You will eat the flesh of your own sons and daughters.
Parallel translations
- WEB You will eat the flesh of your sons, and you will eat the flesh of your daughters.
- KJV And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat.
- NKJV You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters.
- NASB Further, you will eat the flesh of your sons, and you will eat the flesh of your daughters.
- NLT Then you will eat the flesh of your own sons and daughters.
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
God warns that siege would grow so desperate that parents eat their own children. Extreme judgment brings unimaginable horror.
Overview
This horrifying image describes the depths of famine under siege, later historically fulfilled (2 Kings 6, Lamentations 4). It is not God's command but the dreadful self-destruction that rebellion unleashes. Such warnings show the catastrophic end of sin and the desperate need for the deliverance God alone provides.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 8
- Matt 24:19How miserable those days will be for pregnant and nursing mothers!
- Ezek 5:10As 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.’
- 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.
- 2 Kgs 6:28–29Then the king asked her, “What is the matter?” And she answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give up your son, that we may eat him, and tomorrow we will eat my son.’
- Luke 23:29Look, the days are coming when people will say, ‘Blessed are the barren women, the wombs that never bore, and breasts that never nursed!’
- 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?
- 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.
- 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.’
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
Every sacrifice, every priest, and every day of atonement points beyond itself to the one perfect offering and the great High Priest who, by his own blood, makes the unclean holy once for all.
How Leviticus 26:29 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.