Moreover he said to me, “Son of man, behold, I will break the staff of bread in Jerusalem, and they will eat bread by weight and with fearfulness, and they will drink water by measure and in dismay;
“staff of bread.” “Bread” was a common idiom for food. “Bread” came to be used by metonymy for food in general because bread was the main food in the culture and staple of life. Bread was called “the staff” or “the staff of life” because the people leaned on it for their staple food (cp. Lev. 26:26; Ps. 105:16; Ezek. 5:16).
