Commentary - Ezekiel 4:9-17

Bird's-eye view

In this portion of Ezekiel, the prophet's sign-acts continue, and they become intensely personal and visceral. God is not content to have His prophet simply speak the words of judgment; Ezekiel must become a living, breathing illustration of the coming covenant curses. This is not street theater for its own sake. This is a profound identification of the messenger with the message. The siege of Jerusalem is depicted, not with words alone, but with the prophet's own body and sustenance. The people of God had polluted His worship and His land with their spiritual adulteries, and so God here commands His prophet to illustrate the coming judgment by consuming polluted food. The coming exile will be a time of scarcity, anxiety, and profound uncleanness, a direct outworking of the curses promised in the covenant for disobedience. Ezekiel must taste the judgment before the people do, embodying the filth of their sin and the severity of God's holy reaction to it.

The prophet's personal revulsion at the command to cook over human dung is not dismissed by God, but it is met with a concession, not a cancellation of the sign. This highlights two things: the depth of Israel's coming degradation and the fact that God's holiness is not arbitrary. Ezekiel's lifelong commitment to ceremonial cleanness is acknowledged, but the point of the sign must stand. Israel will be driven into Gentile lands where keeping kosher will be impossible. Their defilement is their judgment. The passage concludes by making the interpretation explicit: the staff of bread in Jerusalem will be broken, and the people will waste away in their iniquity, eating and drinking with fear and trembling. The physical famine will be a mirror of their spiritual state.

Outline

Context In Ezekiel

Ezekiel chapter 4 is part of a series of dramatic sign-acts that God commands the prophet to perform. These are not mere object lessons; they are prophetic embodiments of the message. Ezekiel has already been commanded to lie on his side for a staggering number of days to bear the iniquity of Israel and Judah (Ezek 4:4-6). This section flows directly from that, detailing what his diet will be during this prophetic vigil. The context is the impending final destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians. The people back in Jerusalem were clinging to a false hope, trusting in the temple and the city's supposed inviolability. Ezekiel, already in exile with the first wave of deportees, is tasked with shattering that false hope. His actions are a stark, unavoidable sermon to his fellow exiles, demonstrating that God's covenant lawsuit against His people is reaching its terrible climax.

Clause-by-Clause Commentary

v. 9 “Now as for you, take wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and spelt; set them in one vessel and make them into bread for yourself; you shall eat it according to the number of the days that you lie on your side, 390 days.

The instructions begin with a recipe, but it is a recipe for judgment. This is not the fine flour of the temple offering. It is a hodgepodge of various grains and legumes. During a siege, you don't have the luxury of choice. You throw whatever you have left into one pot. This mixture represents the scarcity and desperation that will soon grip Jerusalem. The variety is not a sign of abundance, but of shortage. They are scraping the bottom of every storage bin. This will be Ezekiel's sustenance for the 390 days he is to bear Israel's iniquity. His diet is to match his posture. He is physically embodying the long years of their sin, and now he must physically consume the fruit of it, which is this bread of adversity.

v. 10 And your food which you eat shall be twenty shekels a day by weight; you shall eat it from time to time.

Now God specifies the portion size, and it is meager. Twenty shekels is about eight ounces. This is a starvation diet, just enough to keep a man alive but no more. This is a direct fulfillment of the covenant curses laid out in Leviticus: "you shall eat bread by weight and with anxiety" (Lev. 26:26). God is not being arbitrary; He is being faithful to His own warnings. The phrase "from time to time" indicates that he cannot even eat this small portion all at once. It must be rationed out, nibbled on throughout the day, making the hunger a constant companion. This is the anxiety of a siege. You never know when the next meal is coming, or if it is coming. The psychological torment is part of the judgment.

v. 11 The water you drink shall be the sixth part of a hin by measure; you shall drink it from time to time.

Water is likewise severely rationed. A sixth of a hin is roughly two-thirds of a liter. In the hot climate of the Middle East, this is a recipe for constant, gnawing thirst. Again, this is the reality of a besieged city, where water sources are cut off and every drop is precious. Like the food, it is to be drunk "from time to time," meaning it must be sipped slowly to make it last. The picture is one of extreme privation. God is showing, through His prophet, that the basic blessings of life, bread and water, which are signs of His covenant favor, are about to be withdrawn.

v. 12 You shall eat it as a barley cake, having baked it in their sight over human dung.”

Here the sign reaches its most shocking and offensive point. It is one thing to eat scant rations of mixed grain. It is quite another to be told how to cook it. Barley cakes were the food of the poor. But the fuel for the fire is what is truly startling. In a besieged city, wood runs out quickly. People are forced to burn whatever they can find. Dried animal dung was a common fuel source in that part of the world. But human dung? That was unclean. To use it to prepare food would make the food itself ceremonially unclean. This act was to be done "in their sight," for all the exiles to see. The message was unmistakable: the coming judgment would not just be about hardship, but about profound defilement.

v. 13 Then Yahweh said, “Thus will the sons of Israel eat their bread unclean among the nations where I will banish them.”

God does not leave the interpretation to chance. He immediately explains the meaning of the sign. Just as Ezekiel is to eat this defiled bread, so the people of Israel will be forced to eat unclean food in the pagan lands of their exile. When they are scattered "among the nations," they will lose the protections of the covenant land and the Mosaic law. They will be unable to maintain their ceremonial purity. Their idolatry had been a spiritual defilement of God's land, so their punishment is to be physically defiled in pagan lands. The punishment fits the crime with a terrible, poetic justice.

v. 14 But I said, “Ah, Lord Yahweh! Behold, I have never been defiled; for from my youth until now I have never eaten what died of itself or was torn by beasts, nor has any offensive meat ever entered my mouth.”

Ezekiel's reaction is one of horror and protest. As a priest, he has been scrupulously devoted to maintaining ceremonial purity his entire life. He appeals to God on the basis of his lifelong faithfulness to the dietary laws. He has never eaten carrion or anything else forbidden by the law. The thought of cooking his food over human excrement is utterly repugnant to him, a violation of his entire being. This is not the protest of a rebellious servant, but of a faithful one who is being asked to do something that goes against the very grain of the holiness he has cultivated. It is a plea born of reverence for God's own law.

v. 15 Then He said to me, “See, I will set for you cow’s dung in place of human dung over which you will prepare your bread.”

God hears His servant. He makes a concession. He does not rebuke Ezekiel for his plea. Instead, He provides an alternative: cow's dung. As noted, this was a common and acceptable fuel. This substitution lessens the personal defilement for the prophet, but it does not nullify the sign. The point of uncleanness is still made, because the bread itself represents the defiled state of Israel in exile, but God graciously spares his faithful priest the most extreme form of this particular sign. This interaction reveals the heart of God; He is not a cruel taskmaster. He is holy and must judge sin, but He is also merciful to those who fear Him.

v. 16 Moreover, He said to me, “Son of man, behold, I am going to break the staff of bread in Jerusalem, and they will eat bread by weight and with anxiety, and they will drink water by measure and in desolation

God now returns to the main point, driving it home with forceful language. To "break the staff of bread" is a powerful idiom for causing a famine. Bread is the staff of life, the basic support. God is going to break that support. He repeats the earlier themes: the people in Jerusalem will face the same reality that Ezekiel is currently modeling. They will eat carefully weighed rations with hearts full of anxiety. They will drink carefully measured water in a state of appalled horror, or desolation. The sign-act is a preview of the coming attraction, and it will be terrible.

v. 17 because bread and water will be lacking; and they will be in desolation with one another and rot away in their iniquity.

The reason for this horror is simple: the basics of life will be gone. But the ultimate cause is not logistical, it is theological. They will "rot away in their iniquity." The physical decay and starvation are an outward picture of their inward spiritual state. Their sin is a wasting disease, and the famine is simply that disease manifesting itself in their bodies and their society. They will look at one another in horror ("be in desolation with one another") as they see the effects of God's judgment on their neighbors, their friends, and their own children, knowing that the same fate awaits them. This is the end result of covenant rebellion: utter desolation, brought upon them by their own sin.

Application

We live in a culture that is allergic to the concept of uncleanness. We prefer to think of sin as a mistake, a blunder, or a therapeutic problem to be managed. But the Bible speaks of sin as a defilement, a pollution that makes us offensive to a holy God. This passage is a bucket of ice water in the face of our modern sensibilities. It forces us to confront the sheer filthiness of our rebellion against God. Our idolatries, our lusts, our pride, they are not just "bad choices." In God's sight, they are the spiritual equivalent of cooking our food over human waste. They defile us and everything we touch.

The judgment on Israel was that they would be forced to live out the consequences of their spiritual choices in a physical way. When a people abandons God, the staff of bread is eventually broken. The prosperity, peace, and order that are blessings of covenant faithfulness are withdrawn, and they are left to eat the bitter bread of anxiety and drink the scant water of desolation. We should not imagine we are immune. When we as a nation or as individuals choose to wallow in iniquity, we should not be surprised when we begin to rot.

But the gospel shines brightly against this dark backdrop. Ezekiel, the faithful priest, was horrified at the thought of being defiled. Yet, centuries later, the Great High Priest, Jesus Christ, willingly entered into our defilement. He was "made to be sin who knew no sin" (2 Cor. 5:21). He ate with tax collectors and sinners, touching the unclean and making them clean. He took the full measure of our filth upon Himself at the cross, drinking the cup of God's wrath to the dregs, so that we might be washed and presented to the Father as spotless. Ezekiel was given a concession; Christ was given none. He endured the ultimate desolation so that we might never have to. Therefore, let us flee the unclean bread of this world and feast on Him who is the true Bread of Life.