13 Yahweh said, Even thus shall the children of Israel eat their bread unclean, among the nations where I will drive them.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
The ceremonial ordinances in relation to food were intended to keep the nation free from idolatrous usages; everywhere among the pagan idol feasts formed a leading part in their religious services, and idol meats were partaken of in common life. Dispersion among the Gentiles must have exposed the Jews to much which they regarded as common and unclean. In Ezekiel's case there was a mitigation Ezekiel 4:15 of the defilement, but still legal defilement remained, and the chosen people in exile were subjected to it as to a degradation.
And the Lord said, even thus shall the children of Israel,.... Not the ten tribes only, or those who were among the other two, but all the Jews in captivity:
eat the defiled bread among the Gentiles, whither I will drive them; so called, not because mixed, but baked in the above manner; which was a symbol of the defilements which they should contract upon various accounts, by dwelling among the Gentiles; so that this foretells their captivity; their pollution among the nations of the world; and that they should not be the holy people to the Lord they had been, and had boasted of. The Jews (k) cite this passage to prove that he that eats bread without drying his hands is as if he ate defiled bread.
(k) T. Bab. Sota, fol, 4. 2.
Implying that Israel's peculiar distinction was to be abolished and that they were to be outwardly blended with the idolatrous heathen (Deuteronomy 28:68; Hosea 9:3).
*More commentary available at chapter level.