Ezekiel 4:10

And thy meat which thou shalt eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels a day: from time to time shalt thou eat it. THY MEAT SHALL BE BY WEIGHT TWENTY SHEKELS ie little more than ten ounces A scant measure to THY MEAT ... SHALL BE BY WEIGHT, TWENTY SHEKELS - i:e., little more than ten ounces. A scant measure to sustain life (). But it applies not only to the siege, but to their whole subsequent state....

This confirms what I have said, namely, that the want should be such, that the Prophet dared not eat even that bread to satiety: _you shall eat, _says he, _bread by weight, _viz, _twenty shekels. _These are not complete rounds, so that the sense is, that God commanded his Prophet to live sparingly. When the city was besieged, bread was distributed in pieces to each person. God then here says, that the Jews should be almost famished during the siege, so that they should not have bread except by fixed weight, and that a small one. What follows is more miserable, namely, the want of water; for this is the last stage of calamity when thirst oppresses us. it seems hard, indeed, to want wine, but when water is deficient, this, as I have said, is the last stage of famine, and this the Prophet denounces against the Jews when he says, _water was not given to him during the time of the siege unles...

9-17 The bread which was Ezekiel's support, was to be made of coarse grain and pulse mixed together, seldom used except in times of urgent scarcity, and of this he was only to take a small quantity. Thus was figured the extremity to which the Jews were to be reduced during the siege and captivity. Ezekiel does not plead, Lord, from my youth I have been brought up delicately, and never used to any thing like this; but that he had been brought up conscientiously, and never had eaten any thing forbidden by the law. It will be comfortable when we are brought to suffer hardships, if our hearts can witness that we have always been careful to keep even from the appearance of evil. See what woful work sin makes, and acknowledge the righteousness of God herein. Their plenty having been abused to luxury and excess, they were justly punished by famine. When men serve not God with cheerfulness in t...

Verse Ezekiel 4:10. _TWENTY SHEKELS A DAY_] The whole of the above grain, being ground, was to be formed into one _mass_, out of which he was to make _three hundred and ninety loaves; one loaf_ for _each day_; and this loaf was to be of _twenty shekels_ in weight. Now a _shekel_, being in weight about half an ounce, this would be _ten_ ounces of bread for each day; and with this _water_ to the amount of one _sixth_ part of a _hin_, which is about a pint and a half of our measure. All this shows that so reduced should provisions be during the siege, that they should be obliged to eat the _meanest_ sort of aliment, and that by _weight_, and their _water_ by _measure_; each man's allowance being scarcely a _pint and a half_, and _ten ounces_, a little more than _half a pound_ of _bread_, for each day's sup...

MEAT - A general term for food, which in this case consists of grain. Instead of measuring, it was necessary in extreme scarcity to weigh it Leviticus 26:26; Revelation 6:6. TWENTY SHEKELS A DAY - The shekel contained about 220 grains, so that 20 shekels would be about 56 of a pound. FROM TIME TO TIME - Thou shalt receive and eat it at the appointed interval of a day....

EXPOSITION Prior to any detailed examination of the strange series of acts recorded in this and the following chapter, we are met with the question whether they were indeed visible and outward acts, or only imagined by the prophet in a state of ecstasy and afterwards reported by him to the people. Each view has been maintained by commentators of repute. I adopt, with scarcely any hesitation, the former, and for the following reasons. (1) On the other interpretation the acts recorded were not signs to the people (Ezekiel 4:3) till the prophet reported them; but the whole context shows that they were to be substitutes for spoken teaching. They belong to the period of the prophet's silence. (2) This mode of teaching, though not carried to the same extent, was part of the normal method of a prophet's work. Zedekiah's horns of iron ...

AND THY MEAT WHICH THOU SHALL EAT [SHALL BE] BY WEIGHT, TWENTY SHEKELS A DAY,.... To eat bread by weight was a sign of a grievous famine; see Leviticus 26:26; a shekel, according to Josephus i, weighed four Attic drachms, or half an ounce, wherefore twenty shekels weighed ten ounces; so that the bread the prophet had to eat was but ten ounces a day: FROM TIME TO TIME SHALL THOU EAT IT; at the certain time of eating, or but once a day; from a set time in one day to the same in another; as from morning to morning, or from noon to noon, or from evening to evening; see Jeremiah 37:21. i Antiqu. l. 3. c. 8. sect. 2....

Ezekiel 4:1. The word tile means “brick.” They were used by the Babylonians to preserve their records, and many have been found marked with building plans, etc. The sign of the tile foretells the siege of Jerusalem and Jehovah's opposition against the city. Ezekiel 4:4. While in the preceding sign Jehovah's action against Jerusalem was pictured, in this new sign a portrayal is given of the punishment which should come upon the inhabitants of the city. In his own person Ezekiel had to experience the great degradation and judgment which was to fall upon all the people. The critical school has invented all kinds of theories to explain, or rather to explain away, the divine command given to the prophet. They say that probably Ezekiel suffered from some form of epilepsy or catalepsy; they also point out the physical

(C) THE HARDSHIPS OF THE EXILES AND THE BESIEGED. The horrors of famine, consequent upon the siege, are suggested by the symbolical action of this section, in which the prophet's food and drink are to be carefully measured out about half a pound of food a day and a little over a pint of water. But blended with the thought of the scarcity of food during the siege is the thought of the uncleanness of the food eaten during the exile. According to Hebrew ideas, any food eaten in any land outside of Canaan was necessarily unclean: partly because such a land, not being Yahweh's land, was itself unclean, and partly because no first-fruits would be offered to Him, as He could have no sanctuary there (Hosea 9:3 f.). The uncleanness of exile is suggested by the mongrel combinations (_cf._ Ezekiel 4:9) which in food, as in d

SHEKELS. See App-51....