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Matthew Henry |
E Z E K I E L.
CHAP. IV.
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
the presumptuous ones looked towards it with an eye of pride, and
flattered themselves with a conceit that they should shortly return
thither again; those that remained corresponded with the captives, and,
it is likely, bouyed them up with hopes that all would be well yet, as
long as Jerusalem was standing in its strength, and perhaps upbraided
those with their folly who had surrendered at first; therefore, to take
down this presumption, God gives the prophet, in this chapter, a very
clear and affecting foresight of the besieging of Jerusalem by the
Chaldean army and the calamities which would attend that siege. Two
things are here represented to him in vision:–
I. The fortifications that should be raised against the city; this is
signified by the prophet’s laying siege to the portraiture of Jerusalem
(ver. 1-3)
and laying first on one side and then on the other side before it,
II. The famine that should rage within the city; this is signified by
his eating very coarse fare, and confining himself to a little of it,
so long as this typical representation lasted,
| The Representation of a Siege. | B. C. 595. |
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1 Thou also, son of man, take thee a tile, and lay it before
thee, and portray 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.
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.
4 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.
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.
7 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.
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,
v. 1.
It was Jerusalem’s honour that while she kept her integrity God had
graven her upon the palms of his hands
and the names of the tribes were engraven in precious stones on the
breast-plate of the high priest; but, now that the faithful city has
become a harlot, a worthless brittle tile or brick is thought good
enough to portray it upon. This the prophet must lay before him,
that the eye may affect the heart.
II. He was ordered to build little forts against this portraiture of
the city, resembling the batteries raised by the besiegers,
v. 2.
Between the city that was besieged and himself that was the besieger he
was to set up an iron pan, as an iron wall,
v. 3.
This represented the inflexible resolution of both sides; the Chaldeans
resolved, whatever it cost them, that they would make themselves
masters of the city and would never quit it till they had conquered it;
on the other side, the Jews resolved never to capitulate, but to hold
out to the last extremity.
III. He was ordered to lie upon his side before it, as it were to
surround it, representing the Chaldean army lying before it to block it
up, to keep the meat from going in and the mouths from going out. He
was to lie on his left side 390 days
(v. 5),
about thirteen months; the siege of Jerusalem is computed to last
eighteen months
but if we deduct from that five months’ interval, when the besiegers
withdrew upon the approach of Pharaoh’s army
the number of the days of the close siege will be 390. Yet that also
had another signification. The 390 days, according to the prophetic
dialect, signified 390 years; and, when the prophet lies so many days
on his side, he bears the guilt of that iniquity which the house of
Israel, the ten tribes, had borne 390 years, reckoning from their
first apostasy under Jeroboam to the destruction of Jerusalem, which
completed the ruin of those small remains of them that had incorporated
with Judah. He is then to lie forty days upon his right side,
and so long to bear the iniquity of the house of Judah, the
kingdom of the two tribes, because the measure-filling sins of that
people were those which they were guilty of during the last forty years
before their captivity, since the thirteenth year of Josiah, when
Jeremiah began to prophesy
(Jer. i. 1, 2),
or, as some reckon it, since the eighteenth, when the book of the law
was found and the people renewed their covenant with God. When they
persisted in their impieties and idolatries, notwithstanding they had
such a prophet and such a prince, and were brought into the bond of
such a covenant, what could be expected but ruin without remedy? Judah,
that had such helps and advantages for reformation, fills the measure
of its iniquity in less time than Israel does. Now we are not to think
that the prophet lay constantly night and day upon his side, but every
day, for so many days together, at a certain time of the day, when he
received visits, and company came in, he was found lying 390 days on
his left side and forty days on his right side before his
portraiture of Jerusalem, which all that saw might easily understand to
mean the close besieging of that city, and people would be flocking in
daily, some for curiosity and some for conscience, at the hour
appointed, to see it and to take their different remarks upon it. His
being found constantly on the same side, as if bands were laid upon
him (as indeed they were by the divine command), so that he could
not turn himself from one side to another till he had ended the days
of the siege, did plainly represent the close and constant
continuance of the besiegers about the city during that number of days,
till they had gained their point.
IV. He was ordered to prosecute the siege with vigour
(v. 7):
Thou shalt set thy face towards the siege of Jerusalem, as
wholly intent upon it and resolved to carry it; so the Chaldeans would
be, and neither bribed nor forced to withdraw from it. Nebuchadnezzar’s
indignation at Zedekiah’s treachery in breaking his league with him
made him very furious in pushing on this siege, that he might chastise
the insolence of that faithless prince and people; and his army
promised themselves a rich booty of that pompous city; so that both set
their faces against it, for they were very resolute. Nor were they less
active and industrious, exerting themselves to the utmost in all the
operations of the siege, which the prophet was to represent by the
uncovering of his arm, or, as some read it, the stretching
out of his arm, as it were to deal blows about without mercy. When
God is about to do some great work he is said to make bare his
arm,
Isa. lii. 10.
In short, The Chaldeans will go about their business, and go on in it,
as men in earnest, who resolve to go through with it. Now,
1. This is intended to be a sign to the house of Israel
(v. 3),
both to those in Babylon, who were eye-witnesses of what the prophet
did, and to those also who remained in their own land, who would hear
the report of it. The prophet was dumb and could not
speak
(ch. iii. 26);
but as his silence had a voice, and upbraided the people with their
deafness, so even then God left not himself without witness, but
ordered him to make signs, as dumb men are accustomed to do, and as
Zacharias did when he was dumb, and by them to make known his
mind (that is, the mind of God) to the people. And thus likewise
the people were upbraided with their stupidity and dulness, that they
were not capable of being taught as men of sense are, by words, but
must be taught as children are, by pictures, or as deaf men are, by
signs. Or, perhaps, they are hereby upbraided with their malice against
the prophet. Had he spoken in words at length what was signified by
these figures, they would have entangled him in his talk, would have
indicted him for treasonable expressions, for they knew how to make
a man an offender for a word
to avoid which he is ordered to make use of signs. Or the prophet made
use of signs for the same reason that Christ made use of parables, that
hearing they might hear and not understand, and seeing they
might see and not perceive,
Matt. xiii. 14, 15.
They would not understand what was plain, and therefore shall be taught
by that which is difficult; and herein the Lord was righteous.
2. Thus the prophet prophesies against Jerusalem
(v. 7);
and there were those who not only understood it so, but were the more
affected with it by its being so represented, for images to the eye
commonly make deeper impressions upon the mind than words can, and for
this reason sacraments are instituted to represent divine things, that
we might see and believe, might see and be affected with those things;
and we may expect this benefit by them, and a blessing to go along with
them, while (as the prophet here) we make use only of such signs as God
himself has expressly appointed, which, we must conclude, are the
fittest. Note, The power of imagination, if it be rightly used, and
kept under the direction and correction of reason and faith, may be of
good use to kindle and excite pious and devout affections, as it was
here to Ezekiel and his attendants. “Methinks I see so and so,
myself dying, time expiring, the world on fire, the dead rising, the
great tribunal set, and the like, may have an exceedingly good
influence upon us: for fancy is like fire, a good servant, but a bad
master.”
3. This whole transaction has that in it which the prophet might, with
a good colour of reason, have hesitated at and excepted against, and
yet, in obedience to God’s command, and in execution of his office, he
did it according to order.
(1.) It seemed childish and ludicrous, and beneath his gravity, and
there were those that would ridicule him for it; but he knew the divine
appointment put honour enough upon that which otherwise seemed mean to
save his reputation in the doing of it.
(2.) It was toilsome and tiresome to do as he did; but our ease as well
as our credit must be sacrificed to our duty, and we must never call
God’s service in any instance of it a hard service.
(3.) It could not but be very much against the grain with him to appear
thus against Jerusalem, the city of God, the holy city, to act as an
enemy against a place to which he was so good a friend; but he is a
prophet, and must follow his instructions, not his affections, and must
plainly preach the ruin of a sinful place, though its welfare is what
he passionately desires and earnestly prays for.
4. All this that the prophet sets before the children of his people
concerning the destruction of Jerusalem is designed to bring them to
repentance, by showing them sin, the provoking cause of this
destruction, sin the ruin of that once flourishing city, than which
surely nothing could be more effectual to make them hate sin and turn
from it; while he thus in lively colours describes the calamity with a
great deal of pain and uneasiness to himself, he is bearing the
iniquity of Israel and Judah. “Look here” (says he) “and see what
work sin makes, what an evil and bitter thing it is to depart form
God; this comes of sin, your sins and the sin of your fathers; let
that therefore be the daily matter of your sorrow and shame now in your
captivity, that you may make your peace with God and he may return in
mercy to you.” But observe, It is a day of punishment for a year of
sin: I have appointed thee each day for a year. The siege is a
calamity of 390 days, in which God reckons for the iniquity of 390
years; justly therefore d they acknowledge that God had punished
them less than their iniquity deserved,
Ezra ix. 13.
But let impenitent sinners know that, though now God is long-suffering
towards them, in the other world there is an everlasting punishment.
When God laid bands upon the prophet, it was to show them how
they were bound with the cords of their own transgression
(Lam. i. 14),
and therefore they were now holden in the cords of affliction.
But we may well think of the prophet’s case with compassion, when God
laid upon him the bands of duty, as he does on all his ministers
Necessity is laid upon me, and woe unto me if I preach not the
gospel); and yet men laid upon him bonds of restraint
(ch. iii. 25);
but under both it is satisfaction enough that they are serving the
interests of God’s kingdom among men.
| The Representation of a Famine. | B. C. 595. |
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9 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.
11 Thou shalt drink also water by measure, the sixth part of an
hin: from time to time shalt thou drink.
12 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.
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.
15 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.
The best exposition of this part of Ezekiel’s prediction of Jerusalem’s
desolation is Jeremiah’s lamentation of it,
and v. 10,
where he pathetically describes the terrible famine that was in
Jerusalem during the siege and the sad effects of it.
I. The prophet here, to affect the people with the foresight of it,
must confine himself for 390 days to coarse fare and short commons, and
that ill-dressed, for they should want both food and fuel.
1. His meat, for the quality of it, was to be of the worst bread, made
of but little wheat and barley, and the rest of beans, and lentiles,
and millet, and fitches, such as we feed horses or fatted hogs with,
and this mixed, as mill corn, or as that in the beggar’s bag, that has
a dish full of one sort of corn at one house and of another at another
house; of such corn as this must the prophet’s bread be made while he
underwent the fatigue of lying on his side, and needed something better
to support him,
v. 9.
Note, It is our wisdom not to be too fond of dainties and pleasant
bread, because we know not what hard meat we may be tied to, nay, and
may be glad of, before we die. The meanest sort of food is better than
we deserve, and therefore must not be despised nor wasted, nor must
those that use it be looked upon with disdain, because we know not what
may be our own lot.
2. For the quantity of it, it was to be of the least that a man could
be kept alive with, to signify that the besieged should be reduced to
short allowance and should hold out till all the bread in the city
was spent,
Jer. xxxvii. 21.
The prophet must eat but twenty shekels’ weight of bread a day
(v. 10),
that was about ten ounces; and he must drink but the sixth part of a
hin of water, that was half a pint, about eight ounces,
The stint of the Lessian diet is fourteen ounces of meat and sixteen of
drink. The prophet in Babylon had bread enough and to spare, and was by
the river side, where there was plenty of water; and yet, that he might
confirm his own prediction and be a sign to the children of Israel, God
obliges him to live thus sparingly, and he submits to it. Note, God’s
servants must learn to endure hardness, and to deny themselves the use
of lawful delights, when they may thereby serve the glory of God,
evidence the sincerity of their faith, and express their sympathy with
their brethren in affliction. The body must be kept under and
brought into subjection. Nature is content with a little, grace
with less, but lust with nothing. It is good to stint ourselves of
choice, that we may the better bear it if ever we should come to be
stinted by necessity. And in times of public distress and calamity it
ill becomes us to make much of ourselves, as those that drank wine
in bowls and were not grieved for the affliction of Joseph,
Amos vi. 4-6.
3. For the dressing of it, he must bake it with a man’s dung
(v. 12);
that must be dried, and serve for fuel to heat his oven with. The
thought of it would almost turn one’s stomach; yet the coarse bread,
thus baked, he must eat as barley-cakes, as freely as if it were
the same bread he had been used to. This nauseous piece of cookery he
must exercise publicly in their sight, that they might be the
more affected with the calamity approaching, which was signified by it,
that in the extremity of the famine they should not only have nothing
that was dainty, but nothing that was cleanly, about them; they must
take up with what they could get. To the hungry soul every bitter
thing is sweet. This circumstance of the sign, the baking of his
bread with man’s dung, the prophet with submission humbly desired might
be dispensed with
(v. 14);
it seemed to have in it something of a ceremonial pollution, for there
was a law that man’s dung should be covered with earth, that God
might see no unclean thing in their camp,
Deut. xxiii. 13, 14.
And must he go and gather a thing so offensive, and use it in the
dressing of his meat in the sight of the people? “Ah! Lord God,”
says he, “behold, my soul has not been polluted, and I am afraid
lest by this it be polluted.” Note, The pollution of the soul by sin is
what good people dread more than any thing; and yet sometimes tender
consciences fear it without cause, and perplex themselves with scruples
about lawful things, as the prophet here, who had not yet learned that
it is not that which goes into the mouth that defiles the man,
Matt. xv. 11.
But observe he does not plead, “Lord, from my youth I have been brought
up delicately and have never been used to any thing but what was clean
and nice” (and there were those who were so brought up, who in the
siege of Jerusalem did embrace dunghills,
Lam. iv. 5),
but that he had been brought up conscientiously, and had never eaten
any thing that was forbidden by the law, that died of itself or
was torn in pieces; and therefore, “Lord, do not put this upon
me now.” Thus Peter pleaded
(Acts x. 14),
Lord, I have never eaten any thing that is common or unclean.
Note, it will be comfortable to us, when we are reduced to hardships,
if our hearts can witness for us that we have always been careful to
abstain from sin, even from little sins, and the appearances of
evil. Whatever God commands us, we may be sure, is good; but, if we
be put upon any thing that we apprehend to be evil, we should argue
against it, from this consideration, that hitherto we have preserved
our purity–and shall we lose it now? Now, because Ezekiel with a
manifest tenderness of conscience made this scruple, God dispensed with
him in this matter. Note, Those who have power in their hands should
not be rigorous in pressing their commands upon those that are
dissatisfied concerning them, yea, though their dissatisfactions be
groundless or arising from education and long usage, but should recede
from them rather than grieve or offend the weak, or put a
stumbling-block before them, in conformity to the example of God’s
condescension to Ezekiel, though we are sure his authority is
incontestable and all his commands are wise and good. God allowed
Ezekiel to use cow’s dung instead of man’s dung,
v. 15.
This is a tacit reflection upon man, as intimating that he being
polluted with sin his filthiness is more nauseous and odious than that
of any other creature. How much more abominable and filthy is
man!
Job xv. 16.
II. Now this sign is particularly explained here; it signified,
1. That those who remained in Jerusalem should be brought to extreme
misery for want of necessary food. All supplies being cut off by the
besiegers, the city would soon find the want of the country, for the
king himself is served of the field; and thus the staff of
bread would be broken in Jerusalem,
v. 16.
God would not only take away from the bread its power to nourish, so
that they should eat and not be satisfied
but would take away the bread itself
(Isa. iii. 1),
so that what little remained should be eaten by weight, so much
a day, so much a head, that they might have an equal share and might
make it last as long as possible. But to what purpose, when they could
not make it last always, and the besieged must be tired out before the
besiegers? They should eat and drink with care, to make it go as
far as might be, and with astonishment, when they saw it almost
spent and knew not which way to look for a recruit. They should be
astonished one with another; whereas it is ordinarily some
alleviation of a calamity to have others share with us in it
(Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris), and some ease to the
spirit to complain of the burden, it should be an aggravation of the
misery that it was universal, and their complaining to one another
should but make them all the more uneasy and increase the
astonishment. And the event shall be as bad as their fears; they
cannot make it worse than it is, for they shall consume away for
their iniquity; multitudes of them shall die of famine, a lingering
death, worse than that by the sword
(Lam. iv. 9);
they shall dies so as to feel themselves die. And it is sin that
brings all this misery upon them: They shall consume away in their
iniquity (so it may be read); they shall continue hardened and
impenitent, and shall die in their sins, which is more miserable than
to die on a dunghill. Now,
(1.) Let us see here what woeful work sin makes with a people, and
acknowledge the righteousness of God herein. Time was when Jerusalem
was filled with the finest of the wheat
but now it would be glad of the coarsest, and cannot have it.
Fulness of bread, as it was one of Jerusalem’s mercies, so it
had become one of her sins,
The plenty was abused to luxury and excess, which were therefore thus
justly punished with famine. It is a righteous thing with God to
deprive us of those enjoyments which we have made the food and fuel of
our lusts.
(2.) Let us see what reason we have to bless God for plenty, not only
for the fruits of the earth, but for the freedom of commerce, that the
husbandman can have money for his bread and the tradesman bread for his
money, that there is abundance not only in the field, but in the
market, that those who live in cities and great towns, though they
sow not, neither do they reap, are yet fed from day to
day with food convenient.
2. It signified that those who were carried into captivity should be
forced to eat their defiled bread among the Gentiles
(v. 13),
to eat meat made up by Gentile hands otherwise than according to the
law of the Jewish church, which they were always taught to call
defiled, and which they would have as great an aversion to as a
man would have to bread prepared with dung, that is (as perhaps it may
be understood) kneaded and moulded with dung. Daniel and his fellows
confined themselves to pulse and water, rather than they would
eat the portion of the king’s meat assigned them, because they
apprehended it would defile them,
Or they should be forced to eat putrid meat, such as their oppressors
would allow them in their slavery, and such as formerly they would have
scorned to touch. Because they served not God with cheerfulness
in the abundance of all things, God will make them serve their enemies
in the want of all things.
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