Xanthe Hancox

‘Take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and spelt; put them in a storage jar and use them to make bread for yourself. You are to eat it during the 390 days you lie on your side. Weigh out twenty shekels of food to eat each day and eat it at set times.’  Ezekiel 4:9-10

A friend in the US told me recently about the latest and greatest food trend: Ezekiel 4:9 bread. A company called Food for Life is baking a loaf based on today’s verse, claiming that their bread produces unrivaled honest nutrition and pure, delicious flavours. I haven’t tried it myself, but I don’t doubt that anything with that amount of whole grains in it is good for you.

The Old Testament story about this bread is a lot less cheery than Food for Life’s marketing campaigns would have you believe. Ezekiel lived during a dark period in Israel’s history. In the course of his career, the Babylonian invasion escalated from an imminent danger to a present reality and the prophet had to be the bearer of bad news.

Ezekiel’s first prophetic statements were not made with words. God gave him a series of actions to carry out that would alert the people of Jerusalem to the Babylonian invasion and the siege of the city.

One of these instructions was to lie on his side for a long period of time to mimic siege conditions. And here’s where the bread comes: in times of scarcity it was customary to mix several coarser grains (beans, lentils, millet and spelt) with the finer less readily available grains (wheat and barley) to make the supplies last longer.

This mixture would produce a coarse, unpalatable bread (I suspect the folks over at Food for Life have tweaked the recipe a bit), and it was to be the prophet’s food for 390 days. Ezekiel, lying on his side, eating his rations, served as a constant reminder that Jerusalem was falling and that the people had only themselves to blame. Rather than a symbol of abundance, the bread represented God’s judgement. Their sins had caught up with them.

Prayer: Lord, we thank you for the example of Ezekiel and the gift of conviction, and we turn from our sins this day. Forgive us by your mercy and through the sacrifice of your Son. Amen