Lamentations 4:10

10 With their own hands compassionate women have cooked their own children, who became their food when my people were destroyed.

Lamentations 4:10 in Other Translations

10 The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children: they were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people.

10 The hands of compassionate women have boiled their own children; they became their food during the destruction of the daughter of my people.

10 Tenderhearted women have cooked their own children. They have eaten them to survive the siege.

10 Nice and kindly women boiled their own children for supper. This was the only food in town when my dear people were broken.

10 The hands of the pitiful women have boiled their own children; They were their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people.

10 The hands of loving mothers cooked their own children. The children were used for food by my people when they were being destroyed [by a blockade].

10 The hands of compassionate women have cooked their own children; they became their food during the destruction of my dear people.

10 With their own hands, loving mothers have had to cook even their own children. They ate their children when my people were destroyed.

Lamentations 4:10 Meaning and Commentary

Lamentations 4:10

The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children,
&c.] Such as were naturally, and agreeably to their sex, pitiful and compassionate; merciful to the poor, as the Targum; and especially tenderhearted to their own offspring; yet, by reason of the soreness of the famine, became so cruel and hardhearted, as to take their own children, and slay them with their own hands, cut them to pieces, put them into a pot of water, and make a fire and boil them, and then eat them, as follows: they were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people:
at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem. This strange and unnatural action was foretold by Moses, ( Deuteronomy 28:56 Deuteronomy 28:57 ) ; and though we have no particular instance of it on record, as done at the siege of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans, yet no doubt there was, as may be concluded from the words: and at the siege of it by the Romans, when many things here spoken of had a fuller accomplishment, we have a remarkable instance of it, which Josephus ^F1 relates; an illustrious woman, named Mary, pressed with the famine, slew her own son, a sucking child, boiled him, and ate part of him, and laid up the rest; which was found by the seditious party that broke into her house, which struck them with the utmost horror; (See Gill on Lamentations 2:20).

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FOOTNOTES:

F1 De Bello Jud. l. 6. c. 3. sect. 4.

Lamentations 4:10 In-Context

8 But now they are blacker than soot; they are not recognized in the streets. Their skin has shriveled on their bones; it has become as dry as a stick.

9 Those killed by the sword are better off than those who die of famine; racked with hunger, they waste away for lack of food from the field.

10 With their own hands compassionate women have cooked their own children, who became their food when my people were destroyed.

11 The LORD has given full vent to his wrath; he has poured out his fierce anger. He kindled a fire in Zion that consumed her foundations.

12 The kings of the earth did not believe, nor did any of the peoples of the world, that enemies and foes could enter the gates of Jerusalem.

Cross References

• 1. S Leviticus 26:29; Deuteronomy 28:53-57; Jeremiah 19:9; Lamentations 2:20; Ezekiel 5:10