Ezekiel
Ezekiel 4
1“You also, son of man, take a tile, and lay it before yourself, and portray on it a city, even Jerusalem. 2Lay siege against it, build forts against it, and cast up a mound against it. Also set camps against it and plant battering rams against it all around. 3Take for yourself an iron pan, and set it for a wall of iron between you and the city. Then set your face toward it. It will be besieged, and you shall lay siege against it. This shall be a sign to the house of Israel.
4“Moreover lie on your left side, and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel on it. According to the number of the days that you shall lie on it, you shall bear their iniquity. 5For I have appointed the years of their iniquity to be to you a number of days, even three hundred ninety days. So you shall bear the iniquity of the house of Israel.
6“Again, when you have accomplished these, you shall lie on your right side, and shall bear the iniquity of the house of Judah. I have appointed forty days, each day for a year, to you. 7You shall set your face toward the siege of Jerusalem, with your arm uncovered; and you shall prophesy against it. 8Behold, I put ropes on you, and you shall not turn yourself from one side to the other, until you have accomplished the days of your siege.
9“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. 10Your food which you shall eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels a day. From time to time you shall eat it. 11You shall drink water by measure, the sixth part of a hin. From time to time you shall drink. 12You shall eat it as barley cakes, and you shall bake it in their sight with dung that comes out of man.” 13Yahweh said, “Even thus will the children of Israel eat their bread unclean, among the nations where I will drive them.”
14Then I said, “Ah Lord Yahweh! Behold, my soul has not been polluted; for from my youth up even until now I have not eaten of that which dies of itself, or is torn of animals. No abominable meat has come into my mouth!”
15Then he said to me, “Behold, I have given you cow’s dung for man’s dung, and you shall prepare your bread on it.”
16Moreover 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; 17that they may lack bread and water, be dismayed one with another, and pine away in their iniquity.
Commentary
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What others are saying
4 commentators · 45 notes on this chapter
Matthew Henry2
Writes as a pastor rather than a critic. Expect devotional and practical application over historical or linguistic analysis, read through a Reformed covenantal frame — and expect the Old Testament to be read forward toward Christ throughout.
Why this voice is here: The most widely read English commentary for three centuries. Included as a baseline: where Henry and a modern voice diverge, the divergence itself is usually the interesting part.
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…
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…
John Gill17
The most exhaustive and the most doctrinally committed here. Expect high — even supralapsarian — Calvinism applied consistently, and unusually heavy use of rabbinic and Talmudic sources for Jewish context. Where a passage bears on election or the will, Gill will read it in one direction, and knowing that in advance is the point.
Why this voice is here: The strongest Calvinist reading available in the public domain, and the best on Jewish background. Read alongside Clarke, not instead of him — between them you get both sides of the argument.
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…
And lay siege against it,.... In his own person, as in Ezekiel 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…
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…
Adam Clarke10
The linguist of this set. Expect Hebrew and Greek word study, oriental custom, and geography — and an Arminian reading of grace and free will where Gill or Henry would read election. Note one real divergence: Clarke denied the eternal sonship of Christ, a position most of the tradition rejects, so read him closely on the person of Christ.
Why this voice is here: Where you want to know what a word actually says, Clarke is the one who will tell you — with the caveat above on Christ’s sonship.
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…
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…
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…
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown16
The concise option. Three authors split the canon, so the voice shifts between sections. Expect brief, sober, conservative notes that resolve difficulties rather than dwelling on them — useful for orientation, thinner than Gill or Clarke where a passage is genuinely contested.
Why this voice is here: The quickest way to see what the mainstream Reformed reading of a passage is. Start here, then go to Gill or Clarke when it matters.
forth--rather, "watch tower" (Jer 52:4) wherein the besieges could watch the movements of the besieged [GESENIUS]. A wall of circumvallation [Septuagint and ROSENMULLER]. A kind of battering-ram [MAURER]. The first view is best. a mount--wherewith the…
iron pan--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 between him and the people as one of iron: and the Chaldean investing…
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…
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