Ezekiel 5:10

10 So parents among you will eat their children, and children will eat their parents. I will punish you and will scatter to the winds all who are left alive.

Ezekiel 5:10 Meaning and Commentary

Ezekiel 5:10

Therefore the fathers shall eat the sons in the midst of thee,
&c.] Which was long ago threatened by the Lord, and prophesied of by Moses, ( Leviticus 26:27 ) ( Deuteronomy 28:53 Deuteronomy 28:55 Deuteronomy 28:57 ) ; and was fulfilled at several times in the people of Israel, as at the siege of Samaria, ( 2 Kings 6:28 2 Kings 6:29 ) ; at the siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, ( Lamentations 4:10 ) ; and at the siege of the same city by Titus Vespasian, as Josephus F23 relates; for though these instances only show that mothers ate their children, yet no doubt the fathers took part with them; and if mothers, who are naturally more tender, could do this, it is much more reasonable to suppose that fathers did the same: and the sons shall eat their fathers;
this, though nowhere recorded, yet doubtless was done; it being as reasonable to think that a son might eat his father as a father his son, though both monstrously shocking: and I will execute judgments in thee;
punishments, such as pestilence, famine, and sword, after mentioned: and the whole remnant of thee will I scatter into all the winds;
that is, those that remain, and are not cut off, by the above judgments, shall be carried captive into Babylon, or be dispersed in to Egypt, Ammon, Moab, and other places: this had a full accomplishment in the dispersion of the Jews into the several parts of the world, when they were destroyed by the Romans.


FOOTNOTES:

F23 De Bello Jud. l. 6. c. 3. sect. 4. Ed. Hudson.

Ezekiel 5:10 In-Context

8 "So this is what the Lord God says: I myself am against you, and I will punish you as the nations watch.
9 I will do things among you that I have not done before and that I will never do anything like again, because you do the things I hate.
10 So parents among you will eat their children, and children will eat their parents. I will punish you and will scatter to the winds all who are left alive.
11 So the Lord God says: You have made my Temple unclean with all your evil idols and the hateful things you do. Because of this, as surely as I live, I will cut you off. I will have no pity, and I will show no mercy.
12 A third of you will die by disease or be destroyed by hunger inside your walls. A third will fall dead by the sword outside your walls. And a third I will scatter in every direction as I chase them with a sword.
Scripture taken from the New Century Version. Copyright © 1987, 1988, 1991 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.