Ezechiel 4:12
And thou shalt eat it as barley bread baked under the ashes: and thou shalt cover it, in their sight, with the dung that cometh out of a man.
Open Ezechiel 4:12 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Et quasi subcinericium hordeaceum comedes illud, et stercore quod egreditur de homine operies illud in oculis eorum.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- καὶ ἐνκρυφίαν κρίθινον φάγεσαι αὐτά, ἐν βολβίτοις κόπρου ἀνθρωπίνης ἐγκρύψεις αὐτὰ κατ᾽ ὀφθαλμοὺς αὐτῶν,
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וְעֻגַ֥ת שְׂעֹרִ֖ים תֹּֽאכֲלֶ֑נָּה וְהִ֗יא בְּגֶֽלְלֵי֙ צֵאַ֣ת הָֽאָדָ֔ם תְּעֻגֶ֖נָה לְעֵינֵיהֶֽם
Haydock's commentary
Barley, the worst or usual food of the poor. (Haydock)
Ashes, to denote hurry. (Calmet)
Cover with hot ashes, (Haydock) formed of dry excrements. (Calmet)
That of oxen is still used in Egypt, (Val. ep. xi.) and in some parts of England, by the poor people. (Hooke.)
This was more tolerable, (Calmet) and God agrees to substitute it, ver. 15. Hebrew, "Thou shalt eat it as barley cakes, and shalt bake," (Protestants) or "hide it," &c. (Septuagint) (Haydock)
"The law itself, which the Jews read and do not understand, is this ember cake covered with human dung." (Philippians iii. 8.)
"They adore not idols, but do all for the belly and for earthly goods." (St. Jerome)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Jerome The Letters of St. Jerome, To Marcella
1. The medical men called surgeons pass for being cruel, but really deserve pity. For is it not pitiful to cut away the dead flesh of another man with merciless knives without being moved by his pangs? Is it not pitiful that the man who is curing the patient is callous to his sufferings, and has to appear as his enemy? Yet such is the order of nature. While truth is always bitter, pleasantness waits upon evil-doing. Isaiah goes naked without blushing as a type of captivity to come. Jeremiah is sent from Jerusalem to the Euphrates (a river in Mesopotamia), and leaves his girdle to be marred in the Chaldæan camp, among the Assyrians hostile to his people. Ezekiel is told to eat bread made of mingled seeds and sprinkled with the dung of men and cattle. He has to see his wife die without shedding a tear. Amos is driven from Samaria. …