Isaiah 9:20

9:20 They devoured ¹  on the right, but were still hungry,

they ate on the left, but were not satisfied.

People even ate ²  the flesh of their own arm! ³ 

Leviticus 26:29

26:29 You will eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters. ⁴ 

Deuteronomy 28:53-57

28:53 You will then eat your own offspring, ⁵  the flesh of the sons and daughters the Lord your God has given you, because of the severity of the siege ⁶  by which your enemies will constrict you. 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 ⁷  you in your villages. 28:56 Likewise, the most ⁸  tender and delicate of your women, who would never think of putting even the sole of her foot on the ground because of her daintiness, ⁹  will turn against her beloved husband, her sons and daughters, 28:57 and will secretly eat her afterbirth ¹⁰  and her newborn children ¹¹  (since she has nothing else), ¹²  because of the severity of the siege by which your enemy will constrict you in your villages.

Deuteronomy 28:2

28:2 All these blessings will come to you in abundance ¹³  if you obey the Lord your God:

Deuteronomy 6:25

6:25 We will be innocent if we carefully keep all these commandments ¹⁴  before the Lord our God, just as he demands.” ¹⁵ 

Deuteronomy 18:1

Provision for Priests and Levites

18:1 The Levitical priests ¹⁶  – indeed, the entire tribe of Levi – will have no allotment or inheritance with Israel; they may eat the burnt offerings of the Lord and of his inheritance. ¹⁷ 

Jeremiah 19:9

19:9 I will reduce the people of this city to desperate straits during the siege imposed on it by their enemies who are seeking to kill them. I will make them so desperate that they will eat the flesh of their own sons and daughters and the flesh of one another.”’” ¹⁸ 

Lamentations 4:9-10

ט (Tet)

4:9 Those who died by the sword ¹⁹  are better off

than those who die of hunger, ²⁰ 

those who ²¹  waste away, ²² 

struck down ²³  from lack of ²⁴  food. ²⁵ 

י (Yod)

4:10 The hands of tenderhearted women ²⁶ 

cooked their own children,

who became their food, ²⁷ 

when my people ²⁸  were destroyed. ²⁹ 

Ezekiel 4:16

4:16 Then he said to me, “Son of man, I am about to remove the bread supply ³⁰  in Jerusalem. ³¹  They will eat their bread ration anxiously, and they will drink their water ration in terror

[9:20]  ¹ tn Or “cut.” The verb גָּזַר (gazar) means “to cut.” If it is understood here, then one might paraphrase, “They slice off meat on the right.” However, HALOT 187 s.v. I גזר, proposes here a rare homonym meaning “to devour.”

[9:20]  ² tn The prefixed verbal form is either a preterite without vav consecutive or an imperfect used in a customary sense, describing continual or repeated behavior in past time.

[9:20]  ³ tn Some suggest that זְרֹעוֹ (zÿro’o, “his arm”) be repointed זַרְעוֹ (zar’o, “his offspring”). In either case, the metaphor is that of a desperately hungry man who resorts to an almost unthinkable act to satisfy his appetite. He eats everything he can find to his right, but still being unsatisfied, then turns to his left and eats everything he can find there. Still being desperate for food, he then resorts to eating his own flesh (or offspring, as this phrase is metaphorically understood by some English versions, e.g., NIV, NCV, TEV, NLT). The reality behind the metaphor is the political turmoil of the period, as the next verse explains. There was civil strife within the northern kingdom; even the descendants of Joseph were at each other’s throats. Then the northern kingdom turned on their southern brother, Judah.

[26:29]  ⁴ tn Heb “and the flesh of your daughters you will eat.” The phrase “you will eat” has not been repeated in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[28:53]  ⁵ tn Heb “the fruit of your womb” (so NAB, NRSV); NASB “the offspring of your own body.”

[28:53]  ⁶ tn Heb “siege and stress.”

[28:55]  ⁷ tn Heb “besiege,” redundant with the noun “siege.”

[28:56]  ⁸ tc The LXX adds σφόδρα (sfodra, “very”) to bring the description into line with v. 54.

[28:56]  ⁹ tn Heb “delicateness and tenderness.”

[28:57]  ¹⁰ tn Heb includes “that which comes out from between her feet.”

[28:57]  ¹¹ tn Heb “her sons that she will bear.”

[28:57]  ¹² tn Heb includes “in her need for everything.”

[28:2]  ¹³ tn Heb “come upon you and overtake you” (so NASB, NRSV); NIV “come upon you and accompany you.”

[6:25]  ¹⁴ tn The term “commandment” (מִצְוָה, mitsvah), here in the singular, refers to the entire body of covenant stipulations.

[6:25]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “as he has commanded us” (so NIV, NRSV).

[18:1]  ¹⁶ tn The MT places the terms “priests” and “Levites” in apposition, thus creating an epexegetical construction in which the second term qualifies the first, i.e., “Levitical priests.” This is a way of asserting their legitimacy as true priests. The Syriac renders “to the priest and to the Levite,” making a distinction between the two, but one that is out of place here.

[18:1]  ¹⁷ sn Of his inheritance. This is a figurative way of speaking of the produce of the land the Lord will give to his people. It is the Lord’s inheritance, but the Levites are allowed to eat it since they themselves have no inheritance among the other tribes of Israel.

[19:9]  ¹⁸ tn This verse has been restructured to try to bring out the proper thought and subordinations reflected in the verse without making the sentence too long and complex in English: Heb “I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters. And they will eat one another’s flesh in the siege and in the straits which their enemies who are seeking their lives reduce them to.” This also shows the agency through which God’s causation was effected, i.e., the siege.

[4:9]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “those pierced of the sword.” The genitive-construct denotes instrumentality: “those pierced by the sword” (חַלְלֵי־חֶרֶב, khalle-kherev). The noun חָלָל (khalal) refers to a “fatal wound” and is used substantivally to refer to “the slain” (Num 19:18; 31:8, 19; 1 Sam 17:52; 2 Sam 23:8, 18; 1 Chr 11:11, 20; Isa 22:2; 66:16; Jer 14:18; 25:33; 51:49; Lam 4:9; Ezek 6:7; 30:11; 31:17, 18; 32:20; Zeph 2:12).

[4:9]  ²⁰ tn Heb “those slain of hunger.” The genitive-construct denotes instrumentality: “those slain by hunger,” that is, those who are dying of hunger.

[4:9]  ²¹ tn Heb “who…” The antecedent of the relative pronoun שֶׁהֵם (shehem, “who”) are those dying of hunger in the previous line: מֵחַלְלֵי רָעָב (mekhalle ra’av, “those slain of hunger”).

[4:9]  ²² tn Heb “they flow away.” The verb זוּב (zuv, “to flow, gush”) is used figuratively here, meaning “to pine away” or “to waste away” from hunger. See also the next note.

[4:9]  ²³ tn Heb “pierced through and through.” The term מְדֻקָּרִים (mÿduqqarim), Pual participle masculine plural from דָּקַר (daqar, “to pierce”), is used figuratively. The verb דָּקַר (daqar, “to pierce”) usually refers to a fatal wound inflicted by a sword or spear (Num 25:8; Judg 9:54; 1 Sam 31:4; 1 Chr 10:4; Isa 13:15; Jer 37:10; 51:4; Zech 12:10; 13:3). Here, it describes people dying from hunger. This is an example of hypocatastasis: an implied comparison between warriors being fatally pierced by sword and spear and the piercing pangs of hunger and starvation. Alternatively “those who hemorrhage (זוּב [zuv, “flow, gush”]) [are better off] than those pierced by lack of food” in parallel to the structure of the first line.

[4:9]  ²⁴ tn The preposition מִן (min, “from”) denotes deprivation: “from lack of” something (BDB 580 s.v. 2.f; HALOT 598 s.v. 6).

[4:9]  ²⁵ tn Heb “produce of the field.”

[4:10]  ²⁶ tn Heb “the hands of compassionate women.”

[4:10]  ²⁷ tn Heb “eating.” The infinitive construct (from I בָּרָה, barah) is translated as a noun. Three passages employ the verb (2 Sam 3:35; 12:17; 13:5,6,10) for eating when ill or in mourning.

[4:10]  ²⁸ tn Heb “the daughter of my people.”

[4:10]  ²⁹ tn Heb “in the destruction of the daughter of my people.”

[4:16]  ³⁰ tn Heb, “break the staff of bread.” The bread supply is compared to a staff that one uses for support.

[4:16]  ³¹ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.