As a result, fathers among you will eat their sons, and sons will eat their fathers. I will execute judgments against you and scatter all your remnant to every wind.’
Parallel translations
- WEB Therefore the fathers will eat the sons within you, and the sons will eat their fathers. I will execute judgments on you; and I will scatter the whole remnant of you to all the winds.
- KJV Therefore the fathers shall eat the sons in the midst of thee, and the sons shall eat their fathers; and I will execute judgments in thee, and the whole remnant of thee will I scatter into all the winds.
- NKJV Therefore fathers shall eat their sons in your midst, and sons shall eat their fathers; and I will execute judgments among you, and all of you who remain I will scatter to all the winds.
- NASB Therefore, fathers will eat their sons among you, and sons will eat their fathers; for I will execute judgments on you and scatter all your remnant to every wind.
- NLT Parents will eat their own children, and children will eat their parents. I will punish you and scatter to the winds the few who survive.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
The siege will be so dire that parents and children eat one another, and survivors scattered to the winds. It depicts famine's horror and total dispersion.
Overview
God foretells the unthinkable cannibalism of the siege and the scattering of any remnant to every direction. Such horror was named in the covenant curses of Deuteronomy 28 and tragically came to pass. The verse shows how far a society can fall when it abandons God, and how His warnings, however dreadful, prove true.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 28
- Zech 2:6“Get up! Get up! Flee from the land of the north,” declares the LORD, “for I have scattered you like the four winds of heaven,” declares the LORD.
- Deut 28:64Then the LORD will scatter you among all the nations, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you will worship other gods, gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known.
- Jer 19:9I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters, and they will eat one another’s flesh in the siege and distress inflicted on them by their enemies who seek their lives.’
- Lev 26:29You will eat the flesh of your own sons and daughters.
- Ezek 12:14And I will scatter to every wind all the attendants around him and all his troops, and I will draw a sword to chase after them.
- Ezek 5:2When the days of the siege have ended, you are to burn up a third of the hair inside the city; you are also to take a third and slash it with the sword all around the city; and you are to scatter a third to the wind. For I will unleash a sword behind them.
- Ezek 36:19I dispersed them among the nations, and they were scattered throughout the lands. I judged them according to their ways and deeds.
- Ps 44:11You have given us up as sheep to be devoured; You have scattered us among the nations.
- Ezek 5:12A third of your people will die by plague or be consumed by famine within you, a third will fall by the sword outside your walls, and a third I will scatter to every wind and unleash a sword behind them.
- Lam 2:20Look, O LORD, and consider: Whom have You ever treated like this? Should women eat their offspring, the infants they have nurtured? Should priests and prophets be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord?
- Jer 9:16I will scatter them among the nations that neither they nor their fathers have known, and I will send a sword after them until I have finished them off.”
- Zech 7:14But I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations that they had not known, and the land was left desolate behind them so that no one could come or go. Thus they turned the pleasant land into a desolation.”
- Ezek 6:8Yet I will leave a remnant, for some of you will escape the sword when you are scattered among the nations and throughout the lands.
- Lam 4:10The hands of compassionate women have cooked their own children, who became their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
- Lev 26:33But I will scatter you among the nations and will draw out a sword after you as your land becomes desolate and your cities are laid waste.
- Ezek 22:15I will disperse you among the nations and scatter you throughout the lands; I will purge your uncleanness.
- Amos 9:9“For surely I will give the command, and I will shake the house of Israel among all the nations as grain is sifted in a sieve; but not a pebble will reach the ground.
- Deut 4:27Then the LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and only a few of you will survive among the nations to which the LORD will drive you.
- Jer 44:12And I will take away the remnant of Judah who have resolved to go to the land of Egypt to reside there; they will meet their end. They will all fall by the sword or be consumed by famine. From the least to the greatest, they will die by sword or famine; and they will become an object of cursing and horror, of vilification and reproach.
- Isa 9:20They carve out what is on the right, but they are still hungry; they eat what is on the left, but they are still not satisfied. Each one devours the flesh of his own offspring.
- Deut 32:26I would have said that I would cut them to pieces and blot out their memory from mankind,
- Isa 49:26I will make your oppressors eat their own flesh; they will be drunk on their own blood, as with wine. Then all mankind will know that I, the LORD, am your Savior and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.”
- Deut 28:53–57Then you will eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters whom the LORD your God has given you, in the siege and distress that your enemy will inflict on you.
- Ezek 20:23However, with an uplifted hand I swore to them in the wilderness that I would scatter them among the nations and disperse them throughout the lands.
- Luke 21:24They will fall by the edge of the sword and be led captive into all the nations. And Jerusalem will be trodden down by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.
- 2 Kgs 6:29So we boiled my son and ate him, and the next day I said to her, ‘Give up your son, that we may eat him.’ But she had hidden her son.”
- Neh 1:8Remember, I pray, the word that You commanded Your servant Moses when You said, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations,
- Jer 50:17Israel is a scattered flock, chased away by lions. The first to devour him was the king of Assyria; the last to crush his bones was Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon.”
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Christ at the center
The promise of one Shepherd-King David, a new heart and new Spirit, and the river of life flowing from the temple all stream toward Christ, the good Shepherd who gives the Spirit.
How Ezekiel 5:10 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.