Ezekiel 4

Ezekiel 4 is the fourth chapter of the Book of Ezekiel. Following the call narrative of chapters 1–3, this chapter begins a series of symbolic acts, continuing through chapter 5, in which the prophet depicts the judgment of Jerusalem through bodily actions rather than words. The statement at the end of chapter 3 that he would shut himself within his house and be bound with bands (Ezekiel 3:24–25) leads directly into the actions of this chapter.

Outline

• Verses 1–3 Ezekiel portrays Jerusalem on a tile (a clay brick) and surrounds it with a siege ladder for scaling the walls, a mound, camps, and battering rams, constructing a model of a siege. He sets an iron pan as a wall between himself and the city and lays siege to it. This is to be a sign to the house of Israel.
• Verses 4–8 He lies on his left side for 390 days, bearing the iniquity of the house of Israel, and then on his right side for 40 days, bearing the iniquity of the house of Judah. Each day represents one year. With his arm uncovered he prophesies, and he is bound with bands so that he cannot turn from one side to the other.
• Verses 9–12 He mixes wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and fitches in one vessel, makes bread of them, and eats it for 390 days. His food is weighed out at twenty shekels a day, and his water is measured out at a sixth part of a hin. He is to bake the bread in the sight of the people over a fire of human dung.
• Verses 13–15 When the LORD declares that the children of Israel will eat defiled bread among the nations to which they are scattered, Ezekiel protests that he has never eaten anything unclean from his youth. The LORD then permits him to use cow's dung in place of human dung.
• Verses 16–17 The LORD declares that the supply of bread in Jerusalem will be cut off, that the people will eat bread by weight and drink water by measure in fear, and that they will finally waste away in their iniquity.

Key Verses

• Ezekiel 4:3 "This shall be a sign to the house of Israel" — This makes clear that the actions of the chapter are prophetic signs.
• Ezekiel 4:6 "I have appointed thee each day for a year" — This verse links days to years and is frequently cited in the history of prophetic interpretation.
• Ezekiel 4:14 "Behold, my soul hath not been polluted" — This is one of the rare scenes in which the prophet objects to a command he has received.

Characters and Places

• Ezekiel: A prophet of priestly background who was taken captive to Babylon. God addresses him as son of man, an expression used in the Book of Ezekiel in the sense of "human being."
• The LORD: The one who commands the symbolic acts.
• Jerusalem: The capital of Judah, whose siege and famine are foretold.
• The house of Israel and the house of Judah: Commonly understood as referring to the divided northern and southern kingdoms (see Division of the Kingdom).

Points for Reflection

• The meaning of 390 and 40: Interpreters differ over what these numbers count. Proposed explanations include the period of the northern kingdom's sin and the span from the building of the temple or from the division of the kingdom to the exile. The Septuagint is known to give the number in verse 5 as 190.
• Actual action or vision?: Some interpreters hold that Ezekiel actually lay on his side for a set period each day, while others regard the acts as taking place in a vision or as a literary device.
• "Each day for a year": Historicist prophetic interpretation uses this verse, together with Numbers 14:34, as the basis for the "day-for-a-year principle." The prophetic interpretation of the Seventh-day Adventist Church is a prominent example. Many interpreters, however, hold that the verse applies only to this particular symbolic act.
• Purity laws: The protest in verse 14 reflects the Levitical regulations forbidding the eating of carcasses and of flesh torn by beasts. Being forced to eat unclean food in a foreign land illustrates the misery of exile. Some read this passage alongside the scene in which Peter, in a vision, answers, "I have never eaten any thing that is common or unclean" (Acts 10:14).
• Bearing iniquity: Some Christian interpreters connect the image of the prophet "bearing" the sin of the people with the Suffering Servant. In the text itself, however, the act is presented as a sign depicting the duration of punishment.