What Does 2 Kings 6:28 Mean in the King James?
And the king said unto her, What aileth thee? And she answered, This woman said unto me, Give thy son, that we may eat him to day, and we will eat my son to morrow.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
Famine’s deepest violence is the conversion of a child from kin into tomorrow’s food.
THE MEANING
You hear a woman recount another woman’s bargain, with one child named as today’s meal and her own son as tomorrow’s. The sentence leaves the violence uncovered: hunger has entered the home and made a child part of the terms of survival.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the comforting belief that catastrophe remains outside family bonds: here hunger penetrates the home and makes a child part of a survival bargain.
THE ROOT
וְנֹאכְלֶנּוּ
wenokhlennu
GROWS FROM
אכל
ʾ-k-l
eat, consume
The word for “eat” belongs to the same root family as words for “eater” and “food.” Here, the son is not merely mentioned beside food; he is made the object of the verb.
ALSO GROWS
okhel: one who eats; eater
אֹכֵל
The same root names the one consuming, making the human agent of the act visible in the word family.
ma'akhal: food; something eaten
מַאֲכָל
This branch names what the verb turns the son into within the bargain: something consumed.
תְּנִי
teni
GROWS FROM
נתן
n-t-n
give, set, place
The imperative “give” carries the root’s sense of handing over or placing something. That range makes the transfer grammar explicit, while the surrounding words show that this is a coerced bargain, not a generous gift.
ALSO GROWS
mattanah: gift; present
מַתָּנָה
This related word names something given, sharpening the contrast between a gift and the forced handover described here.
nethinim: given ones; people assigned to service
נְתִינִים
This branch shows how the root can describe people through the relation of being given or assigned; here, the son is placed in the bargain as its object.
THE PATTERN
In siege-driven famine, hunger can turn a household’s own children into objects of consumption.
And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters, which the LORD thy God hath given thee, in the siege, and in the straitness, wherewith thine enemies shall distress thee:And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and they shall eat every one the flesh of his friend in the siege and straitness, wherewith their enemies, and they that seek their lives, shall straiten them.The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children: they were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people.THE THREAD
And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters, which the LORD thy God hath given thee, in the siege, and in the straitness, wherewith thine enemies shall distress thee:Both passages use אָכַל (akal, “eat”): Deuteronomy names the flesh as the fruit of one’s body, while this verse places the same consumption inside a woman’s spoken bargain. The shared root connects kinship and food without making the violence figurative.
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