1 Thou also, son of man, take thee a tile, and lay it before thee, and pourtray upon it the city, even Jerusalem:
2 And lay siege against it, and build a fort against it, and cast a mount against it; set the camp also against it, and set battering rams against it round about.
3 Moreover take thou unto thee an iron pan, and set it for a wall of iron between thee and the city: and set thy face against it, and it shall be besieged, and thou shalt lay siege against it. This shall be a sign to the house of Israel.
4 Lie thou also upon thy left side, and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel upon it: according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon it thou shalt bear their iniquity.
5 For I have laid upon thee the years of their iniquity, according to the number of the days, three hundred and ninety days: so shalt thou bear the iniquity of the house of Israel.
6 And when thou hast accomplished them, lie again on thy right side, and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days: I have appointed thee each day for a year.
7 Therefore thou shalt set thy face toward the siege of Jerusalem, and thine arm shall be uncovered, and thou shalt prophesy against it.
8 And, behold, I will lay bands upon thee, and thou shalt not turn thee from one side to another, till thou hast ended the days of thy siege.
9 Take thou also unto thee wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentiles, and millet, and fitches, 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.
<html><b>a brick</b> Heb. לְבֵנָה, tivle in Old French [tuile in modern French]. Some of them are large.</html>
<html><b>a stone-throwing catapult</b> Heb. דיק, mangonel in Old French, [mangonneau in modern French], with which they cast stones upon the city. <b>a siege mound</b> Heb. סֹלְלָה, he would pour earth and press upon it (סֹלְלָה) and beat it down with sticks, and make a high mound on which to stand and look into the city and shoot arrows. סֹלְלָה is bastion in Old French, rampart. <b>and place villages around it</b> Heb. כָּרִים. Jonathan rendered: אֶפְרוֹרְוָן, which are villages that his armies make, and [the armies] dwell in tents on [all] sides of the city, so that no man could come or go. Another explanation is that כָּרִים are officers appointed over the army; this one guards on this side, and that one on that side.</html>
<html><b>an iron wall</b> A semblance of the city wall that serves as a partition between the army and the city. <b>that is a sign</b> that so will Jerusalem come under siege.</html>
<html><b>on your left side</b> to bear the pain and torture [over] the number of days corresponding to the number of years that My spirit oppressed Me, so to speak, because they provoked Me, and you will atone for their iniquity since the retribution that I say I will bring upon them is painful to you.</html>
<html><b>I have given you the years of their iniquity, etc.</b> I have made it easier for you to tolerate the pain that I Myself suffered for the number of the years that they sinned before Me: for you I converted it to that number in days. [Another explanation: שְּׁנֵי is like שְׁנַיִם, two, and so did Jonathan render: Now I have given you twice as much as their iniquity. This does not appear in other editions]. <b>three hundred and ninety days</b> We learned in Seder Olam (ch. 26): This teaches us that Israel sinned for three hundred and ninety years from the time they entered the Land until the ten tribes were exiled therefrom. You find [the events of] two hundred and forty-three of them delineated: From the time Jeroboam assumed the throne until Hoshea son of Elah was exiled and in “the days that the judges judged” are one hundred and eleven years. The rest, however, are not delineated. (These are [the calculations of] the three hundred and ninety years—that I found in a responsum from Rabbi Joseph, the head of the yeshivah—that the ten tribes sinned from the days of Joshua until Sannecherib exiled them from Samaria. Calculate: in the days of the Judges there were 8 years under the rule of Cushan, 18 under the rule of Eglon, 20 under the rule of Sisera, 7 under the rule of Midian, 18 under the rule of the children of Ammon, and 40 under the rule of the Philistines. This totals 111. From Micah until the Ark was captured were 40 years, totaling 151. Calculate for Jeroboam son of Nebat 22, Nadab his son 2, Baasa 24, Elah his son 2, Omri 12, Ahab 22, Ahaziah his son 2, Jehoram his brother 12, Jehu 28, Jehoahaz 17, Jehoash his son 16, Jeroboam his son 41the total is 350 (sic.). And [with] Menachem son of Gadi 10, Pekahiah his son 2, Pekah son of Remaliah 20, and Hoshea son of Elah 9 years, the total is 391, but Hoshea’s last year is not counted because in Hoshea’s ninth year, Samaria was captured and Hoshea was counted as having reigned 8 years, leaving a total of 390. The forty years that the kings of Judah sinned after the exile of Sannecherib until [the prophecy of] this chapter was said to Ezekiel are delineated below, and I did not find it necessary to explain them. This is not found in other editions.)</html>
<html><b>the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days</b> This teaches us that the house of Judah sinned, from the time that the ten tribes were exiled until Jerusalem was destroyed, forty years: 22 of Manasseh, about whom it is written (II Kings 21:3): “as Ahab…had made,” and Ahab had reigned 22 years; two of Ammon and 11 of Jehoiakim, and this prophecy was transmitted to Ezekiel in the fifth year of Zedekiah. This totals 40 years. The grand total is four hundred and thirty [years]. After this prophecy, they remained yet six years, equaling 8 jubilees and 36 years. In 8 jubilees [there] are 8 cycles of Sabbatical years, equaling 56 Sabbatical years, totaling 64 [hallowed years]. In 36 years, there are 5 Sabbatical years, totaling 69 land-release years, and the final jubilee year is accounted to them as an iniquity because they were exiled from it [the land] because of their iniquity, totaling 70 hallowed years of land release, which Israel did not observe. Therefore, they were exiled 70 years to fulfill (Lev. 26:34): “Then the land will appease its Sabbaths.” That is what is written at the end of Chronicles (II 36:21): “To fulfill the word of the Lord [that was] in the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land has appeased its Sabbaths, for as long as it lay desolate, it rested, to complete seventy years.” “Your left side” symbolizes Samaria; “your right side” symbolizes Judah, because Judah is in the south of the land of Israel, as it is said (16:46): “And your big sister Samaria…who lives at your left.” Also in the Book of Joshua (15:1), he describes the border of the tribe of Judah as occupying the entire southern border.</html>
<html><b>O</b> An expression of sighing. <b>and your arm</b> shall be bared toward them (Other editions read: opposite it), like a fighting man. This symbolizes Nebuchadnezzar, who will fight against it. <b>bared</b> Heb. חֲשּׂוּפָה, like גְלוּיָה.</html>
<html><b>I have placed ropes upon you</b> The decree of My commandments shall be stringent upon you as you were bound with ropes so that you should not turn from side to side. <b>until you complete the days of your siege</b> The number of these days that I decreed upon you.</html>
<html><b>wheat and barley, etc., and millet and spelt</b> paniz et epeltre in Old French, millet and spelt. A sign of the famine that will be upon them in the days of the siege, and they will eat a bread of mixed [grains] while nauseated.</html>
<html><b>with a weight</b> [This is] symbolic of the besieged people, who are fearful of the famine and [so] eat with a measure and drink with a measure.</html>
<html><b>from time to time</b> From day to day you shall drink with this measure, viz. a sixth of a hin.</html>
<html><b>And as barley cakes you shall eat it</b> Rolled out in a repulsive manner like the rolling of barley, not nicely like the rolling out of a wheat cake. <b>and they shall bake it with human excrement</b> They shall bake it with their coals that dry it out and burn it.</html>
<html><b>unclean</b> An expression of repugnance.</html>
<html><b>O</b> An expression of sighing. <b>my soul has not been defiled</b> I did not entertain erotic thoughts by day, bringing myself to nocturnal pollution. <b>neither have I eaten from an animal that died by itself and was torn</b> The flesh of a dying animal, which resembles an animal that died by itself and an animal that was torn by beasts. <b>loathsome meat</b> An animal [of debatable status] upon which a rabbi ruled [permissively]. This cannot mean an animal that actually died by itself or that was torn [by beasts, injuring it so that it could not live for a year], because if so, what was the greatness of Ezekiel?</html>
<html><b>dung</b> Heb. צְפִיעֵי [synonymous with] גֶלְלֵי, excrement.</html>
<html><b>the staff of bread</b> the support of bread, pozon de pan in Old French. <b>and with worry</b> They will worry that their bread supply will be depleted.
h.דְּאָגָה means aynse in Old French, anxiety, and in our language [dialect] doubt, terror, fright.</html>
<html><b>Because they will lack</b> Their worry and their bewilderment will be because they will lack bread and water in the days of the siege, and they will worry that the supply will be entirely depleted.</html>