Ezekiel 4:10-12

Ezekiel 4:10-12. And thy meat shall be by weight twenty shekels, &c. In sieges it is common to stint every one to a certain allowance, by which means they can guess how long their provisions will last: twenty shekels is but ten ounces; a short allowance for a day’s sustenance. From time to time shalt thou eat of it This shall be thy daily allowance during the whole three hundred and ninety days. Thou shalt drink also water by measure In sieges it is usual for the enemy to cut off the water from coming into the cities which they besiege, as much as they can, which produces a scarcity of it; the sixth part of a hin Which is about a pint and a half of our measure. Thou shalt eat it as barley cakes Such as people make in haste, when they have not time for preparing a set meal: see Exodus 12:39. This represents the hurry and disorder which would be occasioned by the siege. And thou shalt bake it with dung To signify the scarcity of all kinds of fuel. Sir J. Chardin, in his MS. quoted by Harmer, tells us, “the eastern people always used cow-dung for baking, boiling a pot, and dressing all kinds of victuals that are easily cooked; especially in countries that had but little wood.” And D’Arvieux,

“complaining that one sort of Arab bread smells of smoke, and tastes of the cow-dung used in baking it, informs us, that the peasants often make use of the same fuel, and that all who live in villages where there is not plenty of wood, are very careful to stock themselves with it; the children,” he says, “gather up the dung, and clap it against a wall to dry, from whence the quantity that is necessary for baking, or warming themselves, is taken from time to time.” Harmer, chap. 4. observ. 20, vol. 1. According to Dathius, quoted by Bishop Newcome, the dung of camels, as well as that of cows or oxen, was also “often used by the easterns as fuel for preparing their food.” But the command here given to the prophet, to use human dung, expressed the greatest necessity, and was terribly significant of the extremities which the inhabitants of Jerusalem should undergo during the siege, no nation making use of that offensive kind of fuel.