“Moreover lie on your left side, and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel on it. According to the number of days you will lie on it. You will bear their iniquity. For I have appointed the years of their iniquity to be to you a number of days, even three hundred and ninety days. So shall you bear the iniquity of the house of Israel. And again when you have accomplished these you will lie on your right side, and you will bear the iniquity of the house of Judah. Forty days, each day for a year, have I appointed it to you.”
Having depicted the siege of Jerusalem with its inevitable end, Ezekiel was now himself to depict himself as bearing the sin of Israel and Judah. The time elements were further indication that when God spoke to ‘the house of Israel' it depicted all the tribes, both those incorporated into Judah and those scattered elsewhere among the nations. His message would reach to them as well.
By lying on his left side Ezekiel was to show himself as bearing the iniquity of the northern kingdom of Israel. The pain and the sores resulting would at times become unbearable. But it was acted out prophecy. He suffered the pain that they should have suffered. But it was not vicarious. It depicted what would be and why their suffering and exile were necessary. The reason for selecting 390 days is not explained other than that it represents a period of 390 years, although the 390 days may represent a thirteen month year (30 x 13). If we date it from approximately 930 BC, the date of the setting up of the golden calves and the break by Israel from the central sanctuary (1 Kings 12:26-33), which to a priest of Judah could well be seen as the beginning of ‘the years of their iniquity', it would bring us down to around this time, remembering that their suffering and rebellion still continued. It need not be seen as necessarily exact. It was symbolic, and the ‘years of their iniquity' were still continuing. But its point was not only to accentuate the length of their iniquity, but to indicate that it was coming to an end. God would yet bring them to repentance and show mercy on them.
Three hundred and ninety represents three hundreds and three thirties (thirty being three intensified). Thus it stresses a complete period based on the significance of three, the number of completeness, a perfect period. However, 390 days also represents a thirteen month year taking the approximation regularly used of thirty days to a month (Genesis 7:24; Genesis 8:3 with Ezekiel 7:11 and Ezekiel 8:4; Revelation 11:2 with Ezekiel 11:3). Possibly then this was such a year.
After he had finished depicting the period of the iniquity of Israel he must then turn over and depict the period of the iniquity of Judah. This was to be for forty days, depicting forty years. ‘Forty' regularly depicts a period of trial and testing. We can compare how under Moses Israel suffered forty years in the wilderness. Thus the forty years, a round number depicting trial and testing, refers to the final period of Judah's rebellion against God. Possibly it was to be seen as ‘dating' from the death of Josiah around 609 BC which resulted in all his activity on behalf of Yahweh's name ceasing and its being replaced by final idolatry which was still continuing (2 Chronicles 36:5; 2 Chronicles 36:9; 2 Chronicles 36:11). Again it is symbolic rather than exact. Their period of iniquity was far shorter than that of Israel, but it was still going on (this difference confirms that the figures look back to the past and not forward to the future).
Laying on the left or right side may have come from the fact that if he was lying on his back with his head towards Jerusalem the northern kingdom would be on his left and the southern kingdom on his right.
The point behind both representations was to demonstrate that both nations had gone through long periods of iniquity, and still did so, and that that situation would go on. They did, however, also stress that their period of iniquity would eventually come to an end in God's time. When the restoration did take place people from both Israel and Judah would participate.
A question that is disputed is whether the 40 days follows the 390 days, or whether Ezekiel turned over after 350 days, the last forty days counting for both, thus completing a theoretical thirteen month year. Ezekiel 4:9 may suggest that 390 days was the total period for which he lay there, and the passage nowhere actually says that he was to lie on his left side for 390 days. But Ezekiel 4:4; Ezekiel 4:6 strongly suggest it.