Bible Strands
Ezekiel 4:16
Then He told me, “Son of man, I am going to cut off the supply of food in Jerusalem. They will anxiously eat bread rationed by weight, and in despair they will drink water by measure.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — God addresses Ezekiel immediately after commanding the prophet to bake bread over cow dung. The declaration shifts from symbolic enactment to the precise mechanics of the coming siege on Jerusalem.
The words — The Hebrew שֹׁבֵר (sho.Ver) literally means to break or shatter, combined with מַטֵּה (ma.teh), staff or rod, to form the idiom "staff of bread." This phrase denotes the total collapse of the food distribution system.
The thread — This rationing motif appears in Leviticus 26:26, where God warns of bread weighed out by women, and in Isaiah 3:1, which describes the removal of Jerusalem's supply and support. Ezekiel 5:16 later extends the imagery with God sending deadly arrows of famine.
Why it lands — The text requires acknowledgment that divine judgment operates through the systematic deprivation of basic sustenance. It forces the reader to confront how spiritual rebellion produces the tangible collapse of communal survival.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Moreover he said unto me, Son of man, behold, I will break the staff of bread in Jerusalem: and they shall eat bread by weight, and with care; and they shall drink water by measure, and with astonishment:
Cross-references
- Ezekiel 5:16 When I shower you with the deadly arrows of famine and destruction that I will send to destroy you, I will intensify the famine against you and cut off your supply of food.
- Isaiah 3:1 For behold, the Lord GOD of Hosts is about to remove from Jerusalem and Judah both supply and support: the whole supply of food and water,
- Leviticus 26:26 When I cut off your supply of bread, ten women will bake your bread in a single oven and dole out your bread by weight, so that you will eat but not be satisfied.
- Psalms 105:16 He called down famine on the land and cut off all their supplies of food.
- Ezekiel 4:10 You are to weigh out twenty shekels of food to eat each day, and you are to eat it at set times.
- Ezekiel 12:18 “Son of man, eat your bread with trembling, and drink your water with quivering and anxiety.
- Ezekiel 14:13 “Son of man, if a land sins against Me by acting unfaithfully, and I stretch out My hand against it to cut off its supply of food, to send famine upon it, and to cut off from it both man and beast,
- Psalms 60:3 You have shown Your people hardship; we are staggered from the wine You made us drink.
- Lamentations 1:11 All her people groan as they search for bread. They have traded their treasures for food to keep themselves alive. Look, O LORD, and consider, for I have become despised.
- Lamentations 4:9 Those slain by the sword are better off than those who die of hunger, who waste away, pierced with pain because the fields lack produce.