(C) The Hardships of the Exiles and the Besieged. The horrors of famine, consequent upon the siege, are suggested by the symbolical action of this section, in which the prophet's food and drink are to be carefully measured out about half a pound of food a day and a little over a pint of water. But blended with the thought of the scarcity of food during the siege is the thought of the uncleanness of the food eaten during the exile. According to Hebrew ideas, any food eaten in any land outside of Canaan was necessarily unclean: partly because such a land, not being Yahweh's land, was itself unclean, and partly because no first-fruits would be offered to Him, as He could have no sanctuary there (Hosea 9:3 f.). The uncleanness of exile is suggested by the mongrel combinations (cf. Ezekiel 4:9) which in food, as in dress and other things (cf. Deuteronomy 22:9-11), seems to have been offensive to Hebrew religious sense; but it is suggested far more drastically by the repulsive accessories of its preparation, which must have been peculiarly offensive to the priestly Ezekiel with his regard for ceremonial propriety. This regard he specially emphasizes before God in a highly significant prayer one of the very few prayers in the book and a special concession is made; but even so, the religious horror of the exile to a sensitive and scrupulous Hebrew is powerfully suggested.
Ezekiel 4:9-17
9 Take thou also unto thee wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentiles, and millet, and fitches,b and put them in one vessel, and make thee bread thereof, according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon thy side, three hundred and ninety days shalt thou eat thereof.
10 And thy meat which thou shalt eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels a day: from time to time shalt thou eat it.
11 Thou shalt drink also water by measure, the sixth part of an hin: from time to time shalt thou drink.
12 And thou shalt eat it as barley cakes, and thou shalt bake it with dung that cometh out of man, in their sight.
13 And the LORD said, Even thus shall the children of Israel eat their defiled bread among the Gentiles, whither I will drive them.
14 Then said I, Ah Lord GOD! behold, my soul hath not been polluted: for from my youth up even till now have I not eaten of that which dieth of itself, or is torn in pieces; neither came there abominable flesh into my mouth.
15 Then he said unto me, Lo, I have given thee cow's dung for man's dung, and thou shalt prepare thy bread therewith.
16 Moreover he said unto me, Son of man, behold, I will break the staff of bread in Jerusalem: and they shall eat bread by weight, and with care; and they shall drink water by measure, and with astonishment:
17 That they may want bread and water, and be astonied one with another, and consume away for their iniquity.