“And you shall eat it as barley cakes, and you will bake it in their sight with excrement that comes out of a man.”
‘Barley cakes' indicates the poor man's food. They were, as described earlier, made up of a mixture of ingredients. It was to be ‘baked in their sight', possibly on heated stones or an iron plate. The onlookers would be watching someone surviving ‘under siege'.
The use of human excrement for fuel would appal not only Ezekiel but also the onlookers, yet in times of siege it would occur. Compare Deuteronomy 23:13-14 where it was to be buried out of sight to prevent defilement.