Yehezkiel 4:9-11

4:9 “As for you, take wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and spelt, ¹  put them in a single container, and make food ²  from them for yourself. For the same number of days that you lie on your side – 390 days ³  – you will eat it. 4:10 The food you eat will be eight ounces ⁴  a day by weight; you must eat it at fixed ⁵  times. 4:11 And you must drink water by measure, a pint and a half; ⁶  you must drink it at fixed times.

Yehezkiel 4:16-17

4:16 Then he said to me, “Son of man, I am about to remove the bread supply ⁷  in Jerusalem. ⁸  They will eat their bread ration anxiously, and they will drink their water ration in terror 4:17 because they will lack bread and water. Each one will be terrified, and they will rot for their iniquity. ⁹ 

[4:9]  ¹ sn Wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and spelt. All these foods were common in Mesopotamia where Ezekiel was exiled.

[4:9]  ² tn Heb “bread.”

[4:9]  ³ tc The LXX reads “190 days.”

[4:10]  ⁴ 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).

[4:10]  ⁵ tn Heb “from time to time.”

[4:11]  ⁶ 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.

[4:16]  ⁷ tn Heb, “break the staff of bread.” The bread supply is compared to a staff that one uses for support.

[4:16]  ⁸ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[4:17]  ⁹ 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.”