The weird story behind Ezekiel 4:9 and the bread it inspired

by LEE BRESLOUER

While bread can be baked over a traditional fire, as seen above, the Babylonian siege was expected to be so devastating that preparations were made to build fires with human excrement instead of traditional sources. PHOTO/EJJohnsonPhotography via Getty Images

I’ve passed Ezekiel 4:9 bread in the supermarket a million times and never gave it a second glance. But I recently wondered what the Ezekiel 4:9 verse actually says.

I Googled it, and came across a funny article from Religion News Service about how Ezekiel bread was originally supposed to be baked on human dung, so of course I became confused. Why would anyone do that? That sent me down a rabbit hole of learning more about both the verse and the bread.

The makers of Ezekiel 4:9 bread, Food for Life, declined to comment for this story. “Thanks again for your interest in highlighting Food for Life,” marketing manager Gary Torres said in an email. “Having said that, in an effort to ensure consistent messaging throughout the marketplace, we would respectfully decline participation at this time.” Instead, I spoke to a religious scholar and a nutritionist to shed some light on all things Ezekiel 4:9. This is the weird story behind Ezekiel 4:9 and the bread it inspired.

Behind the actual verse, Ezekiel 4:9

Before we get into how the bread company got started, I had questions about Ezekiel 4:9, so I asked Larry Yarbrough. He joined the religion department at Vermont’s Middlebury College in 1983, and is currently the Pardon Tillinghast professor of religion. Before we dove into the Scripture, he told me he keeps Ezekiel 4:9 (the bread, not the verse) in his freezer regularly, and that he likes the taste.

Huffington Post for more