4 Then take of them again, and cast them into the midst of the fire, and burn them in the fire; for thereof shall a fire come forth into all the house of Israel.
(Chapter 5, verses 1 onwards) And you, son of man, take for yourself a sharp sword, like a barber's razor, and pass it over your head and your beard; then take scales for weighing and divide them. One third you shall burn in the midst of the city when the days of the siege are completed, one third you shall strike with the sword all around it, and one third you shall scatter to the wind; and I will unsheathe a sword after them. And you shall take from there a small number, and bind them at the top of the cloak, and take them out again and throw them into the midst of the fire, and burn them. From there a fire will come out into all the house of Israel. For three parts of hair and wool, one of which is burned in the midst of the city, another is cut with a sword around it, the third is scattered to and fro by the wind, of which a small part is taken and bound at the edge of the cloak, and again a little of the third part is thrown into the fire, from which a flame comes out into all the house of Israel. Seventy-four parts have been interpreted. And when they had said: Burn the fourth part with fire in the midst of the city, and cut the fourth part with a sword all around it, and scatter the fourth part to the wind, for there remained another fourth part to them, they added from their own: And take the fourth part and burn it in the midst of the city: as if it is not the same as the first, and something else was said in the first, something different in this one that was added. Finally, even in the following, the Lord Himself explained the riddle of the divided hairs into three parts through the Prophet, saying: The third part of you will die by pestilence, and be consumed by famine in your midst, signifying famine and pestilence as fire; and the third part of you will fall by the sword all around you, describing external killings and wars. But, he says, I will scatter your third part to every wind, showing those who are to be led into captivity. After them, he says he will lay bare or pour out his sword, so that captivity is not the last of their evils; and he will take from those dispersed and captive, and bind to the top of his cloak those who are to return from captivity to Jerusalem, and he will also take some part from them, and consume it with fire and flame, signifying the Macedonians under whom the inhabitants of Judaea, and especially Jerusalem, have suffered greatly. But what he says, from this, that is, the people of the Jews; or, according to the LXX, from her; so that it is understood, from the city of Jerusalem, fire will come forth into every house of Israel: The history of the Maccabees relates that a certain part of the Jews surrendered to Antiochus Epiphanes, and incited him to persecute the people, and many other things that are written in the same history, and in the volumes of Josephus, especially the discord between Hyrcanus and Alexander, on account of which Cneus Pompeius, the consul, took Jerusalem and subjected it to Roman rule; and afterwards, under Titus and Vespasian, the city was captured and the temple destroyed. And after fifty years, under Aelius Hadrianus, the city was burned to the ground and destroyed, to the extent that it also lost its original name. However, in the case of emperors, both the hair on their head and their beard are an indication of beauty and manliness, as if they are shaved, an ugly nakedness is revealed, and the most distant and, so to speak, lifeless part of the body is in the hair and beard: in the same way, Jerusalem and its people are lifeless and separated from the living body of God, being handed over to famine, disease, killing, and the sword, and to captivity and dispersion. From this dispersal, under the form of hair, a part of it is tied at the top of the cloak, so that a small amount may be handed over to fire again, from which an infinite flame, almost completely devastating, emerges into every house of Israel.
[AD 420] Jerome on Ezekiel 5:1-4