The hands of the compassionate women Have cooked their own children; They became food for them In the destruction of the daughter of my people.
Parallel translations
- WEB The hands of the pitiful women have boiled their own children; They were their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
- KJV The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children: they were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
- BSB The hands of compassionate women have cooked their own children, who became their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
- NASB The hands of compassionate women Boiled their own children; They became food for them Due to the destruction of the daughter of my people.
- NLT Tenderhearted women have cooked their own children. They have eaten them to survive the siege.
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 famine drove even compassionate mothers to the unthinkable horror of eating their own children.
Overview
This verse records the most terrible result of the siege, fulfilling the covenant warnings of Deuteronomy 28:56-57. Even tenderhearted women were reduced to cannibalism to survive. It stands as a stark testimony to the catastrophic consequences of persistent sin and the desperate need for a Savior to redeem from such ruin.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 9
- Lam 2:20“Look, Yahweh, and see to whom you have done thus! Shall the women eat their offspring, the children that are dandled in the hands? Shall the priest and the prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord?
- Isa 49:15“Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yes, these may forget, yet I will not forget you!
- 2 Kgs 6:26–29As the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried to him, saying, “Help, my lord, O king!”
- Jer 19:9I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters; and they shall eat everyone the flesh of his friend, in the siege and in the distress, with which their enemies, and those who seek their life, shall distress them.”’
- Lam 4:3Even the jackals draw out the breast, they nurse their young ones: But the daughter of my people has become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.
- Lam 3:48My eye runs down with streams of water, for the destruction of the daughter of my people.
- Lev 26:29You will eat the flesh of your sons, and you will eat the flesh of your daughters.
- Ezek 5:10Therefore 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.
- Deut 28:53–57You will eat the fruit of your own body, the flesh of your sons and of your daughters, whom Yahweh your God has given you, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemies will distress you.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
The weeping over a ruined city and the steadfast mercies that are new every morning point to the man of sorrows who wept over Jerusalem and whose mercy rises new from the grave.
How Lamentations 4:10 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.