And when thou hast accomplished them, lie again on thy right side, and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days: I have appointed thee each day for a year.

And when thou hast accomplished this, thou shalt sleep again upon thy right side, and thou shalt take upon thee the iniquity of the house of Juda forty days: a day for it year, yea, a day for a year I have appointed to thee.

And thou hast completed these, and hast lain on thy right side, a second time, and hast borne the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days, a day for a year, a day for a year I have appointed to thee.

And when these days are ended, turning on your right side, you are to take on yourself the sin of the children of Judah: forty days, a day for a year, I have had it fixed for you.

And when you will have completed this, you shall sleep a second time, on your right side, and you shall assume the iniquity of the house of Judah for forty days: one day for each year; one day, I say, for each year, have I given to you.

Et cum finieris eos dies, tune eubabis super latus tuum dextrum secundo: et portabis iniquitatem domus Iehudah quadraginta diebus, diem pro anno, diem pro anno constitui tibi. [89]

Forty days - Reckon, says Archbishop Newcome, near fifteen years and six months in the reign of Manasseh, two years in that of Amon, three months in that of Jehoahaz, eleven years in that of Jehoiakim, three months and ten days in that of Jehoiachin, and eleven years in that of Zedekiah; and there arises a period of forty years, during which gross idolatry was practiced in the kingdom of Judah. Forty days may have been employed in spoiling and desolating the city and the temple.

And when thou hast accomplished them, lie again on thy (c) right side, and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days: I have appointed thee each day for a year.
(c) Which declared Judah, who had now from the time of Josiah slept in their sins forty years.

And when thou hast accomplished them,.... The three hundred and ninety days, by lying so long on the left side, bearing the sins of the house of Israel in this way; or, as Cocceius renders the words, "and thou shall accomplish them, and thou shalt lie", &c. (g), that is, thou shalt so accomplish these days, that thou mayest lie through forty days on the right hand, and then make bare thine arm, and prophesy against Jerusalem; for he thinks the forty days are part of the three hundred and ninety, as before observed: and so Piscator's note is, "when thou shalt accomplish", &c. namely, when there shall remain yet forty days, as appears by comparing Ezekiel 4:9 with this verse and Ezekiel 4:5; so Polanus interprets the passage: then
lie again on thy right side; that is, for Judah; which tribe, as Jarchi observes, lay to the south, and so to the right of Jerusalem; see Ezekiel 16:46; or rather the prophet lay on the right side for Judah, because more honourable, and in greater esteem with the Lord; nor were their sins so many, or continued in so long as those of the ten tribes; and therefore they, and the punishment of them, are borne a less time by the prophet, as follows:
and thou shall bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days: which some think answers to the forty years of Manasseh's evil reign; others reckon from the thirteenth of Josiah to the end of Zedekiah, and others from the eighteenth of Josiah to the destruction of Jerusalem, which was five years after the carrying of Zedekiah captive:
I have appointed thee each day for a year; which is not only the key for the understanding of the forty days, but also the three hundred and ninety.
(g) "et absolves hos, et decumbes", Cocceius, Starckius; "et consummabis haec, et jacebis", Montanus.

each day for a year--literally, "a day for a year, a day for a year." Twice repeated, to mark more distinctly the reference to Numbers 14:34. The picturing of the future under the image of the past, wherein the meaning was far from lying on the surface, was intended to arouse to a less superficial mode of thinking, just as the partial veiling of truth in Jesus' parables was designed to stimulate inquiry; also to remind men that God's dealings in the past are a key to the future, for He moves on the same everlasting principles, the forms alone being transitory.

Accomplished - That is, almost accomplished. House of Judah - Of the two tribes. Forty days - Probably from Josiah's renewing the covenant, until the destruction of the temple, during which time God deferred to punish, expecting whether they would keep their covenant, or retain their idolatries, which latter they did for thirteen years of Josiah's reign, for eleven of Jehoiakim's, and eleven of Zedekiah's reign, and five of his captivity, which amount to just forty years. But all this was done in a vision.