It is appropriate for Ezekiel to act out his message, as he does in chapters 4 and 5. For in the last paragraph of chapter 3 we are informed that Ezekiel was not able to talk. Conversation gives way to pantomiming. In the first act (4:1–3) the prophet is told to take a clay tablet and to draw a siege of Jerusalem on it, complete with siege weaponry. Then he is to place an iron pan between himself and the inscribed city. This pan acts as a wall of separation between the prophet and the brick and symbolizes the impenetrable barrier between God and Jerusalem. The brick is a symbol of what is about to happen to Jerusalem. When Jeremiah raised this subject, it got him into hot water (see Jer. 7:1–15; 26:1–24). He was labeled a heretic and anti–Mount Zion. Ezekiel does not provoke such sentimen…