That they may want bread and water, and be astonied one with another, and consume away for their iniquity.
The verse describes famine and distress brought on by iniquity, in which the people lack bread and water, look on one another in dismay and bewilderment and are appalled at one another's condition, and waste away. The want and wasting belong to the siege of Jerusalem, when the distressed people consumed away for their iniquity.
It belongs to an acted-out miniature of the siege of Jerusalem and its consequences, not only vision, similitude, symbolism, or verbal idealism but realistic preaching of distress by acting it out. Ezekiel's own famine diet and privations served as a sign of the suffering to come upon Israel. That acted prophecy typified the awful judgments awaiting the Jews.
The surrounding signs specify the judgment: lying days on the left side and days on the right side, eating bread by weight and drinking water by measure, and eating defiled bread represented the scarcity and defilement of the food the children of Israel would eat in captivity among the Gentiles, so that they would want bread and water and be astonished and consume away for their iniquity. The defiled bread expressed the hardship and humiliation of their captivity. The failure of crops and the rationing of bread by weight expressed that hardship and humiliation for faithlessness.
The failure of crops and the rationing of bread by weight show the famine as a consequence of the unfaithfulness of God's people and as part of the calamities that follow rejection of the Gospel. Witnessing such terrible things in righteousness gives emphasis, positiveness, and dispatch to the message of those sent to warn, as when delegates from the United States, Cuba, Central America, Panama, Haiti, Puerto Rico, St. Thomas, Antigua, Dominica, St. Lucia, Barbados, St. Vincent, Grenada, Tobago, Trinidad, and Guiana met in Jamaica at the time of the earthquake disaster of January fourth.
The verse describes famine and distress brought on by iniquity, in which the people lack bread and water, look on one another in dismay and bewilderment and are appalled at one another's condition, and waste away. The want and wasting belong to the siege of Jerusalem, when the distressed people consumed away for their iniquity.
It belongs to an acted-out miniature of the siege of Jerusalem and its consequences, not only vision, similitude, symbolism, or verbal idealism but realistic preaching of distress by acting it out. Ezekiel's own famine diet and privations served as a sign of the suffering to come upon Israel. That acted prophecy typified the awful judgments awaiting the Jews.
The surrounding signs specify the judgment: lying days on the left side and days on the right side, eating bread by weight and drinking water by measure, and eating defiled bread represented the scarcity and defilement of the food the children of Israel would eat in captivity among the Gentiles, so that they would want bread and water and be astonished and consume away for their iniquity. The defiled bread expressed the hardship and humiliation of their captivity. The failure of crops and the rationing of bread by weight expressed that hardship and humiliation for faithlessness.
The failure of crops and the rationing of bread by weight show the famine as a consequence of the unfaithfulness of God's people and as part of the calamities that follow rejection of the Gospel. Witnessing such terrible things in righteousness gives emphasis, positiveness, and dispatch to the message of those sent to warn, as when delegates from the United States, Cuba, Central America, Panama, Haiti, Puerto Rico, St. Thomas, Antigua, Dominica, St. Lucia, Barbados, St. Vincent, Grenada, Tobago, Trinidad, and Guiana met in Jamaica at the time of the earthquake disaster of January fourth.