Deuteronomy 28:54-55

28:54 The man among you who is by nature tender and sensitive will turn against his brother, his beloved wife, and his remaining children. 28:55 He will withhold from all of them his children’s flesh that he is eating (since there is nothing else left), because of the severity of the siege by which your enemy will constrict ¹  you in your villages.

Lamentations 4:3-4

ג (Gimel)

4:3 Even the jackals ²  nurse their young

at their breast, ³ 

but my people ⁴  are cruel,

like ostriches ⁵  in the desert.

ד (Dalet)

4:4 The infant’s tongue sticks

to the roof of its mouth due to thirst;

little children beg for bread, ⁶ 

but no one gives them even a morsel. ⁷ 

[28:55]  ¹ tn Heb “besiege,” redundant with the noun “siege.”

[4:3]  ² tn The noun תַּנִּין (tannin) means “jackals.” The plural ending ־ִין (-in) is diminutive (GKC 242 §87.e) (e.g., Lam 1:4).

[4:3]  ³ tn Heb “draw out the breast and suckle their young.”

[4:3]  ⁴ tn Heb “the daughter of my people.”

[4:3]  ⁵ tc The MT Kethib form כִּי עֵנִים (ki ’enim) is by all accounts a textual corruption for כַּיְעֵנִים (kay’enim, “like ostriches”) which is preserved in the Qere and the medieval Hebrew mss, and reflected in the LXX.

[4:4]  ⁶ tn Heb “bread.” The term “bread” might function as a synecdoche of specific (= bread) for general (= food); however, the following parallel line does indeed focus on the act of breaking bread in two.

[4:4]  ⁷ tn Heb “there is not a divider to them.” The term פָּרַשׂ (paras), Qal active participle ms from פָּרַס (paras, “to divide”) refers to the action of breaking bread in two before giving it to a person to eat (Isa 58:7; Jer 16:7; Lam 4:4). The form פָּרַשׂ (paras) is the alternate spelling of the more common פָּרַס (paras).