Deu 28:53, 56-57 | Clarke

‏ Deuteronomy 28:53

‏ Deuteronomy 28:56-57

Verse 56. The tender and delicate woman] This was literally fulfilled when Jerusalem was besieged by the Romans; a woman named Mary, of a noble family, driven to distraction by famine, boiled and ate her own child! See a similar case 2Ki 6:29; and See Clarke on Le 26:29.

Verse 57. Toward her young one-and toward her children which she shall bear] There seems to be a species of tautology in the two clauses of this verse, which may be prevented by translating the last word, shilyathah, literally, her secondines, which is the meaning of the Arabic [Arabic] sala, not badly understood by the Septuagint, χοριοναυτης, the chorion or exterior membrane, which invests the foetus in the womb; and still better translated by Luther, [Anglo-Saxon] the after-birth; which saying of Moses strongly marks the deepest distress, when the mother is represented as feeling the most poignant regret that her child was brought forth into such a state of suffering and death; and 2dly, that it was likely, from the favourable circumstances after the birth, that she herself should survive her inlaying. No words can more forcibly depict the miseries of those dreadful times. On this ground I see no absolute need for Kennicott's criticism, who, instead of ubeshilyathah, against her secondines, reads ubashelah, and she shall boll, and translates the 56th and 57th verses as follows: "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, her eye shall be evil toward the husband of her bosom, and toward her son, and toward her daughter. 57. And she shall boil that which cometh out from between her feet, even her children, which she shall bear, for she shall eat them, for want of all things, secretly." These words, says he, being prophetical, are fulfilled in 2Ki 6:29, for we read there that two women of Samaria having agreed to eat their own children, one was actually boiled, where the very same word, bashal is used. See Kennicott's Dissertations, See Clarke on 1Ch 11:11, &c., p. 421.