Ezekiel 4:9 - Meaning and Application

The clearest explanation of this part of Ezekiel’s warning about Jerusalem’s ruin is found in Jeremiah’s grief over it (Lamentations 4:3-4, 10). Jeremiah describes the terrible famine in Jerusalem during the siege and the awful results it brought. Ezekiel’s sign was meant to make the people feel this danger before it came.

First, the prophet had to live for 390 days on poor food and in small amounts, and the food had to be badly prepared, because the people would lack both food and fuel. His bread was to be made from the worst kind of grain, with only a little wheat and barley, and the rest beans, lentils, millet, and fitches, a kind of grain often used for animals. It was like mixed grain from whatever was available. While he lay on his side, with his body worn down, he needed food, but only this rough kind was allowed (Ezekiel 4:9). We should not become too attached to tasty food, because we do not know what plain food we may have to live on before we die. Even the most ordinary food is better than we deserve, so we should not despise it or waste it. We should also not look down on people who must live on it, because our own lot may be the same.

Second, the amount of food was to be the smallest that would keep a person alive. This showed that the besieged people in Jerusalem would be put on short rations and would survive only until the city’s bread was gone altogether (Jeremiah 37:21). Ezekiel was to eat only twenty shekels of bread a day, about ten ounces (Ezekiel 4:10), and drink only a sixth of a hin of water, about half a pint, or eight ounces (Ezekiel 4:11). In Babylon he had enough bread and plenty of water by the river, yet God called him to live very sparingly so he could confirm his message and stand as a sign to Israel. God’s servants must learn to endure hardship and deny themselves lawful comforts when that will honor God, show real faith, and share the burden of suffering with their brothers and sisters. The body must be kept in check and made obedient. Nature is satisfied with little, grace with less, but sinful desire is never satisfied. It is wise to restrict ourselves by choice, so we can bear it better if necessity ever does it for us. In public trouble, it is shameful to live in luxury, like those who drank wine from bowls and did not feel the ruin of Joseph’s people (Amos 6:4-6).

Third, Ezekiel had to bake the bread with human dung, which had to be dried and used as fuel for the oven (Ezekiel 4:12). The thought of it is enough to turn one’s stomach. Yet he had to eat the bread as plainly as if it were ordinary barley cakes. He had to do this in public, so the people would feel more deeply the disaster coming on them. The sign showed that in the worst hunger they would not only lack fine food, but even clean food, and would have to take whatever they could get. To a starving person, even bitter things seem sweet.

Ezekiel asked to be excused from this part of the sign (Ezekiel 4:14). It seemed to him to involve ceremonial uncleanness, since the law said human dung was to be buried in the ground so that nothing unclean would be seen in the camp (Deuteronomy 23:13-14). He asked, “Ah, Lord God, I have never been defiled, and I fear I will be defiled by this.” Good people fear the pollution of sin more than anything else. At the same time, tender consciences can sometimes worry too much about lawful things, as Ezekiel did here. He had not yet learned that what goes into the mouth does not defile a person (Matthew 15:11).

Notice that he did not argue, “Lord, I have always lived delicately and never used anything but what was clean and nice.” There were people in Jerusalem who were raised that way and still had to cling to filth during the siege (Lamentations 4:5). Instead, he said he had been careful to avoid anything forbidden by the law, such as meat that died on its own or was torn by animals. In that sense, he was saying, “Lord, do not place this on me now.” Peter used a similar argument later, saying, “Lord, I have never eaten anything common or unclean” (Acts 10:14). It is a comfort in hardship when our hearts can say we have tried to stay away from sin, even small sins and every appearance of evil. Whatever God commands is certainly good. But if we are asked to do something we honestly believe is wrong, we should plead our case by saying, in effect, “I have kept myself pure so far, why should I lose that now?”

Because Ezekiel showed this careful tenderness of conscience, God allowed him another way. He permitted him to use cow dung instead of human dung (Ezekiel 4:15). This also quietly points to how deeply human sin pollutes us. If human waste is so offensive, how much more offensive is the corruption of sin. As Job says, “How much more detestable and filthy is man” (Job 15:16).

The sign had a clear meaning. It showed that the people left in Jerusalem would suffer extreme misery from lack of food. The siege would cut off all supplies, and the city would soon feel the loss of the countryside, since even the king depends on the field for provision. The staff of bread, the support that keeps life going, would be broken in Jerusalem (Ezekiel 4:16). God would not only take away bread’s power to nourish, so that they would eat and still not be full (Leviticus 26:26), but would take away the bread itself (Isaiah 3:1). What little remained would have to be measured out by weight and shared out carefully, so each person could have a small part and make it last as long as possible.

But what good would that do, since they could not make the food last forever, and the people inside the city would wear out before the army outside did? They would have to eat and drink carefully, stretching every bit as far as they could. Even then, they would look on in fear as their supplies nearly ran out, with no way to get more.

They would be horrified together. Usually, it is some comfort in trouble to know others share it with us, and it helps the heart to have someone to complain to. But here, that shared misery would only make the pain worse. Their complaints to each other would not ease them, but deepen their fear and unrest.

The outcome would be exactly as bad as they feared. They could not make it worse, because they would waste away because of their sin. Many would die of famine, a slow death that is worse than dying by the sword (Lam 4:9). They would die in a way that made them feel themselves dying. Sin brings all this misery on them. They would waste away in their guilt, which can also mean they would keep on in stubborn, unrepentant sin and die in their sins. That is a far sadder end than dying on a dunghill.

Here we should see what terrible ruin sin brings on a people, and we should agree that God is right in doing this. There was a time when Jerusalem was full of the finest wheat (Psa 147:14), but now she would be glad to have the poorest grain, and even that she could not get. Plenty of food had been one of Jerusalem’s blessings, but it had become one of her sins (Eze 16:49). She had used her abundance for luxury and excess, and so God justly punished that with famine. It is right for God to take away the comforts we have turned into fuel for our sins.

We should also thank God for plenty, not only for the fruits of the earth, but for trade and supply. It is a blessing that the farmer can get money for his bread, and the merchant can get bread for his money. It is a blessing that there is food not only in the fields, but also in the market. Even people who live in cities and large towns, though they do not sow or reap, are still fed each day with what they need.

This also pointed to the fact that those taken into captivity would be forced to eat defiled bread among the Gentiles (Eze 4:13). They would have to eat food prepared by Gentile hands, not according to the law of the Jewish church, and they had always been taught to regard that as defiled. They would hate it as much as a person would hate bread mixed with dung, perhaps meaning bread kneaded or shaped with dung. Daniel and his companions chose only vegetables and water rather than eat the king’s food, because they believed it would defile them (Dan 1:8). Or they would be forced to eat rotten food, the kind their oppressors would give them in slavery, food they would once have refused to touch. Because they would not serve God gladly when they had everything, God would make them serve their enemies when they lacked everything.