The Silent Years
The Old Testament is the history of the people of Israel. Of its 39 books, only Genesis is not concerned with that story, encapsulating the history of nearly 2500 years from creation to the formation of Israel into 50 short chapters.
The Israelites were God’s people. They were the ones for whom he specially cared. Theirs were the patriarchs, priests, judges and kings. But especially, theirs were the prophets. The prophets were their instructors, and their chastisers. The prophets were the nation’s conscience. And they needed a conscience, for they were a wayward people -following God in adversity, but turning from him in prosperity.
“You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.” (Amos 3:2)
It was only after their longest captivity, 70 years in Babylon, that they finally stopped seeking after other gods. And ironically, it was shortly after their return that God stopped sending them his spokesmen, the prophets. They had entered The Silent Years, the time between the Testaments. There was nearly a 400-year famine for hearing the word of God -from the death of Malachi to the ministry of John the Baptist.
“For the children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, a d without an ephod, and without teraphim.” (Hosea 3:4)
Why, when Israel finally learned their lesson to stop worshipping other gods, did God remove from them his spokesmen? After all, these prophets were one of God’s chief blessings to his chosen people.
“Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God.” (Romans 3:2)
Does God speak to this question as to why and for how long he will leave Israel without a prophet? An interesting prophecy in the fourth chapter of Ezekiel may address these silent years and the reason for them.
“Take thou also unto thee wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentiles, and millet, and fitches, and put them in one vessel, and make thee bread thereof according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon thy side, three hundred and ninety days shalt thou eat thereof. And thy meat which thou shalt eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels a day: from time to time shalt thou eat it. Thou shalt drink also water by measure, the sixth Part of an hin: from time to time shalt thou drink. And thou shalt eat it as barley cakes, and thou shalt bake it with dung that cometh out of man, in their sight. And the LORD said, Eve thus shall the children of Israel eat their defiled bread among the Gentiles, whither I will drive them. Then said I, Ah Lord GOD! behold, my soul hath not been polluted: for from my youth up even till now have I not eaten of that which dieth of itself or is torn in pieces,- neither came there abominable flesh into my mouth. Then he said unto me, Lo, I have given thee cow’s dung for man’s dung, and thou shalt prepare thy bread therewith. 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: That they may want bread and water, and be astonied one with another and consume away for their iniquity.” (Ezekiel 4:9-17)
The first half of this fourth chapter deals with the prophecy of Ezekiel alternately laying on his left and right sides for periods of 390 days and 40 days respectively. This was to illustrate the burden of the sins of Israel and Judah (verses 4 to 6). The first three verses indicate that the terminus of these days of iniquity would be when siege was laid against Jerusalem. This is an obvious reference to the setting of siege by Nebuchadnezzar when he took Israel captive to Babylon. If the punishment for their iniquity was not to begin until sometime after Nebuchadnezzar’s siege, then the 390 years and 40 years of iniquity must precede this event. But verse 13 says that the eating of defiled bread would be “among the Gentiles, whither I would drive them” Thus we conclude that the 390 years of punishment in the second half of Ezekiel 4 is a different period from the 390 years in the first half.
In addressing this prophecy there are three areas of investigation: the content of the punishment, the dating of it and the reason for it.
SIX GRAIN BREAD
The punishment consisted of eating a prescribed six grain bread, prepared in a specific manner for a period of 390 days -”a day for a year.” (vs. 6) The six prescribed grains were to be wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet and fitches.
The mixing of grains was considered by the Israelites to be an abomination. They were not even to grow diverse seeds in the same field, or make garments of different kinds of material.
“Ye shall keep my statutes. Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind.- thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled seed.- neither shall a garment mingled of linen and woollen come upon thee.” (Leviticus 19:19)
This prohibition is spelled out directly in the prophecy under consideration, for God calls the result “defiled bread ‘ ‘ The conditions of verses 10 and 11 are reminiscent of the black horse of Revelation 6:5, 6 where wheat and barley were rationed out during the period of the church of the dark ages. It also reminds one of the famine conditions of Amos 8:11, 12.
‘Behold, the days come, saith the Lord GOD, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD.- And they shall wander m sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the LORD, and shall not find it.”
The fulfillment, then, of this prophecy would be when Israel would be deprived of access to the Word of God and have to subsist on a defiled admixture of various other philosophies.
390 YEARS
The length of this punishment we interpret to be 390 years, using the context’s own rule of “a day for a year.” It is more difficult to determine when to place this punishment. Two things are apparent – it is after Israel has become dispersed amongst the Gentiles, and it occurs when they are having a famine for the Word of God. The one time slot that meets both of these criteria is the period between the Testaments – the silent years from Malachi to John the Baptist.
A comparison of Nehemiah 13:10-14 with Malachi 3:8-10 has led many scholars to the conclusion that Malachi wrote his prophecy after the failure of NehemialYs reforms. Nehemiah served as cupbearer to the Persian king Artaxerxes around 460 BC. At first sufficiently successful to rebuild the Temple, inaugurate a release of captives and reinstitute the tithing system, within less than a generation the reforms failed. It was to address this failure that Malachi gave his prophecy.
While scholars do not agree on the exact year of Malachi’s death, they place it between 400 and 350 BC – a date of 360 BC would not be unreasonable. It is far easier to date the beginning of the next prophet, John the Baptist. Being six months older than Jesus, he would have started his ministry in the spring of 29 AD. This being so, the duration of the silent years between the Testaments would have been, as Ezekiel seems to have predicted, 390 years.
WHY?
The reason for this punishment was to “bear the iniquity of the house of Israel.” (verse 4) But, we inquire further, what specific iniquity? At first glance, it is tempting to associate this punishment with the house of Israel, and exclude it from the punishment of the house of Judah, for the 390 years in the first half of the chapter dealt with Israel while 40 years were singled out for Judah.
However, verse 9 states that Ezekiel lay on his side 390 days, not 430-390 plus 40. While thenarrative indicates the longer period of days, they evidently represented only 390 total – Judah’s period of iniquity being concurrent with the last 40 of Israel.
Without going into a detailed examination of the first half of Ezekiel 4, suffice it to say that Israel’s iniquity dated from the separation of the ten-tribe kingdom of Israel from the two-tribe kingdom of Judah in the days of Rehoboam and Jeroboam. Concurrent with this was an attempt to keep Israel from going into idolatry by an unnamed prophet of the Lord. See 1 Kings 13 for details.
Judah’s iniquity, on the other hand, dates from the days of josiah’s great reform, recorded in 2 Chronicles 34. It was not the reform, but the failure of the Israelites to maintain it, that caused God to bring the punishments against them. Interestingly enough these two events are historically connected in 2 Kings 23:15-18.
The punishments of both kingdoms-of Israel and Judah-were for failed reforms. The execution of the punishment was also associated with a failed reform, that of Nehemiah. The silence between the Testaments, the withdrawal by God of his prophets, his oracles from Israel, was therefore due to that people’s failing to heed the prophets when sent.
THE DETAILS
Finally let us consider the details of Ezekiel’s portrayal of this punishment.
Six Grains. First, the bread of affliction here was to be composed of six grains -a diversity specifically forbidden in God’s law. While it would be arbitrary to assign a specific philosophy to each of the mentioned grains, one such list might read: (1) Hellenism, which produced the Sadducees; (2) Platonism, which corrupted the high intentions of the Pharisees; (3) the teachings of Zoroaster, which produced such Magi (or “wise ones”) as Simon and Elymas mentioned in the book of Acts; (4) mysticism, which led to the Essene community, and later to the Cabalists; (5) the nationalism of the Maccabees which found itself represented in the Zealots of Jesus’ day and (6) assimilationism, which was so evident in the Herodians.
As an interesting sidenote to history, it seems worthy of note to mention that it was the reform minded period of the Maccabees (circa 167 BC) that produced a large flood of Jewish philosophical literature known today as the Apocrypha and the Pseudepigrapha.
Eaten By Measure. It is tempting, and may be profitable, to decipher the significance of the measurements of 20 shekels of bread daily and the one-sixth of a hin of water, but the lesson appears not to be so much in the amount, as in the fact that they were rationed. Note verse 16 in this regard:
“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”
Human Dung vs. Cow Dung. The permission to bake the bread over cow dung rather than human dung at the insistence of Ezekiel appears to be a distinction without a difference. The statement in verse 15, “I have given thee cow dung for human dung,” appears to relate the two. In a similar vein, in Leviticus 8:14, 18, the laying of the hands on the animal seemed to equate the two, stating in effect, “this represents me.”
Dung is excrement. Human dung represents that which comes out of man. This was the point of the prophecy. The mixed bread of defilement which they would be forced to eat during the silent years would not represent God, but that which comes out of man-as valuable as excrement.
As Barley Cakes. While there are many references to barley in the Scriptures as the first harvest of the year, representing Jesus, there is only one other passage that relates to barley cakes. It is found in Judges 7:13.
“And when Gideon was come, behold, there was a man that told a dream unto his fellow, and said, Behold, I dreamed a dream, and, lo, a cake of barley bread tumbled into the host of Midian, and came unto a tent, and smote it that it fell, and overturned it, that the tent lay along.”
The meaning of it is explained in the following verse:
“And his fellow answered and said, This is nothing else save the sword of Gideon the son ofjoash, a man of Israel: for into his hand hath God delivered Midian, and all the host.”
Here the barley cake represented vengeance – the Lord’s vengeance through the sword of Gideon. In Numbers 5:15 barley is associated with the jealousy offering, intended for “bringing iniquity to remembrance.”
Putting these thoughts together we deduce that the eating of the mixed grain as a barley cake was to call to remembrance their prior iniquities in failing to heed the word of God when a prophet was sent, and represented God’s sword of vengeance upon them for that act. Note Romans 10:14-21 in this regard.
SUMMARY
This short prophecy in the latter part of Ezekiel 4, then, seems to indicate that God’s punishment for failing to heed his repetitive prophetic warnings was to deny them those prophets for a period of 390 years, from Malachi to John, forcing them to subsist on human philosophies. These concepts, instead of uniting them into one covenant people of God, divided them into such conflicting and competing groups as the Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, Herodians, Zealots and Magi.
Malachi, in the closing words of the Old Testament, points forward to the next prophet, John the Baptist:
“Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse” (Malachi 4:4-6)
– Carl Hagensick