Then 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.
- BSB You will eat the flesh of your own sons and daughters.
- 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.
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 24:19But woe to those who are with child and to nursing mothers in those days!
- 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.
- Lam 4:10The hands of the pitiful women have boiled their own children; They were their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
- 2 Kgs 6:28–29The king said to her, “What is your problem?” She answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.’
- Luke 23:29For behold, the days are coming in which they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren, the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed.’
- 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?
- 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.
- 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.”’
Themes, concepts, people & topics
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.
Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.
Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
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.