And I will feed them with the flesh of their sons, and with the flesh of their daughters: and they shall eat every one the flesh of his friend in the siege, and in the distress wherewith their enemies, and they that seek their lives, shall straiten them.
וְהַֽאֲכַלְתִּ֞ים אֶת־בְּשַׂ֣ר בְּנֵיהֶ֗ם וְאֵת֙ בְּשַׂ֣ר בְּנֹתֵיהֶ֔ם וְאִ֥ישׁ בְּשַׂר־רֵעֵ֖הוּ יֹאכֵ֑לוּ בְּמָצוֹר֙ וּבְמָצ֔וֹק אֲשֶׁ֨ר יָצִ֧יקוּ לָהֶ֛ם אֹיְבֵיהֶ֖ם וּמְבַקְשֵׁ֥י נַפְשָֽׁם׃
2 Church Fathers comment on this verse
They will consume the flesh of their own sons and daughters, which refers to those who offered their children’s flesh to idols. This severe consequence befell the Jews during the siege of Jerusalem by the Babylonians under Zedekiah, an event that Jeremiah witnessed firsthand. In the book of Lamentations, Jeremiah conveys this sorrowful truth: “The hands of compassionate women have boiled their children” (Lamentations 4:10).
I will bring destruction upon the assembly of Judah and Jerusalem in this location, and I will strike them down with the sword in front of their adversaries, and by the hands of those who seek to take their lives; I will allow their lifeless forms to be consumed by the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth; I will turn this city into a source of fear and ridicule. Whoever passes through will be astonished and will whistle at all its calamities. I shall cause them to consume the flesh of their sons and daughters; and each person will eat the flesh of their neighbor amid the siege and the distress brought on by their foes who seek their lives.
While these events are reminiscent of the experiences during the Babylonian captivity, they are more poignantly connected to the time of the Savior, when they were encircled by Vespasian and Titus, leading to the city's profound disgrace during Hadrian's era. Those who once sacrificed their children to false gods ultimately resorted to cannibalism, driven by hunger, and their remains were left for the scavengers of sky and land. Those who misused the gifts of God for their wickedness and sacrificed the fruit of their wombs to idols turned their own bodies into graves for their offspring.
Passages read together with this verse.
THEOSIS