Ezekiel 4

These were all common techniques that invading armies used to conquer walled cities. They would build walls to protect themselves from attacks by city defenders. They would use battering rams to attack city gates and weak points in the wall. And they would build ramps that would allow the army to charge right up to the top of the city walls and rush into the town.

A good recipe for bedsores would be to take these instructions literally. Ezekiel did not likely lay on his side for more than a year. It seems likely, most scholars agree, that he did this for short periods of time, when he was delivering messages to the exiled Jewish people each day. In other words, he did it when he was at work. Elsewhere in the book, he explains that he had to do other things during this stretch of time, such as fix his own meals (4:9). Ezekiel does not say what stretch of time the 390 years cover. Some scholars guess it represents in round numbers the lifespan of the Temple that Solomon finished in about 960 BC (1 Kings 6:38). Babylonian invaders destroyed in 586 BC. That’s actually 374 years. Others say it represents the time starting when Israel split into two kingdoms in about 930 BC and ending with the fall of Jerusalem. That’s 344 years.

Again, Ezekiel didn’t say which years he was talking about. Judah had been sinning longer than Israel in the north because it survived longer. One common observation scholars make is that Ezekiel was flipping the latke potato pancake to the other side of a famous Exodus story. Moses and the Hebrews during the exodus out of Egypt had to stay in the desert wasteland for 40 years—one year for every day Joshua and others scouted the Promised Land. After the scary scouting report, most Hebrews were too afraid to invade. So, God let that generation die in the desert. The next generation invaded. But here in Ezekiel’s story, he represents Israel’s sin at the rate of one day for every year instead of one year for every day.

A modern parallel phrase might be something like, “Roll up your sleeves and get to work.”

This is not the ingredients for a gourmet recipe. These are scraps. They seem to illustrate the beginning of starvation inside Jerusalem, cut off from supplies outside the surrounded city.

In Bible times the weight was reported at 20 shekels, about 8 ounces or 230 grams. Shekels came in different weights. It’s unclear how much these shekels weighed. There was a heavy shekel that weighed about 11.5 grams or .4 ounces. This was sometimes called the King’s Shekel or the Royal Shekel. Some scholars say this was also the weight used in the Israelite worship center and later in the Jerusalem Temple. The lighter shekel weighed about 9.5 grams or .33 ounces.

That’s just over half a liter. That’s not much drinking water in what is now hot Iraq. Perhaps the meal and the water were parts of a ritual Ezekiel performed in front of the people when he delivered his prophecies. Then, let’s hope, he went home to eat a proper meal to give him strength for the next day. It’s a guess. Ezekiel left plenty of opportunity for guessing and for presenting the guesses as interpretations build on solid ground instead of on thin ice.

Well, that sounds unappetizing. And it does not seem to be in line with ancient Jewish law. Whenever the people set up a camp anywhere, as they had to do during the exodus out of Egypt in the time of Moses, they had to dig latrine holes outside the camp. Then, “after you squat and poop, dig a hole and bury what you left behind” (Deuteronomy 23: 13). Building a fire on human excrement would suggest there is no longer any manure from the livestock because the people inside the besieged city of Jerusalem had already eaten all the animals for their meat. Elsewhere in the stories about this siege, an angry Babylonian invader yelled up to Jewish defenders standing on the walls of Jerusalem: “Before this siege is over, they’ll be so hungry and thirsty that they’ll be eating their own crap and drinking their piss” (2 Kings 18:27).

Peter also protested God’s order to eat food Jews considered ritually unclean. “No way, sir…. I’ve never eaten anything but kosher food” (Acts 10:14).

Moses warned them about this roughly eight centuries earlier. He said if they became a sinful nation: “Foreigners will lay siege to your towns until you’re out of food and supplies… You’ll get so desperate that you’ll eat your own children—the sons and daughters the LORD your God gave you” (Deuteronomy 28:52-53; see also Deuteronomy 32:23; Leviticus 26:29).