Ezekiel 5:10,11 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

The fathers shall eat the sons, &c. Fathers eating their children, and children their fathers, expresses the height of misery, and the most grievous famine. We have sufficient proof that such instances happened in the Jewish nation amidst their more than common calamities. Josephus relates some instances of parents eating their children during the siege of Jerusalem by the Romans; and we have further evidence of such horrid acts having been done by them in the extremity of famine, from the texts referred to in the margin. And the whole remnant of them will I scatter, &c. This is another judgment threatened against them by Moses, and remarkably fulfilled in this their last dispersion, in which they are to be found in every part of the known world, and yet live everywhere like strangers only upon sufferance: see note on Deuteronomy 28:64. Because thou hast defiled my sanctuary Hast profaned my temple by placing idols in it, and worshipping them. With all thy detestable things, and all thine abominations These are expressions of the same signification, denoting idols. Therefore will I also diminish thee Will make thee of less account, and take from thee all honours as thou hast from me, as much as lay in thy power: or, as some interpret the clause, I will cut off or destroy, by diminishing, (as the word גרע is used Numbers 27:4,) without showing any pity or compassion. See the margin.