Ezekiel 4:9

The Defiled Bread

9 But take wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and spelt; put them in a single container and make them into bread for yourself. This is what you are to eat during the 390 days you lie on your side.

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 You must turn your face toward the siege of Jerusalem with your arm bared, and prophesy against it.

8 Now behold, I will tie you up with ropes so you cannot turn from side to side until you have finished the days of your siege.

9 But take wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and spelt; put them in a single container and make them into bread for yourself. This is what you are to eat during the 390 days you lie on your side.

10 You are to weigh out twenty shekels of food to eat each day, and you are to eat it at set times.

11 You are also to measure out a sixth of a hin of water to drink, and you are to drink it at set times.