What Does Deuteronomy 28:55 Mean?
So that he will give none of them the flesh of his children that he will eat, for nothing will remain to him in the siege and the pressing that your enemies will press upon you in all your gates.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
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.THE KEY
The Hebrew words for “straitness” and “distress” share a root of pressure: the siege reaches beyond the gates and into the household itself.
THE MEANING
This verse names deprivation so severe that a parent eats a child’s flesh and has nothing to give anyone else. Enemy pressure closes around every gate and enters the most intimate human bond.
THE ROOT
מָצוֹק
matsuq
GROWS FROM
צוּק
tsuq
To press, squeeze, or bring into straits.
English gives the noun as “straitness” and the verb as “distress,” while Hebrew forms both from the same root. The condition and the act pressing upon the household share one seed: the pressure reaches every gate and turns scarcity into terror.
ALSO GROWS
matsuq: Straits, distress, a tight place.
מָצוֹק
This names the state the household is trapped in.
yatsiq: Presses, distresses.
יָצִיק
This names the enemies’ act of pressing the household into that state.
הִשְׁאִיר
hish'ir
GROWS FROM
שאר
sha'ar
To remain or be left over.
“remain” in this verse is hish'ir. The word translated “left” belongs to the root behind “remainder” and “remnant.” Here the verse makes the depletion absolute: no remainder survives from which he can give.
ALSO GROWS
she'ar: Remainder, what remains.
שְׁאָר
The verse says there is no remainder left to share.
she'erit: Remnant, surviving remainder.
שְׁאֵרִית
This branch sharpens the force of the loss: not even a remnant remains.
THE PATTERN
Under siege, hunger can turn the body of one’s own child into food.
You will eat the fruit of the womb, the flesh of your sons and your daughters, which the LORD your God has given you, in the siege and the pressing that your enemies will press upon you.So we boiled my son and ate him. And I said to her on the next day, Give your son, that we may eat him, and she has hidden her son.The hands of the compassionate women have boiled their own children; they are their meat in the breaking of the daughter of my people.THE THREAD
Then they cry out to the LORD in their narrowness, and he snatches them out of their narrow places.Psalm 107:6 uses the same root צוק (tsuq) for the “distresses” people cry out from. Here that root names the pressure pressing on every gate; there it names the pressure from which they are delivered. The shared root traces movement from constriction toward release.
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