Discovery BoxDeuteronomy 28:52-57 
Context28:52 They will besiege all of your villages 1 until all of your high and fortified walls collapse – those in which you put your confidence throughout the land. They will besiege all your villages throughout the land the Lord your God has given you. 28:53 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.
1 tn Heb “gates,” also in vv. 55, 57.
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.”
