Ezekiel5chapter 5

Shaving was one of the sharpest humiliations available. Prisoners of war were shaved; mourners cut their hair; and a man's beard was his dignity, which is why an insult to it started wars. On top of that, the Law forbade a priest to shave his head or the edges of his beard. Ezekiel is not only disgracing himself — he is unpriesting himself in public.

The sword used as a barber's razor is the whole point of the picture. What removes the hair is the thing that will remove the people.

Then he weighs the hair on a balance. Every market transaction in that world went across a two-pan balance with stone weights, and dozens of inscribed Judean weights have been dug up. Weighing is how you divide something exactly and fairly. God is saying this judgment is measured, not a fit of temper: a third burned inside the city, a third cut down around it, a third scattered to the winds, with a few hairs tucked into the fold of a garment and even some of those thrown into the fire.

The threat that fathers will eat their sons is not rhetorical exaggeration. Siege cannibalism is recorded of Samaria in the book of Kings, of Jerusalem in Lamentations, and later of Jerusalem again by Josephus in the Roman siege. Everyone hearing this knew of a city where it had happened.