> ‎Chapter 5‎ > ‎Chapter 6‎ > ‎Chapter 7‎ > ‎Chapter 8‎ > ‎Chapter 9‎ > ‎Chapter 10‎ > ‎Chapter 11‎ > ‎Chapter 12‎ > ‎Chapter 13‎ > ‎Chapter 14‎ > ‎Chapter 15‎ > ‎Chapter 16‎ > ‎Chapter 17‎ > ‎Chapter 18‎ > ‎Chapter 19‎ > ‎Chapter 20‎ > ‎Chapter 21‎ > ‎Chapter 22‎ > ‎Chapter 23‎ > ‎Chapter 24‎ > ‎Chapter 25‎ > ‎Chapter 26‎ > ‎Chapter 27‎ > ‎Chapter 28‎ > ‎Chapter 29‎ > ‎Chapter 30‎ > ‎Chapter 31‎ > ‎Chapter 32‎ > ‎Chapter 33‎ > ‎Chapter 34‎ > ‎Chapter 35‎ > ‎Chapter 36‎ > ‎Chapter 37‎ > ‎Chapter 38‎ > ‎Chapter 39‎ > ‎Chapters 40-42‎ > ‎Chapter 43‎ > ‎Chapter 44‎ > ‎Chapters 45-46‎ > ‎Chapters 47-48‎ > ‎   

 

 

Chapter 4: God next told him to make on a clay tablet a model of a
city in siege as a sign of what was to happen to the house of
Israel. The others in exile with him would see this, and wonder
what it meant. He at least seemed like a prophet. The fact that he
was a priest would lend weight to his words. Yet they strongly
opposed any prophecy other than quick return from exile.

Next, God ordered Ezekiel to lie on his left side 190 days to
expiate the same number of years of the iniquity of the northern
kingdom. Samaria fell in 721. Ezekiel at this time was in between
596 and 586. The calculation is of course round. Then he was to
lie on his right side for 40 days, again a round number, to
expiate for the house of Juda---right stood for south, left for
north.

We read 190 days for the north. That is the number given in the
Septuagint (LXX). The Masoretic Hebrew text gives 390. The text of
Ezekiel is in uncertain condition. It seems likely that the LXX is
a more careful translation at this point, for it is likely to be
based on a Hebrew text earlier than the LXX. From the Dead Sea
Scrolls we know that the LXX at times does follow earlier Hebrew
texts, and that the text as a whole had not been stabilized at the
time when the LXX was made.

Next God ordered him to take wheat, barley, beans and lentils,
millet and spelt and put all into one vessel and make bread of
them. Lev.19.19 and Dt.22.9-10 prohibited mixing these grains or
even planting all in one field. But now to show the extremity, God
positively ordered an exception. Ezekiel could eat only 20 shekels
of this bread along with 1/6 of a hin, that is, about 6.55 liters
of water per day. This was about half the normal diet. At first
God ordered him to cook the grains over a fire of human dung, but
when Ezekiel protested, God allowed him to cook on cow's dung. All
this was to be a sign of the famine to come in the city.