Ezechiel 4:9

Romanian Cornilescu Translation

Ia-ţi şi grîu, orz, bob, linte, mei şi alac, pune-le într'un vas, şi fă pîne din ele cîte zile vei sta culcat pe coastă: trei sute nouă zeci de zile să mănînci din ele.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

wheat: Ezekiel 4:13, Ezekiel 4:16

millet: Dochan in Arabic, dokhn the holcus dochna of Forskal, is a kind of millet, of considerable use as a food; the cultivation of which is described by Browne.

fitches: or, spelt, Kussemim is doubtless זוב, or spelt, as Aquila and Symmachus render here; and so LXX and Theodotion, ןכץסב. In times of scarcity it is customary to mix several kinds of coarser grains with the finer, to make it last the longer.

three: Ezekiel 4:5

Reciprocal: 2 Kings 25:3 - the famine Isaiah 28:25 - in the principal Jeremiah 52:6 - the famine Lamentations 5:4 - have Ezekiel 4:6 - forty days

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Take thou also unto thee wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentiles, and millet, and fitches,.... The first of these was commonly used to make bread of; in case of want and poverty, barley was used; but, for the rest, they were for cattle, and never used for the food of men but in a time of great scarcity; wherefore this was designed to denote the famine that should attend the siege of Jerusalem; see

2 Kings 25:3;

and put them in one vessel; that is, the flour of them, when ground, in order to be mixed and kneaded together, and make one dough thereof; which mixed bread was a sign of a sore famine: the Septuagint call it an earthen vessel; a kneading trough seems to be designed:

and make thee bread thereof, [according] to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon thy side; the left side, on which he was to lie three hundred and ninety days: and so as much bread was to be made as would suffice for that time; or so many loaves were to be made as there were days, a loaf for a day:

three hundred and ninety days shalt thou eat thereof; no mention is made of the forty days, perhaps they are understood, a part being put for the whole; or they were included in the three hundred and ninety days. The Septuagint and Arabic versions read only a hundred and ninety days.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Two things are prefigured in the remainder of this chapter,

(1) the hardships of exile,

(2) the straitness of a siege.

To the people of Israel, separated from the rest of the nations as holy, it was a leading feature in the calamities of their exile that they must be mixed up with other nations, and eat of their food, which to the Jews was a defilement (compare Ezekiel 4:13; Amos 7:17; Daniel 1:8.)

Fitches - A species of wheat with shorn ears.

In one vessel - To mix all these varied seeds was an indication that the people were no longer in their own land, where precautions against such mixing of seeds were prescribed.

Three hundred and ninety days - The days of Israel’s punishment; because here is a figure of the exile which concerns all the tribes, not of the siege which concerns Judah alone.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Ezekiel 4:9. Take thou also unto thee wheat — In times of scarcity, it is customary in all countries to mix several kinds of coarser grain with the finer, to make it last the longer. This mashlin, which the prophet is commanded to take, of wheat, barley, beans, lentiles, millet, and fitches, was intended to show how scarce the necessaries of life should be during the siege.