֻ‫ע‬ from wheat
flour, and not merely when they had guests (Gen_18:6). Ezekiel, however, is to take, in
addition, other kinds of grain with leguminous fruits, which were employed in the
preparation of bread when wheat was deficient; barley - baked into bread by the poor
(Jdg_7:13; 2Ki_4:42; Joh_6:9; see on 1Ki_5:8); ‫ל‬ ‫,פּ‬ “beans,” a common food of the
Hebrews (2Sa_17:28), which appears to have been mixed with other kinds of grain for
the purpose of being baked into bread.
(Note: Cf. Plinii Histor. Natur. xviii. 30: “Inter legumina maximus honos fabae,
quippe ex qua tentatus sit etiam panis...Frumento etiam miscetur apud plerasque
gentes et maxime panico solida ac delicatius fracta.”)
This especially holds true of the lentiles, a favourite food of the Hebrews (Gen_25:29.),
from which, in Egypt at the present day, the poor still bake bread in times of severe
famine (Sonnini, R. II. 390; ἄρτος φάκινος, Athenaeus, IV. 158). ‫ן‬ ַ‫ֹח‬‫דּ‬, “millet,” termed
by the Arabs ”Dochn” (Arab. dchn), panicum, a fruit cultivated in Egypt, and still more
frequently in Arabia (see Wellsted, Arab. I. 295), consisting of longish round brown
grain, resembling rice, from which, in the absence of better fruits, a sort of bad bread is
baked. Cf. Celsius, Hierobotan, i. 453ff.; and Gesen. Thesaur. p. 333. ‫ים‬ ִ‫מ‬ ְ‫סּ‬ֻ‫,כּ‬ “spelt or
German corn” (cf. Exo_9:32), a kind of grain which produces a finer and whiter flour
81

82. than wheat flour; the bread, however, which is baked from it is somewhat dry, and is
said to be less nutritive than wheat bread; cf. Celsius, Hierobotan, ii. 98f. Of all these
fruits Ezekiel is to place certain quantities in a vessel - to indicate that all kinds of grain
and leguminous fruits capable of being converted into bread will be collected, in order to
bake bread for the appeasing of hunger. In the intermixture of various kinds of flour we
are not, with Hitzig, to seek a transgression of the law in Lev_19:19; Deu_22:9. ‫פּר‬ ְ‫ס‬ ַ‫מ‬ is
the accusative of measure or duration. The quantity is to be fixed according to the
number of the days. In Eze_4:9 only the 390 days of the house of Israel's period of
punishment are mentioned - quod plures essent et fere universa summa (Prado); and
because this was sufficient to make prominent the hardship and oppression of the
situation, the 40 days of Judah were omitted for the sake of brevity.
(Note: Kliefoth's supposition is untenable, that what is required in Eze_4:9-17
refers in reality only to the 390 days of Israel, and not also to the 40 days of Judah,
so that so long as Ezekiel lay and bore the sins of Israel, he was to eat his food by
measure, and unclean. For this is in contradiction with the distinct announcement
that during the whole time that he lay upon the one side and the other, he was
besieging Jerusalem; and by the scanty and unclean food, was to portray both the
deficiency of bread and water which occurred in the besieged city (Eze_4:17), as well
as the eating of unclean bread, which impended over the Israelites when among the
heathen nations. The famine which took place in Jerusalem during the siege did not
affect the ten tribes, but that of Judah; while unclean bread had to be eaten among
the heathen not only by the Israelites, but also by the Jews transported to Babylon.
By the limitation of what is prescribed to the prophet in Eze_4:9-15 to the time
during which the sin of Israel was to be borne, the significance of this symbolical act
for Jerusalem and Judah is taken away.)
' ְ‫ל‬ָ‫ֲכ‬‫א‬ ַ‫מ‬ ‫,וגו‬ “thy food which thou shalt eat,” i.e., the definite portion which thou shalt
have to eat, shall be according to weight (between subject and predicate the substantive
verb is to be supplied). Twenty shekels = 8 or 9 ounces of flour, yield 11 or 12 ounces of
bread, i.e., at most the half of what a man needs in southern countries for his daily
support.
(Note: In our climate (Germany) we count 2 lbs. of bread for the daily supply of a
man; but in warm countries the demand for food is less, so that scarcely 1 1/2 lbs. are
required. Wellsted (Travels in Arabia, II. p. 200) relates that “the Bedoweens will
undertake a journey of 10 to 12 days without carrying with them any nutriment, save
a bottle full of small cakes, baked of white flour and camel or goat's milk, and a
leather bag of water. Such a cake weighs about 5 ounces. Two of them, and a
mouthful of water, the latter twice within 24 hours, is all which they then partake
of.”)
The same is the case with the water. A sixth part of a hin, i.e., a quantity less than a pint,
is a very niggardly allowance for a day. Both, however - eating the bread and drinking the
water - he shall do from time to time, i.e., “not throughout the entire fixed period of 390
days” (Hävernick); but he shall not eat the daily ration at once, but divided into portions
according to the daily hours of meals, so that he will never be completely satisfied. In
addition to this is the pollution (Eze_4:12.) of the scanty allowance of food by the
manner in which it is prepared. ‫ַת‬‫נּ‬ֻ‫ע‬ ‫ים‬ ִ‫ר‬ֹ‫ע‬ ְ‫שׂ‬ is predicate: “as barley cakes,” shalt thou eat
them. The suffix in ‫ָה‬‫נּ‬ֶ‫ֲל‬‫כ‬‫ֹא‬‫תּ‬ is neuter, and refers to ‫ם‬ ֶ‫ח‬ֶ‫ל‬ in Eze_4:9, or rather to the
kinds of grain there enumerated, which are ground and baked before them: ‫ם‬ ֶ‫ח‬ֶ‫,ל‬ i.e.,
82

83. “food.” The addition ‫ים‬ ִ‫ר‬ֹ‫ע‬ ְ‫שׂ‬ is not to be explained from this, that the principal part of
these consisted of barley, nor does it prove that in general no other than barley cakes
were known (Hitzig), but only that the cakes of barley meal, baked in the ashes, were an
extremely frugal kind of bread, which that prepared by Ezekiel was to resemble. The ‫ָה‬‫גּ‬ֻ‫ע‬
was probably always baked on hot ashes, or on hot stones (1Ki_19:6), not on pans, as
Kliefoth here supposes. The prophet, however, is to bake them in (with) human ordure.
This is by no means to be understood as if he were to mix the ordure with the food, for
which view Isa_36:12 has been erroneously appealed to; but - as ‫ם‬ ֶ‫יה‬ֵ‫ֲל‬‫ע‬ in Eze_4:15
clearly shows - he is to bake it over the dung, i.e., so that dung forms the material of the
fire. That the bread must be polluted by this is conceivable, although it cannot be proved
from the passages in Lev_5:3; Lev_7:21, and Deu_23:13 that the use of fire composed of
dung made the food prepared thereon levitically unclean. The use of fire with human
ordure must have communicated to the bread a loathsome smell and taste, by which it
was rendered unclean, even if it had not been immediately baked in the hot ashes. That
the pollution of the bread is the object of this injunction, we see from the explanation
which God gives in Eze_4:13 : “Thus shall the children of Israel eat their defiled bread
among the heathen.” The heart of the prophet, however, rebels against such food. He
says he has never in his life polluted himself by eating food forbidden in the law; from
his youth up he has eaten no unclean flesh, neither of a carcase, nor of that which was
torn by wild beasts (cf. Exo_22:30; Deu_14:21), nor flesh of sacrifices decayed or
putrefying (‫גּוּל‬ ִ‫,פּ‬ see on Lev_7:18; Isa_65:4). On this God omits the requirement in
Eze_4:12, and permits him to take for firing the dung of oxen instead of that of men.
(Note: The use of dung as a material for burning is so common in the East, that it
cannot be supposed that Ezekiel first became acquainted with it in a foreign country,
and therefore regarded it with peculiar loathing. Human ordure, of course, so far as
our knowledge goes, is never so employed, although the objection raised by Hitzig,
on the other hand, that it would not yield so much heat as would be necessary for
roasting without immediate contact, i.e., through the medium of a brick, rests upon
an erroneous representation of the matter. But the employment of cattle-dung for
firing could not be unknown to the Israelites, as it forms in the Huaran (the ancient
Bashan) the customary firing material; cf. Wetzstein's remarks on Delitzsch's Job,
vol. I. pp. 377, 8 (Eng. trn.), where the preparation of the g'elle - this prevalent
material for burning in the Hauran - from cow-dung mixed with chopped straw is
minutely described; and this remark is made among others, that the flame of the
g'elle, prepared and dried from the dung of oxen that feed at large, is entirely without
smoke, and that the ashes, which retain their heat for a lengthened time, are as clean
as those of wood.)
In Eze_4:16., finally, is given the explanation of the scanty allowance of food meted
out to the prophet, namely, that the Lord, at the impending siege of Jerusalem, is to take
away from the people the staff of bread, and leave them to languish in hunger and
distress. The explanation is in literal adherence to the threatenings of the law (Lev_
26:26 and Lev_26:39), which are now to pass into fulfilment. Bread is called “staff of
bread” as being indispensable for the preservation of life. To ‫ל‬ ָ‫ק‬ ְ‫שׁ‬ ִ‫מ‬ ְ‫,בּ‬ Lev_26:26, ‫ָה‬‫ג‬ ָ‫א‬ ְ‫ד‬ ִ‫,בּ‬
“in sorrow,” is added; and to the water, ‫ן‬ ‫מ‬ ָ‫מּ‬ ִ‫שׁ‬ ְ‫,בּ‬ “in astonishment,” i.e., in fixed, silent
pain at the miserable death, by hunger and thirst, which they see before them. ‫קּוּ‬ ַ‫ָמ‬‫נ‬
‫ָם‬‫נ‬‫ֲו‬ֹ‫ע‬ ַ‫בּ‬ as Lev_26:39. If we, finally, cast a look over the contents of this first sign, it says
that Jerusalem is soon to be besieged, and during the siege is to suffer hunger and terror
83

84. as a punishment for the sins of Israel and Judah; that upon the capture of the city of
Israel (Judah) they are to be dispersed among the heathen, and will there be obliged to
eat unclean bread. To this in Ezekiel 5 is joined a second sign, which shows further how
it shall fare with the people at and after the capture of Jerusalem (Eze_4:1-4); and after
that a longer oracle, which developes the significance of these signs, and establishes the
necessity of the penal judgment (Eze_4:5-17).
CALVIN, "It is by no means doubtful, that this verse applies to the siege, because
God signifies that the city would then suffer famine, but a little afterwards he adds
another vision, from which we gather, that the subject is not only the siege of
Jerusalem, but the general vengeance of God against all the tribes, which had fallen
on the Jews through their alliance with them, and which ended at length in the siege.
But here God shows the future condition of the city Jerusalem. For this various kind
of bread is a sign of want, for we make bread of wheat, and if any region is barren
there barley is eaten or’ vetches, and if we have but a moderate supply, still wheaten
bread is used, but when lentils and beans, and millet and spelt are used, a severer
penury is portrayed. In the time of Jerome the name of spelt was in use for “zea,”
since he says, it was “gentile” among the Italians. I know not how it agrees with
what Jerome calls “vetches;” in his Commentaries he says it is “zea,” and uses that
name for spelt, which was then wheat: whatever it is, when leguminous plants are
mixed with wheat, and when barley and spelt are used, it shows a deficiency in
ordinary food. It is just as if the Prophet Ezekiel were to denounce against the Jews
a deficiency in the harvest which they were then reaping while they were free, for
this vision was offered to the Prophet before the city was besieged. Hence he
threatened want and famine at a time when they were still eating bread made of
pure wheat. For he orders all these things to be put in one vessel Hence we gather,
that this mixture would be by no means acceptable to delicate palates: for we know
that beans and lentils are grosser than wheat, and cannot be kneaded into a dough
of the right kind, since the wheat and pulse are dissimilar. For this reason, then,
God places them in one vessel Then it is added — thou shalt make bread for thee
according to the number of the days The days here numbered are the three hundred
and ninety: there is no mention of the forty days, but it may be a part put for the
whole. Now it follows:
COFFMAN, ""Take thou also unto thee wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentils,
and millet, and spelt, and put them in one vessel, and make thee bread thereof;
according to the number of days that thou shalt lie on thy side, even three hundred
and ninety days shalt thou eat thereof. And thy food which thou shalt eat shall be by
84

85. weight, twenty shekels a day: from time to time shalt thou eat it. And thou shalt
drink water by measure, the sixth part of a bin.' from time to time shalt thou
drink."
In this paragraph Ezekiel is to be identified, not as a sin-bearer, but as a
representation of the besieged and captive Israelites. The prophecy means that they
shall suffer famine, severe food shortages, the ration of water, and all of the other
rigors of a siege. Some of the measurements mentioned here may have varied a little
from what we are told; but Cook gave "twenty shekels a day" as about nine ounces
of food, and a "sixth part of a hin" of water as "about two pints" a day.[14] In any
case, such restricted amounts must be considered as just about the minimum
survival diet.
Some have thought that the mixing of all these edibles in one vessel was a
ceremonial violation regarding unnatural mixtures (Leviticus 19:19); but the more
likely understanding is that it indicates merely the scarcity of food. Wheat and
barley were normally used by the rich and poor respectively, and this was also true
of beans and lentils; but the millet, and spelt (fitches) were often used as food for
animals.[15] The "fitches" (spelt) was a kind of wild wheat, resembling the seed of
some grasses.[16] The picture that emerges is that of a family scraping together a
small handful of half a dozen different products in order to find enough for a single
piece of bread.
COKE, "Ezekiel 4:9. Take—wheat, &c.— In time of scarcity, it is usual to mix a
great deal of the coarse kinds of grain with a little of the better sort, to make the
provisions last the longer. Ezekiel was commanded to do this, to signify the scarcity
which the inhabitants should suffer during the siege. The twenty shekels, in the next
verse, amount to about ten ounces; and the sixth part of an hin, Ezekiel 4:11 is
about a pint and a half. See Cumberland's Weights and Measures.
ELLICOTT, " (9) Take thou also unto thee wheat.—The grains enumerated are of
all kinds from the best to the worst, indicating that every sort of food would be
sought after in the straitness of the siege. If the mixing of these in one vessel and
making bread of them all together was not against the exact letter of the law, it was,
85

86. at least, a plain violation of its spirit (Leviticus 19:19; Deuteronomy 22:9), thus
again indicating the stern necessity which should be laid upon the people.
Three hundred and ninety days.—No mention is here made of the additional forty
days. (See Excursus.)
TRAPP, "Ezekiel 4:9 Take thou also unto thee wheat, and barley, and beans, and
lentiles, and millet, and fitches, and put them in one vessel, and make thee bread
thereof, [according] to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon thy side,
three hundred and ninety days shalt thou eat thereof.
Ver. 9. Take thou also unto thee wheat and barley, &c.] Promiscuam farraginem; to
show what shall be the condition of the city in the time of the siege. Miscellan bread
shall be good fare, but hard to come by in that grievous famine.
Three hundred and ninety days shalt thou eat thereof.] Not sleep all the while, as
some Papists would have it, grounding their conceit upon their Trent translation of
Ezekiel 4:4, Sleep thou also upon thy left side, &c.; but lying and sleeping are
distinct things, as may be seen, Psalms 3:5; Psalms 4:8.
POOLE, " Provide thee corn enough; for a grievous famine will accompany the
siege. And whereas all sorts of grain are to be provided, it assures us all would be
little enough; wheat and barley would not outlast the siege, coarser and meaner
must be provided, though less fit for bread. Mix the worst with the best to lengthen
out the best, that the mixture may render them useful in such necessity.
Three hundred and ninety days; he mentions only three hundred and ninety; the
forty days either concur with them, or else because they refer to the time after the
city was taken, whereby such as revived and got some liberty to go abroad found
food for themselves; if they escaped the sword of the enemy, and were got into the
country, they wanted not bread.
86

87. PETT, " Jerusalem Will Be Riddled With Famine and Its Inhabitants Will Dwell
Among the Nations in Uncleanness.
“Also take to yourself wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentils, and millet, and
spelt, and put them in one vessel, and make of it bread for yourself. According to the
number of days that you will lie in your side, even three hundred and ninety days,
you will eat of it.”
The purpose of these and the following instructions was to indicate siege rations
(Ezekiel 4:16). This is confirmed by the quantity of the rations (Ezekiel 4:10), and
the fact that it was purportedly to be baked on human dung (Ezekiel 4:12; compare
Deuteronomy 23:13-14) rather than cow dung, because they were shut up in the city.
It also indicated that the children of Israel, once taken captive, would eat their food
‘unclean’ among the nations (Ezekiel 4:13; compare Hosea 9:3. See also Daniel 1:8).
In other words from the beginning of the siege onwards into captivity they would
experience poor food, short rations, and ritual uncleanness. There was nothing
ritually unclean about the food itself as far as we are aware from Leviticus and
Deuteronomy (and the Mishnah - the later Jewish oral law). Among other things it
would be the way such foods came in contact with uncleanness and unclean things,
and the way that they might be grown (e.g. Leviticus 19:19) or stored, that would
render them unclean. With regard to meat, its source, and whether it had been
killed correctly, would often not be known. Foreigners could not be depended on to
maintain ritual cleanness and to kill meat in the right way.
We should note, in fact, that on his protesting in horror (Ezekiel 4:14) God
graciously allowed Ezekiel to use cow dung instead of human dung (Ezekiel 4:15).
This was in order to maintain his own ceremonial cleanness. The use of cow dung
for baking on was a recognised method of baking.
The various items were all to be baked together in some form of bread. When they
were under siege people would put together whatever they had, mixing it together,
in order to prepare food. In Ezekiel’s case this was then to form his means of
sustenance for the 390 days, which was possibly intended to represent roughly the
87

88. prospective length of the siege of Jerusalem (i.e ‘a year’).
PULPIT, "Take thou also unto thee, etc. The act implies, as I have said, that there
were exceptions to the generally immovable attitude. The symbolism seems to have a
twofold meaning. We can scarcely exclude a reference to the famine which
accompanied the siege. On the other hand, one special feature of it is distinctly
referred, not to the siege, but to the exile (Ezekiel 4:13). Starting with the former,
the prophet is told to make bread, not of wheat, the common food of the wealthier
class (Deuteronomy 32:14; Psalms 81:16; Psalms 147:14; Jeremiah 12:13; Jeremiah
41:8), nor of barley, the chief food of the poor (Ezekiel 13:19; Hosea 3:2; John 6:9),
but of these mixed with beans (2 Samuel 17:28), lentils (2 Samuel 17:28; Genesis
25:34)—then, as now, largely used in Egypt and other Eastern countries—millet
(the Hebrew word is not found elsewhere), and fitches, i.e. vetches (here also the
Hebrew word is found only in this passage, that so translated in Isaiah 28:25-27
standing, it is said, for the seed of the black cummin). The outcome of this mixture
would be a coarse, unpalatable bread, not unlike that to which the population of
Paris was reduced in the siege of 1870-71. This was to be the prophet's food, as it
was to be that of the people of Jerusalem during the 390 days by which that siege
was symbolically, though not numerically, represented. It is not improbable, looking
to the prohibition against mixtures of any kind in Deuteronomy 22:9, that it would
be regarded as in itself unclean.
BI 9-17, “Even thus shall the children of Israel eat their defiled bread.
Conformity of punishment to sin
They had sinned in excess, and God would take away their plenty. Hos_13:6, “According
to their pasture, so were they filled”; they had full pastures, fed largely, exalted their
hearts, and thought they should never want; they forgot God in their fulness, and He
made them to remember Him in a famine. Fulness of bread was the sin of Sodom, and
the sin of Jerusalem also. God brake the staff of bread. They sinned in defiling
themselves with idols, and offered meal and oil, honey and flour, for a sweet savour to
their idols (Eze_16:1-63), and now they must eat polluted bread among the Gentiles. (W.
Greenhill, M. A.).
88

89. 10 Weigh out twenty shekels[b] of food to eat
each day and eat it at set times.
BARNES, "meat - A general term for food, which in this case consists of grain.
Instead of measuring, it was necessary in extreme scarcity to weigh it Lev_26:26; Rev_
6:6.
Twenty shekels a day - The shekel contained about 220 grains, so that 20 shekels
would be about 56 of a pound.
From time to time - Thou shalt receive and eat it at the appointed interval of a day.
CLARKE, "Twenty shekels a day - The whole of the above grain, being ground,
was to be formed into one mass, out of which he was to make three hundred and ninety
loaves; one loaf for each day; and this loaf was to be of twenty shekels in weight. Now a
shekel, being in weight about half an ounce, this would be ten ounces of bread for each
day; and with this water to the amount of one sixth part of a hin, which is about a pint
and a half of our measure. All this shows that so reduced should provisions be during the
siege, that they should be obliged to eat the meanest sort of aliment, and that by weight,
and their water by measure; each man’s allowance being scarcely a pint and a half, and
ten ounces, a little more than half a pound of bread, for each day’s support.
GILL, "And thy meat which thou shall eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels
a day,.... To eat bread by weight was a sign of a grievous famine; see Lev_26:26; a
shekel, according to Josephus (i), weighed four Attic drachms, or half an ounce,
wherefore twenty shekels weighed ten ounces; so that the bread the prophet had to eat
was but ten ounces a day:
from time to time shall thou eat it; at the certain time of eating, or but once a day;
from a set time in one day to the same in another; as from morning to morning, or from
noon to noon, or from evening to evening; see Jer_37:21.
JAMISON, "And thy meat which thou shalt eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels a
day: from time to time shalt thou eat it.
Thy meat shall be by weight twenty shekels ie little more than ten ounces A scant
89

90. measure to Thy meat ... shall be by weight, twenty shekels - i:e., little more than ten
ounces. A scant measure to sustain life (Jeremiah 52:6). But it applies not only to the
siege, but to their whole subsequent state.
CALVIN, "This confirms what I have said, namely, that the want should be such,
that the Prophet dared not eat even that bread to satiety: you shall eat, says he,
bread by weight, viz, twenty shekels. These are not complete rounds, so that the
sense is, that God commanded his Prophet to live sparingly. When the city was
besieged, bread was distributed in pieces to each person. God then here says, that
the Jews should be almost famished during the siege, so that they should not have
bread except by fixed weight, and that a small one. What follows is more miserable,
namely, the want of water; for this is the last stage of calamity when thirst oppresses
us. it seems hard, indeed, to want wine, but when water is deficient, this, as I have
said, is the last stage of famine, and this the Prophet denounces against the Jews
when he says, water was not given to him during the time of the siege unless by
measure. I shall leave the rest till to-morrow.
ELLICOTT, "(10) By weight, twenty shekels a day.—The weight of the shekel is
somewhat differently estimated by different authorities. The best computations fix it
at about 220 grains, and this would make the allowance of twenty shekels equal to
something less than eleven ounces, scarcely enough to sustain life. “Meat” is here
used, as often in Scripture, of any kind of food. The extreme scarcity of food is also
denoted by its being weighed rather than measured. “From time to time” means at
set intervals of time (see 1 Chronicles 9:25), here doubtless once a day. Only the
longer period of 390 days is here mentioned, but the same command doubtless
applied to both periods.
TRAPP, "Ezekiel 4:10 And thy meat which thou shalt eat [shall be] by weight,
twenty shekels a day: from time to time shalt thou eat it.
Ver. 10. Twenty shekels a day.] Five ounces, or ten at most; not prisoners’ pittance,
qua proinde per diem trahitur magis anima quam sustentatur. See this complained
of, Lamentations 1:11; Lamentations 1:19; Lamentations 2:11-12; Lamentations
2:19-20; Lamentations 4:4; Lamentations 4:9-10; Lamentations 5:6; Lamentations
5:9-10. They had sinned in excess, and now they are punished with cleanness of
90

91. teeth. The famine of the word is far worse.
POOLE, " Thy meat; the mean and coarse bread which thou must eat and be
content with.
By weight; not full, as once; not as much as you will, but a small pittance delivered
by weight to all; which bespeaks the extreme penury the city should be brought to.
Twenty shekels; some say five ounces, others say ten ounces, the greater of the two
scarce enough to maintain life, and yet, it is probable enough, it was but five ounces
of bread which was his allowance. A hard case, when the law of the twelve tables
allowed a pound of bread to prisoners daily for their diet. But here the prophet hath
but half that allowance, if the twenty shekels were shekels of the sanctuary; and he
hath but a quarter of that allowance, if they were common shekels by which his
allowance was weighed.
From time to time; at set hours this was weighed out, and no more could be had at
any other time, whether morning or evening; once in four and twenty hours, or once
in twelve hours, still at the appointed hour; and possibly there might be different
hours appointed to different persons, and every one must observe his own time.
PETT, "Verse 10
“And your food which you will eat will be by weight twenty shekels a day. Each day
at the same time you will eat it.”
Twenty shekels would come to about 225 grams (eight ounces). This was minimum
rations indicating siege rations. ‘Each day at the same time you will eat it.’ The
Hebrew is literally ‘from time to time’ but compare the similar use in 1 Chronicles
9:25. It seems to signify a recurring action taking place at the same time each day.
The purpose of this was to make it a recognised activity in front of those who came
91

92. to observe his behaviour.
PULPIT, "Thy meat, etc.; better, food, here and elsewhere. Coarse as the food was,
the people would have but scanty rations of it. Men were not, as usual, to measure
the corn, but to weigh the bread (Le 26:26). Taking the shekel at about 220 grains,
the twenty shekels would be about 10 or 12 ounces. The common allowance in
England for prison or pauper dietaries gives, I believe from 24 to 32 ounces, Besides
other food. And this was to be taken, not as hunger prompted, but at the appointed
hour. once a day. The whole scene of the people of the besieged city coming for their
daily rations is brought vividly before us.
11 Also measure out a sixth of a hin[c] of water
and drink it at set times.
BARNES, "Water by measure - This probably corresponds to the water of
affliction 1Ki_22:27; Isa_30:20. The measure of the hin is variously estimated by Jewish
writers. The sixth part of a hin will be according to one estimate about 610ths, according
to another 910ths of a pint. The lesser estimate is more suitable here.
GILL, "Thou shall drink also water by measure,.... Not wine, but water; and this
not as much as he would, but a certain measure; which shows great want of it, and
expresses a very distressed condition see Lam_5:4;
the sixth part of an hin; a hin held twelve logs, or seventy two egg shells, or about
three quarts of our measure; and the sixth part of one were two logs, or twelve egg shells,
and about a pint of our measure; so that it was but a pint of water a day that the prophet
was allowed, as a token of the great scarcity of it in the siege of Jerusalem:
from time to time shalt thou drink: as before.
92

93. HENRY, "For the quantity of it, it was to be of the least that a man could be kept alive
with, to signify that the besieged should be reduced to short allowance and should hold
out till all the bread in the city was spent, Jer_37:21. The prophet must eat but twenty
shekels' weight of bread a day (Eze_4:10), that was about ten ounces; and he must drink
but the sixth part of a hin of water, that was half a pint, about eight ounces, Eze_4:11.
The stint of the Lessian diet is fourteen ounces of meat and sixteen of drink. The prophet
in Babylon had bread enough and to spare, and was by the river side, where there was
plenty of water; and yet, that he might confirm his own prediction and be a sign to the
children of Israel, God obliges him to live thus sparingly, and he submits to it. Note,
God's servants must learn to endure hardness, and to deny themselves the use of lawful
delights, when they may thereby serve the glory of God, evidence the sincerity of their
faith, and express their sympathy with their brethren in affliction. The body must be
kept under and brought into subjection. Nature is content with a little, grace with less,
but lust with nothing. It is good to stint ourselves of choice, that we may the better bear
it if ever we should come to be stinted by necessity. And in times of public distress and
calamity it ill becomes us to make much of ourselves, as those that drank wine in bowls
and were not grieved for the affliction of Joseph, Amo_6:4-6.
COKE, "Ezekiel 4:11. The sixth part of an hin— An hin was about ten pints. The
prophet was to take this pittance from day to day, and in small portions from time
to time of the same day, while he subjected himself to public notice. At other seasons
he might be left to his natural liberty. The act denoted scarcity during the siege.
The humane Mr. Howard allows a prisoner "a pound and a half of good household
bread a day, and a quart of good beer: besides twice a day a quart of warm soup
made from pease, rice, milk, or barley." 4to. ed. 3 p. 40.
ELLICOTT, " (11) The sixth part of an hin.—There is also a difference among the
authorities as to the measures of capacity for liquids. These would make the sixth
part of an hin from six-tenths to nine-tenths of a pint. This also was to be drunk
once a day.
TRAPP, "Ezekiel 4:11 Thou shalt drink also water by measure, the sixth part of an
hin: from time to time shalt thou drink.
Ver. 11. From time to time shalt thou drink,] i.e., At thy set times, in stata tempera
93

94. comparcito, make no waste: the least drop is precious.
POOLE, " Water; not wine or cordial drinks, but cold and thin water, nor a bellyful
of this.
The sixth part of an hin; about six ounces of water, and that measured out by others
to him that drinks it, scarce enough to keep the man alive. Such proportions of
bread and water rather fed death than the man, yet more could not be had when the
besiegers were masters of both fields and fountains, and cut off all from the city.
PETT, "Verse 11
“And you will drink water by measure, the sixth part of a hin. Each day at the same
time you will drink it.”
As for food, so for water. He was allowed a little over 0.6 litres (a pint). This was
hardly survival rations, but would often be necessary when under siege with water
difficult to obtain. It may be that he was allowed to supplement it out of hours when
not under observation, but that this was his general practise seems to be of some
doubt. The purpose of the rations was to simulate siege conditions in the eyes of the
people.
PULPIT, "The sixth, part of an hin, etc. According to the varying accounts of the
"hin" given by Jewish writers, this would give from 6 to 9 of a pint. And this was,
like the food, to be doled out once a day. Possibly "the bread of affliction and the
water of affliction," in 1 Kings 22:27 and Isaiah 30:20, contains a reference to the
quantity as well as the quality of a prison dietary as thus described. Isaiah's words
may refer to the siege of Sennacherib, as Ezekiel's do to the siege of
Nebuchadnezzar.
94

95. 12 Eat the food as you would a loaf of barley
bread; bake it in the sight of the people, using
human excrement for fuel.”
BARNES, "In eastern countries where fuel is scarce the want is supplied by dried
cow-dung laid up for the winter. Barley cakes were (and are) baked under hot ashes
without an oven. The dung here is to be burned to ashes, and the ashes so employed.
CLARKE, "Thou shalt bake it with dung - Dried ox and cow dung is a common
fuel in the east; and with this, for want of wood and coals, they are obliged to prepare
their food. Indeed, dried excrement of every kind is gathered. Here, the prophet is to
prepare his bread with dry human excrement. And when we know that this did not come
in contact with the bread, and was only used to warm the plate, (see Eze_4:3), on which
the bread was laid over the fire, it removes all the horror and much of the disgust. This
was required to show the extreme degree of wretchedness to which they should be
exposed; for, not being able to leave the city to collect the dried excrements of beasts, the
inhabitants during the siege would be obliged, literally, to use dried human ordure for
fuel. The very circumstances show that this was the plain fact of the case. However, we
find that the prophet was relieved from using this kind of fuel, for cow’s dung was
substituted at his request. See Eze_4:15.
GILL, "And thou shalt eat it as barley cakes,.... That is, the bread made of wheat,
barley, beans, lentiles, millet, and fitches, was to be made in the form of barley cakes,
and to be baked as they; not in an oven, but under ashes; and these ashes not of wood, or
straw, or turf, but as follows:
and thou shalt bake it with dung that cometh out of men, in their sight: the
prophet was to take human dung, and dry it, and then cover the cakes or loaves of his
mixed bread with it, and burn it over them, and with it bake it; which must be a very
disagreeable task to him, and make the food very nauseous, both to himself and to the
Jews, in whose sight it was done; and this shows scarcity of fuel, and the severity of the
famine; that they had not fuel to bake with, or could not stay till it was baked in an oven,
and therefore took this method; as well as points at what they were to eat when carried
95

96. captive, as follows:
HENRY 12-15, " For the dressing of it, he must bake it with a man's dung (Eze_
4:12); that must be dried, and serve for fuel to heat his oven with. The thought of it
would almost turn one's stomach; yet the coarse bread, thus baked, he must eat as
barley-cakes, as freely as if it were the same bread he had been used to. This nauseous
piece of cookery he must exercise publicly in their sight, that they might be the more
affected with the calamity approaching, which was signified by it, that in the extremity of
the famine they should not only have nothing that was dainty, but nothing that was
cleanly, about them; they must take up with what they could get. To the hungry soul
every bitter thing is sweet. This circumstance of the sign, the baking of his bread with
man's dung, the prophet with submission humbly desired might be dispensed with
(Eze_4:14); it seemed to have in it something of a ceremonial pollution, for there was a
law that man's dung should be covered with earth, that God might see no unclean thing
in their camp, Deu_23:13, Deu_23:14. And must he go and gather a thing so offensive,
and use it in the dressing of his meat in the sight of the people? “Ah! Lord God,” says he,
“behold, my soul has not been polluted, and I am afraid lest by this it be polluted.” Note,
The pollution of the soul by sin is what good people dread more than any thing; and yet
sometimes tender consciences fear it without cause, and perplex themselves with
scruples about lawful things, as the prophet here, who had not yet learned that it is not
that which goes into the mouth that defiles the man, Mat_15:11. But observe he does not
plead, “Lord, from my youth I have been brought up delicately and have never been used
to any thing but what was clean and nice” (and there were those who were so brought
up, who in the siege of Jerusalem did embrace dunghills, Lam_4:5), but that he had
been brought up conscientiously, and had never eaten any thing that was forbidden by
the law, that died of itself or was torn in pieces; and therefore, “Lord, do not put this
upon me now.” Thus Peter pleaded (Act_10:14), Lord, I have never eaten any thing that
is common or unclean. Note, it will be comfortable to us, when we are reduced to
hardships, if our hearts can witness for us that we have always been careful to abstain
from sin, even from little sins, and the appearances of evil. Whatever God commands
us, we may be sure, is good; but, if we be put upon any thing that we apprehend to be
evil, we should argue against it, from this consideration, that hitherto we have preserved
our purity - and shall we lose it now? Now, because Ezekiel with a manifest tenderness of
conscience made this scruple, God dispensed with him in this matter. Note, Those who
have power in their hands should not be rigorous in pressing their commands upon
those that are dissatisfied concerning them, yea, though their dissatisfactions be
groundless or arising from education and long usage, but should recede from them
rather than grieve or offend the weak, or put a stumbling-block before them, in
conformity to the example of God's condescension to Ezekiel, though we are sure his
authority is incontestable and all his commands are wise and good. God allowed Ezekiel
to use cow's dung instead of man's dung, Eze_4:15. This is a tacit reflection upon man,
as intimating that he being polluted with sin his filthiness is more nauseous and odious
than that of any other creature. How much more abominable and filthy is man! Job_
15:16.
CALVIN, "This vision properly belongs to the ten tribes, and, for this reason, I have
said that God’s vengeance is not to be considered as to the siege of the city alone, but
to be extended longer. After the Prophet had spoken of the siege of Jerusalem, he
96

97. adds, that their reward was prepared for the children of Israel, because a just God
was the avenger of each people. As, therefore, he punished the remnant who as yet
remained at Jerusalem, so he avenged the wickedness of the ten tribes in exile at
Babylon. For this reason the Prophet is ordered to cook a cake with dung: that is, he
is commanded to take human dung instead of fuel: nor does he simply say dung, but
the dung of men. By and bye the application follows. Thus the children of Israel
shall eat their polluted bread among the Gentiles Now, therefore, we see that the
Jews are at length drawn to judgment, because they had not been so touched with
the slaughter of their brethren as to repent, but, in the meantime, the wrath of God
was conspicuous against the ten tribes, because among the Gentiles those miserable
exiles were compelled to eat their bread polluted. We know that cakes are made of
the finest flour, for the purer the flour the more delicate is the bread, but the
Prophet is ordered to make cakes of barley, and then to cook them in dung, for that
uncleanness was forbidden by the law. (Leviticus 5:3; Leviticus 7:21.) Therefore
God signifies, that the Israelites were so rejected that they differed in nothing from
polluted nations; for the Lord had separated them as we know from the rest of the
world: but from the time of their mingling themselves with the filth of the impious,
at length, after long forbearance, they were altogether rejected as it is here said. For
under this figure a universal pollution is signified, as if he had said, nothing is any
longer holy or sacred in Israel, because they are mixed up with the pollutions of all
nations: finally, the impure bread embraces within itself all kinds of impiety. Now
when he says among the Gentiles, it means, that they would be such inhabitants of
the lands among which they were driven, that they should be not only exiles but
banished from the land of Canaan, which was their inheritance. In fine, a
disinheriting is here marked, when the Jews are said to be driven about hither and
thither, so as not to, dwell in the promised land. It follows —
COFFMAN, ""And thou shalt eat it as barley cakes, and thou shalt bake it in their
sight with dung that cometh out of man. And Jehovah said, Even thus shall the
children of Israel eat their bread unclean, among the nations whither I will drive
them. Then said I, Ah Lord Jehovah! Behold, my soul hath not been polluted; for
from my youth up even until now have I not eaten of that which dieth of itself, or is
torn of beasts; neither came there abominable flesh into my mouth. Then he said
unto me, See, I have given thee cow's dung for man's dung, and thou shalt prepare
thy bread thereon. Moreover he said unto me, Son of man, behold, I will break the
staff of bread in Jerusalem: and they shall eat bread by weight, and with
fearfulness, and they shall drink water by measure, and in dismay: that they may
want bread and water, and be dismayed one with another, and pine away in their
97

98. iniquity."
"And thou shalt bake it in their sight with dung ..." (Ezekiel 4:12). The dung
mentioned here was not to be a part of the food but was to be fuel for the baking of
it, thus assuring the ceremonial uncleanness of the bread.
"Thou shalt prepare thy bread thereon ..." (Ezekiel 4:15). This means that the
bread was to be baked upon afire made of cow chips. Such a product is still used as
fuel in the Mid East. "Dried cow-dung and camel-dung is still used for fuel by the
Bedouin."[17] It is not all that unsatisfactory as a fuel, as some of the pioneer high
plainsmen of the USA have testified. More than a century ago, Robinson described
his journey with some Arabs, "Who baked a large cake (an `ember cake') of bread
in the embers of a fire made of camel's and cow-dung. They took it out when done,
brushed the ashes off of it, and divided it among the party... I tasted it and found it
quite as good as the common bread of that country."[18]
The big point about this use of dung for fuel is that in Jewish minds it made the
bread ceremonially unclean. Cook pointed out that there are abundant echoes of the
prohibitions in th'e Pentateuch, such as those in Leviticus 26:39 in Ezekiel.[19]
Added to that, "All food eaten in a foreign land among the heathen was unclean to
the Jews."[20]
"With his priestly background, Ezekiel had such injunctions as the prohibitions
against eating an animal that had died of itself, etc. (Leviticus 7:24; 22:8; Exodus
22:31; Leviticus 17:11-16; and Deuteronomy 14:21) before him continually. This is
especially true of the regulations in Leviticus."[21]
Thus, in Ezekiel we find exactly the same ever-present consciousness on the part of
God's prophets of the prior existence of the covenant and every line of the
Pentateuch. It was true in our studies of all twelve of the Minor Prophets, and
without exception, all of the Major Prophets also.
98

99. "Pine away in their iniquity ..." (Ezekiel 4:17). "This is another echo from that book
which had entered so largely into Ezekiel's education (Leviticus 26:39). where the
Hebrew word for "pine" is the same word as 'consume.' To the wretchedness of
physical privations there was to be added the consciousness on the part of the
sufferers that their privations were caused by their own evil deeds."[22]
"Hunger and thirst, sorrow and dismay, would fall upon the sinners in Zion exactly
as the ancient book of the law had foretold (Leviticus 26:39)."[23]
COKE, "Ezekiel 4:12. Thou shalt bake, &c.— See Lamentations 4:5 and 1 Samuel
2:8 where the applicableness of the account concerning the frequent burning of
dung in the East, to the case of Ezekiel, is visible. Commentators have remarked
something of it; but I do not remember to have met with any who have thoroughly
entered into the spirit of the divine command: they only observe, that several
nations make use of cow-dung for fuel. The prophet was first enjoined to make use
of human dung in the preparation of his food, though at length he obtained
permission to use cow-dung for the baking of that bread, which was to be expressive
of the miserable food that Israel should be obliged to eat in their dispersion among
the Gentiles. Had this been ordered at first, it would by no means have fully or
sufficiently expressed those necessities, and that filthiness in their way of living, to
which they were to be reduced; for many of the eastern people very commonly use
cow-dung in the baking of their bread; he therefore was ordered to make use of
human dung, which was terribly significant of the extremities which they were to
undergo: no nation made use of that horrid kind of fuel; whereas the other was very
common, though it is not very agreeable for the purpose; the bread so baked being
burnt, smoaky, and disagreeably tasted. If cow-dung was frequently used in
Palestine for fuel, as we have reason to think wood was not more plentiful there
anciently, when the country was much fuller of inhabitants, than it is now (see
Lamentations 5:4.); its extreme slowness in burning must make the quickness of the
fire of thorns very observable, and give life to that passage in Ecclesiastes 7:6. As the
crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fool, and to some other
places, which have not, I think, been duly observed. The contrast is extremely
remarkable. La Roque, taking notice of the excessive slowness of the one, informs
us, that it is a common thing among the Arabs on this account to threaten a person
with burning him in cow-dung, when they would menace him with a dreadful
lingering punishment. On the other hand, every one must be apprized of the short-
lived violence of the fire of thorns, furze, and things of that kind: but to make the
99

100. thought complete, it is necessary to add, that cow-dung, this very slow fuel, is that
which is commonly used; and thorns, &c. but seldom. See Observations, p. 140 and
Psalms 58:9. How thankful should we be for the plenty of good fuel that we enjoy!
ELLICOTT, " (12) As barley cakes.—These were commonly cooked in the hot
ashes, hence the especial defilement caused by the fuel required to be used. Against
this the prophet pleads, not merely as revolting in itself, but as ceremonially
polluting (Ezekiel 4:14; see Leviticus 5:3; Leviticus 7:21), and a mitigation of the
requirement is granted to him (Ezekiel 4:15).
In their sight—This is still a part of the vision. The words have been thought to
determine that the whole transaction was an actual symbolic act and not a vision;
but this does not follow. It need only have been a part of the vision that what was
done was done publicly.
TRAPP, "Ezekiel 4:12 And thou shalt eat it [as] barley cakes, and thou shalt bake it
with dung that cometh out of man, in their sight.
Ver. 12. And thou shalt eat it as barley cakes.] Baked on coals made of homely fuel,
man’s dung burnt. (a)
And thou shalt bake it with dung.] For want of wood. [Lamentations 5:4] To the
hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet. [Proverbs 27:7]
In their sight.] This, then, was more than a vision.
POOLE, " As barley cakes: these were delicacies with them when they could temper
and make them right, but now these pitiful things should be to these half-starved
bodies as delicates, Or rather, because they were greedy, and could not stay till they
were baked. Or, lest any should take it from them. Or, because they never had
100

101. enough to make a loaf with, they eat them as barley cakes.
With dung; there would be no wood left for such necessary uses, nor yet dung of
other creatures, they would be all consumed by the length of the siege too. What
loathsome food was this! yet in this straitness of the siege they are brought to it.
In their sight; openly, that any might see it. From this passage some conclude this
was actually done, and not only represented in a vision.
PETT, "Verse 12
“And you shall eat it as barley cakes, and you will bake it in their sight with
excrement that comes out of a man.”
‘Barley cakes’ indicates the poor man’s food. They were, as described earlier, made
up of a mixture of ingredients. It was to be ‘baked in their sight’, possibly on heated
stones or an iron plate. The onlookers would be watching someone surviving ‘under
siege’.
The use of human excrement for fuel would appal not only Ezekiel but also the
onlookers, yet in times of siege it would occur. Compare Deuteronomy 23:13-14
where it was to be buried out of sight to prevent defilement.
JAMISON, "And thou shalt eat it as barley cakes, and thou shalt bake it with dung
that cometh out of man, in their sight.
Thou shalt bake it with dung - as fuel; so the Arabs use beasts' dung, wood-fuel
being scarce. But to use human dung so implies the most cruel necessity. It was in
violation of the law for the removal of human dung far from the camp, as unclean
101

102. and defiling the people, in the midst of whose camps the Lord their God walked
(Deuteronomy 14:3; Deuteronomy 23:12-14); it must therefore have been done only
in vision.
PULPIT, "Thou shall bake it with dung, etc. The process of baking in ashes was as
old as the time of Abraham (Genesis 18:6), and continues in Arabia and Syria to the
present day. The kneaded dough was rolled into thin flat cakes, and they were
placed upon, or hung over, the hot wood embers of the hearth or oven. But in a
besieged city the supply of wood for fuel soon fails. The first resource is found, as
still often happens in the East, in using the dried dung of camels or of cattle. Before
Ezekiel's mind there came the vision of a yet more terrible necessity. That supply
also might tail, and then men would be forced to use the dried contents of the
"draught houses" or cesspools of Jerusalem. They would be compelled almost
literally to fulfil the taunt of Rabshakeh (Isaiah 36:12). That thought, as bringing
with it the ceremonial pollution of Le Ezekiel 5:3 : Ezekiel 7:21, was as revolting to
Ezekiel as it is to us; but like Dante, in a like revolting symbolism ('Inf.,' 18.114), he
does not shrink from naming it. It came to him, as with the authority of a Divine
command, that he was even to do this, to represent the extreme horrors of the siege.
And all this was to be done visibly, before the eyes of his neighbours at Tel-Abib.
13 The Lord said, “In this way the people of Israel
will eat defiled food among the nations where I
will drive them.”
BARNES, "The ceremonial ordinances in relation to food were intended to keep the
nation free from idolatrous usages; everywhere among the pagan idol feasts formed a
leading part in their religious services, and idol meats were partaken of in common life.
Dispersion among the Gentiles must have exposed the Jews to much which they
regarded as common and unclean. In Ezekiel’s case there was a mitigation Eze_4:15 of
102

103. the defilement, but still legal defilement remained, and the chosen people in exile were
subjected to it as to a degradation.
GILL, "And the Lord said, even thus shall the children of Israel,.... Not the ten
tribes only, or those who were among the other two, but all the Jews in captivity:
eat the defiled bread among the Gentiles, whither I will drive them; so called,
not because mixed, but baked in the above manner; which was a symbol of the
defilements which they should contract upon various accounts, by dwelling among the
Gentiles; so that this foretells their captivity; their pollution among the nations of the
world; and that they should not be the holy people to the Lord they had been, and had
boasted of. The Jews (k) cite this passage to prove that he that eats bread without drying
his hands is as if he ate defiled bread.
JAMISON, "And the LORD said, Even thus shall the children of Israel eat their
defiled bread among the Gentiles, whither I will drive them.
Even thus shall the children of Israel eat their defiled bread among the Gentiles -
implying that Israel's special distinction was to be abolished, and that they were to
be outwardly blended with the idolatrous pagan (Deuteronomy 28:68; Hosea 9:3).
COKE, "Ezekiel 4:13. Eat their defiled bread, &c.— The prophet, speaking above
of eating and drinking by weight and measure, foretels the famine in Jerusalem;
now, in the bread baked with dung is pre-signified the unclean bread which the
children of Israel were to eat among the Gentiles; as also the three hundred and
ninety days in the different actions of the prophet adumbrated, as we have observed,
both how many years the children of Israel should be punished, and how many days
the famine should continue in Jerusalem. It is remarkable, that the prophet foretels
that the children of Israel should eat defiled bread among the Gentiles, but not those
of Judah, who were to preserve themselves more pure. Hosea threatens the Israelites
in the same manner, ch. Ezekiel 9:3. See Calmet and Houbigant.
ELLICOTT, " (13) Eat their defiled bread among the Gentiles.—The Mosaic law
purposely so hedged the people about with detailed precepts in regard to their food
and its preparation, that it was impossible for them to share the food of the Gentiles
without contracting ceremonial defilement; and the declared object of this
symbolism is to teach that the Israelites should thus be forced to contract
103

104. defilement. Their sins had brought them to that pass, which is so often the result of
continued and obdurate sin, that it should be impossible for them to avoid further
transgression. Ezekiel shows by his reply, in Ezekiel 4:14, that like St. Peter, in Acts
10:14, he had ever been a scrupulous observer of the law. To St. Peter, however, it
was made known that in the breadth of the Christian dispensation this ceremonial
law was now done away, while to Ezekiel it still remained in full force.
TRAPP, "Ezekiel 4:13 And the LORD said, Even thus shall the children of Israel
eat their defiled bread among the Gentiles, whither I will drive them.
Ver. 13. Eat their defiled bread.] Not able now to observe that ceremonial purity in
their meats which God had commanded. This was just upon them for their
worshipping those their dungy deities.
POOLE, " This verse is a key to the former.
Even thus; scanty, mean, ill-dressed, and polluted in the very dressing, loathsome to
any but starved bellies.
The children of Israel; not only the house of Judah, but all the rest of the children of
Israel; not in the siege only, but this misery should pursue them.
Among the Gentiles; who would be ready enough to upbraid them, and twit them, as
breaking the rules of their religion to fill their bellies: thus their sins would bring
them to extremest want and shame.
PETT, "Verse 13
‘And Yahweh said, “Even thus will the children of Israel eat their food unclean
104

105. among the nations whither I will drive them.” ’
The eating of food in this way would not only indicate the coming siege, it would
also act as a reminder that because of their rebelliousness His people would be
driven from the land of their inheritance to live in foreign lands that were seen as
unclean. This signified that they would no longer be enjoying in full God’s provision
for them through His covenant. While they would still be His covenant people, and
be expected to live under the terms of the covenant, a major part of the privilege
would have been lost. They would no longer have their own land, and their own holy
city and temple, and the privilege of living fully in ritual cleanness. They would be
defiled until their period of punishment was over.
PULPIT, "Even thus shall the children of Israel, etc. The strange command takes a
wider range. It symbolizes, not the literal horrors of the siege, but the "defiled
bread" which even the exiles would be reduced to eat. So taken, the words remind
us of the risk of eating unclean, food, which almost inevitably attended the position
of the exiles (Hosea 9:3; Daniel 1:8), and which, it may be, Ezekiel had already tell
keenly. There is obviously something more than can be explained by a reference to
"the bitter bread of banishment," or to Dante's "Come sa di sale … " ('Par.,' 17.58).
14 Then I said, “Not so, Sovereign Lord! I have
never defiled myself. From my youth until now I
have never eaten anything found dead or torn by
wild animals. No impure meat has ever entered
my mouth.”
105

106. BARNES, "Abominable flesh - Flesh that had become corrupt and foul by
overkeeping. Compare Lev_19:7.
CLARKE, "My soul hath not been polluted - There is a remarkable similarity
between this expostulation of the prophet and that of St. Peter, Act_10:14.
GILL, "Then said I, ah, Lord God!.... The interjection "ah" is expressive of sighing
and groaning, as Jarchi; or of deprecation, as the Targum, which paraphrases it,
""and I said", receive my prayer, O Lord God:''
behold, my soul hath not been polluted; not meaning that his soul had not been
polluted with sin, or with an evil thought, as Kimchi interprets it; but by his soul he
means the inward part of his body, his stomach and belly; which had not been defiled by
taking in meats which were unclean by the law, as follows:
for from my youth up, even till now, have I not eaten of that which dieth of
itself, or is torn in pieces; these were forbidden to be eaten by the law; and such that
did were defiled, and obliged to bathing in water, Lev_17:15; and from those the priests
more especially were careful to abstain, as Kimchi observes; and such an one was the
prophet; see Act_10:14;
neither came there abominable flesh into my mouth; corrupt or, putrefied, or
whatsoever was unclean by law, as swine's flesh, or any other. The argument is, that
since he had never eaten of anything forbidden by the law of God, he could by no means
think of eating that which was abhorrent to nature; as bread baked with men's dung was.
JAMISON, "Then said I, Ah Lord GOD! behold, my soul hath not been polluted:
for from my youth up even till now have I not eaten of that which dieth of itself, or
is torn in pieces; neither came there abominable flesh into my mouth.
Ah Lord God! behold, my soul hath not been polluted; for from my youth up, even
until now, have I not eaten ... neither came there abominable flesh into my mouth.
Ezekiel, as a priest, had been accustomed to the strictest abstinence from everything
legally impure. Peter felt the same scruple at a similar command (Acts 10:14 : cf.
Isaiah 65:4). Positive precepts, being dependent on a particular command, can be set
aside at the will of the divine ruler; but moral precepts are everlasting in their
106

107. obligation, because God cannot be inconsistent with His own unchanging moral
nature.
Abominable flesh - literally, flesh that stank from putridity: Flesh of animals three
days killed was prohibited (Leviticus 7:17-18; Leviticus 19:6-7).
CALVIN, "The Prophet here inserts the answer which he received to his request
that God would relax his severe command: for it was abominable to eat flesh cooked
with human dung, not only on account of the stench, but because religion forbade it:
though the Prophet did not regard the taste of his palate, but objects that it was not
lawful for him, and relates how anxiously he had abstained during his whole life
from all polluted food. For if he had formerly dared to feed promiscuously on all
sorts of food, he could not pray against it as he now does, that he should not be
compelled to eat polluted bread: but he shows here that he had abstained
throughout his whole life from all polluted food. My soul, says he, never was
polluted: for soul is often put for the belly: then never have I tasted of a carcass, or
of what has been torn in pieces By the figure a part put for the whole, he intends all
unclean meats, which were unlawful food, according to the commandments of the
law. (Leviticus 9:0.) For because a carcass is mixed with blood, God forbade them to
touch the flesh of an animal which died by itself, because it had not been strangled,
then if a wild beast should tear a sheep or an ox, that cruelty ought to be detestable
to men. Since, therefore, both a carcass and torn and lacerated flesh are unclean
food, the Prophet here says, that from his childhood even to that time he had kept
the commands of God with his utmost endeavors: hence he obtains, as I have said,
some mitigation. Yet he is compelled to eat his flesh cooked with the dung of oxen.
This was done by vision, as I said yesterday: but meanwhile God did not change
what he had determined concerning the people: viz. that they should eat their bread
polluted among the Gentiles. For a cake cooked in the dung of oxen was unclean
according to the Law. Hence God shows his own decree was fixed that the Israelites
should be mingled among the Gentiles, so that they should contract pollution from
their filth. It follows —
COKE, "Ezekiel 4:14. Abominable flesh— This probably means whatever was
unclean and particularly forbidden by the Mosaic law. See Leviticus 7:18; Leviticus
19:7. Isaiah 65:4.
107

108. REFLECTIONS.—1st, Whether the transactions mentioned in this chapter were
done in reality or in vision only is disputed (see the Critical Annotations). It is
contended by some against the reality, that the position, without a miracle, could not
be kept so long, and that the prophet is spoken of as sitting in his house before the
expiration of the days. Compare ch. Ezekiel 1:1-2, Ezekiel 8:1. And as for the bread
which the prophet is commanded to eat, it seems a severity to which he would
scarcely be called. Others, and those too of greatest weight, support the reality of the
transaction: the things are spoken of as facts; by these he was to prophesy, when his
lips were silent; he was to do this in the sight of the people. His situation or
disagreeable diet being enjoined of God for purposes of his glory, he would be
comfortably supported under it; and that he really used the bread spoken of,
Ezekiel 4:9, his prayer, Ezekiel 4:14, strongly implies.
1. On a tile he is commanded to pourtray the siege of Jerusalem, surrounded with
mounts, bulwarks, and battering rams; and the iron pan set between him and the
city, against which, as the representative of the Chaldean army, he lays siege,
signifies the strength of their works as a wall of iron compassing the city, and the
safety in which the besiegers lay, being thus covered; and their fixed resolution to
carry the place is implied by the prophet's face set against Jerusalem, and his arm
made bare.
2. He is ordered to lie on his left side three hundred and ninety days, and forty days
on his right; or to accomplish the number of three hundred and ninety days for
Israel, with forty for Judah, bearing their iniquity, the punishment of it, a day for a
year.
3. Bound thus by the divine order as Ezekiel was, so should the Chaldean army be,
nor stir from the place till they had carried it; and the three hundred and ninety
days, during which the prophet lay on his side, may signify the duration of the siege;
for though it continued seventeen months in all, 2 Kings 25:1-4 yet if the
interruption given to it by the Egyptians, Jeremiah 37:5 be deducted, the close siege
might not last more than those days.
4. In this way Ezekiel must prophesy, not in words, but by works, which speak
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109. strongest, and would leave them inexcusable if they refused to pay attention to them.
2nd, To affect their minds with the terribleness of the famine, which would be the
consequence of the siege, the prophet, during the three hundred and ninety days,
must use the most wretched provision, and in the most scanty measure.
1. His bread is ordered him of the vilest sort, beans, lentils, millet, fitches, mixed
with wheat and barley. To such distress would they be reduced, that the very
provender for their cattle would be greedily devoured. They who now live
luxuriously know not what straits they may be driven to ere they die.
2. He is to be very sparing of this vile food, eating his bread by weight, and drinking
water by measure, allowed barely a sufficiency to keep him alive; a token of their
great straits, and their obstinacy to hold out to the very last morsel, Jeremiah 37:21.
Note; When God's glory requires it of us, we must not hesitate to endure any
hardship, and deny ourselves the lawful comforts of life.
3. He is to bake his bread with human ordure dried, in the sight of the people, that
they might be affected with the grievousness of the famine, where fuel as well as
food would be wanting, and no distinction be made between clean and unclean. The
prophet makes no objection to the wretchedness of the food; but, apprehending that
ceremonial defilement would thence accrue to him, from every kind of which, as a
priest, he had ever carefully abstained, he prays, if God pleases, for some mitigation
in this point; and the Lord permits him to use cow's dung instead of man's. Note;
(1.) The fear of sin affects the gracious soul more than any thing beside. (2.) God's
condescension to the scruples of Ezekiel should teach us to use the like tenderness
towards our brethren, and not to grieve their weak consciences.
4. The intention of God's orders to Ezekiel is explained. He, is a sign to the people.
So sore shall be the famine during the siege of Jerusalem, that the little bread which
remained should be used with the strictest care, in order to enable them the longer
to hold out; yet, with astonishment they will find all their measures broken, their
resistance fruitless, and their affairs growing each day more desperate, consuming
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110. away for their iniquity, and astonished one with another, unable to relieve or help
each other, and shocked to behold the dire effects of famine, fatigue, and sickness,
which made the besieged appear rather as spectres than men. And at last, delivered
into the hands of the heathen, they should be compelled to eat the defiled bread of
the Gentiles, as loathsome as the cakes which the prophet baked. Such are the sad
effects of sin; and abused plenty thus justly ends in pining want.
TRAPP, "Ezekiel 4:14 Then said I, Ah Lord GOD! behold, my soul hath not been
polluted: for from my youth up even till now have I not eaten of that which dieth of
itself, or is torn in pieces; neither came there abominable flesh into my mouth.
Ver. 14. Ah Lord God! behold, my soul hath not been polluted.] Neither had it been
here by eating suchlike bread, because God bade him do it, and his command
legitimateth anything. But a good soul feareth and deprecateth all kind of pollution:
"Keep thyself pure"; [1 Timothy 5:22] "Abstain from all appearance of evil." [1
Thessalonians 5:22] The prophet in this prayer of his is very pathetic, Ah Domine
Iehovi: not Iehova, but Iehovi. See the similar passage in Genesis 15:2; Genesis 15:8,
Deuteronomy 3:24; Deuteronomy 9:26.
For from my youth up.] Let us be as careful of spiritual uncleanness; sin is the
devil’s excrement, the corruption of a dead soul. (a) Constantinus Copronymus is
reported to have delighted in stench and filth. The panther preferreth man’s dung
before any meat; so do many feed greedily on sin’s murdering morsels.
POOLE, " Ah Lord God he deprecateth this, and entreats it may not be enjoined
him. He proposeth his legal purity, as one argument; in obedience to ceremonial
precepts, he had kept himself clean, and now prays that he may not have his
obedience tried by enjoining to eat what is abominable.
From my youth up; he took early care of this, and had persevered to this age;
therefore prays mitigation, and some change in his diet or dressing of it.
110

111. That which dieth of itself; forbidden as polluted, Exodus 22:31 Leviticus 17:15
Ezekiel 44:31.
Torn in pieces; forbidden by the law also, as Exodus 22:31.
PETT, "Verse 14
‘Then said I, “Ah, Lord Yahweh. Behold my life has not been polluted, for from my
youth up, even until now, I have not eaten of what dies of itself, or is torn of beasts,
nor came there any abominable flesh into my mouth.” ’
Ezekiel had borne much without protest, but he was so appalled at the thought of
using human excrement that he made his first protest to God. He pointed out the
great care he had taken from childhood to keep himself ritually clean. He had not
eaten meat from an animal that died naturally, nor from an animal that was killed
by wild beasts (Exodus 22:31; Leviticus 11:39; Leviticus 17:15; Leviticus 22:8;
Deuteronomy 14:21). Nor had he eaten ‘abominable flesh’ (Isaiah 65:4; Leviticus
7:18; Leviticus 11:4-8; Leviticus 11:10-20; Leviticus 11:23-31; Leviticus 11:41). He
was horrified to think that now his body should be tainted by something ‘unclean’.
This brings out how dedicated a man Ezekiel had always been, scrupulous in his
dealings with things pertaining to God. And God graciously conceded to his
position. He was thoughtful concerning the feelings of His servant.
PULPIT, "Then said I, Ah, Lord God! etc. The formula is, curiously enough,
equally characteristic of Ezekiel (Ezekiel 9:8; Ezekiel 11:13; Ezekiel 20:49) and of
his teacher and contemporary (Jeremiah 1:6; Jeremiah 4:10; Jeremiah 14:13;
Jeremiah 32:17). The Vulgate represents it by A, a, a. His plea, which reminds us at
once of Daniel 1:8 and Acts 10:14, is that he has kept himself free from all
ceremonial pollution connected with food. And is he, a priest too, to do this? That be
far from him! Anything but that! The kinds of defilement of which he speaks are
noted in Exodus 22:31; Le Exodus 7:24; Exodus 11:1-10 :39, 40; Exodus 17:15. The
"abominable things" may refer either to the unclean meats catalogued in
Deuteronomy 14:3-21 (as e.g. in Isaiah 65:4), or as in the controversy of the apostolic
111

112. age (Acts 15:1-41.; 1 Corinthians 8:1; Revelation 2:20), to eating any flesh that had
been offered in sacrifice to idols. The prophet's passionate appeal is characteristic of
the extent to which his character had been influenced by the newly discovered Law
of the Lord (2 Kings 22:1-20.; 2 Chronicles 34:1-33.), i.e. probably by the Book of
Deuteronomy.
15 “Very well,” he said, “I will let you bake your
bread over cow dung instead of human
excrement.”
GILL, "Then he said to me,.... The Lord hearkened to the prophet's prayer and
argument, and makes some abatement and alteration in the charge he gave him:
lo, I have given thee cow's dung for man's dung: that is, allowed him to make use
of the one instead of the other, in baking his mingled bread:
thou shalt prepare thy bread therewith; having gathered cow's dung, and dried it,
he was to burn it, and bake his bread with it, which is meant by preparing it. In some
parts of our nation, where fuel is scarce, cow's dung is made use of; it is gathered and
plastered on the walls of houses, and, being dried in clots, is taken and burnt.
JAMISON, "Then he said unto me, Lo, I have given thee cow's dung for man's
dung, and thou shalt prepare thy bread therewith.
I have given thee cow's dung for man's dung - a mitigation of the former order
(Ezekiel 4:12); no longer "the dung of man;" still the bread so baked is "defiled;" to
imply that, whatever partial abatement there might be for the prophet's sake, the
main decree of God, as to the pollution of Israel by exile among the Gentiles, is
unalterable.
TRAPP, "Ezekiel 4:15 Then he said unto me, Lo, I have given thee cow’s dung for
man’s dung, and thou shalt prepare thy bread therewith.
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113. Ver. 15. Lo, I have given thee cow’s dung.] This was some mitigation. Something
God will yield to his praying people when most bitterly bent against them.
PETT, "Verse 15
‘Then he said, “I have given you cow’s dung for man’s excrement, and you shall
prepare bread on it.”
God allowed him to use cow dung instead of man’s excrement. Cow dung was a
recognised fuel used by many for cooking. Why then should God have required
something that he knew would appal Ezekiel, and then made such a concession? The
answer must be that it was in order to draw attention to the point in question. The
uncleanness in which His people were involved. Once that was done, and the horror
of their position had got over to Ezekiel, the concession could be made. It was after
all only a symbol. Nothing crucial depended on it. (This brings out that all these
actions were seen as symbols and not sympathetic magic. In the latter case the rules
could not have been broken or else the magic would not have worked).
16 He then said to me: “Son of man, I am about to
cut off the food supply in Jerusalem. The people
will eat rationed food in anxiety and drink
rationed water in despair,
113

114. BARNES, "The staff of bread - Bread is so called because it is that on which the
support of life mainly depends.
With astonishment - With dismay and anxiety at the calamities which are befalling
them.
CLARKE, "I will break the staff of bread - They shall be besieged till all the
bread is consumed, till the famine becomes absolute; see 2Ki_25:3 : “And on the ninth of
the fourth month, the famine prevailed in the city; and There Was No Bread for the
people of the land.” All this was accurately foretold, and as accurately fulfilled.
Abp. Newcome on 2Ki_25:6 observes: “This number of years will take us back, with
sufficient exactness, from the year in which Jerusalem was sacked by Nebuchadnezzar to
the first year of Jeroboam’s reign, when national idolatry began in Israel. The period of
days seems to predict the duration of the siege by the Babylonians, 2Ki_25:9, deducting
from the year five months and twenty-nine days, mentioned 2Ki_25:1-4, the time during
which the Chaldeans were on their expedition against the Egyptians; see Jer_37:6.” This
amounts nearly to the same as that mentioned above.
GILL, "Moreover he said unto me, son of man,.... What follows opens the design,
and shows what was intended by the symbol of the miscellany bread, baked with cow
dung, the prophet was to eat by measure, as, well as drink water by measure: namely, the
sore famine that should be in Jerusalem at the time of the siege:
behold, I will break the staff of bread in Jerusalem: that is, take away bread,
which is the staff of life, the support of it, and which strengthens man's heart; and also
the nourishing virtue and efficacy from what they had. The sense is, that the Lord would
both deprive them of a sufficiency of bread, the nourishment of man; and not suffer the
little they had to be nourishing to them; what they ate would not satisfy them, nor do
them much good; see Lev_26:26;
and they shall eat bread by weight, and with care; that they might not eat too
much at a time, but have something for tomorrow; and to cause their little stock to last
the longer, not knowing how long the siege would be:
and they shall drink water by measure, and with astonishment; that such a
judgment should fall upon them, who thought themselves the people of God, and the
favourites of heaven.
HENRY 16-17, "Now this sign is particularly explained here; it signified,
1. That those who remained in Jerusalem should be brought to extreme misery for
want of necessary food. All supplies being cut off by the besiegers, the city would soon
find the want of the country, for the king himself is served of the field; and thus the staff
of bread would be broken in Jerusalem, Eze_4:16. God would not only take away from
114

115. the bread its power to nourish, so that they should eat and not be satisfied (Lev_26:26),
but would take away the bread itself (Isa_3:1), so that what little remained should be
eaten by weight, so much a day, so much a head, that they might have an equal share
and might make it last as long as possible. But to what purpose, when they could not
make it last always, and the besieged must be tired out before the besiegers? They should
eat and drink with care, to make it go as far as might be, and with astonishment, when
they saw it almost spent and knew not which way to look for a recruit. They should be
astonished one with another; whereas it is ordinarily some alleviation of a calamity to
have others share with us in it (Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris), and some ease
to the spirit to complain of the burden, it should be an aggravation of the misery that it
was universal, and their complaining to one another should but make them all the more
uneasy and increase the astonishment. And the event shall be as bad as their fears; they
cannot make it worse than it is, for they shall consume away for their iniquity;
multitudes of them shall die of famine, a lingering death, worse than that by the sword
(Lam_4:9); they shall dies so as to feel themselves die. And it is sin that brings all this
misery upon them: They shall consume away in their iniquity (so it may be read); they
shall continue hardened and impenitent, and shall die in their sins, which is more
miserable than to die on a dunghill. Now, (1.) Let us see here what woeful work sin
makes with a people, and acknowledge the righteousness of God herein. Time was when
Jerusalem was filled with the finest of the wheat (Psa_147:14); but now it would be glad
of the coarsest, and cannot have it. Fulness of bread, as it was one of Jerusalem's
mercies, so it had become one of her sins, Eze_16:49. The plenty was abused to luxury
and excess, which were therefore thus justly punished with famine. It is a righteous
thing with God to deprive us of those enjoyments which we have made the food and fuel
of our lusts. (2.) Let us see what reason we have to bless God for plenty, not only for the
fruits of the earth, but for the freedom of commerce, that the husbandman can have
money for his bread and the tradesman bread for his money, that there is abundance not
only in the field, but in the market, that those who live in cities and great towns, though
they sow not, neither do they reap, are yet fed from day to day with food convenient.
2. It signified that those who were carried into captivity should be forced to eat their
defiled bread among the Gentiles (Eze_4:13), to eat meat made up by Gentile hands
otherwise than according to the law of the Jewish church, which they were always taught
to call defiled, and which they would have as great an aversion to as a man would have to
bread prepared with dung, that is (as perhaps it may be understood) kneaded and
moulded with dung. Daniel and his fellows confined themselves to pulse and water,
rather than they would eat the portion of the king's meat assigned them, because they
apprehended it would defile them, Dan_1:8. Or they should be forced to eat putrid meat,
such as their oppressors would allow them in their slavery, and such as formerly they
would have scorned to touch. Because they served not God with cheerfulness in the
abundance of all things, God will make them serve their enemies in the want of all
things.
JAMISON, "Moreover he said unto me, Son of man, behold, I will break the staff of
bread in Jerusalem: and they shall eat bread by weight, and with care; and they
shall drink water by measure, and with astonishment:
115

116. I will break the staff of bread - bread by which life is supported, as a man's weight
is by the staff he leans on (Leviticus 26:26; Psalms 105:16; Isaiah 3:1).
By weight, and with care - in scant measure (Ezekiel 4:10)
CALVIN, "God returns again to the citizens of Jerusalem, and announces that they
should be so destroyed by famine, that they should be reduced to the last extremity,
and all but consumed by want. But he places here two forms of punishment: he says,
that he should break the staff of bread: then, that their abundance of bread should
be small, because they would be compelled to eat their morsels by weight and fear,
and to drink water by measure and astonishment. I said they were different forms,
because even if bread was sufficient, God often breaks its staff, as he calls it. And
this clearly appears from Leviticus 26:26, whence our Prophet has adopted this
expression. For here Moses explains what it is to break the staff of bread; because,
he says, ten women shall cook their bread in one dish, and then they must bona fide
restore the quantity of meal given them; for the bread shall be weighed, and thou
shalt eat and not be satisfied. There God had said, I will break the staff of bread:
but a clearer explanation follows — namely, although wheat for cooking the bread
should be sufficient, and the women should mutually observe each other that no
theft should take place, but should return in weight what had been given out to
them, yet its nourishment should be deficient. We see then that God breaks the staff
of bread, when a sufficiently plentiful supply exists, but those who eat are not
satisfied.
That this may appear more clearly, we muse assume the principle that men do not
live by bread only, but by every word which proceedeth out of the mouth of God,
(Deuteronomy 8:3,) for here God signifies that we are not nourished by virtue of the
bread, properly speaking: for how can bread be life-giving when it wants both sense
and vigor? We see then that there is no force in bread to nourish us which excludes
the hidden grace of God, for we live by the word of God. The subject here is not the
word of doctrine nor yet spiritual life; but Moses understands that we are sustained
not by bread and wine and other food, or by any kind of drink, but by the secret
virtue Of God whilst he inspires the bread with rigor for our nourishment. Bread
then is our nourishment, but not by any peculiar or intrinsic virtue: this it has from
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117. another source, namely, the favor and ordination of God. As, therefore, a small
portion of bread is sufficient; for us, so if any one gorge himself he will cry out
sooner than be satisfied, unless God inspires the virtue. And for this reason Christ
uses that passage against Satan: Man lives not by bread alone, (Matthew 4:4; Luke
4:4,) because he shows that the life of man was propped up by the secret virtue of
God, and that God, whenever it pleases him, does not need these foreign assistances.
God then can sustain us by himself: sometimes he uses bread, but only as an
adventitious instrument; in the meantime he derogates nothing from his own virtue:
hence a staff is taken metaphorically for a prop. For as old men already totter on
their legs, and all their limbs being broken down by weakness, support themselves
with a staff, so also bread is said to have a staff, because we are propped up by the
nourishment. Our strength also becomes deficient, and hence he who takes
nourishment is said to refresh himself with food. God, therefore, breaks the staff of
bread when he renders men famished, even when they have a sufficient abundance
of bread. Neither are they satisfied, how much soever they may gorge themselves,
because the food loads instead of refreshes them.
This is the first punishment with which God threatens the Jews. Another also is
added, namely, that they shall be destitute of bread. We see then that there is a
double mode by which God punishes us by hunger. For although bread is sufficient,
yet he breaks and destroys its staff, so that it cannot prop us up nor recall our lost
vigor. At length he takes away our bread, because he either strikes our fruits with
blight or hail, or makes us suffer under other calamities. Hence barrenness brings
want, so that God will affect us with hunger both ways: for he says, behold! I will
break the staff of bread in Jerusalem, and then he adds, they shall eat their bread
by weight and in fear, they shall drink their water by measure and in astonishment,
because in truth they shall be reduced to such straits that they shall scarcely dare to
touch their bread, because while they look forward to the morrow they shall fear
and be astonished. And he confirms this opinion in the next verse, that they shall be
destitute of bread and water, and shall be astonished: for this explanation agrees
better; therefore a man and his brother shall be astonished, that is, they shall look
mutually on each other as if astonished. Thus those who are without wisdom and
discern nothing but despair are accustomed to act: at length they shall pine away in
their iniquity. Again God repeats that the Jews could not complain when he so
grievously afflicts them, because they shall receive the reward of their own iniquity.
Now follows —
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118. ELLICOTT, "(16) I will break the staff of bread in Jerusalem.—In Ezekiel 4:16-17,
the meaning of the foregoing symbolism is declared in plain language. Bread, as the
chief article of food is put for all food, the specific for the general. There shall be
extreme suffering and distress, as a part of the punishment for their long-continued
sins.
TRAPP, "Ezekiel 4:16 Moreover he said unto me, Son of man, behold, I will break
the staff of bread in Jerusalem: and they shall eat bread by weight, and with care;
and they shall drink water by measure, and with astonishment:
Ver. 16. Behold, I will break (a) the staff of bread.] Bread shall be very scarce, and
that which men have shall not nourish or satisfy them; they shall have appetitnm
caninum. See Isaiah 3:1; {See Trapp on "Isaiah 3:1"} and take that good counsel,
[Amos 5:14-15] lest we know the worth of good by the want of it.
POOLE, " Here the Lord confirms his threat of famine by a solemn protestation
that he would break the staff of bread; either take their, harvests away, and deny
them bread, or withhold his blessing, the strength of bread, that it should not
nourish and refresh, as Leviticus 26:26.
In Jerusalem, that sinful city.
By weight: see Ezekiel 4:10.
With care; afraid and doubtful whether or where they shall have any more.
By measure: Ezekiel 4:11.
With astonishment; amazed at the strangeness of their condition, and the wounds
118

119. and death of many that fell by the enemies’ hand, attempting to fetch a little water;
or astonished, their very eyes failing for thirst.
PETT, "Verse 16-17
‘Moreover he said to me, “Son of man, behold, I will break the staff of bread in
Jerusalem, and they will eat bread by weight and with carefulness, and they will
drink water by measure and with dismay, that they may want bread and water, and
be dismayed one with another, and pine away in their iniquity.” ’
‘The staff of bread.’ Compare Ezekiel 5:16; Ezekiel 14:13. To ‘break the staff of
bread’ was to take away the provisions on which man depended for survival, the
things on which he leaned. Thus ample provision in Jerusalem would cease and be
replaced by shortage and famine, so that bread had to be measured out and eaten
with careful consideration and discrimination, in order that it might be made to last,
and water also would be given by measure, with dismay and astonishment at the
shortage of it. Indeed they would reach a point when they both craved it, and lacked
it, because the shortage was so great. And they would waste away because of their
sinful ways and hearts.
The question must arise as to whether Ezekiel had to stick strictly to this diet, or
whether it only applied to daylight hours. There are actually no grounds for
doubting that it was strictly required. The ‘bed sores’ and the sight of Ezekiel
growing thinner and thinner may well have been part of the illustration, although
possibly concession might have been allowed if things became too desperate,
especially as regards water. God would be there watching over him. It was the
principle revealed that was important, not the fulfilling of the minute detail.
PULPIT, "The staff of bread. The phrase occurs again in Ezekiel 5:16; Ezekiel
14:13, and also in Le 26:26; Psalms 105:16. In Isaiah 3:1 the thought is the same, but
the Hebrew word is different. They shall eat bread by weight, etc. The phrase
occurs, it may be noted, in Le 26:26, one of the verses above referred to. The care
and astonishment, implying that the wonted cheerfulness of meals would have
119

120. departed, meet us again in Ezekiel 12:19.
17 for food and water will be scarce. They will be
appalled at the sight of each other and will waste
away because of[d] their sin.
GILL, "That they may want bread and water,.... Or, "because they shall want" (l)
&c. therefore they shall eat the one, and drink the other, by weight; or they shall do this
till there shall be none to eat and drink:
and be astonished one with another; when they shall find they cannot relieve one
another; and not knowing what method to take for the support of nature:
and consume away for their iniquity; their flesh upon them black through famine,
putrid and noisome; and they wasting, pining, and consuming; reduced to skin and
bones; and disagreeable to look upon; and all because of their sins and iniquities.
JAMISON, "That they may want bread and water, and be astonied one with
another, and consume away for their iniquity. That they may ... be astonied one with
another - mutually regard one another with astonishment - i:e., with the stupefied
look of despairing want.
Remarks:
(1) Ezekiel by a vivid representation pourtrayed prophetically the coming siege of
Jerusalem, and the wall of separation which God had placed between Himself and
the people who once had been so closely united to Him (Ezekiel 4:1-3). Iniquity and
apostasy separate between a people and their God (Isaiah 59:2) so that, instead of
encompassing them with His favour as with a shield (Psalms 5:12), He gives them up
to be environed by their enemies. Let us he warned by the "sign" which the house of
Israel is to us, to know that faithfulness to our God is the only path of security and
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121. peace.
(2) The prophet also symbolically bore the iniquity of Israel and Judah for the
respective times appointed to both (Ezekiel 4:4-6). The severe and lengthened
discipline of chastisement was designed for their good at last, God having mercy in
store for His ancient people in their latter end, when He has first thoroughly
pleaded with them in "the wilderness of the people" (Ezekiel 20:35). Similarly God
"hath laid on Christ the iniquity of us all" (Isaiah 53:4; Isaiah 53:6; Isaiah 53:12);
but in the case of those who have a saving and lasting interest in the atonement of
the great Sin-bearer, God sees fit to put them through a discipline of chastisement,
that they may be made partakers of His holiness, and heirs of His blessedness at last.
(3) The long sojourn of Israel among the Gentiles, in the midst of pagan defilements,
and this in hunger, in thirst, and in want of all things (Deuteronomy 28:48), is
represented by Ezekiel living on a very coarse and stinted diet; his bread, moreover,
being baked with dung (Ezekiel 4:9-15). The famine at the siege of Jerusalem also is
foreshadowed. Such are the evils which sin begets. When the people of God, in soul
and spirit, have become assimilated to the people of the ungodly world,it is in
righteous retribution appointed that the external condition of the former also shall
be brought down to the same low level as the latter. Nothing but a close and
consistent walk with God can raise us unequivocally to a sublime elevation above
the world.
(4) Ezekiel was more concerned at being required to eat what offended his
conscience, than at being required to eat what was not pleasing to his palate (Ezekiel
4:14). Let us always seek to have this testimony of our conscience, that in all, even
the least things, our desire is to walk religiously before God and before man.
(5) In the abundance of our food, and even of luxuries, we are too apt to forget the
miseries from which we are exempt, and to which others are exposed who have not a
sufficiency of provisions. May God give us, besides His other countless gifts, a truly
grateful heart!
TRAPP, "Ezekiel 4:17 That they may want bread and water, and be astonied one
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122. with another, and consume away for their iniquity.
Ver. 17. And be astonied.] At their straits and disappointments.
And consume away for their iniquity.] They. shall "pine away in their iniquity";
[Leviticus 26:31] this is the last and worst of judgments there threatened, after those
other dismal ones.
POOLE, "The Lord will take away their provision, that they may die with want,
punished for all their sins, and disappointed of all that their false prophets promised
them; and under strangest disappointments, be filled with strangest amazements
and horrors, at the woeful miseries of one another, and falling dead in each other’s
helpless sight.
PULPIT, "Consume away for their iniquity, etc. Another echo from the book which
had entered so largely into the prophet's education (see Le 26:39, where the Hebrew
for "pine" is the same as that here rendered "consume"). To the wretchedness of
physical privation there was to be added the consciousness of the sufferers that it
was caused by their own evil deeds.
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