Discovery BoxLeviticus 26:29 
Context26:29 You will eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters. 1
Deuteronomy 28:53-57
Context28:53 You will then eat your own offspring, 2 the flesh of the sons and daughters the Lord your God has given you, because of the severity of the siege 3 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 4 you in your villages. 28:56 Likewise, the most 5 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, 6 will turn against her beloved husband, her sons and daughters, 28:57 and will secretly eat her afterbirth 7 and her newborn children 8 (since she has nothing else), 9 because of the severity of the siege by which your enemy will constrict you in your villages.
Jeremiah 19:9
Context19:9 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.”’” 10
Ezekiel 5:10
Context5:10 Therefore fathers will eat their sons within you, Jerusalem, 11 and sons will eat their fathers. I will execute judgments on you, and I will scatter any survivors 12 to the winds. 13
1 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.
2 tn Heb “the fruit of your womb” (so NAB, NRSV); NASB “the offspring of your own body.”
3 tn Heb “siege and stress.”
4 tn Heb “besiege,” redundant with the noun “siege.”
5 tc The LXX adds σφόδρα (sfodra, “very”) to bring the description into line with v. 54.
6 tn Heb “delicateness and tenderness.”
7 tn Heb includes “that which comes out from between her feet.”
8 tn Heb “her sons that she will bear.”
9 tn Heb includes “in her need for everything.”
10 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.
sn Cannibalism is one of the penalties for disobedience to their covenant with the
11 tn In context “you” refers to the city of Jerusalem. To make this clear for the modern reader, “Jerusalem” has been supplied in the translation in apposition to “you.”
sn This cannibalism would occur as a result of starvation due to the city being besieged. It is one of the judgments threatened for a covenant law violation (Lev 26:29; see also Deut 28:53; Jer 19:9; Lam 2:20; Zech 11:9).
12 tn Heb “all of your survivors.”
13 tn Heb “to every wind.”
