Ver. 53-56. In the straitness wherewith thine enemies shall distress thee— In the sieges before mentioned, they were to suffer much especially from famine. Accordingly we find, that when the king of Syria came against Samaria, there was a great famine there; and behold they besieged it, until an ass's head was sold for fourscore pieces of silver, &c. 2 Kings 6:25.
When Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem, the famine prevailed in the city, and there was no bread for the people of the land. 2 Kings 25:3. And in the last siege of Jerusalem by the Romans, there was a most terrible famine in the city. Josephus's account of it is so melancholy, that we cannot read it without shuddering: "Women snatched the food out of the very mouths of their husbands, and sons from their fathers; and what is most miserable, mothers from their infants."—"In every house, if there appeared any semblance of food, a battle ensued, and the dearest friends and relations fought with each other, snatching away the miserable provisions of life." See Bell. Jud. lib. 5: cap. 10 sect. 3 lib. 6. cap. 3 sect. 3. Nay, it was not only foretold, that they should be extremely distressed through want of common food, but even that both men and women should eat their own children. Moses had foretold the same thing before, Leviticus 26:29. It was fulfilled about six hundred years after, among the Israelites, during the siege of Samaria by the king of Syria, when two women agreed, the one to give up her son one day, and the other to deliver up her son on the morrow; and one of them was eaten accordingly. 2 Kings 6:28-29. It was fulfilled again about nine hundred years after the time of Moses, among the Jews, in the siege of Jerusalem, before the Babylonish captivity; Bar 2:1, &c. comp. with Lamentations 4:10. And it was again fulfilled above fifteen hundred years after the time of Moses, in the last siege of Jerusalem by Titus. In Josephus, we read particularly of a noble-woman's killing and eating her own sucking child. Moses saith, the tender and delicate woman among you, who would not adventure to set the sole of her foot upon the ground for delicateness and tenderness; a description, than which nothing can be more natural and lively, of a woman, who, according to the historian, "was illustrious for her family and riches." Moses saith, she shall eat her children, for want of all things: and Josephus, "she had been plundered of all substance and provisions, by the tyrants and soldiers." Moses saith she shall eat them—secretly: and Josephus, "when she had boiled and eaten half, she covered up the rest, and kept it for another time." Bell. Jud. lib. 6: cap. 3 sect. 4. So many different times, and at such distant periods, hath this prophesy been fulfilled. One would have thought that such distress and horror had almost transcended imagination; much less that any person could certainly have foreseen and foretold it. Bishop Newton.