Ezechiel 4:16
And he said to me: Son of man: Behold, I will break in pieces the staff of bread in Jerusalem: and they shall eat bread by weight, and with care: and they shall drink water by measure, and in distress.
Open Ezechiel 4:16 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Et dixit ad me : Fili hominis, ecce ego conteram baculum panis in Jerusalem, et comedent panem in pondere et in sollicitudine, et aquam in mensura et in angustia bibent,
- Septuagint (Swete)
- καὶ εἶπεν πρὸς μέ Υἱὲ ἀνθρώπου, ἰδοὺ ἐγὼ συντρίβω στήριγμα ἄρτου ἐν Ἰερουσαλήμ, καὶ φάγονται ἄρτον ἐν σταθμῷ καὶ ἐν ἐνδείᾳ, καὶ ὕδωρ ἐν μέτρῳ καὶ ἐν ἀφανισμῷ πίονται,
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וַיֹּ֣אמֶר אֵלַ֗י בֶּן אָדָם֙ הִנְנִ֨י שֹׁבֵ֤ר מַטֵּה לֶ֨חֶם֙ בִּיר֣וּשָׁלִַ֔ם וְאָכְלוּ לֶ֥חֶם בְּמִשְׁקָ֖ל וּבִדְאָגָ֑ה וּמַ֕יִם בִּמְשׂוּרָ֥ה וּבְשִׁמָּמ֖וֹן יִשְׁתּֽוּ
Haydock's commentary
Staff. As this supports the weak, so bread nourishes all men, (Worthington) particularly the bread of life. (St. Jerome)
Very little food, (Calmet) and that of a nauseous kind, (Haydock) would be found during the siege. (Calmet)
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. …