Signs of the Siege (1 of 2)

In context

Shut in his house, Ezekiel acts out the siege of Jerusalem. He draws the city on a tile, lies on his left side 390 days and on his right side 40, eats bread by weight, about seven ounces a day, and shaves his head and beard with a sword and divides the hair in three (Ezekiel 4:1–5:4).

In a vision he is lifted by a lock of his hair and carried to Jerusalem, where he is shown what is done at the Lord’s house: elders burning incense in the dark before pictures of creeping things, women weeping for Tammuz, a god of Babylon, and men worshiping the sun with their backs to the temple (8:3–16). It is a hard reading: six men with weapons go through the city, and only those marked on the forehead for sighing over all that is done there are spared (9:1–7).

Then the glory of the Lord leaves the house, stops at its east gate, and goes up to the mountain on the east side of the city (10:18–19; 11:22–23). To the scattered captives the Lord promises, “I will be to them a sanctuary for a little while,” and, “I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them a heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 11:16, 19).