Scanty means of subsistence symbolising punishment (chap. Ezekiel 4:9-17)
EXEGETICAL NOTES.— Ezekiel 4:9. The several sorts of vegetable food—the richest and the poorest in nutritive elements—being placed “in one vessel,” signified that all classes of the population would be obliged to gather every particle they could, and then find it difficult to obtain sufficient provisions. The “bread” from such a mixture was to be made by Ezekiel in a quantity corresponding to “the number of the days that thou shalt be on thy side, three hundred and ninety days.” This is the period of Israel’s punishment as referred to in Ezekiel 4:5. It is a sign of the time during which the ten tribes should remain in captivity among the Gentiles, and of the low estate in which they would be there.
Ezekiel 4:10. Of the prescribed food Ezekiel was to “eat by weight twenty shekels a day,” somewhere about ten ounces of English measure, and a very scanty portion for ordinary healthful nourishment; but, as in instances of shipwreck and sieges, meant to maintain life as long as possible—“too much for dying, too little for living.” “From time to time shalt thou eat it:” not to make one poor meal, but to take a “ration” at stated intervals.
Ezekiel 4:11. So also “thou shalt drink water by measure, the sixth part of a hin”—about a pint, and sadly insufficient for a climate like that of Central Asia.
Ezekiel 4:12. The food was to be eaten, as common “barley cakes” still are in the East, after having been baked in hot ashes; but with a strange peculiarity, “thou shalt bake it with dung that cometh out of man” (cf. Isaiah 32:12). The dung was not to be used as an ingredient of the cakes, as has been strangely supposed, but of the fuel. The use of human ordure in fuel was not practised, and the order to employ it was meant to indicate “in their sight”—for clear and deep impression—that which is stated in
Ezekiel 4:13. “The Lord said, Even thus shall the children of Israel eat their defiled bread among the Gentiles.” The children of Israel would find themselves, during the period of their captivity, in such a condition that the laws of Moses in reference to foods could hardly be kept. They would have to eat their bread defiled—what their souls might loathe—and so would become almost as the heathen. They would not be able to boast of their special separateness.
Ezekiel 4:14. Ezekiel had submissively accepted the divine appointments hitherto—he makes a protest now. “Then said I, Ah Lord God! behold, my soul hath not been polluted;” and he goes on to specify certain kinds of forbidden food from which he had rigidly abstained. The rigidness was all the more appropriate in that Ezekiel was dwelling in a heathen country. By means of adhering to all ritual observances a fence was planted round Israel against the encroachment of conquering heathendom, and the prophet was a rallying-point for strength to the exiled people when they strove to live not as did the heathens. The observance of legal institutions that could be observed outside of the Holy Land was consistently maintained by Ezekiel, and he argues from the particular commands in reference to foods to the general obligation which he acknowledged in reference to everything by which he would have been consciously defiled. It is the appeal of a servant who has gone far beyond obedience to the mere letter—who is sensitively alive to being clean in heart as well as in act—who would shun the appearance of evil. For he could not plead any commandment prohibiting the use of the prescribed fuel; he could make a plea only from his own disgust, which was not simply that of his senses, but also of his moral feelings. It is no sign of priestism in Ezekiel. Peter the apostle, who was not a priest, showed something of the same spirit. But the case of Peter (Acts 10:14), who was not a captive, is not altogether parallel to this. The only point of similarity is that Peter had “not eaten anything common or unclean.”
Ezekiel 4:15. The answer to Ezekiel’s protest is a relaxation of the original order. “Then he said unto me, Lo I have given thee cow’s dung for man’s dung.” Nothing is more usual in those parts of the East than to observe cow’s dung, mixed with grass, straw, &c., made up into fuel for cooking. It is not likely that Ezekiel, any more than his neighbours, would consider himself polluted by eating cakes baked with this inodorous material, and so he makes no objection to the command, “Thou shalt prepare thy bread therewith.”
Ezekiel 4:16. “I will break the staff of bread in Jerusalem.” This alludes to the forty days during which Ezekiel was to lie on his right side, and signified that, in the period of Judah’s sufferings corresponding thereto, a lack of sufficient nourishment to sustain activities with energy would be experienced. The bread would not be polluted, as the bread given in the wilderness was not polluted, by the place; but as the natural supply found there was not sufficient for the wants of a multitude, so the supplies for Judah would be marked by scantiness: still the punishment would not be so severe or so continuous as that of Israel. It was that of a remnant, and would be “cut short in righteousness.” In the besieged city “they shall eat bread by weight and with care,” as those who are hard put to and auxious; “they shall drink water by measure and with astonishment,” as in perplexed wonder whether and when the sources would run dry.
Ezekiel 4:17. The Lord had reason for this procedure. His broken covenant necessitated that they should feel a deficiency of “bread and water, and be astonied,” be in perplexity and wonder, “one with another,” each and all, “and consume away,” become gaunt and offensive, “for their iniquity.” Hunger and thirst, sorrow and dismay, would fall upon the sinners in Zion, as the ancient book of the law had threatened (Leviticus 26:39).
HOMILETICS
GOD’S ACTION AGAINST INIQUITIES AFFECTING HIS SERVANTS
1. Servants who know the Lord’s will and do it not sink into destitution and perils similar to theirs who sit in darkness and have no light. This aggravation of the misery cannot but be experienced, viz., contrast with the blessings which they have forfeited by misuse. Israel had rejected its God, had chosen the way of the heathen, and having thus broken the conditions of its covenant with God, nothing remained but that it should be treated as the heathen. The son has left his father’s house, wasted his substance, fallen into want, and is on the verge of perishing with hunger. Not the worthiness of godly friends, not the calling ourselves Christians, not observance of the external rites of worship can hinder from entering into the state of those who live as without God in the world. A professedly Christian nation may be largely affected by commercial depression, sorrow, despondency, doubt, and dark fears for the future, if it is not true to God. The statement is sometimes made that Christian nations are no better than heathen nations, and the grounds for it, if we could see clearly, might be perceived in some indifference, neglect, antagonism to the holy, just, and good law of God. All evil things which transpire prove that He will not be mocked; least of all by those to whom He has manifested His righteousness and love. They must bear the fate of the heathen, whatever be their surprise and repugnance at what is undergone.
2. Servants who do His will are subjected to trials in common with those by whom they are surrounded. The bands which bind men into society are not forged so as to allow an escape, from evils which are rife in the community, for one of its constituent parts. They who fear the Lord fall into straitness, hunger, become weakly, if the circumstances in which they dwell are replete with the influences which produce such effects. Innocent children suffer from famine as well as men whose actions have contributed to the intensity of the famine; so does the man who humbly prays for relief as well as the man who curses the hardships he has to put up with. It is not in freedom from the troubles which stir in their environment that the sons of God are to find their comfort; it is in the conviction that they have not gone with a multitude to do evil, and that God writes their names in His book of remembrance. If they receive good in society from the hand of the Lord, shall they not receive evil also?
Every one who wants to be where the Supreme Will directs him to be, and to help the brothers who are within his power to reach, must be ready to encounter pinchings, disgusts, wearying hopes, anguish as well as sufficient grace. The Christ must needs “suffer many things” by coming amongst men, and His servants who would walk in His spirit may look for trials which, in a sense, they do not deserve. Let them see in Ezekiel one who, like themselves, had neither the mission nor the resources of Jesus Christ, and be instructed to take up and endure galling burdens for the welfare of the people in whose sufferings they are associated. Not in vain shall they suffer according to the will of God.
“Those periods of tribulation and chastisement, which the prophet here represents, have they not a voice for other times?… The lukewarm and fruitless professor—so long as he cleaves to the way of iniquity, and refuses to yield a hearty surrender to the will of God—is in bondage to the elements of the world, and therefore can have no part in that good land which floweth with milk and honey. The doom of Heaven’s condemnation hangs suspended over his head; and if not averted by a timely submission to the righteousness of God, and a cordial entrance into the bond of the covenant, he shall infallibly perish in the wilderness of sin and death.”—Fairbairn.
SENSITIVENESS TO SPIRITUAL EVIL (Chap. Ezekiel 4:12-15)
Burden-bearing with others, and to any extent for them, may expose to unpleasant associations and proceedings. Past habits and confirmed tastes may receive shocks which are hard to withstand. Yet the duty has to be done for the Lord. In such difficulties against service we must not accept their darkest aspects. We must learn to apply our natural shrinking from what is unpleasant to the case before us, and proceed according to the light which may be given to us. Our sensitiveness to anything that we feel unbecoming should inform us—
1. That we have to maintain past faithfulness to duty. Ezekiel did not like the thought of turning out of the way in which he had hitherto walked and kept himself pure. It was no ignoble consistency he was desirous to preserve. Consistency may be a fault when it weds us to what is unwise and not truly kind. It is a grand thing when it impresses the need of being able to hold ourselves in self-respect by being obedient to what we regard as right and sacred. What more honourable in a young man than that he will say, “I have not been discredited by low and offensive habits, and I shrink from them with loathing”? Or for a man, who is known to profess allegiance to Christ the King, to say, “I have not been contracting the taints of the spirit of the world; I have not been a cause of reproach to the Blessed Name by my cold disregard of the interests of the kingdom of Christ, and I shudder at the idea of doing anything which will seem contrary to my past conduct”? Yet there may be something more. There may be such a susceptibility to the appearance of evil that men will deprecate being taken into a course on which they may have to touch that which is not morally wrong, but which offends their taste for what is spiritually pure. It is bad to have one string out of tune. In seeking our own improvement, a book whose suggestions are not altogether true and holy could be read; in seeking the best way of helping others we might see unclean courts and houses, and contact with smutty persons might appear in view. What man or woman, sensitive to the continuance of their pureness of thought and conduct, would not rise up with the cry, “O my soul! come not thou into their secrets; unto their assembly, mine honour, be not thou united”? By past separateness from evil becomes a ground from which to act against approaching, apparently defiling influences. The man who has lived “unspotted from the world” will not readily reconcile himself to step into a place where his garments may become soiled. His faithfulness heretofore to the requirements of the holy law will impel him to repudiate what might seem to defile him now.
How blessed would this earth be if the hearts of all people deprecated everything which would lower the standard of moral taste or shake confidence in the prosecution of the high prize of a stainless life!
2. That we should regard our inward feelings as well as the external act in respect to what is required of us. The inward is not to be sullied. The Master’s decision has for ever placed the state of men’s hearts in a more important position than that of their words and deeds. That which comes out of the heart is that which defiles, and every one who would be as his Master must endeavour to keep the heart so clean as that no pollution shall mingle in its movements. It is a true stimulus to struggling believers to hear, from the lips of one of ancient days, such an appeal as this of the burdened prophet. How it may urge us to guard our acquired sensitiveness to defiling acts, to keep that which we have already attained, and long to be prevented from all filthiness of the spirit, so as to perfect holiness in the fear of the Lord!
The outward is not to be accepted without appeal. The hard and irksome processes appointed for Ezekiel might be entered into by him, but he wanted part of them to be less unpleasant and trying to his tender conscience. So he sought for an alteration in the requirement. Thus it seems that what is the present will of God may not be followed by immediate acquiescence. An attack of disease does not compel the patient to say, “I must submit, without an effort to get rid of it.” The disobedient act of a child, which must be punished, does not demand the parent to inflict that kind of punishment against which the child revolts. The contents of that cup, in which the venom of the world’s sins was concentrated, could not be drank, by Him who came on purpose to drink it, without a cry of aversion towards the awful task of love. And we are bound to make every attempt at extrication from external proceedings with which we have to do, if we are likely to suffer any moral defilement by them. “It were better for me to die than that any man should make my glorying void.” But no outer event can hurt our souls unless our souls turn it to evil.
3. That alleviation to our souls will be granted by God. No command of God to His servants can have an element in it which will really deprave their souls. Still that fact does not dim His fatherly pity so that He cannot see their shrinkings. Let a change not disparage His justice, holiness, truth, and He is willing to alter the conditions of His instructions, and make them less dreadful to the moral fastidiousness of His own. He has a respect even for their exaggerated feelings, and in His wisdom and love mitigates that which pains them. He pities them “like a father.” He does not desire to impose one unnecessary pang upon them. They may ask Him for whatsoever alleviation might ease their trouble and revulsions, in the hope that He will relax the stringency of His demands, if He does not renounce them. We have to do with God, who has tender compassion for every one who wants to be pure in heart. He does not quench the smoking flax.
“Let it teach us not to be rigid and stick to our wills, and think it disparagement to abate of our wills and right, and yield to others, when God, who is infinitely above us, can yield to us, and doth so daily, bearing our infirmities.”—Greenhill.