And thy meat which thou shalt eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels a day: from time to time shalt thou eat it.
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.
- BSB You are to weigh out twenty shekels of food to eat each day, and you are to eat it at set times.
- 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 26:26And when I have broken the staff of your bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver you your bread again by weight: and ye shall eat, and not be satisfied.
- Deut 28:51–68And he shall eat the fruit of thy cattle, and the fruit of thy land, until thou be destroyed: which also shall not leave thee either corn, wine, or oil, or the increase of thy kine, or flocks of thy sheep, until he have destroyed thee.
- Isa 3:1For, behold, the Lord, the LORD of hosts, doth take away from Jerusalem and from Judah the stay and the staff, the whole stay of bread, and the whole stay of water.
- Ezek 14:13Son of man, when the land sinneth against me by trespassing grievously, then will I stretch out mine hand upon it, and will break the staff of the bread thereof, and will send famine upon it, and will cut off man and beast from it:
- Ezek 45:12And the shekel shall be twenty gerahs: twenty shekels, five and twenty shekels, fifteen shekels, shall be your maneh.
- Ezek 4:16Moreover he said unto me, Son of man, behold, I will break the staff of bread in Jerusalem: and they shall eat bread by weight, and with care; and they shall drink water by measure, and with astonishment:
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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
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