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
Daniel vi. 10), 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, ver.
4-8. 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, ver. 9-17.
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The
Representation of a Siege.
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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 (Isa. xlix. 16), 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 (Jer. lii. 4-6), but if we
deduct from that five months' interval, when the besiegers withdrew upon the
approach of Pharaoh's army (Jer. xxxvii. 5-8), 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 (Isa. xxix. 21), 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 (1 Cor. ix. 16, 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.
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The
Representation of a Famine.
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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, Lam. iv. 3, 4, &c., 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, v.
11. 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 (Lev. xxvi.
26), 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 (Ps. cxlvii. 14); 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, Ezek. xvi. 49. 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, Dan. i. 8. 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.
Contents
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