Deutéronome 28:54

54 L'homme le plus tendre et le plus délicat d'entre vous regardera d'un œil d'envie son frère, et sa femme bien-aimée, et le reste de ses enfants qu'il aura épargnés,

Deutéronome 28:54 Meaning and Commentary

Deuteronomy 28:54

[So that] the man [that is] tender among you, and very
delicate
Not only the rustic that has been brought up meanly, and used to hard living; but one that has been bred very tenderly, and lived in a delicate manner, like the rich man in ( Luke 16:19 ) ; that fared sumptuously every day:

his eye shall be evil towards his brother, and towards the wife of his
bosom, and towards the remnant of his children which he shall leave;
that is, he shall begrudge his brother, who is so nearly related to him, the least bit of food; yea, his wife, he dearly loved, and is one flesh with him, his other self, and even his children, which are parts of himself, such of them as were left not eaten by him; or his eye should be evil upon then, he should look with an evil eye on them, determining within himself to kill and eat them next. Though the particular instance in which his eye would be evil to them follows, yet no doubt there are other instances in which his eye would be evil towards them, as there were at the siege of Jerusalem, and have been since. Josephus


FOOTNOTES:

F2 says,

``that in every house where there was any appearance of food (or anything that looked like it, that had the shadow of it) there was a battle; and the dearest friends fought with one another, snatching away from each other, the miserable supports of life;''

as the husband from his wife and children, and the wife from her husband and children; see more in ( Deuteronomy 28:56 ) ; and, in later times, we told by the Jewish historian F3, that wrote an account of their sufferings and distresses since their dispersion, that at Fez the Jews sold their children for slaves for bread.


F2 De Bello Jud. l. 6. c. 3. sect. 3.
F3 Shebet Judah, sive Hist. Jud. p. 326.

Deutéronome 28:54 In-Context

52 Et elle t'assiégera dans toutes tes portes, jusqu'à ce que tes murailles hautes et fortes sur lesquelles tu te fiais, tombent dans tout ton pays; elle t'assiégera dans toutes tes portes, dans tout le pays que l'Éternel ton Dieu t'aura donné.
53 Et tu mangeras, durant le siège et dans l'extrémité où ton ennemi te réduira, le fruit de tes entrailles, la chair de tes fils et de tes filles, que l'Éternel ton Dieu t'aura donnés.
54 L'homme le plus tendre et le plus délicat d'entre vous regardera d'un œil d'envie son frère, et sa femme bien-aimée, et le reste de ses enfants qu'il aura épargnés,
55 Et ne donnera à aucun d'eux de la chair de ses enfants, qu'il mangera, parce qu'il ne lui restera rien du tout, durant le siège et dans l'extrémité où ton ennemi te réduira dans toutes tes portes.
56 La plus tendre et la plus délicate d'entre vous, qui, par mollesse et par délicatesse, n'eût point essayé de mettre la plante de son pied sur la terre, regardera d'un œil d'envie son mari bien-aimé, son fils et sa fille,
The Ostervald translation is in the public domain.