Ezekiel

Ezekiel 4:1-3

Ezekiel set up a model of the city of Jerusalem, probably in a public place.  This was to be a visual display to add a kind of shock value to them, to get the point across that Jerusalem could be destroyed.  As kids we used to build forts in the sandbox and inhabit them with army men.  Mortars were fired into the scene, bombs dropped from airplanes and army men assaulted these forts.   These scenes always ended in chaos and destruction.  This is the picture Ezekiel is putting before the people. 

The iron plate was some sort of griddle used for cooking.  Something similar shows up in temple service to prepare grain offerings (Lev 2:5).  This iron plate represents the wall that sin has thrown up between God and his people.  From this position, Ezekiel was to set his face against Jerusalem.  This is the promise God if they were rebellious toward Him. 

¹⁴'But if you do not obey Me, and do not observe all these commandments,

¹⁵ and if you despise My statutes, or if your soul abhors My judgments, so that you do not perform all My commandments, but break My covenant,

¹⁶ I also will do this to you:

I will even appoint terror over you, wasting disease and fever which shall consume the eyes and cause sorrow of heart.

And you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it.

¹⁷ I will set My face against you, and you shall be defeated by your enemies.

Those who hate you shall reign over you, and you shall flee when no one pursues you. (Lev 26:14-17)

Ezekiel 4:4-8

Ezekiel was to lay on his left side to bear the sin of Israel for 390 days.  Then he was to lay on the right side to bear the sin o f Judah for 40 days.  We can't know for sure if lay there continually or just certain time of the day.  Many believe this was done at a certain time every day as a ceremony.  See in Leviticus 26 (vs14-17).  Four different times he said that He would punish them 7 more times if they don't harken his warning. 

Note:  A prophetic year is 360 days, so if they didn't harken him in the first 70 years there were 360 years times 7 times that by Leviticus equals 2520 years.  Because the years were different from our calendar and when it exactly starts, etc.  But it is roughly 2484 years.  There is no year zero so you add a year.  In 537 BC was Cyrus's decree which ended the servitude.  Subtract 537 from 2485 and you get 1948 – the year that Israel was reborn as a nation.  If you apply the same calculation to the fall of Jerusalem you get to 1967 – the year of the 6-year war.

Ezekiel 4:9-17

Ezekiel made siege bread, using normal grains for flour but also adding other stuff that wasn't normal as filler.  We heard of this in prison camps where sawdust was added to bread to make it go further.  The siege ration of bread was 8 oz. per day.  The water ration was 1/6 hin, about ¾ of a bottle of water.  These rations would barely be enough to avoid starvation.  This siege bread was to be baked over a fire made from dried human excrement.  Ezekiel pled with God not to make him do this.  Ezekiel was relieved when God allowed him to bake it over a fire made from cow manure instead.  This gives new meaning to grace.  The bread was eaten with anxiety and the water drank with dread.  The day was coming when this would happen for real, they would waste away in their iniquity.

©2019 Doug Ford