Ezekiel · 17 verses
Ezekiel 4
Every verse links to the people and places named in it, and to the passages readers connect it with.
The chapter
What happens here
Atlas's own reading, written from this chapter and nothing else, and published only once a person has approved it. Each scene names the verses it covers; the names inside it link to the people and places they name.
A siege begins on a brick and ends with Ezekiel bargaining over what sort of dung may bake the bread.
A city on a brickvv. 1–3
Ezekiel is told to draw Jerusalem on a brick, then furnish it with the full absurd furniture of war: a siege wall, a ramp, camps, and battering rams. An iron plate is added between prophet and city, making the miniature siege remarkably well defended.
The prophet cannot turnvv. 4–8
Ezekiel must lie on his left side for Israel, then on his right side for Judah, bearing their iniquity by the day. He is to face the siege, bare his arm, and prophesy against Jerusalem; ropes will see that he does not casually change the arrangement.
The matter of the ovenvv. 9–17
The ration is measured, the water measured, and the bread is to be baked over dried human excrement in full view of the people. Ezekiel objects that he has never defiled himself, and the LORD grants the concession of cow dung instead. The sign then turns back toward Jerusalem, where food and water will be rationed until people waste away and are appalled at one another.
The text
Read it
Berean Standard Bible, public domain. Names the Hebrew and Greek put in the verse link to the person, place or people they name; the address beside each verse is a link to that verse, which is what a reader copies and shares.
Ezek 4:1“Now you, son of man, take a brick, place it before you, and draw on it the city of Jerusalem.
Ezek 4:2Then lay siege against it: Construct a siege wall, build a ramp to it, set up camps against it, and place battering rams around it on all sides.
Ezek 4:3Then take an iron plate and set it up as an iron wall between yourself and the city. Turn your face toward it so that it is under siege, and besiege it. This will be a sign to the house of Israel.
Ezek 4:4Then lie down on your left side and place the iniquity of the house of Israel upon yourself. You are to bear their iniquity for the number of days you lie on your side.
Ezek 4:5For I have assigned to you 390 days, according to the number of years of their iniquity. So you shall bear the iniquity of the house of Israel.
Ezek 4:6When you have completed these days, lie down again, but on your right side, and bear the iniquity of the house of Judah. I have assigned to you 40 days, a day for each year.
Ezek 4:7You must turn your face toward the siege of Jerusalem with your arm bared, and prophesy against it.
Ezek 4:8Now 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.
Ezek 4:9But 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.
Ezek 4:10You are to weigh out twenty shekels of food to eat each day, and you are to eat it at set times.
Ezek 4:11You are also to measure out a sixth of a hin of water to drink, and you are to drink it at set times.
Ezek 4:12And you shall eat the food as you would a barley cake, after you bake it over dried human excrement in the sight of the people.”
Ezek 4:13Then the LORD said, “This is how the Israelites will eat their defiled bread among the nations to which I will banish them.”
Ezek 4:14“Ah, Lord GOD,” I said, “I have never defiled myself. From my youth until now I have not eaten anything found dead or mauled by wild beasts. No unclean meat has ever entered my mouth.”
Ezek 4:15“Look,” He replied, “I will let you use cow dung instead of human excrement, and you may bake your bread over that.”
Ezek 4:16Then He told me, “Son of man, I am going to cut off the supply of food in Jerusalem. They will anxiously eat bread rationed by weight, and in despair they will drink water by measure.
Ezek 4:17So they will lack food and water; they will be appalled at the sight of one another wasting away in their iniquity.’’
01 — Also here
Who else the chapter reaches
Names written in the English are linked in the text above. These are the ones that are not: an entity the Hebrew or Greek names under a spelling the translation does not use, or one reached only by an assertion about a verse of this chapter.
Named in the Hebrew or Greek somewhere in this chapter, under a form the English renders differently — the registry's Ludim against the translation's Ludites — so there is no word in the sentence to hang the link on.
Reached by an assertion Atlas extracted from a verse of this chapter rather than by a name written in it — a pronoun, a title, or a participant the sentence carries without naming. This layer is model-read and measured at 88.6–90.3% precision, and it is kept separate from the names above for that reason.
02 — Read alongside
Where this is echoed
Readers' own connections, from OpenBible's crowd-voted cross-references — agreement about relevance, and not scholarly confidence. 97 passages were voted onto 16 verses of this chapter; the 16 shown lead on votes, and each is listed at the verse it was voted onto most strongly.
- 6Numbers 14:34In keeping with the forty days you spied out the land, you shall bear your guilt forty years—a year for each day—and you will experience My alienation.
- 14Acts 10:14“No, Lord!” Peter answered. “I have never eaten anything impure or unclean.”
- 2Ezekiel 21:22In his right hand appears the portent for Jerusalem, where he is to set up battering rams, to call for the slaughter, to lift a battle cry, to direct the battering rams against the gates, to build a ramp, and to erect a siege wall.
- 16Ezekiel 5:16When I shower you with the deadly arrows of famine and destruction that I will send to destroy you, I will intensify the famine against you and cut off your supply of food.
- 6Daniel 12:11–12And from the time the daily sacrifice is abolished and the abomination of desolation set up, there will be 1,290 days.
- 6Daniel 9:24–26Seventy weeks are decreed for your people and your holy city to stop their transgression, to put an end to sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy Place.
- 16Isaiah 3:1For behold, the Lord GOD of Hosts is about to remove from Jerusalem and Judah both supply and support: the whole supply of food and water,
- 3Ezekiel 12:6And as they watch, lift your bags to your shoulder and take them out at dusk; cover your face so that you cannot see the land. For I have made you a sign to the house of Israel.”
- 3Isaiah 20:3Then the LORD said, “Just as My servant Isaiah has gone naked and barefoot for three years as a sign and omen against Egypt and Cush,
- 3Isaiah 8:18Here am I, and the children the LORD has given me as signs and symbols in Israel from the LORD of Hosts, who dwells on Mount Zion.
- 6Revelation 11:2–3But exclude the courtyard outside the temple. Do not measure it, because it has been given over to the nations, and they will trample the holy city for 42 months.
- 8Ezekiel 3:25And you, son of man, they will tie with ropes, and you will be bound so that you cannot go out among the people.
- 9Ezekiel 4:13Then the LORD said, “This is how the Israelites will eat their defiled bread among the nations to which I will banish them.”
- 12Isaiah 36:12But the Rabshakeh replied, “Has my master sent me to speak these words only to you and your master, and not to the men sitting on the wall, who are destined with you to eat their own dung and drink their own urine?”
- 14Ezekiel 9:8While they were killing, I was left alone. And I fell facedown and cried out, “Oh, Lord GOD, when You pour out Your wrath on Jerusalem, will You destroy the entire remnant of Israel?”
- 14Deuteronomy 14:3You must not eat any detestable thing.
Onward