Ezekiel: oracle-by-oracle | Session 4 | Ezekiel 4:9-6:10

Ezekiel 1:1-12:28 | The Desolation

Ezekiel 4:1-7:27 | Signs

Ezekiel 4:9-17 | Food

• Verse 9 –
  • The Lord gave Ezekiel a diet for his 390 days on his left side. The bread consisted of grains, beans, lentiles, etc. Fitches (sometimes spelled /vetches/) is a variety of grain (sometimes called /spelt/).

  • There is an “Ezekiel 4:9” bread available in most grocery stores, loosely based on this verse.

  • Why is he to eat this 390 days rather than 430? We are not told. FW Grant speculates that the seige of the city of Jerusalem by Babylonian forces was 390 days.

• Verse 10 –
  • The word meat is not used in KJV exclusively as /animal meat/, but is used generally for /food/.
  • Whether the bread of verse 9 is the /only/ food he was to eat is uncertain.
  • His diet, nonetheless, was to only be by weight, twenty shekels a day, and he could eat it from time to time through the day.
  • According to Bullinger (Appendix 51, The Companion Bible), a shekel weighed 10 drams, so 20 shekels per day would be about 12.5 ounces, if Bullinger’s calculation is correct.
• Verse 11 –
  • If a hin is a gallon, as per /The Companion Bible/, then this is ⅙ of a gallon.
• Verses 12-13 –
  • If the amount seems small, it becomes more than Ezekiel wanted to eat when he was told to cook it with dung that cometh out of a man.
  • The purpose was to show the people that /all of their food/ was going to be defiled when they lived in exile. Note that the dung was not baked into the bread, but the fuel for baking the bread.
• Verses 14-15 –
  • After complaint, God graciously substituted cow’s dung for man’s dung.
  • The practice of dung for fuel is used in some parts of the world today. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_dung_fuel
• Verses 16-17 –
  • The 390 days of scarcely eating was to display the coming famine that would be upon a true famine (likely physical and spiritual) during the time of their exile.
  • This was a direct punishment from God, and the time would be one in which they would consume away for their iniquity rather than eat a bounty of bread.

    Ezekiel 5:1-17 | Hair

• Verses 1-4 - The Sign
  • In verses 1-4 Ezekiel is given the sign to show to the people.
  • According to Leviticus 21:5, a priest was not allowed to shave his head. Ezekiel, of course, was a priest. This was reiterated for the millennial priest in Ezekiel 44:20.
    • The standard evangelical view is that “God never contradicts Himself, so He’ll never ask you to do something contradictory to Scripture.” (https://www.gotquestions.org/God-telling-me.html).
    • However, here God is clearly telling Ezekiel to do something that priests are instructed by God not to do.
  • Why put a razor to the head?
    • In Isaiah 7:20 the Lord uses an illustration of shaving the head by the king of Assyria who would figuratively “shave the head” of the House of Israel.
    • Because of that illustration, no other illustration will work here to communicate the “shaving” that the Assyrians gave to Israel.
    • Note that these verses signify what will come to all the house of Israel (v. 4).
  • After shaving his head, he is to divide the hair into thirds.
    • One third will be burnt.
    • One third will be chopped with a knife.
    • One third will be scattered in the wind.
      • There would also be a few hairs from this group to be bound into the hem of his clothing.
      • Even some of those were later to be burned in the fire.
  • This picture /signifies/ something (which will be explained in the following verses).
• Verses 5-17 - The Signification
  • Ezekiel was to burn the hair in the midst of the city (the signification of the city on the tile) (v. 2), because this entire scene is Jerusalem.
    • Any interpretation beyond Jerusalem will be flawed.
    • Notice that Jerusalem is pictured, and is a specific reference to the physical city, but the entirety of the House of Israel (v. 4) is in mind. This becomes significant when the “New Jerusalem” is the bride of Christ in Revelation 21. The city is always the people as a whole, and the loss of the city would always be a loss of the people’s standing with God, for only in Jerusalem could a sacrifice be given.
    • If Jerusalem is destroyed by God, God is, in effect, saying, “there is no possible way to walk in fellowship with Me.”
  • The city was being judged because she hath changed my judgments into wickedness(v. 6). That is, the /decisions/of God were considered wicked by the citizens of Jerusalem. As bad as the surrounding countries, Jerusalem was worse.
  • The promised judgements are horrendous.
    • Because of these judgments the fathers shall eat the sons in Jerusalem, and the sons shall eat their fathers. Even the remnantwould be scattered into all the winds (v. 10).
    • Moses warned that such a day would come, see Deuteronomy 28:53.
  • As the earlier sign pictured, one third would be consumed in Jerusalem, one-third would fall by the sword, and one-third scattered into all the winds where then the sword would be drawn against them (v. 12).
  • The city of Jerusalem itself would become a waste, and a reproach among the nations(v. 14). This was also foretold by Moses, see Deuteronomy 28:37.
  • Note that all of this is /not about the future/ from our perspective. It is rather a prophecy fulfilled in the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians is 586 BC.

    Ezekiel 6:1-7:27 | The Mountains

• Verses 6:1-7 - The Mountains of Israel
  • Ezekiel was commanded to speak prophesy against the mountains of Israel (v. 2) along with the rivers, and to the valleys (v. 3).
    • Specifically, God would bring a sword and destroy your high places. These high places were temples to pagan deities. Therefore, the altars andimages of verse 4 are pagan worship sights.
    • The worshipers would be cast down in the presence of these idols, and the dead carcasses of the children of Israelwill lay in front of the idols they once worshiped (v. 5).
  • Not only would the high places be destroyed, but the cities shall be laid waste as well (v. 6). The “take away” words are made desolate (v. 6), for that is the summary of what will take place.
• Verses 6:8-10 - The Remnant
  • In the midst of desolation, God says, I wil leave a remnant (v. 8).
  • This remnant will remember me among the nations and shall loath themselves because of their sins (v. 9).
  • God is so obligated to a remnant (in order to fulfill His covenant with Abraham) that He would do this evil unto them (v. 10).
    • To leave the nation in its sinful rebellion without punishment would ultimately lead to the loss of the nation and its national identity completely.
    • Since God cannot lose the nation, He is obligated to punish the nation in order to bring a remnant to repentance.