The Symbolical Siege

Ezekiel 4
Ezekiel having prepared his
representation of Jerusalem, proceeded
to conduct the operations of a siege
against it, after the process which we
have already described sufficiently to
render further illustration needless.
Having finished his fort, his mount, and
set his battering rams, the prophet
proceeds to lay close siege to the city,
with an iron baking-pan between him
and it. This pan must be taken as a
symbol of the Divine wrathlike the
seething-pot in Jer_1:13; and it seems to
stand for an iron or metallic wall, set up
against the too late prayers and
complaints of a people given over to
destruction. Before this symbolic wall
the prophet impersonates another set of
symbols, in which he represents the
condition of the besieged: thus
undergoing a double representative
actiona thing not unusual in Scripture.
In doing this he is enjoined to lie first
upon his left side for 390 days, bearing
the iniquity of the house of Israel; and
then to turn and lie upon his right side
40 days, bearing the iniquity of the
house of Judah. As this lying upon the
right side is connected with the
immediate action, whereas the lying on
the left side represents, in part at least,
that which had already passed, it seems
designed to bear a peculiar significance,
and to denote the severer calamity of the
two. This significance lying on the right
side still retains in the East, although it
is, we think, contended by our medical
authorities that men in general lie
naturally on the right side, and that it is
most wholesome for them to do so. We
believe that Mr. Roberts first called
attention to this peculiar notion of the
East, in his Oriental Illustrationsin
which, however, it is to be understood,
that his East is India. He reports that,
when a person is sick, he will not lie
upon his right side, because that would
be a bad omen; and should he, in his
agony, or when asleep, turn on that side,
his attendants hasten to place him again
on the left side. After people have taken
their food they generally sleep a little,
and then they are careful to lie on the
left side, under the impression that their
food digests better. It is impossible to
say what is the origin of this practice,
says our author: it may have arisen
from the circumstance, that the right
side is of the masculine gender, and the
left feminine. Hence, although men lie
on the right side, women are expected to
lie on the left.
Thus lying, the prophet has to represent
the famishing condition to which the
besieged shall be reduced, by the nature
and quantity of his food, and by the
mode in which he prepares it.
He is directed to take different kinds of
substances capable of being made into
bread, from the best to the worstfrom
wheat to lentils and beansand to mix
them together for his bread, as if to
show that the people should be reduced
to the mere sweepings of their stores,
and get so little even of this, that they
should be constrained to mix them
together to form a loaf of bread. This is
further shown by the careful weighing
out every day of the small quantity of
this food he may take and measuring out
the water he may drink.
Further, to indicate the scarcity of fuel in
a besieged town; when supplies from the
country can be no longer brought in, the
prophet was directed to bake his food by
the heat of the most offensive kind of
fuel. Against this his soul revolted, and
he allowed himself to remonstrate; and
that the burden of his representative
commission might not be too onerous to
him, he was graciously permitted to use
the dried dung of animals to dress his
food. This, however, so far impaired the
completeness of the representation;
because it implied that animals were
present in the city, though of necessity
they soon die when their provender
ceases, or the people kill them for their
own sustenance.
Ezekiel made no objection to the kind of
fuel allowed him. He was, in fact, used
to it; for the dried dung of beasts is used
for fuel throughout the East wherever
wood is scarce, from Mongolia Note: See
Hucs Travels in Tartary, Thibet, and
China, passim. to Palestine. Its use,
indeed, extends into Europe, and
subsists even in England. It is not
unusual in Devonshire for poor women
to go out to the lanes in the evenings,
collecting into baskets the cow-dung
that they can find, so completely dried
by the sun and air is to be quite
inoffensive to the smell or touch. In the
villages of the same county, where there
is no access to ovens, but where wood
for fuel is not scarce, this cow-dung is
actually preferred for baking bread, on
account of the length of time during
which, when once ignited; it retains a
strong, equable, and concentrated heat.
Large loaves are baked in this way. The
hearth being heated by a fire of the same
substance, and the dough being then
placed upon the swept hearth, or upon
an iron plate supported upon a tripod,
or upon bricks, an iron crock is turned
over it, and over this is heaped the
burning fuel, and fresh additions of the
same being made, the whole is left
undisturbed until the bread is baked,
which it is in a most perfect manner,
notwithstanding the large size of the
loaves.
In regard to the use of this fuel in
Western Asia, we may be permitted to
repeat what we said in another work. In
some regions of Western Asia, where
wood is scarce, it forms the common
fuel; and as the supply is often
inadequate to the occasions of the
people, great anxiety is exhibited in
collecting a sufficient quantity, and in
regulating the consumption. In winter
we have seen it used in the best rooms of
some of the most respectable houses in
northern Persia; and while travelling
through the same country, and parts of
Media and Armenia, when we formed
our camp, or rested during the midday
heat, near the villages, all the children
who were old enough would come out
with baskets and other receptacles,
waiting long and patiently to receive all
the animal dung that occurred, to secure
which there was often much contention
and violence among the too numerous
claimants for its possession. Cow-dung
is in all cases preferred, but that of all
other animals is considered valuable.
When collected, it is made into cakes or
turves, which are laid out to dry in the
sun, and in some places are stuck up
against the sunny side of the houses,
giving them a curious and somewhat
unsightly appearance. When it is quite
dry it falls off, and is then stowed away
in heaps for winter use. Note: Pictorial
Bible on this text. The following, from
the same, describes the mode of baking
In the East they either heat with it a
portable oven of earthenware, or an iron
plate supported on a tripod of stones,
and beneath which is the fire, or else lay
their cakes upon the fire of dung. But a
very common resource, in the want of a
plate or an oven, is to form the dough
into balls, which are placed either
among live coals or into a fire of dried
dung; and covered over with the same,
till penetrated by the heat. The ashes are
then removed, and the bread eaten hot,
with much enjoyment, by the natives;
but it sometimes contracts it flavor and
appearance which is not pleasant to
Europeans. It is further suggested that
the prophet intended to provide such
cakes or balls, baked in immediate
contact with the fire; and that this made
him the more abhor the sort of fuel
which was first proposed to him. We
may add, that these heaps are
sometimes piled up on the flat roofs of
the low cottages, in the form of
truncated cones, imparting to the village
a most curious appearance at some
distance, and, when first witnessed,
awakening many strange conjectures as
to the nature of these constructions,
ending in some amusement when the
fact is ascertained.
In India, the peculiar notions of the
people respecting the sanctity of the
cow, do not prevent them from using its
dung in the same way, where wood is
scarce. Indeed, Mr. Roberts says, that
those who are accustomed to have their
food prepared in this way prefer it to any
other, and tell you it is sweeter and more
holy, as the fuel comes from the sacred
animal.