Ezekiel 4

Ezekiel 4:1

2. The Siege of Jerusalem Portrayed with a Tile (Chap. 4)4:1-8 Jerusalem was built with stones on a rock foundation. Brick (made of clay like tile) is a symbol of Babylon (cf. Gen_11:3, Gen_11:9). Now Jerusalem has become even worse than Babylon in her morals and idolatry (see Eze_5:7). God therefore commanded Ezekiel to portray the siege of Jerusalem, using a clay tablet (tile) to represent the city and an iron plate (or pan) to picture the wall of iron that would cut the city off from help. The prophet is God’s representative. This shows that the Lord Himself was besieging Jerusalem. Ezekiel was to lie . . . on his left side . . . three hundred and ninety days for Israel and on his right side . . . forty days for Judah. Each day represented a year, but no explanation of the totals is completely satisfactory. The Septuagint seeks to solve the problem by changing 390 to 190, but the change lacks Hebrew manuscript support. Another unanswered question is whether Ezekiel actually lay on his side day and night for these two periods of time. Many commentators suggest that he did it only during that part of each day when he would be seen by the public, since it was a visual teaching aid. 4:9-17 These verses speak of the famine which resulted from the siege, with food and water rationed. At first, human excrement was to be used as fuel for baking, but later this was changed to the more customary cow dung. The chapter is a picture of siege, discomfort, hunger, and defilementall the result of Judah’s sin and departure from God.