And thou shalt eat it as barley cakes, and thou shalt bake it with dung that cometh out of man, in their sight.
The command is to eat barley cakes baked with human dung in the sight of the people, with dried dung usable like grass, weeds, and brush as fuel for heating an oven. It belongs with lying a set number of days on the left side and then a set number on the right side, eating bread by weight, and drinking water by measure, which together form the sign. It is part of acting out the siege of Jerusalem and its consequence in realistic miniature, so as to preach with realistic force. It shows living for a time on a famine diet in order to depict the famine and suffering that would come upon Israel.
The defiled bread typifies the awful judgments awaiting the Jews by representing the defiled food Israel would eat in captivity among the Gentiles. With its context it portrays the siege and exile as severe deprivation and humiliation, picturing the degrading conditions endured in Babylonian captivity. The days connected with this symbolic enactment are to be understood figuratively with each day representing a year, a day-for-a-year principle applied to Daniel's 2300 days as 2300 years.
The command is to eat barley cakes baked with human dung in the sight of the people, with dried dung usable like grass, weeds, and brush as fuel for heating an oven. It belongs with lying a set number of days on the left side and then a set number on the right side, eating bread by weight, and drinking water by measure, which together form the sign. It is part of acting out the siege of Jerusalem and its consequence in realistic miniature, so as to preach with realistic force. It shows living for a time on a famine diet in order to depict the famine and suffering that would come upon Israel.
The defiled bread typifies the awful judgments awaiting the Jews by representing the defiled food Israel would eat in captivity among the Gentiles. With its context it portrays the siege and exile as severe deprivation and humiliation, picturing the degrading conditions endured in Babylonian captivity. The days connected with this symbolic enactment are to be understood figuratively with each day representing a year, a day-for-a-year principle applied to Daniel's 2300 days as 2300 years.