17 so that they lack bread and water, and have been astonished one with another, and been consumed in their iniquity.
`And those who are left of you -- they consume away in their iniquity, in the lands of your enemies; and also in the iniquities of their fathers, with them they consume away.
And your bonnets `are' on your heads, And your shoes `are' on your feet, Ye do not mourn nor do ye weep, And ye have wasted away for your iniquities, And ye have howled one unto another.
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Commentary on Ezekiel 4 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 4
Ezekiel was now among the captives in Babylon, but they there had Jerusalem still upon their hearts; the pious captives looked towards it with an eye of faith (as Daniel 6:10), the presumptuous ones looked towards it with an eye of pride, and flattered themselves with a conceit that they should shortly return thither again; those that remained corresponded with the captives, and, it is likely, bouyed them up with hopes that all would be well yet, as long as Jerusalem was standing in its strength, and perhaps upbraided those with their folly who had surrendered at first; therefore, to take down this presumption, God gives the prophet, in this chapter, a very clear and affecting foresight of the besieging of Jerusalem by the Chaldean army and the calamities which would attend that siege. Two things are here represented to him in vision:-
Eze 4:1-8
The prophet is here ordered to represent to himself and others by signs which would be proper and powerful to strike the fancy and to affect the mind, the siege of Jerusalem; and this amounted to a prediction.
Eze 4:9-17
The best exposition of this part of Ezekiel's prediction of Jerusalem's desolation is Jeremiah's lamentation of it, Lam. 4:3, 4, etc., and v. 10, where he pathetically describes the terrible famine that was in Jerusalem during the siege and the sad effects of it.