Ezekiel 5:1-4

(D) The Fate of the Besieged. Yet the last symbol is perhaps the most terrible of all; it suggests the all but irretrievable completeness of the destruction. Ezekiel is commanded to take a sharp sword, and use it, like a razor, upon his head and beard suggesting how clean the city will be swept of its population. The hair removed is to be scrupulously weighed there is a deadly accuracy in the Divine justice and divided into three portions, destined to be burned, smitten, and scattered respectively, symbolic (as we learn from Ezekiel 5:12) of the fate of those within the city (the fire stands for pestilence and famine), of those caught near it, cruelly cut down in their efforts to escape, and of those who will be swept away to exile. Of these last a few, symbolised by a little hair caught in the folds of Ezekiel's garment, shall escape, but even this remnant is to be decimated by further disaster. (Perhaps the last sentence of Ezekiel 5:4 should be deleted.)