9<\/strong>. and fitches<\/em> ] So Vulg. viciam<\/em>, vetches. Others spelt<\/em>, as marg. and R.V. Bread was usually made of wheat, the addition of the other coarser materials and their mixture indicate the straits to which men will be reduced in the siege and perhaps after the fall of the city; cf. Lam 5:6<\/span>; Lam 5:10<\/span>, “We gave the hand to the Egyptians and to the Assyrians to be satisfied with bread Our skin was black like an oven because of the terrible famine.” It is not certain that a mixture of various kinds of grain was regarded as a thing unclean, though the Law forbade sowing a field with divers sorts of seed, Lev 19:19<\/span>; cf. Deu 22:9<\/span>.<\/p>\n three hundred and ninety<\/em> ] Probably 190 should be read as in Eze 4:5<\/em><\/span>. The language here shews that the 190 (or, 390) was the whole number, and that the 40 for Judah were not additional but included.<\/p>\n 9 17<\/strong>. Symbol of scarcity during the siege and pollution in the dispersion from having to eat unclean things among the Gentiles<\/p>\n The passage continues Eze 4:8<\/em><\/span>. The prophet is commanded (while lying immovably on his side in siege) to take of all kinds of grain, coarse as well as fine, of everything that will still hunger, and cast them into one vessel. These are to be baked into cakes and fired with hot ashes of men’s dung, though on the prophet’s entreaty a relaxation of this repulsive condition is granted and he is allowed to substitute the dung of cows. These cakes are to be eaten sparingly in small quantity from time to time, and water drunk with them sparingly. And this use of the cakes so prepared is to continue all the time that the prophet lies on his side. These actions symbolize first, great scarcity and straitness during the siege ( Eze 4:16-17<\/em><\/span>); and secondly, pollution from eating unclean things in the exile among the nations ( Eze 4:13<\/em><\/span>).<\/p>\n Two things are prefigured in the remainder of this chapter,<\/P> (1) the hardships of exile,<\/P> (2) the straitness of a siege.<\/P> To the people of Israel, separated from the rest of the nations as holy, it was a leading feature in the calamities of their exile that they must be mixed up with other nations, and eat of their food, which to the Jews was a defilement (compare Eze 4:13<\/span>; Amo 7:17<\/span>; Dan 1:8<\/span>.)<\/P> Fitches – <\/B>A species of wheat with shorn ears.<\/P> In one vessel – <\/B>To mix all these varied seeds was an indication that the people were no longer in their own land, where precautions against such mixing of seeds were prescribed.<\/P> Three hundred and ninety days – <\/B>The days of Israels punishment; because here is a figure of the exile which concerns all the tribes, not of the siege which concerns Judah alone.<\/P> <\/p>\n Eze 4:9-17<\/span><\/p>\n Even thus shall the children of Israel eat their defiled bread.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n Conformity of punishment to sin<\/strong><\/p>\n They had sinned in excess, and God would take away their plenty. Hos 13:6<\/span>, According to their pasture, so were they filled; they had full pastures, fed largely, exalted their hearts, and thought they should never want; they forgot God in their fulness, and He made them to remember Him in a famine. Fulness of bread was the sin of Sodom, and the sin of Jerusalem also. God brake the staff of bread. They sinned in defiling themselves with idols, and offered meal and oil, honey and flour, for a sweet savour to their idols (Eze 16:1-63<\/span>), and now they must eat polluted bread among the Gentiles. (W. Greenhill, M. A.<\/em>)<\/p>\n .<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Verse 9<\/span>. Take thou also unto thee wheat<\/B><\/I>] In times of scarcity<\/I>, it is customary in all countries to mix several kinds of coarser grain with the finer, to make it last the longer. This mashlin<\/I>, which the prophet is commanded to take, of wheat, barley, beans, lentiles, millet, and fitches, was intended to show how scarce the necessaries of life should be during the siege.<\/P> <\/p>\n Provide thee corn enough; for a grievous famine will accompany the siege. And whereas all sorts of grain are to be provided, it assures us all would be little enough; wheat and barley would not outlast the siege, coarser and meaner must be provided, though less fit for bread. Mix the worst with the best to lengthen out the best, that the mixture may render them useful in such necessity. <\/P> Three hundred and ninety days; he mentions only three hundred and ninety; the forty days either concur with them, or else because they refer to the time after the city was taken, whereby such as revived and got some liberty to go abroad found food for themselves; if they escaped the sword of the enemy, and were got into the country, they wanted not bread. <\/P> <\/p>\n 9. wheat . . . barley,<\/B>c.Instead of simple flour used for delicate cakes (Ge18:6<\/span>), the Jews should have a coarse mixture of six differentkinds of grain, such as the poorest alone would eat. <\/P> fitches<\/B>spelt ordhourra.<\/I> <\/P> three hundred and ninety<\/B>Theforty days are omitted, since these latter typify the wildernessperiod<\/I> when Israel stood separate from the Gentiles and theirpollution,<\/I> though partially chastened by stint of bread and water(Eze 4:16<\/span>), whereas the eatingof the polluted bread in the three hundred ninety days implies aforced residence “among the Gentiles<\/I>” who werepolluted with idolatry (Eze 4:13<\/span>).This last is said of “Israel” primarily, as being the mostdebased (Eze 4:9-15<\/span>)they had spiritually<\/I> sunk to a level with the heathen,therefore God will make their condition outwardly<\/I> tocorrespond. Judah and Jerusalem fare less severely, being lessguilty: they are to “eat bread by weight and with care,”that is, have a stinted supply and be chastened with the milderdiscipline of the wilderness period. But Judah also is secondarilyreferred to in the three hundred ninety days, as having fallen, likeIsrael, into Gentile defilements; if, then, the Jews are to escapefrom the exile among Gentiles,<\/I> which is their just punishment,they must submit again to the wilderness probation (Eze4:16<\/span>).<\/P><\/p>\n Take thou also unto thee wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentiles, and millet, and fitches<\/strong>,…. The first of these was commonly used to make bread of; in case of want and poverty, barley was used; but, for the rest, they were for cattle, and never used for the food of men but in a time of great scarcity; wherefore this was designed to denote the famine that should attend the siege of Jerusalem; see<\/p>\n 2Ki 25:3<\/span>;<\/p>\n and put them in one vessel<\/strong>; that is, the flour of them, when ground, in order to be mixed and kneaded together, and make one dough thereof; which mixed bread was a sign of a sore famine: the Septuagint call it an earthen vessel; a kneading trough seems to be designed:<\/p>\n and make thee bread thereof, [according] to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon thy side<\/strong>; the left side, on which he was to lie three hundred and ninety days: and so as much bread was to be made as would suffice for that time; or so many loaves were to be made as there were days, a loaf for a day:<\/p>\n three hundred and ninety days shalt thou eat thereof<\/strong>; no mention is made of the forty days, perhaps they are understood, a part being put for the whole; or they were included in the three hundred and ninety days. The Septuagint and Arabic versions read only a hundred and ninety days.<\/p>\n The third symbolical act. – Eze 4:9<\/span>. And do thou take to thyself wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentiles, and millet, and spelt, and put them in a vessel, and prepare them as bread for thyself, according to the number of the days on which thou liest on thy side; three hundred and ninety days shalt thou eat it. <\/em> Eze 4:10<\/span> . And thy food, which thou eatest, shall be according to weight, twenty shekels for a day; from time to time shalt thou eat it. <\/em> Eze 4:11<\/span> . And water shalt thou drink according to measure, a sixth part of the hin, from time to time shalt thou drink it. <\/em> Eze 4:12<\/span> . And as barley cakes shalt thou eat it, and shalt bake it before their eyes with human excrement. <\/em> Eze 4:13<\/span> . And Jehovah spake; then shall the children of Israel eat their bread polluted amongst the heathen, whither I shall drive them. <\/em> Eze 4:14<\/span> . Then said I: Ah! Lord, Jehovah, my soul has never been polluted; and of a carcase, and of that which is torn, have I never eaten from my youth up until now, and abominable flesh has not come into my mouth. <\/em> Eze 4:15<\/span> . Then said He unto me: Lo, I allow thee the dung of animals instead of that of man; therewith mayest thou prepare thy bread. <\/em> Eze 4:16<\/span> . And He said to me, Son of man, lo, I will break the staff of bread in Jerusalem, so that they will eat bread according to weight, and in affliction, and drink water by measure, and in amazement. <\/em> Eze 4:17<\/span> . Because bread and water shall fail, and they shall pine away one with another, and disappear in their guilt.<\/em> – For the whole duration of the symbolical siege of Jerusalem, Ezekiel is to furnish himself with a store of grain corn and leguminous fruits, to place this store in a vessel beside him, and daily to prepare in the form of bread a measured portion of the same, 20 shekels in weight (about 9 ounces), and to bake this as barley cakes upon a fire, prepared with dried dung, and then to partake of it at the different hours for meals throughout the day. In addition to this, he is, at the hours appointed for eating, to drink water, in like manner according to measure, a sixth part of the hin daily, i.e., a quantity less than a pint (cf. Biblisch. Archol<\/em>. II. p. 141). The Israelites, probably, generally<\/em> prepared the from wheat flour, and not merely when they had guests (Gen 18:6<\/span>). Ezekiel, however, is to take, in addition, other kinds of grain with leguminous fruits, which were employed in the preparation of bread when wheat was deficient; barley – baked into bread by the poor (Jdg 7:13<\/span>; 2Ki 4:42<\/span>; Joh 6:9<\/span>; see on 1Ki 5:8<\/span>); , “beans,” a common food of the Hebrews (2Sa 17:28<\/span>), which appears to have been mixed with other kinds of grain for the purpose of being baked into bread.<\/p>\n (Note: Cf. Plinii Histor. Natur. xviii. <\/em> 30 : “Inter legumina maximus honos fabae, quippe ex qua tentatus sit etiam panis…Frumento etiam miscetur apud plerasque gentes et maxime panico solida ac delicatius fracta.” <\/em>)<\/p>\n This especially holds true of the lentiles, a favourite food of the Hebrews (Gen 25:29<\/span>.), from which, in Egypt at the present day, the poor still bake bread in times of severe famine (Sonnini, R. II. 390; , Athenaeus<\/em>, IV. 158). , “millet,” termed by the Arabs ”Dochn”<\/em> (Arab. dchn<\/em>), panicum <\/em>, a fruit cultivated in Egypt, and still more frequently in Arabia (see Wellsted, Arab<\/em>. I. 295), consisting of longish round brown grain, resembling rice, from which, in the absence of better fruits, a sort of bad bread is baked. Cf. Celsius, Hierobotan<\/em>, i. 453ff.; and Gesen. Thesaur<\/em>. p. 333. , “spelt or German corn” (cf. Exo 9:32<\/span>), a kind of grain which produces a finer and whiter flour than wheat flour; the bread, however, which is baked from it is somewhat dry, and is said to be less nutritive than wheat bread; cf. Celsius, Hierobotan<\/em>, ii. 98f. Of all these fruits Ezekiel is to place certain quantities in a vessel – to indicate that all kinds of grain and leguminous fruits capable of being converted into bread will be collected, in order to bake bread for the appeasing of hunger. In the intermixture of various kinds of flour we are not, with Hitzig, to seek a transgression of the law in Lev 19:19<\/span>; Deu 22:9<\/span>. is the accusative of measure or duration. The quantity is to be fixed according to the number of the days. In Eze 4:9<\/span> only the 390 days of the house of Israel’s period of punishment are mentioned – quod plures essent et fere universa summa <\/em> (Prado); and because this was sufficient to make prominent the hardship and oppression of the situation, the 40 days of Judah were omitted for the sake of brevity.<\/p>\n (Note: Kliefoth’s supposition is untenable, that what is required in Eze 4:9-17<\/span> refers in reality only to the 390 days of Israel, and not also to the 40 days of Judah, so that so long as Ezekiel lay and bore the sins of Israel, he was to eat his food by measure, and unclean. For this is in contradiction with the distinct announcement that during the whole time that he lay upon the one side and the other, he was besieging Jerusalem; and by the scanty and unclean food, was to portray both the deficiency of bread and water which occurred in the besieged city (Eze 4:17<\/span>), as well as the eating of unclean bread, which impended over the Israelites when among the heathen nations. The famine which took place in Jerusalem during the siege did not affect the ten tribes, but that of Judah; while unclean bread had to be eaten among the heathen not only by the Israelites, but also by the Jews transported to Babylon. By the limitation of what is prescribed to the prophet in Eze 4:9-15<\/span> to the time during which the sin of Israel was to be borne, the significance of this symbolical act for Jerusalem and Judah is taken away.)<\/p>\n ‘ , “thy food which thou shalt eat,” i.e., the definite portion which thou shalt have to eat, shall be according to weight (between subject and predicate the substantive verb is to be supplied). Twenty shekels = 8 or 9 ounces of flour, yield 11 or 12 ounces of bread, i.e., at most the half of what a man needs in southern countries for his daily support.<\/p>\n (Note: In our climate (Germany) we count 2 lbs. of bread for the daily supply of a man; but in warm countries the demand for food is less, so that scarcely 1 1\/2 lbs. are required. Wellsted ( Travels in Arabia<\/em>, II. p. 200) relates that “the Bedoweens will undertake a journey of 10 to 12 days without carrying with them any nutriment, save a bottle full of small cakes, baked of white flour and camel or goat’s milk, and a leather bag of water. Such a cake weighs about 5 ounces. Two of them, and a mouthful of water, the latter twice within 24 hours, is all which they then partake of.”)<\/p>\n The same is the case with the water. A sixth part of a hin, i.e., a quantity less than a pint, is a very niggardly allowance for a day. Both, however – eating the bread and drinking the water – he shall do from time to time, i.e., “not throughout the entire fixed period of 390 days” (Hvernick); but he shall not eat the daily ration at once, but divided into portions according to the daily hours of meals, so that he will never be completely satisfied. In addition to this is the pollution (Eze 4:12<\/span>.) of the scanty allowance of food by the manner in which it is prepared. is predicate: “as barley cakes,” shalt thou eat them. The suffix in is neuter, and refers to in Eze 4:9<\/span>, or rather to the kinds of grain there enumerated, which are ground and baked before them: , i.e., “food.” The addition is not to be explained from this, that the principal part of these consisted of barley, nor does it prove that in general no other than barley cakes were known (Hitzig), but only that the cakes of barley meal, baked in the ashes, were an extremely frugal kind of bread, which that prepared by Ezekiel was to resemble. The was probably always baked on hot ashes, or on hot stones (1Ki 19:6<\/span>), not on pans, as Kliefoth here supposes. The prophet, however, is to bake them in (with) human ordure. This is by no means to be understood as if he were to mix the ordure with the food, for which view Isa 36:12<\/span> has been erroneously appealed to; but – as in Eze 4:15<\/span> clearly shows – he is to bake it over<\/em> the dung, i.e., so that dung forms the material of the fire. That the bread must be polluted by this is conceivable, although it cannot be proved from the passages in Lev 5:3<\/span>; Lev 7:21<\/span>, and Deu 23:13<\/span> that the use of fire composed of dung made the food prepared thereon levitically unclean. The use of fire with human ordure must have communicated to the bread a loathsome smell and taste, by which it was rendered unclean, even if it had not been immediately baked in the hot ashes. That the pollution of the bread is the object of this injunction, we see from the explanation which God gives in Eze 4:13<\/span>: “Thus shall the children of Israel eat their defiled bread among the heathen.” The heart of the prophet, however, rebels against such food. He says he has never in his life polluted himself by eating food forbidden in the law; from his youth up he has eaten no unclean flesh, neither of a carcase, nor of that which was torn by wild beasts (cf. Exo 22:30<\/span>; Deu 14:21<\/span>), nor flesh of sacrifices decayed or putrefying ( , see on Lev 7:18<\/span>; Isa 65:4<\/span>). On this God omits the requirement in Eze 4:12<\/span>, and permits him to take for firing the dung of oxen instead of that of men.<\/p>\n (Note: The use of dung as a material for burning is so common in the East, that it cannot be supposed that Ezekiel first became acquainted with it in a foreign country, and therefore regarded it with peculiar loathing. Human ordure, of course, so far as our knowledge goes, is never so employed, although the objection raised by Hitzig, on the other hand, that it would not yield so much heat as would be necessary for roasting without immediate contact, i.e., through the medium of a brick, rests upon an erroneous representation of the matter. But the employment of cattle-dung for firing could not be unknown to the Israelites, as it forms in the Huaran (the ancient Bashan) the customary firing material; cf. Wetzstein’s remarks on Delitzsch’s Job<\/em>, vol. I. pp. 377, 8 (Eng. trn.), where the preparation of the g’elle<\/em> – this prevalent material for burning in the Hauran – from cow-dung mixed with chopped straw is minutely described; and this remark is made among others, that the flame of the g’elle<\/em>, prepared and dried from the dung of oxen that feed at large, is entirely without smoke, and that the ashes, which retain their heat for a lengthened time, are as clean as those of wood.)<\/p>\n In Eze 4:16<\/span>., finally, is given the explanation of the scanty allowance of food meted out to the prophet, namely, that the Lord, at the impending siege of Jerusalem, is to take away from the people the staff of bread, and leave them to languish in hunger and distress. The explanation is in literal adherence to the threatenings of the law (Lev 26:26<\/span> and Lev 26:39<\/span>), which are now to pass into fulfilment. Bread is called “staff of bread” as being indispensable for the preservation of life. To , Lev 26:26<\/span>, , “in sorrow,” is added; and to the water, , “in astonishment,” i.e., in fixed, silent pain at the miserable death, by hunger and thirst, which they see before them. as Lev 26:39<\/span>. If we, finally, cast a look over the contents of this first sign, it says that Jerusalem is soon to be besieged, and during the siege is to suffer hunger and terror as a punishment for the sins of Israel and Judah; that upon the capture of the city of Israel (Judah) they are to be dispersed among the heathen, and will there be obliged to eat unclean bread. To this in Ezekiel 5 is joined a second sign, which shows further how it shall fare with the people at and after the capture of Jerusalem (Eze 4:1-4<\/span>); and after that a longer oracle, which developes the significance of these signs, and establishes the necessity of the penal judgment (Eze 4:5-17<\/span>).<\/p>\n The Representation of a Famine.<\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/I><\/span><\/P> <\/TD> B. C.<\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/SPAN> 595.<\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/SPAN><\/FONT><\/P> <\/TD> <\/TR> <\/TABLE> 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<\/I> 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<\/I> 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<\/I> barley cakes, and thou shalt bake it with dung that cometh out of man, in their sight. 13 And the LORD<\/B> 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<\/B>! 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.<\/P> The best exposition of this part of Ezekiel’s prediction of Jerusalem’s desolation is Jeremiah’s lamentation of it, Lam 4:3<\/span>; Lam 4:4<\/span>; Lam 5:10<\/span>, where he pathetically describes the terrible famine that was in Jerusalem during the siege and the sad effects of it.<\/P> 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.<\/P> 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.<\/I><\/span> 9<\/span>. 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.<\/P> 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,<\/I> Jer. xxxvii. 21<\/I><\/span>. The prophet must eat but twenty shekels’<\/I> weight of bread a day (v.<\/I><\/span> 10<\/span>), that was about ten ounces; and he must drink but the sixth part of a hin of water,<\/I> that was half a pint, about eight ounces, v.<\/I><\/span> 11<\/span>. 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.<\/I> 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<\/I> and were not grieved for the affliction of Joseph,<\/I> Amos vi. 4-6<\/I><\/span>.<\/P> 3. For the dressing of it, he must bake it with a man’s dung<\/I> (v.<\/I><\/span> 12<\/span>); 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,<\/I> 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,<\/I> 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.<\/I> 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.<\/I><\/span> 14<\/span>); 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,<\/I> that God might see no unclean thing in their camp,<\/I>Deu 23:13<\/span>; Deu 23:14<\/span>. 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,<\/I>” says he, “behold, my soul has not been polluted,<\/I> 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,<\/I> Matt. xv. 11<\/I><\/span>. 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,<\/I> Lam. iv. 5<\/I><\/span>), but that he had been brought up conscientiously, and had never eaten any thing that was forbidden by the law, that died of itself<\/I> or was torn in pieces;<\/I> and therefore, “Lord, do not put this upon me now.” Thus Peter pleaded (Acts x. 14<\/span>), Lord, I have never eaten any thing that is common or unclean.<\/I> 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.<\/I> 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<\/I> instead of man’s dung,<\/I> v.<\/span> 15<\/span><\/U><\/I><\/span>. 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!<\/I> Job xv. 16<\/I><\/span>.<\/P> II. Now this sign is particularly explained here; it signified,<\/P> 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;<\/I> and thus the staff of bread<\/I> would be broken in Jerusalem,<\/I> v.<\/span> 16<\/span><\/U><\/I><\/span>. God would not only take away from the bread its power to nourish, so that they should eat and not be satisfied<\/I> (Lev. xxvi. 26<\/span>), but would take away the bread itself (Isa. iii. 1<\/span>), so that what little remained should be eaten by weight,<\/I> 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,<\/I> to make it go as far as might be, and with astonishment,<\/I> when they saw it almost spent and knew not which way to look for a recruit. They should be astonished one with another;<\/I> whereas it is ordinarily some alleviation of a calamity to have others share with us in it (Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris<\/I>), 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.<\/I> 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;<\/I> multitudes of them shall die of famine, a lingering death, worse than that by the sword<\/I> (Lam. iv. 9<\/span>); they shall dies so as to feel themselves die.<\/I> And it is sin that brings all this misery upon them: They shall consume away in their iniquity<\/I> (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<\/I> (Ps. cxlvii. 14<\/span>); but now it would be glad of the coarsest, and cannot have it. Fulness of bread,<\/I> as it was one of Jerusalem’s mercies, so it had become one of her sins, Ezek. xvi. 49<\/span>. 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,<\/I> neither do they reap,<\/I> are yet fed from day to day with food convenient.<\/P> 2. It signified that those who were carried into captivity should be forced to eat their defiled bread among the Gentiles<\/I> (v.<\/I><\/span> 13<\/span>), 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,<\/I> 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,<\/I> rather than they would Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
<\/strong><\/p>\nFuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell<\/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: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n