seekeroftruth
Well-Known Member
Ezekiel 4:1 “Now, son of man, take a block of clay, put it in front of you and draw the city of Jerusalem on it. 2 Then lay siege to it: Erect siege works against it, build a ramp up to it, set up camps against it and put battering rams around it. 3 Then take an iron pan, place it as an iron wall between you and the city and turn your face toward it. It will be under siege, and you shall besiege it. This will be a sign to the people of Israel.
4 “Then lie on your left side and put the sin of the people of Israel upon yourself.[a] You are to bear their sin for the number of days you lie on your side. 5 I have assigned you the same number of days as the years of their sin. So for 390 days you will bear the sin of the people of Israel.
6 “After you have finished this, lie down again, this time on your right side, and bear the sin of the people of Judah. I have assigned you 40 days, a day for each year. 7 Turn your face toward the siege of Jerusalem and with bared arm prophesy against her. 8 I will tie you up with ropes so that you cannot turn from one side to the other until you have finished the days of your siege.
9 “Take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and spelt; put them in a storage jar and use them to make bread for yourself. You are to eat it during the 390 days you lie on your side. 10 Weigh out twenty shekels[b] of food to eat each day and eat it at set times. 11 Also measure out a sixth of a hin[c] of water and drink it at set times. 12 Eat the food as you would a loaf of barley bread; bake it in the sight of the people, using human excrement for fuel.” 13 The Lord said, “In this way the people of Israel will eat defiled food among the nations where I will drive them.”
14 Then I said, “Not so, Sovereign Lord! I have never defiled myself. From my youth until now I have never eaten anything found dead or torn by wild animals. No impure meat has ever entered my mouth.”
15 “Very well,” he said, “I will let you bake your bread over cow dung instead of human excrement.”
16 He then said to me: “Son of man, I am about to cut off the food supply in Jerusalem. The people will eat rationed food in anxiety and drink rationed water in despair, 17 for food and water will be scarce. They will be appalled at the sight of each other and will waste away because of[d] their sin.
a. Ezekiel 4:4 Or upon your side
b. Ezekiel 4:10 That is, about 8 ounces or about 230 grams
c. Ezekiel 4:11 That is, about 2/3 quart or about 0.6 liter
d. Ezekiel 4:17 Or away in
OK... for those us have heard "a thousand years is like a thousand days to God". Verses 5 & 6 is important. He was assigned to lay on his left side for 390 days to signify 390 years of exile. Then Ezekiel had to lay on his right side for another 40 days.... that's 40 years in sin time spent.
This is from the easy English site. The others were really way over my head.
God gave this prophecy to Ezekiel. It was an unusual kind of prophecy. God told Ezekiel to make a model and to carry out certain actions. The purpose of those actions was to show what would happen to Jerusalem and its inhabitants.
The Babylonians did not have paper so, instead, they made their official records on bricks. They made the bricks out of heavy mud. They would scratch what they wanted to write on the soft brick. Then they would bake the brick in order to make it hard. These bricks were their books.
The Lord told Ezekiel to draw the plan of Jerusalem on one of these bricks.
He had to make models of armies, fences and camps. He put these in place all round the map of Jerusalem.
The iron plate was an iron pan such as people used in order to cook food. Ezekiel had to put this plate between him and the brick. Then he had to look toward the brick and he had to act the battle against Jerusalem.
This was to show the people that there would be a real battle against Jerusalem. The army of the *Babylonians would destroy Jerusalem.
After Ezekiel had shown the battle for Jerusalem, the Lord told him to lie down on his left side. The left side meant that he looked toward the north. This was to show that the message was for Israel. Israel here means the 10 northern tribes in the country called Israel. Judah was in the south of the country where the other two tribes lived. (The country of the Israelites had divided into two separate kingdoms after Solomon’s death.)
Ezekiel had to lie on his left side for 390 days. Each day was for one year. God would punish *Israel for its *sins during these past years. So, 390 days means 390 years. But experts are not sure when these 390 years began. The 390 years may be from the time that Israel separated from Judah. The end of that time may be when the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem. But these dates would not be quite accurate. Perhaps the meaning is simpler: Israel’s sins had continued for centuries. But Judah’s sins (verse 6) were for a shorter period.
The text does not mean that Ezekiel was on his side for 24 hours each day. But he had to lie on his side for a part of each day.
Then Ezekiel had to lie on his right side for 40 days. The right side meant that he looked toward the south. This showed that God would punish Judah for 40 years. We do not know when these 40 years were. They could have ended with the 390 years or followed after them.
While he was lying on his sides, Ezekiel had to stare toward the brick of Jerusalem. With a bare arm over it, he *prophesied its defeat.
All the time that Ezekiel was on his sides, he could not turn over. At the end of these days, the Babylonians would destroy Jerusalem.
The Lord told Ezekiel to bake the bread in front of the people. Ezekiel did not bake it in an oven, but on hot stones.
Ezekiel was to use human dung as the fuel for the fire to heat the stones. The normal fuel would be animal dung. But when the armies surrounded Jerusalem, the inhabitants would kill the animals in the city for meat. Then there would be no animal dung for fuel. They would have to use human dung.
In the religion of Israel, the Israelites could not use human dung as fuel. (See Deuteronomy 23:12-14.) To do so would make the food unclean. To eat unclean food would make the people unclean. In that state, they could not worship their God. But in that time, they would have to eat unclean food or die.
Ezekiel complained to God. He had never eaten unclean food. He had always followed the strict food laws of his religion. So, God let him use cow dung for fuel.
Eating food cooked over human excrement is something I hadn't heard before. It does make a powerful point. In Jeremiah they were boiling the babies because they were so hungry.... now they are shown cooking over poop. I need to say something about the 430 days that Ezekiel had to spend laying a certain way...... I just had to spend 5 days with my head down because I had surgery for a detached retina. I had a couple of neck pillows that I laid on a tray table. I had to lay my head [nose down] in those neck pillows ..... looking down.... not right or left.... down to keep a gas bubble in the right place to let the eye heal properly. At night I had to sleep with my head turned nose down or away from the healing eye. I normally sleep on my right side..... I had to build a barrier on the bed to keep me from rolling on my right side. Every time I would run into that barrier.... I woke up......I can honestly testify that laying with my head in one position.... started pain down my neck and back within hours. Now laying on one side or another would be a little different..... but I can honestly testify that laying on one side..... not being allowed to shift to the other side..... would begin hurting within hours..... and Ezekiel had to do this for 430 days [that's over a year no matter which calendar I use]. I don't know how he could walk.... I bet Ezekiel's left hip sang......
The message Ezekiel was delivering was not an easy one to digest. A major siege was on the way.... people would be murdered, castrated, raped, enslaved.... or left to die where they dropped. There would be no food or water..... people would use anything they could lay their hands on to survive...... people would use human poop to fuel their cook fires after they ate the last animal..... and they would be forced to cook their own children to survive.....
