Ezek. 4 The prophet is directed to represent a mock siege of Jerusalem for a sign to the Jews, Ezek. 4:1–3; and to lie before it in one posture for a set number of days, in order to denote the time of their sins for which God did visit, Ezek. 4:4–8.

Hitherto the preface, containing the call and commission of the prophet; now he begins. This is the first prophecy, and it is against Jerusalem. A tile, or brick, or any square tablet on which he might engrave or carve. Lay it before thee, as carvers use to do, as engravers and painters do.

Draw the figure of a siege about the city; raise a tower and bulwarks which may annoy the besieged, and defend the besiegers, from which may be shot either darts against men, or mighty stones against the walls and towers of the city.

An iron pan, to signify the hardness and obstinacy of the besiegers; probably a frying-pan, on the plain part of which the the bearing the portrait of Jerusalem lying, the iron edges or brims compassed it round about, as a line drawn round a besieged city, out of which the distressed could not…

Lie thou also; a posture which was to signify the settled resolution of the besiegers, who had taken up their abode till the siege were finished in taking Jerusalem.

This verse explains the former. I have pointed out the number of years wherein apostate Israel sinned against me, and I did bear with them according to the number of days, wherein thou must lie on thy left side. Three hundred and ninety days. See Ezek. 4:4.

When thou hast almost accomplished, or when about to accomplish them, i.e. forty days, before the three hundred and ninety do expire, at the end of three hundred and fifty days turn thou to thy right side, and bear the iniquity of the house of Judah; and that this is the true account appears from…

Therefore, Heb. And, while thou liest on thy side, thou shalt fix thy countenance on the portrait of besieged Jerusalem, with angry and menacing looks. Jerusalem; not which was in the land of Judah, but that described in the tile, the emblem of the other.

Whoever were the persons that laid bonds on Ezekiel, in Ezek. 3:25, here it is plain that the Lord doth it. If the prophet represent the besieged citizens who must be captives in bonds, then it is likely these bonds were visible and material, that they might be a teaching sign and admonition, that…

Provide thee corn enough; for a grievous famine will accompany the siege. And whereas all sorts of grain are to be provided, it assures us all would be little enough; wheat and barley would not outlast the siege, coarser and meaner must be provided, though less fit for bread.

Thy meat; the mean and coarse bread which thou must eat and be content with. By weight; not full, as once; not as much as you will, but a small pittance delivered by weight to all; which bespeaks the extreme penury the city should be brought to.

Water; not wine or cordial drinks, but cold and thin water, nor a bellyful of this. The sixth part of an hin; about six ounces of water, and that measured out by others to him that drinks it, scarce enough to keep the man alive.

As barley cakes: these were delicacies with them when they could temper and make them right, but now these pitiful things should be to these half-starved bodies as delicates, Or rather, because they were greedy, and could not stay till they were baked. Or, lest any should take it from them.

This verse is a key to the former. Even thus; scanty, mean, ill-dressed, and polluted in the very dressing, loathsome to any but starved bellies. The children of Israel; not only the house of Judah, but all the rest of the children of Israel; not in the siege only, but this misery should pursue…

Ah Lord God he deprecateth this, and entreats it may not be enjoined him. He proposeth his legal purity, as one argument; in obedience to ceremonial precepts, he had kept himself clean, and now prays that he may not have his obedience tried by enjoining to eat what is abominable.

So soon as he prayed God answered, and condescends to Ezekiel that he should use what was less abominable than man’s dung; but it was not granted to the Jews, who in the siege at Jerusalem did much worse things, and more detestable, reduced to it by straits, as Ezek. 5:10, Lam. 1:11, Lam.

Here the Lord confirms his threat of famine by a solemn protestation that he would break the staff of bread; either take their, harvests away, and deny them bread, or withhold his blessing, the strength of bread, that it should not nourish and refresh, as Lev. 26:26. In Jerusalem, that sinful city.

The Lord will take away their provision, that they may die with want, punished for all their sins, and disappointed of all that their false prophets promised them; and under strangest disappointments, be filled with strangest amazements and horrors, at the woeful miseries of one another, and…