“Sigh, therefore, you son of man. You will sigh with the breaking of your loins and with bitterness before their eyes. And it will be when they say to you, ‘Why do you sigh?', that you will say, ‘Because of the tidings, for it comes.' And every heart will melt, and all hands will be feeble, and every spirit will faint, and all knees will be weak as water. Behold it comes and it will be done, says the Lord Yahweh.”
So Ezekiel was to audibly sigh. The ‘breaking of the loins' represents deep emotions and fear (Psalms 69:23; Nahum 2:10). The ‘bitterness' reveals his heartbreaking concern. This will then raise questions in his hearers (by now anything that Ezekiel did raised questions), and when they ask for its reason he will reply that it is because of the coming bad tidings, tidings which result in great dismay and regret, so that even the strong are made weak, and all suffer emotional collapse. The hands will be feeble, every spirit will be faint, the legs will be weak as water. They could hardly doubt that he was referring to the final destruction of Jerusalem and the collapse of all their hopes.
‘Behold it comes and it will be done, says the Lord Yahweh.' God wants them to know that it will all happen at His will. There is nothing accidental about it. In our modern day we can so emphasise that God is love that we forget this side of Him, that God is also light and hates sin totally.