What is the context?
The sign now reaches into Ezekiel’s daily food. He is to make bread from wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet and spelt, with a fixed weight of food and a fixed measure of water at set times.
The rationing depicts scarcity. The closing explanation is that Jerusalem’s food supply will be cut off. People will eat anxiously and drink in despair as they see one another wasting away.
The required baking fuel adds a picture of defilement among the nations where the people will be scattered. Ezekiel objects that he has guarded himself from unclean food throughout his life. The Lord allows cow dung in place of human excrement.
The concession changes that part of the sign while leaving its warning intact. The combination of restricted food, measured water and defilement describes the humiliation and deprivation of siege and exile.
How is this passage commonly understood?
Henry and Wesley read the mixed ingredients and small rations as signs of a severe shortage. The concern is what people will be reduced to eating under judgment.
Henry emphasizes that Ezekiel’s objection concerns faithfulness to the requirements of clean food. The Lord hears the objection and allows the substitution. Wesley also understands the scene as a visionary representation of the conditions to come.
The chapter’s own explanation keeps the food within that warning. It presents the effects of scarcity and exile, rather than prescribing an ordinary pattern of eating for God’s people.
What is our position?
We don't have a position on this passage yet. When our study reaches a conclusion the text supports, it will appear here.