1 Thou also, son of man, take thee a tile, and lay it before thee, and pourtray upon it the city, even Jerusalem:
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1 Thou also, son of man, take thee a tile, and lay it before thee, and pourtray upon it the city, even Jerusalem:
God said,
Son of man, take a tile and draw Jerusalem on it.
2And 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.
Show a battle taking place, with a fort and battering rams.
3Moreover 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.
Use an iron pan for a wall around the city.
This will be a sign to everyone in Israel.
4Lie 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.
God said,
Lie on your left side for 390 days.
6And 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. side, three hundred and ninety days shalt thou eat thereof.
Lie on your right side for 40 days.
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.
I'll tie you up with ropes so that you won't turn from one side to another until you're done with the 430 days. [1]
9Take 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.
God said,
Get some wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and fitches (spelt?). [2]
This is what you'll eat while you're lying on your side.
10 And thy meat which thou shalt eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels a day: from time to time shalt thou eat it.
You'll eat twenty shekels (~ 230 grams) of this bread each day. [3]
11 Thou shalt drink also water by measure, the sixth part of an hin: from time to time shalt thou drink.
And drink one-sixth of a hin (~ 610 ml) of water. [4]
12And thou shalt eat it as barley cakes, and thou shalt bake it with dung that cometh out of man, in their sight.
Bake the bread with human dung. [5]
And make sure everyone sees what you're doing.
13 And the LORD said, Even thus shall the children of Israel eat their defiled bread among the Gentiles, whither I will drive them.
The people of Israel will have to eat bread like this when I scatter them among the Gentiles.
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.
Oh God, I've never eaten anything that offended you. [6]
Don't make me eat this abominable bread now.
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.
God said,
OK. You can replace the human dung with cow dung when you bake the bread.
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:
17That they may want bread and water, and be astonished one with another, and consume away for their iniquity.
But Son of man, I'm going to cause a famine in Jerusalem.
The people won't have enough bread and water to survive.
Whoa! That must have made some awful bedsores!
Ezekiel 4:9 bread is supposed to be made according to the recipe given in this verse and is said to be a complete meal that satisfies all nutritional requirements. It seems like pretty good bread to me, too, but I'll bet it doesn't use the procedure described in Ezekiel 4:12.
According to Convert-me.com, 20 shekels is about 230 grams. Since a gram of bread provides about 2.8 calories, Ezekiel would have gotten a total of about 640 calories -- about half of what a person needs to stay healthy.
If Ezekiel survived God's bread and water starvation diet, he would have lost a lot of weight!
According to Convert-me.com, 1/6 hin is about 610 ml.
Since an average adult drinks about 2.5 liters of water per day, Ezekiel got only about a quarter of what he needed.
Ezekiel is probably worried about disobeying Deuteronomy 23:12-14, where God commands the Israelites to bury their dung so that he won't step in it. If he bakes his bread with human dung, he can't bury it as this verse commands.