PROPHETIC THEATER is one way to describe the commands Ezekiel received from God. The 430 days the prophet was commanded to lie on his sides with a model of Jerusalem, which was soon to be destroyed by the army of Nebuchadnezzar, were a visual warning of God’s imminent judgment on the idolatrous kingdom of Judah, and of His future punishment of an unbelieving world in the Day of Yahweh.
We also discuss the divine council implications here in the judgment against idols and high places, Ezekiel’s foreshadowing of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (Eze. 5:17, 6:12), and a possible reference to the Mesopotamian apkallu (the Watchers) and the Tree of Life in Ezekiel 8:17 (“Behold, they put the branch to their nose”).