Ezekiel 4

Eze 4:1-17.

SYMBOLICAL

VISION OF THE

SIEGE AND THE

INIQUITY-BEARING.

1. tile--a sun-dried brick, such as are found in Babylon, covered

with cuneiform inscriptions, often two feet long and one foot broad.

2. fort--rather, "watch-tower"

(Jer 52:4)

wherein the besiegers 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 Chaldeans could be defended from missiles.

battering-rams--literally, "through-borers." In

Eze 21:22

the same Hebrew is translated "captains."

3. 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 army. His instrument

of separating them from him, as one impossible to burst through.

set . . . face against it--inexorably

(Ps 34:16).

The exiles envied their brethren remaining in Jerusalem, but exile is

better than the straitness of a siege.

4. 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, to bring

out more fully the same prophetic idea.

left side--referring to the position of the ten tribes, the

northern kingdom, as Judah, the southern, answers to "the right

side"

(Eze 4:6).

The Orientals facing the east in their mode, had the north on their

left, and the south on their right

(Eze 16:46).

Also the right was more honorable than the left: so Judah as being the

seat of the temple, was more so than Israel.

bear the iniquity--iniquity being regarded as a burden; so it

means, "bear the punishment of their iniquity"

(Nu 14:34).

A type of Him who was the great sin-bearer, not in mimic show as

Ezekiel, but in reality

(Isa 53:4, 6, 12).

5. three hundred and ninety days--The three hundred ninety years of

punishment appointed for Israel, and forty for Judah, cannot refer to

the siege of Jerusalem. That siege is referred to in

Eze 4:1-3,

and in a sense restricted to the literal siege, but comprehending the

whole train of punishment to be inflicted for their sin;

therefore we read here merely of its sore pressure, not of its result.

The sum of three hundred ninety and forty years is four hundred thirty,

a period famous in the history of the covenant-people, being that of

their sojourn in Egypt

(Ex 12:40, 41;

Ga 3:17).

The forty alludes to the forty years in the wilderness. Elsewhere

(De 28:68;

Ho 9:3),

God threatened to bring them back to Egypt, which must mean, not Egypt

literally, but a bondage as bad as that one in Egypt. So now God will

reduce them to a kind of new Egyptian bondage to the world: Israel, the

greater transgressor, for a longer period than Judah (compare

Eze 20:35-38).

Not the whole of the four hundred thirty years of the Egypt state is

appointed to Israel; but this shortened by the forty years of the

wilderness sojourn, to imply, that a way is open to their return to

life by their having the Egypt state merged into that of the

wilderness; that is, by ceasing from idolatry and seeking in their

sifting and sore troubles, through God's covenant, a restoration to

righteousness and peace [FAIRBAIRN]. The three

hundred ninety, in reference to the sin of Israel, was also

literally true, being the years from the setting up of the calves by

Jeroboam

(1Ki 12:20-33),

that is, from 975 to 583 B.C.: about the

year of the Babylonians captivity; and perhaps the forty of Judah

refers to that part of Manasseh's fifty-five years' reign in which he

had not repented, and which, we are expressly told, was the cause of

God's removal of Judah, notwithstanding Josiah's reformation

(1Ki 21:10-16;

2Ki 23:26, 27).

6. each day for a year--literally, "a day for a year, a day for a

year." Twice repeated, to mark more distinctly the reference to

Nu 14:34.

The picturing of the future under the image of the past, wherein the

meaning was far from lying on the surface, was intended to arouse to a

less superficial mode of thinking, just as the partial veiling of truth

in Jesus' parables was designed to stimulate inquiry; also to remind

men that God's dealings in the past are a key to the future, for He

moves on the same everlasting principles, the forms alone

being transitory.

7. arm . . . uncovered--to be ready for action, which

the long Oriental garment usually covering it would prevent

(Isa 52:10).

thou shalt prophesy against it--This gesture of thine will be a tacit

prophecy against it.

8. bands--

(Eze 3:25).

not turn from . . . side--to imply the impossibility of their being

able to shake off the punishment.

9. wheat . . . barley, &c.--Instead of simple flour

used for delicate cakes

(Ge 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.

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

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).

10. twenty shekels--that is, little more than ten ounces; a scant

measure to sustain life

(Jer 52:6).

But it applies not only to the siege, but to their whole subsequent

state.

11. sixth . . . of . . . hin--about a

pint and a half.

12. dung--as fuel; so the Arabs use beasts' dung, wood fuel being

scarce. But to use human dung so implies the most cruel necessity. It

was in violation of the law

(De 14:3; 23:12-14);

it must therefore have been done only in vision.

13. Implying that Israel's peculiar distinction was to be abolished

and that they were to be outwardly blended with the idolatrous heathen

(De 28:68;

Ho 9:3).

14. Ezekiel, as a priest, had been accustomed to the strictest

abstinence from everything legally impure. Peter felt the same scruple

at a similar command

(Ac 10:14;

compare

Isa 65:4).

Positive precepts, being dependent on a particular command can

be set aside at the will of the divine ruler; but moral precepts

are everlasting in their obligation because God cannot be inconsistent

with His unchanging moral nature.

abominable flesh--literally, "flesh that stank from putridity." Flesh

of animals three days killed was prohibited

(Le 7:17, 18; 19:6, 7).

15. cow's dung--a mitigation of the former order

(Eze 4:12);

no longer "the dung of man"; still the bread so baked is "defiled," to

imply that, whatever partial abatement there might be for the prophet's

sake, the main decree of God, as to the pollution of Israel by exile

among Gentiles, is unalterable.

16. staff of bread--bread by which life is supported, as a man's weight

is by the staff he leans on

(Le 26:26;

Ps 105:16;

Isa 3:1).

(Eze 4:10).

17. astonied one with another--mutually regard one another with

astonishment: the stupefied look of despairing want.