Ezekiel 4:17

4:9-17 The bread which was Ezekiel's support, was to be made of coarse grain and pulse mixed together, seldom used except in times of urgent scarcity, and of this he was only to take a small quantity. Thus was figured the extremity to which the Jews were to be reduced during the siege and captivity. Ezekiel does not plead, Lord, from my youth I have been brought up delicately, and never used to any thing like this; but that he had been brought up conscientiously, and never had eaten any thing forbidden by the law. It will be comfortable when we are brought to suffer hardships, if our hearts can witness that we have always been careful to keep even from the appearance of evil. See what woful work sin makes, and acknowledge the righteousness of God herein. Their plenty having been abused to luxury and excess, they were justly punished by famine. When men serve not God with cheerfulness in the abundance of all things, God will make them serve their enemies in the want of all things.

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. (l) "eo quod", Munster, Vatablus; "propterea", Tigurine version.

Verse 17. - Consume away for their iniquity, etc. Another echo from the book which had entered so largely into the prophet's education (see Leviticus 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. Ezekiel 4:17

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.

The third symbolical act. - Ezekiel 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. Ezekiel 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. Ezekiel 4:11 . And water shalt thou drink according to measure, a sixth part of the hin, from time to time shalt thou drink it. Ezekiel 4:12 . And as barley cakes shalt thou eat it, and shalt bake it before their eyes with human excrement. Ezekiel 4:13 . And Jehovah spake; then shall the children of Israel eat their bread polluted amongst the heathen, whither I shall drive them. Ezekiel 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. Ezekiel 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. Ezekiel 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. Ezekiel 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. Archol. II. p. 141). The Israelites, probably, generally prepared the עגּות from wheat flour, and not merely when they had guests ( Genesis 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 ( Judges 7:13 ; 2 Kings 4:42 ; John 6:9 ; see on 1 Kings 5:8 ); פּול, "beans," a common food of the Hebrews ( 2 Samuel 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.