Ezekiel was now among the captives in Babylon, but they there had Jerusalem still upon their hearts; the pious captives looked towards it with an eye of faith (as Dan.

The prophet is here ordered to represent to himself and others by signs which would be proper and powerful to strike the fancy and to affect the mind, the siege of Jerusalem; and this amounted to a prediction. I. He was ordered to engrave a draught of Jerusalem upon a tile, Ezek. 4:1.

The best exposition of this part of Ezekiel’s prediction of Jerusalem’s desolation is Jeremiah’s lamentation of it,, where he pathetically describes the terrible famine that was in Jerusalem during the siege and the sad effects of it. I.