Ezekiel 12:17-20

B. The Suffering of Jerusalem's Inhabitants 12:17-20

TRANSLATION

(17) And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, (18) son of man, eat your bread with quaking, and drink your water with trembling and fear. (19) Say unto the people of the land, Thus says the LORD to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, unto the land of Israel: They shall eat their bread with fear, and their water they shall drink with astonishment, that her land may be desolate from its fullness, because of the violence of all those who dwell in her. (20) And the inhabited cities shall become desolate, and the land shall be an astonishment, that you may know that I am the LORD.

COMMENTS

After an interval of passivity and silence, another command came to Ezekiel (Ezekiel 12:17). He was to set forth symbolically the conditions which would exist in Jerusalem during the Babylonian siege. Meager rations of bread and water were to be consumed in a state of fear and anxiety (Ezekiel 12:18). Earlier he had symbolized vividly the starvation diet of the besieged city (Ezekiel 4:9-17). Here the focus is upon the acute terror that would grip the populace when the enemy besieged Jerusalem. The word trembling in Ezekiel 12:18 is elsewhere used only of earthquakes, and thus connotes the idea of violent shaking.

So that there would be no misunderstanding of his actions, Ezekiel adds a thus says the Lord directed to the people of the land (his fellow exiles) and concerning those who still lived in Jerusalem. While much of what he has said in the past has been directed to the national leaders, here he includes the working classes from the farms and villages. The days were coming when they would consume their meager provisions of bread and water with fear and astonishment. Cowering in a corner as one hunted down and dreading pursuit, Ezekiel portrayed the terror which would haunt the lives of the besieged in Jerusalem. Her land, i.e., Jerusalem's land, was to become desolate from its fulness. The land was to be stripped of its possessions. The punishment, though severe, would be just because of the violence the oppression and rebellion of the inhabitants.