9 And take for yourself wheat and barley and different sorts of grain, and put them in one vessel and make bread for yourself from them; all the days when you are stretched on your side it will be your food. 10 And you are to take your food by weight, twenty shekels a day: you are to take it at regular times. 11 And you are to take water by measure, the sixth part of a hin: you are to take it at regular times. 12 And let your food be barley cakes, cooking it before their eyes with the waste which comes out of a man. 13 And the Lord said, Even so the children of Israel will have unclean bread for their food among the nations where I am driving them. 14 Then I said, Ah, Lord! see, my soul has never been unclean, and I have never taken as my food anything which has come to a natural death or has been broken by beasts, from the time when I was young even till now; no disgusting flesh has ever come into my mouth. 15 Then he said to me, See, I have given you cow's waste in place of man's waste, and you will make your bread ready on it.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Ezekiel 4:9-15
Commentary on Ezekiel 4:9-17
(Read Ezekiel 4:9-17)
The bread which was Ezekiel's support, was to be made of coarse grain and pulse mixed together, seldom used except in times of urgent scarcity, and of this he was only to take a small quantity. Thus was figured the extremity to which the Jews were to be reduced during the siege and captivity. Ezekiel does not plead, Lord, from my youth I have been brought up delicately, and never used to any thing like this; but that he had been brought up conscientiously, and never had eaten any thing forbidden by the law. It will be comfortable when we are brought to suffer hardships, if our hearts can witness that we have always been careful to keep even from the appearance of evil. See what woful work sin makes, and acknowledge the righteousness of God herein. Their plenty having been abused to luxury and excess, they were justly punished by famine. When men serve not God with cheerfulness in the abundance of all things, God will make them serve their enemies in the want of all things.