Deuteronomy 28:53

53 You will eat the offspring of your own womb—the flesh of your own sons and daughters, whom the LORD your God gave you—because of the desperate and dire circumstances that your enemy has brought on you.

Deuteronomy 28:53 Meaning and Commentary

Deuteronomy 28:53

And thou shall eat the fruit of thine body
Than which nothing can be more shocking and unnatural, which is explained as follows:

the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters, which the Lord thy God
hath given thee;
which is an aggravation of the cruel and inhuman fact:

in the siege, and in the straitness wherewith thine enemies shall
distress thee;
this shows the cause of it, a famine by reason of the closeness of the siege, so that no provisions could be brought in for their relief; and all within being eaten up, and everything that was eatable, even the most nauseous and disagreeable, they would be led on to this strange, unheard of, and barbarous action, eating their own children. This was fulfilled in the siege of Samaria, ( 2 Kings 6:25 2 Kings 6:28 2 Kings 6:29 ) ; and in the siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, ( Lamentations 2:10 ) ( 4:10 ) and again in the Apocrypha:

``Moreover he hath delivered them to be in subjection to all the kingdoms that are round about us, to be as a reproach and desolation among all the people round about, where the Lord hath scattered them.'' (Baruch 2:4)

and in the siege of the same city by the Romans; of which an instance will be hereafter given.

Deuteronomy 28:53 In-Context

51 That nation will devour your livestock's offspring and your soil's produce until you yourselves are destroyed because you will have no grain, wine, or oil left—nor any young from your cattle or offspring from your flocks—that is, until that nation annihilates you.

52 That nation will attack you in all your cities until your high, reinforced walls that you thought were so safe fall down across your entire countryside. That nation will attack you in all your cities throughout the land the LORD your God has given you.

53 You will eat the offspring of your own womb—the flesh of your own sons and daughters, whom the LORD your God gave you—because of the desperate and dire circumstances that your enemy has brought on you.

54 Even the most gentle and refined man among you will scowl at his brother or his own dear wife, or the last of his surviving children.

55 He won't want to give them any of his children's flesh that he will be eating because he has no other food due to the desperate and dire circumstances that your enemy has brought on you in all your cities.