יחזקאל ד-ח: 'אמרתי לך בן אדם' - על דיבורו הישיר של יחזקאל

Thou also, son of man, take thee a tile, and lay it before thee, and trace upon it a city, even Jerusalem; and lay siege against it, and build forts against it, and cast up a mound against it; set camps also against it, and set battering rams against it round about. And take thou unto thee an iron griddle, and set it for a wall of iron between thee and the city; and set thy face toward it, and it shall be besieged, and thou shalt lay siege against it. This shall be a sign to the house of Israel. Moreover lie thou upon thy left side, and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel upon it; according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon it, thou shalt bear their iniquity. For I have appointed the years of their iniquity to be unto thee a number of days, even three hundred and ninety days; so shalt thou bear the iniquity of the house of Israel. And again, when thou hast accomplished these, thou shalt lie on thy right side, and shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah; forty days, each day for a year, have I appointed it unto thee.

take a brick for yourself – This instruction teaches that the reality and existence of Jerusalem comes solely at the hands of the Lord, and through His will, because in and of herself she is just a raw, amorphous brick without any form. By placing it before you, you hint at the fact that the Lord has placed her before Him and keeps His eyes and providence upon her. Through this ‘and engrave upon it a city’ she will be rebuilt a settled city upon her mound. Then Jerusalem will be “the city of a great king.” (Psalms 48:3)

And thou, son of man, take thee a sharp sword, as a barber’s razor shalt thou take it unto thee, and cause it to pass upon thy head and upon thy beard; then take thee balances to weigh, and divide the hair. A third part shalt thou burn in the fire in the midst of the city, when the days of the siege are fulfilled; and thou shalt take a third part, and smite it with the sword round about her; and a third part thou shalt scatter to the wind, and I will draw out a sword after them. Thou shalt also take thereof a few by number, and bind them in thy skirts. And of them again shalt thou take, and cast them into the midst of the fire, and burn them in the fire; therefrom shall a fire come forth into all the house of Israel.

And it came to pass in the sixth year, in the sixth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I sat in my house, and the elders of Judah sat before me, that the hand of the Lord GOD fell there upon me. Then I beheld, and lo a likeness as the appearance of fire: from the appearance of his loins and downward, fire; and from his loins and upward, as the appearance of brightness, as the colour of electrum. And the form of a hand was put forth, and I was taken by a lock of my head; and a spirit lifted me up between the earth and the heaven, and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem, to the door of the gate of the inner court that looketh toward the north; where was the seat of the image of jealousy, which provoketh to jealousy. And, behold, the glory of the God of Israel was there, according to the vision that I saw in the plain. Then said He unto me: ‘Son of man, lift up thine eyes now the way toward the north.’ So I lifted up mine eyes the way toward the north, and behold northward of the gate of the altar this image of jealousy in the entry. And He said unto me: ‘Son of man, seest thou what they do? even the great abominations that the house of Israel do commit here, that I should go far off from My sanctuary? but thou shalt again see yet greater abominations.’