You are to weigh out twenty shekels of food to eat each day, and you are to eat it at set times.
Parallel translations
- WEB Your food which you shall eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels a day. From time to time you shall eat it.
- KJV And thy meat which thou shalt eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels a day: from time to time shalt thou eat it.
- NKJV And your food which you eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels a day; from time to time you shall eat it.
- NASB Your food which you eat shall be twenty shekels a day by weight; you shall eat it from time to time.
- NLT Ration this out to yourself, eight ounces of food for each day, and eat it at set times.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Ezekiel's daily food is rationed by weight to about twenty shekels. It portrays the strict, anxious scarcity of life under siege.
Overview
The prophet must weigh out his small daily portion, eating it at intervals rather than freely. Measured food signals that bread will be carefully hoarded because supplies are nearly gone. This deprivation is the bitter fruit of covenant unfaithfulness, a reversal of the abundance God had promised an obedient people.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 6
- Lev 26:26When I cut off your supply of bread, ten women will bake your bread in a single oven and dole out your bread by weight, so that you will eat but not be satisfied.
- Deut 28:51–68They will eat the offspring of your livestock and the produce of your land until you are destroyed. They will leave you no grain or new wine or oil, no calves of your herds or lambs of your flocks, until they have caused you to perish.
- Isa 3:1For behold, the Lord GOD of Hosts is about to remove from Jerusalem and Judah both supply and support: the whole supply of food and water,
- Ezek 14:13“Son of man, if a land sins against Me by acting unfaithfully, and I stretch out My hand against it to cut off its supply of food, to send famine upon it, and to cut off from it both man and beast,
- Ezek 45:12The shekel will consist of twenty gerahs. Twenty shekels plus twenty-five shekels plus fifteen shekels will equal one mina.
- Ezek 4:16Then He told me, “Son of man, I am going to cut off the supply of food in Jerusalem. They will anxiously eat bread rationed by weight, and in despair they will drink water by measure.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.
Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.
Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
The promise of one Shepherd-King David, a new heart and new Spirit, and the river of life flowing from the temple all stream toward Christ, the good Shepherd who gives the Spirit.
How Ezekiel 4:10 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.