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Just as Isaiah was asked to walk naked and barefoot for 3 years, Ezekiel is asked to portray the coming judgment on His people. Ironically, we see this type of teaching style used in many other places in Scripture. It was commonly asked of prophets to display God’s message publicly. There was Zedekiah’s horns of iron (1Ki 22:11), Jeremiah’s yokes of wood (Jer 27:2), and Hosea’s marriage with a prostitute (Hosea 1-3).
The most shocking part of this act is that God commands Ezekiel to bake his bread over a steaming pile of cow dung. Actually, God first asks him to cook over human feces to which Ezekiel protests that he has never eaten anything unclean. The cow manure was actually an “upgrade.”
The shock value of eating bread cooked over human feces was equal to the shock that would come when Jerusalem was flattened by Babylon. Today, it is equal to the shock that will come for someone who has been told about Jesus but never knew Him. Although this was disgusting for Ezekiel, it was an act of grace to the people. God told them what He was going to do before He did it. They still didn’t believe.
Not much has changed today, right? There are many today that scoff at the object lessons Christians live out daily. Though we are not asked to bake bread over dung, we are told to do some pretty crazy things. We are commanded to love our enemies and pray for them. We are told to embrace suffering as a means of purifying our character. We are to give up everything about our life for the sake of the Gospel.
Ezekiel followed through. Will you?