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Ezekiel 4:9-17
New English Translation

9 “As for you, take wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and spelt,[a] put them in a single container, and make food[b] from them for yourself. For the same number of days that you lie on your side—390 days[c]—you will eat it. 10 The food you eat will be eight ounces[d] a day by weight; you must eat it at fixed times.[e] 11 And you must drink water by measure, a pint and a half;[f] you must drink it at fixed times. 12 And you must eat the food as you would a barley cake. You must bake it in front of them over a fire made with dried human excrement.”[g] 13 And the Lord said, “This is how the people of Israel will eat their unclean food among the nations[h] where I will banish them.”

14 And I said, “Ah, Sovereign Lord, I have never been ceremonially defiled before. I have never eaten a carcass or an animal torn by wild beasts; from my youth up, unclean meat[i] has never entered my mouth.”

15 So he said to me, “All right then, I will substitute cow’s manure instead of human excrement. You will cook your food over it.”

16 Then he said to me, “Son of man, I am about to remove the bread supply[j] in Jerusalem. They will eat their bread ration anxiously, and they will drink their water ration in terror 17 because they will lack bread and water. Each one will be terrified, and they will rot for their iniquity.[k]

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Footnotes

  1. Ezekiel 4:9 sn Wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and spelt. All these foods were common in Mesopotamia where Ezekiel was exiled.
  2. Ezekiel 4:9 tn Heb “bread.”
  3. Ezekiel 4:9 tc The LXX reads: “190 days.”
  4. Ezekiel 4:10 sn Eight ounces (Heb “twenty shekels”). The standards for weighing money varied considerably in the ancient Near East, but the generally accepted weight for the shekel is 11.5 grams (0.4 ounce). This makes the weight of grain about 230 grams here (8 ounces).
  5. Ezekiel 4:10 tn Heb “from time to time.”
  6. Ezekiel 4:11 sn A pint and a half [Heb “one-sixth of a hin”]. One-sixth of a hin was a quantity of liquid equal to about 1.3 pints or 0.6 liters.
  7. Ezekiel 4:12 sn Human waste was to remain outside the camp of the Israelites according to Deut 23:15.
  8. Ezekiel 4:13 sn Unclean food among the nations. Lands outside of Israel were considered unclean (Josh 22:19; Amos 7:17).
  9. Ezekiel 4:14 tn The Hebrew term refers to sacrificial meat not eaten by the appropriate time (Lev 7:18; 19:7).
  10. Ezekiel 4:16 tn Heb, “break the staff of bread.” The bread supply is compared to a staff that one uses for support.
  11. Ezekiel 4:17 tn Or “in their punishment.” Ezek 4:16-17 alludes to Lev 26:26, 39. The phrase “in/for [a person’s] iniquity” occurs fourteen times in Ezekiel: here, 3:18, 19; 7:13, 16; 18:17, 18, 19, 20; 24:23; 33:6, 8, 9; 39:23. The Hebrew word for “iniquity” may also mean the “punishment for iniquity.”
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Ezekiel 4:9-17
Lexham English Bible

Ezekiel’s Strange Defiled Meal

9 “And you, take for yourself[a] wheat and barley and beans and lentils and millet[b] and spelt, and you must put them in one vessel, and you must make them for yourself[c] into a food during the number of days that you are lying on your side; three hundred and ninety days you shall eat it. 10 And your food that you will eat[d] will be according to weight; twenty shekels for each day at fixed times[e] you shall eat it. 11 And an amount of water[f] you shall drink, a sixth of a hin; at fixed times[g] you shall drink it. 12 And as a bread-cake of barley you shall eat it, and with human excrement[h] you shall bake it before their eyes.” 13 And Yahweh said, “Thus shall the Israelites[i] eat their unclean food among the nations where I will scatter them.”[j] 14 And I said, “Ah, Lord Yahweh! Look! I have not been defiling myself, and a dead body and mangled carcass I have not eaten from my childhood until now, and unclean meat[k] has not come into my mouth!” 15 And he said to me, “See I will give you cattle manure[l] in the place of the feces of a human, and you may prepare your food on it.” 16 And he said to me, “Son of man,[m] look, I am going to break the supply[n] of bread in Jerusalem, and they will eat bread by weight, anxiously,[o] and rationed water,[p] and they will drink with horror, 17 so that they will lack food and water, and they will be appalled with one another,[q] and they will waste away because of their guilt.[r]

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Footnotes

  1. Ezekiel 4:9 Hebrew “you”
  2. Ezekiel 4:9 Or “sorghum”
  3. Ezekiel 4:9 Hebrew “you”
  4. Ezekiel 4:10 Hebrew “will eat it”
  5. Ezekiel 4:10 Literally “from time to time”
  6. Ezekiel 4:11 Literally “water by amount”
  7. Ezekiel 4:11 Literally “from time to time”
  8. Ezekiel 4:12 Literally “with human dung of the excrement of the human”
  9. Ezekiel 4:13 Literally “sons/children of Israel”
  10. Ezekiel 4:13 Literally “which I will scatter them there”
  11. Ezekiel 4:14 Literally “flesh of unclean meat”
  12. Ezekiel 4:15 Literally “the manure of cattle”
  13. Ezekiel 4:16 Or “mortal,” or “son of humankind”
  14. Ezekiel 4:16 Literally “staff”
  15. Ezekiel 4:16 Literally “and with worry”
  16. Ezekiel 4:16 Literally “and water by amount”
  17. Ezekiel 4:17 Literally “a man and his brother”
  18. Ezekiel 4:17 Or “punishment”
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Ezekiel 3
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