Is There Cannibalism Found in the Bible, and If So, Why?
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Unless you were that Sunday School student who liked looking up Bible stories that no one mentions, you probably never asked “is cannibalism in the Bible?” It’s not the kind of thing most kids (or their parents) want to talk about. As we get older though, we have to go beyond the nice Bible questions and consider what the Bible has to say about sin, even the really depraved sins. Here is what you need to know about the Bible and cannibalism.
Is Cannibalism in the Bible?
The simplest answer to this question is yes, but we need to be more specific. There are occasions where the Bible uses the imagery of people devouring each other in a way that is metaphorical or exaggerated for effect. For example, Psalm 27:2 says “when evildoers assail me to eat up my flesh… it is they who stumble and fall.” Micah 3 may be doing the same thing when it rebukes Israelite leaders for not caring for their people, saying the leaders skin their people alive and “chop them up like meat for the cooking pot” (Micah 3:1-4). Jesus told people they must eat his flesh and drink his blood in John 6, which wasn’t a command to carve him up for lunch then and there.
Moving on from these metaphorical references, there are passages in the Old Testament that explicitly mention people literally eating each other.
In Leviticus 26, God lists various punishments which will come if the Israelites disobey his commands. The chapter lists four forms of punishment for disobedience, and that if the Israelites continue to disobey, the final punishment will be God giving full vent to his hostility, and “then you will eat the flesh of your own sons and daughters” (Leviticus 26:29).
Deuteronomy 28 repeats this warning in similar language, describing how God will allow enemies to lay siege to the Israelite cities and the behavior that the Israelites will descend into. Interestingly, this seems to phrase the warning with more emphasis on how the people will be shocked at how barbaric they become, where “the most tenderhearted man among you will have no compassion” (Deuteronomy 28:54).
Isaiah 9 prophecies a time where God would use Syrian invaders to punish Israel for their sin, and “they will devour their neighbor on the left but will not be satisfied. In the end they will eat their own children” (Isaiah 9:19-20).
2 Kings 6 describes a period where Samaria was under siege by the Aramean army, and as the King of Israel was traveling by a woman asked his help. She explained that she and another mother had been reduced to eating their sons to survive (6:24-29). The king was suitably appalled by this but seems to have blamed the prophet Elisha for the situation. Fortunately, Elisha didn’t take it personally, and things turned around (2 Kings 6-7).
In Jeremiah 19:9, the prophet describes how God will punish the Israelites for their sin, with invaders coming and laying siege to Jerusalem. The siege which will continue until “all the food is gone. Then those trapped inside will eat their own sons and daughters and friends.”
Lamentations (which is often attributed to Jeremiah) describes what happened when that siege finally happened via the Babylonians. The writer describes what was left after many Israelites were led away into exile, a savage wasteland where “tenderhearted women have cooked their own children. They have eaten them to survive the siege” (Lamentations 4:10).
Ezekiel is written by someone who was part of the Israelite exile group living in Babylon. In the fifth chapter, God tells Ezekiel to act out a siege over a map of Jerusalem, and that the city will be punished further, to the point that “Parents will eat their own children and children will eat their parents” (Ezekiel 5:10).
What Does the Bible Say about Cannibalism?
Now that we’ve answered “is cannibalism in the Bible?” it’s important to consider how the Bible frames cannibalism as a topic.
First, we often associate cannibalism with human sacrifice, and in the Bible, both activities are brutal examples of the worst activities that people can do. However, when the Bible talks about human sacrifice, it usually highlights the fact that is a pagan rite. For example, the Bible describes King Ahaz of Judah as a bad king by describing how he “made offerings in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom and burned his sons as an offering” (2 Chronicles 28:3). So, while cannibalism is part of human sacrifice in some cultures, the Bible tends to mention human sacrifice to highlight the times when the Israelites were following false gods.
When the Bible mentions people practicing cannibalism, it tends to use it as a way to highlight consequences of sin, disobedient people whose choices have reduced them to barbarism. So, the Bible doesn’t just say cannibalism as bad, it uses it to talk about the consequences of not following God. Since the explicit references are all in the Old Testament, it’s particularly used to talk about what happened when the Israelites broke their covenant with God.
It’s also interesting that in the examples listed above, the Bible almost always describes people eating their children or vice versa. In Ancient Near Eastern cultures, family relationships were important, and having children provided assurance someone would take care of you. This is why New Testament writers often exhort churches to care for widows and orphans (neither had providers, which presented a big problem in ancient cultures which didn’t have many social nets). The Bible confirms that children are important and describes having children as a blessing. Psalm 127 says children are “a heritage from the Lord” (127:3). Several Bible stories center on people who didn’t (or couldn’t have) have children, which is described as a tragedy. We see this in Luke where John the Baptist’s parents are described as very righteous… but notably have no children (Luke 1:6-7). When John the Baptist is born, Elizabeth and Zechariah’s relatives “heard that God had been very merciful to her, everyone rejoiced with her” (Luke 1:57).
If having children was one of the greatest assurances and blessings, then killing one’s children was one of the worst crimes imaginable. Eating one’s children to survive meant killing the chance for succession and killing a God-given blessing. So, cannibalism is a particularly horrible consequence of the Israelites not listening to God’s commands and actively disobeying him.
Why Is a Horrific Story like the One Found in 2 Kings 6 Included?
For obvious reasons, we may not like the fact there is cannibalism in the Bible. By any standard, the 2 Kings 6 story of two mothers who agree to eat their children is especially hard to read.
However, before we react to a Bible story, we need to consider where it’s located and the full scope of the story. The 2 Kings 6 story is part of a larger narrative about how terrible conditions had become under a siege. The rest of the story describes how Elisha predicted the siege would end, and God made the Aramean leave in a miraculous way (2 Kings 6:30-7:20). So, the story is both a brutal picture of how hard life can get without God’s provision and an assurance that just when things have gotten so bad it’s hard to imagine them getting worse, God is there.
Like the other references to cannibalism mentioned, the story also highlights what happened when the Israelites wandered from God and tried to do things on their own. This is particularly true in 1 and 2 Kings, which sometimes read like a long list of the many ways the Israelites could disobey God.
Why Is it Important that the Bible Isn't Censored of Difficult Stories?
Living in the Western hemisphere, where many of us don’t have to worry about severe suffering (not knowing where our next meal comes from, etc.), it’s easy to think we can just focus on the Bible’s inspirational ideas. The fact of the matter is that regardless of whether we suffer much, we live in a sinful world where pain is always present. The Bible says this problem is partly due to demonic forces out there that want to destroy us, and partly due to the fact we are fallible human beings with sinful natures. The good news of the Gospel is that even though there is so much pain, so many ways that human beings can do terrible things, Jesus came to save us. We cannot fully appreciate that sacrifice or accept the gift that Jesus offers to us until we recognize the fact this is a broken world.
The Bible refuses to paint life as anything less than complicated, broken, and often brutal. That stark look at how life really is fits alongside the “easy elements,” creating a harmonious whole that helps us to understand the story that God is telling.
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