Yesaya 49:26

49:26 I will make your oppressors eat their own flesh;

they will get drunk on their own blood, as if it were wine. ¹ 

Then all humankind ²  will recognize that

I am the Lord, your deliverer,

your protector, ³  the powerful ruler of Jacob.” ⁴ 

Imamat 26:26-29

26:26 When I break off your supply of bread, ⁵  ten women will bake your bread in one oven; they will ration your bread by weight, ⁶  and you will eat and not be satisfied.

26:27 “‘If in spite of this ⁷  you do not obey me but walk in hostility against me, ⁸  26:28 I will walk in hostile rage against you ⁹  and I myself will also discipline you seven times on account of your sins. 26:29 You will eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters. ¹⁰ 

Yeremia 19:9

19:9 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.”’” ¹¹ 

Ratapan 4:10

י (Yod)

4:10 The hands of tenderhearted women ¹² 

cooked their own children,

who became their food, ¹³ 

when my people ¹⁴  were destroyed. ¹⁵ 

[49:26]  ¹ sn Verse 26a depicts siege warfare and bloody defeat. The besieged enemy will be so starved they will their own flesh. The bloodstained bodies lying on the blood-soaked battle site will look as if they collapsed in drunkenness.

[49:26]  ² tn Heb “flesh” (so KJV, NASB).

[49:26]  ³ tn Heb “your redeemer.” See the note at 41:14.

[49:26]  ⁴ tn Heb “the powerful [one] of Jacob.” See 1:24.

[26:26]  ⁵ tn Heb “When I break to you staff of bread” (KJV, ASV, and NASB all similar).

[26:26]  ⁶ tn Heb “they will return your bread in weight.”

[26:27]  ⁷ tn Heb “And if in this.”

[26:27]  ⁸ tn Heb “with me.”

[26:28]  ⁹ tn Heb “in rage of hostility with you”; NASB “with wrathful hostility”; NRSV “I will continue hostile to you in fury”; CEV “I’ll get really furious.”

[26:29]  ¹⁰ 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.

[19:9]  ¹¹ 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.

[19:9]  sn Cannibalism is one of the penalties for disobedience to their covenant with the Lord effected through the Mosaic covenant. See Deut 28:53, 55, 57. For examples of this being carried out see 2 Kgs 6:28-29; Lam 4:10.

[4:10]  ¹² tn Heb “the hands of compassionate women.”

[4:10]  ¹³ tn Heb “eating.” The infinitive construct (from I בָּרָה, barah) is translated as a noun. Three passages employ the verb (2 Sam 3:35; 12:17; 13:5,6,10) for eating when ill or in mourning.

[4:10]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “the daughter of my people.”

[4:10]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “in the destruction of the daughter of my people.”