6<\/strong>. In Eze 4:5<\/em><\/span> the number of days for Israel is stated to be 390, and in Eze 4:6<\/em><\/span> the number for Judah 40. The number 390 creates a difficulty. Several things have to be borne in mind. 1. To bear iniquity means to bear the penalty of it. The period of bearing iniquity, therefore, does not refer to the time of sinning but to the time of being punished for sin. Consequently any allusion to the period of the duration<\/em> of the Northern Kingdom is excluded. 2. The representation in this prophet, as in all the prophets, is that the overthrow of the state is due to the sin of the people, and this overthrow with the continued state of the Exile and its hardships is the punishment of the people’s sin. To be subdued by the heathen and driven into exile is for the people to have to bear their iniquity. Hence restoration is impossible until the iniquity of the people is paid off, or atoned in suffering (Isa 40:2<\/span>). Israel’s bearing of iniquity comes to an end with the Restoration: “Cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished, her iniquity pardoned.” 3. It is the view of all the prophets, Ezekiel included, that the Restoration will embrace all the existing captives both of the North and South, every one called by Jehovah’s name (Isa 43:6-7<\/span>; cf. Isa 11:12<\/span> seq<\/em>.; Jer 3:12<\/span>; Jer 3:18<\/span>; Eze 37:16<\/span> seq<\/em>. &c.). And this restoration is final. 4. It follows from all this that the periods during which Israel and Judah bear their iniquity terminate simultaneously. Israel bears iniquity longer than Judah because it began to bear earlier. It is evident (cf. Eze 4:9<\/em><\/span>) that the whole period of bearing iniquity in exile is 390 years, not 390 + 40 or 430, but 350 + 40, the 40 years of Judah running parallel to the last 40 of Israel. The period of 40 years for Judah’s exile is confirmed by ch. Eze 29:11-14<\/span>, where it is said that Egypt shall be carried into captivity 40 years by Nebuchadnezzar, and at the end of that period restored, though not to its former greatness. Forty years is the period of Chaldean supremacy; at the end of that period Babylon shall fall, a new world arise, and the captive nations shall be restored. Now the prophet cannot possibly have supposed that Israel went into exile 350 years before Judah. From the fall of Samaria (722) to the destruction of Jerusalem (586) is only 136 years. In Eze 4:5<\/em><\/span> LXX. reads 190 (so Eze 4:9<\/em><\/span>); in Eze 4:4<\/em><\/span> the reading is 150, which probably is an addition (Field’s Hex<\/em>.). The number 190 is probably the original one. It is not quite certain from what point the prophet computed, whether from the fall of Samaria (722), which is most natural, or from the deportation of the Northern tribes by Tiglath Pileser twelve years earlier; as he spoke also before the fall of Jerusalem even this point may be somewhat indefinite. Most probably he used general and round numbers, computing the time which Israel had already passed in captivity at 150 years, to which, if the 40 years still to be undergone in common with Judah be added, the whole period is 190 years.<\/p>\n Eze 4:7-8<\/span> recapitulate Eze 4:1-6<\/em><\/span>: Eze 4:7<\/em><\/span>, Eze 4:1-3<\/em><\/span>, and Eze 4:8<\/em><\/span>, Eze 4:4-6<\/em><\/span>. Eze 4:1-6<\/span> form one passage describing first the siege ( Eze 4:1-3<\/em><\/span>), and secondly the rigours of the siege, which are prolonged into exile ( Eze 4:4-6<\/em><\/span>). While enduring these hardships in siege and exile the people are bearing their iniquity. The apparent incongruity of the prophet’s playing two rles, that of besieger ( Eze 4:1-3<\/em><\/span>), and that of being besieged ( Eze 4:4-6<\/em><\/span>), could hardly be avoided if both things were to be represented.<\/p>\n Verse 6<\/span>. Forty days<\/B><\/I>] Reckon, says Archbishop Newcome, near fifteen<\/I> years and six<\/I> months in the reign of Manasseh, two<\/I> years in that of Amon, three<\/I> months in that of Jehoahaz, eleven<\/I> years in that of Jehoiakim, three<\/I> months and ten<\/I> days in that of Jehoiachin, and eleven<\/I> years in that of Zedekiah; and there arises a period of forty<\/I> years, during which gross idolatry was practiced in the kingdom of Judah. Forty days<\/I> may have been employed in spoiling and desolating the city and the temple.<\/P> <\/p>\n 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 this verse, compared with Eze 1:1<\/span>,2<\/span>; 8:1<\/span>, say some, and those very learned men. Others will have the forty days distinct from the three hundred and ninety, and reckon them by themselves, and so the better and grammatical construction in the Hebrew seems to carry it, for it speaks in the perfect tense, and lying. a second time. But be these numbers distinct or but one, is no great concern; either way they do plainly speak Gods wonderful patience with Israel and Judah, and point out the time of the miseries of both for their sinfulness. <\/P> Again, Heb. a second time. Thou shalt bear the iniquity: see Eze 4:4<\/span>. <\/P> Of the house of Judah; of the two tribes, say some; of the royal family, say others, and countenance it with Isa 22:21<\/span>; and then Israel distinguished is the whole body of the two tribes, and the remnant of the ten tribes that escaped, and embodied with the two tribes; as some did at the first division, others afterward in Asas, Jehoshaphats, Hezekiahs, and Josiahs time, leave their places and came to Jerusalem. <\/P> Forty days; it is plain they are so many years, but not so plain where to begin them, whether from Manasseh, or more probably from Josiahs renewing covenant, until the destruction of the temple, which is forty years; during which time God deferred to punish, expecting whether they would keep covenant and walk with God, or retain their idolatries and wicked ways, which latter they did for thirteen years of Josiahs reign, for eleven of Jehoiakim, and eleven of Zedekiahs reign, and five of his captivity, which amount to just forty years; and they are mentioned, say some, apart from the three hundred and ninety, because they were more wickedly abused to promote sin. <\/P> <\/p>\n 6. each day for a year<\/B>literally,”a day for a year, a day for a year.” Twice repeated, tomark more distinctly the reference to Nu14:34<\/span>. The picturing of the future under the image of the past,wherein the meaning was far from lying on the surface, was intendedto arouse to a less superficial mode of thinking, just as the partialveiling of truth in Jesus’ parables was designed to stimulateinquiry; also to remind men that God’s dealings in the past are a keyto the future, for He moves on the same everlasting principles,<\/I>the forms<\/I> alone being transitory.<\/P><\/p>\n And when thou hast accomplished them<\/strong>,…. The three hundred and ninety days, by lying so long on the left side, bearing the sins of the house of Israel in this way; or, as Cocceius renders the words, “and thou shall accomplish them, and thou shalt lie”, c. g, that is, thou shalt so accomplish these days, that thou mayest lie through forty days on the right hand, and then make bare thine arm, and prophesy against Jerusalem for he thinks the forty days are part of the three hundred and ninety, as before observed: and so Piscator’s note is, “when thou shalt accomplish”, c. namely, when there shall remain yet forty days, as appears by comparing Eze 4:9<\/span> with this verse and Eze 4:5<\/span> so Polanus interprets the passage: then<\/p>\n lie again on thy right side<\/strong>; that is, for Judah; which tribe, as Jarchi observes, lay to the south, and so to the right of Jerusalem; see<\/p>\n Eze 16:46<\/span>; or rather the prophet lay on the right side for Judah, because more honourable, and in greater esteem with the Lord; nor were their sins so many, or continued in so long as those of the ten tribes; and therefore they, and the punishment of them, are borne a less time by the prophet, as follows:<\/p>\n and thou shall bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days<\/strong>: which some think answers to the forty years of Manasseh’s evil reign; others reckon from the thirteenth of Josiah to the end of Zedekiah, and others from the eighteenth of Josiah to the destruction of Jerusalem, which was five years after the carrying of Zedekiah captive:<\/p>\n I have appointed thee each day for a year<\/strong>; which is not only the key for the understanding of the forty days, but also the three hundred and ninety.<\/p>\n g “et absolves hos, et decumbes”, Cocceius, Starckius; “et consummabis haec, et jacebis”, Montanus.<\/p>\n 6<\/strong>. <\/strong> Lie again on thy right side forty days<\/strong>, etc. The left side represented the northern kingdom (Israel), which lay to the left, according to Hebrew geography; the right represented the southern kingdom (Judah), which lay to the right. The punishment in both cases comes because of iniquity. Israel went into captivity earlier and therefore bears her punishment longer. For Judah the prophet is to lie upon his side for forty days; “one day for a year do I appoint it to thee” (Hebrews).<\/p>\n Eze 4:6<\/span><\/em><\/strong>. <\/strong>Forty days<\/em><\/strong><\/strong> Reckon near fifteen years and six months in the reign of Manasseh, two years in that of Amon, three months in that of Jehoahaz, eleven years in that of Jehoiakim, three months and ten days in that of Jehoiachin, and eleven years in that of Zedekiah; and there arises a period of forty years, during which gross idolatry was practised in the kingdom of Judah. Manasseh’s reformation, 2Ch 33:13<\/span> is supposed to have lasted during the remainder of his reign; and Josiah was uniformly a good king. Ib. Eze 34:2<\/span>. Forty days may have been employed in spoiling and desolating the city and temple. <\/p>\n Eze 4:6 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.<\/p>\n Ver. 6. And when thou hast accomplished them.<\/strong> ] That is, art within forty years of accomplishing them. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days,<\/strong> ] i.e., <\/em> Years, beginning at the eighteenth year of Josiah; or, as others compute it, at his thirteenth year, and ending them in the eleventh of Zedekiah, which are the bounds of Jeremiah’s prophecy. A very learned man yet living observeth, that God doth here set and mark out Judah’s singular iniquity by a singular mark; for that they had forty years so pregnant instructions and admonitions by so eminent a prophet as Jeremiah, yet were they impenitent to their own destruction. And the like may well be said of Dr Ussher, that prophet of Ireland, who, upon the toleration of Popery there, preaching before the State at Dublin upon a special solemnity, made a full and bold application of this text unto them in these very words: From this year, said he – viz., A.D. 1601 – will I reckon the sin of Ireland; and dare say that those whom you embrace shall be your ruin, and you shall bear this iniquity. a<\/em> And it happened accordingly; for, forty years after – viz., A.D. 1641 – began the rebellion and destruction of Ireland, done by those Papists and Popish priests then connived at. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n a<\/em> Dr Ussher’s Funeral Sermon,<\/em> by Dr Bern. 39.<\/p>\n again = a second time, showing that they are not necessarily consecutive or continuous, but are conterminous, though not commencing at the same time. <\/p>\n forty days. See note on Eze 4:4. <\/p>\n appointed = given. Some word as “lay”, verses: Eze 4:1, Eze 4:2, Eze 4:5, Eze 4:8. <\/p>\n forty days: This represented the forty years during which gross idolatry prevailed in Judah, from the reformation of Josiah, bc 624, to the same final desolation of the land. Some think that the period of 390 days also predicts the duration of the siege of the Babylonians – Eze 4:9, deducting from it five months and twenty-nine days, when the besiegers went to meet the Egyptians – 2Ki 25:1-4, Jer 37:5, and that forty days may have been employed in desolating the temple and city. “Beginning from 2Ki 23:3, 2Ki 23:23. Ending Jer 52:30.” <\/p>\n each day for a year: Heb. a day for a year, a day for a year, Num 14:34, Dan 9:24-26, Dan 12:11, Dan 12:12, Rev 9:15, Rev 11:2, Rev 11:3, Rev 12:14, Rev 13:5 <\/p>\n Reciprocal: Isa 20:3 – three<\/p>\n Eze 4:6. The prophet was to lie on his left side when the case of Israel (the 10 tribes) was being treated. After that he was to lie on his right side to indicate the house of Judah, and that was to continue 40 days. Various theories have been offered in the works of reference as to why there was only the smaller number for Judah; but I am not convinced that any of them is welt founded. It is true that Judah was regarded as the greater offender from the standpoint of responsibility, for she had the example of Israel before her and should have profited by the- lesson. But in actual years devoted to the abominable practice, Israel far exceeded Judah. It is not necessary to go into any speculation beyond the known facts of history.<\/p>\n 4:6 And when thou hast accomplished them, lie again on thy {c} right side, and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days: I have appointed thee each day for a year.<\/p>\n (c) Which declared Judah, who had now from the time of Josiah slept in their sins forty years.<\/p>\n After the 390 days had expired, he was to lie on his right side for an additional 40 days. This was to represent the number of additional years the Southern Kingdom of Judah would have to suffer punishment for her sins. He was to face Jerusalem with his arm bared signifying Yahweh’s hostility toward His people. The prophesying that he was to do against Jerusalem (Eze 4:7) was by means of this skit. The Septuagint has Ezekiel lying on his left side for 190 days and on his right side for 150 days, but the reason for these periods is unknown.<\/p>\n That these days represented years of divine punishment seems clear (Eze 4:6), but what years are in view is a problem. Were they literal or figurative years, and were these years in the past or in the future? Unless they were literal years we have no way of knowing what they represented. If they were future years and began with the year of Jehoiachin’s deportation (597 B.C.), which is the date of reference that Ezekiel used throughout his book, the total 430 years would have ended about 167 B.C. This was the year of the Maccabean rebellion when the Jews began to throw off their foreign oppressors, the Syrians, and took control of their own affairs once again. [Note: Alexander, "Ezekiel," p. 770; Cooper, p. 95.] <\/span> But why God divided these years into two such unusual segments remains a mystery. I think the 430 days may have been the total length of the siege of Jerusalem, which God viewed as punishment for 390 years of the Northern Kingdom’s sins and 40 more years of the Southern Kingdom’s sins. The fact that the length of time the Israelites were in Egypt was 430 years (Exo 12:40) may have reminded Ezekiel’s audience of that former captivity. Likewise Israel’s 40 years in the wilderness has a parallel in this prophecy. In this case the years of sin would have been in the past. [Note: Dyer, "Ezekiel," pp. 1235-36.] <\/span> Other views are that the 430 days represented the years of the monarchy, or the years Solomon’s temple stood. It still remains difficult, however, to explain exactly which 390 and 40 years God had in mind. [Note: See Allen, p. 66.] <\/span> Perhaps they were the worst years of sin. In some way the length of the siege corresponded to the past years of Israel and Judah’s sin.<\/p>\n 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. 6. In Eze 4:5 the number of days for Israel is stated to be 390, and in Eze 4:6 the number … Continue reading “Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Ezekiel 4:6”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20546\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible <\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"