Ezekiel
Chapter 5
Son of man, take a sharp sword and use it like a barber’s razor on your head and beard. Then take scales and divide the hair you have cut off.
Burn a third of it in the middle of the city at the end of the siege, then take a third that you will strike with the sword all around the city; finally, scatter a third in the wind and unsheathe your sword and pursue them.
Take a few strands of hair and tuck them into the folds of your clothes;
then throw some of them and burn them in the fire. Because of this, fire will flash out against all Israel:
This is what the Lord said: That is Jerusalem! I placed her amid the nations, surrounded by other countries.
She rebelled against my laws and precepts more than her neighbors. She rejected my laws and did not keep my decrees.
That is why the Lord says: Your rebellion is greater than that of the surrounding nations—you have not kept my laws, respected my decrees, or observed my ordinances; instead, you have conformed to the customs of neighboring nations.
Because of this, the Lord declares: I, too, have turned against you.I will judge you in front of the nations.
Because of your abominations, I will punish you in ways I have never done before and will never do again.
That is why parents among you will eat their children, and children, their parents. I will pass judgment on you and scatter your remnants to every wind.
Therefore, as surely as I live, declares the Lord,because you have desecrated my Sanctuary with all your horrors and abominations, I will strike you without mercy! I, too, will show no mercy!
A third of your people will die from the plague or starve within your walls; another third will fall by the sword outside the city; and I will scatter the remaining third to the winds, pursuing them with my sword unsheathed.
My anger will burn itself out; my fury against them will be satisfied. I will have my revenge, and they will know that I, the Lord, have spoken in my jealousy when I have exhausted my fury against them.
I will turn you into a heap of ruins, a disgrace among the neighboring nations, visible to all who pass by.
You will be a source of shame, a derision, a lesson, a warning, and a horror to the nations near you, when I punish you with anger, wrath, and stinging reproach. I, the Lord, have spoken.
When I send the deadly arrows of starvation against you to eliminate you and wipe you out, I will cause you to lack all food.
Hunger and wild animals will destroy your children, while the sword and disease will afflict you. It is I, the Lord, who has spoken.”
Commentaries
Symbolic Actions.
Once the prophet eats the scroll of the prophetic word, which is a symbolic action in itself, his entire being becomes an actor who embodies reality and anticipates future events with solemn and ritual gestures. Like Isaiah and Jeremiah, these are not didactic or teaching actions; they are powerful gestures with an almost sacramental energy. In chapters 4 and 5, four symbolic actions are shown that strongly foreshadow the upcoming siege of Jerusalem. The first gesture depicts Jerusalem under siege and humiliated (1-3). The second highlights the nation’s sins (4-5) and then points to the punishment that will follow (6). The number 390 refers to the years of the initial period of the people’s sin (from the start of the monarchy to the prophet’s time); the number 40 represents the exile in Babylon as the second period of punishment. The third action suggests that the deportees will have to eat unclean food (9-17). The fourth symbolic act forewarns what will happen to Jerusalem’s inhabitants: one-third will die from hunger and disease within the city, another third will perish by the sword outside the walls, and the remaining third will be forced into exile, where they will suffer (5:1-4).