The Siege of Jerusalem

Ezekiel 4:1-17 

1 "You also, son of man, take a clay tablet and lay it before you, and portray on it a city, Jerusalem. 2 Lay siege against it, build a siege wall against it, and heap up a mound against it; set camps against it also, and place battering rams against it all around. 3 Moreover take for yourself an iron plate, and set it as an iron wall between you and the city. Set your face against it, and it shall be besieged, and you shall lay siege against it. This will be a sign to the house of Israel.

4 "Lie also on your left side, and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel upon it. According to the number of the days that you lie on it, you shall bear their iniquity. 5 For I have laid on you the years of their iniquity, according to the number of the days, three hundred and ninety days; so you shall bear the iniquity of the house of Israel. 6 And when you have completed them, lie again on your right side; then you shall bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days. I have laid on you a day for each year.

7 "Therefore you shall set your face toward the siege of Jerusalem; your arm shall be uncovered, and you shall prophesy against it. 8 And surely I will restrain you so that you cannot turn from one side to another till you have ended the days of your siege.

9 "Also take for yourself wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and spelt; put them into one vessel, and make bread of them for yourself. During the number of days that you lie on your side, three hundred and ninety days, you shall eat it. 10 And your food which you eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels a day; from time to time you shall eat it. 11 You shall also drink water by measure, one-sixth of a hin; from time to time you shall drink. 12 And you shall eat it as barley cakes; and bake it using fuel of human waste in their sight."

13 Then the LORD said, "So shall the children of Israel eat their defiled bread among the Gentiles, where I will drive them."

14 So I said, "Ah, Lord GOD! Indeed I have never defiled myself from my youth till now; I have never eaten what died of itself or was torn by beasts, nor has abominable flesh ever come into my mouth."

15 Then He said to me, "See, I am giving you cow dung instead of human waste, and you shall prepare your bread over it."

16 Moreover He said to me, "Son of man, surely I will cut off the supply of bread in Jerusalem; they shall eat bread by weight and with anxiety, and shall drink water by measure and with dread, 17 that they may lack bread and water, and be dismayed with one another, and waste away because of their iniquity.

God told Ezekiel that the siege against Jerusalem was because of their sin of rebellion against Him.  He had the prophet make a drawing of the city on a clay tablet and build siege walls for the enemy to come over the city walls to destroy it as it would soon be in real life.  He even had miniature enemy camps set up all around.  He then placed an iron plate between himself and Jerusalem with his back turned as a sign to Israel that God had turned His back on them for their rejection of Him and His word with their unrepentant idolatry and immortality, and no pleas now would pass through the plate to change God’s mind.  He suffered long with them and now it was to be the day of reckoning for their sin.  He then laid on each side to bear their sin with each day counting for a year.  This was an act of mercy, for he was used by God as a way to atone for their sins by limiting the time of their suffering to the end that they would repent in the end.  He pointed towards Jerusalem the entire time as a prophetic gesture to remind the people of the siege of disciplinary justice in God’s judgment until the siege was over and they were taken captive to Babylon.  Ezekiel was told to lay up enough food and water for the entire time in which he would lie there so he did not have to move from that place as an ongoing reminder to the people of their punishment of discipline towards eventual repentance.  He cooked on dung as a sign to Israel how they would eat defiled food in the foreign land where they would be driven for their dis for a time.  Even before that time, they would slowly starve in Jerusalem under the long siege as a result of their unrepentant sin over the years.  This passage is a reminder that we need to deal with sin and keep short accounts by repenting by confessing and turning from each and every act of sin in thought, deed, or action as we are aware (1 John 1:9).  The corrective consequences of His discipline for unrepentant sin are worse than those admitted and dealt with as we put sin to death by his Spirit according to His word (Romans 8:13).  May we not be as Israel and Judah in refusing God’s instruction in His word with rebellious sin left unconfessed and not repented of.   We are to learn from these examples instead (1 Corinthians 10:6-8) of repeating the same sinful mistakes.  Remember the siege of Jerusalem as a warning of divine discipline of sin’s siege against our souls, and remember His correction when we sin (Hebrews 12:10-11) is to make us more like Christ as an act of mercy and grace.