Jeremiah 19:9

9 I will see to it that your enemies lay siege to the city until all the food is gone. Then those trapped inside will eat their own sons and daughters and friends. They will be driven to utter despair.’

Jeremiah 19:9 Meaning and Commentary

Jeremiah 19:9

And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons, and the
flesh of their daughters
For want of food; the famine should be so great and pressing. Jeremiah, that foretells this, was a witness of it, and has left it on record, ( Lamentations 4:10 ) ; and they shall eat everyone the flesh of his friend.
The Targum interprets it, the goods or substance of his neighbour; which is sometimes the sense of eating the flesh of another; but as it is to be taken in a literal sense, in the preceding clause, so in this: so it should be, in the siege and straitness, wherewith their enemies, and they that
seek their lives, shall straiten them;
the siege of Jerusalem should be so close, that no provision could be got in to the relief of the inhabitants; which obliged them to take the shocking methods before mentioned. Jerom observes, that though this was fulfilled at the Babylonish captivity, yet more fully when Jerusalem was besieged by Vespasian and Titus, and in the times of Hadrian. Josephus ^F17 gives us a most shocking relation of a woman eating her own son.

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FOOTNOTES:

F17 De Bello Jud. l. 6. c. 3. sect. 4.

Jeremiah 19:9 In-Context

7 “‘For I will upset the careful plans of Judah and Jerusalem. I will allow the people to be slaughtered by invading armies, and I will leave their dead bodies as food for the vultures and wild animals.

8 I will reduce Jerusalem to ruins, making it a monument to their stupidity. All who pass by will be astonished and will gasp at the destruction they see there.

9 I will see to it that your enemies lay siege to the city until all the food is gone. Then those trapped inside will eat their own sons and daughters and friends. They will be driven to utter despair.’

10 “As these men watch you, Jeremiah, smash the jar you brought.

11 Then say to them, ‘This is what the LORD of Heaven’s Armies says: As this jar lies shattered, so I will shatter the people of Judah and Jerusalem beyond all hope of repair. They will bury the bodies here in Topheth, the garbage dump, until there is no more room for them.