Deuteronomy 28:54,55 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Bible Comments

His eye shall be evil toward his brother His wants will make him throw off all distinction of, and compassion for, his nearest and dearest relations. Hunger will make him snatch the meat out of the mouths of his own children, and grudge every morsel that they eat. Accordingly Josephus informs us that wives forced away the meat out of the very mouths of their husbands, children of their parents, and, what was yet more unnatural, mothers of their infants, taking away from them, as they lay languishing in their arms, the very last support of life. Nay, he tells us that “in every house, if there appeared any semblance of food, a battle ensued, and the dearest friends and relations fought with one another, snatching away the miserable provisions of life.” So, literally, were the words of Moses fulfilled! Bel. Jud., lib. 5. cap. 10, sect. 3; and lib. 6. cap. 3, sect. 3.

Deuteronomy 28:54-55

54 So that the man that is tender among you, and very delicate, his eye shall be evil toward his brother, and toward the wife of his bosom, and toward the remnant of his children which he shall leave:

55 So that he will not give to any of them of the flesh of his children whom he shall eat: because he hath nothing left him in the siege, and in the straitness, wherewith thine enemies shall distress thee in all thy gates.