What does Ezechiel Chapter 4 say, and which statements belong to its speaker?

Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary

Siege signs are commanded. Side durations and ration measures remain exact. Fuel substitution precedes Jerusalem scarcity.

Chapter breakdown

Ezechiel 4 commands the prophet to draw Jerusalem's plan on a tile, lay siege against it with forts, a mount, a camp and battering rams, and set an iron pan between himself and the city as an iron wall. His resolute face and siege are a sign to Israel. The passage gives instructions rather than reporting their completed performance; engraving, clay material and miniature towers are not specified.

He must sleep on his left side bearing Israel's iniquities for 390 days, then on his right bearing Juda's for forty days, a day for a year. Face and outstretched arm turn toward Jerusalem's siege in prophecy. Bands prevent turning before the siege days end, but are not called invisible. Wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet and fitches in one vessel make his bread for 390 days. Food weighs twenty staters daily; water is one-sixth of a hin, taken from time to time. The edition defines a whole hin as about ten pints, not the sixth-part ration.

The barley bread is baked under ashes and covered with human dung in the people's sight, signifying filthy bread among nations of exile. Ezechiel objects that from infancy he has eaten neither naturally dead nor beast-torn animals nor unclean flesh. Neat's dung is permitted instead. The Lord announces broken bread supplies in Jerusalem, weighed bread eaten with care and measured water drunk in distress. With both failing, people fall against their brothers and pine in iniquity. A universal principle of strict historical accounting or respect for every sincere conscience is not stated.

The story inside

Opening: Siege signs are commanded. Development: Side durations and ration measures remain exact. Conclusion: Fuel substitution precedes Jerusalem scarcity.

Lessons worth keeping

1
Siege signs are commanded.
2
Side durations and ration measures remain exact.
3
Fuel substitution precedes Jerusalem scarcity.

Test your recall

Which images and requests does the speaker use, and what does the chapter leave unresolved?

Source edition and notes

Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.

Lines 91557–91566
4:1. And thou, O son of man, take thee a tile, and lay it before thee: and draw upon it the plan of the city of Jerusalem. 4:2. And lay siege against it, and build forts, and cast up a mount, and set a camp against it, and place battering rams round about it. 4:3. And take unto thee an iron pan, and set it for a wall of iron between thee and the city: and set thy face resolutely against it, and it shall be besieged, and thou shalt lay siege against it: it is a sign to the house of Israel.
Lines 91589–91600
4:9. And take to thee wheat and barley, and beans, and lentils, and millet, and fitches, and put them in one vessel, and make thee bread thereof according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon thy side: three hundred and ninety days shalt thou eat thereof. 4:10. And thy meat that thou shalt eat, shall be in weight twenty staters a day: from time to time thou shalt eat it. 4:11. And thou shalt drink water by measure, the sixth part of a hin: from time to time thou shalt drink it, Hin.... That is, a measure of liquids containing about ten pints.
Lines 91609–91622
4:14. And I said: Ah, ah, ah, O Lord God, behold my soul hath not been defiled, and from my infancy even till now, I have not eaten any thing that died of itself, or was torn by beasts, and no unclean flesh hath entered into my mouth. 4:15. And he said to me: Behold I have given thee neat’s dung for man’s dung, and thou shalt make thy bread therewith. 4:16. And he said to me: Son of man: Behold, I will break in pieces the staff of bread in Jerusalem: and they shall eat bread by weight, and with care: and they shall drink water by measure, and in distress. 4:17. So that when bread and water fail, every man may fall against his brother, and they may pine away in their iniquities.