Ezekiel 4:3, commentary and pictures

The iron pan set as a wall of iron with the prophet's face set against the city to lay siege to it was a sign to the house of Israel of the siege and judgments coming upon Jerusalem. It belongs with portraying the city and siege works on a tile, lying the appointed days on the left side and then on the right, and eating bread by weight and drinking water by measure, including defiled bread, to represent scarcity and captivity among the Gentiles. God teaches through such realistic acted scenes in miniature to make the warning of coming judgment clearer and more forceful. The passage stands within a symbolic prophecy in which a day is expressly used to represent a year, establishing the rule that each prophetic day is counted as a literal year. So the 483 days reach from the command in the autumn of 457 B.C. to Messiah's anointing in the autumn of A.D. 27, the 2,300 days are 2,300 years, the 1,260 days are 1,260 years, and the 150 days extend from July 27, 1299 to July 27, 1449.

The Enacted Siege Sign

The command was to take an iron pan and set it for a wall of iron between the prophet and the city, to set his face against it and lay siege to it, and this was to be a sign to the house of Israel of the siege, calamities, and judgments coming upon Jerusalem and the Jews. The iron-pan act belongs with the chapter's other symbolic actions of portraying Jerusalem and its siege on a tile with siege equipment, lying a number of days on the left side and then on the right side, and eating bread by weight and drinking water by measure and eating defiled bread to represent the food Israel would eat in captivity among the Gentiles. The lying on the sides for 390 days for Israel and 40 days for Judah points to the periods of captivity through the restoration after the seventy years' captivity.

God communicates through realistic acted scenes and visual lessons, and marking the city, setting the iron pan between prophet and city, and acting out the siege makes the message of coming judgment clearer and more forceful. Using pictures, images, and enacted actions for instruction and warning about coming judgments does not itself constitute idolatry, since the commandment forbids making images in order to worship them. God preaches through realistic acted scenes in miniature, and those who have seen terrible things in righteousness tell their message with new force, emphasis, positiveness, and dispatch, as witnesses who know assuredly what they affirm and warn people to run to escape the coming ruin.

Day for a Year Rule

Ezekiel 4:1-6 gives the rule for interpreting symbolic time in Scripture that each day stands for a year, with Ezekiel 4:3 forming part of that sign of Jerusalem's siege. Within this symbolic prophecy a day is expressly used to represent a year, and the days in Ezekiel's symbolic prophecy are therefore to be understood figuratively. The Lord's instruction is that a symbolic day in prophecy represents a literal year, so prophetic days are to be counted as the same number of literal years.

Applied to Daniel, 483 prophetic days become 483 full years reaching from the commandment to restore and build Jerusalem in the autumn of 457 B.C. to the anointing of Messiah at Christ's baptism in the autumn of A.D. 27, and this exact fulfillment proves the rule. Applied to Daniel's vision, the 2,300 prophetic days become 2,300 years.

Applied to the other prophecies, the 1,260 prophetic days become 1,260 literal years, for the sign-act uses days to represent years in prophetic time even as its siege imagery signifies judgment against Jerusalem. Applied to Revelation 9, the 150 days during which the power could hurt people become 150 years, extending the period from July 27, 1299, to July 27, 1449.