(29) And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons.--The harrowing scene here described is also depicted in Deuteronomy 28:53-57. This prediction actually came to pass at the siege of Samaria by the Syrians (2Kings 6:28-29), and at the siege of Jerusalem by the Chaldaeans, which Jeremiah thus bewails, "the hands of pitiful women have sodden their own children, they were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people" (Lamentations 4:10; comp. also Jeremiah 19:9; Ezekiel 5:10; Zechariah 11:9, &c.). This also happened at the siege of Jerusalem by Titus. A woman named Mary killed her infant child and boiled it during the height of the famine, and after she had eaten part of it, the soldiers found the rest in her house.

26:14-39 After God has set the blessing before them which would make them a happy people if they would be obedient, he here sets the curse before them, the evils which would make them miserable, if they were disobedient. Two things would bring ruin. 1. A contempt of God's commandments. They that reject the precept, will come at last to renounce the covenant. 2. A contempt of his corrections. If they will not learn obedience by the things they suffer, God himself would be against them; and this is the root and cause of all their misery. And also, The whole creation would be at war with them. All God's sore judgments would be sent against them. The threatenings here are very particular, they were prophecies, and He that foresaw all their rebellions, knew they would prove so. TEMPORAL judgments are threatened. Those who will not be parted from their sins by the commands of God, shall be parted from them by judgments. Those wedded to their lusts, will have enough of them. SPIRITUAL judgments are threatened, which should seize the mind. They should find no acceptance with God. A guilty conscience would be their continual terror. It is righteous with God to leave those to despair of pardon, who presume to sin; and it is owing to free grace, if we are not left to pine away in the iniquity we were born in, and have lived in.And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons,.... Which was fulfilled at the siege of Samaria, in the times of Joram, 2 Kings 6:29; and at the siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, Lamentations 4:10; and though there is no instance of it at that time in the sacred records, the Jews (p) tells us of one Doeg ben Joseph, who died and left a little one with his mother, who was very fond of him; but at this siege slew him with her own hands, and ate him, with respect to which they suppose Jeremiah makes the lamentation, Lamentations 2:2; and of this also there was an instance at the last siege of Jerusalem, by Titus, when a woman, named Mary, of a considerable family, boiled her son, and ate part of him, and the rest was found in her house when the seditious party broke in upon her, as Josephus (q) relates:

and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat; of which, though no instances are given, it is as reasonable to suppose it was done as the former. Some of the Jewish writers (r) think, that in this prediction is included, that children should eat their parents, as well as parents their children, as in Ezekiel 5:10.

(p) Torat Cohanim in Yalkut, par. 1. fol. 197. 1.((q) De Bello. Jud. l. 6. c. 3. sect. 4. (r) Torat Cohanim, ib.