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DRAFT: A Chiastic Reconfiguration Of Ezekiel 4-5

Kuruvilla Thomas
Bangalore
Published on 15 June 2024 *




Ezekiel 4-5 Timeline
Fig. 1


Introduction

This study treats Ezekiel 4-5 as a cryptochiasmus in order to arrive at a coherent reconfiguration of the text ( see definition of cryptochiasmus in [1] ). If you wish to skip the technicalities of a chiastic parse, you may read starting from Section 4 of the Discussion section, which has the reconfigured text.

Ezekiel 4-5 makes several important predictions through a series of prophetic actions - a prophetic action is a prophecy that is conveyed through actions instead of words (see another example in Zech. 11:4-17). Ezekiel makes predictions regarding: the punishment in exile of the Northern Tribes, the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians, Christ's atoning sacrifice and the Roman devastation of Jerusalem.



Discussion

1. Presuppositions

We base our parse of Ezekiel 4-5 on the assumption that it refers to 3 Periods:

  1. The Northern Tribes are Punished in Exile (c.722BC-c.332BC). We take the position that the 390 years of Ezekiel 4:5 are a time of enslavement extending from the exile of the Northern Tribes in 722BC by Shalmaneser, to Alexander's conquest of Persia in 333/332BC (note that these prophecies follow the Hebrew secular fall-to-fall calendar). The Northern Tribes were exiled in stages over many years, but this 722BC date is significant because the majority of them were taken away at the time (see 2 Kings 17:1-25, and our parse of Hosea 10-11 [6]).
  2. The Siege of Jerusalem by the Babylonians (589BC-587BC). Nebuchadnezzar's final assault on Jerusalem. This prophecy was made around 592BC (see Ezekiel 1:2), so the first two assaults by the Babylonians lay in the past.
  3. The New Covenant from Christ and the First Jewish Roman War (30AD-70AD). The Judahites atone for their sins by turning to Christ (the New Covenant) - the Judahites that reject Christ are killed in the war. This Period begins at Christ's death, when the New Covenant came into effect, and ends in 70AD, when the Old Covenant was terminated.

2. Parsing the chiasmus

We will use the NIV Bible for this parse.

This prophecy may appear to consist of one long prophetic action, but we show through this parse that it is made up of several shorter prophetic actions that share some of the props. Parsing this chiasmus involves dividing portions of the text into three categories as above. We will call the time of the Punishment of the Northern Tribes Period 1, the Babylonian Siege of Jerusalem Period 2 and the time from the Death of Christ to the Siege of Jerusalem in 70 AD Period 3.


Categorizing Ezekiel 4-5

Ch 4 vs 1-3a belongs to Period 2. This prophetic action of setting up a diorama represents the Babylonians laying siege of Jerusalem. ( This passage can be regarding the Roman assault as well, but we do not get a proper chiastic structure if we take that option.)

Ch 4 vs 3b-5 belongs to Period 1. Ezekiel lies down facing his left side in this prophetic action, to represent the 390 years of slavery of the Northern Tribes.

Ch 4 vs 6-7 belongs to Period 3. The prophet lies down facing his right side in this prophetic action to represent the 40 years within which the Judahites were to turn to Christianity.

Ch 4 vs 8-15 belong to Period 1. The prophet eats limited quantities of food in this prophetic action to indicate that the Northern Tribes will suffer deprivation during their enslavement.

Ch 4 vs 16-17 belongs to Period 2. The Judahites starve during the Babylonian siege. Although this passage is on the same topic as the previous one, we assign it to Period 2 because Jerusalem is mentioned.

Ch 5 vs 1-13 belongs to Period 3. A prophetic action involving Ezekiel's hair that predicts that the Judahites will be killed or scattered during the Roman War. We see the same 1/3 and 2/3 fractions in a passage on this period in Zech. 13:8-9 [9]. We treat the phrase, "I the Lord have spoken...", as the end of this subunit.

Ch 5 vs 14-15 belongs to Period 2. Jerusalem is destroyed for its sins, and its destruction serves as a warning to the surrounding nations. We treat the phrase "I the Lord have spoken" as the end of this subunit.

Ch 5 vs 16-17 belongs to Period 1. The Northern Tribes are punished in many ways in exile. Note that with this parse, all three Periods end with the phrase "I the Lord have spoken".


Original text

We color-code the chiastic units of the original text (NIV) below for easy visual identification using: red for Period 1, blue for Period 2 and green for Period 3 . We have retranslated parts of the text.


Ezekiel 4 1 “Now, son of man, take a block of clay, put it in front of you and draw the city of Jerusalem on it. 2 Then lay siege to it: Erect siege works against it, build a ramp up to it, set up camps against it and put battering rams around it. 3a Then take an iron pan, place it as an iron wall between you and the city and turn your face toward it. It will be under siege, and you shall besiege it.
3b This will be a sign to the people of Israel.
4 “Lie down facing [a] your left side and put the punishment [b] of the people of Israel upon yourself. You are to bear their punishment [c] for the number of days you lie on your side. 5 I have assigned you the same number of days as the years of their punishment [d]. So for 390 days you will bear the punishment [e] of the people of Israel.

6 “After that, [f] lie down again, this time facing [g] your right side, and bear the punishment [h] of the people of Judah. I have assigned you 40 days, a day for each year. 7 Turn your face toward the siege of Jerusalem and with bared arm prophesy against her.
8 I will tie you up with ropes so that you cannot turn from one side to the other until you have finished the days of your confinement [i]. 9 “Take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and spelt; put them in a storage jar and use them to make bread for yourself. You are to eat it during the 390 days you lie on your side. 10 Weigh out twenty shekels of food to eat each day and eat it at set times. 11 Also measure out a sixth of a hin of water and drink it at set times. 12 Eat the food as you would a loaf of barley bread; bake it in the sight of the people, using human excrement for fuel.” 13 The Lord said, “In this way the people of Israel will eat defiled food among the nations where I will drive them.”
14 Then I said, “Not so, Sovereign Lord! I have never defiled myself. From my youth until now I have never eaten anything found dead or torn by wild animals. No impure meat has ever entered my mouth.”
15 “Very well,” he said, “I will let you bake your bread over cow dung instead of human excrement.”

16 He then said to me: “Son of man, I am about to cut off the food supply in Jerusalem. The people will eat rationed food in anxiety and drink rationed water in despair, 17 for food and water will be scarce. They will be appalled at the sight of each other and will waste away because of their punishment [j].

Retranslation notes for Ezekiel 4
[a] vs 4 "Lie down facing" instead of "Then lie on".
[b-e] vs 4-5 "punishment" instead of "sin".
[f] vs 6 "After that" instead of "After you have finished this".
[g] vs 6 "facing" instead of "on".
[h] vs 6 "punishment" instead of "sin".
[i] vs 8 "confinement" instead of "siege". We take "siege" to figuratively refer to the prophet's confinement.
[j] vs 17 "punishment" instead of "sin".


Ezekiel 5 1 Now, son of man, take a sharp sword and use it as a barber’s razor to shave your head and your beard. Then take a set of scales and divide up the hair. 2 When the days of your siege come to an end, burn a third of the hair inside the city. Take a third and strike it with the sword all around the city. And scatter a third to the wind. For I will unsheathe my sword behind them [a]. 3 But take a few hairs and tuck them away in the folds of your garment. 4 Again, take a few of these and throw them into the fire and burn them up. A fire will spread from there to all Israel.
5 “This is what the Sovereign Lord says: This is Jerusalem, which I have set in the center of the nations, with countries all around her. 6 Yet in her wickedness she has rebelled against my laws and decrees more than the nations and countries around her. She has rejected my laws and has not followed my decrees.
7 “Surely [b] this is what the Sovereign Lord says: You have been more unruly than the nations around you and have not followed my decrees or kept my laws. You have not even conformed to the standards of the nations around you.
8 “Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I myself am against you, Jerusalem, and I will inflict punishment on you in the sight of the nations. 9 Because of all your detestable idols, I will do to you what I have never done before and will never do again. 10 Therefore in your midst parents will eat their children, and children will eat their parents. I will inflict punishment on you and will scatter all your survivors to the winds. 11 Therefore as surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, because you have defiled my sanctuary with all your vile images and detestable practices, I myself will shave you; I will not look on you with pity or spare you. 12 A third of your people will die of the plague or perish by famine inside you; a third will fall by the sword all around you [c]; and a third I will scatter to the winds when I unsheathe a sword behind them [d].
13 “Then my anger will cease and my wrath against them will subside, and I will be avenged. And when I have spent my wrath on them, they will know that I the Lord have spoken in my zeal.

14 “I will make you a ruin and a reproach among the nations around you, in the sight of all who pass by. 15 You will be a reproach and a taunt, a warning and an object of horror to the nations around you when I inflict punishment on you in anger and in wrath and with stinging rebuke. I the Lord have spoken.
16 When I shoot at you with my deadly and destructive arrows of famine, I will shoot to destroy you. I will bring more and more famine upon you and cut off your supply of food. 17 I will send famine and wild beasts against you, and they will leave you childless. Plague and bloodshed will sweep through you, and I will bring the sword against you. I the Lord have spoken.”

Retranslation notes for Ezekiel 5
[a] vs 2 "unsheathe my sword behind them" instead of "pursue them with drawn sword". Based on the NASB translation.
[b] vs 7 "Surely" instead of "Therefore".
[c] vs 12 "all around you" instead of "outside your walls".
[d] vs 12 "when I unsheathe a sword behind them" instead of "and pursue with drawn sword". Based on the NASB translation.


3. Building the reconfigured text

From this parse, it appears that Ezekiel 4-5 forms a cryptochiasmus as below:

A1   Ch 4 vs 1-3a Period 2. Babylonians lay siege to Jerusalem
  B1   Ch 4 vs 3b-5 Period 1. The Northern Tribes are punished for their sins
    X   Ch 4 vs 6-7 Period 3. The Judahites have 40 years to turn to Christ
  B2   Ch 4 vs 8-15 Period 1. The Northern Tribes suffer deprivation
A2   Ch 4 vs 16-17 Period 2. The Judahites starve under the Babylonian siege


We now reconstruct the passages in the right order based on the chiastic structure above and based on the ordering rules of a cryptochiasmus [1].

We usually lead with the pivot point, but for this reconstruction we place the central pivot point 'X' at the end so that we get a multiply-applied chiasmus with chapter 5 (the rules of cryptochiasmi [1] allow this). The corresponding subunits (For example; subunit A1 corresponds to A2) are placed contiguously to form units (For example, A1,A2 is a unit ) so that we get a list of such units.


The sequence selected for rearrangement is:

[B1,B2]  [A1,A2]  X        (1)

We have the following sequence when we include the rest of the prophecy:
[B1,B2] - Period 1
[A1,A2] - Period 2
X         - Period 3
Ch 5 vs 1-13 - Period 3. The prophetic action involving Ezekiel's hair
Ch 5 vs 14-15 - Period 2. The aftermath of the Babylonian attack
Ch 5 vs 16-17 - Period 1. The Northern Tribes are punished in several ways

We still have text for the Periods in a non-contiguous form. We will treat this as a doubly applied cryptochiasmus as below.


M1   [B1,B2] - Period 1
  N1   [A1,A2] - Period 2
   XX   X, Ch 5 vs 1-13 - Period 3
  N2   Ch 5 vs 14-15 - Period 2
M2   Ch 5 vs 16-17 - Period 1

The sequence selected for rearrangement is:
XX  [M1,M2]  [N1,N2]        (2)


Translating this sequence (2) into the subunits of the first chiasmus, we get:

[[X], Ch 5 vs 1-13 ]  [[B1,B2], Ch 5 vs 16-17]   [[A1,A2], Ch 5 vs 14-15]        (3)

Further translating (3) into verse numbers, we get:

[[4 vs 6-7], Ch 5 vs 1-13]  [[Ch 4 vs 3b-5,Ch 4 vs 8-15], Ch 5 vs 16-17]   [[Ch 4 vs 1-3a,Ch 4 vs 16-17], Ch 5 vs 14-15]        (4)

We arrive at the reconfigured passage in the next section by rearranging the verses so they are in sequence (4).



4. Ezekiel 4-5 Reconfigured

The New Covenant from Christ and the First Jewish Roman War (30AD-70AD) (Ch 4 vs 6-7, Ch 5 vs 1-13)

Chiasmus 1: The Judahites are given 40 years to turn to Christ

Ch 4 6a “After that, lie down again, this time facing your right side, and bear the punishment of the people of Judah.
6b I have assigned you 40 days, a day for each year.
7 Turn your face toward the siege of Jerusalem and with bared arm prophesy against her.

Chiasmus 2: The Judahites are punished during the First Jewish-Roman War

Ch 5 1 Now, son of man, take a sharp sword and use it as a barber’s razor to shave your head and your beard. Then take a set of scales and divide up the hair. 2 When the days of your siege come to an end, burn a third of the hair inside the city. Take a third and strike it with the sword all around the city. And scatter a third to the wind. For I will unsheathe my sword behind them. 3 But take a few hairs and tuck them away in the folds of your garment. 4 Again, take a few of these and throw them into the fire and burn them up. A fire will spread from there to all Israel.
5 “This is what the Sovereign Lord says: This is Jerusalem, which I have set in the center of the nations, with countries all around her. 6 Yet in her wickedness she has rebelled against my laws and decrees more than the nations and countries around her. She has rejected my laws and has not followed my decrees.
7 “Surely this is what the Sovereign Lord says: You have been more unruly than the nations around you and have not followed my decrees or kept my laws. You have not even conformed to the standards of the nations around you. 8 “Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I myself am against you, Jerusalem, and I will inflict punishment on you in the sight of the nations.
9 Because of all your detestable idols, I will do to you what I have never done before and will never do again. 10 Therefore in your midst parents will eat their children, and children will eat their parents. I will inflict punishment on you and will scatter all your survivors to the winds.
11 Therefore as surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, because you have defiled my sanctuary with all your vile images and detestable practices, I myself will shave you; I will not look on you with pity or spare you. 12 A third of your people will die of the plague or perish by famine inside you; a third will fall by the sword all around you; and a third I will scatter to the winds when I unsheathe a sword behind them. 13 “Then my anger will cease and my wrath against them will subside, and I will be avenged. And when I have spent my wrath on them, they will know that I the Lord have spoken in my zeal.


The Northern Tribes are Punished in Exile (c.722BC-c.332BC) (Ch 4 vs 3b-5, Ch 4 vs 8-15, Ch 5 vs 16-17)

Chiasmus 1: The Northern Tribes are punished with slavery for 390 years

Ch 4 3b This will be a sign to the people of Israel. 4a “Lie down facing your left side and put the punishment of the people of Israel upon yourself.
4b You are to bear their punishment for the number of days you lie on your side. 5 I have assigned you the same number of days as the years of their punishment. So for 390 days you will bear the punishment of the people of Israel.
Ch 5 8 I will tie you up with ropes so that you cannot turn from one side to the other until you have finished the days of your confinement.

Chiasmus 2: The Northern Tribes face deprivation during their enslavement

9 “Take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and spelt; put them in a storage jar and use them to make bread for yourself. You are to eat it during the 390 days you lie on your side. 10 Weigh out twenty shekels of food to eat each day and eat it at set times. 11 Also measure out a sixth of a hin of water and drink it at set times.
12 Eat the food as you would a loaf of barley bread; bake it in the sight of the people, using human excrement for fuel.” 13 The Lord said, “In this way the people of Israel will eat defiled food among the nations where I will drive them.” 14 Then I said, “Not so, Sovereign Lord! I have never defiled myself. From my youth until now I have never eaten anything found dead or torn by wild animals. No impure meat has ever entered my mouth.” 15 “Very well,” he said, “I will let you bake your bread over cow dung instead of human excrement.”
5 16 When I shoot at you with my deadly and destructive arrows of famine, I will shoot to destroy you. I will bring more and more famine upon you and cut off your supply of food. 17 I will send famine and wild beasts against you, and they will leave you childless. Plague and bloodshed will sweep through you, and I will bring the sword against you. I the Lord have spoken.”


The Siege of Jerusalem by the Babylonians (589BC-587BC) (Ch 4 vs 1-3a, Ch 4 vs 16-17, Ch 5 vs 14-15)

Ch 4 1 “Now, son of man, take a block of clay, put it in front of you and draw the city of Jerusalem on it. 2 Then lay siege to it: Erect siege works against it, build a ramp up to it, set up camps against it and put battering rams around it. 3a Then take an iron pan, place it as an iron wall between you and the city and turn your face toward it. It will be under siege, and you shall besiege it.
16 He then said to me: “Son of man, I am about to cut off the food supply in Jerusalem. The people will eat rationed food in anxiety and drink rationed water in despair, 17 for food and water will be scarce. They will be appalled at the sight of each other and will waste away because of their punishment.
Ch 5 14 “I will make you a ruin and a reproach among the nations around you, in the sight of all who pass by. 15 You will be a reproach and a taunt, a warning and an object of horror to the nations around you when I inflict punishment on you in anger and in wrath and with stinging rebuke. I the Lord have spoken.


5. A Commentary on the Reconfigured Text

All the regular chiasmi of this prophecy are regarding separate prophetic actions, but they share some of the props.

5.1 The New Covenant from Christ and the First Jewish Roman War (30AD-70AD) (Ch 4 vs 6-7, Ch 5 vs 1-13)

This Period is structured as a series of 2 chiasmi.

Chiasmus 1: The Judahites are given 40 years to turn to Christ

The passage below in 4:6-7 is structured as a single-unit chiasmus:

A1 4:6a Ezekiel represents Christ in a prophetic action
    X 4:6b The length of time of the action
A2 4:7 Ezekiel represents Christ in a prophetic action

Subunit A1: Ezekiel represents Christ in a prophetic action (4:6a)

Chapter 4 6a “After that, lie down again, this time facing your right side, and bear the punishment of the people of Judah.

In this prophetic action, Ezekiel represents Christ, for he "bears the punishment of the people of Judah". We imagine the prophet as situated on a timeline at the point at which atonement for sins is achieved, which, in this case, is the time of Christ's death for the sins of man in the spring of 30 AD (1 Peter 3:18) (the prophet lies down because this is an extended prophetic action). The prophet turns to the right, and the right represents the future on this timeline.



Pivot X: The length of time of the action (4:6b)

Chapter 4 6b I have assigned you 40 days, a day for each year.

The prophet lies with his head to the right (the future) for 40 days, facing the diorama of the siege of Jerusalem (see 4:1-3a under Period 2 below). This is to indicate that the Judahites had 40 years - a day represents a year in this act - to turn to Christ or be killed in the assault on Jerusalem. So this 40 year period is a time of grace (the 390 years of Period 1 are a time of punishment).

Note that this prophecy from Ezekiel effectively predicts that 40 years before the destruction of Jerusalem in 70AD, one of the most significant events in history would take place - Christ's death in 30AD.



Subunit A2: Ezekiel represents Christ in a prophetic action (4:7)

Chapter 4 7 Turn your face toward the siege of Jerusalem and with bared arm prophesy against her.

The diorama of the siege of Jerusalem (4:1-3a) in this prophetic action represents the siege by the Romans in 70AD (in Period 2, the diorama represents the Babylonian siege - the two armies apparently used similar siege works). The bared arm or rolled up sleeves, a component of a hostile battle stance (cf. Isaiah 52:10), represents Christ's prediction of the tribulation of the non-believing Judahites and the destruction of Jerusalem in 70AD (see Matthew 24:15-22).

Although Christ's message and death were for all mankind (1 John 2:2), he preached to the Judahites first (see Romans 1:16, Matt. 10:5, Luke 24:47), as they had to turn to Christianity within one generation (around 40 years) or be killed (see Matt 24:34). This conversion to Christianity was necessary so that the Old Covenant may be terminated (as signified by the destruction of the temple at Jerusalem in 70AD), so avoiding the confusion and complexities that arise from two active covenants.



Chiasmus 2: The Judahites are punished during the First Jewish-Roman War

The passage below in 5:1-13 is arranged in the form of a two-unit chiasmus:

A1 5:1-4 A Prophetic action involving Ezekiel's hair: Description
  B1 5:5-6 The Judahites are punished for rejecting the Law
    X 5:7-8 The Judahites are punished for not following the Law
  B2 5:9-10 The Judahites are punished for rejecting the Law
A2 5:11-13 A Prophetic action involving Ezekiel's hair: Meaning

Subunit A1: A Prophetic action involving Ezekiel's hair: Description (5:1-4)

Chapter 5 1 Now, son of man, take a sharp sword and use it as a barber’s razor to shave your head and your beard. Then take a set of scales and divide up the hair.

In this prophetic action, the second of this Period, Ezekiel represents God, and the prophet's hair represents all the Judahites of the time (cf. Isaiah 7:20). The cutting of Ezekiel's hair seems to represent the separation of the Judahites from the temple at Jerusalem and the Old Covenant (see 5:11 below). Ezekiel is told to divide his hair into three (as implied in 5:2 below), to represent three divisions of the Judahites, only one of which will remain after the attack. ( The same 1/3 and 2/3 fractions for those saved and those killed in this massacre can be found in Zech. 13:8-9 [9]. These fractions show up in other battles for souls - see also Rev 9:18, 12:4, 13:18.)



Chapter 5 2 When the days of your siege come to an end, burn a third of the hair inside the city. Take a third and strike it with the sword all around the city. And scatter a third to the wind. For I will unsheathe my sword behind them.

After the 40 day Period of the previous prophetic action, representing the 40 years between Christ's death and the Roman attack on Jerusalem, Ezekiel performs a prophetic action on the 3 divisions of hair to predict the effects of the Roman attack on the Judahites (see also explanation in vs 5:11,12 below):


Chapter 5 3 But take a few hairs and tuck them away in the folds of your garment. 4 Again, take a few of these and throw them into the fire and burn them up. A fire will spread from there to all Israel.

The hair tucked in the robe symbolises the Judahites living outside Israel ("all Israel" in vs 4 refers to all the Judahites) - a few Judahites lived in other nations, in places as far away as India. All those of Judahite descent around the world who refused to become Christian and continued to follow the Old Covenant ("a few of these" in vs 4) had to die in some manner (burnt hair represents a deadly plague of some sort - see 5:12), so that the Old Covenant may be terminated. ( The Northern Tribes had all turned to idol worship, so the Old Covenant did not apply to them any more. Note that the "Jews" of today cannot be Judahites.)



Subunit B1: The Judahites are punished for rejecting the Law (5:5-6)

Chapter 5 5 “This is what the Sovereign Lord says: This is Jerusalem, which I have set in the center of the nations, with countries all around her. 6 Yet in her wickedness she has rebelled against my laws and decrees more than the nations and countries around her. She has rejected my laws and has not followed my decrees.

Jerusalem, which represents God's nation, was set up to be an example to the other nations surrounding her (the spiritual "center of the nations..."). But instead, her people rebelled against God's laws; they strayed to follow false doctrines and even to worship other gods (see also Zephaniah 1:4-7). The evil that the Judahites committed because of this rejection of God and His Law was worse than that of the surrounding nations.



Pivot X: The Judahites are punished for not following the Law (5:7-8)

Chapter 5 7 “Surely this is what the Sovereign Lord says: You have been more unruly than the nations around you and have not followed my decrees or kept my laws. You have not even conformed to the standards of the nations around you.
8 “Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I myself am against you, Jerusalem, and I will inflict punishment on you in the sight of the nations.

Even the Judahites that remained faithful to God have not faithfully kept the Law of God, and, as a result, they have become morally corrupt ("unruly"), even more so than the people of the surrounding nations.

Note that 3 categories of sins of the Judahites are brought up in this chiasmus: in Unit A, that of defiling the temple (see 5:11 below); in Unit B, that of rejecting God (see 5:6 above); and in this pivot, not following God's Law. The Judahites are punished for these sins through the Roman assault (represented by the actions on the hair) and through separation from Jerusalem (represented by the cutting of the hair). God inflicted this punishment in the sight of the surrounding nations, so they may see that God will punish wickedness even among His own people



Subunit B2: The Judahites are punished for rejecting the Law (5:9-10)

Chapter 5 9 Because of all your detestable idols, I will do to you what I have never done before and will never do again. 10 Therefore in your midst parents will eat their children, and children will eat their parents. I will inflict punishment on you and will scatter all your survivors to the winds.

For their sin of rejecting God's Law and worshipping other gods (see 5:5-6 in the corresponding unit B1 above), God visited on the Judahites the most horrific punishment in 70AD ("what I have never done before or since"). Some of the Judahites resorted to cannibalism because of a siege induced famine (see also Jeremiah 19:9, Deut. 28:53-58), and the Romans killed everyone they found in Jerusalem with barbarous cruelty (Isaiah 3:1, Isaiah 51:19). Christian Judahites were spared the worst of this horrific punishment, but even they had to move away from Judea ("scatter all your survivors to the winds").



Subunit A2: The Prophetic action involving Ezekiel's hair: Meaning (5:11-13)

Chapter 5 11 Therefore as surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, because you have defiled my sanctuary with all your vile images and detestable practices, I myself will shave you; I will not look on you with pity or spare you.

One of the reasons for this punishment was that the Judahites worshipped other gods and apparently even practised their idolatry in God's temple (cf. Ezekiel 8). All the Judahites were "shaved" (see 5:1 above) or cut off from the once holy city of Jerusalem - the Christian Judahites were forced to leave the land and the rest were killed by the Romans that God sent ("I myself will shave you"). This Jerusalem will never again be the sacred city of God and His people (Zech. 11:14), for the New Jerusalem will be located elsewhere.



Chapter 5 12 A third of your people will die of the plague or perish by famine inside you; a third will fall by the sword all around you; and a third I will scatter to the winds when I unsheathe a sword behind them.

This passage explains the prophetic action described in 5:2 above. The third of the Judahites that will die through plague or famine are represented by the hair that is burnt, the third who will be killed by the Romans are represented by the hair that is slashed at with the sword. The remaining third that will believe in Christ and escape this massacre are represented by the hair that is scattered in the wind; these Christians later emigrated to various parts of the world to escape persecution.



Chapter 5 13a “Then my anger will cease and my wrath against them will subside, and I will be avenged.

After God has purged the Judahites of the wicked among them, He will restore the remnant ("then my anger will cease"). As seen in our parse of Daniel 9 [2], God's covenant with the Romans lasted for 7 years, and after that the Judahite Christians were free to return to their land. But they gradually left Judea, and God has since preserved these Christian Judahites in their new homes in different parts of the world.



Chapter 5 13b And when I have spent my wrath on them, they will know that I the Lord have spoken in my zeal.

When they see that the nature of the calamities they face are in accord with this and other prophecies, the Judahites will know that their punishment is from God. Note that all three Periods close with the declaration "I the Lord have spoken".



5.2 The Northern Tribes are Punished in Exile (c.722BC-c.332BC) (Ch 4 vs 3b-5, Ch 4 vs 8-15, Ch 5 vs 16-17)

Chiasmus 1: The Northern Tribes are punished with slavery for 390 years

The passage below in 4:3b-5,8 is structured as a single-unit chiasmus:

A1 4:3b-4a Ezekiel lies down facing left, taking on the punishment of the Northern Tribes
    X 4:4b-5 The length of time of the action
A2 4:8 Ezekiel lies down facing left, taking on the punishment of the Northern Tribes

Subunit A1: Ezekiel lies down facing left, taking on the punishment of the Northern Tribes (4:3b-4a)

Chapter 4 3b This will be a sign to the people of Israel.
4a “Lie down facing your left side and put the punishment of the people of Israel upon yourself.

Ezekiel represents the Northern Tribes ("Israel") in this prophetic action. As in Period 3, we imagine the prophet located on a timeline at the point at which the atonement of the Northern Tribes was completed. The prophet turns to his left side, with the left indicating the past on the timeline.



Pivot X: The length of time of the action (4:4b-5)

4b You are to bear their punishment for the number of days you lie on your side. 5 I have assigned you the same number of days as the years of their punishment. So for 390 days you will bear the punishment of the people of Israel.

Ezekiel lies facing left for 390 days, representing the 390 years for which the Northern Tribes must suffer for their sins.

What are the start and end dates of the punishment of the Northern Tribes?

(In the appendix below, we show that this period is part of a chain of chronological prophecies).


Subunit A2: Ezekiel lies down facing left, taking on the punishment of the Northern Tribes (4:8)

Chapter 4 8 I will tie you up with ropes so that you cannot turn from one side to the other until you have finished the days of your confinement.

The binding of Ezekiel with ropes represents the enslavement of the Northern Tribes during the 390 years of this prophetic action.

Note the difference in the way the Northern Tribes and the Judahites atoned for sins. The Northern Tribes, under the Old Covenant, suffered for their own sin of worshipping other gods (Deut. 28:15-68). Under the New Covenant, Christ bears the sin and punishment, and it was he that suffered and died for the sins of the Judahites (John 3:16). Also, for the Northern Tribes, atonement came after the punishment, while for the Judahites that believed in Christ, redemption came with Christ's death.



Chiasmus 2: The Northern Tribes face deprivation during their enslavement

The passage below in 4:9-15, 5:16-17 is structured as a single-unit chiasmus:

A1 4:9-11 A prophetic action involving rationed food: Description
    X 4:12-15 Ezekiel is exempt from cooking with human excrement
A2 5:16-17 A prophetic action involving rationed food: Meaning

Subunit A1: A prophetic action involving rationed food: Description (4:9-11)

Chapter 4 9 “Take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and spelt; put them in a storage jar and use them to make bread for yourself. You are to eat it during the 390 days you lie on your side. 10 Weigh out twenty shekels of food to eat each day and eat it at set times. 11 Also measure out a sixth of a hin of water and drink it at set times.

This prophetic act predicts that the Northern Tribes will not have enough to eat during their enslavement in exile (see 5:16-17 in the corresponding subunit A2 below). They will eat a combination of wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and spelt - probably leftovers from their masters' meals. The meagre diet that their slave masters will measure out to them at set times of the day is represented by 20 shekels (about 280 grams or 10 ounces) of food a day and a 6th of a hin (around a pint or 1/2 a litre) of water a day.



Pivot X: Ezekiel is exempt from cooking with human excrement (4:12-15)

Chapter 4 12 Eat the food as you would a loaf of barley bread; bake it in the sight of the people, using human excrement for fuel.” 13 The Lord said, “In this way the people of Israel will eat defiled food among the nations where I will drive them.”

Ezekiel is told to cook his food in the way he would cook barley cakes - roasted over the fuel - but over burning human excrement. He must do this to predict that the Northern Tribes will be forced to eat repellent food (see also Hosea 9:3) that contravenes the dietary laws of the Old Covenant (see Deut. 14:3; 23:12-14).



Chapter 4 14 Then I said, “Not so, Sovereign Lord! I have never defiled myself. From my youth until now I have never eaten anything found dead or torn by wild animals. No impure meat has ever entered my mouth.”
15 “Very well,” he said, “I will let you bake your bread over cow dung instead of human excrement.”

We are to implicitly obey all orders from God, even if they contravene His prior directives (cf. Luke 6:1-5, 9:59-60). Ezekiel was willing to do all the difficult tasks he was given, but he sought and obtained an exemption in this one instance that greatly offended his sensibilities and broke the Old Covenant Law (the specific laws Ezekiel alludes to can be found in Leviticus 7:24; 11:39,40). He was allowed to use the far cleaner cow dung instead, a fuel that is used to this day in certain eastern nations.

This prophecy was given to Ezekiel around 592BC (see Ezekiel 1:2), 1/3rd of way the through the punishment of the Northern Tribes (130 out of 390 years). It may be that, through Ezekiel's request, the Northern Tribes were spared this most demeaning and defiling punishment for the remaining 2/3rd of their atonement.



Subunit A2: A prophetic action involving rationed food: Meaning (5:16-17)

Chapter 5 16 When I shoot at you with my deadly and destructive arrows of famine, I will shoot to destroy you. I will bring more and more famine upon you and cut off your supply of food.

Addressing the Northern Tribes, God explains that the prophetic action involving rationed food in this chiasmus (as described in 4:9-11 in the corresponding subunit A1 above) predicts that He will make them suffer under famine-like conditions throughout ("more and more") their enslavement. Famine is compared to arrows to indicate that it will be used as a weapon by God against His own people.



Chapter 5 17 I will send famine and wild beasts against you, and they will leave you childless. Plague and bloodshed will sweep through you, and I will bring the sword against you. I the Lord have spoken.

God will punish the Northern Tribes even after they are freed c. 333BC, and they will continue to suffer until the beginning of the Millennial Reign. When these four instruments of chastisement - the sword, famine, plague and wild beasts (the "wild beasts" seem to affect children) - appear together, they indicate punishment and death from God for His own people, though not necessarily through the means listed (for ex., see Ezekiel 14:21, Rev. 6:7, Jer. 1:11,14:12...).



5.3 The Siege of Jerusalem by the Babylonians (589BC-587BC) (Ch 4 vs 1-3a, Ch 4 vs 16-17, Ch 5 vs 14-15)

This Period is arranged in the form of a single-unit chiasmus:

A1 4:1-3a Before and after the siege: A prophetic act predicting preparations for the siege
    X 4:16-17 During the siege: A famine
A2 5:14-15 Before and after the siege: The devastation in the aftermath

Subunit A1: Before and after the siege: A prophetic act predicting preparations for the siege (4:1-3a)

Chapter 4 1 “Now, son of man, take a block of clay, put it in front of you and draw the city of Jerusalem on it. 2 Then lay siege to it: Erect siege works against it, build a ramp up to it, set up camps against it and put battering rams around it. 3a Then take an iron pan, place it as an iron wall between you and the city and turn your face toward it. It will be under siege, and you shall besiege it.

The prophet is instructed to set up a diorama of a siege of Jerusalem, with a block of clay representing Jerusalem. Ezekiel is to set up around Jerusalem the kind of siege works that were typically used in Babylonian assaults - siege towers, ramps to scale the fortifications, battle camps, and battering rams. The iron pan presumably represents the Babylonian army that besieged the city - they effectively formed a strong wall outside the city (2 Kings 25:1, Jer. 52:4,5). Ezekiel, representing God, turns towards Jerusalem to indicate that this punishment of Jerusalem comes from God (Jer. 52:3), for God had empowered Nebuchadnezzar to take the city (Ezra 5:12).



Pivot X: During the siege: A famine (4:16-17)

Chapter 4 16 He then said to me: “Son of man, I am about to cut off the food supply in Jerusalem. The people will eat rationed food in anxiety and drink rationed water in despair, 17 for food and water will be scarce. They will be appalled at the sight of each other and will waste away because of their punishment.

During the siege, the Judahites suffered under a severe famine as part of God's punishment (see 2 Kings 25:3).



Subunit A2: Before and after the siege: The devastation in the aftermath (5:14-15)

Chapter 5 14 “I will make you a ruin and a reproach among the nations around you, in the sight of all who pass by. 15 You will be a reproach and a taunt, a warning and an object of horror to the nations around you when I inflict punishment on you in anger and in wrath and with stinging rebuke. I the Lord have spoken.

With Jerusalem in ruins and the majority of the people exiled for 70 years, the once glorious city became an object of horror and scorn (for ex. see Zeph. 2:8-10), and a warning to the surrounding peoples on the consequences of angering the God of Israel.



Conclusion

The focus of this prophecy seems to be the atonement of the Israelites for their sins - the Israelites suffer through famine and tribulation in all three Periods. This prophecy makes important date predictions; the date of Jesus' death on the cross 40 years before the destruction of Jerusalem in 70AD; and the date of Alexander's conquest of Persia in 333BC that ends 390 years of slavery for the Northern Tribes.

This prophecy is unusual in many ways: it is entirely in the form of prophetic actions; two of the Periods run in parallel; and it is the rare reconfiguration that does not have a Period for the start of Christ's Millennial Reign.

In this prophecy, a day represents a year, as stated in Ezekiel 4:5. However, note that for other prophecies in which a day represents a year - but where a day-for-year principle is not explicitly stated - the word 'day' is not used. For instance: Daniel 9:24-27 uses 'weeks', Daniel 8:14 uses 'evenings and mornings' and Zechariah 11:8 has 'month'.





Appendix

The Chain of Chronological Prophecies connecting Israel's Exiles to the End of the World.

We point out below a series of prophecies that temporally link the exile of both the Northern Tribes (722BC) and Judahites (605BC) to the End of the World (2967AD).(Most prophets of the Old Testament lived around the time of the exile of the Israelites.) Note that the prophecies below typically follow the fall-to-fall Hebrew calendar, so some calculations according to the Gregorian calendar date may be off by a year.


From Judah's exile to the End of the World (605BC - 2967AD)
605BC - c.536BC Jeremiah's 70 years (Jer. 25:11-12, Dan. 9:2). From the exile of the Judahites in Nebuchadnezzar's first year (Jer. 25:1, [3]) to the 1st year of Cyrus (Ezra 1:1, [3]).
534BC - 2967AD The "time times and half time" (3500 years) of Daniel 12 (see Dan 12:7, [7]), starting from the 3rd year of Cyrus (Dan 10:1, [3]). ( Note that there is a short 2-year gap between these two timespans.)

From the exile of the Northern Tribes to the End of the World (722BC-2967AD)
722BC - 333/32BC Ezekiel's 390 years of punishment for the Northern Tribes (Ezekiel 4:5). From the Northern Tribes' exile by Shalmaneser (2 Kings 17) to Alexander's Defeat of Persia (Dan. 8:5-7, [4]).
333/32BC - 1968/69AD The 2300 years of Daniel 8 (Dan. 8:14, [4]). From Alexander's conquest (Dan. 8:5-7) to the Birth of the Coming Messiah (Dan 8:12)
1968/69AD - 2017AD The 49 years of Daniel 9 (Dan 9:25 , [2]). From the Birth of the Coming Messiah (Dan. 8:14) to his Anointing (Dan 9:24).
2017AD - 2967AD The "days of Noah" (950 years) in Matthew 24 (Matt 24:37, [8]). From the Anointing of the Messiah (Rev 12:10, Dan. 9:24) to the End of the World.





References

[1] A Definition of Cryptochiasmus
[2] A Chiastic Reconfiguration Of "The 70 Weeks Of Daniel"
[3] A Chiastic Reconfiguration Of Daniel 10-12 Part 1
[4] A Chiastic Reconfiguration Of Daniel 8
[5] A Chiastic Reconfiguration Of Revelation 4-22, Part 2
[6] A Chiastic Reconfiguration Of Hosea 10-11
[7] A Chiastic Reconfiguration Of Daniel 10-12. Part 2: Daniel 11-12
[8] A Chiastic Reconfiguration Of "The Olivet Discourse" in Matthew 24
[9] A Chiastic Reconfiguration Of Zechariah 12-14





* First version published on 1 December 2021.