Ezekiel 4:9

9 And take for yourself wheat and barley and different sorts of grain, and put them in one vessel and make bread for yourself from them; all the days when you are stretched on your side it will be your food.

Ezekiel 4:9 Meaning and Commentary

Ezekiel 4:9

Take thou also unto thee wheat, and barley, and beans, and
lentiles, and millet, and fitches
The first of these was commonly used to make bread of; in case of want and poverty, barley was used; but, for the rest, they were for cattle, and never used for the food of men but in a time of great scarcity; wherefore this was designed to denote the famine that should attend the siege of Jerusalem; see ( 2 Kings 25:3 ) ; and put them in one vessel;
that is, the flour of them, when ground, in order to be mixed and kneaded together, and make one dough thereof; which mixed bread was a sign of a sore famine: the Septuagint call it an earthen vessel; a kneading trough seems to be designed: and make thee bread thereof, [according] to the number of the days that
thou shalt lie upon thy side;
the left side, on which he was to lie three hundred and ninety days: and so as much bread was to be made as would suffice for that time; or so many loaves were to be made as there were days, a loaf for a day: three hundred and ninety days shalt thou eat thereof;
no mention is made of the forty days, perhaps they are understood, a part being put for the whole; or they were included in the three hundred and ninety days. The Septuagint and Arabic versions read only a hundred and ninety days.

Ezekiel 4:9 In-Context

7 And let your face be turned to where Jerusalem is shut in, with your arm uncovered, and be a prophet against it.

8 And see, I will put bands on you; and you will be stretched out without turning from one side to the other till the days of your attack are ended.

9 And take for yourself wheat and barley and different sorts of grain, and put them in one vessel and make bread for yourself from them; all the days when you are stretched on your side it will be your food.

10 And you are to take your food by weight, twenty shekels a day: you are to take it at regular times.

11 And you are to take water by measure, the sixth part of a hin: you are to take it at regular times.