When the days of the siege have ended, you are to burn up a third of the hair inside the city; you are also to take a third and slash it with the sword all around the city; and you are to scatter a third to the wind. For I will unleash a sword behind them.
We have here the sign by which the utter destruction of Jerusalem is set forth; and here, as before, the prophet is himself the sign, that the people might see how much he affected himself with, and interested himself in, the case of Jerusalem, and how it lay to his heart, even when he foretold the desolations of it.
Commenting on Ezekiel 5:1-4
Thou, shall burn with fire a third part in the midst of the city,.... Of Jerusalem, as portrayed upon the tile, Eze 4:1; or the prophet was now in Chaldea. The burning of the third part of the hair with fire denotes such who were destroyed by the pestilence and famine during the siege; see Lam 5:10; or it denotes the burning of the city...
Three classes are described. The sword was to destroy one third of the people; famine and plague another third ("fire" in Eze 5:2 being explained in Eze 5:12 to mean pestilence and famine); that which remained was to be scattered among the nations. A few only of the last portion were to escape, symbolized by the hairs bound in Ezekiel's skirts (Eze 5:3; Jer 40:6; Jer 52:16).