Cooking Bread Over Poop? Ezekiel 4:1-17 | (un)ANSWERED

Ezekiel’s Sign Acts and the Coming Judgment on Jerusalem

We've all experienced the odd occurrence in the Bible and was left with fringe questions. Watch and listen as we leave no question unanswered.

So you saw something about cooking bread over poop in your Bible reading plan. In this episode of Unanswered, we'll give you the recipe, I mean the answer, to why God commanded Ezekiel to cook bread over poop.

At the beginning of chapter 4, God has commanded Ezekiel to do sign acts, actions that prophesy and signal to the Jews their coming judgment. The Lord just detailed to Ezekiel to get a brick and inscribe on it Jerusalem and lay siege against the brick.

Then he is to lay on his side, his left side, for 390 days as if bearing the iniquity of the northern kingdom Israel. Then he is to switch sides and lay on his right side to bear the iniquity of the southern kingdom, Judah, for 40 days.

And the sign ends with him being bound in ropes and prophesying against Jerusalem. This is the backdrop of our passage in question. After this, Ezekiel is to make a bread to eat. It is composed of six different kinds of grains and foods.

Wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet and spelt. He is to take these items and put them in one vessel, mix it into a coarse dough and form a loaf. By the way, the mixing of grains for eating was permissible by law, but the sowing of two different seed grains on one field was prohibited to prevent cross-fertilization of different plants.

The context then would tell us this bread is some sort of siege bread. This is a hearty kind of bread you would make to go to war. It is in complete contrast with the luxurious foods of Babylon. The question comes to us, but is one loaf of bread supposed to last for 390 days?

No. Verses 10 and 11 show how much of the bread he is to eat each day and the water he should drink. How is he to bake the bread? Well, the text does not indicate. He needs to go back and forth between making bread, eating it, laying down on his side.

In fact, the laying down on his side and the eating of the bread are separate signs and events. The only commonality is the number of days. He is to eat this wheat, barley, bean, lentil, millet and spelt bread for 390 days, the same amount of time he laid on his side previously.

But the bread's commonality between the previous signs has to do with the siege against Jerusalem. And that is seen not just in the basic food, but also in verses 10 and 11, showing he can only eat 20 shekels by weight of the bread.

That's half a pound of bread. If you see a 16-ounce loaf of bread at the grocery store, you would only get half of that a day. This demonstrates the scarcity of food in war. This is a meager diet for the prophet.

The amount of water he gets is only two-thirds of a quart, barely enough water to survive. The reason for this is seen in verses 16 and 17, which I will touch on shortly. But essentially, God is warning the leaders in Jerusalem that despite their efforts, they will be on the brink of starvation when the foreign invaders come.

The Human Dung Sign and Ezekiel’s Protest

The sign acts will now reach a new level, a level we haven't seen before. Sure, laying on your side for 390 days is pretty grueling, but this, this is heavy. The Lord says in verse 12, You shall eat it as a barley cake, having baked it in their sight over human dung.

This is a new sign. It's possible it's the same recipe of bread from verse 9 that he was to eat for 390 days that demonstrates starvation in war when supplies are cut off. But now, now, whether his six grain or bean bread or some commoner barley cake, Ezekiel is to make a bread disk and bake it in sight of the people of Judah over pellets or logs of human dung.

Meaning, make a fire, put human poop in it, and bake your bread over it. This is to be a sign not of war and siege, but for the individual exile. Verse 13, Then the Lord said, Thus will the sons of Israel eat their bread unclean among the nations where I will banish them.

The people will eat ceremonially unclean bread, not kosher, contaminated bread with ritual impurity. You see, every land outside of Israel was considered unclean because of the practices of their citizens with idolatry.

Their breads and their meats are offered to false gods. The Jews will be forced to eat whatever is served to them. Using human and animal excrement for fuel was not entirely uncommon in those days, but the Lord had made it clear to always remove your body waste out from among the people.

It's refuse. It's good for nothing. It's poop. Ezekiel is struck with disgust at the Lord's command, and technically cooking bread over poop is not the same as eating unclean foods, but still, this is a repulsive act.

In many of these requests, Ezekiel remains quiet, but he can't hold himself back with this one. Verse 14, he says, Ah, Lord God, behold, I have never been defiled, for from my youth until now I have never eaten what has died of itself, or was torn by beasts, nor has any unclean meat ever entered my mouth.

He likens this, then, to three categories. He's never eaten meat from an animal that has died of natural causes and was found dead. He's never eaten meat from an animal that was attacked by predators or scavenged by vultures.

And he's never eaten unclean meat. This could be meat that was sacrificed to idols, or sacrificial meat that was not eaten by the third day due to risk of decomposition. This last Hebrew word was sometimes used in reference to swine or pig, as in Isaiah 65.

Ezekiel has obeyed the law in this area, and he doesn't want to risk offending the law. However, God will ask him to do not what is against the law. That's not what's happening here. And even so, the Lord will make a concession for the prophet.

Cow Dung Instead of Human Dung

We see that in verse 15. Then God said to Ezekiel, See, I will give you cow's dung in place of human dung over which you will prepare your bread. You see, the Lord is sympathetic. He is gracious to Ezekiel.

He still wants the symbol of the sign to be shown to the people, but he will let him use cow dung instead of human poop. The point is, the people will have to eat unclean food. Such a possibility should cause them to take seriously the threat of Jerusalem's pending exile and destruction.

But they don't. They see the sign, and they don't heed the warning. We all know what happens. Verses 16 and 17 touch back on the siege and lack of food the people will have. Just as Ezekiel could only eat half a loaf of bread a day and less than a quart of water, the Lord God says, Son of man, behold, I am going to break the staff of bread in Jerusalem, and they will eat bread by weight and with anxiety and drink water by measure and in horror, because bread and water will be scarce, and they will be appalled with one another and waste away in their iniquities.

You see, breaking the staff of bread is cutting off Jerusalem's food supply, and the people will ration, and they will measure out their food with great worry, hoping they don't run out when Babylon attacks.

Covenant Blessings, Exile, and the Promise of a Coming Messiah

Remember, the covenant promises and blessings of Yahweh were that if the people loved and obeyed Him, He would bless them. He would bless their lands, their pantries, and their storehouses with abundance.

But the people have turned away from God. They have played the harlot, and they've gone after other gods, gods which they have not known, and the Lord will judge them. Then, after He judges them, He'll give a promise of a coming Messiah to save the people from their sin.

These people have broken their covenant. They have not kept the faith. Their iniquity has wasted away their hearts. They are dead people and need life poured out on them. Later, the Lord will show Ezekiel a new covenant is coming.

The Spirit will be poured out. The valley of dry bones will live and be regenerated, and hearts of stone will be replaced with hearts of flesh. So this isn't as messy of a passage as you would think. It still stinks to consider having to make bread cakes over cow poop.

But the sign was a serious warning to the people. Ezekiel had a hard ministry. He had to live out in proxy, and by sign, much of what the Jews would eventually go through. Later, God would even take his wife, just as the Lord lost His bride.

That's, of course, for another episode. So what's going on here? Ezekiel will make bread over poop, eat it, and tell the Jews the same thing and worse is coming for you if you don't repent. No one said the answer was easy or clean, but let's call this one answered.