What Does Deuteronomy 28:57 Mean?
And toward the afterbirth that comes out from between her feet, and toward her children whom she will bear, for she will eat them in the emptiness of all things, in hiding, in the siege and the pressing that your enemy will press upon you in 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
And toward her young one that cometh out from between her feet, and toward her children which she shall bear: for she shall eat them for want of all things secretly in the siege and straitness, wherewith thine enemy shall distress thee in thy gates.THE KEY
The siege is complete when pressure at the gates enters the household and turns the child the mother bears into food she eats in secret.
THE MEANING
Here, hunger reaches the child as it comes from between its mother’s feet, and the mother eats what she bears in secret. Scarcity and enemy pressure converge inside the household, at the bond between the one who bears and the one who is borne.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that siege stays outside the gates: here its pressure enters the household, birth, and the act of eating.
THE ROOT
בַּמָּצוֹק
bammatsōq
GROWS FROM
צוק
ṣ-w-q
To press, squeeze, or bring into straits.
“Straitness” and “distress” share this root of pressing: the surrounding condition and the enemy’s action form one continuous pressure. The siege narrows life from outside while that pressure reaches into the household.
ALSO GROWS
matsōq: Straits, distress
מָצוֹק
This names the constriction in which the mother and child are trapped.
yāṣîq: He presses upon, distresses
יָצִיק
The enemy actively imposes the pressure named by “straitness.”
בַּסָּתֶר
bassāter
GROWS FROM
סתר
s-t-r
To hide or conceal.
“in hiding” in this verse is bassāter. The act is not only an outcome of deprivation; it is also hidden from view. This root links concealment with the secrecy surrounding what the siege forces inside the household.
ALSO GROWS
sēter: A hiding place, something concealed
סֵתֶר
It gives the secrecy in the verse the sense of an act enclosed from sight.
histīr: To hide, conceal
הִסְתִּיר
This verb from the same root echoes the verse’s hiddenness.
בְּחֹסֶר
bəḥōser
GROWS FROM
חסר
ḥ-s-r
To lack, be diminished, or be without.
“emptiness of all things” in this verse is bəḥōser. The phrase “want of all things” names total absence, not appetite. The root makes deprivation the condition surrounding the act.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāsēr: Lacking, deficient
חָסֵר
It names the absence behind the verse’s “want.”
maḥsōr: Lack, need, want
מַחְסוֹר
This related noun carries the same condition of need that has become total here.
THE PATTERN
Under siege and total deprivation, the collapse of provision reaches into family bonds and turns children 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
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.The verse repeats the language of siege, straitness, and distress; “straitness” and “distress” come from the same Hebrew root of pressing. Verse 53 names the consuming of children, and verse 57 brings that pressure into the detail of birth and secrecy.
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