4 “And you, son of man, take a brick and lay it before you, and engrave on it a city, even Jerusalem. 2 And put siege works against it, and build a siege wall against it, and cast up a mound against it. Set camps also against it, and plant battering rams against it all round. 3 And you, take an iron griddle, and place it as an iron wall between you and the city; and set your face towards it, and let it be in a state of siege, and press the siege against it. This is a sign for the house of Israel.
4 “Then lie on your left side, and place the punishment of the house of Israel upon it. For the number of the days that you lie on it, you shall bear their punishment. 5 For I assign to you a number of days, 390 days, equal to the number of the years of their punishment. So long shall you bear the punishment of the house of Israel. 6 And when you have completed these, you shall lie down a second time, but on your right side, and bear the punishment of the house of Judah. Forty days I assign you, a day for each year. 7 And you shall set your face towards the siege of Jerusalem, with your arm bared, and you shall prophesy against the city. 8 And behold, I will place cords upon you, so that you cannot turn from one side to the other, till you have completed the days of your siege.
This chapter begins a new sub-section of the prophecy (see Analysis, in Note on page 6), and with ch 5 records a series of 'signs', which Ezekiel gives to the people. These are acted parables, strange and unfamiliar to our western way of thinking, but in fact a relatively common way for prophets to proclaim the word of the Lord in olden time. God's first word to the prophet, and through him to the exiles in Babylon (1-3), was to command him to make a model of the city on a mud-brick, and draw up battering rams and all the engines of war round about it. 'This', says God, 'will be My word to the exiles'. It was what we might call a 'visual aid'. What we sometimes do in Sunday School with flannelgraphs, Ezekiel was commanded to do with this mud brick, using the device under the guidance of God not only to impress his hearers thus graphically, but also with the conviction that in acting out the word of God in this way as it came to him, God was through it hastening its fulfilment. And, in fact, within a few years Nebuchadnezzar fulfilled this remarkable prophecy, investing Jerusalem and razing it to the ground. The second acted parable (4-8) was designed to indicate the duration of the judgment that was to fall upon the people of God. Ezekiel lies down according to instructions and acts out the parable. Some scholars think the 390 days and the 40 days are to be taken literally, others that they are symbolic numbers, and that Ezekiel in fact used these figures in a symbolic way. The forty days, for example, for the iniquity of the house of Judah may have a reference to Israel's forty years in the wilderness, i.e. the fulfilment of God's appointed judgment upon the Israel of that time. None of the commentators seems to be able to solve the problem and mystery of the 390 days, and no amount of juggling with figures would make them fit into any literal fulfilment. It is surely best to recognise that Ezekiel is simply conveying that the captivity appointed is to be a very long one.