When you have completed these days, lie down again, but on your right side, and bear the iniquity of the house of Judah. I have assigned to you 40 days, a day for each year.
Parallel translations
- WEB “Again, when you have accomplished these, you shall lie on your right side, and shall bear the iniquity of the house of Judah. I have appointed forty days, each day for a year, to you.
- KJV And when thou hast accomplished them, lie again on thy right side, and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days: I have appointed thee each day for a year.
- NKJV And when you have completed them, lie again on your right side; then you shall bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days. I have laid on you a day for each year.
- NASB When you have completed these days, you shall lie down a second time, but on your right side, and bear the wrongdoing of the house of Judah; I have assigned it to you for forty days, a day for each year.
- NLT After that, turn over and lie on your right side for 40 days—one day for each year of Judah’s sin.
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
After lying on his left side for Israel, Ezekiel must lie on his right side forty days to bear Judah's guilt, one day per year. It dramatizes the long span of the nation's sin and coming judgment.
Overview
God assigns Ezekiel a second symbolic posture, bearing the iniquity of the southern kingdom of Judah for forty days, each day representing a year. The acted prophecy makes vivid that judgment is measured, deliberate, and tied to the nation's accumulated guilt. Ezekiel's bearing of iniquity in symbol points forward to the One who would truly bear His people's iniquity, the suffering Servant of Isaiah 53.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 7
- Num 14:34In keeping with the forty days you spied out the land, you shall bear your guilt forty years—a year for each day—and you will experience My alienation.
- Dan 12:11–12And from the time the daily sacrifice is abolished and the abomination of desolation set up, there will be 1,290 days.
- Dan 9:24–26Seventy weeks are decreed for your people and your holy city to stop their transgression, to put an end to sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy Place.
- Rev 11:2–3But exclude the courtyard outside the temple. Do not measure it, because it has been given over to the nations, and they will trample the holy city for 42 months.
- Rev 13:5The beast was given a mouth to speak arrogant and blasphemous words, and authority to act for 42 months.
- Rev 9:15So the four angels who had been prepared for this hour and day and month and year were released to kill a third of mankind.
- Rev 12:14But the woman was given two wings of a great eagle to fly from the presence of the serpent to her place in the wilderness, where she was nourished for a time, and times, and half a time.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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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 4:6 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.