“Take for yourself also wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and spelt, and put them in one vessel. Make bread of it. According to the number of the days that you will lie on your side, even three hundred ninety days, you shall eat of it.
Parallel Translations
-
“Take for yourself also wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and spelt, and put them in one vessel. Make bread of it. According to the number of the days that you will lie on your side, even three hundred ninety days, you shall eat of it.
-
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, and beans, and lentils, and millet, and spelt, 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, even three hundred and ninety days, shalt thou eat thereof.
Cross-references (3)
Passages linked to Ezekiel 4:9 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Ezekiel 4:13 Yahweh said, “Even thus will the children of Israel eat their bread unclean, among the nations where I will drive them.”
- Isaiah 28:25 When he has leveled its surface, doesn’t he plant the dill, and scatter the cumin seed, and put in the wheat in rows, the barley in the appointed place, and the spelt in its place?
- Ezekiel 4:16 Moreover he said to me, “Son of man, behold, I will break the staff of bread in Jerusalem. They will eat bread by weight, and with fearfulness. They will drink water by measure, and in dismay;
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (20 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
Private notes
Saved on this device only — never synced or sent anywhere.
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain It is by no means doubtful, that this verse…
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:
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Meaning, that the famine should be so great, that…
Meaning, that the famine should be so great, that they should be glad to eat whatsoever they could get.
Which were fourteen months that the city was besieged, and this was as many days as Israel sinned years.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Eze 4:9 Take thou also unto thee wheat, and…
Eze 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.
Read full note →
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 Eze 4:4, Sleep thou also upon thy left side, &c.; but lying and sleeping are distinct things, as may be seen, Psa 3:5; Psa 4:8.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Provide thee corn enough; for a grievous famine will…
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.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain The best exposition of this part of Ezekiel's prediction…
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 for 390 days to coarse fare and short commons, and that ill-dressed, for they should want both food and fuel.
Read full note →
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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
II. 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 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.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Take thou also unto thee wheat, and barley, and…
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 Kg2 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:
Read full note →
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.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain Take - Provide thee corn enough: for a grievous…
Take - Provide thee corn enough: for a grievous famine will accompany the siege. Wheat - All sorts of grain are to be provided, and all will be little enough. One vessel - Mix the worst with the best to lengthen out the provision.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 9. Take thou also unto thee wheat] In…
Verse 9. 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.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Eze 4:9. Take thou also wheat and barley, &c.…
Eze 4:9. Take thou also wheat and barley, &c. — In times of scarcity it is usual for people to mix a great deal of the coarse kinds of grain with a little of the better sort, to make their provisions last the longer. This Ezekiel was commanded to do, to signify the scarcity, and the coarse fare the inhabitants should have in the siege of the city. Three hundred and ninety days thou shalt eat thereof — During which time the siege lasted: see Eze 4:8. The forty days, mentioned Eze 4:6, seem not to be brought into this account. These, denoting Judah’s sin of forty years’ continuance, being superadded to the three hundred and ninety days of the siege, may signify the days spent in spoiling and desolating the city and temple, and carrying away the remnant of the people. Jerusalem was taken on the ninth day of the fourth month, Jer 52:6; and on the tenth day of the fifth month the temple was burned, Eze 4:12; and so we may reasonably conjecture by the eighteenth of that month, which was the fortieth from the taking of the place, the whole city was burned, and the few Jews who were left were carried into captivity: see Lowth.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain Two things are prefigured in the remainder of this…
Two things are prefigured in the remainder of this chapter,
(1) the hardships of exile,
Read full note →
(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, 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.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain wheat . . . barley, &c.--Instead of simple flour…
wheat . . . barley, &c.--Instead of simple flour used for delicate cakes (Gen 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.
Read full note →
three hundred and ninety--The forty days are omitted, since these latter typify the wilderness period when Israel stood separate from the Gentiles and their pollution, though partially chastened by stint of bread and water (Eze 4:16), whereas the eating of the polluted bread in the three hundred ninety days implies a forced residence "among the Gentiles" who were polluted with idolatry (Eze 4:13). This last is said of "Israel" primarily, as being the most debased (Eze 4:9-15); they had spiritually sunk to a level with the heathen, therefore God will make their condition outwardly to correspond. Judah and Jerusalem fare less severely, being less guilty: they are to "eat bread by weight and with care," that is, have a stinted supply and be chastened with the milder discipline of the wilderness period. But Judah also is secondarily referred to in the three hundred ninety days, as having fallen, like Israel, into Gentile 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 (Eze 4:16).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain THE PROPHET’S FOOD SYMBOLIZING THE CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE…
THE PROPHET’S FOOD SYMBOLIZING THE CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE IN EXILE, Eze_4:9-17.
The prophet is commanded to take of all kinds of grain and make the mixture into cakes, which he shall bake with dung, and of which he shall eat very sparingly. This is to show the impoverished condition of the people in the siege (Eze_4:16-17), and also their pollution during the exile (Eze_4:13).
Read full note →
9. Fitches — R.V., “spelt.” “Bread was usually made of wheat; the addition of the other coarser materials, and their mixture, indicate the straits to which men will be reduced in the siege and perhaps after the fall of the city.” — Davidson. “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.” — Plumptre.
Three hundred and ninety days — LXX., one hundred and ninety days. That is, all the time the prophet lies on his side before the besieged city (Eze_4:5).
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 9. and fitches] So Vulg. viciam, vetches. Others spelt,…
9. and fitches] So Vulg. viciam, vetches. Others spelt, as marg. and R.V. Bread was usually made of wheat, the addition of the other coarser materials and their mixture indicate the straits to which men will be reduced in the siege and perhaps after the fall of the city; cf. Lam_5:6; Lam_5:10, “We gave the hand to the Egyptians and to the Assyrians to be satisfied with bread … Our skin was black like an oven because of the terrible famine.” It is not certain that a mixture of various kinds of grain was regarded as a thing unclean, though the Law forbade sowing a field with divers sorts of seed, Lev_19:19; cf. Deu_22:9.
three hundred and ninety] Probably 190 should be read as in Eze_4:5. The language here shews that the 190 (or, 390) was the whole number, and that the 40 for Judah were not additional but included.
Read full note →
9–17. Symbol of scarcity during the siege and pollution in the dispersion from having to eat unclean things among the Gentiles
The passage continues Eze_4:8. The prophet is commanded (while lying immovably on his side in siege) to take of all kinds of grain, coarse as well as fine, of everything that will still hunger, and cast them into one vessel. These are to be baked into cakes and fired with hot ashes of men’s dung, though on the prophet’s entreaty a relaxation of this repulsive condition is granted and he is allowed to substitute the dung of cows. These cakes are to be eaten sparingly in small quantity from time to time, and water drunk with them sparingly. And this use of the cakes so prepared is to continue all the time that the prophet lies on his side. These actions symbolize first, great scarcity and straitness during the siege (Eze_4:16-17); and secondly, pollution from eating unclean things in the exile among the nations (Eze_4:13).
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (9) Take thou also unto thee wheat.—The grains enumerated…
(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, at least, a plain violation of its spirit (Lev_19:19; Deu_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.)
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Take thou also unto thee, etc. The act implies,…
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 (ver. 13). Starting with the former, the prophet is told to make bread, not of wheat, the common food of the wealthier class (Psa_81:16 Psa_147:14; Jer_12:13 Jer_41:8) nor of barley, the chief food of the poor (Eze_13:19; Hos_3:2; Joh_6:9) but of these mixed with beans, (2Sa_17:28) lentils (Gen_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 Isa_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 Deu_22:9, that it would be regarded as in itself unclean.
Vers. 9-17. A symbolic famine.
Read full note →
The moral intention for which God imposed this series of painful privations on his prophet was this, viz. to convince the people that their expectation of a speedy return to Jerusalem was vain and futile. Their honoured city, around which God had so long thrown the shield of his protection, could not (so they thought) long remain in the power of the heathen. To explode this bubble delusion, God represented before their eyes the rigours of a military siege, the privations and hardships of the beleaguered inhabitants, along with the final discomfiture of the city"s guilty defenders. The prophet in Babylon is still a scapegoat for the people. On him the weight of the stroke at present rests. The bends of sympathy with the people"s best interests constrained the prophet to suffer with them and for them. Hence, during three hundred and ninety days he ate no pleasant bread; he lived on the narrowest rations. In the midst of surrounding plenty, he fared (for sublime moral reasons) with the hard pressed and beleaguered Jews. Now, famine has its moral uses.
I IT BRINGS TO MEMORY THE FORMER AFFLUENCE OF GOD"S PROVISION. If it is possible to sustain our life with ten ounces of bread per diem, and this bread of the coarsest description, then all that we obtain beyond this is proof of the exuberant kindness of our God. As transgressors against God"s Law, we should not expect more than bare subsistence mere prison fare; we have no right to claim even that. Taking this scale with which to measure our former possessions and comforts, we may gain some conception of the amazing love of God. Would that, side by side with a clear idea of his goodness, there was also adequate impression! Every gift of Providence, in excess of bare sustenance, is a token of God"s tender affection; brings a message of kindness is a gospel.
II FAMINE MAY WELL CONVINCE US OF OUR SINS. We may safely conclude that it is not for small reason that God deprives men of nature"s kindly gifts. The internal monitor, as well as the external prophet, teaches us that this interruption of providential supplies is God"s act. Many and strange factors may intervene, but a clear eye looks through and beyond all inferior causes, until it discovers the rule of the great First Cause. The pride of earthly kings, the march of armies, the scrutiny of martial sentinels, biting frosts, blustering winds, inroads of insects a thousand things may serve as the nearest visible cause of famine; but a devout mind will regard all these as the agents and administrators of the most high God. For no other reason would he manifest his anger, save for moral transgression, wilful disloyalty! He would have us to see and to feel how great an evil is sin, by the serious mischief it works yea, by the severity of his own displeasure. Even famine serves as the Master"s ferule, if it brings us back to childlike obedience.
III FAMINE PROVES TO US HOW EASY IT IS FOR GOD TO AFFLICT. Very obvious is it that frail man hangs on God by a thousand delicate threads. Ten thousand minute avenues are open by which an enemy can approach, chastisement come near. We almost shudder as we think of the manifold forms, and of the majestic ease, with which the avenging God could scourge his rebellious creatures. Let him but change one ingredient in the all-nurturing air, and instead of inhaling health, we should, with every breath, inhale fiery poison. If but the appetite fail, if the digestive organs become weak, if secretions stay their process, lassitude and decay speedily follow. It is enough that God should speak a word, and life for us would be stripped of charm. We should crave to die.
IV THIS SCARCITY PROVES THAT PRESENT CHASTISEMENT IS DISCIPLINARY. It is not sudden and irremediable death. If God intended that, he would have chosen some other punitive weapon. But this reduction of food to a minimum, this suspension of enjoyment, these obnoxious necessities in preparing a meat, all indicate correction with a view to repentance. If only the sighs of true penitence arise, then quicker than flashing light does God run to remove the burden from our shoulders. To punish men is a grief to God; to pardon is his delight. Yet if present corrections avail nothing to produce righteous obedience, the final infliction will be irrevocable and overwhelming.
V PRAYER MODIFIES, IF IT DOES NOT REMOVE, THE SEVERITY OF THE STROKE. The windows of heaven were shut and opened again at the breath of Elijah"s prayer. Ezekiel humbly remonstrates with God that he may not be required to violate ceremonial purity. At once the command of God is modified. The tenderness of the prophet"s conscience is to be respected. God alters not his plans without sufficient cause; this is sufficient cause. This particular step in his procedure was clearly foreseen; and it was to bring out this request from Ezekiel that the first demand was made. Prayer not only expresses mental desire; it strengthens it also. It does us good every way. It fits us to enjoy, and to improve, the blessing. It softens chastisement. D.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain Even thus shall the children of Israel eat their…
Eze_4:9-17
Even thus shall the children of Israel eat their defiled bread.
Read full note →
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.)
.
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain Scanty means of subsistence symbolising punishment (chap. Eze_4:9-17)
Scanty means of subsistence symbolising punishment (chap. Eze_4:9-17)
EXEGETICAL NOTES.—Eze_4:9. The several sorts of vegetable food—the richest and the poorest in nutritive elements—being placed “in one vessel,” signified that all classes of the population would be obliged to gather every particle they could, and then find it difficult to obtain sufficient provisions. The “bread” from such a mixture was to be made by Ezekiel in a quantity corresponding to “the number of the days that thou shalt be on thy side, three hundred and ninety days.” This is the period of Israel’s punishment as referred to in Eze_4:5. It is a sign of the time during which the ten tribes should remain in captivity among the Gentiles, and of the low estate in which they would be there.
Read full note →
Eze_4:10. Of the prescribed food Ezekiel was to “eat by weight twenty shekels a day,” somewhere about ten ounces of English measure, and a very scanty portion for ordinary healthful nourishment; but, as in instances of shipwreck and sieges, meant to maintain life as long as possible—“too much for dying, too little for living.” “From time to time shalt thou eat it:” not to make one poor meal, but to take a “ration” at stated intervals.
Eze_4:11. So also “thou shalt drink water by measure, the sixth part of a hin”—about a pint, and sadly insufficient for a climate like that of Central Asia.
Eze_4:12. The food was to be eaten, as common “barley cakes” still are in the East, after having been baked in hot ashes; but with a strange peculiarity, “thou shalt bake it with dung that cometh out of man” (cf. Isa_32:12). The dung was not to be used as an ingredient of the cakes, as has been strangely supposed, but of the fuel. The use of human ordure in fuel was not practised, and the order to employ it was meant to indicate “in their sight”—for clear and deep impression—that which is stated in
Eze_4:13. “The Lord said, Even thus shall the children of Israel eat their defiled bread among the Gentiles.” The children of Israel would find themselves, during the period of their captivity, in such a condition that the laws of Moses in reference to foods could hardly be kept. They would have to eat their bread defiled—what their souls might loathe—and so would become almost as the heathen. They would not be able to boast of their special separateness.
Eze_4:14. Ezekiel had submissively accepted the divine appointments hitherto—he makes a protest now. “Then said I, Ah Lord God! behold, my soul hath not been polluted;” and he goes on to specify certain kinds of forbidden food from which he had rigidly abstained. The rigidness was all the more appropriate in that Ezekiel was dwelling in a heathen country. By means of adhering to all ritual observances a fence was planted round Israel against the encroachment of conquering heathendom, and the prophet was a rallying-point for strength to the exiled people when they strove to live not as did the heathens. The observance of legal institutions that could be observed outside of the Holy Land was consistently maintained by Ezekiel, and he argues from the particular commands in reference to foods to the general obligation which he acknowledged in reference to everything by which he would have been consciously defiled. It is the appeal of a servant who has gone far beyond obedience to the mere letter—who is sensitively alive to being clean in heart as well as in act—who would shun the appearance of evil. For he could not plead any commandment prohibiting the use of the prescribed fuel; he could make a plea only from his own disgust, which was not simply that of his senses, but also of his moral feelings. It is no sign of priestism in Ezekiel. Peter the apostle, who was not a priest, showed something of the same spirit. But the case of Peter (Act_10:14), who was not a captive, is not altogether parallel to this. The only point of similarity is that Peter had “not eaten anything common or unclean.”
Eze_4:15. The answer to Ezekiel’s protest is a relaxation of the original order. “Then he said unto me, Lo I have given thee cow’s dung for man’s dung.” Nothing is more usual in those parts of the East than to observe cow’s dung, mixed with grass, straw, &c., made up into fuel for cooking. It is not likely that Ezekiel, any more than his neighbours, would consider himself polluted by eating cakes baked with this inodorous material, and so he makes no objection to the command, “Thou shalt prepare thy bread therewith.”
Eze_4:16. “I will break the staff of bread in Jerusalem.” This alludes to the forty days during which Ezekiel was to lie on his right side, and signified that, in the period of Judah’s sufferings corresponding thereto, a lack of sufficient nourishment to sustain activities with energy would be experienced. The bread would not be polluted, as the bread given in the wilderness was not polluted, by the place; but as the natural supply found there was not sufficient for the wants of a multitude, so the supplies for Judah would be marked by scantiness: still the punishment would not be so severe or so continuous as that of Israel. It was that of a remnant, and would be “cut short in righteousness.” In the besieged city “they shall eat bread by weight and with care,” as those who are hard put to and auxious; “they shall drink water by measure and with astonishment,” as in perplexed wonder whether and when the sources would run dry.
Eze_4:17. The Lord had reason for this procedure. His broken covenant necessitated that they should feel a deficiency of “bread and water, and be astonied,” be in perplexity and wonder, “one with another,” each and all, “and consume away,” become gaunt and offensive, “for their iniquity.” Hunger and thirst, sorrow and dismay, would fall upon the sinners in Zion, as the ancient book of the law had threatened (Lev_26:39).
HOMILETICS
GOD’S ACTION AGAINST INIQUITIES AFFECTING HIS SERVANTS
1. Servants who know the Lord’s will and do it not sink into destitution and perils similar to theirs who sit in darkness and have no light. This aggravation of the misery cannot but be experienced, viz., contrast with the blessings which they have forfeited by misuse. Israel had rejected its God, had chosen the way of the heathen, and having thus broken the conditions of its covenant with God, nothing remained but that it should be treated as the heathen. The son has left his father’s house, wasted his substance, fallen into want, and is on the verge of perishing with hunger. Not the worthiness of godly friends, not the calling ourselves Christians, not observance of the external rites of worship can hinder from entering into the state of those who live as without God in the world. A professedly Christian nation may be largely affected by commercial depression, sorrow, despondency, doubt, and dark fears for the future, if it is not true to God. The statement is sometimes made that Christian nations are no better than heathen nations, and the grounds for it, if we could see clearly, might be perceived in some indifference, neglect, antagonism to the holy, just, and good law of God. All evil things which transpire prove that He will not be mocked; least of all by those to whom He has manifested His righteousness and love. They must bear the fate of the heathen, whatever be their surprise and repugnance at what is undergone.
2. Servants who do His will are subjected to trials in common with those by whom they are surrounded. The bands which bind men into society are not forged so as to allow an escape, from evils which are rife in the community, for one of its constituent parts. They who fear the Lord fall into straitness, hunger, become weakly, if the circumstances in which they dwell are replete with the influences which produce such effects. Innocent children suffer from famine as well as men whose actions have contributed to the intensity of the famine; so does the man who humbly prays for relief as well as the man who curses the hardships he has to put up with. It is not in freedom from the troubles which stir in their environment that the sons of God are to find their comfort; it is in the conviction that they have not gone with a multitude to do evil, and that God writes their names in His book of remembrance. If they receive good in society from the hand of the Lord, shall they not receive evil also?
Every one who wants to be where the Supreme Will directs him to be, and to help the brothers who are within his power to reach, must be ready to encounter pinchings, disgusts, wearying hopes, anguish as well as sufficient grace. The Christ must needs “suffer many things” by coming amongst men, and His servants who would walk in His spirit may look for trials which, in a sense, they do not deserve. Let them see in Ezekiel one who, like themselves, had neither the mission nor the resources of Jesus Christ, and be instructed to take up and endure galling burdens for the welfare of the people in whose sufferings they are associated. Not in vain shall they suffer according to the will of God.
“Those periods of tribulation and chastisement, which the prophet here represents, have they not a voice for other times?… The lukewarm and fruitless professor—so long as he cleaves to the way of iniquity, and refuses to yield a hearty surrender to the will of God—is in bondage to the elements of the world, and therefore can have no part in that good land which floweth with milk and honey. The doom of Heaven’s condemnation hangs suspended over his head; and if not averted by a timely submission to the righteousness of God, and a cordial entrance into the bond of the covenant, he shall infallibly perish in the wilderness of sin and death.”—Fairbairn.
SENSITIVENESS TO SPIRITUAL EVIL (Chap. Eze_4:12-15)
Burden-bearing with others, and to any extent for them, may expose to unpleasant associations and proceedings. Past habits and confirmed tastes may receive shocks which are hard to withstand. Yet the duty has to be done for the Lord. In such difficulties against service we must not accept their darkest aspects. We must learn to apply our natural shrinking from what is unpleasant to the case before us, and proceed according to the light which may be given to us. Our sensitiveness to anything that we feel unbecoming should inform us—
1. That we have to maintain past faithfulness to duty. Ezekiel did not like the thought of turning out of the way in which he had hitherto walked and kept himself pure. It was no ignoble consistency he was desirous to preserve. Consistency may be a fault when it weds us to what is unwise and not truly kind. It is a grand thing when it impresses the need of being able to hold ourselves in self-respect by being obedient to what we regard as right and sacred. What more honourable in a young man than that he will say, “I have not been discredited by low and offensive habits, and I shrink from them with loathing”? Or for a man, who is known to profess allegiance to Christ the King, to say, “I have not been contracting the taints of the spirit of the world; I have not been a cause of reproach to the Blessed Name by my cold disregard of the interests of the kingdom of Christ, and I shudder at the idea of doing anything which will seem contrary to my past conduct”? Yet there may be something more. There may be such a susceptibility to the appearance of evil that men will deprecate being taken into a course on which they may have to touch that which is not morally wrong, but which offends their taste for what is spiritually pure. It is bad to have one string out of tune. In seeking our own improvement, a book whose suggestions are not altogether true and holy could be read; in seeking the best way of helping others we might see unclean courts and houses, and contact with smutty persons might appear in view. What man or woman, sensitive to the continuance of their pureness of thought and conduct, would not rise up with the cry, “O my soul! come not thou into their secrets; unto their assembly, mine honour, be not thou united”? By past separateness from evil becomes a ground from which to act against approaching, apparently defiling influences. The man who has lived “unspotted from the world” will not readily reconcile himself to step into a place where his garments may become soiled. His faithfulness heretofore to the requirements of the holy law will impel him to repudiate what might seem to defile him now.
How blessed would this earth be if the hearts of all people deprecated everything which would lower the standard of moral taste or shake confidence in the prosecution of the high prize of a stainless life!
2. That we should regard our inward feelings as well as the external act in respect to what is required of us. The inward is not to be sullied. The Master’s decision has for ever placed the state of men’s hearts in a more important position than that of their words and deeds. That which comes out of the heart is that which defiles, and every one who would be as his Master must endeavour to keep the heart so clean as that no pollution shall mingle in its movements. It is a true stimulus to struggling believers to hear, from the lips of one of ancient days, such an appeal as this of the burdened prophet. How it may urge us to guard our acquired sensitiveness to defiling acts, to keep that which we have already attained, and long to be prevented from all filthiness of the spirit, so as to perfect holiness in the fear of the Lord!
The outward is not to be accepted without appeal. The hard and irksome processes appointed for Ezekiel might be entered into by him, but he wanted part of them to be less unpleasant and trying to his tender conscience. So he sought for an alteration in the requirement. Thus it seems that what is the present will of God may not be followed by immediate acquiescence. An attack of disease does not compel the patient to say, “I must submit, without an effort to get rid of it.” The disobedient act of a child, which must be punished, does not demand the parent to inflict that kind of punishment against which the child revolts. The contents of that cup, in which the venom of the world’s sins was concentrated, could not be drank, by Him who came on purpose to drink it, without a cry of aversion towards the awful task of love. And we are bound to make every attempt at extrication from external proceedings with which we have to do, if we are likely to suffer any moral defilement by them. “It were better for me to die than that any man should make my glorying void.” But no outer event can hurt our souls unless our souls turn it to evil.
3. That alleviation to our souls will be granted by God. No command of God to His servants can have an element in it which will really deprave their souls. Still that fact does not dim His fatherly pity so that He cannot see their shrinkings. Let a change not disparage His justice, holiness, truth, and He is willing to alter the conditions of His instructions, and make them less dreadful to the moral fastidiousness of His own. He has a respect even for their exaggerated feelings, and in His wisdom and love mitigates that which pains them. He pities them “like a father.” He does not desire to impose one unnecessary pang upon them. They may ask Him for whatsoever alleviation might ease their trouble and revulsions, in the hope that He will relax the stringency of His demands, if He does not renounce them. We have to do with God, who has tender compassion for every one who wants to be pure in heart. He does not quench the smoking flax.
“Let it teach us not to be rigid and stick to our wills, and think it disparagement to abate of our wills and right, and yield to others, when God, who is infinitely above us, can yield to us, and doth so daily, bearing our infirmities.”—Greenhill.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain The Symbols of the Famine
The Symbols of the Famine
v. 9. Take thou also unto thee wheat, and barley, these grains usually being eaten in the form of roasted kernels, and beans, and lentils, and millet, and fitches, or spelt, and put them in one vessel, as signifying the last of provisions to be had, gathered for the extremity of the siege, and make thee bread thereof, food in the customary roasted form, according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon thy side; three hundred and ninety days shalt thou eat thereof, the number of Israel’s years of oppression being named as sufficient to emphasize the difficulty of the situation.
Read full note →
v. 10. And thy meat which thou shalt eat, the food which he should consume according to this strict rationing, shall be by weight, twenty shekels a day, estimated at some twenty ounces avoirdupois, about half as much as the average man needs for his daily sustenance; from time to time shalt thou eat it, not according to the demands of hunger, but according to the rations provided for, that is, at long intervals, very sparingly.
v. 11. Thou shalt drink also water by measure, instead of according to desire and ordinary need, the sixth part of an hin, approximately a pint and a half; from time to time shalt thou drink.
v. 12. And thou shalt eat it, the food provided for, as barley cakes, baked or roasted in the ashes of his fire, or on stones heated by this fire; and thou shalt bake It with dung that cometh out of man, whose use as fuel must have been exceedingly repulsive, in their sight. The situation, then, was this, that filth and misery surrounded the prophet on every side—a very vivid picture, in order to emphasize his message before his countrymen.
v. 13. And the Lord said, Even thus shall the children of Israel eat their defiled bread, polluted with the odor of the unspeakable fuel used, among the Gentiles, whither I will drive them, where they would be obliged to sojourn and come in contact with the abominations of the heathen. The uncleanness was not so much a Levitical defilement as a pollution outraging the universal feeling of human beings concerning decency.
v. 14. Then said I, in voicing an objection to the loathsome fuel proposed by the Lord, Ah, Lord God! Behold, my soul hath not been polluted, for so he might interpret Lev 5:3; Lev 7:21 as pertaining to this present case; for from my youth up even till now have I not eaten of that which dieth of itself or is torn in pieces, Cf Exo 22:30; Deu 14:21, neither came there abominable flesh into my mouth. Cf Deu 14:3. Note the emphasis of the prophet’s expression in setting forth his consciousness of the loathsomeness of the method suggested to him.
v. 15. Then He said unto me, in yielding the point for the sake of the prophet’s scruples, Lo, I have given thee cow’s dung for man’s dung, a fuel still used very extensively in the Orient, and thou shalt prepare thy bread therewith.
v. 16. Moreover, He said unto me, Son of man, behold, I will break the staff of bread in Jerusalem, bread being one of the chief articles of food, one of man’s main articles of nourishment; and they shall eat bread by weight, in careful rations, as demonstrated by the prophet, and with care, in worried anxiety about the means of subsistence; and they shall drink water by measure and with astonishment, in dull grief, in speechless pain,
v. 17. that they may want bread and water, be in dire need of the food barely sufficing for their daily needs, and be astonied one with another, with the stupefied look of total despair, and consume away for their iniquity. Thus the Lord, by these various signs, set forth the early destruction of Jerusalem and the sufferings which would come upon its inhabitants in connection with the Chaldean conquest.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 General Information:
General Information:
The Spirit continues speaking to Ezekiel.
Read full note →
wheat, barley ... millet, and spelt
These are different kinds of grains.
beans
vines whose seeds, which grow in a single row inside its otherwise empty fruit, can be eaten
lentils
These are like beans, but their seeds are very small, round, and somewhat flat. (See: Translate Unknowns)
390 days
"three hundred and ninety days" (See: Numbers)
twenty shekels per day
"20 shekels per day." A shekel is a unit of weight equal to about 11 grams. AT: 200 grams of bread each day" (See: Numbers and Biblical Weight)
a sixth of a hin
"1/6 hin" or "a sixth part of a hin" or "about one-half liter" (See: Biblical Volume and Fractions)
a hin
A hin is 3.7 liters. (See: Biblical Volume)
translationWords
wheat
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 4:9-17 The near-starvation diet of eight ounces of food…
4:9-17 The near-starvation diet of eight ounces of food and a jar of water for each day represent siege rations and reflect a desperate situation in which there was not enough of any one kind of grain to make a whole loaf.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.