Chapter Four

Symbolic actions. 1–3. Drawing of the siege of Jerusalem. 4–8. Lying on the left and right side. 9–17. Eating unclean food.

The prophet, forbidden to speak, must in visible forms (as if by gestures and pantomime) represent Jerusalem as 1) besieged, 2) famishing, and 3) conquered. And since the miseries of the siege continue even in captivity, which is a kind of prolonged siege of the people, the depiction of the former includes the representation of the latter. Each of the three indicated moments is expressed in a separate symbolic action (the last already in chapter V), but between the first and second is inserted a symbolic depiction of captivity, so that there are 4 symbolic actions in all, corresponding to 4 heavenly plagues usually visited on sinners and seemingly coming from 4 winds of the earth (Ezek 14:21; cf. explanation 1, 5). Each succeeding symbolic action is described and explained more fully than the preceding one, and to the last (Ezek 5:1-4) is appended a thorough substantiation of all these threats (Ezek 5:5-17).

Ezekiel 4:1. And you, son of man, take a brick for yourself and lay it before you, and draw upon it the city of Jerusalem; “And you, son of man.” The continuation of God’s speech in chapter III; therefore the symbolic actions the prophet was commanded to perform during an appearance to him similar to that on the Chebar in the Tel-Aviv plain, which occurred soon (see explanation Ezek 3:22) after the Chebar vision, probably in the same year. If the command to perform these symbolic actions had been given at another time, not then, it would have been added at the beginning of chapter IV, as in chapters VI and VII: “and the word of the Lord came to me.” But the very vision of the Lord’s Glory might not have continued throughout this revelation, which did not need to be more than internal. Thus, the symbolic actions depicting the siege and capture of Jerusalem were performed by the prophet 4 years before the events themselves—a period during which they could not have been foreseen by natural means, for only in the 4th year of his reign (a year before Ezekiel’s calling and his symbolic actions) did Zedekiah enter into a covenant with Nebuchadnezzar, in the 7th year he betrayed him, and in the 9th the siege of Jerusalem began, lasting 2 years. Bricks in Assyria and Babylon were used not only for buildings (for which they were the exclusive material there) but also for writing: entire libraries have been discovered written with cuneiform signs on such bricks or clay tablets. They wrote on wet tablets and then dried them. The most interesting monuments of Assyrian civilization have come down to us on clay. Drawings on bricks have also come down to us; the British Museum owns several examples discovered in Nimrud. The present symbolic action of Ezekiel could have contained the thought that the siege of Jerusalem would someday be recorded on Babylonian tablets. But it is scarcely the case here that the prophet used a tablet, though Symmachus writes πλινθιον and the LXX for the same purpose πλινθος gave it feminine gender. An ordinary brick would more likely have been at hand and more suited for the purpose by its size: the bricks of Babylonian walls were 1 ft. x 5 in. x 5 in. “Draw” (lit. “engrave”) upon it the city of Jerusalem, “the whole, as it remained in the faithful memory of the prophet” (Trochon); literally: “Jerusalem, the city.”

Ezekiel 4:2. and set up a siege against it, and build a siege wall against it, and cast up a mound against it, and set camps against it, and set battering rams against it round about. “And set up” (instead of draw—a general expression like Ezek 32:18; Jer 1:10) “a siege,” i.e., draw the totality of all siege works, which are then listed in detail. “And build a siege tower,” Heb. “dayik,”—an unknown siege structure of the ancients, apparently specifically Babylonian, since it is mentioned only by Ezekiel (Ezek 33:27) and Jeremiah (Jer 42:4; 2 Sam 25:1): either a watchtower, a lookout tower to see what is happening in the city (cf. Isa 29:3), or a tower for hurling stones at the city, a catapult (if a tower, then a collective name, since in Jeremiah and 2 Kings with him “round about”), or a siege wall, corresponding to our line of trenches for repelling sallies, or a siege mound (from it went to the wall of the besieged city a rampart, which is mentioned further). “And cast up a mound.” It was raised not only from sand but from stones, sods, wood; batallistas were placed on it, and it served as a shelter from enemy arrows. Greek χασακα (palisade), Slav. “ostrog.” If the preceding word means a mound, then this one means a rampart leading from the mound and abutting against the city wall (cf. Jer 6:6; Isa 37:33).

Ezekiel 26:9. “Set camps,” lit. “camps,” pl., encampments, because the enemy army was positioned round about the entire city not in one but in a whole series of camps; perhaps an indication of the diversity of the besieging army (Jerome: “military sentries”). “And set battering rams” lit., “rams,” i.e., battering rams (cf. Ezek. 26:9; Josephus, De bello judaico III, 7, 19). Discoveries in Assyria show that these engines were known there from ancient times: they are depicted on bas-reliefs in the palace of Nimrud presumably XII c. B.C. (Layard, Nineveh, t. II, p. 868); depictions in Kuyunjik in the palace of Sennacherib show that in the siege of one city no fewer than 7 battering rams were employed. To cut all this on a brick was not easy; perhaps the prophet indicated all this only by lines and dots. With the instruction to the prophet concerning the symbolic action here imperceptibly interweaves a prediction of all the details of the siege: in these instructions is drawn such a vivid picture of the siege that only a very skilled engraver could transfer it to stone. Ezekiel 4:3. and take for yourself an iron plate, and place it like an iron wall between you and the city, and set your face against it, and it shall be in a siege, and you shall besiege it. This is a sign for the house of Israel. “An iron plate,” more precisely, as in Slav.: “a griddle” (baking sheet, metal pan), from which bread loaves were baked for example in oil (Lev 2:5). The prophet was commanded to use it because among iron things it was closest at hand, found in every house. It could also best represent an iron wall between the prophet, representing God, and the city depicted on the brick: between Jehovah and His holy city there now stands thus a whole wall, impenetrable as iron—a sign of the inexorability and inevitability of God’s determination concerning Jerusalem (Jerome and Theodoret), or perhaps the reason for it—the sinfulness and hard-heartedness of the people (Kimbhi: “gross and black sins”). This plate could also indicate the unbreakable siege works around Jerusalem. On the bas-reliefs of Nimrud and Kuyunjik sieges are depicted in which are found all the objects mentioned in verse 2, and at the same time a kind of large shields fastened to the ground behind which archers took shelter (Layard, Nineveh II, 345). “And set your face against it” (cf. Ps 24:16 and others). Looking at it intently, not turning your eyes away, full of unwearying wrath, “with the stern and relentless face of a strict judge who, being immovable in his decision, looks at the guilty party with a firm gaze” (Jerome). “And you shall besiege it.” As the representative of God, the prophet must now besiege the city himself. No one else but Jehovah Himself will besiege the city, and the enemy army will only be the instrument by which His will is carried out (Aram.) (Jer 25:9). So too the ancient prophets represented the attack of the enemy, disagreeing in this regard to the point of opposition with the popular view, according to which Jehovah cannot separate Himself from the people. “This is a sign for the house of Israel.” This symbolic siege signifies the doom threatening Jerusalem. The house of Israel is here called one Judean kingdom, for after the fall of the Israelite kingdom it alone represented the whole nation (cf. 2 Chr 35:18; Isa 48:1); in the same sense Ezekiel uses this designation above: Ezek 3:7, below: Ezek 5:4; Ezek 8:6 and others; he departs from this usage only once, namely just now in verses 4 and 5. Ezek 4:4-17. The prophet could not draw the difficult conditions of the siege on the brick, but could represent them only on himself. This he does in the following symbolic action. If the inhabitants of besieged Jerusalem endured above all a terrible confinement, which made any free movement impossible for them, then their position in captivity will not be essentially different, and not only during the siege but in captivity will they have to sustain their existence on meager and unclean food. Both are presented together in the same two symbolic actions, and each is explained first with regard to captivity (verses 5–6, 13), and then with regard to the siege (verses 8, 16–17), whereby this section returns to its starting point—verses 1–3.

Ezekiel 4:4. And you shall lie on your left side and place upon it the iniquity of the house of Israel: according to the number of days that you shall lie upon it, you shall bear the iniquity of it. The present symbolic action consisted of prolonged, lasting whole months, lying of the prophet on one side (not in sleep, because during this lying the prophet was to prophesy against Jerusalem depicted on the brick with outstretched hand—verse 7; therefore Slav. tr. inaccurately contrary to Heb. and Greek “to sleep”), a lying apparently continuous and therefore especially difficult, possibly accompanied by painful numbness of the side on which the prophet lay. Thus, this symbolic action, while not being as striking as the symbolic actions of the previous prophets, for example, walking naked, wearing a yoke, or cohabitation with a harlot, was no less strong, strong by its inner force: the prophet here suffered greatly for the whole people, prefiguring the sufferings of Christ for the world. One of the stichera in the service to the prophet Ezekiel (July 21) discerns in his lying precisely such a thought: “Ezekiel, approved of God, as a follower of Christ, you endured the torment of another’s debt, severely tormented, prefiguring that which was to come to the world for the sake of the precious cross—salvation, manifestation of God, and deliverance” (stichera 2 at Lord, I call). This lying meant the painful confinement of actions of the besieged and captive, similar to those of those bound in chains and sick. The prophet makes it understood that the destruction of Jerusalem, which was the true head of both the kingdom of Israel and of Judah, as the place of the sanctuary, punishes the wickedness of the whole people, both of the Israelite kingdom and of the Judean. The left side indicates the Israelite kingdom either as lower compared with the Judean, or as lying to the north, to the left, if one stands facing East. “Place.” Lit. “take.” “Upon it”—the left side. “The iniquity of the house of Israel.” Sin is represented as a weight that must be borne (Lev 5:17 and others) until it is expiated (Num 14:34); bearing guilt thus becomes the punishment for it (Ezek 21:30 and others); it can be borne by one for another; such is the suffering of the Servant of Jehovah in Isa 53; but this case does not apply to Ezekiel: he bears the guilt only symbolically, as a sign that Israel and Judah must bear it. The LXX already in this verse indicate the number of days the prophet was to lie on his left side, namely 150 days, which the Heb. text indicates only in the next verse. Thus the LXX give this number twice and not in the same way: 150 in this verse and 190 in the next, which casts a shadow of doubt on the authenticity of their addition.

Ezekiel 4:5. And I have appointed you the years of their iniquity according to the number of days: three hundred and ninety days you shall bear the iniquity of the house of Israel. Ezekiel 4:6. And when you have completed these, then you shall lie a second time on your right side, and you shall bear the iniquity of the house of Judah for forty days; I have assigned one day for each year. From what time should the 390 years of Israel’s iniquity and 40 years of Judah’s iniquity be counted? If by “years of iniquity” is understood the years in which Israel sinned (rather than years during which he suffered punishment for sins), then the following methods of calculation are possible. 1. The rabbis (Rashi, Kimbhi and others) begin counting the 390 years from the entry of the Israelites into the land of Canaan and end with the carrying away into captivity of the ten tribes: 151 years the period of judges, 241 years the time of kings, about 390 years total; but before the division of kingdoms both Judah and Israel sinned together; why then is the iniquity of the latter calculated only 40 years? 2. Others begin the count from the division of kingdoms: 256 years the existence of the ten-tribe kingdom plus 134 years from its fall to the destruction of the temple; by more correct chronology 975 B.C. the division of kingdoms minus 589 the taking of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar = 386; the missing 4 years are added by poetic license; but from the destruction of the Israelite kingdom only Judah sinned; still this explanation is more probable than the previous one, since in Scripture it is often said of Jeroboam that he caused Israel to sin. 40 years of Judah’s iniquity (Jude 1) the rabbis begin from the idolatry of Manasseh, which they suppose on the basis of 2 Chr 33:13-17 lasted only 16 years (because this number must be added to the following to get 40) plus 2 years of Amon, and omitting the pious reign of Josiah, 22 years of Jehoiakim and Zedekiah. Or 2) they begin these 40 years from the 13th year of Josiah’s reign, from the beginning of Jeremiah’s prophetic service, when it is supposed that God did not count Judah’s former sins, such as the idolatry of Ahaz, Manasseh, Amon, because of public repentance under Josiah, and end with the destruction of the temple; but the reign of Josiah was the most pious, yet it is proposed to count from it the years of Judah’s iniquity. Under the years of iniquity, to which the prophet’s symbolic lying referred, can be understood the fruits of punishment for iniquity. Then for 390 and 40 the following calculations are possible. The 390 years are counted from the first deportation of Israel to the Assyrian captivity by Tiglath-Pilezer in the reign of the Israelite king Pekah, from which to the 11th year of Zedekiah there passed 164 years plus 70 years of Babylonian captivity plus 155 years 4 months from the restoration of the temple under Zerubbabel to the final liberation of the people under Artaxerxes Mnemon = 889 years 4 months (Jerome); in this reckoning years are counted according to reigns and all reigns are taken as complete, even the final ones in the series, i.e., the reign of Pekah and Artaxerxes Mnemon, although the Bible does not say and it is unknown from where in which years of these kings the events related to this arose—the Assyrian captivity and the salvation of the Jews from Haman. As for the 40 years, approximately that much should have passed from the deportations under Jehoiachin to the decree of Cyrus (until the liberation of Jehoiachin from prison), i.e., about that many years of actual and especially severe captivity for the Judean kingdom (which ideally lasted 70 years; see explanation Ezek 1:1 “the thirtieth year”). In particulars and details each of these calculations permits many objections (besides those made in their places, for example: the captivity of Israel and Judah according to Ezek 37:15 and following should apparently end at the same time) and, one can say, not one gives an exact coincidence with the numbers indicated by the prophet. But exact coincidence is hardly necessary here; what is important is that in the history of Israel, in the history of both its sins and its misfortunes for these sins, one can find the periods indicated by the prophet. The wicked existence of the Israelite kingdom indeed corresponds to the wicked period in the Judean kingdom as 390 to 40, and approximately the same proportion exists between the long captivity of the former and the short one of the latter. And if we take into account that the threads of that historical account often escape entirely from our sight and that in particular, for example, the time of the return from captivity of the 10 tribes is completely unknown to us, then we must regard the most precise explanation of these symbolic numbers as beyond human understanding. It is noteworthy that the siege of Jerusalem, to which, like the captivity, the prophet’s symbolic lying referred, lasted almost as long as this lying: it lasted 1½ years or 530 days, but with interruptions (Jer 37:7-8). It is also noteworthy that the sum of the numbers given here, 430, corresponds to the years of Israel’s “sojourn” in Egypt, and according to the prophets the Assyro-Babylonian captivity of Israel is nothing other than a repetition of Egyptian bondage (Hos 2:2; Ezek 20 and following); and of the 430-year life of Israel in Egypt precisely 40 years can be set apart as a period of particularly severe misfortunes, whether to place these 40 years on the 40-year wandering through the desert or on the 40-year sojourn of Moses in Arabia (after the killing of the Egyptian), when persecutions by Pharaoh should have intensified (Keil). Regarding the number 40, it should be noted that this number is so symbolic that it is scarcely used anywhere in the sense of a definite quantity (the flood, the fast of Moses and Elijah, the preaching of Jonah in Nineveh, the fast of the Savior—all 40 days); in the Persian language this number, besides its own meaning, means also “many.” So Judah sinned much, for a long time, and Israel 9¾ times, almost 10 times as much as the greatest abundance! The LXX instead of 390 have 190 (some codices have 150 and very few have 390) and perhaps in order to bring their reading closer to the Hebrew, the beginning of verse 5 they read as: “and I gave you two wrongs of theirs for a number of days,”—evidently the same as in the Targum: “I gave you two for one for their sins,” i.e., one day for two years of their wrong (the LXX and Targum thus understood the Hebrew “shnay” in the sense of “two,” not “years”). Modern exegetes consider the LXX number more true: in verse 9 God commands the prophet to eat unclean bread for all the days that, according to the Hebrew text, 390, according to Greek, 190, during which he will lie on his side; it is concluded from this that the 40 days of lying on his right side or 40 years of Judah’s iniquity are included in the total 390 or 190, from which the lying on his left side or the iniquity of Israel will take 350 or 150; the latter number is in some codices of the LXX in verses 4 and 5; and if so, the years of Israel’s iniquity or more precisely the punishment for it exceed the years of Judah’s iniquity only by 150 years; the Assyrian captivity of Israel, i.e., the taking of Samaria, actually preceded the Babylonian captivity or the taking of Jerusalem by 1½ centuries (725–589). Besides, the LXX reading is confirmed, it is said, by the fact that on the 5th day of the 6th month of the 6th year of his captivity the prophet already had his second vision, in which the elders were present and in which he was spiritually transported to Jerusalem; by this time, it is said, his lying should have ended (could not the prophet have had the vision of chapters VIII-XI lying down? the feat of lying and the fasting associated with it most of all could have contributed to that vision); but perhaps, if we suppose the earliest possible date for his symbolic actions of the 12th day of the 4th month of the 5th year (through 7 days after the first, Chebar vision), before the vision of chapters VIII-XI there will remain 412 days (and what if the year was a leap year? or if 40 are included in the 390 days?). From the Greek reading, it is said, the Hebrew easily could have arisen under the influence of considerations that a new captivity of Israel should correspond in number of years to Egyptian bondage or (according to Bertholet) on the basis of gematria (numerical value of letters) in the words “days of siege” “yemei matzora”: 10 plus 40 plus 10 plus 40 plus 90 plus 200 = 390. But it is equally easy that 190 or 150 could have arisen from 390 under the influence of the two considerations that are now adduced in defense of 190.

Ezekiel 4:7. And you shall set your face toward the siege of Jerusalem, with your arm uncovered, and you shall prophesy against it. Isaiah 52:10. To show that the symbolic lying signifies not only captivity but also the siege of Jerusalem, the prophet must during his lying look at the siege of Jerusalem depicted on the brick (and thus have his mind turned to this event) and stretch toward this depiction his right arm (Slav. and Greek more precisely: “limb”), uncovered (perhaps with his tunic slipped from it, which generally thrown over his head and tied with a belt covered only the upper part of his arm), thus rolled up for struggle and battle (cf. Isa. 52:10; therefore Slav. freely: “limb... strengthen,” 52): in other words, the prophet even while lying down should continue to represent to himself (cf. the iron plate verse 3) the Lord grimly besieging the city. “And you shall prophesy against it.” This very pose of the prophet will be his prophecy, for according to Ezek 3:26 prophecy is possible for him only silent. Ezekiel 4:8. And behold, I put bands upon you, and you shall not turn from one side to the other until you have completed the days of your siege. But, continuing to play the role of the besieging one begun already in verse 3, the prophet is to also play the role of the besieged: he will do this by his lying. God will put upon him invisible bonds (see explanation Ezek 3:25), so that he cannot physically turn from side to side in case the unbearable pain of the side from prolonged lying began to overcome obedience to God’s command, “so as not to suggest any relief from sufferings, which will not come (for the besieged) until the complete fulfillment of the foreordained days” (Jerome).

Ezekiel 4:9. And you shall take wheat and barley and beans and lentils and millet and spelt, and put them in one vessel, and make bread from them for yourself; you shall eat it for the number of days that you lie on your side: three hundred and ninety days you shall eat it. The besieged and captive will suffer such hunger that they will scrape up any grain found lying about anywhere to bake bread from it. Bread from such a many-(6)-component mixture, constituting disgusting and unhealthy food, imparted ceremonial uncleanness to those who ate it, for according to the law of Moses one was not allowed to sow a field and vineyard with seeds of two kinds, nor to make clothing of two kinds of material (Deut 22:9 and following; Lev 19:19); every such mixture was considered unclean. The colors of the picture are taken from the besieged city, but Ezekiel has primarily in view the captivity. He wants to dramatically represent to the captives that the food in captivity is unclean (cf. Hos 9:3 and following; Amos 7:17). The grains are listed in order of their quality, beginning with the highest, which were to be exhausted first. Wheat—“a memory of better times” (Hävernick). Barley—in Palestine horse feed (1 Sam 4:28); bread from it is made in times of famine (2 Sam 4:42). Beans are mentioned in the Bible only in 2 Sam 17:28; according to Pliny (Hist nat. XVIII, 30), many peoples mixed them into bread. Lentils (Slav. “lyascha”) — now in Egypt the poor make bread from them during great crop failure. Millet is very cultivated in Egypt and Arabia—“the food of common people, wild and slaughtered animals” (Jerome); in Hebrew “dokhaz” may be what in Arabic is “dahn”—an oblong-round, dark-brown grain like rice, from which, in the absence of better products, a kind of poor bread is made (Keil). Spelt (Slav. “pyro”) the inferior kind of wheat, the flour from which is finer and whiter than ordinary wheat flour, but bread from it is very dry, unpleasant and meager in nutrition; the Vulgate: vicia—“wild, crane peas.” “And make bread from them according to the number of days in which you lie on your side.” According to Jerome, 390 loaves, one for each day of lying. Consequently, the loaves had to be prepared from this unpleasant mixture more than a year in advance; otherwise one could not subsequently violate the command of lying; by the end of this period the bread would definitely harden (though the prophet was allowed to make not loaves but cakes—gallettes—see verse 12); in a country like Palestine, bread is useless by the second day. For the prophet this was more than a fast, a fast for a sinful people. What strength of spirit was required to endure such an incredibly heavy and seemingly purposeless fast! “Three hundred and ninety days you shall eat them.” Why not 390 + 40? According to Jerome, as a sign that not the same punishment will befall Judah, which had at least knowledge of God and Israel, which completely turned away from true religion. Perhaps the 40 days are not mentioned for brevity of expression. Most likely, because the mentioned number is sufficient for its purpose—the announcement of long punishment.

Ezekiel 4:10. And your food which you shall eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels a day; from time to time you shall eat it. In a besieged city, when food supplies are running out, they are distributed to the inhabitants by weight. No more abundantly did captives feed in ancient times who were reduced to slavery. To signify this, the prophet too must accept his meager food, consisting only of foul-tasting bread, by weight. A shekel = 3.83 grams. 20 shekels = 25½ loti, “half of what is required for the daily use of man in those countries” (Trochon): “with such food the soul is more worn down than sustained” (Jerome). However, Welsted (Travers in Arabia, t. II, p. 200) recounts that Bedouins undertake journeys of 10–12 days taking with them nothing but a sack filled with small cakes; each cake weighs about 5 ounces; two such cakes and a gulp of water—all they consume in 24 hours. “From time to time you shall eat it.” An expression found elsewhere only in 1 Chr 9:25 understood by some as “from morning to evening,” by others as “from the beginning of lying to the end”; most likely, however: eat the 25-loti cake not at once, but at accepted times of eating, at lunch, dinner—in portions.

Ezekiel 4:11. And you shall drink water by measure, one-sixth of a hin you shall drink; from time to time you shall drink. Worst of all is that water too had to be drunk by measure, which happened only in the worst cases of siege. A hin—a name of Egyptian origin; frequently mentioned in the Bible (Exod 29:40; Num 15:4); according to the rabbis it equals the volume of 72 chicken eggs; therefore 9 3/5 bottles in 1 20 of a bucket, 1/6 hin = 1 3/5 bottles. During sieges of those times with primitive water supply, shortage of water was inevitable.

Ezekiel 4:12. And eat it as barley cakes, and bake it in their sight using human dung as fuel. “The worst is approaching” (Smend). To signify a shortage of wood, the mentioned bread had to be prepared not in an oven but in ash, making it in the form of barley cakes (probably the ordinary bread of the poorest people), that is, so thin that a small amount of heat from the ash could penetrate all the dough. In countries most lacking in wood, they were replaced by dry dung of livestock (also—the southern Russian kizyak). Bread baked in ash from such fuel cannot fail to inspire disgust, although in some places even now in the East and, for example, in Palestine itself, fellahin do not disdain such baked cakes. But if for this purpose human dung was used, as the prophet was commanded, then to eat a cake, all covered with such ash (so one should understand the Vulgate expression: “and you will cover them with human dung,” and the more hesitant LXX: “in dung, βολβιτοις, motes, κοπρου, of human, you will hide them”) meant almost the same as eating human dung. Perhaps the besieged city could reach such an extremity with the destruction of all livestock in it. Imparting a foul smell to the food, such a method of preparation also defiled it according to Deut 23:13-14. “And bake them in their sight.” Receiving his visitors, the prophet should not hide from them his symbolic action.

Ezekiel 4:13. And the Lord said: “Thus shall the people of Israel eat their bread unclean among the nations to which I will drive them. In verses 13–17 the symbolic action is first explained with regard to captivity, then with regard to the besieged Jerusalem, thereby the conclusion of the chapter connects with chapter V; but this explanation is interrupted in verses 14 and 15. The most terrible thing in captivity is that there one will have to eat unclean bread (Hos 9:3 and following; Amos 7:17), from contact with gentiles (thus Symmachus translates “among those nations”) no less unclean than bread prepared on dung.

Ezekiel 4:14. Then I said: “O Lord God! My soul has never been defiled; and from my youth up until now I have not eaten anything that died of itself or was torn by beasts; nor has any unclean meat ever entered my mouth. “That Ezekiel himself is so frightened of this is characteristic” (Smend). Cf. Acts 10:14. Places in the book of Ezekiel that show such a living communion of the prophet with God are generally few: Ezek 9:8. It was forbidden to eat carrion and that torn by beasts (Lev 17:15; Deut 14:21), because in such meat blood remained, the bearer of the soul. Under other “unclean meat” is meant, probably, the meat of unclean animals, such as swine. Here is an argumentum a majore ad minus (Maldonatus). “From my youth.” Consequently, at this time the prophet was rather far removed from youth (cf. Slav. “even until now”).

Ezekiel 4:15. And He said to me: “See, I permit you to use cow dung instead of human dung, and you may prepare your bread upon it. “Although the prophet so resists this command, God eases it only slightly. Notwithstanding the use of cow dung mentioned above for baking bread, this could scarcely prevent it from signifying defilement of food for Ezekiel. But the concession to the prophet concerned him personally and changed nothing in God’s determination regarding Israel” (Smend).

Ezekiel 4:16. Moreover, He said to me: “Son of man! Behold, I will break the staff of bread in Jerusalem; they shall eat bread by weight and with anxiety, and they shall drink water by measure and in despair, “The staff of bread”—a Hebraism: the bread that sustains the strength of man; found also in Ezek 5:16; Isa 3:1. “They will eat bread by weight and with anxiety and water will drink by measure and in despair,” i.e., “in distress” (Vulgate) about the fact that it will soon be gone.

Ezekiel 4:17. because they will have a shortage of bread and water; and they will be in terror looking at one another, and they will waste away in their iniquity. “They will look at one another,” in vain seeking help from one another. “Will waste away.” Slow starvation. “In their iniquity.” Greek plural: “for their iniquities.” Here one cannot avoid the question raised by the exegesis of chapters IV and V of Ezekiel: were the symbolic actions described in them actually performed by the prophet? All these actions are so strange, striking, “inelegant,” that some interpreters of Ezekiel recognize them, like similar actions of the prophet Amos (Amos 9); Isaiah (Isa 20); Jeremiah (Jer 13; Jer 27) and Ezek 12:17 and following, only as parables, comparisons, or visionary experiences. But, rightly remarked by others, the fact that in their performance these symbolic actions seemed childish and absurd is another matter; whether they seemed absurd to people (and they indeed sometimes seemed so, cf. Ezek 33:30-32) or not was not the prophet’s concern; only let them pay attention to him and to what he wanted to bring to their understanding. However, there is a greater question whether these symbolic actions would be “more reasonable” if they were invented or internally experienced. Generally, the following should be taken into account: 1) the prophetic word in the Old Testament conception is the deed itself, which is realized in the material world; 2) the remoteness of Ezekiel and his environment from the arena of events, to which all interests were directed, could constantly awaken in him the need to palpably embody them for himself and his countrymen (“to find a substitute for personal presence in Jerusalem.”—Smend); 3) if Ezekiel, according to the most correct understanding of Ezek 3:27, was actually deprived for some time of the ability to speak, he had to resort to some form of mimetic expression; 4) an Oriental man is always ready to supplement gestures to his speech.