Synopsis: Working on Leviticus in the Old Testament and various books in the New Testament
Verses 1-2 Thou also, son of man, take thee a tile, and lay it before thee, and pourtray upon it the city, even Jerusalem: 2 And lay siege against it, and build a fort against it, and cast a mount against it; set the camp also against it, and set battering rams against it round about.
The Hebrew word translated as “tile” is “labenah” and it appears 11 times in Scripture, ten times translated as brick and one time in the above verse translated as tile. This would have been something large enough and flat enough to make a drawing of some kind of the city of Jerusalem. Whether it was painted upon, carved or etched upon this writer does not know. But it would have been large enough for people passing by to see and understand what it represented. The Hebrew word translated as “pourtray” (portray in American English) is “chaqaq” and it means to cut out, decree, inscribe, set, engrave, govern, to cut in or on, to trace, or to mark out. So it would be likely that the prophet Ezekiel inscribed or engraved the tile like a map. Then, perhaps in the dirt around the tile he made a miniature representation of the armaments used in those days when attacking a walled or fortified city.
Verse 3 Moreover take thou unto thee an iron pan, and set it for a wall of iron between thee and the city: and set thy face against it, and it shall be besieged, and thou shalt lay siege against it. This shall be a sign to the house of Israel.
Iron metaphorically represents strength, hardness and oppression. The Hebrew word translated as “pan” is “machabath” and it means a flat plate, pan or griddle that is used for baking. So, using the imagination, Ezekiel took a flat tile, made a representation of the city of Jerusalem upon it, placed representations of the items an invading army would use to attack the city around the tile, and then set up a flat iron plate or griddle as a barrier between the miniature and himself, indicating that the city was surrounded with military forces in order to capture it, but he was outside looking in at the representation. Metaphorically, the prophet Ezekiel was outside the city of Jerusalem in that he was following God while the rest of the people were following pagan idols and ways and serving devils.
The Hebrew word translated as “sign” is “owth” and it means a sign, a signal, a banner, an omen, a token, a miracle, or proof. This “miniature” created by the prophet in obedience to the LORD was to warn the house of Israel of coming judgement and disaster.
Application: God never brings judgement upon a nation, a people, or an individual without first warning that, if change does not occur, punishment will follow. He always gives multiple warnings and always provides time for repentance. He is a just and loving God and does not find pleasure in judging and punishing mankind, but He hates sin and cannot allow it to continue indefinitely.
Verses 4-5 Lie thou also upon thy left side, and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel upon it: according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon it thou shalt bear their iniquity. 5 For I have laid upon thee the years of their iniquity, according to the number of the days, three hundred and ninety days: so shalt thou bear the iniquity of the house of Israel.
This is where it gets interesting as many things have been written by many people about these verses, some of which just do not make sense. For example, it has been said that the prophet Ezekiel laid upon his side and stayed there for the entire 430 days. If that had happened, he would have died as the human body is designed for movement and not stillness in one position. Muscle atrophy, organ compromise, blood clot formation and so forth would have occurred. Then it has been said that he got up to take care of bodily functions such as bathroom needs, bathing, and eating and drinking. It is true that God could have miraculously kept the prophet’s body from deteriorating, but why would He do such a thing? God is a miracle worker, but He does not deliberately harm His servants and He could get His point across to the Israelites in many different ways. So what really happened as described in these verses?
The problem arises when defining the word “it”. In the previous verses, the “it” was the tile which was to be a sign to the house of Israel. Also, the prophet Ezekiel was to “lay siege against it”. How could the prophet siege or surround the tile? By lying upon “it” and covering it with his body. This visible action was representative of the city of Jerusalem being besieged, captured and/or destroyed. So one way to understand these verses is to ascribe the “it” to the tile. However, the “it” in verse 4 above could be either the tile or the prophet Ezekiel’s side. But it makes more sense to interpret the “it” as the tile. You decide.
The Hebrew word translated as “iniquity” is “avon” and it means perversity, depravity, iniquity, guilt or punishment of iniquity. So as a warning to the house of Israel, God was providing through the prophet Ezekiel a visible, tangible, and understandable symbol of the judgement that was to come because of their rejection of their God and their refusal to repent of their sins and transgressions. It would have been difficult to pass by Ezekiel and ignore what he was doing.
Application: In the Hebrew culture and times, prophets often gave demonstrations of God’s communication to the people in symbolic ways that the people could understand. Not all of the people were literate and able to read Hebrew, but they could understand a clear picture if it was given to them. Jesus used parables which told stories representative of the teachings He was bringing forth to the people. Today, graphs, diagrams, cartoons and memes are examples of this technique. Hence the saying, “A picture is worth a 1000 words.” By the prophet Ezekiel lying upon the representation of the city of Jerusalem, the center of Jewish culture and government, it would have been apparent that Jerusalem was going to be wiped out by the judgement of God. This message would not have been received well.
Verse 6 And when thou hast accomplished them, lie again on thy right side, and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days: I have appointed thee each day for a year.
Here God commanded the prophet to begin lying on his right side for 40 days as a representation of the judgement of God against the sins and trespasses of the nation Judah. Biblically and historically, the left was negative and the right was positive. A king or ruler would extend the right hand with or without a scepter if the person to whom it was extended was in their good graces. Likewise, the left hand indicated the person was not accepted and in trouble. Ecclesiastes 10:2 “A wise man’s heart is at his right hand, but a fool’s heart at his left.” Matthew 25:31-34 “When the son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: and before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: and he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:” Matthew 25:41 “Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:“
When researching the historical dates of both Israel (10 northern tribes) and Judah (2 southern tribes) it is difficult to get a consensus. For example, one source writes confidently that the prophet Ezekiel wrote between 593 and 565 B.C. and another source writes confidently that he wrote around 434 B.C., only a difference of 131 years. What is sure is that, from the prophet’s own words in chapter 1 of this book, he was living in captivity in the nation of Babylon. He would have been a contemporary of the prophet Daniel. What else is known is that the destruction of the nation Israel at the hands of the Assyrians was around 722-720 B.C. and that as the prophet was writing, the nation of Judah was in Babylonian captivity which lasted 70 years. So what was/is the significance of the 390 plus 40 years written above?
There are many ways to apply the number 430, but this writer believes that this time represents the years between the last prophet God sent to the people of Judah, Malachi, and the coming of John the Baptist and the Messiah. Why? Because the people of Judah and Jerusalem did not have a prophet bring forth the Word of God after the prophecies of the prophet Malachi until the prophet, John the Baptist, was born to Elisabeth and Zacharias as recorded in the Gospel of Luke. “There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judaea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the course of Abia: and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elisabeth. But the angel said unto him, Fear not, Zacharias: for thy prayer is heard; and thy wife Elisabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John.” Luke 1:5,13 God had continued to send prophets to warn the people after the ministry of Ezekiel, but He became silent for 400 years and sent no more prophets after the prophet Malachi. When the Hebrews assimilated into Assyria and then into Babylon, the remnant that returned after the Babylonian captivity were most likely a genetic mixture of both Israel and Judah, and so the prophecy of Ezekiel representing both the house of Israel and the house of Judah by lying on first his left side, and then his right side, would be correct. Israel was estranged from God for a longer period of time and they intermarried against God’s commandment. They had been cast out first, hence the sign of the prophet lying on his left side. The house of Judah was in captivity for a lesser amount of time and were less polluted genetically and spiritually than the house of Israel, therefore having the sign of the prophet lying on his right side. It was from Judah that the Messiah was to come, not Israel. The prophet Malachi wrote between 445 and 412 B.C. Many scholars put the book of Malachi as being written around 435 B.C. which, when 430 years are subtracted, would put the date at 5 B.C. It is believed that Jesus was actually born around 4 B.C. and John the Baptist was born six months before Jesus. Jesus was born sometime in today’s month of September, not on the pagan celebration in December this writer calls Baal-mas, a creation of/by the Catholic church. This is easily proven by Scripture. John the Baptist was born sometime in today’s month of March which would be just before the Jewish new year. So the time line fits the 400 years of silence up to the coming of the prophet John who was the son of a Levitical priest, and then Jesus Christ who was/is also a prophet as well as a priest and a king. John the Baptist was beheaded and then the very last prophet ever to teach and preach to the Jewish people before Jerusalem was destroyed and the Jews scattered abroad into other nations was the LORD Jesus Christ, God manifested in the flesh. Jesus explained this as recorded in Luke 20:9-16
“Then began he to speak to the people this parable; A certain man planted a vineyard, and let it forth to husbandmen, and went into a far country for a long time. And at the season he sent a servant to the husbandmen, that they should give him of the fruit of the vineyard: but the husbandmen beat him, and sent him away empty. And again he sent another servant: and they beat him also, and entreated him shamefully, and sent him away empty. And again he sent a third: and they wounded him also, and cast him out. Then said the lord of the vineyard, What shall I do? I will send my beloved son: it may be they will reverence him when they see him. But when the husbandmen saw him, they reasoned among themselves, saying, This is the heir: come, let us kill him, that the inheritance may be ours. So they cast him out of the vineyard, and killed him. What therefore shall the lord of the vineyard do unto them? He shall come and destroy these husbandmen, and shall give the vineyard to others.”
The lord of the vineyard is Father God, the husbandmen were the nation of Israel, the fruit was obeying God’s commandments and being righteous as a people and as a nation, the servants sent to the husbandmen were the prophets who were mistreated and even killed, and the son of the lord of the vineyard is Jesus Christ, who, when rejected by the Jewish people and then executed, fulfilled all prophecy which ushered in the destruction of the physical nation Israel and of the city Jerusalem, and brought in the spiritual Kingdom of God in the physical form of the Church.
Another way to apply the 430 years is to go back to the Hebrew captivity in Egypt as recorded in the book of Exodus. The Hebrew people were in captivity for exactly 430 years before being freed by God through the hand of the prophet Moses. During much of that time, the 12 tribes who were descended from the sons of Jacob prospered and multiplied their numbers until they were large enough to be perceived as a threat to the Egyptian Pharaoh who then began to enslave and mistreat the Hebrew people. Since it was always God’s plan for the children of Israel to return to Palestine, and since it is the nature of man to resist change and to not want go give up that which is familiar and working well, it may be that God allowed the slavery from Pharaoh to happen so that the Hebrew people would want to escape and travel back to the land that had been promised to Abraham, Issac and Jacob. Regardless, as a result of their exodus from Egypt under the leadership of Moses and his brother, Aaron, the nation received the 10 commandments and the law which established a governmental and religious system put in place by God. It was this system or theocracy that the people rebelled against over and over again until they were allowed to install a man as their king instead of the LORD. From that point on, the nation was embroiled in political intrigue and wars which ended up in a split kingdom and eventual captivity by Assyria and then Babylon. This occurred over hundreds of years, not just 430 years. But the rebellion against God and His governance started back in Egypt. So perhaps the number, 430, represents the time of captivity by a foreign power and the prophet Ezekiel’s physical display of the tile and his lying upon it was telling the people that they were going to go back to being captive to a foreign power which turned out to be Rome. When in Egypt, God’s grace and mercy provided salvation for the people and the establishment of a theocracy with commandments, laws, statutes and ordinances. But because of rebellion and sin, the theocracy had crumbled and God’s judgement was going to provide for punishment and for the dissolution of the nation, Israel.
Verses 7-8 Therefore thou shalt set thy face toward the siege of Jerusalem, and thine arm shall be uncovered, and thou shalt prophesy against it. 8 And, behold, I will lay bands upon thee, and thou shalt not turn thee from one side to another, till thou hast ended the days of thy siege.
To “set thy face” means to be firm, be stable, be firmly established, to be fixed, or to be securely determined. The arm is a symbol of strength. So by the prophet Ezekiel having his arm not covered by his garment the picture was that the coming siege of Jerusalem was securely determined and that the military forces involved in the siege would be very strong. Verse 8 states that God would put cords or rope on the prophet’s body to prevent him from turning over. It is possible that supernaturally God placed bonds on His servant, but it is more likely that the prophet Ezekiel, if asleep on the tile, would be prevented from turning over onto his other side by the power of the Spirit of God and that no visible physical bonds were involved. You decide.
Verses 9-10 Take thou also unto thee wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentiles, 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. 10 And thy meat which thou shalt eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels a day: from time to time shalt thou eat it.
The diet that God commanded the prophet Ezekiel to eat for this very long period of time was entirely grain/bean based and not terribly appetizing. These foods were of the type that could be harvested, dried and stored. They were often representative of the diets of the poorest of the people. The Hebrew word translated as “bread” is “lechem” and it means bread, food or grain. So the prophet could make both a coarse bread or a type of soup. This was to be his only food for 390 days.
A shekel was a measure of weight, which when applied to metals, ranged from 132 grains to 528 grains. When applied to food grain, it is a very small amount. This limited amount of food and food choices was metaphor for food rationing, famine and starvation. When a walled city was besieged, very often the invading army just camped outside the wall and waited until the residents of the city ran out of food and water and had no choice but to surrender. God was showing the future of the children of Israel and of their city, Jerusalem, through the visible actions of His servant, Ezekiel.
Verse 11 Thou shalt drink also water by measure, the sixth part of an hin: from time to time shalt thou drink.
A hin was approximately 5 quarts. At today’s measurement of 4 cups to a quart, there would be approximately 20 cups of fluid in a hin, which when divided by six would equal 3.33 cups of water that the prophet Ezekiel was to drink daily. This was metaphor for water rationing.
Verses 12-13 And thou shalt eat it as barley cakes, and thou shalt bake it with dung that cometh out of man, in their sight. 13 And the LORD said, Even thus shall the children of Israel eat their defiled bread among the Gentiles, whither I will drive them.
There are many countries today that use human waste for fertilizer on crops, and every year it seems there is an outbreak of E coli or some other bacteria in the fruits and vegetables grown in this manner and exported to other countries. Using human waste was/is prohibited by God. And for the Hebrew, it was forbidden to even touch human waste or a dead body. The person had to be considered unclean and then go through a ritual which included bathing to become clean. “Or if a soul touch any unclean thing, whether it be a carcase of an unclean beast, or a carcase of unclean cattle, or the carcase of unclean creeping things, and if it be hidden from him; he also shall be unclean, and guilty. Or if he touch the uncleanness of man, whatsoever uncleanness it be that a man shall be defiled withal, and it be hid from him; when he knoweth of it, then he shall be guilty. Moreover the soul that shall touch any unclean thing, as the uncleanness of man, or any unclean beast, or any abominable unclean thing, and eat of the flesh of the sacrifice of peace offering, which pertain unto the LORD. even that soul shall be cut off from his people.” Leviticus 5:2-3, 7:21 So to prepare food using human excrement was unheard of and not done. This was to have been metaphor for dire circumstances in which there was no wood or other plant sources to have fires on which to cook food. Again, this visible demonstration by the prophet Ezekiel would have been pointing to a time of military siege where the people could not access fuel for their cooking.
Verse 14 Then said I, Ah Lord GOD! behold, my soul hath not been polluted: for from my youth up even till now have I not eaten of that which dieth of itself, or is torn in pieces; neither came there abominable flesh into my mouth.
The prophet Ezekiel had not refused to do what God had instructed him to do, but this last directive was too much for him as he would be breaking Mosaic law which was given by God. So he politely reminded the LORD that he had been obedient from his youth up to this point of time to the commandments of the LORD and he did not want to start breaking any now.
Verse 15-17 Then he said unto me, Lo, I have given thee cow’s dung for man’s dung, and thou shalt prepare thy bread therewith. 16 Moreover he said unto me, Son of man, behold, I will break the staff of bread in Jerusalem: and they shall eat bread by weight, and with care; and they shall drink water by measure, and with astonishment: 17 That they may want bread and water, and be astonied one with another, and consume away for their iniquity.
God respected the prophet Ezekiel and his concern and agreed to let him use cow dung, which is also used in many countries today for fuel. Then God sums up all of these commandments that He has given to Ezekiel by plainly stating that, in the future, the people living in Jerusalem would be facing a food, water, and fuel shortage which will result in them being consumed away (pine away or rot away) because of their iniquity. This was to be God’s judgement on a wicked and perverse nation. Did this really happen? Yes, in 70 A.D. under the siege of the Roman general, Titus.