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Ezekiel, part 15, The Substitution

After God told the prophet to cook his food over dung, rendering it unclean, his reaction came in Ezekiel 4:14, which says,

¹⁴ But I said, “Ah, Lord God! Behold, I have never been defiled; for from my youth until now I have never eaten what died of itself or was torn by beasts, nor has any unclean meat ever entered my mouth.”

Ezekiel is not objecting to the hardship of eating a small ration. He objects to what he understands as personal defilement. As a priest, he had lived with particular attention to the distinction between clean and unclean. The action God commands seems to conflict with the pattern of obedience that had governed his life.

His reference to an animal that “died of itself” recalls Leviticus 17:15 and Deuteronomy 14:21. An animal that died naturally had not been slaughtered and drained of blood in the prescribed manner. His mention of an animal “torn by beasts” recalls Exodus 22:31. Leviticus 22:8 gives a specific prohibition for priests against eating either kind.

The phrase translated “unclean meat” is more specific in Hebrew than the English expression might suggest. The word is piggul, which can describe meat that has become unacceptable or foul. It appears in Leviticus 7:18 and 19:7 of sacrificial flesh eaten beyond the permitted time. Ezekiel’s point is that he has carefully avoided defiled food throughout his life.

The Hebrew word for pig or swine is chazir, used in Leviticus 11:7 and Deuteronomy 14:8. Though the resemblance is striking between Hebrew piggul and English pig, there is no known etymological connection between the two words.

God’s Merciful Substitution

Ezekiel’s protest must be read alongside God’s explanation in verse 13: “Thus will the sons of Israel eat their bread unclean among the nations where I will banish them.” This probably is linked to the divine judgment in Deuteronomy 28:64,

⁶⁴ Moreover, the Lord will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth; and there you shall serve other gods, wood and stone, which you or your fathers have not known.

Ezekiel is asked to experience personally what the people will suffer in exile. His revulsion helps communicate the force of the judgment. To him, defiled bread is not merely unpleasant; it is associated with a condition he has spent his life avoiding. In verse 12, human excrement is not described as an ingredient but is specified as the fuel over which the bread is baked. This suggests that while access to the word of God could be rationed, the more important problem would be in the human traditions by which it was to be prepared for general consumption.

The passage nevertheless presents the resulting bread as a sign of uncleanness. Deuteronomy 23:12–14, which requires human waste to be buried outside the camp, helps explain why its use in preparing food would be so abhorrent.

Ezekiel’s response resembles Peter’s protest in Acts 10:14, when he says that he has never eaten anything unholy or unclean. Both men appeal to a lifelong practice shaped by the law, and both must receive a difficult instruction from God. Their settings and lessons differ: Ezekiel’s sign concerns Israel’s defilement in exile, while Peter’s vision prepares him to receive Gentiles whom he had regarded as unclean (Acts 10:28).

God’s response in Ezekiel 4:15 is compassionate:

¹⁵ Then He said to me, “See, I will give you cow’s dung in place of human dung over which you will prepare your bread.”

God permits Ezekiel to use cow dung instead. The change preserves the sign of humble, constrained conditions while answering the prophet’s objection. Ezekiel’s protest shows that he is no detached observer of the judgment. He feels the weight of the sign he is called to bear, and God takes his concern into account.

Eating Clean Food

Cows are clean animals, while humans are naturally unclean. Believers, of course, are clean through believing the word which Christ has spoken (John 15:3). Furthermore, by obtaining a double witness from the Holy Spirit, we stand on a cloven hoof, and when we meditate on the word, we chew the cud, thus fulfilling the law in Leviticus 11:3. In other words, eating clean spiritual food means we are to be like the Bereans, who “received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so” (Acts 17:11). They did not merely accept the word without standing on a cloven hoof and without chewing the cud.

When we have divine guidance, we have spiritual fins, and when we put on the armor of God, we have spiritual scales to protect us (Leviticus 11:9). When we absorb teaching that is not “bloody,” that is, it does not motivate us to be bloodthirsty, we fulfill the law in Leviticus 11:13.

When we eat spiritual food—even a tiny portion—that causes us to leap higher instead of crawling on the ground as spiritual babies, we fulfill the law in Leviticus 11:21. The food laws in Leviticus 11 thus teach us how to eat clean spiritual food, and as we eat the word which Jesus Christ has presented to us, we are turned from unclean to clean in the sight of God.

Breaking the Staff of Bread

Ezekiel 4:16, 17 concludes,

¹⁶ Moreover, He said to me, “Son of man, behold, I am going to break the staff of bread in Jerusalem, and they will eat bread by weight and with anxiety, and drink water by measure and in horror, ¹⁷ because bread and water will be scarce; and they will be appalled with one another and waste away in their iniquity.”

Ezekiel 4:16, 17 explains the sign of the rationed bread and water. God tells the prophet what will happen to Jerusalem during the siege: food and water will become so scarce that the people will consume them in fear, waste away, and bear the consequences of their iniquity.

The “staff of bread” pictures bread as a support for life, much as a staff supports a person who leans upon it. To break it is to remove a dependable supply of food. The expression connects Ezekiel’s prophecy with Leviticus 26:26, where God warned that if Israel broke the covenant, bread would be weighed out and the people would eat without being satisfied.

Ezekiel’s sign was therefore grounded in the law’s covenant judgments. The prophet had been instructed to weigh his food and measure his water (Ezekiel 4:10–11); now God applies those actions specifically to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

The word translated “staff” is matteh, a rod or staff. The same image appears in Psalm 105:16, where God called for a famine and broke the whole staff of bread. What ordinarily sustained the people would no longer be available in sufficient measure.

God says they will eat bread “by weight and with anxiety” and drink water “by measure and in horror.” Their portions will be carefully controlled because supplies are running out. The judgment is emotional as well as physical. Even while eating, people would fear that there might be no food tomorrow. What normally provides comfort and strength becomes a reminder of danger.

This came to pass during the Babylonian siege. 2 Kings 25:3 and Jeremiah 52:6 record that the famine became so severe that there was no food for the people. Jeremiah 37:21 says that the daily bread given to the prophet continued only until all the bread in the city was gone. Lamentations 2:11, 12 and 4:4, 5 gives a more personal account of the suffering.

In verse 17 the phrase “waste away” recalls Leviticus 26:39, “rot away.” Both verses use a word that derives from the verb maqaq. God says that those who survive among their enemies will waste away in their own iniquity and in the iniquities of their forefathers. Ezekiel uses the language of that warning to explain Jerusalem’s condition.

The Spiritual Application

Bread and water also picture God’s word. While Ezekiel 4 directly predicts a physical famine, Amos 8:11 provides a basis for applying the image spiritually. A people who refuse God’s word may eventually discover how greatly they need it. Spiritual deprivation can precede outward collapse, just as rejecting the covenant preceded Jerusalem’s siege.

The connection between the physical and the spiritual again became evident when the people rejected the Word that had become flesh (John 1:14). Because of this, the second destruction of Jerusalem was assured 40 years later. The same is true in our time, for this is a timeless principle. The day is now approaching when Jeremiah 19:10, 11 will be fulfilled, and Jerusalem will be destroyed “as one breaks a potter’s vessel which cannot again be repaired.”